Jim Kane - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  "Which ones don't you like?" Felizardo asked.

  "Which do you think? Which ones do not fit on the rest?"

  "The three big bulls?"

  "No. The three big bulls are the best of the lot. I don't want, the yearling, the cow-horned bobtail, or the thin red one.

  "Why not the bobtail?"

  "His horns are not long enough and he has no tail."

  "Why does he need a tail? He will fatten without a tail."

  "He needs a tail for my purposes."

  "He does not need a tail."

  Kane looked at the man and shook his head. "He will not serve me," he said. "The yearling has no horns. He is too young. The skinny red bull would never survive the long drive.‘I don't want those three. I'll not buy them."

  "You sent word to Ezequiel that you were buying corriente," Felizardo said.

  "I did."

  "These are corriente." ‘

  "These three have no place in my market. They are not ganado. They are not the kind of stock I need."

  "You said you would buy the cattle if you saw them first.

  Now you are seeing them and you are saying you will not buy them. I don't understand your way of doing business."

  "I'll buy the fifteen head of "sound young bulls if you put a just price on them."

  Felizardo shook his head and turned away from Kane. He looked across the pasture at his cattle.

  "I will take five hundred fifty pesos per head for my cattle, but all eighteen head must go, not just fifteen head," he said.

  "Ezequiel, did you tell this man what I was offering for this type of cattle?" Kane asked.

  "Yes, I did," Ezequiel said.

  "I want only the fifteen head and I can only give you four hundred fifty pesos," Kane said to Felizardo. "That is my only offer. My last word."

  "No. I want six hundred fifty pesos if you take only fifteen head and that is my last word," Felizardo said.

  "I guess it is time to go and have our drink and rest and feed my horse," Kane said to Graf.

  They rode back toward the gate. Felizardo the Swarthy stayed near his cattle.

  "I knew he wouldn't trade with you," Ezequiel said. "He is impossible when he trades with outsiders. He believes outsiders should pay more."

  "Why didn't you buy his cattle, Ezequiel?" Kane asked.

  "He was also too high on them for me. Besides that, he has owed me quite a lot of money for several years. He wouldn't sell to me because I would hold out what he owes me.

  "Didn't you receive any cattle in payment for credit you extended in your store?"

  "Yes, I did. Most of these people are happy to see a buyer come in and they take the opportunity to get a good price for their cattle and pay me what they owe. I can't pay what a buyer from outside pays. I always have to hold the cattle myself and wait for a buyer to come to Chinipas or I have to take the cattle to Rio Alamos. When I get to Rio Alamos after a weeks drive across the mountains and have paid vaquero wages and trucking, I have to sell. Who do I sell to? The butchers are the only ready buyers. They never have any money and always want to take the cattle on credit. My cattle, after a weeks drive, are shrunken and footsore and poor-looking. The butchers have me where they want me. I'm lucky if I hold my money together."

  "You couldn't make it buying cattle for the kind of prices Felizardo wants and I couldn't either," Kane said, dismounting and opening the gate.

  "I never make anything on cattle I take from that man. He always makes sure of that," Ezequiel said, riding his mule through the gate. Felizardo came over the hill in a hurry as Kane led Pajaro through the gate.

  "I'Il close the gate for you," he said.

  "Thank you," Kane said and got on his horse.

  "If I resolve myself to sell shall I bring my cattle in?" Felizardo asked.

  "Yes," Kane said.

  "When shall I bring them in? That is, if I resolve myself. "

  "Early tomorrow," Kane said.

  "That is impossible. I won't have time to bring them in tomorrow."

  "Suit yourself," Kane said. "If they are not in town early tomorrow I will be unable to receive them."

  "I'll see what I'll do."

  "I am also interested in seeing what you do," Kane said.

  Salvador Arce was with Vogel at the store when Kane and Ezequiel arrived after dark. Kane unsaddled Pajaro in the courtyard behind the store and fed him. They were drinking beer. Kane took off his chaps and spurs and drank a beer with them. Ezequiel brought them a liter of lechuguilla.

  "I thought perhaps you had decided to ride that horse all night," Juan Vogel said. "That is why I started drinking beer with Arce before you returned. ¿Qué tal? Did you buy Felizardo the Surly's cattle?"

  "I don't think so. He is resolving himself," Kane said.

  "Don't believe it. He resolved himself the day he heard you were coming. You are not the first trader he has dealt with. Just wait. He is lining you up for the screwing. But he has to like you in order to screw you. Be careful when he smiles at you." Juan Vogel laughed. The beer was making him feel good. "Well, here is Salvador," he said. "Here with his cattle. Notice he is smiling at you. He is here to contribute to your salvation."

  "¡Ah, qué Juanito! There is no remedy for you," Salvador Arce said in good humor.

  "How many cattle did you arrive here with, Salvador?"

  Kane asked him.

  "I brought fifty-one head. You traded for only fifty, I know, but I brought one as a gift for you in case you don't want to pay for him."

  Vogel was laughing at Arce.

  "How's that?" Kane asked Arce..

  "I brought you one phenomenon. Maybe you can sell him to a circus," Arce said. "He is a four-year-old bull with horns as wide as my arms."

  "What color is he?" Kane asked.

  "Red-and-white paint, " Arce said.

  Kane pictured a bull with beautiful, wide, long horns. His horns would be too long for rodeo, but Kane would take him anyway. There must be a demand for big, longhorn, spotted steers.

  "We'll see in the morning," Kane said.

  Graf came and invited them to supper. The supper was meager and clean. Kane was seldom hungry in the Sierra even though the meals he was given were short. He never got hungry on the trail. Vogel was always stopping at a camp or a ranch where the people insisted on feeding them. Graf bedded Kane and Vogel and Arce down in clean sheets and thick blankets in a bedroom.

  Kane went to the Chinipas corral in the morning. He looked the cattle over for a few minutes and then began to cut out those he could not use. All the work was done afoot. The cattle were gentle and six men from the town got in the corral with their reatas to help.

  Kane would separate an animal that he did not want and the man who owned him would step up to argue the few merits the animal might have. Kane would not relent. The owner would then ask for more money for the three or four head that he still owned in the herd. These cattle would then be separated and held by the men helping in the corral and Kane would look the cattle over again and make a whole new trade with the owner. When Kane and the owner had come to terms, the bulls would be roped and branded with a trail brand and their horns would be painted red for easy identification on the trail. Kane used Juan Vogel's branding iron and only singed the hair so that it would grow back in a few weeks and leave no scar.

  By noon Kane had finished cutting and branding. He hired five men to herd the cattle. He counted the cattle as they streamed out the gate into the street. He had bought 94 head , of good-horned, strong cattle. Kane, Arce, Vogel, and Graf followed the cattle down to the river where they were put in with Arce's cattle to graze. The herd was as fine and even a bunch of rodeos as Kane had ever seen. Arce had painted the horns of his cattle green for his drive to Chinipas and that was the only difference between his cattle and the rest.

  "What do you think of my phenomenon?" Arce asked Kane.

  "I haven't seen him yet," Kane said. "Where is he?"

  "Bring over our phenomenon," Arce called to
one of his vaqueros. The vaquero went into the herd and began working one bull out toward the edge of the herd. Kane could not see the bull. He could see the horns only. The horns spread and twisted and waved straight out from his head exactly like the pictures of the old Texas Longhorn. From his position on the flank of the river, Kane could see only the fine set of horns ambling toward him. Then the animal walked up onto the bank in plain view. He was only two and a half feet high. The head was normal and had the eye of a bull on the verge of losing his temper at the man driving him. The tail was normal and dragging the ground. But the legs were small red stubs that tripped along and seemed barely able to withstand the rocking momentum of the horns and barely gave enough clearance to keep the belly and the great, formidable cods from dragging the ground.

  "What do you think?" Arce asked Kane in his suave, self-deprecating way. "Really a phenomenon, no?"

  Kane shook his head, rejecting the poor little animal. Not a phenomenon, he thought, a monstrosity.

  "I'm not taking him with me," Kane said.

  "I was thinking maybe someone on the other side could rig up a little wagon and make him pull it along full of little children," Arce said.

  "That could be true. If he was on the other side. But how would I get him there?"

  "He walks very well. He kept up with the other cattle on the drive."

  "Your drive was thirteen days. My drive, if I go to Chihuahua City with the cattle will be at least fifteen days. Your cattle are already footsore. This one would never make it. He can barely hold his horns up now. How will he be in another two weeks?"

  "Take him in an airplane," Juan Vogel said with a straight face. "Sell him to the gringos for a seed bull."

  "Ha, ha," Kane said. "How funny."

  "I just thought he might be of some use to you," Arce said apologetically.

  "Thank you anyway," Kane said.

  "The señor doesn't want him," Arce said to the vaquero.

  "The only recourse we have now is to kill him. Kill him and butcher him for yourselves?"

  The vaquero walked up to the side of the little bull and wrapped a loop of his reata almost kindly around the horns and pulled him around. The dwarfs long tail whipped, his eyes bugged from the increased weight on the horns. Another vaquero, who had been out of sight until the mention of fresh meat, appeared and smilingly began to sharpen a short pocket knife on a smooth stone he picked up from the bed of the river. Kane thought, the poor little feller is going to be cut down with a dull knife and butchered on the ground on his own hide. He turned away from them all and started to walk back to the store. Graf followed him. Juan Vogel and Salvador Arce stayed behind for the sacrifice.

  A small airplane came over high above Chinipas. It had to fly high to clear the mountains around the town. It circled the Chinipas Valley while it lost altitude, flew low over Kane's cattle, and landed on a small strip a mile from the town. Graf sent one of his vaqueros to the landing strip with a saddled mule.

  Kane and Graf walked slowly back to town past the old church. The church`s dully clanging bell was ringing the Angelus at noon. A few very old ladies and one or two young girls went in for the prayer.

  The owners of the cattle Kane had branded that morning were waiting for him outside the store. Felizardo Trigueno, the Surly One, was waiting in a chair inside the door. He silently, balefully, stared at Kane and Graf when they came into the store.

  "You are back, " said he, getting up from the chair. "I have been waiting for you for a long time."

  "Did you resolve yourself?" Kane asked him.

  "The cattle are in the corral. My vaqueros are putting Vogel's brand on them for you right now," Felizardo said. "How many head did you finally resolve to bring?" Kane asked.

  "How many did you see in the pasture yesterday?

  "Eighteen head. But I told you I only wanted fifteen of them."

  "I only brought fifteen, don't worry," Felizardo said, smiling disarmingly as though he had only been trying a joke on Kane.

  Kane remembered then what Juan Vogel had said about what would be happening to Kane when Felizardo the Swarthy began to smile. '

  "Let's go see them," Kane said. '

  "The vaqueros are probably finished branding and are taking the cattle down to put them with the rest of your cattle by now, " Felizardo said.

  "Let's go," Kane said and set out walking as fast as he could to shake the shaft that was probably at that very moment about to sink home.

  At the corral, Felizardo's vaqueros and two of the townsmen were just letting up the thin, red bull that Kane had turned down the day before. He walked shakily to join his brothers, the RV trail brand splotched in charred hair on his side. Kane counted fifteen head in the corral. He looked closer and saw the cow-horned bobtail, looked again, and saw the short yearling. All three of the cattle he had rejected were branded with the RV brand. He looked the bunch over again. The three good, big bulls were not present.

  "You brought the three cattle I rejected yesterday and you left the three good ones at home, didn't you?" Kane accused Felizardo. Kane sighed.

  "The three spotted bulls got out of the pasture last night. The fence is very bad around that pasture. I have never been able to hold those three matreros, swindlers," Felizardo said happily. ‘

  "Why did you bring the cattle I turned down?"

  "You said you wanted fifteen head. I didn't want you to be short of cattle. I wanted to bring you the amount of cattle you expected from me.)?

  "Oh, you did?" Kane said morosely. The vaqueros had roped another bull and were throwing him to brand him and paint him. Kane watched them. He did not stop them. Felizardo yelled instructions to them, helping them to do the job more efficiently. Kane walked back to the store.

  The vaquero who had gone to meet the plane was riding past the church leading the saddled mule. Kane walked into the store. A tall man was leaning over the counter smoking a cigarette. He straightened when he saw Kane. He had black hair, a light complexion, and blue eyes. He was a big man, taller than Kane, with a smile and a big hand which he extended to Kane.

  "Jim Kane? I'm Santiago Brennan," he said in English. "Terry Garrett sent me over from Chihuahua with the money for the cattle."

  "I didn't expect you until tomorrow or the day after," Kane said.

  "Terry got your wire this morning. He phoned me in Chihuahua and I drafted on him for the money when the banks opened this morning. It didn't take long to get the money and fly over here. You were lucky. Terry also said to tell you to take the cattle to Chihuahua this time."

  "Chihuahua? They won't have to be quarantined?

  "I guess not."

  "Good. That is a break for us. We did have luck. Are you going back to Chihuahua today?"

  "Terry hired me to wait for you and take you anyplace you want to go if you need the plane. He is a bit shook up about these cattle. He wants them out of here. He said he hadn't heard from you in a month."

  "That long, huh?"

  "That long." Santiago chuckled.

  "That never happened before," Kane said.

  Santiago laughed.

  Ezequiel Graf set up a desk under the portal by the hides behind the store. Graf laid his list of owners and the number of cattle they had sold on the desk. Felizardo hovered near the desk. Santiago brought in a pair of saddlebags and dumped them on the table.

  "The five-peso bills, the tens, the twenties, and the fifties are on one side of the saddlebags. The hundreds, five hundreds, and thousands are on the other, " Santiago said. "Call your customers one by one and I'll start paying them," Kane said to Ezequiel.

  "Why not take care of me first so that I can go on? I have business to attend to," Felizardo said, smiling swarthily at Kane, only Kane.

  "Take care of you in what way?" Kane said.

  "Pay me now for my cattle, young man."

  "Ah, but I'm not buying your cattle, viejo."

  "What does that mean?"

  "That means I am not receiving your cattle, not paying
you for any cattle."

  "What? We have an agreement. The cattle are already branded and painted for the trail."

  "We have no agreement and I did not ask you to put Juan Vogel's brand on your cattle. I agreed to buy fifteen head of the cattle I saw in your pasture yesterday. You didn't bring me the fifteen I said I would buy so no agreement exists.

  "You will pay me for my cattle or I will take you to the judge."

  "I'll do this. I will buy the twelve head I agreed to take yesterday and pay you four hundred pesos per head for them. You will take your miserable three head of rejects home with you and we will have made a reasonable trade," Kane said.

  "I told you yesterday that I would bring the cattle if I resolved myself, " Felizardo the Swarthy said. "I resolved myself to bring fifteen head so pay me the six hundred fifty pesos you promised to pay."

  "I promised four hundred fifty pesos for fifteen but that was when the three good bulls were with the cattle. No three good bulls, no four hundred fifty pesos. I resolve four hundred pesos for the twelve head."

  "But you agreed that if I resolved to do it I could bring my cattle in today, did you not?"

  "Yes, if you resolved to take my price. You didn't need to think I was going to pay your price just because you resolved I was to pay it."

  "I can see I will have to follow other paces to get my money."

  "Let me tell you something, viejo. You don't have any money here. This is my money."

  "We'll see," Felizardo the Swarthy said and left the store. Graf called in his customers and Kane paid them in cash. Each of the owners handed over the facturas, the bills of sale with their tax stamps, when he had been paid. Each individual animal was described on the facturas as to color and age and sex together with the brand and earmarks of the owner. Most of the men owed Graf and paid him. Salvador Arce came in carrying the liver of the phenomenon for his lunch and Kane paid him for his cattle. Later the Macarena cattle came in and Kane paid the schoolmaster, Antonio Almada, for them. Juan Vogel's thirty-five arrived and Kane paid him and he paid him a commission for the Macarena cattle. The only cattle that had not arrived were Don Marcos Aguilera's fifteen head. Kane decided to hold up the drive until the Arce cattle got over their footsoreness.