by J P S Brown
Don Panchito's woman came in smiling her greeting and bringing tar-black, sugar-roasted coffee in small, thick cups. They sat and talked while they sipped the coffee. The old man smiled his toothless smile and spat tobacco juice on the floor. His ninety-year-old feet reposed in huaraches. The old feet had been through a revolution that must have been a pure and honest effort for his man. He sometimes must have run in fear and ignorance and sometimes advanced in fear and faith. Those feet had also walked in the lettuce fields in Imperial Valley, California, and the sidewalks of Fresno in shoes for a time, shoes he had discarded on his return to the Mother Mountains. The old feet now were black and immobile under the chair. They were like leather with brown buttons for toenails. An old toe he must have broken lay crookedly over another. It was unable to contribute its full share to the rhythm of the man's walking as it used to do, but it was still there doing its best to grip one more hold for the shiny soul of the old man, whether to go get wood for the fire or walk to the highest point to watch the departure of a friend.
Kane finished the coffee and stood up, banging a spur loudly against a chair leg.
"You have to get going. Wait here a moment," Don Panchito said. He left ahead of Kane and went to his storeroom, which he unlocked and entered. Kane knew he did not keep it locked because he was afraid of thieves, but because he had been made responsible for this hacienda and must look after it with formal correctness.
Kane tightened his cinches and turned the mule around. Don Panchito came with a Pepsi-Cola bottle full of clear liquid and stoppered with a piece of corncob.
"Here, take this," he said. "The road is long."
Kane took a swallow and offered it to the old man.
"I never drink," the caretaker of Avena said.
Kane thanked him and walked around the mule and put the Pepsi-Cola in with the orange crush.
"Don Panchito, I'll see you," he said in English, his foot in the stirrup.
"Nombre sea de Dios. In the name of God," Don Panchito said and waved as though Kane was already a long way away and out of hearing.
Kane rode through the community of the peons of the Vogel hacienda. The dogs came running out to announce arrival and departure. The Mariposa dog of Manuel Rodriguez was standing near the door of the house barking solemnly, sparing energy. She was the best cow dog, cat dog, and javalina dog, in the Sierra Madre. She was so thin she looked like a black-and-tan harp.
He rode around the crest of the Avena mountain where he could see 100 miles of virgin timber along the Chihuahua-Sonora border. He crossed over the slab of rock that was the Avena airfield on the highest summit of the Sierra of the West. The little landing field was only about 300 yards long. It was surrounded on the sides by rock, on the end by pines, and on the approach by space. A plane that landed here had to touch its wheels down no more than 50 feet from the lip of a cliff that was 300 feet sheer.
Kane stopped the mule, dismounted, and reset his saddle and blankets. He let the wind from off the tips of the pines sweep between the saddle blankets and the mule's back before he cinched up again.
He started the mule down the next to the last steep grade he would have to traverse before dark. The little animal was still eager, but this would be the ridge that would begin to tire him. They traversed the slope in the sun and after an hour they started up the last climb in the deep shadow of late afternoon. When they reached the summit of the vertebrae of mountains that is the line between Chihuahua and Sonora, the Macho Pardo was taking his first deep breaths.
Kane was facing a setting sun over the Sea of Cortez. He unsaddled the mule to cool his back. This was Puerto de las Parvas, the port through which he was entering Sonora. Kane could see for great distances in every direction. Behind him the definition of the mountains of the Sierra Madre was obscuring with darkness. There were clouds below him drifting over the Chinipas canyon. At his feet were the vertical cornfields he would ride through to the Arroyo de los Mezcales. Toward the sun was the crooked path of the shiny water of the Alamos River leading to the coast. A cloud of dust hazed the Alamos Valley.
This was the sabana where the cattle would be night-herded in Chihuahua for the last time, where they would taste the wind off the coast. Kane saddled, mounted, and passed into Sonora. From now on it was all downhill to the U.S. border, 475 miles.
It was just getting dark when Kane reached the head of the Arroyo de los Mezcales. This was a wide river bed, the straight avenue through the brush country to San Bernardo. The little mule's pace had slackened on the hard descent from Las Parvas. Kane silently thanked the little beast for getting him to the arroyo in time to beat the darkness. The full moon would make it light enough in the arroyo tonight. They met a woodcutter entering the arroyo with his burro train. The man had begun whistling when he first became aware of Kane so as not to surprise him. They greeted each other in the darkness. Kane was revived by the man's courtesy.
The Macho Pardo had a ground-eating pace that pressed distance behind them. They passed the little settlements beside the arroyo in the night. Milk cows and saddle horses were shut up in tight little corrals close to the houses. Dogs kept their masters notified of progress of travelers in the arroyo. The weak light of lamps in the homes was absorbed by
the moonlight.
Kane raced the moon to the Cajon de la Virgen, a narrow ravine where the arroyo's waters had cut through hundreds of feet of rock., The cajón was a narrow alley that would be an obstacle of darkness in his path if he got there too late. When they reached the long stretch of pure sand that was the approach to the cajón the moon was almost directly overhead. The mule stepped silently around the first corner of the entrance to the cajón's walled passage. He suddenly halted dead still, stiffly poised and alert. In that same moment Kane heard the loud spitting hiss.
Directly in front and very close to them stood a solid black jaguar. He had warned them and stopped them so he calmly returned to his drink at the clear spring of the cajón. Kane sat the mule, thrilled by the privilege of the sight of the rare cat. The tigre cast a short black shadow on the sand bright with moon glare. When he departed he was a dark ghost springing quickly across the patches of moonlight up the wall of the ravine.
The Macho Pardo listened to the cat's retreat with his big, quick ears bowed forward. Finally he moved on, snorting and shying at the cat's watering place as they passed it. Kane spurred him to the center of the cajón, where a wide bulge was formed by a sharp turn in the arroyo. Here he dismounted and unsaddled the mule and led him to the spring where he drank. Then Kane gave him slack on the lead rope so he could lie down and roll in the clean sand. Kane tied the mule to a maguey that grew in the black rock of the wall, gathered a few small sticks, and built a fire. He got the morral and after removing the mezcal, cheese, and tortillas, he hung it, half full of corn, on the mule's nose. He sat on the sand near the little fire and warmed the tortillas and ate them with the fresh, moist cheese and small sips of mezcal. He listened to the mule grinding and swallowing the corn.
When he had finished his supper he lit a half pipeful of tobacco with one of the light coals that remained of his fire and stretched his legs out on the sand.
Kane looked at a spot where people of the region said the Virgin had appeared to someone, sometime. There, in the back of a niche, he could see something like the shape of a person burned on the rock.
Vigil glasses for candles were at the foot of the niche, though none had been lighted that night.
Kane said a Hail Mary, remembering at that moment the Blessed Mother of his childhood. He hoped it was true that she had been there.
When the pipe was out he rose, knocked out the ashes, gathered up the clean flour sack his supper had been wrapped in, and buckled up his chaps. The mule had only eaten half his corn, through he had long since stopped chewing. Leave it to a mule not to fill his belly with a lot of corn when he senses he's still got a long way to go, Kane thought.
The man and the mule drank side by side at the spring and then
left the Cajón de la Virgen.
"Well, Pardito, you've got it made now because in a few short hours you'll be putting away the groceries in Poncho's corral," Kane said.
The little beast, refreshed, moved with his short, smooth, little steps down the arroyo. After a while they came to a wide lumber road that crossed their path and they followed it out of the arroyo.
When they reached a hill above San Bernardo, Kane reined the animal to a stop and turned for the last look at the black Sierra Madre. It's a short way out, but a long, long way back to you, lady, he thought. He could hear the San Bernado dogs barking.
An hour later he rode through the open gate of the corral behind Poncho Montenegro's store, unsaddled, rubbed the mule, and pitched him a block of hay. He shut the gate and walked through the back door of the store. Poncho woke and shined a flashlight on Kane's face.
"Is it you, Jaime? Where are you coming from?" he asked.
"San Rafael. Sorry I woke you, Ponchito."
"San Rafael? No, hombre. That is much road."
"What time is it?"
"Let's see. It is twelve midnight. What time did you leave San Rafael?"
"At noon."
"On the big horse?"
"The Macho Pardo."
"Another record for the Pardito! Let me get you a drink."
"I've got some of the best. Let's drink mine."
"Well, I've been abstaining, but I'll have one with you on a midnight after a ride like that. Let me get you some bedding. "
"No, stay in bed. I'm not staying. I have to be on the border by noon if I can."
"Well, if I can't make you stay I'll have a drink with you for your estribo." The tall, gentlemanly storekeeper everyone in the Sierra esteemed drank a big swallow of the mezcal.
"That's good lechuguilla," he said.
"Keep the rest of it. I have another bottle Don Panchito gave me."
"Ah, you arrive with momentum," said Poncho. "Your truck is full of gas and ready to go. "
"Did you get any use out of it while I was gone?"
"Yes, I hauled some posts."
"Good, will you board the Pardito until I get back?"
"I sure will, it's good to have him here."
"What can I bring you from gringolandia?"
"Some Chestairfeels," Poncho said, laughing self-consciously. "For the vice."
"They are yours. Well, I'll see you, and thank you, Ponchito."
"No reason to thank me. I hope it goes well with you."
Once he was in his truck and on his way, Kane became aware of the necessity for reaching the border that day. This was a deadline he was forced to keep. He could easily fail. He had been lulled into the peaceful independence that characterizes the children of the Sierra Madre. For a while he had actually felt at home in the Mother Mountains as though he were a legitimate son. He had forgotten he was an adopted child and that he had done the adopting.
The long highway miles fatigued him, but preoccupation with the urgent business on the border kept him alert. If he failed to arrive that day and turn in his truck permit or his passport, two little pieces of paper, he would be ruined. He would be unable to return to the Sierra to pay for the cattle, he would be fined, and he would lose his permit to do business in Mexico.
Kane made the 450 miles from Poncho Montenegro's store to the U.S. border in nine hours. He had stopped at his room only long enough to clean up and shave off his unacceptable moustache,
He spent the rest of the morning of his arrival arranging the papers on his pickup and his visa.
That afternoon he went across the line to the American side to visit his banker and bring him up to date on the stock he was bringing to market. They talked of the big-horned cattle Kane had on the way from Chihuahua to the States. They discussed the days the cattle would be driven on foot, train hours, and weight shrinkage the cattle would undergo before they would be marketable stock. The banker was a tough man and he trusted Kane's word.
When Kane stepped out on the street in front of the bank, he realized he had accomplished all the chores he had set out to do when he had left San Rafael the day before on the Macho Pardo.
He went back to the Mexican side of the border to the Hotel Toreo to have a drink.
The Count was standing at the bar when Kane entered. He was speaking to a man and a woman. They were tourists.
"You can't tell me it's not cruel, you know. I've been in Spain and I've seen the real bullfights, the best bulls. It's a disgrace in any part of the world," the man tourist said. The Count listened politely, nodding his head. He wanted to get away from them. He pretended he couldn't understand the tourists very well.
"You say you are the manager of the bullring," the tourist persisted. "Why do you allow yourself to profit from torture? Answer me that if you can."
The Count nodded vaguely, called the bartender and ordered the tourists another drink.
He turned away from them when they thanked him. He saw Kane.
"¿Qué hubo, Jim?" he said quietly. "What happened to you? We haven't seen you for months."
The Count was a tall man, very pale. He wore an expensive snap-brims beaver hat, a dark suit and tie, with a stickpin set with diamonds. He had a small, red, fresh flower in his lapel.
The bartender also walked over to Kane, offering his hand.
Kane shook hands with both men. "You both look very well," Kane said. "I guess the tourists aren't getting you down."
Roberto, the bartender, turned on his passive Indian bartender face and watched his boss.
"Oh, they are just having a good time," the Count said. "They've been in here since they came down from the hotel at about nine o'clock. They like the bulls but hate the bullfighters. I think they hate the bullring empresa even worse. It gives them a thirst to talk about it, though."
"They sure are getting tight," Kane said. "Pedro, I want to lease your Agua Clara ranch again. You got anything on it right now?"
"Just that little bunch of cows and calves. How many do you want to run?"
"About two hundred fifty head. They will be up in about three weeks." `
"Just tell my cowboy, Enrique, so that he can receive them off the cars."
"OK. I'll tell him tomorrow morning on my way south. Are you drinking?"
"No, thank you," the Count said. "I must go take my woman to see a new house." He turned to Roberto. "Give Jim a trago," he said. He waved at the tourists and left the bar. Roberto served Kane a straight bourbon and a glass of water.
"You going to get drunk, Jim?" he asked. "Because if you are, I'll get you a room."
"It's a good thing there aren't more bulls, there would be fewer Mexicans," the tourist shouted at Kane.
"No, Roberto. I have to get back to the Sierra tomorrow. I'm receiving some cattle," Kane said. ‘
"Hey, cowboy. Cowboy."
Kane looked at the tourists. The man was sitting slack-spined on the high stool with his elbows on the bar. The woman was wearing stretch pants. She had long, blond hair braided into one thick rope down her back. She was sitting up straight and pert. She couldn't keep her eyes off her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.
The man had the woman's purse hanging from one arm. He is probably protecting it for her, Kane thought. From Mexicans.
"Pardon me, pardon me. I don't mean to be rude," the tourist said. "Are you from here?"
"Yes, I am," Kane said.
"You a cowboy`?"
Kane kept quiet.
"You take care of cattle for somebody?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, tell me just one thing. Why don't you do something about these bullfights?"
"I do. I go to them when I can."·
"You mean you like them?"
"Yes."
"You must be a phony. No real cowboy would like to see bullfights."
"How about the man who raises the bulls?"
"Sadists. You'd have to be sadistic to like seeing a beautiful animal hacked to death."
"I agree."
"Tell me one thing then. Why do you like to see bullfights?"
"How do you like to see cattle killed?"
"I don't like anything like that."
"You like beefsteak?"
"Yes."
"Doesn't beef get killed before it gets cut up and stacked in your freezer?"
"Yes, but I don't pay to witness it."
"The fact is they are killed with no regard to whether or not they want to live and you really don't care about how the cattle die that appease your appetite and satisfy your belly."
"I like cattle. They are nice, gentle animals."
"Sometimes the kind you eat are. Some cattle are brave though. Some are cowardly. The Mexican would rather not eat the brave ones. The bullfight has regard for the bull's will to live. It would be a waste to disregard such a bull. No one ever willfully turned a gentle animal into the bullring. That would be torture."
"It's all cruel torture to me."
"But it wouldn't seem cruel to you to lead a one thousand-pound brave bull into a chute of a slaughterhouse and drop a hammer on his head, then hang him up by his heels and carve him into steaks?"
"Well, it's a shame to kill those beautiful animals at all. They have a God-given right to live."
"That is why we should have cattle, I guess," Kane said. "To look at. To pray to." He got up, waved to the passive Roberto, and went out.
He got on the telephone in the evening and asked around the country for offers on the cattle he had in the Sierra Madre. Then he went to a hotel and lay down on the bed to watch television and relax. Late at night the ego-mongers on television were frantically baring their selves for everyone to see. It was surprising to Kane how far a little talent or good looks pushed these people. Kane was embarrassed for them, so he listened to them and watched for some saving decency they might bring out, but they seemed to revel in getting baser about themselves. They puffed their breasts and fluffed their tails like pouter pigeons. They were still I'ing and Me'ing, not having been completely heard, Mister, I ain't through, when they were cut off because it was time for "The Star Spangled Banner."
