Jim Kane - J P S Brown (4 page)

"
One or two. I cut cattle a whole year on him
before I ever roped one off him."

"
He ought to be a good horse then."

"After a fashion. He's the best horse I ever
rode if that is worth anything?

"
I'll take him."

"
You can use him all you want," said Kane,
embarrassed he might have to turn his Uncle Herb down if he asked for
the horse.

"
No. I'll let you use him a lot more before I
try to do anything on him. He might buck me off. He feels too good."

"
I'll borrow your trailer and take him away this
afternoon," Kane said.

"Where are you taking him?" Uncle Herb
asked.

"Out to Bob Keys's. I'm going to break some
colts for him."

"
You taking a bunch of pissheads to break?"

'`Yeah."_

"
My Cod."

They ate in silence for a moment. Kane's eye fell on
Uncle Herb's tieclasp. The clasp held a silver Longhorn steerhead
hanging by two tiny silver ropes. One of the steer's ruby eyes was
out.

"
That sure is a nice tieclasp," Kane said.

"
It's old. It lost one of its rubies. I've had
it forty years."

"I sure like it. It looks good on you."

"
¡Ah, c
ó
mo
chingas!
" Uncle Herb snorted. He took
the clasp off and handed it to Kane. "Take it, " he said.

"
Hell, I don't want to take your forty-year-old
tieclasp," Kane said, taking it.

"
I'm tired of it. I don't want it anymore,"
Uncle Herb said.

"
I don't need a tieclasp for riding pissheads,
do I?"

"
You might go to a fancy whorehouse sometime, or
a funeral."

"
I'll tell you what, Tio Herb. I'll wear it when
I'm riding my pissheads. Every day I'll put on a tie and my new
tieclasp before I go saddle my first colt. That way you'll know
you've got a nephew who wears a tie to work. "

"
You'd better save it so they can put it on your
tie at the funeral after your pissheads finish with you."

They finished lunch and went back to the auction.
Kane left Uncle Herb in the office talking business with some other
traders and went to the sales ring. He sat down and watched the
bidding on several bunches of cattle. He talked to men he knew,
trying to find a buyer for his horses. Some of the men gave him names
of horsemen he might call.

When Kane was ready to leave, Uncle Herb was still
talking business with the traders so Kane just waved good-bye to him
and left. Uncle Herb was so engrossed in his business he hardly
noticed Kane leave.

Kane drove out to his Uncle Herb's corrals. The
Mexican bulls Uncle Herb had crossed at E1 Paso were in five big lots
in the corrals. They were big-horned bulls, and oxen. They had big
frames, plenty of warehouse for plenty of feed, and they were every
color of the rainbow. Kane's sorrel horse, Pajaro, was in a small,
shaded pen by himself The horse had grown since May when Kane had
left him to go to Jalisco. His hair was short and shiny and when Kane
climbed into the corral he snorted and bucked and kicked and pranced
around the corral. Kane caught him and loaded him in Uncle Herb's
trailer and pulled the trailer behind his car to Bob Keys's ranch.
 
 

3
The
Colts

Caballero se deriva de caballo
Que este nombre
Ha
dado el caballo al hombre
Mira en qué
principio estriba.
—
Spanish proverb

"
Caballero
means
gentleman horseman. The word is derived from the horse. The horse
gave this name to the man. A fine foundation." No one who was
ever raised with horses and learned to do his work horseback will
ever feel quite so complete a man afoot as he does horseback. A
horseman also believes that the horse is never complete without the
work of a man to do.

The desert was cool when Kane and Bob and Jimmy Keys
rode out to bring in the colts Kane was to break. Kane was riding
Pajaro. The horse was happy to be working again. His small pin ears
flickered from Kane to the trail ahead, anticipating Kane's job for
him. The big horse carried his head perpendicular to the ground, his
neck bowed with no pressure from the reins. His legs made a V from
his forelegs and his thighs to the points where his hooves struck
tracks on the ground. The wide, muscular shoulders between Kane's
knees glinted with short, red-gold hair in the morning sun.

The men found the colts and corraled them by
midmorning. When the colts had quieted, Kane stepped into the corral
and looked them over. He stood in the center of the corral and
presented himself to them. Five of the colts were curious. They took
hesitant steps toward him, nodding their heads at him, taking as much
of his scent as they could stand at a time, getting the sight of him
as full and deep into their wide, dark eyes as they could.

The other three colts watched him out of the corners
of their eyes, their heads turned away from him. When they wanted to
get more distance between themselves and the man they sidled away
from him. They seldom looked at Kane with both eyes at a time but
kept one eye fixed on him at all times. These three were: a
line-backed dun with sorrel mane and tail, a line-backed buckskin
with black mane and tail, and a black and white paint. The paint
showed white circles around each small eye. The dun had a long
hammer-head and a lazy look in his eye. The buckskin had a small,
narrow head with a Roman nose and a mean look in his eye. The colts
were all four years old. They were all straight-legged, short-backed
and in good shape from fending for themselves on the desert. But the
three off-colored colts were more feral beasts than the others. Kane
chose the dun, the buckskin, the paint, and one of the solid-colored
colts, a bay colt. He roped them, haltered them with rope halters,
and tied them to railroad ties in one of the corrals. The paint and
the buckskin struck, kicked, and bit at Kane. The bay fought Kane to
get away but only because he was afraid, not to do the man injury.
The dun was caught, haltered, and tied before he had time to decide
he didn't like it. Kane turned the other four colts out. He would get
them back after he had ridden the rough off the four he had caught.
Kane and the Keyses walked up to Kane's camp at lunchtime. The camp
was a board shack. Inside the shack Kane had a shelf for his bed, a
chair, and a kerosene lamp. His kitchen was a lean-to off this shack
with a wood stove, a table, chairs, and a chuckbox cupboard.

"
We figured you wouldn't have time to get
groceries last night so we brought some. We'll be here every day
anyway so we'll buy the groceries," Bob Keys said. Jimmy brought
two armloads of groceries from their stationwagon. Kane built a fire
in the stove and fried steaks and potatoes and warmed canned com for
their lunch. Alter lunch they sat and smoked a while.

"
The three off-colored colts you caught are
probably the toughest ones in the bunch, don't you think?" Bob
Keys asked Kane.

"
That's what I figure. I'll take them while I'm
still fresh and rarin' to go," Kane said. "The paint and
the buckskin are meat eaters. What do you call them?"

"
We'll let you name them," Bob Keys said.

"
The bay already has a name," Jimmy Keys
said. "Dad was in his cups one night and I always hit him up for
something when I catch him in his cups. I caught him just right that
night and asked him for the bay. Bill Pyle, the trader, was there.
Dad felt generous so he gave the colt to me. Bill told me not to
believe Dad. He said Dad was just making whiskey talk. The next day
when Dad was sober he didn't back down. Since then the horse has been
called Whiskey Talk."

"
He's a nice-looking colt."

"Well, he's Jimmy's," Bob Keys said.

"
His soul may be Jimmy's but his rear end is
mine now," Kane said.

Kane went out the next morning and looked at the
colts. They had been through a rough night fighting their halters.
When Kane stepped into the corral all four colts fell back against
the ties but they immediately lunged forward to ease the pain on
their necks. During the night they had learned there was no give to
the ties. They had learned that flesh and blood could not stand a
fight with the unfeeling uniformity of four well-set railroad ties.

Kane walked up to the dun. The colt had taken all the
slack he could out of the halter rope without taking on too much pain
and was standing with his head high, his lip nibbling on the halter
that stretched out under his muzzle. He fixed one worried eye on Kane
and the closer Kane approached, the more he leaned back against the
tie. Kane stopped near him and watched him strain against the halter
until his eyes closed and his legs started to buckle and he did a
little dance to keep his feet. Finally he shook his head violently
and squealed. The combination of tie and halter held fast, no pain
there. The colt sat down on the root of his tail and sulled. The
combination took no note of his lack of cooperation. After he cooled
for a while Kane walked up to him, screamed at him, and wrung his
tail for him. The dun lurched to his feet and gave himself slack.
Kane lectured him in a low voice until his legs stopped trembling.

"
Now you see, big dun," Kane said. '"You've
got to stand up close and stop fighting it. People have plans for
you. These plans do not include your escaping from people anymore.
People have a combination fixed that does not in any way include your
plans for yourself. People want to like you so that you can be useful
to them. If you do what you want to do people won't like you. You
aren't going to grow up to be like me. You are going to be the
Mortgage Lifter."

Kane was carrying a small pan of grain. He took the
dun's rope off the tie. None of the colts knew what grain was yet,
but since they hadn't swallowed anything but spit since yesterday
morning Kane didn't have any trouble teaching the dun that grain was
good and the hand that offered it was not going to hurt him. Kane
pulled the halter rope and every time the colt took a step Kane gave
him a bite of grain. The colt began leading up to keep his mouth full
of grain and Kane started petting him on the head, neck, and
shoulders. The colt was overcoming his fear of Kane's hands to get
the grain. Kane led all the colts to the water.

The next day, after he had watered them, Kane tied
them closer to the tie than he had the day before. He got a gunny
sack and tied ten feet of rope on it. He walked up to the buckskin
and began swinging the sack over his head. The colt kept his head
down and one evil, fearless eye on the whirling sack. He ran against
the tie rope one time, but when he hit the end of it he turned back
without letting it jolt him. This one had a sense of
self-preservation and he had found out the tie rope had an end to it.
Kane let the sack flop against the buckskin's hind legs. The colt let
fly at it with both hind feet like a mule. Kane let the sack fall
behind the colt's front legs. The colt struck at it with both front
feet. The sack landed on his head behind his ears and he bit at it.
The sack fell on his back and the colt let it slide off and
cow-kicked it back at Kane.

"
You take dead aim, don't you, young man?"
Kane said. "You would like to kick me like that, wouldn't you?
Oh, how you would like to do that. Then I would have to mortgage the
homestead to buy myself a new set of grinners."

Kane sacked the colt until he tired of kicking at it.
What he really wanted was meat, teeth, something that would crunch
satisfactorily, something that would bring out the mortgage papers.
Mortgage Maker. Kane fed him his hay and went to the next colt.

The black-and-white paint went into a sullen,
uncomprehending frenzy when Kane started sacking him. He had
absolutely no sense of self-preservation. When he hit the end of the
rope he bashed his head against the fence. His head was skinned up
and beginning to swell. Kane gave him three minutes of the sack and
quit him. Maybe tomorrow he would take it better.

The little bay, Whiskey Talk, was afraid of the sack
at first but he wasn't afraid of Kane. He didn't try to harm the
sack. He turned his head and watched Kane out of both eyes, trying to
figure out what Kane wanted him to do. Kane sacked him until he
stopped trembling and then held some grain in the pan for him.