Jim Kane - J P S Brown (37 page)

Everyone was laughing.

"
He's never smelled a gringo before," Juan
yelled. Kane stood back, holding the end of the rope. The Pardo would
glance quickly at him and then turn away in revulsion.

"
See what comes of bathing," Juan said. "He
doesn't like
gringos bañados
."

The vaqueros took it up.

"
He's afraid of anything that bathes."

"
I've seen him do that with a rabid dog."

'He's like all Mexicans. It's his rabies to feel
water on his back and he naturally distrusts anyone who bathes."

Juan Vogel was standing there, feet spread wide
apart, hat on back of head, mustachios bristling, laughing. To Kane,
he looked like a big heavyweight rooster crowing with his chest
puffed out, his spurs turned in.
 
"
S
í
,"
Kane said to Juan. "I know just how he feels. Haven't I been
camping with you for the past twenty days? Your bad smell permeates
the whole Sierra Madre Occidental. Any other mule would never have
known there was a
gringo
around.
This is truly a smart mule."
 
Kane
had been moving up to the mule who still was trying to keep his tail
to Kane but had enough respect for the rope to keep from bolting
again. Kane picked up a bight in the slack behind him and slapped it
hard on the mule's rump. The mule whirled and faced the man. Kane put
a half-hitch around the mule's nose and led him to the gate.

"
I guess even Machos Pardos can get used to
gringos
," Juan
said, laughing. "The strongness of the smell soon deadens the
nerve. He'll soon accept you like all the rest of us Mexicans do,
blind to the fact that you are only here to exploit us and get rich
on us."

"
Poor Mexicans," Kane said with mock
pugnacity. "If I exploit you any more I'll go broke. I pay
enough to buy cattle equipped with radio and television."

Kane saddled and bridled the little mule and tied his
cobija
, a woolen
Indian blanket, wrapped in a tarp, behind the cantle.

Pablo returned from the house with the orange crush
bottle full of
lechuguilla
.
He placed it in the
morral
hanging
from Kane's saddle horn.

"Take this," he said. "So your Pardo
doesn't get too tired. There are tortillas, cheese, and corn in the
morral
too."

Kane took the bottle out.

"
El estribo
. The
drink for the stirrup," he said and took a drink and handed the
bottle around, each man returning it to him after he drank. Kane took
another drink and offered it to Pablo again.

"
Save it, the road is long, " Pablo said.

Kane put the bottle up, mounted, and reined away. The
little beast immediately fell into a running walk.

"
Qué te vaya bien
,"
the Mexicans said. "May it go well with you."

"
Gracias,
" Kane
called back.

He took the trail to Avena, climbing up through the
timber until he topped out on a plateau that was solid rock on which
were the homes of the
mezcal
makers
of San Rafael. The place was deserted, although he could see that the
pits where the heads of the
maguey
were cooked were covered, a sign the place was
producing.

An hour later the mule paced in to the yard at the
Vogel hacienda at Avena. Don Panchito, the caretaker, hailed him as
he dismounted.

"
Come in, come in, Don Jaime," he said.
"Are you going on by or will you stay the night? Come in.
Woman," he called, "warm the beans. Warm the coffee."

"
No, Don Panchito. I really don't have time. I'm
on my way to San Bernardo and I want to get off the mountain before
dark."

"
Take coffee then. Woman, warm the coffee for
Don Jaime here."

Kane loosened the mule's cinch and tied him to a
wooden fence. He walked with the old weatherbeaten man across the
wide, cool porch to the front room.

The walls of the hacienda were at least 30 inches
thick. The roof was covered with hand-hewn pine shingles that must
have been 50 years old. The beams in the ceiling of the front room
were over 100 years old and were intricately carved. They were
covered with soot, smoke, and dust. There was a hole in the roof in
one corner of the front room through which smoke escaped when Don
Panchito built his fires on the floor. The dreams had left this
hacienda, never intending to come ac . .

Don Panchito's woman came in smiling her greeting and
bringing tar-black, sugar-roasted coffee in small, thick cups. They
sat and talked while they sipped the coffee. The old man smiled his
toothless smile and spat tobacco juice on the floor. His
ninety-year-old feet reposed in
huaraches.
The old feet had been through a revolution that must
have been a pure and honest effort for his man. He sometimes must
have run in fear and ignorance and sometimes advanced in fear and
faith. Those feet had also walked in the lettuce fields in Imperial
Valley, California, and the sidewalks of Fresno in shoes for a time,
shoes he had discarded on his return to the Mother Mountains. The old
feet now were black and immobile under the chair. They were like
leather with brown buttons for toenails. An old toe he must have
broken lay crookedly over another. It was unable to contribute its
full share to the rhythm of the man's walking as it used to do, but
it was still there doing its best to grip one more hold for the shiny
soul of the old man, whether to go get wood for the fire or walk to
the highest point to watch the departure of a friend.

Kane finished the coffee and stood up, banging a spur
loudly against a chair leg.

"
You have to get going. Wait here a moment,"
Don Panchito said. He left ahead of Kane and went to his storeroom,
which he unlocked and entered. Kane knew he did not keep it locked
because he was afraid of thieves, but because he had been made
responsible for this hacienda and must look after it with formal
correctness.

Kane tightened his cinches and turned the mule
around. Don Panchito came with a Pepsi-Cola bottle full of clear
liquid and stoppered with a piece of corncob.

"Here, take this," he said. "The road
is long."

Kane took a swallow and offered it to the old man.

"
I never drink," the caretaker of Avena
said.

Kane thanked him and walked around the mule and put
the Pepsi-Cola in with the orange crush.

"
Don Panchito, I'll see you," he said in
English, his foot in the stirrup.

"
Nombre sea de Dios
.
In the name of God," Don Panchito said and waved as though Kane
was already a long way away and out of hearing.

Kane rode through the community of the peons of the
Vogel hacienda. The dogs came running out to announce arrival and
departure. The Mariposa dog of Manuel Rodriguez was standing near the
door of the house barking solemnly, sparing energy. She was the best
cow dog, cat dog, and javalina dog, in the Sierra Madre. She was so
thin she looked like a black-and-tan harp.

He rode around the crest of the Avena mountain where
he could see 100 miles of virgin timber along the Chihuahua-Sonora
border. He crossed over the slab of rock that was the Avena airfield
on the highest summit of the Sierra of the West. The little landing
field was only about 300 yards long. It was surrounded on the sides
by rock, on the end by pines, and on the approach by space. A plane
that landed here had to touch its wheels down no more than 50 feet
from the lip of a cliff that was 300 feet sheer.

Kane stopped the mule, dismounted, and reset his
saddle and blankets. He let the wind from off the tips of the pines
sweep between the saddle blankets and the mule's back before he
cinched up again.

He started the mule down the next to the last steep
grade he would have to traverse before dark. The little animal was
still eager, but this would be the ridge that would begin to tire
him. They traversed the slope in the sun and after an hour they
started up the last climb in the deep shadow of late afternoon. When
they reached the summit of the vertebrae of mountains that is the
line between Chihuahua and Sonora, the Macho Pardo was taking his
first deep breaths.

Kane was facing a setting sun over the Sea of Cortez.
He unsaddled the mule to cool his back. This was Puerto de las
Parvas, the port through which he was entering Sonora. Kane could see
for great distances in every direction. Behind him the definition of
the mountains of the Sierra Madre was obscuring with darkness. There
were clouds below him drifting over the Chinipas canyon. At his feet
were the vertical cornfields he would ride through to the Arroyo de
los Mezcales. Toward the sun was the crooked path of the shiny water
of the Alamos River leading to the coast. A cloud of dust hazed the
Alamos Valley.

This was the
sabana
where the cattle would be night-herded in Chihuahua for
the last time, where they would taste the wind off the coast. Kane
saddled, mounted, and passed into Sonora. From now on it was all
downhill to the U.S. border, 475 miles.

It was just getting dark when Kane reached the head
of the Arroyo de los Mezcales. This was a wide river bed, the
straight avenue through the brush country to San Bernardo. The little
mule's pace had slackened on the hard descent from Las Parvas. Kane
silently thanked the little beast for getting him to the arroyo in
time to beat the darkness. The full moon would make it light enough
in the arroyo tonight. They met a woodcutter entering the arroyo with
his burro train. The man had begun whistling when he first became
aware of Kane so as not to surprise him. They greeted each other in
the darkness. Kane was revived by the man's courtesy.

The Macho Pardo had a ground-eating pace that pressed
distance behind them. They passed the little settlements beside the
arroyo in the night. Milk cows and saddle horses were shut up in
tight little corrals close to the houses. Dogs kept their masters
notified of progress of travelers in the arroyo. The weak light of
lamps in the homes was absorbed by
the
moonlight.

Kane raced the moon to the Cajon de la Virgen, a
narrow ravine where the arroyo's waters had cut through hundreds of
feet of rock., The
cajón
was
a narrow alley that would be an obstacle of darkness in his path if
he got there too late. When they reached the long stretch of pure
sand that was the approach to the
cajón
the moon was almost directly overhead. The mule stepped silently
around the first corner of the entrance to the
cajón's
walled passage. He suddenly halted dead still, stiffly
poised and alert. In that same moment Kane heard the loud spitting
hiss.

Directly in front and very close to them stood a
solid black jaguar. He had warned them and stopped them so he calmly
returned to his drink at the clear spring of the
cajón
.
Kane sat the mule, thrilled by the privilege of the sight of the rare
cat. The
tigre
cast a
short black shadow on the sand bright with moon glare. When he
departed he was a dark ghost springing quickly across the patches of
moonlight up the wall of the ravine.

The Macho Pardo listened to the cat's retreat with
his big, quick ears bowed forward. Finally he moved on, snorting and
shying at the cat's watering place as they passed it. Kane spurred
him to the center of the
cajón
,
where a wide bulge was formed by a sharp turn in the arroyo. Here he
dismounted and unsaddled the mule and led him to the spring where he
drank. Then Kane gave him slack on the lead rope so he could lie down
and roll in the clean sand. Kane tied the mule to a
maguey
that grew in the black rock of the wall, gathered a few
small sticks, and built a fire. He got the
morral
and after removing the
mezcal
,
cheese, and tortillas, he hung it, half full of corn, on the mule's
nose. He sat on the sand near the little fire and warmed the
tortillas and ate them with the fresh, moist cheese and small sips of
mezcal
. He listened to
the mule grinding and swallowing the corn.

When he had finished his supper he lit a half pipeful
of tobacco with one of the light coals that remained of his fire and
stretched his legs out on the sand.

Kane looked at a spot where people of the region said
the Virgin had appeared to someone, sometime. There, in the back of a
niche, he could see something like the shape of a person burned on
the rock.

Vigil glasses for candles were at the foot of the
niche, though none had been lighted that night.

Kane said a Hail Mary, remembering at that moment the
Blessed Mother of his childhood. He hoped it was true that she had
been there.