Jim Kane - J P S Brown (3 page)

"
Boy, you have been catastrophed," Will Ore
said, laughing at Kane, who up to that moment had been having a good
time resting in the hospital.

"
I should take on a relapse and stay in bed. You
shouldn't come here with news like that," Kane said.

"
Don't relapse until you cross your horses and
pay me for burning the mares and disinfecting the corrals. Boy, how
did you get into this kind of mess?"

"Bad luck," Kane said.

"I only hope you aren't in for twenty years of
bad luck like a Chinaman. They say a Chinaman's real bad luck lasts
for twenty years," Will Ore said.

"
Don't worry. I'll have plenty of buyers looking
at the horses in these thirty days. They are too poor to sell now
anyway. This will give me a chance to put a little meat on their
bones. I'll probably have them sold to someone by the time they cross
the border. A lot can happen in thirty days."

"Yeah, and a lot of bad can happen to you in
three days. I've seen that," Will Ore said. "Your banker
came to my office. He had heard of your bad luck. I didn't tell him
anything, though."

"
Hell, I don't care. Tell him the truth if he
asks you again. He has a right to know. We're partners."

"
It looks like you and I are partners too. I've
spent a lot of money myself on your horses and I'll have more in them
when they cross. How much do you owe the banker?"

"Only my left eyeball but the note isn't due for
six weeks," Kane said.
 
 

2
Bed
and Saddle

     
The
roundup was over and the cattle were shipped and old John was
standing outside the bus depot with his bed and saddle on the
sidewalk beside him.
     "
Where
you headed, John?" I asked him.
    
"
Don't know," said John, looking down at
his old, scuffed, runover boots like a kid.
    
"You get fired, John?"
    
"
You might say we split the partnership?
     "
How so, John?"
     "
He took the land
and cattle and I took my bed and saddle," old John said and
smiled.

When Kane was released from the hospital he drove out
to the Keys ranch. The ranch lay about ten miles outside Phoenix off
the Black Canyon Highway.

Bob Keys and his son were raising dust in the corrals
when Kane drove up. They were branding burros. Kane got out of his
car and walked up to the corral fence.

"
Is this the whole extent of the livestock the
Keys are running now?" he asked.

Bob Keys was riding a big black horse.

"
This is it, the last of the ten thousand. How
are you, Jim?" Bob Keys said and offered his hand from atop the
black. Kane stretched over the fence and took it.

"
What are you going to do with the burros? Kane
asked.

"
I really don't know, to tell the truth. They
are left from the time I had the sheep. The herders used them for
pack animals. When I sold the sheep I kept the burros out of
sentiment. Now they are multiplying like rabbits and getting wild."

Jimmy Keys walked up to the fence coiling his rope.

"Hello,
tocayo
,
namesake," Kane said, shaking his hand.

"
¿Qué hubo, tocayo?
"
Jimmy Keys said.

"Is this the crew?" Kane asked Bob Keys.

"
Jimmy is the cowboy, horse rider, burro roper,
and burro brander," Bob Keys said. "I'm only helping him on
a part-time basis. I'm not ordinarily a burro roper by trade."

"
Dad feels burro branding is beneath him,"
Jimmy said. "He ropes them for me and then gives them slack so
they can run over me. Then he laughs."

"
Let's have some coffee," Bob Keys said.

"I'll go for it," Kane said.

They walked over to the shack and sat down in the
shade. The September weather was dry. The desert was hot. Jimmy Keys
got the makings of the coffee, stuffed the little stove full of
mesquite wood, and put on the coffeepot. Cars and trucks zoomed up
and down the Black Canyon Highway a mile away. The traffic seems
closer now, doesn't it?" Kane said.

"That stream of traffic goes on day and night.
Never lets up," Bob Keys said.

"Soon they'll think up a reason for a four-lane
highway that will pass between this shack and the corral," Jimmy
said. "Instead of running burros and cattle we'll set up a curio
shop and run tourists."

"
They are trying to get a big piece of this
ranch for a city garbage dump," Bob Keys said.

"
Can they do it?" Kane asked.

"
Well, the city is trying to get it. We've been
fighting it over a year. This is state lease land, you know. Once
they get the dump it's good-bye Keys desert ranch, They'll take more
of the ranch as the city grows."

"
Don't they need beef as the city grows?"

"
They come out here and see a bunch of burros
and a very few cattle and they say the land is no good for anything
but wild burros anyway."

"
Hell, someone ought to tell them burros have a
right to a living too," Kane said, laughing.

"
I'd like to turn that spotted burro in on some
city councilman's front room. That jackass is a catastrophe,"
Jimmy said. "He ran over me like he was a train and I was a
rail. I thought he never was going to go on by."

"
This is the best winter country for our horses.
Besides that, I run three hundred head of steers here every winter,"
Bob said.

"Do you still have those colts for me to break?"
Kane asked.

"
I have the eight head I asked you to break. I
didn't expect you until next month."

"
I'm ready to take them now."

"
Good. We'll get the colts up for you in the
morning."

"
I'll be back tonight or in the morning. "

"
Bueno
, I'm glad
you'll be with us, Jim. You don't need anything but your bed and
saddle. You'll find everything else you need here."

Kane drove to the Considine cattle auction in
Phoenix, a good place to snoop around for buyers for his horses. His
Uncle Herb Kane was in the office. Uncle Herb was dressed in his good
suit with its vest and watch chain. He was standing in his old, dark,
well-polished boots and was covered by his almost impeccable
one-hundred-dol1ar stetson. His black hair was silver-white at the
temples. He was slim and natty in his suit. The two men shook hands
and sat down in red leather easy chairs in the office.

"
You look good, Tio Herb," Kane said. A
line of sunlight from the window shone through Uncle Herb's hatbrim.
"What's wrong with your hat?"

Uncle Herb took his hat off and inspected it. "You
mean the hole?" he asked. "I burned it with a cigarette
coal. I carved the burned place out with my knife."

"
Sure is a good-looking hat."

"
It's been cleaned about forty times."

"
You always wear nice hats."

"
You could have it if it would fit you but it
won't fit you anymore. Your head is too big now."

"
Don't want it anyway. It's got a hole in it.
What have you been doing, Uncle Herb?"

"
I just crossed some Mexican bulls and oxen
through El Paso. I guess I'll bring them to this auction. If they do
all right I'll go to Chihuahua and get some more this winter
c
ó
mo
siempre
, like always. What are you doing
here, Black Man?"

"
I've come to look for a horse buyer to bail my
horses out of Mexico, " Kane said. "Are you in the market
for any studs, mares, and colts, Uncle Herb?"

"
Mexican studs and mares?" asked Uncle
Herb.

"
Appaloosa Mexican studs and mares."

Uncle Herb laughed and shook his head at Kane. "No,"
he said, and laughed again.

"
There's a demand for those little horses,"
Kane said, wanting his Uncle Herb to believe him because if Uncle
Herb believed him he would be better able to hope himself

"
Where are the horses from?" Uncle Herb
asked.

"
I bought them in the country around
Guadalajara."

"
Does it still rain as much down there as it
used to this time of the year?"

"
These horses were standing knee deep in water
when I bought them."

"
Did you buy them all in one place?"

"No. I bought them two or three at a time over a
period of three months."

"
You must have quite a bit of expense in them by
now."

"About a hundred dollars a head laid in
Frontera."

"
Frontera, Arizona, or Frontera, Sonora?"

"
Sonora."

Uncle Herb looked away from Kane and said, "The
deal might be all right. I don't know anything about the horse
business," and Kane knew if his horses didn't lose him all his
stake it would be a miracle.

He thought, a miracle like the Jews fleeing Egypt and
escaping the Pharoah's troops. My little horses were just like the
sick, lame, and starved Jews in their flight from Egypt. I was Moses.
My horses were the Chosen People following me with faith in the
Promised Land. We were granted the miracle, though. We got through
the Red Sea. That was at least a sea of rain we went through. Maybe
the miracles won't stop on the very frontier of the Promised Land.
Just so we don't lose faith and start worshipping the golden calf.
Tell that to my partners.

"
Your deal might work," Uncle Herb said,
encouraging Kane. He could see his nephew was in trouble. "No
one can tell what people would buy these days. There certainly never
has been or ever will be a steady market for horses. A person might
give you a thousand dollars for a horse that I wouldn't give five
dollars for."

"
I have hopes the deal will work. All my hopes
are in those horses now."

"
I hope you make out all right with them,"
Uncle Herb said, rubbing his face all over with the palm of his hand.
When he had finished rubbing he looked at Kane out of a fresh,
cheerful face. "Come on, Black Man, I'll buy you lunch," he
said.

He took Kane to the Cattleman's Club near the
auction. The place was decorated in the plush reds and crystal
chandeliers of the Gay Nineties. They laid their hats down on the
counter for a girl to put away on a pile with all the other hats of
cattlemen eating lunch. A tall rawboned girl came walking across the
room to wait on Kane and his Uncle Herb when they had sat down. She
walked like she was stepping across rows in a plowed field.

"
Hello, Little Town," Uncle Herb said.

"
Hello, Mr. Kane," Little Town said.

"What's good to eat for me and my nephew?"
Uncle Herb said.

"
I know what's good for you, Mr. Kane," the
girl said. She looked at Kane. "This man had better have rare
steak."

"You want a beer, Black Man?" Uncle Herb
asked.

"
You bet, " Kane said.

"And two beers," Uncle Herb told Little
Town. When she came back with the beer Uncle Herb asked her, "Why
do they call you Little Town, Little Town?"

"
I'm from the Little Town," the girl said.

"
And what do they raise in Little Town?"
Uncle Herb asked, winking at Kane.

"
Cattle and kids," Little Town said. She
tapped Uncle Herb on the shoulder and went on about her business.

"
That was our ritual," Uncle Herb said.

"
How has my sorrel horse been doing, Uncle
Herb?" Kane asked while they were eating their steaks.

"
Now, there is a horse I'll buy from you. I bet
he weighs thirteen hundred pounds. I wish I had about five just like
him."

"
Have you been using him?"

"
No. I just rode him around the ranch some. I
didn't try to work cattle on him. Has he seen a cow?"