Jim Kane - J P S Brown (50 page)

Kane thanked the judge and excused himself. When he
got outside he sighed with relief He realized gratefully that the
judge had saved him a lot of money.

"Just a minute, Ezequiel," Kane heard the
judge say. "Stay here with me a moment. I have something to ask
you."

Kane left them to their conversation and went back to
the store. Santiago Brennan and Juan Vogel were having a discussion
over a bottle of
lechuguilla
.
Kane took a glass with them to celebrate the fairness and wisdom of
the judge. Ezequiel came in then with sympathetic looks for Kane.

"
The judge asked me to tell you about the water
fund," Ezequiel said.

"
Ah, yes. The water fund," Juan Vogel said.

"
And what is the water fund?" Kane asked.

"The judge is in charge of collecting for the
water fund. He levies a tax of five pesos per head on all the cattle
that pass through Chinipas for the water they drink. This money is
applied to a fund that is being accumulated for the purchase of a new
water system," Ezequiel said. He looked for a while at Kane.
"The judge asked me to remind you to come over to his office and
make your contribution before you leave Chinipas with your cattle."

"
How many years has the water fund been in
existence?" Juan Vogel asked.

"About five years, more or less," Ezequiel
said.

"
When do you think they will have enough money
in the fund for a water system?"

"
Probably never, " Ezequiel said.

"
Right. Never," Juan Vogel said. "Because
there is no water fund. I myself have given enough money in the past
five years to pay for the water system five times."

"
Maybe he wants a very, very good water system,"
Ezequiel said, trying to joke.

"
Who cares?" Kane said. "My cattle are
drinking and grazing on the river. It is of no importance to me where
the water money goes. The old man is entitled to the money anyway.
for performing the beautiful quite, capework, on Felizardo."

"You are right, Jim. You are learning. Always we
must remember to grease the machine. It doesn't run well without
grease," Juan Vogel said.

Salvador Arce came into the store. "Senor Kane,
we are going to put on a dance this evening. You and Senor Brennan
are invited," he said.

"
What is the occasion?" Kane asked.

"All the vaqueros and cattlemen from the cattle
drives are here. All of them have relatives here and we feel a
celebration and dance is warranted," Salvador Arce explained.

"
Salvador needs no occasion for dancing,"
Vogel said. "He is a
serrano bronco
.
When he is in town he dances. He should want especially to celebrate
today. He sold you his fine cattle and so contributed to the
salvation of a
gringo
.
He is Salvador, our savior."

Salvador smiled and shook his head at Juan Vogel.
"
¡
Ah
qué Juanito!" he said. "Let's warm ourselves for the
dance." He produced another bottle of lechuguilla.

"To the Chinipas water system!" Kane
toasted, raising his glass.

"
May it always be at our disposal!" Juan
Vogel said.

The dance was held in the large, closed patio of the
old-fashioned municipal building. The girls of Chinipas came down the
streets to the dance in groups of three and four. All of the girls
were well-dressed, well-scrubbed, well-shod, and pretty. The young
men dressed up in clean dark trousers and white shirts. Most of the
young men wore
huaraches
,
but a few wore black dress shoes. Kane washed and shaved and got out
the clean shirt he had rolled in his blanket. The shirt was wrinkled
but it still smelled good. He walked over to the dance with Vogel and
Brennan and Graf when they heard the music begin. Arce was at the
door welcoming everyone.

The music was provided by a phonograph on electricity
from the Chinipas town generator. Loudspeakers were set up on two
corner pillars of the patio.

The girls Kane and Vogel and Brennan asked to dance
did not seem to mind them. The men of Chinipas presented their
daughters and nieces and granddaughters to Kane and Brennan for the
dancing. Arce and Graf provided them with
lechuguilla
to keep them from feeling any chill in the evening.

During the dance Kane caught Felizardo the Swarthy
giving him dirty looks. Felizardo was talking to himself and also
glowering at Santiago Brennan who was dancing for the second time
with the same girl. Kane and Juan Vogel laughed at Felizardo talking
to himself and he saw them laughing at him. When Santiago returned to
the table Felizardo strutted over to address Brennan.

"
You should not believe, because you are a
gringo
and a guest in
this town, that you are free to take your liberties with our women,"
he said, refocusing his eyes on Brennan because he was too close and
the drunken focusing he had done on Brennan from the other side of
the room was no longer adequate. '

"I am not a gringo, my friend. I am Santiago
Brennan from Chihuahua, a Mexican, and your servant," Santiago
said, standing up and taking Felizardo's hand in his much larger
hand. Felizardo, refocusing up at Santiago's face, smiled at him when
he got the face in sight.

"
Well, maybe not a
gringo
,
a
pocho
,"
Felizardo said.
Pocho
is
the name applied by the Mexican national to the one of Mexican blood
who has been born a United States citizen or has renounced his
Mexican citizenship for United States citizenship. The word implies a
cowardly running away to a softer life and also implies that the
pocho is a traitor to his blood.

"
My friend, I am not a
pocho
.
My father is Mexican and my mother is Mexican and they taught me
manners. I don't take liberties with decent women."

"So you are saying our girls in Chinipas are not
decent?" said Felizardo, taking a step backward.

"
No, you are. You said I took liberties with the
women here," said Santiago, stepping back and squaring off like
a golfer about to tee off.

"
Ah, well," Felizardo smiled. "There
is no problem, is there? I made a logical mistake. I thought only a
pocho
would be
associating himself with a night-crawling
lombriz
,
worm, like your
gringo
companion?

"Don't be mistaken about the fact that I will
knock your mouth completely off your face if you don't get out of my
sight," Santiago said.

"I don't know how to fight with my hands,"
Felizardo said loftily and turned on his
huaraches
and left the dance.

Later, Juan Vogel in his cups was dancing the
guajolote
in the
middle of the patio with a pretty girl. He looked like a big turkey
gobbler strutting and tramping around the gracefully dancing girl. He
pressed his chin on his puffed chest. He clasped his hands behind his
back and crooked elbows and shoulders forward. He shoved his hat to
the back of his head and danced. Kane watched and thought he would
rather be there watching Vogel than be anywhere else doing anything
else in the world at that moment.

Strange as the effects of the
lechuguilla
had been on Kane, he was clear-headed for his work the
next day. He spent the morning in the store hiring his crew of
vaqueros
for the
drive; advancing money for them to leave with their families; buying
their provisions for the trail; and hiring pack mules for their beds
and provision.

About noon the sounds of a disorder aroused the town.
Everyone in Graf's store went outside to see what was happening.
Beto,
the vaquero
of
Don Marcos Aguilera, was riding a bucking mule across the plaza. The
mule bucked around a little bandstand that stood in the center and up
to the steps of the church. Beto, hatless, his shirttail out, his
wild, dirty hair matted, gave as much as he took from the black mule.
He spurred the mule with the big hooks on his
huaraches
with every jump the mule made. The mule balked on the
steps of the church. Beto drove the spurs as though to gut the mule
and the mule bucked up more steps toward the entrance of the church.
Beto was about to Christianize a mule. He got the mule to the top of
the steps and tried for the dark entrance, but two townsmen turned
the mule back from the door of the church. Beto spurred the mule back
through the plaza. The mule trotted along bowing his neck against the
hackamore rein.

A herd of cattle entered the plaza. Kane saw Don
Marcos behind the herd. Beto's mule crowded against the mare Don
Marcos was riding, crushing Beto's leg against, Don Marcos, saddle.
The cattle passed in front of the store and walked slowly down the
street. Kane counted 36 head. Some of the cattle had time to stop and
browse on young green trees that had been planted in the plaza. Don
Marcos turned his mare away from the herd and rode over to the front
of the store and dismounted. Beto's mule tried to follow the mare,
but Beto straightened him and went on with the other
vaqueros
driving the cattle down the street. Beto kept his eyes
straight ahead. He was proud everyone had seen him ride and manhandle
the mule.

Don Marcos shook hands with everyone in front of the
store and walked in, asking for coffee. "I didn't have my coffee
this morning," he said. "That Beto was carrying the coffee
and I the black mule lost it when he bucked off down a
barranca
this side of Tetamoa yesterday. We never found the
coffee or the pot."

"
That is a fine mule, Don Marcos," Salvador
Arce said.

"He must be tough to be still giving Beto
trouble after a drive from La Haciendita to Chinipas."

"
The mule is tough but the Beto is tougher,"
Don Marcos said. "He won't leave the mule alone. When the mule
bucked into the barranca Beto lost his hat and he didn't let up from
his spurring of the mule long enough to recover it. The mule would
settle down if Beto would let him. Beto has too much milk for his own
or the mule's good."

Kane was counting his cattle to himself the Arce
cattle, 50; the Macarena cattle, 50; the Chinipas cattle, 94; the
Vogel cattle, 35; and now the Aguilera cattle, 36; That made 265
head. Kane had 15 head of cattle more than he could pay for. The cost
of 250 would average $36 a head. He had saved an average of $4 per
head under the $40 he had asked Garrett for, but that $4 was less
than he needed for expenses. He only had $800 left after advancing
money to the
vaqueros
and
buying provisions. He was going to have to pay railroad freight from
Creel to Chihuahua. He didn't know how many more expenses he would
have before he got the cattle to Chihuahua. How was he going to pay
Don Marcos for 15 head? As he sat there and listened to the men
talking about wild mules and wilder
vaqueros
his face got hot and a hot sweat of embarrassment came out on his
brow and under his collar.

He got hold of Santiago Brennan's elbow and led him
outside.

"
Can you fly back to Chihuahua and get more
money, Santiago?" Kane asked him. I

"
Yes, I could. How much do you need?"

"
At least a thousand."

"
Pesos or dollars?" Santiago asked,
laughing. .

"
Dollars." `

"
Where would I get it?"

"
From Garrett, like you did the money you
brought yesterday?

"
Garrett only authorized his bank to pay the ten
thousand dollars I brought yesterday. His bank wouldn't pay another
draft from me."

"
Can't you call Garrett from Chihuahua and get
him to authorize payment on another draft?"

"You are not in luck, Jim Kane."

"
Why not?"

"
Mr. Terry Garrett and Mr. Ira March are gone
with their girl friends in their airplane on an extended trip. They
are going to Houston, San Antonio, and New Orleans, among other
places, and they are going to finish the trip by attending the
Indianapolis five-hundred-mile race. No telling where they are now.
No way we can get ahold of them."

"
God Almighty!" Kane said. "Off to see
the races? The races? By God, they ought to be worried about this
bunch of cattle. I ought to pay everyone off and turn the cattle
loose on the river until the little masters get back from their
party."

"
Why don't you?"

"
No, as the Mexican says, it's not the fault of
the cattle. The cattle ought to have a chance to make money for
someone. Even if it is only for me. The best thing I could do would
be to go to Rio Alamos with the cattle. The drive is only five days
to Rio Alamos and I won't need money there. I could stay there until
Garrett got back from his trip with some money?