The Cotton-Pickers (20 page)

Just think of it. I’d got her good, sober husband into such a condition that even now after several hours’ sleep he was bleary-eyed and could hardly stand up straight. It’s unwise to go drinking with married men. It never does any good. They’re a race apart.

So I was quite relieved when Mrs. Pratt shoved her customarily sober husband into the Ford, seated herself behind the steering wheel, started up, and clanked off. That I was hired to go along with them didn’t seem to worry her — let the bum walk. But the thought of the fourteen miles from the station to the ranch gave me such impetus that, as Mrs. Pratt was turning onto the main road, I sprinted after the Ford and dove head first into the open trunk. My dive, however, hadn’t been deep enough to get all of me into the trunk, so that a good part of my length, legs and all, dangled outside. I suspect that the Indian workers along the way must have thought that I was a tailor’s dummy which Mrs. Pratt had picked up at the station; or they may have thought that Mrs. Pratt had run over me and was transporting me out of sight to the ranch to be buried there.

When we arrived at the ranch no one took any notice of me. Mrs. Pratt drove the Ford into a thatched barn and went into the house with her husband, leaving me still sticking part way out of the trunk. After a while I dragged myself out of my uncomfortable position and moved into the upholstered front seat.

When I awoke the sun was low. Whether it was rising or setting I didn’t know; I was a stranger here, trying to get my bearings, where the landscape seemed a bit unsteady.

“Hello, you down there, have you slept off your booze yet?” Mrs. Pratt called from the porch of the ranch house. “My old fool of a husband sure picked a fine type of man, I must say. I can just see you driving the cattle into the Panama Canal, you drunk! It’s good that there is a canal there, or we’d be chasing after you to Brazil, or wherever you wind up with them. Come in here now and have something to eat.”

I ate a little of everything so as not to upset the good woman still further. Mr. Pratt sat over his food and picked about in his plate, not looking up, acting as if he didn’t know me, grunting when I spoke to him. I knew the dodge, that he’d told his wife that I’d led him on, and that he was through with me, but that as he’d already incurred expenses on my behalf he’d send me off with the herd and have nothing more to do with me.

When Mrs. Pratt went out into the kitchen for a moment, he said: “Listen, my boy, be a good sport and play the game. It’ll all blow over by tomorrow. She’s not a bad sort; really, she’s a grand soul. Only she can’t stand drinking.” Suddenly his tone changed: “You shouldn’t have kept on asking me to drink to the President, to the national flag, and then to the cattle! I told you beforehand that I didn’t drink. But what could I do when you started drinking toasts? It wasn’t fair!”

Well, well, well. What? What was this — oh, Mrs. Pratt had come back into the room, so he was putting on his act. And he sure knew how to do it. He’d thundered out these last few words to such effect that Mrs. Pratt settled herself stiffly onto her chair, as if to say, “There you are, see what a decent guy my husband is. He drinks only out of patriotism, while with you — it’s pure depravity!”

After the meal we were graciously excused; I was shown to my bed and I lay down to sleep.

22

The following morning, immediately after breakfast, we saddled up and rode out to the prairie to see if I could pick out a horse for myself. These horses were born, bred, and raised out in the wide open; there was no horse stable on Mr. Pratt’s ranch. They were shaggy, long-maned and long-tailed, though rather small; and they galloped off at the mere scent of man.

Two or three times a year these horses were rounded up and driven into a corral close to the ranch. Here they were fed and watered, so as to get used to man; they were tied up, bridled, saddled, and eventually mounted before being turned loose again on the range. And thus, with patience and care, the horses were kept this side of remaining wild. The trainers were careful never to break the horse’s spirit, or hurt his pride, or curb his natural mettle.

I picked out a horse, neither the wildest nor the tamest, but one which looked as if it would stand the strenuous trek. We closed in on him, lassoed him, and took him back to the ranch, where I left him to his peace, tied to a tree. Later, I threw him some grain, which he ignored; then some fresh grass, which he likewise declined. So I let him go hungry and thirsty over night. In the morning, I brought him more grass; but he shied off, to the end of his rope. Then I put some water in front of him, which he immediately tipped over as he wasn’t used to drinking from a bucket, for he’d drunk only from streamlets and rain pools.

In time I made him, or rather his hunger made him, feed and drink; and so he came to associate food with my presence. Within two days I could come up to him and pat him gently on the back. He trembled, but after a while the trembling ceased. I could not, of course not, spend all my time with the horse, only moments when we came to the rancho for meals; meanwhile we were very busy cutting out the herd.

When the horse had become used to me, I put a bitless bridle on him, with a bridle strap fastened outside around his mouth. If a horse hasn’t been ruined by rough handling, you can ride him without any iron in the mouth; in fact, he responds wonderfully. The assumption that you can master a horse only if you tear its mouth open, or dig its sides raw with spurs, is utterly false.

At last I saddled him; and every time I came to the ranch to eat, I tightened the straps. At the same time I pressed the saddle and put weight on it as if I were going to mount. Then I let down the stirrups, so that they dangled freely and knocked against his flanks. Now I moved about as if to mount, by putting a boot in the stirrup. At the first attempt, he kicked and danced away; but in a few days he was well accustomed to the knocking and dangling of the stirrups. Then I jumped on, got one leg over the saddle, and jumped off again.

All this time the horse had been tied, sometimes on a long rope, sometimes on a short one. At last I ventured to mount. I blindfolded him and got into the saddle. He stood still and his whole body trembled. Quickly I jumped off, patted his neck and back, and kept up a flow of smooth talk. I mounted again. He turned, quivered, but danced and bucked only slightly; then he bumped against the tree, and so stopped altogether. I remained in the saddle and pressed my heels into his flanks. He became restless; but by now he realized that there was nothing to be afraid of, so I removed the blindfold. He looked about him. Still in the saddle, I spoke to him, patted him, reassured him.

Next I had to discover whether or not he was suitable for riding. From the first day I had been tapping him gently on the rump with a switch, to accustom him to this signal. One day I mounted him, and winked to a boy nearby to untie him. The horse stood still, having no idea of what was expected of him. I tapped him with the switch — nothing doing. Then he got a good sharp blow, and lo! he started off. I kept him under control, out on the prairie, where he could run freely. He ran, and even galloped, but I kept holding him back more and more, until he realized that this was a signal to stop or fall into a different gait. Through all this time of training, I managed to keep my patience, never to break his pride; and so this strong, shaggy three-year-old became a good horse. I called him Gitano, which means gypsy.

Whether in the long history of mankind a colt had ever been trained for riding in a similar way, I don’t know. Anyhow, the way I had done it produced lasting results, so my training system cannot have been so very wrong.

And now the herd had to be cut out. I possessed not the slightest notion what was meant by that and how it had to be done. Never in my life had I driven even as few as fifty cattle from one pasture to the next. Now, since Mr. Pratt was hawk-like, watching every move I made preparing the herd for the long march, I was forced to show off here and there. If you wish you may call it shameless bluffing. Perhaps you are right. If I had never tried bluffing at some critical occasions in my existence on earth I would have lost my life long, long ago.

My idea (if it was good or wrong, this I did not know) was to form a little group of the animals into sort of a family center of the whole transport, around which smaller groups might gather and thus keep together more naturally, since cattle belong to the species of animals who for many good reasons prefer to live in groups or herds, as do dogs, horses, wolves, elephants, antelope, zebras — also fish.

Meantime, we had started cutting out the herd. First, I cut out the bulls, looking for a leader bull. We drove the bulls into the cattle corral I had picked, and I let them go hungry. I continued putting the herd, the two and three-year-olds and the oxen, as well as the rest of the bulls, into another enclosure. I examined every one to make sure that it was healthy enough for the long trek; and all these were fenced into the field so that they might get the herd feeling. When I had three hundred head in that enclosure, I believed the bulls were ready.

We drove them into the field with the picked herd, and the battle for leader began. The bulls who were indifferent to the honor got themselves as far out of the way as possible, and the battle soon centered on five of them. The victor, still bleeding profusely, charged toward one of the cows in heat, who pushed her way toward him. We attended to all the wounded bulls immediately; and after the victor had spent himself and returned to his herd senses, he too got his medicine. For if the wounds weren’t treated promptly, they’d soon be full of maggots, and it’d be a long and tedious job getting them out.

Worms, maggots, and ticks are a big problem with any herd, anywhere, but worst of all in the tropics. And if cattle start losing weight, their skin dries out, and deadens, and the lean cattle are in danger of being eaten alive by worms and ticks. Healthy animals, however, are attacked only by limited numbers of pests which can easily be kept under control.

Once we had cut out the thousand head of cattle, Mr. Pratt, a very generous man, gave me five extra healthy ones as replacements for those five in a thousand who were certain to fall sick or fail to survive the long drive.

Then I was given a hundred pesos cash in silver for transport expenses, besides some checks I could cash in case of emergency, and I was also given the delivery note to the terminal pasture. Then Mr. Pratt handed me a map.

The less said about this map, the better. You can put anything you like upon a map: roads, rivers, villages, towns, grasslands, water pools, mountain passes, and plenty more. Paper is patient; it won’t refuse anything. But, though a river or a bridge appears on a map, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to find it where it is supposed to be.

It was a real joy to hear Mrs. Pratt swearing; every other word was “son-of-a-bitch,” “bastard,” or “f—ing,” and more in the same beautiful strain. On a rancho like theirs, it could be damned lonely, and the nights were long, so you couldn’t blame her for living her life as intensely as existence on a cattle rancho permitted. How else was the poor woman to use up the surplus energy, which, had she lived in a village or town, would have gone into chatting and gossiping with the neighbors all day? To her, everything was son-of-a-bitch; her husband, I, the Indians, the fly that dropped into her coffee cup, the Indian girl in the kitchen, her finger that she cut, the hen that fluttered on the table and upset the soup pot, her horse that moved too slowly — yes, every object between heaven and earth was to Mrs. Pratt a son-of-a-bitch.

They had a phonograph and we danced nearly every evening. For a number of reasons, I preferred to dance with the Indian kitchen maid; but Ethel, Mrs. Pratt, danced far better, and we got onto such good terms that one night she told me quite frankly in her husband’s presence that she’d like to marry me if her husband should die or divorce her.

She was a fine woman, Mrs. Pratt, she certainly was, and I wouldn’t hear a word against her. A woman who can handle the wildest horse, swear to make a sergeant major wince, a woman before whom tough vaqueros trembled and with whom bandits kept their distance, a woman who in the presence of her husband (whom she seemed to love) could quite soberly declare that she’d like to marry me if he died or left her — damn it, a woman like that could stir you even if you didn’t care much about the so-called weaker sex.

As we were leaving, Ethel Pratt stood on the long veranda and waved good-bye. “Good luck, boy! You’re always welcome on this rancho. Hey, Suarez, you dirty dog, you filthy son-of-a-goddamned-old-bitch, can’t you see that black one is breaking out? Where are your f—ing eyes? Well, boy, good-bye!”

I waved my hat, and Gitano swept off with me.

23

Yes, we were off. We broke out. The yelling, the shouting, the calling, the high-pitched shrieking of the Indians; the sound of the short-handled whips cutting through the air; the trampling of hoofs and all the uproar as a column of beasts shied off, rushed away, and had to be blocked in, lest it lost contact with the main herd.

The first day is always one of the hardest, so Mr. Pratt came along with us. The herd is still only loosely knit, and a sense of belonging together does not develop until the transport has been underway a few days, until the herd knows the leader bull and gets the smell of mutual kinship. Then the family feeling, rather the herd feeling, emerges and the animals want to stay with their herd.

But they didn’t stay together like a flock of sheep kept in order by a shepherd and a dog. For these cattle, born and raised on vast ranges among Mr. Pratt’s twelve-thousand-headed herd, were accustomed to space, and they wanted to spread out, run loose. The dogs we took with us couldn’t make much of a showing, for they tired easily and could be used only for small jobs. Thus it was a constant galloping back and forth, shouting and yelling.

I had a police whistle with me as a signal for the boys; the foreman had an ordinary whistle, easily distinguished from mine. I put the foreman at the head and I took the rear, as it afforded a better view of the field of transport, and it seemed easier to me to direct operations from there.