Jim Kane - J P S Brown (62 page)

"A bad season but not bad for business."

"Pay me now."

Kane got the 1500 pesos out of his saddlebags and
paid.

"Now you had better come with me so that we can
make out the sanitation and brand inspection passes for the cattle,"
Pistols said.

Kane got his saddlebags, screwed the hasp back on the
door with his knife, and got in Pistols' pickup with him. Pistols
waylaid Kane for another 1600 pesos across the counter of his store
for the sanitation and brand inspection fees. Kane went down the
street and found Batista and paid him what he owed him. Batista told
Kane he would provide him with five men on the following morning to
drive the cattle to the rail yards and load them on the cars. Kane
paid Elfigo the five men's wages in advance. He went to the rail
yards and hired six cars for Chihuahua. The cars were already
standing by the stock pens. He went to the telegraph oflice in the
railroad station and wired Juan Palomares, a trucker Kane knew in
Chihuahua, asking him to have trucks at the rail yards to pick up his
cattle when they arrived. Then Kane went to the hotel and paid for a
room for one night in advance. When he got in the room he found he
had exactly 18 pesos or $1.44 American left in the saddlebags. He had
not paid the rail cost. He could pay that in Chihuahua. And how would
he pay the rail cost in Chihuahua?

Creel was windy and cold. Kane had no fire. He went
to bed with all his clothes on. He slept until afternoon when he
walked out and watched Pistols' men dip his cattle. He counted the
cattle again. He still had all of them. They hadn't eaten a third of
the wheat straw but they were doing their best. Kane went back to
bed.

The train was to leave at 8 A.M. The last bull was
loaded at 8 A.M. The switch engine picked them up at 10 A.M. Kane
bought his
cuidador
ticket and boarded the caboose thinking,
one thing about it, the railroad will have Kane and all his cattle in
Chihuahua now and they can't send us back, even if we can't pay. But
the
ferrocarrileros
will be standing in their station with the
palms of their hands showing when I try to unload my I cattle. I hope
I can get them unloaded before the
ferrocarrileros
find out I
can't pay.

Kane sat on the eight-inch padded plank through the
day and the night and the next day, to Chihuahua. Whenever the train
stopped he climbed through the cars and tailed up his cattle. The
cattle kept their feet well through the trip. The fat railroad men
with important faces impressed with themselves passed coldly into the
caboose, took one look at the scab on Kane's face, and went out
without speaking to him.

He climbed into the little gondola tower of the
caboose to see if he could see the trucks of Juan Palomares while the
train was rail-bumping into Chihuahua. He saw them. The working,
carefree truckers were smoking and horseplaying around their trucks.
Kane thought, I drew to an inside straight.

Kane didn't get off the caboose until the cattle cars
were sided near the trucks. He told Juan Palomares to load the trucks
and to take the cattle to the packinghouse corrals and, in case Kane
wasn't there, to feed sixty bales of alfalfa hay. He helped walk the
cattle from car to truck until he saw three railroad officials come
walking toward the trucks and then he walked around the trucks to the
railroad office. He asked briskly, confidently, in the office how
much he owed and they told him after examination of a yellow
telegraph communication, 6,000 pesos plus 2,000 pesos demarrage. Kane
asked why the demarrage. They said Kane had been two hours late
loading his cattle. He had been told to load his cattle by 8 A. M.
and he had not finished loading until 10 A. M., causing the train to
arrive in Chihuahua two hours late. Kane said, "
Muy bien
",
and walked out. The three officials were walking, facing him but not
seeing him because of their officious conversation, back toward the
office where, undoubtedly, the truckers had said Kane had gone. He
detoured them by going back around the stationhouse, around the
cattle cars, around the caboose, to the car that was being unloaded.
He worked fifteen minutes more walking cattle onto the last truck and
trailer. He saw the officials, deep in their conversation, strolling
back toward the last, lonely trailer. Kane went through the cattle
car, climbed out of the high offside window in one corner, climbed
around the caboose, and got onto the rack of the trailer on the
opposite side from the officials as the truck pulled away from the
train. He held onto the rack as the truck drove away and rode "with
the machine. He had left his blanket, his saddlebags, and his hat in
the caboose.

At the first taxi stand Kane appeared at the driver's
window and told him to stop. The driver stopped. Kane jumped off the
truck and got into a taxi and told the driver to go straight to the
Hotel Victoria. Kane's Uncle Herb Kane stayed at the Victoria when he
was in town.'

At the desk of the Victoria, the clerk told Kane that
Herb Kane was not registered. Kane asked permission to use the phone
and called the home of Santiago Brennan. Santiago was in El Paso.
Kane was walking out of the lobby toward his taxi when he looked in
the bar of the Victoria and saw big hats. The first Big Hat at the
bar, an old Big Hat, told him kindly that Herb Kane had been staying
at the Hotel Avenida but was leaving town that day. Kane pushed the
taxi on to the Hotel Avenida. The clerk there told Kane that Herb
Kane had checked out only a few minutes before Kane had come in.

Kane got back in the taxi and figured his Uncle Herb
wouldn't get out of town any other way but by private plane if he was
leaving that late in the day. He told the cabbie to hurry to the
airport. The cabbie was happy to do it as the fare to the airport and
back would be as substantial as the gringo could be conned into
paying. The taxi made a circle around the block and stopped for a
light. Kane looked out the window at the people waiting for the
light. He was looking for pretty girls but he saw his Uncle Herb
standing on the corner, briefcase and suitcase in bland. Kane piled
out of the cab and grabbed his Uncle Herb.

"Pay my cab, Uncle Herb. You're not going
anywhere after all, " the bareheaded, coatless,
whiskered-scab-faced Jim Kane said.

"Black Man, where's my silver, ruby-eyed,
steerhead tie clasp?" Uncle Herb asked.

Kane had drawn one card, the king, to a royal
straight flush
.
 

36
Quarantine

 
Your cattle must be quarantined sixty
days, Senor Kane," . the man in the Union Ganadera, the
Cattleman's Union, in Chihuahua said.

"
Take me away to the
chingada
,"
Kane said. "My buyers told me the whole state of Chihuahua was
clean of the fever tic."

The man turned to a well-lighted map that covered the
wall behind his desk.

"
Look here, Senor Kane," the man said.
"There are nine municipios in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua that
are still considered fever-tick-infested areas. See, they are all
circled plainly on this map and Chinipas is one of them. Where are
the cattle now?"

"At the empacadora, the packing house."

"Our inspector will supervise the examination of
your cattle for ticks
. They will be dipped again
and ear-tags indicating the date the cattle began their quarantine
will be put on each steer. In sixty days you will be able to export
them to the United States. Your uncle Herb Kane is a member of the
Cattleman's Union and he can acquire your export permit for you. Come
back in sixty days and we will arrange all your necessary papers."

Kane thanked the man and turned away from the desk.
He walked out of the modern office of the Union Ganadera and down the
stairs to the street. He thought, so this is this and that is that
and the cattle won't cross until the middle of July. I could have
taken the cattle through Rio Alamos and they would have crossed three
weeks earlier. Tut-tut, Terry Garrett and Ira March, don't blame me.
I hope you enjoyed the 500-mile race in Indianapolis.

Kane went back to the Hotel Avenidai He wore a new
palmetto hat, a new pair of low-cut boot-shoes, and new shirt and
trousers his Uncle Herb had staked him to. Uncle Herb was sitting in
the lobby with his glasses on his nose reading the Chihuahua paper.
He had already gone to the railway station and paid Kane's rail fees
and demarrage. Kane sat down with him and told him what the man at
the Union Ganadera had said. Uncle Herb handed Kane the papers on the
cattle.

"Where did you get them, Uncle Herb?" Kane
asked him, glad the papers had been salvaged.

"
The railroad officials had them. They found
them in the caboose. They knew someone would be back for them. They
would have held them and tied the cattle up until someone paid the
freight."

"My hat, saddlebags, and blanket?"

"
I didn't ask about them and they didn't offer
to return them. The man at the union said the cattle would have to be
quarantined?

"
Yes."

"I thought so. I was so sure the cattle would
have to stay that I rented you a ranch seventy miles from here. It is
a good ranch and better than is usually available in this state this
time of the year."

"Thank you, Uncle Herb."

"
So now I've found you a ranch. I already paid
your trucking from the railway station to the packing house. You have
a new hat and new clothes. I'll be back to Chihuahua next week and
take out an export permit for the cattle for Garrett. The trucker
Palomares is going to bill me for trucking the cattle to the
quarantine ranch. He won't charge me as much as he would you. If I
were you I would castrate the cattle in the packing house corrals and
let them rest and fill up on good hay there another week before I
trucked them to the ranch."

"
I plan to do that, Uncle Herb."

"You want some good beer and some good
carne
,
Black Man?"

You bet."

"
We'1l go eat and then I'm going to have to go
back to El Paso. I've got you all straightened out for now."

Uncle Herb took Kane to the brewery beer garden. It
was Sunday afternoon and the parking lot, with its shady
ramadas
and waiters hurrying back and forth to customers sitting
in their cars, was crowded. They went into the dining room of the
beer garden and ordered
carne asada
,
broiled steak, broiled kidneys, marrow gut, and a large pitcher of
the dark golden beer. They put their hats down on empty chairs by
their table. The table was covered by a clean tablecloth.

While they were waiting for the meal Uncle Herb said,
"You don't mean to tell me you are going to stay in this sorry
business, do you?"

"
Why not? This business has been good for you,
hasn't it? If I ever gain half the respect you have in these two
countries I will have achieved something," Kane said.

"
Black Man, I've stayed in this business because
I've never known anything else. You have an education. You can do
better than I have ever done. Maybe it is time you thought about
doing something you are better suited to do. We don't always get to
live the way we want to. Haven't you learned that let? Your education
must have given you some ideas about at."

"
My education taught me there is no legal or
moral law against being what I am."

After dinner they went back to the hotel. Uncle Herb
got his baggage and paid his bill at the desk. He wrote Kane a check
for $100. Kane walked out to the corner where he had caught Uncle
Herb on the street the day before. He waited with him there until a
taxi came by.

"
Well, Black Man, do your best, " Uncle
Herb said. They shook hands and Uncle Herb got into the cab.
 

37
Settlement

Jim Kane was in a deep sleep in his room in the
Avenida one afternoon after he had come back from seeing his cattle
and taken a long, steamy shower. His telephone rang.

"
Well, we are finally here. Where are you?"
The voice on the phone belonged to Terry Garrett.

"
Where in the hell are you calling From?"
Jim Kane asked him.

"
Yeah, your Uncle Herb told me you were in
Chihuahua City with the cattle. Why didn't you call me?"

"
I tried to get ahold of you when I needed you
badly three weeks ago and you were nowhere to be found. I tried once
after I got here and I couldn't locate you. My Uncle Herb gave me all
the help I needed here so I didn't need you except to tell you your
cattle were here and my job was finished."

"
You should have been with us in E1 Paso last
night. We had a party." .

"Yeah?" Kane said. "So what?"

"
So we are still partying. Come on over and have
supper with us."

"
Where are you?"

"
At the Palacio. Room 408."

"
All right. I'll be over after a while."

"Come over now. We've got a bottle of Scotch."

Kane dressed in a clean, starched shirt and his clean
Levis that had been sewn together in the split places. He went
downstairs and had a drink in the bar. He went out on the street and
got a shoeshine. He didn't much feel like going in on the tail end of
a party of Terry Garrett's that had probably been going on for a
month but finally he walked to the Palacio and went up to Garrett's
room. The black-haired girl that answered the door was wearing an
eye-patch like a pirate. Her black panties and bra and high-heeled
shoes matched the eye patch. She wasn't wearing anything else.