Jim Kane - J P S Brown (60 page)

"
So now Leobardo has written on this paper which
I hold the word for shrimp in English. If the gringo can write the
word on the other side of this paper exactly as Leobardo has written
it, you will collect the one hundred forty-five pesos we are betting.
" Scratch Face laid the bills on the ground and the Lion counted
them, showing a disinclination to handle the money. He didn't show
any of his own money.

"
But my system of signals with the gringo only
has to do with cattle and horse. I don't even know if my
gringuito
knows the English word for shrimp and if he does he
probably doesn't know how to spell it. He is almost totally ignorant
of letters because he is from a region in the United States where
there are no schools," the Lion said mournfully.

"
Come on, Lion!" Scratch Face taunted. "You
can't
rajar
, crack,
now. Your big front is cracking. You can't back out. You already
agreed to take the bet."

"
I didn't say I would take any bet. You said one
hundred pesos," the Lion complained.

"
We bet one hundred forty-five pesos now. And
we'll bet another fifty pesos and there they are," Scratch Face
said, throwing another 50 pesos on the pile. "Don't show us you
are afraid and don't cry because
gringos
are ignorant. We all know
gringos
are ignorant." The horse killers all, except the
complacent Wan Face, laughed.

"
All right. I won't let you laugh at me for
backing out. I'll call the bet, " the Lion said angrily, and
took out the cash and matched the entire bet.

He stood up and motioned for Kane to stand up and
then began an intense series of signals with hands and fingers,
rolling of eyeballs, stamping of feet, gestures which he repeated
several times, indicating the paper and pencil in Scratch Face's
hand. Kane looked to the Lion and Scratch Face. He looked at the Lion
and then at the paper and pencil, the Lion and paper and pencil,
then, rapidly, Lion-paper, Lion -paper, Lion-paper. Finally he
offered to take the paper and pencil from Scratch Face and looked to
the Lion and the Lion indicated "yes." Kane took the paper
and laid it flat on the palm of one hand and held the pencil over it
to write with the other hand and gazed expectantly at the Lion for
more instructions.

"
I must rest," the Lion said. "This is
so difficult." He sat down and took several deep breaths. Kane
stood as quiet as sin when it is in the next room and studied the
Lion's smallest move.

"How will I ever make him understand ‘shrimp'?
I took five minutes trying to make him understand he was to take the
paper and pencil," the Lion complained to Scratch Face.

Kane thought, yeah, you son of a bitch and your
games, and if I don't have a change of heart you will gyrate for two
hours making me write shrimp.

The Lion finally got up on his haunches and started
going through his signals again. Kane stood dumbly, for as long as he
could bear to see the horse killers seeing him act so dumb, until he
no longer could stand their comments on his ignorance, through the
Lion's usual signals. Kane did not take it to understand any of these
usual signals so the Lion rested again.

When he began again he changed his signals and began
roaring like the waves, hissing like the wind on the foam on his
mouth, swimming like a beached whale, showing the pink of his gums
for the color of a shrimp, and showing the curved little finger to be
the shape of the shrimp. Kane did not deign to understand these
signals either. But when the Lion, in desperation, pulled out the end
of his penis, presenting it as possibly resembling a shrimp, Kane
surrendered and wrote shrimp on the back of the paper. The horse
killers roared, mocking the Lion for his aspect-of-a-shrimp,
size-of-a-shrimp penis. Even the money he won from the horse killers
did not help the Lion feel the sense of triumph he wanted. He had
been made to work too hard and give up too much for the money.

"
You
mostrenco
,
you
ladino
, you don't
have a loyal bone in your body, do you?" the Lion said to Kane
on the way back to their fire. "If you hadn't taken that last
signal I would have despaired. I would have let them take the money.
"

"I'm sorry, Lion. I am so dumb I just couldn't
understand what you were trying to say and then I remembered you said
if we stayed here with the horse killers it would be a diversion for
us. I want to thank you for that. I was not having any fun until you
put on that free show for me," Kane said.

When Kane had finished counting the cattle out of the
corral the next morning he rode over to say good-bye to Scratch Face.

"I want to thank you for the fine entertainment
and for the pleasure of knowing you. You and your men made the
evening I spent with you a perfectly enjoyable one," Kane said
to Scratch Face in fluent and well-rehearsed Spanish, and rode away.
 

34
Cuiteco

The quiet valley of Cuiteco reverberated with heavy
machines during the time the
vaqueros
called the second sleep, the time between midnight and
four o'clock. Kane got up from the ground with his thick, Mayo
blanket over his shoulders and met the Lion at the fire.

"
The trucks are on time," the Lion said.
The lights of a line of trucks shone toward the village of Cuiteco
from the upper end of the steep valley. They came on and stopped in
the village.

Elfigo Batista, the owner of the trucks, walked down
to the camp of Kane and the Lion at dawn.

"
Are we on time?" Batista asked. "We
drove all night."

"
You are just in time," the Lion said. "We
got here with the herd yesterday at noon. We can start loading the
trucks as soon as you bring them down."

"
We'll start loading at noon. The drivers are
sleeping now," Batista said.

The mayor of the town came smiling to the campfire
and introduced himself. A small boy was with him. The mayor asked to
see the
guías
and
facturas
of the cattle
and Kane got them out of his saddlebags. The mayor took the papers
and began examining the brands on the cattle. He seemed to be having
difficulty reading the brands although all the cattle had the
scorched Rv brand on their sides.

"
I'd better go explain the trail brand and save
him the trouble he is having," Kane said.

"He needs no explanation. These are just his
preliminaries for collecting
mordida
,
his bite out of the
gringo's
rump."

The Lion laughed. "Leave him alone and he will
waste less of your time and effort."

The mayor came back to the fire. He pocketed Kane's
papers. He was not smiling now.

"
Where were you taking these cows?" he
asked Kane.

"
Cows?" Kane asked him. "We don't have
a cow in the bunch. They are all
toretes
."

"
Toretes
then".
Where were you taking them?"

"I am taking them to Creel as the papers state."

"
Where did you get the cattle?"

"
I got them in Chinipas. They have already been
inspected through to Creel."

"
These cattle are not going to Creel or anywhere
until I have inspected them properly and have made sure they were
inspected in Chinipas?

"
The papers you have in your pocket all have the
seal of the inspector in Chinipas. They also describe each
torete
and the brand of the ranch he came from. They also show
the trail brand."

"
Yes, but they cannot leave here until I have
made my inspection. I just looked the cattle over and I am satisfied
it will take me a few days to complete my inspection. Also, I may
have to go with these papers to Chinipas and verify the Chinipas
inspectors inspection."

Kane, speechless, turned to the Lion.

"
Ha, ha, ha," the Lion said.

"Ha, ha, ha," Kane said mirthlessly.

"
You may think this is all ridiculous and a
matter for jokes but I take the matter seriously," the mayor
said. "We of the Sierra take any movement of cattle seriously. I
must be in complete accord with the inspector from Chinipas before I
will allow these cattle to go on past Cuiteco."

"
You have telephone communication with Chinipas,
do you not?" Kane asked.

"
Yes, we have a line," the mayor said.

"
Then why don't you call Chinipas and talk to
the inspector? I am sure he will advise you to allow the cattle to
pass on." Kane was remembering happily his contribution to
the Chinipas water system.

"
We might call. I don't guarantee we will
resolve the matter by telephone, though," the mayor said.

Kane and the Lion followed the mayor and the little
boy up the hill to the village. The telephone of Cuiteco was in the
mayor's front room. He graciously offered chairs to Kane and the Lion
and called in his daughter to make the call. She left the earpiece of
the telephone on its hook and wound the crank of the bell several
times. She did not pick up the receiver to see if anyone answered in
Chinipas but let it stay on its hook. Then he left the room. The girl
sat by the phone reading a copy of Romance juventud, a comic-book
type of true love magazine that used photographs of its soulful
protagonists instead of drawings and caricatures. Jim Kane squirmed
in his chair. The girl slumped over the magazine, protecting it lest
anyone steal a look at its pages. The Lion lit a cigarette, sighed,
and stretched his six feet four inches like a board against his
chair.

"
Señorita
, would you please
try to ring Chinipas again?" Kane asked the girl.

The girl did not look at him but raised her head from
where it hung on her slumping spine and called "
Papá
"
through curtains to another room. The mayor came back in the room
chewing on a bite of his breakfast.

"
Yes, daughter? What is it?"

"
El señor," the girl stated, letting her
head loll back and taking the pages of another magazine, one entitled
Novelas de Amor, in her slack hand.

"
And what can you be offered, señor?" the
mayor asked Kane.

"
Would you please ring Chinipas again? They
didn't answer," Kane said.

"
They didn't answer? Don't they answer,
daughter? I'll try again." He cranked the telephone violently
several times and started to walk out of the room.

"Aren't you going to pick up the receiver?"
Kane asked him.

"
There is no need of that," the mayor of
the village of Cuiteco, Municipio of Chinipas, Chihuahua, said. "They
will ring back when my ring reaches Chinipas. This is an old line
with old wire and sometimes it takes days for a ring from Cuiteco to
reach Chinipas. We need a new line."

Kane left the house and walked back down to his
cattle with his head down. Later the Lion came down off the hill with
the mayor.

"Give him five hundred pesos," the Lion
said. Kane dug in his saddlebags, his back to the mayor, and got the
500 pesos and gave up the money.

"
Ah, is this a contribution for the new
telephone line?" the mayor asked Kane, smiling.

"
Yes. I hope this helps you. You have been most
hospitable to us," Kane said.

"In that case I believe you can go ahead and
load your cattle. I don't want to hold them any longer. It is not the
poor cows fault that the wire to Chinipas is bad. I will continue to
attempt to get in touch with the inspector of Chinipas but I am sure
all your papers are in order. I will let you know what the inspector
tells me if he calls back before you leave."

"
Thank you. My cattle appreciate it," Kane
said. The mayor gave Kane the inspection papers and went back up the
hill.

The vaqueros loaded the cattle by roping them one by
one and dragging them into the trucks. When the cattle were all
loaded Kane paid the
vaqueros
what
he owed them. He also paid them for two days they would be on the
trail back to their homes. He took his saddlebags and blanket and put
them in the truck Elfigo Batista was driving. He took off his chaps,
spurs and pistol and laid them on Pajaro's saddle.

"
I charge you with the
alaz
á
n
,
the sorrel, and my gear, Lion," he said to his friend Andres
Celaya.

"
Don't worry a minute about him. I'll care for
him as though he were my own," the Lion said. "I'll leave
him and the gear at Graf's store in Chinipas. When will you be back
for him?"

"
I don't know. Maybe in a week or ten days?
Where are you going from here, Lion?"

"
After I leave the Pajaro in Chinipas I am going
to Guadalupe Calvo. I have a friend there that says he has maps of
treasure the Jesuits left, " the Lion said.