Jim Kane - J P S Brown (47 page)

"
You must get up and come with us to La
Haciendita. My patron is waiting for you to come and see his cattle.
He is impatient?

"
Our patron is impatient, " the second
voice demanded.

"
Where do you come from so late at night, Beto?"
Juan Vogel asked.

"From Macarena and Tino Sierra's wine barrel,"
the voice called Beto answered.

"
We are drunk," the second voice said. "You
want a
trago
,
Juanito?"

"Find a place to sleep and we'll go up together
in the morning," Juan Vogel said.

"
No. Now. Right now. At this very moment we are
going up," Beto said.

"
Ahorita, no
ma
ñ
ana
,"
Beto's echo bragged.

"In the morning," Juan Vogel said.

"What's wrong? Are you afraid? I know you have
ridden this trail in the dark many times before. Will your companion
fall off the big, fat sorrel? Are you afraid for your companion?"

Beto's voice taunted.

"
Go to bed. We'll go up in the morning,"
Juan Vogel said.

'`No. I'm going to La Haciendita to my patron who
needs me. I am a horseman. I'm riding a good horse, not a pig's
slop," Beto said.

"
Tomorrow we'll be waiting for you at La
Haciendita. We'll wake up in the morning in La Haciendita ready to
help our
patrón
,"
Beto's companion boasted.

"Go on then and stop bothering me," Juan
Vogel said.

The two horsemen screamed the Mexican
grito
which is part song; part triumphant exultation in an
ability to survive the here and now; part challenge to man, beast,
and natural barriers; and part weak mewing for their humble state on
God's earth. Kane heard them spurring their horses up the mountain;
heard the horses sliding and recovering under the spurs; and heard
rocks rolling long after the sounds of the horsemen had gone on.

Kane and Vogel were three hours riding to the top of
the Divide in the morning. They could see hundreds of miles in the
two states from the top. The top was called "El Durazno"
because of a grove of peach trees English miners had planted there.
The puncture that had been the mine of the Englishmen on the side of
a canyon below the summit was healing now. The beams in the entrance
had fallen. Cattle were using the entrance for shelter. They were
using the rusty mill to rub themselves on and the open yard of the
mill for an
hechadero
,
bed ground.

Around the crest of the mountain on the Sonora side
they came to the buildings of La Haciendita perched thousands of feet
above the Arroyo de los Mezcales like an aerie.

Don Marcos Aguilera came across the terraced patio of
his front yard to meet them. The patio had been leveled against the
precipice so that horsemen would have a place to dismount.

Don Marcos was a heavy man. His long, hook-roweled
spurs dragged the ground behind his scuffed boots. He wore a bandanna
across his brow. His straight-brimmed hat was tied by a string behind
his head. He had the eye and the nose of an eagle. He didn't look at
Kane and Vogel as though they were his prey. He was happy to see
them, if that is possible for an eagle. He smiled through his short,
thick, white beard.

"
Get down and come over to the coffee. I built a
fire under it when I heard you riding over Durazno," he said.
Kane and Vogel dismounted, tied their horses, and loosened their
cinches. Don Marcos swung two chairs around and set them down for
Kane and Vogel. He brought three cups of the syrupy black coffee.

"I hope you like my ‘coffee," he said to
Kane. "I have no woman to make the coffee here at La Haciendita.
This is the coffee I made early before I rode this morning. I just
returned and haven't had time to make fresh coffee."

"Where did you ride this morning?" Vogel
asked him. "I went below to Mezcales looking for the rest of the
bulls I promised you."

"
How many have you gathered, Don Marcos?"
Juan Vogel asked.

"
I gathered fifteen head of the good
toretes
.
I didn't have anyone to help me. The boys left me three days ago for
the fiesta of Tino Sierra in Macarena and returned only last night.
Look at them and you will imagine the condition in which they
arrived." Don Marcos pointed to the ground by one of the houses.
Two forms lay between a lime and a banana tree in the shade, their
heads resting on their arms.

"
Tino Sierra's fiesta ended yesterday morning,"
Juan Vogel said.

"
Ah, the boys had reason to stay away so long,"
Don Marcos said. "But now I have only fifteen head for you. All
the cattle had been running in this canyon below us, but I found
nothing this morning. Most of the cattle have relocated toward Agua
Zarca, the old watering place in the canyon north of here. All tracks
go that way. I'll be unable to deliver the cattle I promised."

"
How many cattle in all did you hope to deliver,
Don Marcos?" Jim Kane asked.

"
Forty or fifty head," the old man
answered.

"
I only expected you to have fifteen head
anyway. It is lucky that you only gathered that many," Kane
said.

"
A misunderstanding," Don Marcos said.
"Juanito Vogel told me you would receive all the two-year-old
bulls with good ' horns I had." .

"I didn't know you had so many," Juan Vogel
said. "You remember? I only got fifteen from you last year."

"
Yes, Juanito, but I had sold last year before
you took the fifteen. I haven't sold any cattle yet this year. You
will take the fifteen head if you like them, will you not?"

"
Of course," Jim Kane said.

"
Let's go see the fifteen head," Juan Vogel
said. "Jim and I must go on to Chinipas today. He will begin to
receive all the cattle he has bought in the Sierra in Chinipas
tomorrow.

The cattle were in a rock corral in the canyon below
La Haciendita. A stream seeped into a rock-and-mortar trough in the
corral. The cattle had been well cared for during their confinement.
They were full. The corral was matted with cornstalks under their
feet. Plenty of feed was still before them and they looked gorged as
they chewed their cuds, lumbered about, or lay grunting on their
stomachs. These were the first cattle Kane had seen in the Sierra
Madre that were able to lumber.

They were at least a hundred pounds heavier than any
he had traded for. Their horns were long and symmetrical and shone as
though buffed and polished. These cattle were worth more money than
the best cattle Kane had bought in the Sierra. He was sure Don Marcos
would ask at least $60 a head for them, if not more, and they were
worth it. The trouble was going to be that Kane wasn't authorized by
March and Garrett . to pay more than $40 per head for the cattle.

"
How much money do you want for your cattle, Don
Marcos?" Kane ventured.

"How much are they worth?" Don Marcos
asked. "They are only
corrientes
.
Juanito said you wanted corriente, and
corriente
is all I have."

"Don Marcos, these are very good
toretes
,"
Kane said. "That I know. They are good as far as
corriente
can be good.

"
To tell the truth, I don't know if I can pay
you what they are worth."

"I don't believe you are that poor a man,"
Don Marcos said, narrowing the eagle eye, an eye that saw eight times
more than the normal human eye, an eye that now was reappraising
Kane.

Kane would have liked to draw Mr. Juan Vogel aside at
that moment to ask him how generous he, Juan Vogel, had been with
Terry Garrett's money, but being under the fierce eye of an eagle
made such a move impossible.

"
Don Marcos, let me ask you one question,"
Kane said.

"
Speak," Don Marcos said quietly.

"
How much money did Juan Vogel say I would
give?"

"Juanito Vogel didn't speak for you. He said he
would give four hundred seventy-five pesos per head. How much is
that, Senor Kane?"

"
That is thirty-eight dollars American. Not
enough money for these cattle."

"
No, no, no. Don't try to spoil the
serrano
,
Senor Kane. I buy cattle in the Sierra too. If you have paid more
money for this class of cattle you have paid too much. You will spoil
us with your American money. "

`Tll give you five hundred pesos, forty dollars, for
the cattle delivered in Chinipas," Jim Kane said.

"
I told Juan Vogel I would deliver in Chinipas
for four hundred seventy-five and I will do so. I want no more money
and no less."

"
I'll give the five hundred pesos to Juan Vogel
then," Kane said.

"
You will do right if you do so," Don
Marcos said. "This is the generous way. "

"
Not generous enough, but as generous as I am
authorized to be," Kane said.

"
We should all do the best we are able to do in
these operations," Don Marcos said.
 
The
three men rode back up to La Haciendita. Kane and Vogel stayed aboard
their horses. They would have to ride on in order to get to Chinipas
before dark. Don Marcos quickly wrapped a lunch of jerky and cheese
in a clean flour sack and put it into the morral on Vogel's
saddlehorn. He added a pint bottle of
lechuguilla
,
"For when your horse tires," he said. The two men reined
their horses to leave.

"
How many days before you start your drive from
Chinipas?" Don Marcos asked Kane.

"
We should start in a week," Kane said.

"
This will give me a few days to look for more
cattle before I drive to Chinipas," Don Marcos said.

"
Don Marcos, I am committed to receive about one
hundred head from Ezequiel Graf in Chinipas. This hundred head plus
fifty head that will arrive from Arce's ranch, fifty head from
Macarena, thirty-five from Vogel's ranch, and your fifteen will make
two hundred and fifty head. I've been authorized only enough money
for two hundred and fifty. I won't have enough money to pay for
more." ;

"
I'll look in Agua Zarca canyon," Don
Marcos said. "I may I find more cattle there."

''Don Marcos, if Graf has a hundred head I won't be
able to pay for any more cattle from you."

"
I'll bring them anyway. I'm sure you'll find a
way to pay for them,
tarde o temprano
,
sooner or later," Don Marcos said and walked away, relinquishing
Kane and Vogel to the trail.
 

26
Chinipas

"
Adiós
,"
Juan Vogel would say to the women as he and Kane rode down the street
in Chinipas in the late afternoon.

"
Adiós,
"
the women would say and turn back into their homes.

Cattle were raising dust in a corral down the main
street from the town plaza. A crowd of men and boys in the street by
the corral moved toward Kane and Vogel when they dismounted in front
of the store of Ezsequiel Graf.

Ezequiel was behind his counter when Kane and Vogel
walked into the store. He was a young man with tight, curly hair. He
talked fast and moved fast. He had an unusually long stride for a
medium-sized man, the stride of a man used to walking in the
mountains. He strode from one end of the counter to the other,
tending to his customers as he carried on his business talk with Kane
and Vogel. Men of the town came in to make small purchases so they
could listen to the talk about the cattle Kane was buying.

Ezequiel would serve a man a pack of cigarettes or a
peso's worth of
panocha
in
a whirlwind of unwasted motion and then stand before him looking him
in the eye like a good retriever and ask, "
¿Qué
más
, what more?" The customer, loath to
see the Graf machine stop, would ask for a box of matches. The
matches would appear almost instantly on the counter before him.
"
¿Qué más?
"
Graf would ask again. Unless the customer was exceedingly strong of
character he would be compelled to ask for another small article and
this rhythmic working of the machinery would continue until a small
gear would engage a slot in Graf 's memory of the customers line of
credit and he would not ask "
¿Qué más?
"
again but would bring out a ledger and enter the new purchase and
thus dismiss the man. The customer's time would be up in the store
and he would feel compelled to leave. He would say "Until later"
to Vogel and step outside and wait nearby to watch for another chance
to speak to Vogel. `

Graf said he had one hundred and ten head of bulls in
the corral but he was not sure Kane would want them all. He said
another man had eighteen head for sale but he had not brought them to
Graf. Kane might be able to come to terms with this other man and use
the eighteen head to replace any cattle he did not want among those
in the corral. Graf said he would take Kane to see the eighteen head
as soon as he could get away from the store.