Jim Kane - J P S Brown (49 page)

"
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.

A young man came into the store. He waited and
watched Kane during these transactions. When Kane had finished paying
the cattlemen, the young man addressed him.

"
Señor, the judge sent me to see you and ask if
it would be convenient for you to come and talk to him. Felizardo
Trigueno has made a demand against you."

Kane and Ezequiel went to the judges office. The
judge was a stiff-bearded old man. He wore his straw hat and
huaraches in his chambers. He greeted Ezequiel cordially. "Now
what about Felizardo's charge?" he asked Jim Kane after Kane had
been introduced to him.

"
I don't know what he charges me with, Se
ñ
or
Juez," Kane said. "Ezequiel knows all about my dealings
with the man. I don't know what his complaint could be."

"
For example," Ezequiel began to recite
nervously, "he tried to cheat Señor Kane by forcing Señor Kane
to receive cattle Senor Kane had already rejected. He tried to cheat
by branding the cattle with Senor Kane's trail brand when Señor Kane
had already told him he didn't want the cattle. For example, he
didn't deliver the same cattle Señor Kane had seen in his pasture.
For example, after he had put Señor Kane's trail brand on the cattle
he tried to force Señor Kane to pay two hundred pesos a head more
than Señor Kane had offered him in the first place."

''Felizardo is a bad man," the old judge said in
a kindly, judicious tone. "How can we ever expect to attract
good businessmen here to Chinipas when men like Felizardo fall upon
them like bandits when they come here? Go on about your business and
forget about Felizardo. I will make him understand. "