by J P S Brown
"Prepare yourself, little feather, we'll release him to you well heated up later tonight," Gordo Toledo shouted at Adelita as she walked out the door.
"I'll go out first," Kane said to the Lion and got up from the table and walked across the room to the table of Chavarin and Toledo.
"If there is one among you who wants me he will honor me by standing up and facing me now. The bad talk is finished," Kane said to them.
Gordo Toledo stood up. He picked up his chair in one hand, a bottle in the other. He held the chair up in front of his face like a shield.
"It looks like I'm the one you want," Gordo Toledo said. Kane laughed at him. The little man wasn't much over five feet tall. The chair trembled in his hand, not because he. was afraid of Kane but because he wasn't strong enough to hold it up as high as he was trying to hold it.
"Which do you want to eat first, the chair or the bottle?" Kane asked him.
Gordo put the chair down, sat in it, and carefully drank from the bottle. No one else at the table moved. Kane knew they wanted him outside. He walked out the door. Beto wasn't in sight. Kane stepped off the high cement doorstep onto the ground and stood to one side of the door out of the light.
The first one through the door, running to catch Kane before he could get away, was Chavarin. When he took the long step off the doorstep Kane stepped into the light in front of him and hit him, hitting up at the head, lifting the punch with his legs, and catching the head in the middle of its descent from the step. All the falling weight of the man was carrying the head eagerly but blindly from the light to the darkness. Chavarin's spirit left him before his new boots touched the ground. One of the legs cracked like a brittle stick when it hit the ground. On the ground the flesh of Chavarin thrashed, fluttered, and flopped. The fight was over for Chavarin when his followers got outside. Two of them held him down to stop the thrashing.
Gordo Toledo came off the step toward Kane carrying a tool that looked to be the same size and shape and about the same resiliency as a tire iron, though Kane had not seen it in the clubhouse. "`I am your friend. I am your friend. I am your friend," Gordo Toledo said and Kane knew that Gordo's eyes were still not used to the darkness and he didn't want to face Kane until he could see him. The Lion saved Kane any further preoccupation with Gordo. He wrapped his paws around Gordo's neck from behind, squeezed, lifted the little fat man off his feet and shook him, held him, and shook him again.
Then something big and going fast knocked Kane down and went by him. It was Beto riding the bay race mare. He ran the shoulder of the mare into the Lion and knocked him down. He fought the mare's head with his reins to keep the mare dancing on the Lion while the Lion scrambled on his hands and knees trying to get up. Beto had a reata in his hand and was shaking out a loop so that he could get it long enough to whip a lion with it.
Kane ran, with freedom, with health, with exuberance and joy at Beto's blind side and swept Beto off the other side of the mare and landed on top of the Lion. While they were still in a heap with the Lion Kane used his hands to hold Beto and used his head with great joy to butt Beto's fine nose and when the Lion disentangled himself he used his fists with great cruelty on Beto's mouth until Beto ceased to squirm. He looked up then to see the Lion showing the reata to the two who had been ministering to Chavarin, holding them off Kane's back.
"If you want to use that iron walk around front of the man," Kane heard Adelita Piedras say and he saw she was talking to another of Chavarin's companions, who had retrieved Qordo's tire tool and was coming up behind Kane. The boy smiled when Kane turned to him, like a boy caught in small-boy mischief.
"N0, hombre, Jim. I am your friend. Soy tú amigo," he said and just then Mariano Piedras hit him from one side and when he went down on his knees Mariano held him by the hair of his head and hit him again. The boy begged Mariano not to hit him any more and the fight was all over. Kane and the Lion took Adelita with them and left.
30
The Trago
Jim Kane did not take Adelieta Piedras back to her father's house until early morning. He drove his car through the gate of the clearing and up to the main house. He got out of the car and walked the girl to the steps below the big, carved doors of her house. Don Tomás . Piedras opened the doors.
"Papá, Jim Kane and I went to Camauiroa," Adelita said quietly to her father.
"Come in, Señor Kane," Don Tomás said. "I have coffee made and I am about to have my trago."
The girl embraced her father and passed through the door. She went up the stairs to her room without looking back at Kane. Don Tomás pulled out a chair at the dining room table for Kane. An oil lamp was lit on the table and a bottle of aged tequila was by the lamp. Two short-stemmed goblets were by the bottle. The long, high-ceilinged room was still cool from the night.
Don Tomás poured the two goblets full of brown tequila.
"I always have a strong drink of the good tequila early," Don Tomás said. "I know you must like it too."
`'I do," Kane said. .
"Someone has said the little swallow, the traguito, downed to start the day with its warm companionship; before a meal to stimulate the taste for the food; after a harrowing experience to replenish a soul dangerously depleted by shock; or before an unpleasant experience, to bolster the nerves, is an institution in Mexico, " Don Tomás said. "A trago is also collateral for friendship. To give a man a trago when you have one and can see he can use one secures your friendship with him."
"This trago will be so appreciated? Kane said.
"Of course we Mexicans at times set too much store by our tragos and perhaps we take them too frequently when we are troubled or happy. We are inclined to humor our philosophies about the trago too much."
"This is better than the custom of my country of being seriously afraid of the trago," Kane said.
"Still, your country has many fine customs. Perhaps it would be better for us Mexicans if we did not indulge ourselves with drink so completely."
"I believe my country and my people are beginning to take themselves too seriously, " Kane said. "In all walks of life they tend to become overly impressed with themselves and their talents for making money, their talent for success."
"Which causes me to bring up two questions about yourself, Señor Kane. I should know better than to ask them of you since I believe you are a good man. But, nevertheless, they are questions I am bound by duty to ask you since I don't wish to see you shot or to bring my sword down from the wall against you. Are you so impressed with yourself that my daughter, Adelita, does not affect in you a sense of love and honor? Or, my second question, are you so unimpressed with yourself that you cannot believe my fine girl could truly, sincerely, and deeply love you; or that possibly you believe you are not the first man she has spent a night away from home with?" The old man fixed the coldest, most analytically belligerent eye on Kane that Kane had ever seen.
"Wait," the old man said, relaxing when Kane didn't squirm. "Let us drink our tragos first so that you may have time to think before you answer and so that you will know I ask you this in all kindness and friendship. If you can't answer, I want you to know you are dismissed and bear us no obligation."
"Don Tomás," Kane said. "I need no strong drink to brace me before I answer you. I appreciate your friendship but whether you are my friend or not I answer no to both your questions. I love your daughter. I have never been able to convince anyone that my goals are good ones. Up to now I have lefy behind me, not enemies, but people who believed me to be worthless and a failure because they did not understand what I was aiming for. So if you don't understand what my goals are I won't blame you."
"What are your high hopes, young man?" Don Tomás asked.
"My hopes are, to be a man and to be called a man by everyone I love and by all who love me."
"That is a fine answer. If it had not been so I would have had to bring down my sword and would have been unable to say no to Mariano's plan to shoot you."
"I have a life to live
before I take anyone's daughter away from him."
"Do what you have to do," Don Tomás said. "God bless you.
31
Bullpen
The boots were off. The shirt was off. The belt was unbuckled, and the Levis were off. The hat was laid carefully on top of the pile of clothes and Kane stretched himself under the covers on his bed. The Lion came into his room before he was asleep.
"Don't be surprised! Don't run and try to escape! Two secret policemen, friends of mine, are downstairs in Teresita's kitchen waiting to take you in," the Lion said.
"Don't be funny, Lion. I am just now getting to bed. I'm going to sleep now, good night."
"I'm not joking. You'd better get up."
"Then why don't they come up here and get me if they want me?"
"I told them I would be responsible for you and take you to the comandancia at eight o'clock when the Ministerio Público comes to his office."
"Chavarin's Ministerio Público?" r
"The same Ministerio Público."
"Well, if the Ministerio Público wants me, he wants you too. Why does he want me?"
"I don't know. I wasn't with you all night last night, remember?"
"Now what do you think I did last night, Lion, rob a bank?"
"¿Quién sake? I don't know everything you do," the Lion said innocently. "When you left me here you said you were taking the girl home. Did she ever arrive home?"
"Of course. I just came from there. I had coffee with Don Tomás."
"¡Ay, hijo! The old man. Are you sure the girl stayed at home when you left there?"
"Yes, I'm sure. Now stop your clowning and let me sleep. "
"And she isn't making a lump in that bed there now with you.
"Of course not."
The Lion pulled Kane's covers off him.
"Of course. The girl isn't here with you. But you had better get up and drink coffee with me."
"All right, since you won't let me sleep," Kane said. He dressed and went downstairs with the Lion. There were no policemen in Teresita's kitchen.
At five minutes to eight o'clock the Lion finished his coffee with noisy gusto and stood up.
¡Vámonos," he said. "Let's go and see what they want with you.
"Where are you taking him, Lion?" Teresita asked. "Let the man go to bed. He only just got home."
"We have to go and bring the car in. It ran out of gas early this morning when I went to see to the cattle. I left it outside town," the Lion said. Kane sighed. He had half-believed Chavarin's uncle, the Ministerio Público, wanted him.
"Here," Teresita said. "Wait a minute. I have a five-gallon can you can carry the gas in."
"Never mind," the Lion said. "There is a big can where we are going."
The Ford was exactly where Kane had parked it an hour before. They got in the car and the Lion said, "Surely they won't hold you in the can, Jim. They probably only want to interrogate you about something. They will release you as soon as they have your statement on what you did last night. " Kane now for the first time believed the Lion had not been playing a joke on him. The Lion drove straight to the comandancia.
"Go through that big door," he instructed Kane when he had parked in front of the old building. Kane looked at the Lion. "Aren't you going in with me?" he asked.
"I'd better stay out here in case they want me to move the car," the Lion said without looking at Kane.
Kane continued to look at him.
"Bueno, you don't want the Ministerio Público to get me too, do you?" the Lion asked. "Who would be outside to get us out of jail?"
"Exactly. What in the world could I have been thinking of? You are precisely right," Kane said and went inside the stationhouse. A well-fed policeman in sweat-stained khaki and large pistol belt stood behind a waist-high wooden fence that divided the room in half.
"Tell me," he said to Kane.
"They tell me the Ministerio Público wants to see me," Kane said.
"Ah, yes. You are the one the secrets were skulking after last night," the policeman said. "Sit down, please."
Kane sat on a long slat bench. Two more police came in with a very quiet-spoken, quiet-moving young man in huaraches.
"This is the one that stole the young girl," one of the huarachudo escorts said. Kane looked up in alarm but none of the police were looking at him. They were all looking at the huarachudo. The police behind the fence found a bale of papers and read from the top page.
"Are you Filomeno Amador Reyes?" he asked the huarachudo.
"I believe so," the young man answered.
"`Are you married civilly and by the church to Maria del Carmen Soliz?"
"I believe so."
"And on the nineteenth day of last month you took Josefina, called 'Chepina', Garcia, aged fourteen years, from her village of Batopilas, Municipio of Quiriego, to the ranch of
Pablo Amador, where you have held her until this date?"
"I believe so."
"Then you are the one who stole Chepina Garcia?"
"I believe so."
"Then you are going to jail for it because all of these complaints are signed by your wife and the parents of Chepina Garcia."
"I believe not," the huarachudo said and turned and started smoothly for the door. The two police grabbed his arms, pulled him over to the fence, and handcuffed him there. A bull-necked, bald-headed, brown-faced, stocky young man in a dark business suit came into the station. His new shoes were freshly shined. His gold cufflinks held his clean, white cuffs. He greeted the police and they all saluted him, fingers to brow. He examined the bale of papers, asked the prisoner who he was, and put the papers back across the fence on the desk.
"Prepare the consignment papers for this man," he said to the police across the fence.
"Si, Señor Ministerio,"the police said and saluted. The Ministerio turned and went through the gate in the fence. He said good morning to Kane when he passed. The police behind the fence intercepted him at the gate and said something in a low voice to him. The Ministerio turned to Kane and said, "Pase Usted," and held the gate open for Kane while he passed through. The Ministerio led Kane to an office on the patio in the center of the building and asked Kane to sit down. He sat behind his desk and perused his papers for a quarter of an hour before he finally spoke to Kane.
"Do you know Güero Chavarin?" he asked Kane.
"Your nephew? I know him well," Kane said.
"I asked that you be brought here so that I could help you settle your differences with the Güero in an informal manner."
"I was under the assumption the Güero and I had settled our differences very informally last night," Kane said.
"There are matters of personal injuries inflicted by you on the Güero to be regulated. There are matters of hospital and dentist bills."
"These matters I believe were settled when the Güero lost the fight he himself instigated."
"The Güero has made a complaint against you. He is willing to drop any charges against you if you will pay his hospital and dentist bills. When you drew blood from him it automatically made you guilty under Mexican law."
"I don't believe Mexican law is so unjust. The man provoked the fight that resulted in his hurts. I'l1 not pay twenty centavos to see him cured, nor would he have done so if I had been hurt."
"You won't?"
"Absolutely not."
"Correcto," the Ministerio Público said. "I only advise you it would be better and easier for all concerned if you would pay the bills and settle the matter."
"If it were easy for me to pay, I would pay it. It is not possible because I have neither the money nor the lack of principle to pay it. How much would pay his bills?"
"Only six thousand pesos. Four hundred eighty dollars American money. "
"I am sorry it cost him so much."
"He has bad damage to his mouth. His leg is broken. Also he lost a good shirt torn in the fight. "
"I can't even pay for the shirt."
"Then you won't con
sider paying?"
"Absolutely not. I am happy he retains the privilege. I could not have hoped my chingazo brought him so much fine trouble."
"Correcto," the Ministerio Público said with crisp finality. "Will you come with me, please?"
Kane followed him back to the police station.
"Wi11 you take this man to his hotel?" the Ministerio asked the two police who had brought in the unfortunate huarachudo. The police walked outside with Kane. The Lion was sitting on the fender of the Ford talking to two plainclothes police, probably the two secrets who had wasted all their time skulking after Kane.
"I have my car here," Kane said to the uniformed police who accompanied him. "I'll go back to my hotel in my car."
"We'll take you," one of the escorts said and they got on each side of Kane, bracketing him on a path to their car.
"¡Ah jodido!" the Lion said and he watched the police load Kane in the caged back seat of the squad car. The police drove the car in the direction opposite Teresita's restaurant.
The Bastille-like jail with its high walls and corner towers was in the village of Ladrillera outside Rio Alamos. Kane was led into an anteroom where a cheerful guard allowed him to empty his own pockets and put the contents into a manila envelope. The guard then misspelled Kane's name on the envelope and locked it away in a steel cabinet. He then manipulated his keys with great verve and led Kane through the first steel door, swung it shut, asked Kane to precede him down a concrete corridor, through another steel door, to a squat building in the center of a courtyard. The special place the guard had for Kane was in this building. This was the bullpen, the tank where the weekend drunks and brawlers were drying out and cooling off. The guard shook the keys musically in his hand, chose a key, opened the barred door, good-naturedly showed Kane the way in, and banged the gate behind Kane without telling him how long he was to be in there.
The bullpen was a square, concrete, low-ceilinged room with no windows and no furniture. Twenty men were in the pen besides Kane. Nearly everyone in the place was hungover and each of the hangovers had his turn being sick at one of the two seatless and waterless toilet bowls at the end of the pen opposite the door. The wash basin taps gave no water. The hangovers needed water for their morning-after thirsts. Kane was not hungover or thirsty but he was giddy from the drinks of so long ago the night before and the absolute sleeplessness.
