Jim Kane - J P S Brown (54 page)

Beto said, "Don't get angry, we are all friends
here."

"
You may all be friends but I don't know any of
you and I don't love you, so kindly from now on keep your mouth off
me.

"You don't need to get angry," Beto said.
"If you don't want to play your horse, we won't have a horse
race."

"
My horse is not a plaything but I have one that
I play with and will run at you but not for little boys' marbles, for
twenty thousand pesos," Kane said, making the brag a bluff and
wondering if Pajaro could win a horse race and also wondering where
in the hell would get twenty thousand pesos.

"
Bring your horse and if we like him for an
opponent when we see him we'll run for ten thousand pesos next
Sunday," a fat little man yelled belligerently at Kane.

"
I can't run next Sunday, " Kane said.

"You are afraid," Fatty said.

"
Are you the only one who can set conditions for
a race?" Kane asked him. "It takes two horses to make a
race. You want me to drop everything I am doing and bring a horse to
show to you so you can decide whether or not you will race? You don't
want a race, you only want to scream insults."

"No one, except perhaps you, a gringo, is afraid
of a little horse race," Fatty said.

"
You look like the kind of agent anyone would be
afraid to deal with. But don't be mistaken about me. I will take you
on anytime and if I can't run you a horse race I can fight you a fist
fight and win it, " Kane said. Mariano Piedras had been standing
his horse nearby listening to the argument. Now he rode his horse
between Kane and the gang around Beto.

"Jim," Mariano said. "You are on the
wrong track. The
charros
are
waiting for you at the clubhouse." Kane did not want to push the
matter and spite Mariano. He and the Lion got in the car and went to
the clubhouse to have a drink. Mariano joined them there.

"
Be careful of this pack of bullies," he
told Kane. "'The little one you were arguing with, the little
fat one, is Gordo Toledo, a killer, a cutthroat, and a thief. He told
me he would cut out your guts tonight and I told him if he tried it I
would get my pistol and shoot him."

"
All this talk of pistols, knives, and gutting,
and
gringos
, is
getting old and makes me tired," Kane said. ''It is time to shut
the mouths and forget it."

The gang with Chavarin came into the clubhouse and
sat across the room at the long meeting table of the charros. Beto
was not with them. Two of them detached themselves and came over to
Kane's table. Mariano introduced them to Kane and the Lion as his
cousins.

"
Hombre, Jim," they said, and patted Kane
familiarly on the back, reminding Kane of the
pachoneo
before the tailing. "Don't get angry. We like
racehorses, that's all. We are not fighters? They excused themselves
then and went back to their bunch and started the insults again.

Mariano was tired from the competition of the day.
The few bottles of beer he drank slowed his thinking and relaxed him.
He sat loosely in his chair, his wide hat on the back of his head,
his legs stretched out in front of him. His brother
charros
came to the clubhouse to congratulate him on winning the
tailing and stayed to have beer with him. Mariano was holding forth
like a young prince who had won the joust. He was not aware that the
bunch at the long meeting table with Gordo Toledo and Chavarin were
laughing and making jokes about Mariano, Kane, and the Lion. The
jokes were all being directed at the two cousins, who were enjoying
them and were acting as sounding boards for the jokes. Mariano was
paying no attention to the voices of the bunch until Gordo Toledo
began raising his voice so that Mariano could hear him.

"
Mariano will be going to the United States now,
I suppose," Toledo said to the cousins.

"
Naturally," one of the cousins said.

"He always goes where his sister Adelita goes
and we hear Adelita is going to the United States with a
gringo
very soon," another cousin said.

"
She had better go before the little
gringo
inside her grows big enough to embarrass her,"
Gordo Toledo said.

Mariano grabbed a bottle and went at Toledo. The two
cousins intercepted him before he reached the table and held him,
trying to hold back the arm that held the bottle. He  dragged
them with him to the table and threw the bottle at Toledo. The bottle
smashed against the wall behind Toledo and sprayed beer on him.

"
Everyone at this table is my friend except you,
Toledo," Mariano shouted. "Cow thief! You have no shame,
you"—he pointed at Toledo over the heads of the cousins
holding him—"who have been caught in the act of stealing my
father's cattle. And my father forgave you. How can you come here to
my father's house and insult my sister? Cow thief! Son of a bad act."

The cousins led Mariano out of the clubhouse.

"
Do you know what I have been thinking?"
the Lion asked Kane.

"
What have you been thinking?" Kane asked,
feeling exceedingly good with the effects of the beer and the
prospects of a fight which he could not possibly lose because his
cause, the cause of Adelita Piedras, was a worthy and just cause. The
odds were exceeding right, eight to two, and Kane felt his companion,
the Lion, was a fine mace to fight beside.

"
I have been thinking that Gordo Toledo would be
the most likely person in Rio Alamos to tell us what happened to our
black-and-white
corriente
bull."

"
Exactly what I have been thinking, caballero,"
Kane said. Delight in the Lion's truth and profundity tickled Kane's
nostrils. "Probably if we rattle the teeth in that fat head we
might induce the Gordo Toledo to buy a black-and-white
corriente
from us sight unseen."

"
Yes, this is true," the Lion said.

"
Let's go rattle them," Kane said.

"
First we must plan the battle," the Lion
said. `'Notice how smoothly they removed Mariano from the field.
Notice also that Beto the vaquero did not come in. I know him and
know he would not pass up your challenge of this afternoon,
especially after he had time to think about it. Beto must be nearby.
He is probably outside and he is probably horseback. If he is
outside, Gordo Toledo and Chavarin want you outside where Beto can
handle you from on horseback. If you go outside and I don't go
outside with you we will have one advantage?

"
What advantage? Who needs an advantage against
these
mierditas
?"

"The advantage that I will come out behind them
while you occupy the front of them," the Lion said, barely
moving his lips.

"How cunning you are, Lion. Are all lions so
cunning?"

"
Only when they are old and toothless and have
worn and broken their claws," the Lion said.

Adelita Piedras came to the door of the clubhouse,
saw Kane, and walked to his table. Kane stood for her and gave her a
chair. She calmly sat down.

"
Lion, you must not stay here any longer,"
Adelita said.

"
Take Senor Kane with you and go back to Rio
Alamos. That Beto is horseback outside bragging he is going to rope
Señor Kane and drag him into the
monte
for all of them to get a piece of him."

"Don't worry about Jim," the Lion said. "No
one is going to hurt him. We have business with these men. They owe
us for a bull. None of this concerns you."

"
It does concern me. I invited you here. I am
going to leave here and I want you to leave with me."

"
Adelita, you should not have come here. We
don't need you to shield us," Kane said.

"
You do not know these men," the girl said
intensely. "Why do you wish to fight with them? What could you
win? They have been planning to get you all day. They planned and
bragged all through the
charreada
this afternoon about dragging you to the brush and
stripping you and beating you up and doing other things to you."
 
"
Ah, the evil fellows," said
Kane, laughing. "I know what they plan to do because I heard
them talking as did everyone else around them. I told them to leave
you alone," Adelita said.

"
Ah, thank you so much, girl," Kane said.
"You see, your protection was to no avail. Don't feel too badly.
They wouldn't be getting a virgin."

Adelita stood up behind her chair then, looked Kane
straight in the eye and said, "Do as you like." She strode
out of the room, her horsewoman's legs swinging, the hips in rhythm,
the hand with the bracelets brushing her thigh.

"
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.