Jim Kane

J P S Brown
1970

For my Mother,
Mildred Rex Sorrels Brown

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of
irrational things,
lmbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes,
less important than I thought.
Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the
Tennessee, or far north or inland,
A rioir man, or a man of the woods or of any farm—ly'e of
these
States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada,
Me wherever my life is lived, O to be sewbalanced for
contingencies,
To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents,
rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
--Leaves of Grass
WALT WHITMAN

Contents
BOOK I

1 The Flight
2 Bed and Saddle
3 The Colts
4 The Stampede
5 Frontera
6 The Banker
7 Gunga Din
8 Afoot
9 The Sale
10 The Commission
11 Rio Alamos
12 A New Country
13 The Patriarch
14 A Man From the Monte
15 The Weaning
16 Brahma

BOOK II

17 The Charreada
18 The Dance
19 The Sierra Madre
20 Merry Gentlemen Resting
21 The Husbandman
22 The Circle
23 The Brown-and-White Spotted Aristocratic Corriente

BOOK III

24 Onza
25 The Eagle
26 Chinipas
27 Creel
28 Rajén
29 The Tailing
30 The Trago
31 Bullpen
324 The Drive
33 The Horse Killers
34 Cuiteco
35 The Cuidadores
36 Quarantine
37 Settlement
38 Big Country

BOOK ONE

1
The Flight

An arriero is a driver of animals. A drover. If a man herds a bunch of cattle or a remuda of horses or drives a packtrain of mules or one burro loaded with Firewood, he is an arriero, Arrieros usually are horseback. A person who drives a car is not called an arriero but a good saying has been passed down from the time when there were no cars. With this phrase a man might answer politely, with meaning, a lady who thanks him for fixing her flat tire: "Arrieros somos. En el camino andamos. Algun dia nos encontramos." "We are drovers. We travel the road. Someday we are bound to meet."

Guadalajara, Jalisco, is one thousand miles from Frontera, Sonora, on the U.S. border. Jim Kane hoped that he wasn't going to be rained on every mile of the way. He loved rain the way any man who had been raised on a droughty ranch in Arizona loved rain. But Jim Kane was on this road to Frontera in the rainy season of September with five truckloads, fifty head, of Mexican Appaloosa horses he had bought in Guadalajara. The trucks had been under continuous cloudburst for ten hours from Guadalajara to Acaponeta and now, at 3 A. M., were stalled in Acaponeta because none of the town's gas stations were open.

Kane climbed into the back of a truck and tried once again to help the old mare to her feet. She was down in six inches of mud, manure, urine, and rainwater with her head wedged in  a forward comer. She was on her side with her legs doubled against the rack of the truck. Kane pushed against the mass of horseflesh around her to make room so he could drag the old mare out of the comer by the tail. The black rain redoubled and the whole storm seemed to Kane to be funneled into the truck onto his bare head and bare back. The horses hunched their backs against the storm and bowed their heads under each other's bellies and would not budge for Kane. He gave up and climbed over the rack and jumped to the ground. He washed manure and mud off himself from a deep puddle of rainwater on the ground by the truck. He opened the door of the cab and got his dry shirt and leather jacket from under the head of the sleeping driver. He got his hat from the top of the seat and walked over to the shelter of the gas station the trucks were parked by. He sopped the water off himself with a handkerchief already wet from being in his hip pocket. He put on his shirt, jacket, and hat and lit a cigarette.

A goddam gully-washer, he thought. Just what we need. A toad-chokin', horse-drownin', frog-stranglin', snake-floatin' gully-washer. Cowboys in the dry country would be happy to call a rain like this names like that. We went years on the ranch where I grew up when it didn't seem to rain as much as it has rained on me in the last hour. I only weighed a hundred pounds when I was fifteen years old I was so dried out. When we finally starved out completely my dad traded one hundred and eighty square miles of drought country for a thirty-room auto court in the cool pines near streams and lakes of cold water so he could live out the rest of his life in a place where he could have a sweet drink of water any time he wanted one. Now I'm thirty years old, weigh two hundred pounds, and a gully-washer is putting me out of business.

One of the drivers of the five stock trucks, a tall, energetic young man with mussed hair and eyes that were trying to come awake too soon, said "Buenos días" to start his day and came over and began pacing around the station. He stopped by the window of the office and cursed.

"Someone is in there," he told Kane. He pounded loudly on the door. "He's alive! Wake up!" he shouted, and pounded again.

The master of the nightwatch of the Acaponeta station came to the door buttoning his pants.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Gasoline, what else?" the tall driver said.

"We are closed, " the master of the station said.

"Well, open up," the tall driver said.

"How much gasoline do you want?"

"The five tanks of the trucks. You sell gasoline, don't you?"

The master of the station finished displaying his act of buttoning his pants before the customers he might or might not serve and turned back into the office and switched on the lights of the station. Kane went to the truck he rode in and roused his driver, a short, solemn little man. The driver drove the truck up beside the pumps. The stationmaster came out stuffing a huge .45 automatic pistol into his belt. He shuffled around the truck to the pumps, stopped, looked at the pumps, and turned to Kane.

"Do you want that of a peso or that of eighty centavos?" he asked.

"Peso gas," Jim Kane said.

The attendant turned back, shifted the pistol to a more comfortable position between the belt and the large belly,cranked the pump, and filled the truck's tank with gas. He kept squirting the nozzle after the tank was full and gas belched onto the pavement. He squirted the nozzle again for good measure. This last squirt also ran out onto the pavement. Now he was sure the tank was full. He screwed the cap back on the tank and hung the hose on the pump.

Kane was in the dry cab of the truck and the caravan was headed up the road again when he felt that he might, possibly, be a fool. He thought, no one rides horses anymore and here I am with all my stake invested on this road in fifty head of scraggy, stunted studs, mares, and colts that will look so bad when I get them to the U.S. that no one but me will want them. I am their husband and I'd better be in love with them because I'm probably going to be stuck with them for quite a while until someone else can see how a buck can be made on them. By that time I will be broke again. I will be a day late and a dollar short again.

This had been the suspicion eating at him since he had turned loose the money for the old mare and now it took a big bite out of him. He did not state this suspicion to himself often but it was an empty-pockets feeling he got when he thought of his future with the horses. Not the feeling of being broke a man had when he had a job and was earning only a little money but the feeling of physical loss a man kept after he had lost a full pocket of money. Kane had brought $5,000 with him to Mexico to buy these horses. Now he had the horses and only $80 in his pocket and the freight paid to Frontera. His dad had once told him because he loved him, "Stay out of the horse business, Jim Kane."

No, Jim Kane said to himself. I also heard my dad swear once that he would never trade another horse, buy another Brahma steer, run another horse race, or marry again and within six months of that oath he had committed all four of those mistakes again. I am going to find a big demand for fifty-inch-tall Appaloosa horses instantly on arriving with them on the border. I am going to sell for a profit so big I will be able to come back down this road again and buy twice as many of these colorful little horses. These little horses will make me independent in my pursuit of happiness and give me extra money for singing and dancing along the way. After all, who else has ever done this? I am the first. No one in the horse business knows that central Mexico is full of little Appaloosas. The ponies are just the right size for twelve- to sixteen-year-old kids. They have the greatest variety of color of any Appaloosas I have ever seen. How about that blue and white polka-dotted stud riding in the third truck up there ahead of us? They are not dwarfy like the Shetland or the Welch ponies. They have full manes and tails, not ratty ones like the U.S. Appaloosas. Just let's look at it this way, have faith in the way these little horses will charm the Western riders club members and their twelve- to sixteen-year-old kids.

Yes, and faith is what Don Quixote had when he was battling giants as he tilted with the windmill. And he promised Sancho Panza that after the battle he would be rich enough so that he would be able to give Sancho a dukedom or at least an earldom.

No. Keep faith. You have to now. You married these horses so now stay with them. The trouble with you is you are tired.

The rain was misty now in the daylight under the solid clouds as the trucks went on up the road. A slender man in his loose white garments and stiff-brimmed straw hat stepped out of the broad-leafed jungle by the road to walk out of the mud onto the pavement. He carried a machete and he walked in his tire-soled huaraches looking straight ahead and not looking at the trucks as they streamed by him spraying a coarse mist with their tires. He was going to work early. Kane envied the man because he was walking freely and unpreoccupied in a simpler pursuit of his happiness than Kane. After the trucks had passed the man, Kane thought, maybe soon I'll have myself a little place down here to raise these little horses and I'll have a man like that to help me.

In the morning the man will go one way walking in that free, graceful placing of his huaraches and I'll go another way horseback. I'll look over my mares and see if that final sorrel mare has foaled yet. I'll fix some fence and make a circle looking for jaguar tracks to see if any have been around the mares in the night. In the evening I'll ride back to the house through a forest of nopal so thick I won't be able to see the house until I am in the clearing. At the corral I'll take a dusty foot out of the stirrup and get down off my horse and call my son, when and if I have one, to me to help me unsaddle. He'll tell me in fine Spanish how he and the dog captured an iguana but the dog had fatally wounded the iguana and it had only just finished dying. The man who helps me will return at about that time and discuss the capture of the iguana with me and the boy and give a quiet observation about the habits of iguana which I will remember the rest of my life. The boy will remember it longer because he will have a longer life and I will have learned about the iguana much later in life than he did.

The sun was out on the road and an iguana, an ancestor of the animal Jim Kane's boy would one day capture, speared his way across the road in front of the truck Kane was riding in. He was a long, emerald streak. His long tail, held high at the base, seemed to lift him and rudder him as he flew an inch above the dark, water-shiny pavement. Many other iguanas, not as wise or as fast as Kane's boy's iguana's ancestor, had been caught by the tires of machines on the road and were no longer jewel-like living spears but were now muddy grease spots.

The man, the boy, and I will go to the house and sit down at a table under the porch. My wife, when and if I ever have one, will bring us hot coffee while we talk over what became of the day. The boy will drink one-third coffee and two-thirds hot milk and plenty of sugar. The man will have half and half and plenty of sugar. I will have mine black with no sugar and I won't have to tell my wife how to brew it as I will love just the way she does it. I will love her more each time she does it because she loves to do it so much.

Maybe she will have a dogied horse colt she is raising on a bottle because a jaguar got his mother. This colt might be living by the kitchen door, still weak and too timid to fight the many flies around his eyes, while the man and I discuss how we are going to get the tigre that killed the colt's mother. The boy and his mother, together, will put salve on the colt's eyes.

We will not use poison on the tigre, we say, we want more vengeance than that. We'll let the blood out of him and have him killed close to us so we can get his hide to hang on the wall. That is the only honorable way to kill a tigre on his way to putting us out of business. A tigre like that, a killer of the gentle, an acebado, would be the only kind of tigre I would ever kill. The man will excuse himself after this discussion and say he wants to go home a different way to cut for the jaguar's tracks before dark. Inside, while I'm lighting the lamps and getting ready for supper, I'll consider that a man like the one who is helping me is surely a fine man.

Jim Kane slept for more than a hundred miles and woke up to another heavy rain. The road was deeper under water and the trucks had slowed. They came to Culiacan in the night. The city was dark, probably from a power failure caused by the storm. At the edge of town, the authorities directed the trucks  across the river through the water because they were not confident of the strength of the bridge. In the dark town in the black rain the people waded in a foot of water on the sidewalks in the lights of the trucks going by. When the trucks stopped for gas, Kane undressed in the cab and climbed into the back of the truck in his shorts and boots to see if he could help the old mare back to her feet. She was still down in the corner in the muck. The other mares around her had not done her much damage by stepping on her since horses naturally hate stepping on any living thing. But her own efforts had hurt her. She had banged her head so much against the comer of the rack in her efforts to get up that both her eyes were grotesquely swollen. Kane worked with her while the trucks were serviced and the drivers ate their supper, but he failed to help her. Anyone would say she would be no great loss. She was an old canela, cinnamon-colored, mare. She was parrot-mouthed and dead of hair but she had a fine filly colt. The filly was a wide-chested, straight-legged colt and she had a clean, white blanket over her rear with purple spots on the blanket. The mama had come along only because the filly was too young to wean.

Kane had six mares like the old canela. All were making this trip because they had that one, saving grace; they had given birth to fine offspring that needed them. Kane was sure the old mares wouldn't bring four bits when their colts were weaned. Anyone could tell him that. But Kane liked them. They would be called a bad investment but he wasn't sorry to be husbanding them. They looked like Don Quixote's Rocinante. They were peak-hipped, fork-legged, cow-hocked, calf-kneed, slack-lipped, and sparse of hair. Yes, but look how far and with how willing a heart Rocinante carried Don Quixote. It wasn't Rocinante's concern that Don Quixote was a madman. If Rocinante had been well fed and nicely groomed for it he might very well have served Richard the Lionhearted. He certainly had the heart for it. So how does jousting with grown men require any finer or more noble an effort than jousting with windmills to a horse like Rocinante? The old cinnamon mare was still trying her best to get up onto her own feet and make a living after thirty hours of being down in the muck. Kane still felt she might get up if he had some help and a dry, sunny day.

"Pheeootah!" the little driver said when he got back to the truck. "How you stink, man!" He found a clean cloth_and wiped the manure and water off the seat covers in the cab.

"These are my new seat covers, man," he said, folding the cloth carefully and putting it back in its place under the seat.

"They clean easily, don't they?" Kane said, laughing at him. The driver didn't answer but started the motor and let the truck idle and stared at his lights through the rain while the other trucks started up and pulled away from the station. By noon the next day they were in Guaymas. The sun was out and the temperature was close to one hundred and ten degrees with not a breath of air moving when the trucks stopped in Guaymas for gas.

Kane got his driver and the tall driver to help him with the old mare. He climbed into the slop with all his clothes on because it was Sunday and the station was crowded with people,. He tied a rope around the old mare's girth and threw it over a beam that ran across the center of the truck above the rack. He pulled on the rope and the two men on the ground held the slack over the beam. When he and the two men had lifted the mare three feet off the deck, Kane got under her with his back against her belly and lifted her to her feet. He stepped out from under her. The old mare swayed on her own feet. Her eyes were swollen as big as softballs. The hair on her side and hips had been scalded off by the hot, briny muck. She looked like an old; abused praying mantis but she was standing again. She had been down in that corner for forty hours. She breathed a deep sigh.

Kane climbed down off the rack, proud of the old mare. He didn't care that he was covered with the hot slime she had been lying in.

"You are not riding in my truck on my new seat covers as nauseating as you are now," the little driver said to Jim Kane. Kane smiled at him, not believing him, and reached for the door handle.

"No," the driver said and when Kane looked at him he saw the man was unhappy. He did not share Kane's sense of accomplishment. He did not consider Kane fit company on the road anymore. He was not going to be a Christian about Kane's filthiness.

"What is your problem?" the tall driver asked the little driver. "I suppose you think you are going to leave the man here?"

"It is not my problem what happens to him," the little driver said solemnly. "Not even his own mother would ride with him."

"Stupid! It is only a little manure of a horse. Horses have clean manure. You act as though you never saw a little manure before."

"Only a little manure? Look in the back of my truck. A ton of mierda and urines of a horse. I won't stand for any of it inside my cabin. We have been fifty hours on the road now with very little sleep because we have not been able to stop long enough because we are hauling these ghosts and they might die on the road. And now this man wants to deposit more slop inside my cabin. No. I'm sorry. If he likes it so much he can ride in the aback with his beasts. He is not riding with me. I am not a beast.

"Of course you're not. I can't stand it any longer myself, " Kane said. "Pardon me, I have been in too much of a hurry. Wait a few minutes and I'll clean up." He got his suitcase and went to the men's room and washed and changed. When he got back to the truck the little driver had spread rags over the seat to make sure Kane didn't dirty his seatcovers anymore.

The old cinnamon mare stayed on her feet to Hermosillo, where Kane unloaded the horses and fed and rested them in the stockyards of the Cattleman's Union for a night and a day.  She stayed on her feet all through the next night to Frontera. She walked off the truck under her own power at the Cattleman's Union corrals in Frontera and Kane's investment in her and the other forty-nine head was still intact.

The next day the American veterinarians took blood samples of the horses. Kane caught them one by one and held them while the vets bled them. The samples would be sent to
Washington, D.C., to be tested for infectious diseases of horses.

The temperature was one hundred and five degrees, heavy clouds were building up, and the humidity was high. The vets chose the hottest time of the day to work the horses, the time of Mexican siesta between noon and 3 P.M.

After Kane had roped and eared down the thirty-sixth of his fifty horses for the vets, he began seeing everything in the corral from the end of a long, dark tunnel. He caught the thirty-seventh horse, a five-year-old bronc stud. He was leading the stud through a gate when the stud spooked and ran over the top of Kane. Kane had a trick knee, a knee that had been operated on but had not been remedied by the operation. The stud ran into that knee and knocked Kane down. The knee responded by going numb and then catching fire, a white fire that matched the white suffocation of the day in the corral. The vets and their helpers stood in the shade of the ramadas and watched Kane pick himself up and catch the stud again. He led the stud to the shade. He hung on to the stud's ears as though they were handlebars and got hold of one of the ears with his jaw teeth.

He was watching the vet, an old man with a very unsteady hand, trying to find the vein in the throat with the needle. The tunnel he had been seeing everything through for the past thirty minutes began to lengthen and narrow. All he could see now was the man's hand, the syringe, and the place in the horse's neck where he was trying to jab the needle. Then all Kane could see was the needle and the dirty thumb punching and probing the neck for the vein. The poor little stud was so thin that not much blood was coursing there. Then all that was left to see was the old, trembling thumb of the vet. Kane forgot about the corral and left it and went sailing far away from the tight hold he had on the stud. He passed out and vets hauled him to the hospital with heat exhaustion.

Before he recovered in the hospital, Will Ore, the broker, came to visit him with the results of the blood test of his horses. Will Ore specialized in the import and export of livestock. He had corrals on the Arizona side of the border. He was from Oklahoma and like most dark-complexioned men from that state did not deny his Indian blood. He had a tendency to get fat but running the corrals and chasing cattlemen and Mexican politicians kept him worn down to a frazzle. His good humor kept the frazzle from tearing off at the ends.

He told Jim Kane that all the old mares like the cinnamon mare had tested out clean and healthy but four of the best mares were suffering from durine, a venereal disease of horses.

That is, they had been suffering before Will had shot and burned them by order of the American vets. He had also removed and burned all the manure in the corral the horses had occupied. Kane was going to have to pay Will for the removal of the manure and the complete disinfecting of all the fences and troughs. A padlock had been snapped on the corral and the horses had been put under quarantine for thirty days. They would be bled again in fifteen days and again when their quarantine was over. If the two tests showed that the remaining horses were healthy, they would be free to cross the border into the U.S. after the thirty day quarantine.

"Boy, you have been catastrophed," Will Ore said, laughing at Kane, who up to that moment had been having a good time resting in the hospital.

"I should take on a relapse and stay in bed. You shouldn't come here with news like that," Kane said.

"Don't relapse until you cross your horses and pay me for burning the mares and disinfecting the corrals. Boy, how did you get into this kind of mess?"

"Bad luck," Kane said.

"I only hope you aren't in for twenty years of bad luck like a Chinaman. They say a Chinaman's real bad luck lasts for twenty years," Will Ore said.

"Don't worry. I'll have plenty of buyers looking at the horses in these thirty days. They are too poor to sell now anyway. This will give me a chance to put a little meat on their bones. I'll probably have them sold to someone by the time they cross the border. A lot can happen in thirty days."

"Yeah, and a lot of bad can happen to you in three days. I've seen that," Will Ore said. "Your banker came to my office. He had heard of your bad luck. I didn't tell him anything, though."

"Hell, I don't care. Tell him the truth if he asks you again. He has a right to know. We're partners."

"It looks like you and I are partners too. I've spent a lot of money myself on your horses and I'll have more in them when they cross. How much do you owe the banker?"

"Only my left eyeball but the note isn't due for six weeks," Kane said.

2
Bed and Saddle

The roundup was over and the cattle were shipped and old John was standing outside the bus depot with his bed and saddle on the sidewalk beside him.
"Where you headed, John?" I asked him.
"Don't know," said John, looking down at his old, scuffed, runover boots like a kid.
"You get fired, John?"
"You might say we split the partnership?
"How so, John?"
"He took the land and cattle and I took my bed and saddle," old John said and smiled.

When Kane was released from the hospital he drove out to the Keys ranch. The ranch lay about ten miles outside Phoenix off the Black Canyon Highway.

Bob Keys and his son were raising dust in the corrals when Kane drove up. They were branding burros. Kane got out of his car and walked up to the corral fence.

"Is this the whole extent of the livestock the Keys are running now?" he asked.

Bob Keys was riding a big black horse.

"This is it, the last of the ten thousand. How are you, Jim?" Bob Keys said and offered his hand from atop the black. Kane stretched over the fence and took it.

"What are you going to do with the burros? Kane asked.

"I really don't know, to tell the truth. They are left from the time I had the sheep. The herders used them for pack animals. When I sold the sheep I kept the burros out of sentiment. Now they are multiplying like rabbits and getting wild."

Jimmy Keys walked up to the fence coiling his rope.

"Hello, tocayo, namesake," Kane said, shaking his hand.

"¿Qué hubo, tocayo?" Jimmy Keys said.

"Is this the crew?" Kane asked Bob Keys.

"Jimmy is the cowboy, horse rider, burro roper, and burro brander," Bob Keys said. "I'm only helping him on a part-time basis. I'm not ordinarily a burro roper by trade."

"Dad feels burro branding is beneath him," Jimmy said. "He ropes them for me and then gives them slack so they can run over me. Then he laughs."

"Let's have some coffee," Bob Keys said.

"I'll go for it," Kane said.

They walked over to the shack and sat down in the shade. The September weather was dry. The desert was hot. Jimmy Keys got the makings of the coffee, stuffed the little stove full of mesquite wood, and put on the coffeepot. Cars and trucks zoomed up and down the Black Canyon Highway a mile away. The traffic seems closer now, doesn't it?" Kane said.

"That stream of traffic goes on day and night. Never lets up," Bob Keys said.

"Soon they'll think up a reason for a four-lane highway that will pass between this shack and the corral," Jimmy said. "Instead of running burros and cattle we'll set up a curio shop and run tourists."

"They are trying to get a big piece of this ranch for a city garbage dump," Bob Keys said.

"Can they do it?" Kane asked.

"Well, the city is trying to get it. We've been fighting it over a year. This is state lease land, you know. Once they get the dump it's good-bye Keys desert ranch, They'll take more of the ranch as the city grows."

"Don't they need beef as the city grows?"

"They come out here and see a bunch of burros and a very few cattle and they say the land is no good for anything but wild burros anyway."

"Hell, someone ought to tell them burros have a right to a living too," Kane said, laughing.

"I'd like to turn that spotted burro in on some city councilman's front room. That jackass is a catastrophe," Jimmy said. "He ran over me like he was a train and I was a rail. I thought he never was going to go on by."

"This is the best winter country for our horses. Besides that, I run three hundred head of steers here every winter," Bob said.

"Do you still have those colts for me to break?" Kane asked.

"I have the eight head I asked you to break. I didn't expect you until next month."

"I'm ready to take them now."

"Good. We'll get the colts up for you in the morning."

"I'll be back tonight or in the morning. "

"Bueno, I'm glad you'll be with us, Jim. You don't need anything but your bed and saddle. You'll find everything else you need here."

Kane drove to the Considine cattle auction in Phoenix, a good place to snoop around for buyers for his horses. His Uncle Herb Kane was in the office. Uncle Herb was dressed in his good suit with its vest and watch chain. He was standing in his old, dark, well-polished boots and was covered by his almost impeccable one-hundred-dol1ar stetson. His black hair was silver-white at the temples. He was slim and natty in his suit. The two men shook hands and sat down in red leather easy chairs in the office.

"You look good, Tio Herb," Kane said. A line of sunlight from the window shone through Uncle Herb's hatbrim. "What's wrong with your hat?"

Uncle Herb took his hat off and inspected it. "You mean the hole?" he asked. "I burned it with a cigarette coal. I carved the burned place out with my knife."

"Sure is a good-looking hat."

"It's been cleaned about forty times."

"You always wear nice hats."

"You could have it if it would fit you but it won't fit you anymore. Your head is too big now."

"Don't want it anyway. It's got a hole in it. What have you been doing, Uncle Herb?"

"I just crossed some Mexican bulls and oxen through El Paso. I guess I'll bring them to this auction. If they do all right I'll go to Chihuahua and get some more this winter cómo siempre, like always. What are you doing here, Black Man?"

"I've come to look for a horse buyer to bail my horses out of Mexico, " Kane said. "Are you in the market for any studs, mares, and colts, Uncle Herb?"

"Mexican studs and mares?" asked Uncle Herb.

"Appaloosa Mexican studs and mares."

Uncle Herb laughed and shook his head at Kane. "No," he said, and laughed again.

"There's a demand for those little horses," Kane said, wanting his Uncle Herb to believe him because if Uncle Herb believed him he would be better able to hope himself

"Where are the horses from?" Uncle Herb asked.

"I bought them in the country around Guadalajara."

"Does it still rain as much down there as it used to this time of the year?"

"These horses were standing knee deep in water when I bought them."

"Did you buy them all in one place?"

"No. I bought them two or three at a time over a period of three months."

"You must have quite a bit of expense in them by now."

"About a hundred dollars a head laid in Frontera."

"Frontera, Arizona, or Frontera, Sonora?"

"Sonora."

Uncle Herb looked away from Kane and said, "The deal might be all right. I don't know anything about the horse business," and Kane knew if his horses didn't lose him all his stake it would be a miracle.

He thought, a miracle like the Jews fleeing Egypt and escaping the Pharoah's troops. My little horses were just like the sick, lame, and starved Jews in their flight from Egypt. I was Moses. My horses were the Chosen People following me with faith in the Promised Land. We were granted the miracle, though. We got through the Red Sea. That was at least a sea of rain we went through. Maybe the miracles won't stop on the very frontier of the Promised Land. Just so we don't lose faith and start worshipping the golden calf. Tell that to my partners.

"Your deal might work," Uncle Herb said, encouraging Kane. He could see his nephew was in trouble. "No one can tell what people would buy these days. There certainly never has been or ever will be a steady market for horses. A person might give you a thousand dollars for a horse that I wouldn't give five dollars for."

"I have hopes the deal will work. All my hopes are in those horses now."

"I hope you make out all right with them," Uncle Herb said, rubbing his face all over with the palm of his hand. When he had finished rubbing he looked at Kane out of a fresh, cheerful face. "Come on, Black Man, I'll buy you lunch," he said.

He took Kane to the Cattleman's Club near the auction. The place was decorated in the plush reds and crystal chandeliers of the Gay Nineties. They laid their hats down on the counter for a girl to put away on a pile with all the other hats of cattlemen eating lunch. A tall rawboned girl came walking across the room to wait on Kane and his Uncle Herb when they had sat down. She walked like she was stepping across rows in a plowed field.

"Hello, Little Town," Uncle Herb said.

"Hello, Mr. Kane," Little Town said.

"What's good to eat for me and my nephew?" Uncle Herb said.

"I know what's good for you, Mr. Kane," the girl said. She looked at Kane. "This man had better have rare steak."

"You want a beer, Black Man?" Uncle Herb asked.

"You bet, " Kane said.

"And two beers," Uncle Herb told Little Town. When she came back with the beer Uncle Herb asked her, "Why do they call you Little Town, Little Town?"

"I'm from the Little Town," the girl said.

"And what do they raise in Little Town?" Uncle Herb asked, winking at Kane.

"Cattle and kids," Little Town said. She tapped Uncle Herb on the shoulder and went on about her business.

"That was our ritual," Uncle Herb said.

"How has my sorrel horse been doing, Uncle Herb?" Kane asked while they were eating their steaks.

"Now, there is a horse I'll buy from you. I bet he weighs thirteen hundred pounds. I wish I had about five just like him."

"Have you been using him?"

"No. I just rode him around the ranch some. I didn't try to work cattle on him. Has he seen a cow?"

"One or two. I cut cattle a whole year on him before I ever roped one off him."

"He ought to be a good horse then."

"After a fashion. He's the best horse I ever rode if that is worth anything?

"I'll take him."

"You can use him all you want," said Kane, embarrassed he might have to turn his Uncle Herb down if he asked for the horse.

"No. I'll let you use him a lot more before I try to do anything on him. He might buck me off. He feels too good."

"I'll borrow your trailer and take him away this afternoon," Kane said.

"Where are you taking him?" Uncle Herb asked.

"Out to Bob Keys's. I'm going to break some colts for him."

"You taking a bunch of pissheads to break?"

'`Yeah."_

"My Cod."

They ate in silence for a moment. Kane's eye fell on Uncle Herb's tieclasp. The clasp held a silver Longhorn steerhead hanging by two tiny silver ropes. One of the steer's ruby eyes was out.

"That sure is a nice tieclasp," Kane said.

"It's old. It lost one of its rubies. I've had it forty years."

"I sure like it. It looks good on you."

"¡Ah, cómo chingas!" Uncle Herb snorted. He took the clasp off and handed it to Kane. "Take it, " he said.

"Hell, I don't want to take your forty-year-old tieclasp," Kane said, taking it.

"I'm tired of it. I don't want it anymore," Uncle Herb said.

"I don't need a tieclasp for riding pissheads, do I?"

"You might go to a fancy whorehouse sometime, or a funeral."

"I'll tell you what, Tio Herb. I'll wear it when I'm riding my pissheads. Every day I'll put on a tie and my new tieclasp before I go saddle my first colt. That way you'll know you've got a nephew who wears a tie to work. "

"You'd better save it so they can put it on your tie at the funeral after your pissheads finish with you."

They finished lunch and went back to the auction. Kane left Uncle Herb in the office talking business with some other traders and went to the sales ring. He sat down and watched the bidding on several bunches of cattle. He talked to men he knew, trying to find a buyer for his horses. Some of the men gave him names of horsemen he might call.

When Kane was ready to leave, Uncle Herb was still talking business with the traders so Kane just waved good-bye to him and left. Uncle Herb was so engrossed in his business he hardly noticed Kane leave.

Kane drove out to his Uncle Herb's corrals. The Mexican bulls Uncle Herb had crossed at E1 Paso were in five big lots in the corrals. They were big-horned bulls, and oxen. They had big frames, plenty of warehouse for plenty of feed, and they were every color of the rainbow. Kane's sorrel horse, Pajaro, was in a small, shaded pen by himself The horse had grown since May when Kane had left him to go to Jalisco. His hair was short and shiny and when Kane climbed into the corral he snorted and bucked and kicked and pranced around the corral. Kane caught him and loaded him in Uncle Herb's trailer and pulled the trailer behind his car to Bob Keys's ranch.

3
The Colts

Caballero se deriva de caballo
Que este nombre
Ha dado el caballo al hombre
Mira en qué principio estriba.
—Spanish proverb

"Caballero means gentleman horseman. The word is derived from the horse. The horse gave this name to the man. A fine foundation." No one who was ever raised with horses and learned to do his work horseback will ever feel quite so complete a man afoot as he does horseback. A horseman also believes that the horse is never complete without the work of a man to do.

The desert was cool when Kane and Bob and Jimmy Keys rode out to bring in the colts Kane was to break. Kane was riding Pajaro. The horse was happy to be working again. His small pin ears flickered from Kane to the trail ahead, anticipating Kane's job for him. The big horse carried his head perpendicular to the ground, his neck bowed with no pressure from the reins. His legs made a V from his forelegs and his thighs to the points where his hooves struck tracks on the ground. The wide, muscular shoulders between Kane's knees glinted with short, red-gold hair in the morning sun.

The men found the colts and corraled them by midmorning. When the colts had quieted, Kane stepped into the corral and looked them over. He stood in the center of the corral and presented himself to them. Five of the colts were curious. They took hesitant steps toward him, nodding their heads at him, taking as much of his scent as they could stand at a time, getting the sight of him as full and deep into their wide, dark eyes as they could.

The other three colts watched him out of the corners of their eyes, their heads turned away from him. When they wanted to get more distance between themselves and the man they sidled away from him. They seldom looked at Kane with both eyes at a time but kept one eye fixed on him at all times. These three were: a line-backed dun with sorrel mane and tail, a line-backed buckskin with black mane and tail, and a black and white paint. The paint showed white circles around each small eye. The dun had a long hammer-head and a lazy look in his eye. The buckskin had a small, narrow head with a Roman nose and a mean look in his eye. The colts were all four years old. They were all straight-legged, short-backed and in good shape from fending for themselves on the desert. But the three off-colored colts were more feral beasts than the others. Kane chose the dun, the buckskin, the paint, and one of the solid-colored colts, a bay colt. He roped them, haltered them with rope halters, and tied them to railroad ties in one of the corrals. The paint and the buckskin struck, kicked, and bit at Kane. The bay fought Kane to get away but only because he was afraid, not to do the man injury. The dun was caught, haltered, and tied before he had time to decide he didn't like it. Kane turned the other four colts out. He would get them back after he had ridden the rough off the four he had caught. Kane and the Keyses walked up to Kane's camp at lunchtime. The camp was a board shack. Inside the shack Kane had a shelf for his bed, a chair, and a kerosene lamp. His kitchen was a lean-to off this shack with a wood stove, a table, chairs, and a chuckbox cupboard.

"We figured you wouldn't have time to get groceries last night so we brought some. We'll be here every day anyway so we'll buy the groceries," Bob Keys said. Jimmy brought two armloads of groceries from their stationwagon. Kane built a fire in the stove and fried steaks and potatoes and warmed canned com for their lunch. Alter lunch they sat and smoked a while.

"The three off-colored colts you caught are probably the toughest ones in the bunch, don't you think?" Bob Keys asked Kane.

"That's what I figure. I'll take them while I'm still fresh and rarin' to go," Kane said. "The paint and the buckskin are meat eaters. What do you call them?"

"We'll let you name them," Bob Keys said.

"The bay already has a name," Jimmy Keys said. "Dad was in his cups one night and I always hit him up for something when I catch him in his cups. I caught him just right that night and asked him for the bay. Bill Pyle, the trader, was there. Dad felt generous so he gave the colt to me. Bill told me not to believe Dad. He said Dad was just making whiskey talk. The next day when Dad was sober he didn't back down. Since then the horse has been called Whiskey Talk."

"He's a nice-looking colt."

"Well, he's Jimmy's," Bob Keys said.

"His soul may be Jimmy's but his rear end is mine now," Kane said.

Kane went out the next morning and looked at the colts. They had been through a rough night fighting their halters. When Kane stepped into the corral all four colts fell back against the ties but they immediately lunged forward to ease the pain on their necks. During the night they had learned there was no give to the ties. They had learned that flesh and blood could not stand a fight with the unfeeling uniformity of four well-set railroad ties.

Kane walked up to the dun. The colt had taken all the slack he could out of the halter rope without taking on too much pain and was standing with his head high, his lip nibbling on the halter that stretched out under his muzzle. He fixed one worried eye on Kane and the closer Kane approached, the more he leaned back against the tie. Kane stopped near him and watched him strain against the halter until his eyes closed and his legs started to buckle and he did a little dance to keep his feet. Finally he shook his head violently and squealed. The combination of tie and halter held fast, no pain there. The colt sat down on the root of his tail and sulled. The combination took no note of his lack of cooperation. After he cooled for a while Kane walked up to him, screamed at him, and wrung his tail for him. The dun lurched to his feet and gave himself slack. Kane lectured him in a low voice until his legs stopped trembling.

"Now you see, big dun," Kane said. '"You've got to stand up close and stop fighting it. People have plans for you. These plans do not include your escaping from people anymore. People have a combination fixed that does not in any way include your plans for yourself. People want to like you so that you can be useful to them. If you do what you want to do people won't like you. You aren't going to grow up to be like me. You are going to be the Mortgage Lifter."

Kane was carrying a small pan of grain. He took the dun's rope off the tie. None of the colts knew what grain was yet, but since they hadn't swallowed anything but spit since yesterday morning Kane didn't have any trouble teaching the dun that grain was good and the hand that offered it was not going to hurt him. Kane pulled the halter rope and every time the colt took a step Kane gave him a bite of grain. The colt began leading up to keep his mouth full of grain and Kane started petting him on the head, neck, and shoulders. The colt was overcoming his fear of Kane's hands to get the grain. Kane led all the colts to the water.

The next day, after he had watered them, Kane tied them closer to the tie than he had the day before. He got a gunny sack and tied ten feet of rope on it. He walked up to the buckskin and began swinging the sack over his head. The colt kept his head down and one evil, fearless eye on the whirling sack. He ran against the tie rope one time, but when he hit the end of it he turned back without letting it jolt him. This one had a sense of self-preservation and he had found out the tie rope had an end to it. Kane let the sack flop against the buckskin's hind legs. The colt let fly at it with both hind feet like a mule. Kane let the sack fall behind the colt's front legs. The colt struck at it with both front feet. The sack landed on his head behind his ears and he bit at it. The sack fell on his back and the colt let it slide off and cow-kicked it back at Kane.

"You take dead aim, don't you, young man?" Kane said. "You would like to kick me like that, wouldn't you? Oh, how you would like to do that. Then I would have to mortgage the homestead to buy myself a new set of grinners."

Kane sacked the colt until he tired of kicking at it. What he really wanted was meat, teeth, something that would crunch satisfactorily, something that would bring out the mortgage papers. Mortgage Maker. Kane fed him his hay and went to the next colt.

The black-and-white paint went into a sullen, uncomprehending frenzy when Kane started sacking him. He had absolutely no sense of self-preservation. When he hit the end of the rope he bashed his head against the fence. His head was skinned up and beginning to swell. Kane gave him three minutes of the sack and quit him. Maybe tomorrow he would take it better.

The little bay, Whiskey Talk, was afraid of the sack at first but he wasn't afraid of Kane. He didn't try to harm the sack. He turned his head and watched Kane out of both eyes, trying to figure out what Kane wanted him to do. Kane sacked him until he stopped trembling and then held some grain in the pan for him.

Kane spent ten days sacking, hand feeding, and leading the colts. At the end of that time he was able to get familiar enough with them so that he could saddle and hackamore them without blindfolding them and trim their feet without throwing them. The only one of the lot who wanted Kane's hide was Mortgage Maker, the buckskin.

Kane mounted his colts for the first time in a small crowding pen. The colts couldn't get away from him in there. They couldn't run and they couldn't buck. He rode them in the pen for a week. He knew this was cheating them, not giving them a chance to buck. But he was breaking the colts for business and not for fun. Anyway, Kane figured, anyone would say nowadays cheating for business wasn't cheating.

He rode the colts in the crowding pen until he figured if he didn't take them outside he and the colts would be permanently claustrophobic. The colts were responding well to the hackamore rein and he could get off and on them from both sides without trouble. He was feeding them out of a morral, a feed bag made of a grain sack, and he could catch them with the morral anytime he wanted to. They had graduated from being tied after the first ten days and he let them run loose in the corral now.

One morning Kane caught Mortgage Lifter. He took him to the crowding pen and saddled him. Mortgage Lifter yawned a few times. Kane led him in circles and looked him over. Mortgage Lifter was bored. The colt dragged his gangly, big-boned legs around clumsily. Kane got on him and trotted him around the pen. Mortgage Lifter's ears flopped uninterestedly. Kane unhooked the gate, swung it open, and rode him out the gate.

New scenery began to appear to Mortgage Lifter. No pole fence appeared before his eyes after a few steps. His ears began to work. He raised his head and looked at a cloud. He turned his head and looked at a bird. He caught sight of Kane in the panorama out of the corner of his eye. He swung his head around and caught sight of Kane out of the other eye. He hit a fast, scared trot. Every time he got another look at Kane the trot got faster. He had never carried Kane at a fast trot before so that scared him more and he threw his head up, took a fix on a cloud, and had a runaway. Kane took hold of one rein and the dun looked at his cloud and not at where he was going. He ran through a cholla cactus field and Kane gave him slack so he would look down and see where he was going. He ran into a deep sandy wash and almost fell when Kane's weight bore down on him at the bottom of the wash. He looked at the ground finally when he stumbled in the wash and Kane turned him up the wash and ran him in the sand. The end of the wash was a solid wall and into it Mortgage Lifter plowed. He bounced off and Kane circled him in the sand. Mortgage Lifter had his head down now. The head got lower as Kane circled him. The first convulsive symptoms of a bucking horse began to appear and Kane hauled back on one rein. The head came all the way around but the body kept convulsing straight ahead into the wall of the wash. Kane had to give him his head so he wouldn't fall and down the head went between the front legs and Mortgage Lifter started bucking. The big tall colt knew how to buck. Kane could see out of the wash every time the colt fired. He could never tell where the colt was going to land because the colt was so limber he came down in unrelated pieces. Finally Kane saw a whole lot of landscape above the bank of the wash and he lost hold of the death grip he had on the saddlehorn and when he reached for it again he grabbed a handful of sand, then a mouthful, and then it seemed like the whole sandy bed of the wash was making a starry story inside his head. Mortgage Lifter had lifted Kane's butt.

Kane got up and ran to the mouth of the wash so the colt couldn't get away and stood there and watched him buck in the end of the wash. The colt's jumps got boggy in the sand and finally he stopped and Kane caught him. Kane sat and smoked a cigarette while he and Mortgage Lifter cooled and thought the deal over. Then Kane got on him and rode him in the wash until he was tired. Mortgage Lifter carried Kane back to camp like a good saddle horse and didn't buck anymore on the way. The black-and-white paint responded well to the hackamore rein in the crowding pen. He had a lot of action. He was graceful and nimble on long slender legs. He was shortnecked, clean-hided, lean, and hard. The only part of the colt Kane didn't like was the small eye encircled by white. The look out of the dark blue pupils was one way and that way didn't seem to include Kane. They showed Escape Intended. Kane opened the gate and rode him outside.

The colt immediately hit a fast trot. Kane headed him up a road that ended at the highway. He wanted to keep the colt out of the cholla fields. The colt wanted to cover the country. He was easy to handle, so Kane let him go. Three seconds later the paint was at a dead run down the road. Kane circled him and stopped him several times but the colt's circles got wider each time. He was not responding so well to the hackamore now and Kane was putting all his weight on the rein to circle him. The paint was warming up and his jaw was getting numb from the pulling. He was no longer coming here to Kane but was more and more getting gone. The road passed through a long narrow lane solid on both sides with mesquite, ironwood, and palo verde trees, all hardwood, and all spiny. Kane let the colt run. There was not enough country free of brush to turn him in now.

Suddenly Kane saw a big truck on the highway not twenty-five yards away. The next thing he saw was the closed gate through the highway right-of-way fence, and it looked as though the paint was going to go through the gate and butt heads with the truck. Kane tried to let out a warwhoop but only, involuntarily, squeezed out a terrified squeak as the colt sailed over the gate. At the peak of the jump Kane looked squarely into the eyes of the truck driver. The driver seemed more afraid of the collision than Kane, but he was so surprised he didn't brake the truck. When the colt landed on the other side of the gate, Kane was still with him and he took one rein when the colt got his head up and steered him behind the truck and across the highway where their path crossed that of a touring car. Kane gave the colt his head to keep him from slipping on the pavement. The colt had seen enough country. When he got off the other side of the highway, Kane stopped him and dismounted. He sat in the shade of the horse and let his breath catch up. The paint was heaving through wide nostrils and sweat was making puddles under him.

"Young man!" a voice demanded.

Kane looked up. The tourists had alighted from their car. The big truck had not stopped. The driver probably had not believed what he had seen. He would probably stop someplace down the road and have a cup of coffee to rest and get the hallucinations out of his head that he sometimes got from long hours on the road.

"Yes?" Kane answered the male tourist.

"What the hell do you think you are doing riding your horse across the highway like that? You almost caused a bad accident?

"What the hell does it look like I'm doing?"

"What are you doing?"

"Going horseback riding, that's what."

"I'm going to report you. This isn't a bridle path."

Kane got to his feet. The tourist pitty-patted around to the other side of his car. Just then a highway patrol car came slowly by and the tourist waved to it. The patrol car stopped and a young officer stepped out. The tourist trotted up to him and gave him his story. Kane stood his ground and the officer walked down off the highway with the tourist following him.

"What's the trouble here?" the officer asked Kane.

"My colt got the green eye and jumped that gate with me," Kane said.

"What's the green eye?" the tourist asked.

"He ran away with this man. What is he, a bronc?" the patrolman asked Kane.

"This is his first day outside," Kane said.

"Couldn't you stop him before you crossed the highway?"

"Hell, no, I was too busy staying on when I landed on this side of the gate. I almost ran into a truck going the other way. The colt would have fallen if I'd tried to turn him on the pavement so I let him run in front of this gentleman?

"You scared hell out of my wife, fellow. You endangered our lives!"

"You can go now, mister," the patrolman said to the tourist.

"Don't you want my name or anything for the complaint? I want to till, outa complaint. This man scared hell out of us."

"You go on or wait for a ticket for obstructing traffic."

The tourist left. The patrolman took out a package of cigarettes and gave one to Kane.

‘"Who are you working for, Bob Keys?"

"Yes," Kane said.

''How many colts are you breaking for him?"

"Four head but this is only the second colt I've ridden outside today. If they are all like the first two I'm not long for this world."

"Well, be careful crossing the street," the patrolman said, smiling.

"I'm trying to be careful," Kane said.

The patrolman walked back to his car and heard a call on the radio. He went back to his business of husbanding tourists.

Kane led the paint across the highway and through the right-of-way gate. The colt was through running for the day. He was easy to handle on the way back to camp. He'd had enough escape for the time being.

"Warwhoop, you are going to be a good horse," Kane told him at the corrals.

He unsaddled Warwhoop and went to his shack and had lunch. After lunch he saddled Whiskey Talk.

The little horse was a blood bay with a white streak the length of his face and two white-stockinged legs. He stepped out looking for new scenery when Kane let him out of the pen. He was interested in everything around him and a little scared but he never offered to buck. Kane rode him as near as possible to a bunch of cattle. The Keys were running three hundred head of big, Mexican Brahmas on the desert ranch. They were wild as deer. Kane took Whiskey Talk as near to the bunch as he could without running them off. The colt watched the cattle and paid no attention to Kane. Kane rode him back to camp and unsaddled him, thinking there must be some truth to the Mexican saying about horses:

The horse with one white foot, good,
Two white feet, better,
Three white feet, bad,
Four white feet, worse.

Kane caught Mortgage Maker, the tight, hard-twisted buckskin. He saddled him, boarded him, circled him in the crowding pen, and swung open the gate. Mortgage Maker braked, sidled, and shied at one side of the gate, banging Kane's good knee on the other side as he went through. Mortgage Maker was insolent. His large ears hung indolently. He stepped out with a balky, swinging step that had no rhythm to it. He was interested in nothing but Kane and Kane only slightly interested him. He would not walk in a straight line. He tended to wander in the direction he was watching Kane. He stopped and seemed to taunt Kane that he had the legs and if Kane wanted to go on he would have to force Mortgage Maker and Mortgage Maker knew who was the bigger. Kane used his quirt to keep the colt moving to the sandy wash. He loped the colt up and down the wash. After the third trip the length of the wash the colt balked. He had decided Kane was too heavy to carry in sand at the pace Kane was demanding. Kane warped the heavy quirt down the colt's flank and the wreck was on.

The colt could buck and he grunt-bawled with every jump. He was kicking high behind and when he hit the bank at the end of the wash he sucked back away from the bank and cowkicked both Kane's spurs. Kane pulled his head around to turn him and he bit at Kane's foot. Kane kicked at the colt's muzzle to keep from getting bitten and the colt struck at Kane's foot with his front feet. The first few jumps weren't bad but then the colt started teaching himself how to buck. He had plenty of bottom and plenty of cunning. He started spinning and Kane could feel a bad case of the round-ass coming on. He gave the colt his head so he would line out and buck straight and the colt swapped ends again and spun out the other way. He bucked straight and hard into the bank. Kane was sure he was going to knock himself down on the bank so he loosened all holds and got ready to fall clear. The colt kept his feet and ironed Kane up against the bank. Kane had been unhorsed again. He staggered to the mouth of the wash and let the colt buck with the saddle in the end of the wash. When the colt finally stopped bucking Kane regretfully noted that he still hadn't drawn a long breath.

He caught Mortgage Maker again. He loosened his cinches and reset his saddle. He was tightening his cinch when the colt jumped and cowkicked at Kane's hand. He missed but when Kane recoiled from the kick the colt got hold of one of Kane's buttocks with his teeth. The teeth sounded like a crocodile's when they snapped off Kane's hide. Kane rubbed and cussed for five minutes. He stood at the colt's shoulder and pulled him around. He put his elbow on the colt's cheek. so he couldn't bite, got his toe in the stirrup, his knee in the shoulder, and swung on. The colt balked. Kane gave him the quirt down his flank. Mortgage Maker humped up and wet through his sheath in random, angry drops that ran down both legs. Kane gave him the quirt under the tail and the colt squealed and started trotting stiff-leggedly down the wash. Kane headed him toward camp.

When they crossed the yard by his shack Kane figured the colt had surrendered for the day but the colt shied at something strange to him there and blew his plug again. He bucked between the windmill and the water tank. Kane had to duck a three-inch pipe that extended between the windmill and the water tank. But he was sitting up there just like a country gentleman on a Sunday ride when he lost sight of Mortgage Maker's head. Two jumps later he was standing on his own head watching the colt's legs kick over the top of him. The colt bucked to the corral and stopped and looked back and watched Kane cussing him and himself for having forgotten to finish tightening his cinches in the wash when the colt had kicked at him. Mortgage Maker had bucked Kane off saddle and all, this time. Kane had to get untangled from his saddle and blankets before he could get up.

He caught Mortgage Maker, saddled him again, rode him back to the wash, up and down the wash several times, and back to camp.

The sun was down when Kane dragged himself up to his camp to cook supper.

4
The Stampede

When cattle stampede, they run. The herd instinct is so great in the bovine that he can pass from a state of watchful relaxation with his fellows to running berserk with them in an instant. This is probably the only ignoble act he is capable of and he can't help it. He is only a poor cow brute who has no mother and no father and never went to school.

Jim Kane had been riding Whiskey Talk, Warwhoop, and the Mortgage brothers for a month. He was getting along with them very well. The colts were ready to start work with cattle and Kane was going to catch the other four colts and start breaking them. He thought of taking a few days off and going to Frontera and seeing to his horses. Their quarantine would soon be up. But one morning Bob and Jimmy Keys drove in to Kane's camp and told him that the Mexican Brahmas on the ranch had been sold. Bob wanted to start gathering them that day.

Kane saddled Pajaro and rode out with the Keyses after the big Brahmas. Bob shut the gate to the big waterlot at Kane's camp on the way out so any cattle that came in to water would not drink and leave while the men were away. The desert ranch had no high ground, no canyons, no place but the brush for the cattle to hide. The three men went to the back side of the ranch and worked the cattle toward the waterlot, the only watering place on the desert ranch. By mid-afternoon they had penned most of the three hundred cattle, enough so that they made a load which could be shipped the next morning. Only ten head had not been gathered. They were expected to come to water on their own by shipping time. Bob Keys went to town to order trucks. Kane and Jimmy stayed and ate an early supper. Kane had saddled the little bay Whiskey Talk to ride in handling any cattle that might come to the waterlot during the evening.

The desert was quiet at dark. Most of the cattle in the waterlot were lying down. Even the traffic on the highway seemed to have subsided. Kane and Jimmy Keys talked quietly.

A sound rumbled toward the desert camp. Headlights shone on the road. A motor sputtered and growled between roars. When the car got closer, Kane could. hear voices shrieking above the sound of the motor. The car was a hopped-up, stripped-down little convertible. It roared into the yard of the camp. Its lights shone on the cattle bedded in the waterlot. The cattle got up and moved away from the sounds and bright lights. The car circled in front of the camp, its rear wheels skidding on the smooth desert sand. It headed almost into Kane's cookshack and slid to a stop, motor throbbing proudly, its voices piling out around. it.

"Hey, Jimmy boy!" the voices called. "We've come to see you on your lonesome prairie." Four girls and three boys in sweatshirts, highwater jeans, tennis shoes with no socks, and long hair, walked into the lamplight of the cookshack. "Can't you guys leave a feller in peace?" Jimmy asked them, laughing. He was glad to see his friends.

"Whoopee! Look what we brought you, man," a heavy-weight, blond kid with his long hair curled like Shirley Temples shouted. He waved a jug of wine over his head. He found Kane's four cups in the chuckbox and filled them from the jug.

"See? See what we brought you?" the big kid shouted. "We also have Slinky the virgin with us. See, man? We brought Slinky for you, man." He grabbed a skinny blonde around the waist and sat her down on Jimmy Keys's lap.

Jimmy pushed her off and introduced his friends to Kane. They ignored Kane until one of them offered him a cup of wine. He refused it.

"You kids would be doing Jimmy and me a favor if you kept quiet," Kane said. "We've got a bunch of steers out there that might run if we made too much noise."

The kids ignored Kane.

"Come on, Jimmy. Drink up. Drink deep and catch up with us," a kid said.

"You wild men are going to have to be quiet," Jimmy Keys said, still laughing at them. "You could cause a stampede? Kane could tell that Jimmy didn't believe in stampedes but was trying to impress his fellows with how Western he was.

"Stampede! Stampede!" the kids chanted. "Let's have a stampede!"

Kane tried to catch Jimmy's eye but the boy had joined his friends completely now and he was also ignoring Kane. Kane left them and walked down to the corrals. Whiskey Talk was in a stall. He bridled him and led him out. He mounted him and rode around the waterlot to the gate. The Brahmas were on their feet, their horns thrust high, eyes wide and nostrils searching the sights and smells of city kids. Kane knew how flimsy the waterlot fence would be if those tall, heavy steers decided to run. Four steers had come to water and were waiting outside the gate. Kane dismounted and opened the gate so he could pen the cattle that were waiting outside. Steers in the corral, startled by some new terror they had perceived in the kids, ran toward the gate. Kane thought then he'd better leave the gate shut until the kids left. He had all night to pen the four steers. He picked up the gate to shut it. A loud, braying bawl slapped him in the face. Every muscle and sense in the herd was shocked motionless. Kane had time to realize that the sound had been the horn of the jalopy. He knew the herd was going to run. He thought of closing the gate. He thought of whipping a kid. He thought of dropping the gate and running. Then he thought of mounting his horse. But his feet, flat on the ground, his hands holding his reins and the wire gate, were paralyzed by that sound and the conviction that the herd was going to run.

Then the juvenile at the horn of the jalopy gleefully released its voice again in a succession of bellows that creamed the herd instinct of the jumpy Brahmas into stampede. In one instant the steers passed from complete immobility to complete exertion. They did not begin running one by one when the thought occurred to them as individuals. As one, by instinct, they were running like racehorses toward Kane. Kane swung on Whiskey Talk and reined him with the herd. No rein, no spur, no shout or whip, could have made the colt run faster. Kane and Whiskey Talk were in the barrel of a shotgun. Kane heard the pop of staples as wire in the fence stretched in a flash to breaking. He knew of a pile of rolled wire his colt ran through without stumbling though steers on both sides of him tangled in it or caught the rolls on their horns and spiraled them high in the air. He knew of a deep, wide ditch the colt soared over while Kane saw steers fall into it and scramble in panic to regain their feet while the stampede caught them. The colt's clearing of the wash put Kane ahead of the stampede. He checked the colt to protect him in the cholla fields. The cholla slowed the stampede and Kane turned it off the south fence of the pasture. The herd ran toward the highway and Kane shouted at the leaders and rode close to them to turn them off the highway fence. A big steer with thick, banana-like horns ran in the lead. Kane shouted at him to tum him and the steer jumped ahead, would not turn, and ran through the highway fence as though it were a spiderweb. More steers followed the big steer through the wire but the sounds and sights they made hitting the fence helped Kane turn the rest of the stampede away from the highway. Now he knew the best he could do was stop running Whiskey Talk, knowing the herd would keep going for most of the night anyway. The next fence, the north fence, was eight miles away and the steers might be tired enough when they got there to be turned back by it.

Kane would not risk ruining Whiskey Talk even if it were possible to turn the cattle and put them back into the waterlot by himself in the night and he knew he had about as much chance of containing the cattle alone as he had of flying the colt to New York. He stopped the colt and watched the herd run by. The steers on the tail end were limping and hurt. They would not stop. They did not want to be alone and lost from the herd with their fear and their hurts. Kane rode Whiskey Talk at a slow walk back to his camp.

At the corral he got his flashlight out of the saddle house and found two pieces of a shovel handle and began pulling cholla stalks off Whiskey Talk's chest and legs. The kids were still in camp. Kane could see them when he felt like looking at them. The noise of them continued. They were at his kitchen table passing their jug of wine unaware of what they had caused. Kane finished doctoring Whiskey Talk and unsaddled him. He had put his saddle on the rack and was coming out of the saddle house when Jimmy Keys walked up.

"Jim, you want some wine?" he asked. He carried one of the Keyses' desert ranch cups in his hand.

Kane took the cup and drank down the wine. It warmed him. He shined the flashlight beam on Whiskey Talk's front legs. The cholla had let a lot of blood out of him.

"What happened?" Jimmy asked.

"You mean you don't know we've got troubles?" Kane asked.

"What kind of troubles?"

Kane turned Whiskey Talk loose in the corral. He got hold of Jimmy Keys's elbow and led him over to the waterlot. He shined the flashlight on the empty lot. He couldn't see posts or wire on the side the cattle had run through.

"What happened?" Jimmy asked.

"Now what the hell does it look like?"

"Did they stampede?"

"Stampede, stampede, stampede, pard," Kane mocked the juvenile tone. "Ho, ho, hee, hee, and giggle, giggle, giggle.

"My God. I never thought they'd stampede. Do you think we can gather them in the morning before Dad gets out here with the trucks?"

"Little man, we'll be lucky if we gather those cattle in thirty days."

"You mean we won't be able to get them back in time to ship tomorrow?"

"I mean they are probably not even on the ranch anymore. We have to get hold of your dad and cancel the trucks he has ordered and get some help to gather the cattle before they get completely out of the country. You think your buddies can give us a ride to the telephone?"

"Sure they will."

"Well, let's go to the phone."

When Kane and Jimmy Keys walked into the light of the kitchen one of the couples was coming out of Kane's bunk shack. Jimmy Keys was pale in the face.

"Whose jalopy is that, Ace?" Kane asked the heavyweight

"Mine, why?"

"We're going to town."

"You need to go, Jimmy?" the ace asked.

"Yeah," Jimmy said. "Right away."

"The keys are in it."

"No. All of us are going to town," Kane said.

"Listen, man, who in the hell are you to tell us what to do?".

"I'm Jim Kane, boy. We're going to town in your car."

"H0, ho, ho, funny, funny, Jim Kane. Don't put me on. My party ain't over yet."

"Party's over. Let's go, Ace."

The ace's Shirley Temple curls danced. He filled his tin cup out of a new jug. He grinned at his partners. The girls-tittered. He lifted the cup in a mock salute to Kane. Kane was standing across the table from him with his hands on the edge of the table. The kid reached over the table and poured wine on both of Kane's hands. The kid has imagination, Kane thought. He has a feeling for ritual. Thanks, kid, for the ablution and the anointing. Kane smiled at the kid. As the kid started drinking from the cup Kane hit it on the bottom with the hardest straight right hand he could throw.

The kid went over backward in his chair. Kane pushed the table aside and grabbed up the blond locks with both hands, led the heavy head up, and slammed the face of it into his knee.

"No, please," the kid begged.

Kane laughed at him and gave him the knee again.

"Oh, please, " the kid cried.

"Stop him! Stop him! He'll kill him," a girl cried.

Kane released the boy and watched him collapse slowly to the floor. He turned, grinning toward the rest of the kids. Jimmy Keys was watching over them with an ax handle in his hands.

"Let's go now, " Kane said. "Pick him up, girls, and let's go."

Jimmy helped load the ace into the back of the jalopy and got in back with him and the girls. The two other big boys got in front, one behind the wheel. Kane walked over to the driver's side.

"I'm driving," he said.

The kid looked straight ahead and reached to turn the ignition key. Kane thumbed him hard in the ribs and shoved him over on top of his partner. Kane drove the jalopy to Frog Turpin's Frontier Bar on the highway. He and Jimmy got out of the jalopy and the kids roared off to town and new adventures.

Frog was tending his bar. Kane went to the pay phone and called Bob Keys and told him about the cattle. He left out the part about the juveniles. Then he went to the bar, and ordered a double Old Crow.

"Jimmy has been telling me your Brahmas ran tonight," Frog said.

"They ran and ran and ran, Frog," Kane said.

"Four or five big steers came by here on the highway about an hour ago. They were going north."

"Was a big banana-horned steer with them?"

"One like that was in the lead. He was big as a horse."

"We'll get them in the morning. Right now it is time to get drunk. Jimmy will drink beer. I will drink Old Crow. Please keep our glasses full, Frog."

"With pleasure," said Frog, pouring Kane's second double.

"Don't you think we'd better go a little easy, Jim?" Jimmy asked.

"How do you go easy, pard?"

"I mean we have a lot of work to do in the morning. A lot of riding. Those cattle are on the highway now. If there is an accident and we are found here drinking we might get in trouble."

"Now, Jimmy, don't start worrying," Kane said. "It's too late to worry. No one is going to blame you. We'll start after the cattle tomorrow when they are cooled down. We can't go in the dark after the few that are on the highway. We might run one in front of a car. I don't entertain the hope that we have not suffered a catastrophe, though. We have. But we just can't gather the cattle before your father comes to help us."

"How long will it take us?"

"My conservative guess is thirty days and that is only because I am sure they can't escape completely. They are surrounded by water, aren't they?"

"What water, Jim?" Jimmy Keys asked, trying to smile.

"The Pacific in the west, the Atlantic in the east, the Arctic in the north, and the Antarctic in the south," Kane said.

Jimmy Keys stopped trying to smile. "Well, if I'm to be of any help to you I can't get drunk!"

"Nobody is asking you to get drunk. Don't get drunk if you don't want to. Don't drink anything if that is the way you feel about it."

"I'm sorry, Jim."

"Goddam it, don't tell me you're sorry. You were drinking wine and enjoying it a while ago. But maybe mixing wine with beer will make you sick. Why don't you find out. Learn something tonight even if it is that you would rather drink wine with your friends than beer with me. Find out who your friends are and make a choice."

"OK, Jim, OK. Don't get mad."

"Fine," Jim Kane said. "Let's get after it. Let's fill up. Lean days are ahead."

And speaking of lean days, Kane said to himself my own livestock will come to lean days if I don't do something about it soon. My horses aren't out on the highway now but they will be very soon unless I find a home for them. So instead of wasting time lecturing juveniles maybe I better find a home for myself and my own livestock because nobody is going to do it for me. He telephoned Will Ore.

"When is my stock going to come over to the Promised Land, Will Ore?" Jim Kane asked when Will Ore answered his telephone.

"Not for three weeks, at least, " Will Ore answered, recognizing Jim Kane's voice.

"Ah, you have lost track of time,.Will Ore," Kane said. "The mares had been in quarantine thirty days yesterday. That means they will be eligible for U.S. citizenship tomorrow."

"I have news for you, Jim. The first day of quarantine did not begin until the results of the first blood test came back from Washington. That means the quarantine began eight days after the mares were tested. They were tested again fifteen days later and the second fifteen days' quarantine did not begin until the results of that blood test came back from Washington. The mares are going to be tested again in fifteen more days. They wont cross until . .

"Ah, the Pharaoh still holds us," Kane said.

"What?"

"That means the mares won't cross for at least three more weeks," Kane said.

"That's what I've been telling you," Will Ore said.

"Why didn't anyone tell me this before?"

"I didn't know it myself until the results of the last test came back and I saw the time you were credited with on the quarantine papers."

"This means we have been standing in the corrals thirty days but it only counts for fifteen days' quarantined."

"That's exactly it. They are charging you with the two weeks of government red tape."

"Yes, and who is paying the feed bill? Are you feeding the mares two weeks of red tape?"

"I'm having them fed a good ration of molasses, milo maize, and ground alfalfa. They look good."

"Was their second test cleanly,

"They are healthy as can be."

"And they only have two weeks to go?"

"Three weeks, Jim, with the red tape time."

"Then the goddam Pharaoh is in the Promised Land too," Kane said.

"What?"

"Never mind. I'1l see you in three weeks," Kane said and hung up.

5
Frontera

An old dry farmer had one ancient mule, one old broken plow, one half acre of land, and one old falling-down shack that sheltered his poor, dried-up old wife. One day the mule dropped dead in the field. The farmer looked down at him and said, "Well, I guess them that has must lose."

The Keys outfit worked three weeks gathering the wily, miscreant Brahmas. Trucks came for the cattle that had been caught but ten head were still out after three weeks. They had found new water and new haunts after their wild run. Three head had been killed in the run. Seven head had been broken and crippled so that they were no longer livestock or merchandise. These were found in the places they had dragged themselves to die and were gathered with rifles.

When the trucks with the Brahmas had gone away Kane turned his colts out to pasture and drove to Frontera to see to the crossing of his Jalisco horses. They had been tested a week before and the results would be back from Washington. Frontera, Arizona, is a small town that lies across the border from Frontera, Sonora, and does a heavy commerce with Mexico. It is the seat of the county and headquarters for the county's ranchers and border cattle traders.

Kane parked his car at the Montezuma Hotel in the evening and went inside. He hired a room and went into the bar. Four Mexican-American girls were lounging there in the red-leather booths for the cocktail hour. Their black, shiny hair was rightly coiffed. They wore dark dresses. Their light skin gleamed in the dark room. Their eyes were oriental over small Indian noses. These girls were strangers to Kane.

The three men at the bar were not strangers to him. Eligio Gavilan, the owner of the corrals where Kane's horses were quarantined; Pedro Villasenor, a Sonora rancher; and Bob Stacy, a commission buyer, invited Kane to have a drink with them. Jim Kane stood at the bar with the three men and laughed as he half-listened to the good time they were having over their evening drinks. He thought, now I am home again. Here in this bar about twenty-five years ago my father brought me into the company of hawk-nosed, lean-faced cowmen to have my first shot-glass of beer. We had come to town that morning in the Model A from the ranch. I was bucking and playing in the front seat as my father drove slowly along. I pitched against the door, the door opened, and I fell out onto the pavement on my head. My father stopped the car in the middle of the street and set me back on my feet and brushed me off and got me to laughing. He left the car in the street and marched me in here to get me a mans shot. I remember the bubbles climbing on the sides of the shotglass in the beer in their mysterious chemical way and the fresh, dry bite of the beer in my mouth.

The Montezuma had been host to cattlemen for fifty years. The cattlemen who had congregated here had not been the stereotyped, hard-shooting, demon-riding, woolly-chapped, silver-spurred, floppy-hatted cowboys of paperback and television. These men had been good in a fight or on a horse but they had traded on this border in well-shaped fine hats, clean clothes, and had not been strangers to neckties, suits, or shiny boots. They sat at this bar and bought and sold and shipped sight unseen thousands of Mexican steers to men they had never met except over the telephone. They traded for thousands of cattle while they gambled their profits on cattle still unpaid for over high poker stakes and free whiskey in a room upstairs in the Montezuma. And the next morning before sunup they had made it down rough roads and rougher trails to ranches in Sonora and Chihuahua to look at and trade for more cattle in one day than the average person sees in a lifetime.

They had not been the same kind of men as the three men Kane was with in the Montezuma now. Kane thought, these men, like me, have the knack for staying broke. They are remembering and telling glowingly admiring tales of former traders that haunted the Montezuma and they try to emulate those men. But they always try with someone else's money and without ever getting out of the Montezuma. They don't make their ventures work by getting horseback and doing the work themselves to ensure success. They lie in wait here for some poor fish with a bankroll to come along with his heart stimulated by Mexico, cattle, whorehouses, and tequila. The poor fish is probably a man who made plenty of money in the furniture business and knows nothing about cattle anyway and knows absolutely nothing about the Mexican standoff. Nothing in all his years of shrewd furniture business will have prepared him for the Mexican standoff, the no-quick-way of doing business in Mexico. So when the hours drag into days that drag into a month and the poor fish finds he can't make the quick money on steer trades in Mexico that he thought he would be able to when he bought his first big hat and boots to wear around the lobby of the Montezuma, he loses heart and leaves these border guys on the Montezuma barstools where he found them and goes back to his furniture business.

All the traders aren't like these three but these are representative of 99 per cent of border traders. A very few are men who put up their own money, get horseback to take care of it, and then hope the cattle market will hold long enough to keep them from going to the poorhouse. Very few good traders have survived.

Kane had known one such man who had done everything right for many years. He had ridden his horse right, had made sound trades, had kept his word, paid his bills, been admired by the Mexicans and Americans in the business, and had made money every year. One year he came into the Montezuma during the most active part of the trading season. This time he did not saddle a horse to do his work with, but instead hired a suite of rooms with three telephones. He stocked the bar in the suite with bourbon, his favorite. He stocked a cognac for his favorite client, a Mexican general who had many ranches and many thousands of cattle. He stocked anisette for the generals mistress. He stocked tequila and beer for his Mexican vaquero friends and corn likker for his American cowboy friends. He stocked Scotch for his commission buyer friends. He sat in his suite all through the season and only went out when he was accompanying his big-shot buyers to the whore-houses, He politicked and machined along with the border system through one million dollars' worth of cattle trades in three months' time. When all his trading was over he picked up the saddle, blankets, bridle, and spurs from the corner of the shite where he had laid them when he had come to town, sneaked down the stairs off the lobby between midnight and dawn, coasted his car out of the parking lot, started his engine in the street, and went away broke.

The only assets he took away from the Montezuma that were truly his own were his saddle, blanket, bridle, and spurs. These tools had been kept well-dusted in the suite by the maids. The well-dusted aspect was the only new aspect about his assets that he took away from the border. He had never been one to fuss with his gear and tack and the money he had used in his big trades had been mostly borrowed money, He had gone away from the Montezuma luckier than most border traders, unluckier than a very, very few. He had also been smart enough to know never to come back to the Montezuma. Men like Eligio Gavilan, Pedro Villasenor, and Bob Stacy were the kind that endured on the border but they endured staying broke. Eligio, through some genius of politics in him, had acquired complete control of the quarantine corrals the Mexican government had built in Frontera, Sonora. More than fifty thousand cattle passed through his corrals every year and his fee for use of the corrals was one dollar a head besides all the feed he poured through the mangers at 300 per cent profit, plus all the cattle that disappeared from their rightful owners and appeared much later in his hands.

The Mexicans called Eligio "El Parsignado," the pious one, or, more literally, the man who covers himself with signs of the cross. In the scale house where cattle were weighed for their customs duties before crossing the border, Eligio had hung a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Every morning on arriving at the corrals he would go directly to the scale house and bless himself and say a short, fervent prayer before the Virgin. It occurred to his vaqueros that Eligio was not quite as devout as he made himself out to be. They replaced the Virgin with a picture of Pedro Infante, a Mexican movie star, and Eligio went on for days with his ritual without noticing that it was Pedro and not the Virgin who was recipient of his praise.

Though he always showed the pallid, harried face of the lost bankrupt and seemed unable ever to meet a financial obligation of any kind, one day it occurred to all his friends and creditors that he was living in an $80,000 home in Frontera, Sonora. Eighty thousand dollars in Frontera, Sonora, is one million pesos.

A Mexican politician friend of Eligio's, a man who had been instrumental in gaining for him control of the Mexican quarantine corrals with the understanding between them that they would share equally the vagabond and carefree money that would be found when cattle streamed through the corrals, heard of Eligio's new house. This politician was a fine and generous man who helped everyone, hoping that everyone he helped would help him back, and thus, was chronically down at the heel. He went to see if Eligio, after three years of overseeing and watching for the blithe gold attached to the horns of the cattle that passed through the corrals, had gleaned enough to be in a position to help him.

Eligio met the politician at the Montezuma. They ordered brandy together and the politician paid for it. They ordered the second brandy and before they left the bar, tired of out-waiting Eligio, the politician paid for the second. On the way back across the border in Eligio's chartreuse Cadillac Eligio stopped at a hamburger drive-in and ordered two hamburgers with French fries and the politician paid for them. Eligio's great house on the hill did not look so great in the darkness. Not a light shone around it. Not a person met them at the door. Eligio led his patron through the house, lighting each room and showing it briefly and unlighting it as they passed through. Finally, they came in the dark house to a small den that smelled of unswept manure, body odors of steers, vaqueros, and horses, and Eligio's own nervous stink. Eligio had brought his patron a long way without being dunned so he felt he could point to one accomplishment.

"Don Pancho, one advantage of my house that I insisted on when it was constructed, and I had little to say in its construction," Eligio said humbly, "is its sound-proofed rooms."

"Yes, I can understand your need," said the politician. "You need the sound-proof rooms so as not to hear the voice of your conscience."

Kane was thinking this same Eligio was the man in whose hands his Jalisco horses abided. The feed bill on the horses must be quite formidable because Eligio had not said anything about the horses since Kane had joined his party. He probably didn't want to ruin Kane's drink or spoil the contented good humor of the gathering.

Another of Eligio's companions was a middle-aged, curly-headed Mexican cattleman named Pedro Villasenor. Pedro owned and was trying to stay on top of two hundred sections of desert ranch country north of Puerto Libertad in Sonora. He had all the tools with which to run his ranch efficiently: horses, vaqueros, one windmill (he admitted this was inadequate), a good complex of corrals, a nice house to live in, a generator that provided electricity, and a refrigerator with plenty of capacity for cold beer. He did not have any cattle.

Pedro was in Frontera now looking for someone who would put up the money to stock his ranch with cattle. He didn't have any grass for any cattle either. His ranch was as dry and barren and hot as the wrong side of the moon but he had hopes it would rain this winter because it rained on his ranch once every ten years and it had been nine years since it rained last. He also had high hopes it would rain because he had been overextended at the bank now for three years and the bankers had told him positively no more credit, and they were going to foreclose on him after one more season.

Pedro was wooing Bob Stacy, an elderly Arizona trader in steers, who was the third companion at the bar. Bob Stacy didn't own the cattle Pedro needed. But Bob Stacy was alert. He was always on the smell to ferret out a dollar in commissions among his connections no matter how hopeless a deal appeared to be at the start. He had been making his living many years bringing together the man with the bed and saddle with the man with the ranch and cattle or the man with a bankroll. To such men he provided an introduction and won commissions without ever leaving the bar or lobby of the Montezuma.

Bob Stacy was not a thief. His word was good. He only had to make sure the two men he introduced could produce. He himself was not a producer. He was the coyote who was too old to hunt for himself but not too old to follow the hunter and the game. Now he had to be increasingly sure that the game was fat and that there would be a reasonable surplus of meat in any deal for him or he wouldn't roam. He was not particular or persnickety. He didn't require the choicest cuts of meat. He would be content with the less desirable bites such as the heart, the brains, the tripe. He got indigestion anyway from too much bulk. He would take what the hunter did not like. He would take suet if only suet was left to him. But whatever he gleaned had to be fresh and not contaminated by a poor hunter or diseased or badly treated game. He only entered into deals in which his portion of the game did not perish. You see, he was an old and crafty coyote and a fat one and he had enough reserve saved up to enable him to pick and choose. Kane bought a round for his three friends and then went and telephoned Will Ore.

"Have you ordered the trucks for my immigrant horses? Have you latched onto the buyer I sent to you who was interested in the horses?" Kane asked Will Ore.

"Where are you, Jim?" Will Ore asked.

"At the Bar Montezuma. Come and exult with me."

"I'll be there in a minute," Will Ore said.

Kane ordered another round for his companions and drank with them again. He felt happy. His companions were for him and he was for them. He was glad to see Will Ore when he came rolling in and then Will Ore said, "Your horses had glanders this time."

"What in the hell is glanders?" Kane asked, still exulting. Glanders didn't sound like another catastrophe.

"Glanders is a lung disease contagious to humans," Will Ore said in a voice like lead falling in an abandoned mine shaft.

"And?" Kane asked.

"We are quarantined?

"We can't go through that again. Why didn't glanders or whatever it is (he found the word describing the new catastrophe too easy to repeat) show up in the first tests?"

"I don't know."

"`What did the vets say?"

"They don't know why either. They only knew they had to kill your blue-and-white polka dot stud, disinfect the corrals again, and clean out all the manure again."

Kane shut up for a while. He gave a moment of silence to his banker. The banker had been good to him.

"Did the buyer show up?" Kane asked finally.

"Which one? The Californian that wore his hat wrong?"

"That sounds like him. Was his name Grace?"

"Grace showed. He didn't buy the horses."

"Didn't he even make an offer?

''He offered seventy-five dollars a head. He figured you were hard up and needed the money so bad you'd fall for it."

"Hell, he was the one who said he would give me three hundred dollars a head when I called him from Phoenix."

"He changed his tune when he heard about the quarantine. He figured you'd take seventy-five dollars to get out from under the horses." `

"Why that chicken-pluckin', cow-milkin', bib-overalled son of a bitch," Kane said, blaming all his misfortunes on the poor counterfeit Californian.

"That ain't all, Jim Kane," Will Ore said.

"What else?" Kane asked him.

"You know that little filly, daughter of the old swollen-eyed mare?"

"You bet. The daughter of my old cinnamon mare."

"The California gunsels ran her into the fence and killed her when they decided to take a special look at her. She was a fine-looking little filly. They were especially interested in her. "

"Did Grace pay for her?"

"Hell no. He just said that he believed in the old saying that them that has must lose."

6
The Banker

A Señor Caballo is a good horse, a big horse, a lordly horse, noble and rich. I shouldn't call my own horse a Senor Caballo, that would be bragging in an ugly way; a friend of mine should mention it to make me feel good. There are plenty of Señor Toros, honorable and aristocratic bulls, in this life too, thank God. There are Señor signatures too, signatures accepted by anyone at face value without question. A signature that helps someone else, unreservedly, is a Señora Firma. A Señora Firma is given by as rich man, a big man, not necessarily a man of material means, but a man who is full of his meaning.

A letra is a personal note. A sight draft. When a letra comes due it can be cashed in any bank in which the giver of the letra has an account. It is only worth as much as the man's
word who gives it and, of course, the paper it is written on.

On the next day Jim Kane dressed up in clean clothes and went to see the banker. In the office of the boss's secretary, the anteroom of the boss's office, under the great horned steer mounted on the wall and the paintings of other great, gaunt steers that had given up their freedom though the years to help this bank help cowmen make their living, Kane sat and waited for the boss's secretary to come back and give him an audience with the boss.

Miss Toots was the boss's secretary and the number two man in the bank by seniority but the number one woman in the bank by popular acclaim. Miss Toots was a small, erect, not-yet-middle-aged woman, who walked on the finest set of legs and had the thickest, shiniest, brown hair in the State of Arizona.

"Aha, I knew you would show up any day now, Jim Kane, Miss Toots said when she came into her office.

"I guess my note is a week overdue. I should have been here a week ago but I was busy helping gather a bunch of wild Brahmas for Bob Keys and the Brahmas didn't care if my note was due," Kane said.

"Never mind. You're here now. Are you going to be able to pay the note?"

"No, Miss Toots. My horses are still quarantined. I don't know what I'm going to do about the note."

"Go in and talk to the boss. Tell him about your quarantine. I'm sure he knows all about it anyway. If you can't pay, you can't pay and that is all there is to it. There is no use getting bats in la belly about it, is there?"

"No, Miss Toots. I won't if you won't."

"I won't. I've seen too many of you cowboys get out of this kind of trouble. You just tell the boss about it. He won't leave you in la lurch."

Kane walked in the boss's office.

"Can you pay the interest on your note, Jim?" the boss asked him when they had shaken hands and sat down.

"No," Kane said. "I don't have any money."

"How many horses have you got now?"

"Forty-four. "

"When will they cross?"

"If they show two clean tests they should cross in six weeks."

"The week after New Year's?"

"Yes."

""I suppose we can carry you until then without collapsing.

"I appreciate it, sir."

"I still believe you are on the right track with your horses. I've seen them and they seem to be just as you described them when we made you the loan. Maybe when you bring out the next bunch you should stop them someplace further south and bleed them yourself. Or maybe you should test them before you buy them. There must be a practical way to handle the horses before you fall into the hands of the U. S. Government, don't you think?"

"Maybe there is, sir. Maybe the most practical way would be to leave all Jalisco horses in Jalisco."

"Maybe so. It would seem a shame to quit. You have paid a large fee for your first lesson in buying horses in Mexico. You might still find a way to profit by the education."

"Let's see what kind of shape you and I are in when the venture winds up," Kane said, rising to leave.

"Maybe this venture won't work and the next one we take on together will work. You take care of me and I'll take care of you, and someday maybe one of our deals will click for us."

"That sounds like the best kind of deal," Kane said.

"These horses no longer have a chance to make anything for us. Their corral fees, feed, sanitizing fees, burial fees, death loss, duties, and brokerage make the situation such that they would have to be made of pure gold to pay their way out and still leave us any profit. These just won't make it for us because they have never been given a chance. I wish we could keep them for a while so they could produce and get us out of the hole but I guess that would take too long."

"Personally, I would rather liquidate this bunch and help you on some new venture. Let's sell them as soon as possible and start over again," the boss of the bank said.

Out on the street again, Kane went to the flower shop and ordered a bouquet of roses sent to the bank. On the card he wrote, "To all the girls of the Valley Bank, attention Miss Toots."

7
Gunga Din

Kane was alone on the Keyses' desert ranch on Christmas. He was alone except for his horse, Pajaro, the Mortgage brothers, Warwhoop, Whiskey Talk, three Brahmas that were still loose on the ranch, and a paint burro he called Din.

On this morning Din, as was his custom, had stationed himself outside the door of Kane's shack, had formed his muzzle into the shape of a megaphone, and was braying forth his special dawning fanfare to awaken Kane. Kane swung his feet off the board shelf his mattress and blankets were on, lifted the chimney off the lamp on the broken chair by his bed, and struck a match to the wick. He put on his hat, drew on the stiff Levis, stomped his feet into the boots and spurs, stood in them, and put on his shirt. He forced Din the burro away with the door as he stepped outside. He walked around the shack to his kitchen, built a fire in the stove, and put his coffee on to boil. He found a biscuit and gave it to Din on his way to the corrals. Din followed him to the corrals. Kane gave each of the horses under his charge an extra coffee can of oats for Christmas. Din followed him back as he carried a bucketful of oats back to his kitchen. He poured the oats into Din's pan by the open side of the lean-to that was the kitchen. He got his bottle of Presidente brandy from behind the stove and poured a swallow into his coffee, dunked a biscuit in the coffee, and put the biscuit into Dirfs grain pan.

"Noël, Din," Kane said. Din ate the biscuit and turned his nose up at the grain, turned his nose inside out again and looked at Kane. Kane gave him another coffee and brandy biscuit.

"Noël, Noël, Din," Kane said. Din ate the biscuit and started on the grain again, grinding it slowly and sparingly so as not to waste any. When he had finished the grain, he began talking to Kane in that strange, rasping, whistling choke that is the voice of the burro.

"He must have liked you. I like you," Kane said. "So why did He make you so ugly, Din? You are in all the pictures of the Nativity. His mama rode you with Him in her arms to Egypt when Herod was killing all the babies. You were around when He amazed the doctors in the temple as a little boy. In that story you bumbled along carrying people back and forth so He could give a lesson to the doctors before His folks found Him. He rode one of your white ancestors on Palm Sunday, the happiest day of His life, or at least the day the largest consensus of humans were for Him. So then how come your ears are so long and the hair on your back doesn't shine, your tail is so inadequate, your head so big, and your butt-end so peaked? And that voice! Like the true voice of one crying in the wilderness!

"You have been unjustly treated through the centuries, Din. But you don't seem to realize it. You go along in that little ugly shell of yours, doing what they prod you to do. They make you do what your little carcass finds impossible to do. They poke you with sticks demanding always more of you and instead of quitting them and refusing them absolutely you go along at your own pace no matter how much the poking hurts . so that you'll have enough energy left in your carcass to do I them another job tomorrow. You were not created to be servant for Great Societies, that's a cinch. The Great Societies are begrudging you the few cactus leaves you eat. You aren't fast enough or beautiful enough to serve them. You aren't going to make anybody any money. You aren't going to be a warhorse. Yet, at your own pace, you carried the Man everywhere He needed carrying and He always seemed to have enough time to do the job He did. No one can argue about the good quality of the job He did and no one can say He didn't get results.

"And look at you with a face only He and His mother and yours could love! Even I treat you like a burro and neglect your noble soul because you are so ugly. I lead you out, find a devil of an escaped Brahma, rope him from my good horse, tie his neck to yours, and ride away and leave you with him kicking at you and hauling on you with the live hundred pounds he outweighs you. And sooner or later one morning you are standing in my camp with a gentled Brahma by your side. You come back because you have to. I have made you a slave to grain and a slave to Kane because Kane has fingers with which to free you from the Brahma. If I was you I'd kick up my heels, leave a few hard turds at Kane's kitchen door, and run braying away the first time I was untied from a Brahma. I might just give Kane a kick in the slats for good measure. Isn't that the way Kane has been acting, his own way of doing?"

Din walked into Kane's kitchen to get closer to Kane's voice and Kane's coffee and brandy biscuits.

Gunga, Din," Kane said. "Gung away outside my kitchen. No room in the inn, Din." He dunked another biscuit, pushed Din out of his kitchen, rubbed Din's ears, and gave Din his biscuit.

"Noël, Noël, Noël, Din. And that's all your Christmas this year," Kane said.

8
Afoot

By New Year's Eve Kane had gathered and delivered all the delinquent steers. His colts were gentle and needed a rest. His saddle horse, Pajaro, was ridden down. Din the burro was gaunt and too gentle. Kane was gaunt and too cranky. He turned the livestock out to pasture and went to Phoenix to the Adams Hotel.

In his room he poured himself a glass of whiskey. He took off the clothes that in another day would have grown to his hide. He turned on the hot water in the shower. He sealed up the bathroom with wet towels. He sat on the toilet seat and drank his whiskey and steamed and sweated in an abundance of comfortable moisture. He poured pitchers of cold water on himself. His whole hide drank. He showered. He shaved with a mirror. He examined his teeth in the mirror. He washed his head with mange cure. He turned on the television. He got in bed between fresh sheets. He drank another glass of whiskey. He slept an undreaming, sunken peace with no spurs on. He awoke and ordered up rare roast beef, a mountain of mashed potatoes, a great tossed salad, and a pitcher of black beer. After he ate he slept again. He awoke again and dressed in clean dress shirt and sweater, clean starched Levis, his drinking hat, his drinking boots, and went down the street to the Cow Palace Bar to celebrate New Year's.

He was back in camp with a hangover on New Year's Day. He knew his body was back at camp because he could see his hands and feel his feet. The legs swung and jarred his feet against the ground. His mind was still numbly away from camp but close enough so that the messages from the eyes to his brain were received clearly. Startlingly, painfully, achingly, sometimes faintly, but always clearly. The messages must remain simple. Complicated messages physically shocked the receiver, the brain.

He walked out into the pasture with a morral of grain and caught Pajaro, mounted him bareback, and drove the colts into the corral. The day was bright as goodness. The fine heat of its bosom punished him. In the corral he slid off Pajaro and gagged. He stuck his head up to his neck in the cold water of the horse trough and held it there as long as he could. He came up for air and did it again. Came up again and did it again. Each time he looked around more calmly at the world around him under the water upside down. The cool world under the water was a much finer place for the reunion of his mind and his body. When he rose from the trough the reunion had been made but his brain still ached as his mind shifted around in there accommodating itself.

Kane decided he would ride his colts one more time and turn them out. He caught the black paint, Warwhoop, saddled him, and rode out. The effort of saddling had worn him out and he was happy when he finally found himself astride the colt and being carried.

He rode straight down the road toward the highway. This morning he would Indian it. He would not school his horses. He would let them give him hours of sun and movement and self-denial. They would make him well from the sickness of having too much fun. He did not smoke, cough, or smile. He just rode along watching Warshoop's ears twitch and search.

Kane saw that Warwhoop was looking at something off the road. A buzzard flew out of a wash. Kane rode over to the wash. A cluster of buzzards flapped off a carcass when they saw the horseman. Kane rode down to the carcass of Din, the paint burro. Blood had soaked up a spot in the sand underneath him. Din had been shot. He had been standing here in this wash, a gentle burro thinking maybe someone was coming with a pan of grain for him, and he had been shot: one, two, three, four, five, six, the son of a dirty bitch had reloaded, seven, eight, nine--who knows how many times. Kane's heart began to ache and crowd his throat now. Din had been shot once in the eye, several times in the ribs and abdomen, several times in the penis. One shot hadn't done enough noticeable damage to the penis for the trigger man's satisfaction so the had tried to blow the burro's sheath completely off.

Kane searched the ground around the carcass and found the tracks of the one who had shot Din. The tracks in the sand were plain. The person had not known how to walk in sand. He had walked from the highway, made his kill, and had walked directly back toward the highway. Kane saw where the killer and another person had dismounted and later remounted a jeep by the gate. They had left the desert ranch and shut the gate. Kane had been through the gate in the darkness of that morning and had not noticed the tracks. He followed the tracks of the other person. These tracks had gone and come back a different way. They had headed toward the place where Kane had found his horses that morning. Kane's feet and legs began to want to hurry but he did not wish to hurry the colt he was riding. He wanted to concentrate on the tracks and on the colts he had penned that morning at camp.

Had he penned Whiskey Talk? Had both the Mortgage brothers been there? He couldn't remember for sure. Had he ridden Pajaro this morning? Or had his penning of the colts been some days ago before he had run onto these tracks. The hangover and the shock of finding his paint burro and the hurrying fear for his horses had eliminated the element of time for him. What had already happened might still be going to happen. His bringing in of the horses might have been dreamed some other time. Maybe if he ignored the back track to the jeep he would catch the coward down here carrying his manly pistol in its girl holster and make him eat it. He would have faith that the tracks that returned to the jeep were not there, he would believe the person was ahead of him and a miracle would happen, time would disappear. Sooner and later would disappear. He would not be too late to catch one of the killers. He had his rope. He would rope the killer and drag him through the cholla. The person would know he had not got away when he was being dragged through the cholla. `

Kane found the spot where the tracks turned back toward the jeep and he became sane again. He sighed. He walked the paint colt back to camp. Yes, his Pajaro was still there. All his colts were. He had known it all the time. He unsaddled Warwhoop for the last time. Warwhoop had graduated from Kane's school. Kane went up to his camp and made his first cup of coffee of the day and lit his first cigarette.

He went back and rode Mortgage Maker and Mortgage Lifter, and all the new colts. One at a time he turned them out free to the pasture after he had ridden them, unsaddled them, rubbed their ears for them, and said good-bye to them. They had all acted like gentlemen. He had not ridden back down the road by the tiny carcass of Din. He was over his hangover now and he wanted to eat. He decided he would ride Whiskey Talk in the corral only a few turns and stops and backing-ups. Then he would be finished for the day, finished with the colts, and finished with the desert ranch by Phoenix, Arizona.

Kane and Whiskey Talk were concentrating. They were working well together. The colt was responding perfectly. What a fine horse Whiskey Talk would be for Jimmy Keys! They made a turn by the saddle house. A big tourist in an orange coat jumped up on the fence and shouted "Hi there."

Kane had not been so startled he could have controlled the colt for he had complete control of the colt up until the sight of the tourist scared him. Kane was looking over his shoulder at the big, ugly tourist when Whiskey Talk started bucking. Whiskey Talk had never bucked before and Kane would never have expected him to buck, but the colt was bucking very hard and he had all he could do to catch up and start riding. The colt bucked into the comer of the corral and Kane caught up with him but the colt turned back so fast he slammed sideways into the corner and the toe of Kane's boot caught in a square of hogwire and when the colt bucked out Kane's bad knee popped like a rifle shot. The whole leg numbed as though it had been shot off at the knee and then it hurt so much that Kane could not believe the pain was true. He rode Whiskey Talk two more jumps and bailed out and lay there clawing the dirt in the corral and wanting to chew himself up. His leg lay out there like something that didn't belong to him and he dragged himself to the fence so that he could get up on his feet to try to stand on it. He thought maybe if he stood up the leg would be reminded of its function and when this first pain went away it would be all right.

The tourist had been jabbering and now Kane listened to him.

"Boy, what a wild one, what a wild one," the tourist was ,J shouting. "He sure bounced you off beautifully, cowboy. I'd give anything to have a picture of that."

Kane pulled himself up on the fence. He was dizzy and he had to hold on to the fence with all his might to keep from passing out. He stuck his head through the boards in the fence and pressed his chest down on the board under him. He began to feel very warm and cozy in the head and he was sure he was passing out and all his weight went down on the board and he rode the board far away. He found a good place and when he started coming back he saw his hands in the sun on the white board below him and he started feeling better. He kept hanging there loving that board under him and caressing the other board under that one as though the boards were making the pain go away. Then he started to sweat nicely.

The tourist had come over and was standing near him. Kane didn't want to move even though he knew the tourist was laughing at the position he was in.

"Boy, that was funny. The funniest, most ludicrous thing I've ever seen. You with your hiney in the air like that. If I only had a movie camera for that sequence I could make a million dollars."

He came closer, laughing, enjoying life out West. When he was in front of Kane, Kane reached up and got him by the lapels of his orange suede coat and jerked him down and butted him under the chin with the top of his head. This is one time I'm glad I lost my hat when I got bucked off, he thought. The tourist collapsed under the fence and Kane hung there groping for him but he couldn't reach him and the tourist flopped out from under him and crawled away. Kane hung there a while longer. He heard a car drive away.

When he tried to walk again he found he still could put no weight on the leg. He crawled across the corral to the edge of the saddle house and found a pickax for a crutch to help him to his car. He had to clutch, brake, and accelerate with his good foot. He could not move his bad leg. The gate at the highway looked like the Rocky Mountains to him when he drove up to it. He had to unload the leg, open the gate, load the leg and drive through, stop, unload again and close the gate. He loaded again and drove to Frog's Frontier Bar. He borrowed some ice to put on the knee before it swelled. He had a shot of Old Crow for the pain. He asked Frog to go and unsaddle Whiskey Talk and turn him out to pasture.

9
The Sale

The day the Mexican mares crossed the border they were shipped to an auction at Clovis, New Mexico. Very few people came to the sale. The bad luck, the plight of the mares was such that a hurricane of wind and rain was blowing the day the mares were sold.

Jim Kane, standing in a wind that took his breath away, ` before he led the first mare into the sales ring to start the auction, laughed because he was relieved the time of bad luck was probably finished for the mares and he could start on something new himself. Something new might offer him good luck, produce for him a living. After all, win or lose, he was turning his mares over to people that might not have bad luck with them. This sale would put the cost of the mares for the new owner down where the owner could see the real value of the mares. Kane knew that no one who braved a hurricane to bid at this sale was going to give one penny more than the stock was worth to him.

Jim Kane led each mare into the sale barn and paraded her before three men who stood in the ring while the wind through the overhead rafters in the high barn lifted and slammed at the loose tin roof and drowned the auctioneer's voice.

As the little mares, the calicos, the sorrels with gold flecks on them, the whites with black spots, the blues with polka dots on their round and plump and white-blanketed rumps, went through the ring, Kane's stake in the little ranch he wanted with the nopal in the clearing went with them. The three buyers, bidding in accord and keeping the price down by solemn agreement among themselves, had no way of knowing that Jim Kane had lost his stake to them in bringing the mares from Jalisco to Clovis, new Mexico. They only knew they were making sure they'd get their dollar's worth and that was the only way they liked to do business. They were kind to each other and each other's dollar and were keeping all other considerations out of the deal. They didn't let selfishness make them crazy bidders. One puffed a pipe, one a cigar, one cigarettes, and all three calmly and evenly divided the mares by quality and color. The man with the pipe took fourteen head, the man with the cigar took fifteen, and the man on cigarettes took fifteen. And Jim Kane took himself back to Frontera without enough money to pay Eligio Gavilan the feed bill for the more than three months the mares had been in his corrals.

Eligio was at his stool in the Montezuma Bar when Kane found him.

"¿Qué hubo, Jim?" Eligio said. "How did you do at the sale?" He didn't give Kane time to answer. "Did you bring my little check?"

"I brought a check. I don't have enough to pay everybody, Eligio."

"Ah, you make like the tontito, the little dumb one, eh?"

"No, this time my calculations are correct. I have enough to pay you or Will Ore or each of you half of what I owe you and enough to pay the bank. But not enough to pay everyone all the money I owe."

"Why you want to pay Will Ore? Will Ore is your friend. He can wait. Pay the bank and if you have any money left, pay me.

"Will Ore has been very good to you and me both, Eligio."

"Ah yes, Will Ore is a very good man, a very good man. He will be glad to wait for his money for a friend."

"Where is he, Eligio? His office phone doesn't answer. His home phone doesn't answer."

"He went to Magdalena. But he'll be back. Pay me if you want to and I'll tell him when he comes back. He'll understand."

"Come on, Eligio. One roll of the dice to see who I pay. I can't pay you both."

"No, no, no, no. I don't like the dice. I always lose at the dice and I don't like to lose. I am very unlucky. It's a sin to gamble, you know that? A sin to gamble. No, no, no, no, no, I won't gamble, it's a sin."

"Only one roll," Kane said.

"I am tempted but I'm not going to do it. Don't tempt me anymore," Eligio said.

"What shall I do then, Eligio?"

"Don't ask me. I am merciless," Eligio said, hissing his merciless.

"Don't give me mercy, Eligio. Tell me what to do."

"Pay the gringos. I am a merciless man. I'll get you when you come through my corrals. If you don't pay the gringos they will stop you from doing business. I want you to stay in business. When you come through my corrals with cattle I will cobrar, demand payment. If you bring two steers I will cobrar one steer and an ear and the tail of the other. I am a merciless man, a demon to cobrar."

"Thank you, Eligio."

"You have style, Kane. I'll get the money. Only promise me one thing. Please don't bring me any more diseased horses. Stay out of the diseased horse business. The American veterinarians are killing me with sanitation?

"I promise, Eligio."

"Good. I invite you to a brandy."

Kane drank the brandy with Eligio and paid for it.

10
The Commission

The Cave across the border in Frontera, Sonora, was a bar and restaurant which had once been a dungeon. The Cave had been carved deep in the rock of a hill that dominated Frontera. The owner of the Cave, an Italian immigrant, had bought it from the town of Frontera, Sonora, soon after the First World War when that town had moved its prisoners out of the Cave to a jail it had prepared for them of brick and mortar. For many years the iron shackles and chains on the walls of the Cave had served the Italians patrons as conversation pieces. Now they were gone and the walls were painted gold, its highest ceilings were painted the color of the sky and electric stars blinked from them. A string orchestra played in the dining room from noon until the Cave closed in the early morning and diners had their choices of "The most extensive varieties of foods and wines in r northern Mexico or the southwestern United States." The food was very good and the Cave dining room was the place where the people who made the two border towns their headquarters went when they wanted elegance. The Italian, however, had never effectively been able to control the black scorpions that once in a while fell from the high ceiling of the Cave into the soup of old ladies who came to Frontera on bus tours.

Jim Kane walked across the line to the Cave to have a drink. The bar was crowded. A band of mariachis were standing in a semicircle playing for a crowd of Americans in a booth. The bar's row of booths was packed. Tourists high on margaritas, businessmen and their wives from Arizona, uniformly undressed college children from Tucson in Robinson Crusoe hats, danced in the space between the bar and the booths with the loud trumpets of the mariachis in their ears.

Terry Garrett and Ira March, two cattlemen Kane knew, were at the bar with two girls. They were having a nice time. Terry Garrett's blond hair was hanging in his eyes from under his hat. Ira March's hat was cocked on the side of his head. Garrett grinned out of the side of his mouth at the girl by his side. The grin came out of only one side of his face because a scar stiffened his face on the other side. Ira March's grin, which showed no teeth and had always reminded Kane of the rattlesnakes grin, if a rattlesnake could grin, split his face like a scar. The two cowpunchers and the two girls were hunched closely together over their drinks on the bar, intently enjoying their conversation and their becoming intoxicated. One girl looked as feral as an Aztec with her big, slanted eyes and short,thin, hooked nose, and lips that were too full to be civilized. The other girl sat up straight and handsome at the bar, her head haughty and erect. The bare neckline of her black dress plunged out of sight under the edge of the bar. A gold religious medal on a gold chain adorned this naked area that she knew men liked to look at the most. Kane stopped at the bar and Garrett saw him. Garrett squalled as if the owls had hold of him. ‘

"There he is, I see him. I knew if we talked about him it would be our bad luck for him to show up here among us," Garrett shouted.

"Who is it?" the Aztec asked.

"Jim Kane," Ira March said.

"Is he the one you've been talking about all afternoon?"

"That is him," Ira March said.

"Mr. Kane, come over and join us," the other girl said. They turned on their stools to greet Kane. Ira March had his arm in a cast. Kane tapped the cast instead of shaking hands.

"What did it to you?" Kane asked.

"Saddle bronc," Ira said.

"Bucked you off?"

"I've got to admit it."

"Don't feel bad. I fell off one on New Year's Day."

"I never fall off because I don't ever get on one," Terry Garrett said. "Give Kane whiskey," he told the bartender. "I'm a lover, " he mumbled, squeezing the Aztec.

Kane stayed with Terry Garrett and Ira March through the evening. Much later they went to the Toreo Bar which specialized in strip shows and girls from the streets. The Toreo was the place border traders went when they wanted to play dirty. They arrived in time for the midnight floorshow. Ladies of the evening had already taken their stations at the tables where men drank. The place was dark. The heads of many brave bulls killed in the Frontera bullring stared glassily from their places on the walls. The bar was owned by the Count, a friend of Kane's, who for many years had been the empresario of the bullring. The Count seldom attended the functions held in his Toreo Bar.

Ai spotlight fell on a girl as she dodged and stumbled through the crowded tables from her dressing room. She arrived at the edge of the dance floor, composed herself, raised her arms, and tried gracefully to flex her uneducated wrists. Instead of the flowing movement of hands and arms she had seen somewhere and was trying to remember and reinterpret, she succeeded only in causing her many gold bracelets to slide down to her elbows. She stepped out in long-legged paces at the end of which she unemphatically placed painted toes upon the floor. She felt her way around the floor, her waving arms halted by the jerk of each overextended step. Periodically she sought to recover her balance and dance by violently nodding her head so that her long, black hair waved furiously like the wringing tail of a nervous horse. Meanwhile the band, a nonsyncopated group of union members, independently of each other blared leering sounds.

When the floorshow was over the ladies of the evening each ordered another drink and stared stonily past the drinking men proximate to them at their own reflections in the glass eyes in the heads of the bulls on the walls. This was a sign that they were giving the drinking men exactly one drink's time in which to make their propositions. If, by the end of that drink no formal commitments had been made to the ladies, the ladies would gather themselves, their cigarette lighters, and their jeweled purses, and leave the table, not looking back, to choose another drinker who had been similarly recently abandoned.

Jim Kane's friends were now in the clearest state of complete drunkenness. They were ignoring their girl friends and talking business. They discussed cattle and how much money they were sure was to be made on the border. Kane listened indifferently. He had no present business other than enjoying his drink and looking at the people. Terry Garrett was giving Ira March a lesson in Mexican border cattle trading. "Ira, if I had been around this border as long as Jim Kane has and could speak the language as well as he can, I could be making at least fifty thousand dollars a year. "

"Is that right?" Ira asked, looking at Kane with new respect.

"Hight. Kane and I were raised on this border. I learned to speak Spanish when I was a kid but I've forgotten it. How come I forgot Spanish and you didn't forget Spanish, Kane?"

"I just didn't forget. I have always spoken it. I stayed here when you left."

"Well, I used to speak it well but I don't now. I've been too busy making money all my life. That is one thing I've got on you, Jim Kane, you don't know how to make money. "

"That don't make a bad feller out of him," Ira March said.

"I mean it. Jim Kane has had more chances to make real money than anyone I ever knew. He has all the ability in the world. His deals always go sour because he don't know how to make money."

"Well, so what?" Kane said.

"Well, you sonofabitch, you don't know how to make money, that's what."

"I may not know how to make money but I know how to knock the head rolling off anyone that calls me a sonofabitch."

"You big sonofa . . ."

Kane stood up.

"I was just going to say, " Garrett said, "you big sonofagun, I don't need my head knocked off."

Kane sat down. "Well, I don't need to knock your head off," he said.

"I was going to say that Ira and I want you to buy some rodeo cattle for us and you can make some money."

"I could go for that."

"How well do you know the Rio Alamos area?" Ira March asked Kane.

"I've never been there but I have a friend down there."

"We need good-horned steers for rodeo. We believe you can get the best kind around Rio Alamos," Garrett said. Rio Alamos is in the dirty zone," Kane said,

"Yes. The tick zone. Anything that comes out of there for export has to be quarantined sixty days in the clean zone north of Hermosillo."

''Gawd, don't talk to me about quarantines," Kane groaned.

"The quarantine won't be your concern. You just buy the cattle and ship them to us. We'll find pasture for their quarantine."

"How long do you want me to buy for you down there?"

"For as long as we can make money at it." '

"What's in it for me?"

"We'll give you two dollars a head and expenses on all the cattle you buy for us."

"You'll put up all the money, all the cost of the cattle?"

"Of course. We'll count your expenses in the cost. You draft on us when you get a load together. Include all your expenses on the draft with the cost of the cattle plus any freight."

"How soon do you need the cattle?"

"Yesterday."

The three men firmed the agreement between them by shaking hands.

11
Rio Alamos

Arriba ya del caballo, hay que aguantar los reparos. This means that once you've chosen to mount a horse you have to, as a man, take any pitching and bucking he might decide to hand you.

In February a dust haze hung over the coastal desert of Sonora. The Alamos Valley was a green slash in the desert. The highway led down off a gentle rise, around a curve, through irrigated fields, through a long line of giant poplar trees, to Rio Alamos. The big poplars, the álamos of Rio Alamos, were sixty to one hundred feet tall, and were growing so close together that from a distance their tops could not be distinguished one from another.

Kane drove across a long bridge spanning the Rio Alamos. The river flowed widely, sparely, and shallowly to the west and the Sea of Cortez. Alamo trees lined the road into town. At the edge of town the highway gave out. It broke into stubborn slabs of asphalt between which deep potholes grew. Then, at the beginning of the main street, the front of Kane's car plunged into a dust fine as flour that boiled inside the car and sloshed like mud from under the tires onto the sidewalk. The dust, when disturbed, kept its substance in flight and settled quickly and densely on store fronts and pedestrians.

A bus was unloading its passengers in front of the Restaurant Teresita, Kane's destination. People carrying their bundles stepped off the bus onto the street. They were wrinkled and soiled as people are who have ridden a bus for days and nights. Kane walked through them as they stood milling on the sidewalk, their feet on the ground again, their voices and movements slow and subdued. He asked a busy waitress in the restaurant for the Lion. She pointed through the door to the kitchen. In the kitchen were two tables crowded with vaqueros, the cowboys of Sonora, wearing heavy palm hats and huaraches. The tables were covered with beer bottles. A big, unshaven cowman who was greasily dirty from being too long drunk sat at one of the tables.

"Gringo," the big man said. "What do you want, gringo?"

"I want to see the Lion. Is he here?" Kane asked.

"You can't see the Lion, gringo. It is Sunday afternoon, don't you know? Don't you have Sunday afternoons in the United States? The day of rest? Day of worship?"

"Shut your mouth, drunk," a big, compactly, firmly fat woman said. She had shining brown skin, brilliant black hair and wore great, savage gold earrings. "Be quiet. Be courteous, Juan Vogel," she said. "Or go home and bathe and drink the water. What is it you want, young man?" she asked Kane. The big man laughed at the woman's scolding.

"The Lion, Andres Celaya," Kane said. "I am a friend of his."

"Go up the stairs and all the way down the hall on the right. He is in room number one."

Kane walked up a long flight of narrow cement steps to an open landing where sofas and easy chairs were placed. From this landing, which was shaded by rubber plants and bougainvillea, Kane could see over most of the town of Rio Alamos. This house was one of the few two-story buildings in the town. The whitewash of the buildings of the town had turned brown like old teeth. Kane walked down the hall and knocked on number one. A lion roared in answer.

"¿Quién?"

"Jim Kane."

"Ohhhhhhhl" the Lion roared.

Kane heard the big hind paws hit the floor and the door of the room was yanked open. The door quivered in the Lion's hand. The Lion filled the door. The mussed, heavy, blue-black mane brushed the top of the door frame. The coarse, pock-marked, brown face grimaced in an old Lion's distortion of a broken-toothed smile. One big, padded paw, clawless and  callused from traveling too far after the prey, enveloped Kane's hand and pulled him into the room while the other slammed Kane on the back in a mauling Mexican abrazo.

"Ohhh, Jim Kane. It makes me happy to see you. Meet Loli," he said.

Loli was under the covers on a bed. Her bare shoulders showed above the hands that held the top of the blankets tightly. Her black eyes smiled at Kane. She said nothing.

The Lion reached under the bed and pulled out a gallon jug. Raisins, prunes, apricots, and orange peelings tumbled in the jug as the Lion shook it violently and held it up for Kane's inspection. A small head of clear bubbles formed on top of the liquid and then burst away.

"Bacanora. Good mezcal," the Lion said. The jug seemed no bigger than a light bulb hanging on his paw. He picked up two dirty glasses in the palm of his hand and gave one to Kane. He slapped the woman on the rear, moved her over under the blankets, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Kane sat in a chair in front of him. The Lion poured Kane a drink of the bacanora. They saluted and drank the wine. It tasted sweet from the decomposing fruit in it. Underneath the disguise of the fruit was the taste of rocky, spiny, sweltering brush distilled by Indian hands.

"What brings you here, Jim Kane? You come to buy rodeos?"

"Exactly. How did you know?"

"This is my querencia, my haunt, my domain. I know what is best to be had here. If you wanted anything else I would force you to forget it and buy the rodeos."

"What are you doing here, Lion? How come you have made this your querencia? Why aren't you in Norteña?"

"The coyotes are getting too numerous and bold in Norteña. They are rabid and crazy for Lion meat."

"What have you been doing, Lion?" Kane asked.

"I have been buying for the shrill California Greek."

"You mean Panapoulous, the one with the feedlot in California?

"That one." I

"What kind of cattle could you find here that he could profitably feed?"

"Cheap ones. He likes the cheap."

"Be careful. He will make a mistake and blame it on you."

"Who can hurt the reputation of a Lion?"

"He knows nothing about this country."

"But I do. I prowl for him."

"He will panic on you over the time and distance involving his money."

"What can he do but wait and worry a little to make his money?"

"He can squeak."

"Squeaks cannot be heard from so far away."

"Well, you'll have no time to help me if you are buying for him."

"All my time will be for you. But we will talk about it tomorrow. These drinks have tickled me. Today is the first day of the Carnaval in preparation of Lent. We will play tonight and get drunk at the dances with the mascaritas, the little masked ones. All of them will love gringos. Just be careful you don't get a mucho, a male one."

The Lion put on a white shirt and he and Kane went down to Teresita's kitchen. The vaqueros were still at the table. They were loudly drunk now. They all, except for the big man who had spoken to Kane earlier, greeted the Lion with cheerful respect.

"Here is the gringo again. He comes with the Lion to finish us off Lion, what does this gringo have that enables him to take you away from your Sunday afternoon loving? Do you love gringos more? Do you love dollars more than lying with your woman?"

The Lion walked up to the big man.

"Juan," the Lion said. "I want you meet my friend, Jim Kane. Jim Kane, this is Juan Vogel, a love of God when he is sober but vile when he is drunk."

Kane and Juan Vogel shook hands.

"Sit down here beside me, gringo, and have a drink with me and tell me how you plan to screw us poor Mexicans. Look, I have plenty of money. I give you a chance to take it. Sit down and drink with me." He pulled out a large roll of pesos and laid it on the table. The Lion sat down. Kane sat down and lit a cigarette. Juan Vogel watched him.

"And a left-handed gringo at that. To finish off the screwing he is going to do it left-handed?

"All right, Juan. What is it? I recommended the man to you. He is my friend," the Lion said.

"So he is the friend of a cat. Do cats have friends? Maybe other cats are their friends. And for the loving and hunting only. Are you a lover, gringo? Or are you a hunter? Maybe a lover and a hunter. To finish us off. Why are you here? Who invited you? Do you come here to love our women and hunt us? Are you here to finish us off in a green-eyed, left-handed way?"

"I'm here for the Carnaval," Kane said.

"A lie. You are here to buy cattle."

"Sell me some then."

"How strong is your left hand, gringo?" a very brown, white-headed vaquero, his face oily and shiny from too many days drinking, asked.

"Why?"

"Play Juanito the vencidos, arm wrestling."

Kane ignored him.

"Play him vencidos, Juan," the vaquero said.

"You know the game, gringo? Do they play vencidos in the United?" Juan Vogel asked.

"Surely."

"We play it often here. Here we play it to keep our minds off how poor we are."

"You don't look poor to me."

"That is because I am good at vencidos. I get money from the rich at vencidos because my arm is strong from working."

He moved his chair under him so that his chest was against the table. He put his elbow on the table so that his upper arm was flat on the top of the table, his hand relaxed.

"A hundred pesos that I beat you, gringo."

"Eight dollars?"

"No. Here nothing of dollars. Here pesos Mexicanos."

The Lion threw a 100-peso bill down on the table in front of Vogel.

"I'll cover it, Juan. And I'll cover any more you want to bet against the gringo."

Kane moved up to the table and locked hands with Juan Vogel. Vogel was strong even after many days of drinking but he lacked will. The lock gave evidence that he would have to endure to win and his heart quit on him and he let Kane win it. "Gringo hijo de la . . .he said and sat back laughing.

"Five hundred pesos on the right hand," he said when he had recovered. The Lion laid down the money.

"You cover my money this time, gringo," Juan Vogel said.

Kane took two $20 bills out of his pocket, covered the bet, and shoved the Lion's money back across the table to him. They contested each other again. Kane had a clean shirt on, was bathed and rested. His hide was dry and his head was clear. The first wrestling had warmed him and given him confidence. Vogel's graying hair was matted on his forehead with sweat that ran from under his big hat. His face oozed with oil. The moisture of him ran through a thick growth of whiskers, over his chin, down his neck, and popped through his dirty shirt. He took Kane's hand and his hand was shaking. The two men bore against each other and held. Kane saved himself, waiting for the man to lose his will again. They pushed each other until each was well into his reserves and Kane started feeling the test of his own will. Then Kane found one more bucketful, gambled on it and threw it in, and put down Juan Vogel's hand.

The Lion bought drinks for everyone and Juan Vogel began a long vigil of Kane. After a time of drinking with Vogel Kane asked him what was bothering him.

"Nothing. I guess nothing, gringo. Let's get out of here. It is time for the dances and the mascaritas."

They walked to the Tecolote Bar. The place smelled strongly of urine. The first casualties of Carnaval had fallen and were lying on the floor of the saloon and in drying urine and broken glass on the back patio, their mouths breathing the floor, their bodies so slack their shirttails and trousers had parted, showing bare lengths of their backs and tops of their buttocks. The Tecolote was a serious place. The fun of Carnaval had no place there. At the Tecolote Juan Vogel dismissed the vaqueros who had been freeloading on him. He and Kane and the Lion drove in Kane's car to a dance across the railroad tracks in Old Town.

Mascaritas crowded the dance. They were dressed in long, shapeless gowns that covered them from the peaked and hooded masks on their heads to their shoes. They wore cloth gloves and long sleeves. They spoke in voices held artificially high so no one could tell whether they were male or female. They danced only with the men at the dance who were not costumed.

Juan Vogel danced with every mascarita who would have him. He frolicked. He stomped. He sought liberally with his hands to ascertain the sex of each mascarita he could get on the dance floor. He gravely insulted a slight mascarita who had been pleased with Juan Vogel's advances until they became inordinately crude. This mascarita removed his disguise and threw a beer bottle at Juan Vogel. The companions of the abused man took him in hand and Juan Vogel, Jim Kane, and the Lion laughingly left the dance.

They went to the Paris de Noche saloon and sat at a table. A small band of tambores played the waltzes of Sinaloa.

Dancers danced the fluid prance of the rancherita. Three mascaritas came in to join the dancing. They stopped at Kane's table. One of them, in a fluorescent-orange, satiny costume, took Kane by the hand and led him to the dance floor. Kane towered over the girl. He was sure she was a girl because she smelled, moved and, when she relaxed her vocal chords, sounded like a girl. She could have weighed no more than eighty pounds.

"You are American?" the voice shrilled from behind the mask in English.

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Your friend."

"What is your name?"

"Carnaval."

"Where did you learn English?"

"Someday I tell you."

"What do you look like? Take off the mask."

"That is all you Americans know. Take it of. Take it off. I am ugly. That is why I wear the mask."

After the dance Kane left the girl and went back to the table with Juan Vogel and the Lion.

"We had better go now. Juan Vogel is very drunk," the Lion said.

"I think I'll stay. I like the little one I was dancing with."

"Don't be fooled," Juan Vogel said. "They are all putos, queers, taking this opportunity to impersonate the women.`'

"Not that one," Kane said.

"It is a puto," Juan Vogel said. "Do you like putos?"

"No."

"Maybe you like real men then."

"I like women. I also know one when I dance with one no matter how many masks or gowns she wears."

"You will find out that decent women of this town do not come to cantinas. This is a decent town and we protect our women. We do not allow them to come to places like this, nor do they wish to. We know where our women belong, gringo. Our women stay at home. They do not live in the bars like the gringas. Go ahead, gringo. Take the mascarita out. Make love to it. Male or female it is good enough for you."

"Vámonos," the Lion said. "Let's go. It is late and we must work early tomorrow. "

They left the Paris de Noche. The Lion drove the car. Kane sat between the Lion and Vogel. "Where do you want us to leave you?" the Lion asked Juan Vogel.

"To my house," Juan Vogel said drunkenly. The Lion drove away from the center of town and the saloons. Juan Vogel laid his head back on the seat. Kane thought, Good, he has given up.

"I do not wish to accompany the gringo as he goes in pursuit of pig slop," Juan Vogel said. He had awakened with rancor.

"You weren't doing so bad dancing with the pigs when you felt good," Kane said, laughing.

"I never have anything to do with mascaritas, nor with gringos."

"You danced with the mascaritas. You were caressing them in your way, " Kane laughed.

"I will pass all my mascaritas on to you. I will trade them to you, gringo. Do you have a sister? A wife? I have never taken a gringa. That is something I have always wanted to do. Nor have I taken a gringo. How about it, gringo? How would you like it?" He slapped his hand down on Kane's knee. He slapped Kane's thigh. He grabbed so hard at Kane's groin that if he had succeeded he would have ruptured Kane. Kane chopped with the edge of his hand at Juan Vogel's throat. He missed the throat and only thumped him on the chest. Juan Vogel punched Kane in the eye and bright little stars lit up the inside of Kane's head. Kane caught the next punch in both hands and forced Juan Vogel's hands down and went for his throat. He got both thumbs on Juan Vogel's windpipe, straddled him, and forced his upper body over the back of the seat. Juan Vogel had a powerful neck and made it difficult for Kane to choke him by hunching his shoulders and pressing down with his chin. Kane bent him farther over the back of the seat and found less resistance there. He wrapped his fingers around Juan Vogel's neck and began to cut off the air supply.

The Lion stopped the car. He pulled Kane off and held him while Juan Vogel got out of the car. The Lion got out and held Juan Vogel. Juan Vogel held onto the door and argued with the Lion. Kane went out the door on the side opposite them, ran around the back of the car, came up behind the Lion, and, still on the run, hung a Sunday on Juan Vogel's jaw. Juan Vogel went down. Jim Kane had been in too much of a hurry. He had shot the Sunday from too far away. He had been off balance and his bad knee went out and he fell beside Juan Vogel on the ground. Juan Vogel got up. Jim Kane got to his hands and knees but could not get up. Juan Vogel aimed an inaccurate and drunken kick at Jim Kane's head and missed. The Lion pulled him away from Kane.

Kane pulled himself to his feet against the car. The galling pain of the swelling knee sobered him. Juan Vogel and the Lion were arguing and Kane was asking himself what he was doing there on that dark street. What had he done for himself? He had crippled his knee again. This was not a bad break. This was another nothing venture. Now Juan Vogel was staggering down the street cursing Kane.

The Lion took Kane back to a room in Teresita's. He went to his own room and came back with a dust-covered bottle full of a muddy-looking, rank-smelling fluid.

"This will cure it. By morning you won't know you were ever hurt," the Lion said.

"What is it?" Kane asked. He sat on the edge of the bed in his underwear watching a scar on his knee swell until it shone from stretching.

"It is volcanic oil. The best remedy for any bone or muscle injury."

"You are crazy."

"You will see. I put this on and rub it in and all your broken and decomposed places will compose themselves by morning."

Kane looked at the swelling knee and knew it was ruined again. He knew from experience that he would hardly be able to walk for at least two weeks. He felt extremely sorry for himself for being in the hands of this ignorant animal. The Lion was an irrational hulk of unreasoning adobe. This big savage was telling him that an ugly oil he was slopping on the knee was going to miraculously, for reasons unknown, overnight, remove the soreness. This was the same man who was going to help Kane advance his fortunes in Mexico. A big, drunken tear formed in Kane's eye and rolled down his nose.

"No llores. Don't cry now. Don't cry," the Lion said, distressed, and picked up a dirty towel from the foot of the bed and pushed it into Kane's face. He saturated Kane's knee with the volcanic oil until the skin was dyed dark brown, then rolled Kane into the bed, turned off the light, and left the room.

He was back in the room at 4:30 A.M.

"You are nocturnal," Kane accused him. "Have you no human qualities at all?"

"Old Lions have no time to sleep. You and I have a long way to go to see cattle today. We are going to San Bernardo at the foot of the Sierra where my friend Arce is holding the cattle. The men that were with Juan Vogel yesterday brought them down from the Sierra," the Lion said and left the room. Kane wrapped his knee in an elastic bandage and hobbled down to Teresita's kitchen. Loud early morning ranch music from a large radio in the kitchen entertained the listless survivors of Carnaval who sat over hot bowls of menudo, the beef tripe soup everyone believes is tonic for the reveler before he retires from a celebration and returns to his normal bed. Teresita sat at the head of one of her tables dictating to the Lion. The Lion was working her accounts for her with pencil and paper. The kitchen was warm and steamy from the great pot of boiling menudo on the stove and smelled of boiled bovine innards, hominy, and green herbs.

"¡Válgame!" she said when she saw Kane's stooped, bentkneed walk. "What happened to the Americanito?"

"I fell off the bed," Kane said.

"He fought with Juanito Vogel," the Lion said.

"¡Pobrecito! Poor little thing!" Teresita said.

"Yes. He hit Jim and kicked him," the Lion said sadly.

"That Juanito is an animal when he is drunk. When he is drunk he is capable of insulting God. When he is sober he is a love of God," Teresita said.

"I don't believe I fared so badly, " Kane said. "My knee falsified. " He waited for an affirmation from the Lion. "I would have strangled him if the Lion had not intervened." No affirmation. "I hit him a blow well dealt." Still no affirmation.

Kane could see that Teresita did not believe Kane had done well. She only politely nodded her head. She believed only the evidence of Kane's black eye and sore knee. The Lion had seen the fight but seeing Kane now wiped out all his recollection of what had really happened. He now believed Kane had received all the worst of the encounter. No doubt about it, Juan Vogel, the Lion believed, had devastated himself a gringo.

While they drank coffee Teresita and the Lion, at length, reiterated the faults of Juan Vogel until Kane figured the Lion had declared himself a holiday because of Kane's condition and was not going to San Bernardo. .

The Lion finally said, "I guess you won't be going because of the way you feel so I will take your car and go by myself."

"The mierda you will," Kane said. "I came for cattle. I've listened to all I want to know about Juan Vogel. Let's get going."

They were well out on the way to San Bernardo when the Lion said, "I should have told you something more about these cattle."

'`What is that?" Kane asked.'

"Juan Vogel owns an interest in this herd we are going to see. He'll be here today. Leave him to me. I don't want you to fight him again."

Kane laughed. "I couldn't fight him if I wanted to."

"Good," the Lion said.

They turned off the highway onto a road through the brush. Kane asked the Lion names of the trees and brush. One day or one month would not have sufficed to identify the thousands of varieties of trees, grass, browse, and cactus. The road followed sandy washes. On both sides of the road the ground was rocky. At places the brush was impenetrable from the ground to the tops of giant amapas, mesquite trees, and the sahuaro-like hecho cactuses. All the vegetation was spiny. Near San Bernardo they left the coastal desert and came into the embrace of the steep mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Sierra Madre of the West.

In San Bernardo they stopped at a small store. A stocky, smiling man dressed in clean khakis came out of the store to greet them.

"¿Qué hubo?" the man called. "The cattle have arrived."

"¿Qué hubo? Manuelito!" the Lion roared. "Meet my friend, Jim Kane." `

Kane unloaded himself from the car and looked at Manuelito out of his one good eye.

"Jim Kane at your service," he said and shook hands with the man.

Manuelito looked Kane over and turned to the Lion.

"Have you brought us a buyer?"

"Yes. This man needs two-year-old horned steers," the Lion said.

"Has he met my compadre, Juanito?"

"Look at him again and ask me again if he has met your compadre, Juanito? They met last night, disgracefully."

"You mean my compadre did this to your friend?"

"Exactly."

"Come in. I have some good cheese from the Sierra. I have some very good wine. I just brewed a strong pot of coffee."

Spare and wiry serranos, men of the Sierra Madre, sat on the cool cement porch in front of the store. They wore peaked, hand-woven palm hats; worn, loose-fitting denim jackets; and tire-soled, leather-thonged huaraches. They watched Kane hobble into the store.

Tiers of canned goods covered the walls behind the counter in the store. The Lion stepped behind the counter and availed himself of oval cans of sardines, a box of crackers, and cans of tomato juice. The three men walked into another room where Kane drank cool water from a sweating olla, an earthen jug. Sheets of dried beef tied in square bales were stacked in the corner of the room. Manuelito took a heavy cheese from a pile of white cheeses and went on into a big warehouse in the . back of the building. The warehouse smelled of onion, garlic, dried hides, and lye-cured leather. New vaquero saddles with long, goose-necked pommels and high, middle-of-the-back cantles hung from the ceiling with bullhide armas, brush armor, mantling them.

Manuelito unfolded a cot and placed it in the center of the floor. The cot was the size of a twin bed, its lumber legs axhewn and heavy. It was covered with new burlap. He sat on the cot and sliced the white cheese with a sharp butcher knife.

"Ah, what good cheese," the Lion growled. He sat across the cot from Manuelito and opened the two cans of sardines and laid them next to the cheese. The meat of the sardines was reddish-brown. The fishes lay in thick sauce. Manuelito went to a dark corner of the warehouse and brought back a five-gallon jug full of a liquid clear as spring water and set it down on the dirt floor by the cot.

"El garrafón. The big jug, " he said respectfully. "This is the mezcal, lechuguilla from the Sierra, Señor Kane. This is the wine of this region of the Sierra made from the heads of the lechuguilla." He poured a swallow into a cup and handed it to Kane. The stuff was the Sierra Madre in liquid form for man to drink.

The Lion and Manuelito discussed Kane's fight with Juan Vogel while they ate. Kane listened until he finished eating. Drowsiness bore down on him, caused by the lechuguilla, the heavy cheese, and meat inside him, and the big, tight pain in his leg. When all the whole meat of the sardines was gone and nothing lay in the cans but small bites and the coarsest bones in the thick sauce, Manuelito gathered the remains of the lunch to put away. The Lion picked up the cans and sucked what was left of the sardines and sauce into his mouth, crunching the bones. He walked out to the front of the store with Manuelito. Kane stretched out on the cot and slept. He was awakened by Manuelito's voice saying, "Compadre." He got up from the cot and went out the back door of the warehouse. He crossed a smooth, hard-packed yard to the edge of a corral. The corral was full of quiet cattle. They were thin. They all had horns. Every color that cattle could be was in that corral.

Among the cattle were a few poor, dusty-backed, rung-horned old cows. The old cows were worn out and had no offspring by their sides, no reserves of energy remaining in their hides and bones. They couldn't even ruminate a cud to chew.

‘A few lean-backed old bulls gazed back at the mountains. They were completely detached from the old cows and the younger bulls around them. These old bulls reminded Kane of deposed tyrants who had been recaptured after too many years of being useless in exile. Now corraled, jailed, and condemned, they could think of nothing but their own creature comforts.

Yearlings walked among them with the curiosity of adolescents looking for entertainment. They investigated the urine of Jim Kane an old cow bringing forth in them thoughts and instincts not yet matured. The movements of a small boy on the fence made them playful but not playful enough to make them use their spare energies to kick and buck like most cattle play. They mock-ferociously lowered their horns at a thin dog that searched the corral for new, warm manure to eat.

The best cattle in the corral were fifteen head of two-year-old bulls. They were in the prime of their lives. In spite of their thinness they were healthy. Their eyes were clear. Their coats were alive, velvet, brilliantly clean. Their horns were heavy at the base and tapered out to sharp points ahead of them. These horns were the most efficient tools ever provided by a creator for the brute spearing of an adversary, whether it be a tiger or a man. The Spaniard had for centuries maintained control of the mating of the ancestors of these cattle so horns and hearts most efficient for killing had emerged. These cattle had inherited those horns. The hearts of brave fighting stock also had been inherited by these cattle to the extent they survived nobly and hardily in a country hostile to cattle. But the traits of viciousness and love of war had not been strong enough to survive generations in the Sierra Madre."

These cattle were game cattle and Kane wanted them for rodeo. They were cattle fit to entertain men, not just to satisfy man's appetite for beefsteak.

Kane was sitting on the top board of the corral when he heard the men who were making the business of these cattle coming out of the back door of the store. He turned and saw that the first man approaching him was Juan Vogel. Juan Vogel's face was puffy and clean shaven. His clothes were even clean. His boots were polished. His hat was brushed clean. He walked up to Kane and extended his hand. Kane took it. . "¿Qué tal, Jim?" Juan Vogel said. "What do you think of mis alacranes, my scorpion cattle?"

"I like them. How do you feel today, Juan?"

"Not at all good. How do you feel?"

"Horrible," Kane said, looking for some mark of his Sunday punch on Juan Vogel's face. He did not see any marks. The only residue on Juan Vogel's face of the bouts he had made the night before was the awakening-from-drunkenness swelling of the eyes.

"I am rawly hungover. I have a moral hangover too," Juan Vogel said.

"We had a good fight with the bottle and with ourselves," Kane said.

"Yes, and we lost," Juan Vogel said. "Let's recoup and see if we can find homes for these cattle?

12
A New Country

Reata. A reata is a rawhide rope. A well-made reata, well-tallowed and uniform throughout its length, is like another live appendage of the vaquero. There are two kinds of reatas. One kind is made by braiding four to eight strands of rawhide together. This is the best kind. If a braided reata breaks, a good maker of reatas can splice it back together so that no one can tell where the splice was made. Another kind of reata is the torcida or twisted kind. This reata is made hurriedly into strands of hardtwist. No matter how uniform the strands are or how well tallowed these twisted--reatas may be, they are always unmanageable and when they break they come un-twisted and are irreparable. The saying "buena reata," when applied to a man, means that he is always ready to serve a friendship. He is never daunted by too heavy a task or too hard a jerk. He splices easily.

How much money do you want for the fifteen head of two-year-olds, Juan?" Jim Kane asked Juan Vogel.

"I don't have anything to do with the younger cattle," Juan Vogel said. "The young cattle are for the Lion. The old cows and bulls are for me."

"Are you going to put them on pasture?"

"No. I'll kill them for the municipal market."

"These old cattle won't yield much meat, will they?"

"In this region we only kill ganado grande, big cattle, or older cattle. We seldom kill cattle that are still producing on the ranches. Here, the custom of the rancher is to sell only cattle that are no longer producing. In the market a kilo of the meat of an old bull sells for the same price as a kilo of the meat of a fat young heifer."

"How much is Arce asking for the two-year-olds?" Kane asked.

"I don't know what agreement he has with the Lion. Here he comes. Ask him."

A slight, middle-aged man was walking toward the corral.

He wore rimless glasses. He resembled a lean bird. He had a razor-thin line of whiskers on the rim of a purple upper lip that resembled the small, clipped beak of a nighthawk. His hat was tipped back. Juan Vogel, smoking his cigarette and squinting his eyes against the smoke, introduced the man to Kane.

"This is our savior, Salvador Arce. Jim Kane," Juan Vogel said unsmilingly. Kane and Arce shook hands.

"Are you a cattle buyer?" Arce asked Kane. ‘

"Yes, I'm here with the Lion," said Kane.

"How much will you give for the younger cattle""

"I'm only here to look at them. The Lion and I will come to an understanding?

"The Lion has nothing to do with these cattle. These are my cattle."

"To tell the truth, I'm not interested in any of the yearling cattle," said Kane.

"There are no yearling cattle here. The youngest are sobreaño."

"What to you is sobreaño?" Kane asked him.

"The cattle that will soon be two years old."

"In that case I agree they are sobreaño but they have eleven months to go to become two years old."

"I can see you don't know much about these Sierra cattle." .

"I do know what I want and I don't want the thirty head of younger cattle. They won't be of any use to me," Kane said.

"Why not?"

"Their horns are too short, too soft."

"You must be joking. You mean you are buying horns?"

Arce laughed.

"Exactly."

Arce looked unbelievingly at Juan Vogel. Arce was astounded. He looked at Kane. He backed up and looked at the cattle..

You are a phenomenal buyer. Do you buy goats too? I have some goats with good horns," Arce said.

"No. Only cattle two to three years old with horns," Kane said.

"Why do you want the horns?"

"We hang them on the walls for the decoration of cowboy bars in the United States. Also it is said that ground into powder and served in bourbon whiskey they give special potency to the American male."

"And the Americans give them to people they cuckold," the Lion growled as he came walking up. "I have Manuelito's truck coming for the forty-five head of becerros," he told Arce.

"I need more money for the fifteen head of two-year-olds," Arce said to the Lion.

"No, no, no, no," the Lion said, bowing his head and shaking it. "You agreed to deliver forty-five head for the money I loaned you. I'm taking them now."

"All right. But give me more money for the fifteen head of two-year-olds or let me sell them to the American," said Arce.

"I am going to sell them to the American," the Lion said, laughing.

"It is not just."

"Look, Salvador. What is ganado?"

"Animals like these. Cattle."

"What else does the word ‘ganado' mean?"

"Gain. Profit."

"Well, that is why I loaned you money. To gain and to profit by it."

Juan Vogel finished his cigarette, lit a new one off the tiny butt of the old one, looked over the fence at the cattle, and laughed.

"Bueno," Arce said. "I won't argue with you about it.

A truck backed up to the loading chute at one end of the corral and the Lion went in and separated the younger cattle from the old cattle Vogel was going to take. The cattle were gentle and easy to handle. Serranos carrying reatas helped the Lion load the cattle on the truck. Salvador Arce stood outside the corral and watched.

When the cattle were loaded the Lion came over to Kane. "Vámonos," he said. Kane got down off the fence. Juan Vogel did not turn. He stood shot-hipped and slack-waisted with his arms on the top board of the fence.

"I'll see you in town, Juan," Kane said.

"I'll see you," Juan Vogel said. He did not turn away from his concentration on the cattle.

Kane and the Lion drove back to Rio Alamos to a house by a small lime orchard and a barbed wire and mesquite post corral. They got out of the car. A light-complexioned man, his face deeply tanned and creased by the sun, walked up buttoning his shirt. Kane recognized him as Güero Chavarin, one of the men he had met at Teresita's restaurant the day before.

"How are you, Güero?" Kane asked.

"Fine. How are you?` Chavarin laughed, and automatically lifted a hand to hide his rotten teeth.

"We've got forty-five head coming in from San Bernardo, Güero," the Lion said. "Have you any feed for them?)

"I have a few bales left of the alfalfa you brought Friday night," said Güero.

"Have you got ten bales?"

"I think so."

"You ought to. I unloaded thirty-five bales here Friday."

"I'm sure I have enough."

The truck from San Bernardo rolled in and the Lion went over to direct the unloading. Chavarin stayed close to Kane. He appraised Kane, laughed, and said, "How do you feel?" mocking Kane.

"Bueno," Kane said.

"Are you going to be in Rio Alamos a while?" Chavarin kept a silly, patronizing smile on his face. He didn't show his teeth though.

"Yes," Kane said. He didn't feel well enough to carry on a conversation.

"Buying cattle?"

"Yes." Kane watched the Lion unloading the cattle. He hoped Chavarin would shut up.

"With the Lion?" Chavarin laughed, hiding his mouth with one hand.

"Yes."

"Be careful he doesn't devour you," Chavarin mocked. Kane looked at him. "He won't. We have always dealt well with each other."

"I can buy cattle cheaper for you than the Lion can. All you have to do is give me a commission?

"I already have an agreement with the Lion for buying the cattle."

"How many are you going to buy?"

"Five hundred head."

"So many? It will be impossible for the Lion to buy them all for you."

"Then I won't buy five hundred, will I?"

"Probably not. Do you like dairy cattle?"

"I don't know anything about them."

"I do. That is my business."

"It is?"

"Yes."

"Where is your dairy?"

"I don't have one at present."

"Oh."

"I am ready to stock a dairy at present. Milk is the best business here in Rio Alamos. If you will buy the cattle, American cows to stock my diary, we will make more money than five thousand of these chango, monkey, corrientes would and I won't steal from you."

"You won't steal from me?"

"No."

"I'm glad to know ,that."

"I am honest. I don't want to take an American like most of these people do. I have always liked Americans. People like the Lion and Juan Vogel will take advantage of an American because he has money."

"And you won't?" Kane asked him.

"No. Never."

"Good." Kane exaggerated a sigh of relief.

"Then you think you'll do it? How soon do you think you can get the cows down here?"

"I don't know."

"Let me know as soon as you can so that I can have everything ready, " Chavarin said, no longer in the mood to patronize.

"OK," Kane said in English.

"Do you think you can let me have some money now so that I can fix my corrals and stock up on some feed?" Chavarin asked, trying a full test of Kane's air.

"I don't think so. Not right now," Kane said.

The Lion had finished unloading the cattle and was walking toward them.

"You let me know as soon as possible when you have the money so I can begin preparations," Chavarin said softly.

"OK," Kane said softly.

"Don't say anything about this to the Lion," Chavarin said more softly, as softly as an ambusher of a lion would speak as he saw the lion approaching upwind and almost in range.

"OK," Kane whispered.

"Feed them ten bales, Güerito," the Lion moaned. "And in the morning get your nephews in the corral and gather up all that baling wire that is scattered around in there. A person can't walk in that corral without hobbling himself in baling a wire.

"Sí, sí, sí, sí," Chavarin said, not wanting Kane to see he took orders from the Lion.

"Ten bales. I say ten," the Lion said, looking for Chavarin's attention.

"I'm going to feed them right now," Chavarin said.

"Before they bed down again," the Lion said.

"Sí, sí, sí, sí, sí," Chavarin said impatiently.

Kane and the Lion got into Kane's car. Chavarin came up to Kane's side of the car and put his hands on the door. The door was closed well but Chavarin opened it and slammed it shut keeping his thumb on the button of the door handle so that it would not latch. He slammed it in this way again, and then again. Kane took the door from him and closed it himself

"Be careful of that door. It does not close well," Chavarin said.

The door had always closed well.

"Are you going to take Jim to Teresita's, Lion?" he asked.

"Of course."

"That is all right then. He should be well cared for while he is hurt like he is. I was going to suggest he stay here with my sister and me."

"No‘ necessity of that," the Lion growled.

"This is your house whenever you wish to stay here and save a hotel bill, you know that now," Chavarin told Kane with feeling.

"Thank you," Kane said.

"The cattle, Güero. The cattle. I charge you with the cattle," the Lion said.

"Right away," Chavarin said. .

"Thank you. We'll see you in the morning, " the Lion said and backed the car into the street. "He will wait until we are out of sight and then he will feed five bales and throw the wire for five more bales into the corral," the Lion said as he drove toward Teresita's.

"He wants to start a dairy. Is he a dairyman?" Kane asked.

"No, he is not a dairyman."

'He wants me to buy some milk cows. He wants me to go into the business of milking cows with him."

The Lion laughed. "You must realize that you would have to do all the milking if you went into the milk business with him. In that case you would not need him unless you need a boss."

The Lion drove to Teresita's.

13
The Patriarch

The roosters of Rio Alamos tuned up each night before midnight.

This first crowing was unprecise, a clearing out of dusty, unmusical croaks. The crows sounded continuously for three quarters of an hour through the settling dust of Rio Alamos dry, starry darkness. Two hours later they began again and rolled across town in strong, staccato song. At 4 A.M. the calls were only dutiful and weary. At dawn they brightened with authority to awaken the town. Kane believed that at least ten thousand full-grown and twenty thousand half-grown roosters reigned in Rio Alamos and their crows seemed all to be directed at Teresita's restaurant and converged on the top floor in Kane's ear.

Kane and the Lion went each day to the ranches to trade for and receive cattle. The formal procedures and mechanics of each trade were the same. They followed a certain ritual that was common to every trade. After receiving a bunch of cattle the buyers would ship them on trucks to Chavarin's corral and go to another ranch to start the ritual of another trade with another owner. .

They drove up to a ranch somewhere in the middle of the brush and stopped in front of a squat house shaded by a long portal. Saddles, armas, bridles, reatas, and hemp saddle pads hung in the shade of the portal..Ancient horcones, Y-shaped hardwood log columns, supported the portales. The adobes of the houses washed away and could be replaced. The horcón remained solid and whole long after erosion had claimed adobes. The portales provided solid shade in the day, cool sleeping shelters at night. Horcones outlived several, of the houses and portales they supported. Old men of the ranches whose shelters were supported by certain horcones remembered that their ancient grandfathers had said that their ancient grandfathers had said that they could remember someone saying that certain horcones had been in the houses when they had been born.

Parked in front of one of these ranches, Kane and the Lion sat in the car and waited while the people inside decided who Kane and Lion were. When the decision was that they were the cattle buyers known to be in the country, one of the women came out and invited them to come to the shade of the portal. The woman offered them chairs. She picked each chair  up and set it in a new place for the visitors with her own hands. The rancher was at home and not out campeando, looking after his cattle in the brush. He greeted Kane and the Lion and ordered them to sit down.

"Sit," he said. "Bring coffee, old woman," he ordered his wife. "Now, how may I serve you?" he asked Kane and the Lion.

This man was not fat. He was sparse and dried out and the color of fresh jerky. He was thin of hair and his hands now were perpetually clenched and encrusted by work.

The Lion introduced himself and introduced Kane. The rancher introduced his bothers, sons, nephews, and grandsons, and all took seats. The buyers and the rancher sat at a table. The sons, brothers, nephews, and grandsons sat away from the table. Everyone lit cigarettes. Kane offered American cigarettes and watched them disappear.

"Let us see," the rancher said when he took the cigarette, "Very fine," he said, puffing as he lit the cigarette. "Very good," looking at Kane. "Thank you." Then he sat back, relaxed and at ease as though he had expected something so new as an American cigarette might have had an adverse effect on him. Finding he enjoyed the cigarette, he smiled and made a relieved joke.

"Bueno." he said. "Is it true what they say, that American cigarettes make a man steril? I think not, no?"

The Lion laughed. "¿Quién sabe, who knows? Ask our American friend."

"I have never heard that theory," Kane said.

The rancher decided to educate the American on what he had learned about American smoking habits.

"They say that Americans not only lose their fertility but also their potency because of the small napkins they insert in the tip of their cigarettes," he stated. "They say that Americans are so afraid of contacting other harms through smoking that they sacrifice their manly potentialities by imbedding the small filter napkin in the cigarettes?

"I hope not," Kane said.

"¡Pues, dicen! Well, it is said this is true! ¡Lo que es el vicio! The way the vice of the cigarette can govern a man! We Mexicans are very addicted to our cigarettes but we smoke the pure, common tobacco and it does not seem to harm us except for the cough."

By this time all the sons, brothers, grandsons, and nephews had taken a long look at the deadly thing smoking in their hands and let off puffing them so enjoyably. Everyone fell silent while all dutifully finished smoking the cigarettes the American had made as presents to them and when the patriarch had smoked his until the filters were burning they all put the cigarettes out.

"So you buy cattle," the patriarch said. `

"Yes," Kane and the Lion said, impatient to begin business after having spent a half hour discussing cigarettes.

"Right now I have nothing to sell," the patriarch said.

"Right now the cattle are very thin and will bring no price. My cattle are dying right now. My custom is to sell after the rains in September, October, and later when they are in good flesh. Right now it would be very hard to sell. My old cows and bulls are very poor."

"We are buying only two-year-olds and only male cattle," Kane said.

"It would be very hard to sell right now. It is not my custom to sell my young cattle. I prefer to wait until they are larger and worth more money."

'`Don't you think it would help to thin out your younger cattle?" Kane asked. "Your older cattle would get more to eat."

"It is not my custom. My younger cattle, my ganado chico, are not worth anything right now."

"Don't you have any two-year-old bulls with good horns? Cattle old enough to have finished horns? I want the llavudos, the ones with the big keys," Kane said.

"In quantity. But that is all there is in this country, man," the patriarch said.

"How many do you have?"

"Maybe three or four. " The patriarch looked for confirmation to his sons, brothers, nephews, and grandsons. Some of them nodded and some just looked at him, startled and embarrassed that they had been addressed. "Three or four," someone answered, and someone else said, "there is the brown and white paint, and the brown bull. I saw them yesterday at the mezquital. They were together." Another said, "There is the novillo colorado, the big red steer. He is very fat." Someone else said, "Also the black torte, young bull."

"There are quite a few, hay algunos," the patriarch stated comfortably.

"Just four?" Kane asked. .

"Four, " the patriarch said.

"¿Hay no está el pinto negro?" "Isn't there the black-and-white?" another asked in the way the ranchers of that region have of accenting a statement of negative fact in the tone of a question and making it by this tone into a statement of positive fact.

"Do you buy black-and-white cattle?" the patriarch asked Kane.

"Depending on the quality," Kane answered.

"Other buyers have not wanted the black-and-white at any price. ¿Bueno? Why is that? What does the black-and-white have?"

"Perhaps the buyer did not want dairy cattle."

"But how can a black-and-white bull be dairy cattle?"

"They' might not have wanted any cattle that had dairy cattle characteristics."

"Oooooooo . . . where would these cattle from this region ever get dairy characteristics?

"I don't know, " Kane said.

"These cattle are corriente, of the worst kind of the common native."

"Those," the Lion interrupted, "those are the kind of cattle we buy. "

"And why would you want corriente?"

"We send them to the other side. The gringos like them," the Lion said.

"What for? To fatten them?" the old patriarch asked.

`" Brothers, sons, nephews, and grandsons laughed quietly at this question.

"¿Quién sabe?" the Lion said.

"Yes, with the pure little odor of good pasture they fatten. The Americans won't need to turn them out on good feed. The Americans will need only to drive a truck full of the good American feed around these corrientes and the odor will fatten them." More laughter from brothers, sons, nephews, and grandsons.

"Those are the kind we need. The kind that are cheap to buy and cheap to maintain," Kane said."

At the mention of value everyone subsided for a while and Kane and the Lion and all the rancheritos sipped their coffee. Then the patriarch said craftily, with the Mexican rancher's cunning that is so obvious and common to every trade but the procedure that must be adhered to in every trade so that a buyer is obliged to follow it and be fooled by it to ever do business with the rancher, "Well, it is not my custom to sell my younger cattle."

"We believe it would be to your advantage to sell," the Lion said.

"No. I have no necessity to sell. I don't need money at present."

"We pay good money for these cattle."

"What could they be worth? All my cattle are thin right now. What price do you give?"

"This depends on the cattle. We must see the cattle," Kane said.

"More or less. Don't think my cattle are very bad. My cattle are of a better class. More or less what price do you have?"

"How much do you want?"

"Like I say, I have no need to sell right now but if you have a good price I might let you buy a few. Three or four."

"We have been paying four hundred pesos, even four hundred fifty pesos a head." `

"Ah no!" the patriarch said, emphatically shaking his head. "Don't think my cattle are bad cattle. Manuel Padilla told me you paid him five hundred pesos for his cattle. How am I going to sell you my cattle which are very much better for four hundred fifty pesos. Manuel Padilla has very bad cattle. No, no! I won't sell at that price. I have no necessity to sell now anyway. You want very cheap cattle."

"We paid Manuel Padilla four hundred and four hundred fifty."

"No. You paid live hundred?

"Well, let's do this," Kane said. "We'll come and look at your cattle and if they are worth five hundred pesos we will pay it. "

"I have to think about it. Right now it is hard to gather the cattle. All my people are occupied. When are you going to be coming back this way? In case I resolve myself to sell."

"We don't know. When could you have something for us to see?"

"Maybe next week if it is possible to get people to work."

"What day more or less?" Kane asked.

"Wednesday or Thursday," the old man said.

"If we come Thursday would you have the cattle in?"

The patriarch looked around at his sons and brothers.

"You think that by Thursday you can have three or four of the toretes up?"

"I have to go to Rio Alamos Wednesday," one said.

"Thursday is the feast day of my sister, your daughter," another said.

"Better Tuesday. I will be unoccupied until Wednesday," another said.

"Why not Friday?" another asked. "We will all be unoccupied Friday."

"Yes, Friday. I think Friday will be best," the patriarch said. "Can you come on Friday?"

"Yes, we can."

"Well then, we'll agree to that. We will see what we can have for you here on Friday. And we will see if by then you have resolved yourselves to give us your best price."

"We only buy merchantable cattle," Kane said. "We don't want blind cattle, swaybacks, cripples, bobtails, broken horns, crooked horns, cow-horns, or cattle so thin they can't be shipped."

"Very good," the patriarch said, no longer listening.

Of course the old man knew the buyers had been in the country and knew that Manuel Padilla had recommended him to them. He could have gathered the cattle himself and sent word to the Lion at Teresita's that he had the cattle to sell and in that case he would have been reasonably sure to sell the cattle on the first day Kane and the Lion came to the ranch. But that would have eliminated the formal procedure of the buyers wooing of him, the absolutely essential formal preliminary to any trade in that region.

When Kane and the Lion returned on Friday with a truck, the cattle were in the corral. Kane and the Lion were led straight to the corral. The trancas, the poles that were slid through holes in thick gate posts, were untied and the buyers went into the corral with the rancher.

"They are all bulls?" Kane asked.

"Yes. In this county we do not castrate," the rancher said.

"Why is that? We could give more money for steers," Kane said, hoping to make clear that he didn't like to buy bulls, a trading point that might bring the rancher's price down.

"You would be buying inferior cattle for more money in that case," the rancher said.

"It has been proven in my country that steers do better than bulls. Their meat is better, they grow better. The castration changes their minds from love to grass."

"That is funny and may be true in your country but we have never had that custom in this country. A bull grows better, fills out better, and resists the hardships of this country better. Bull meat is more favored here. It is stronger and more nourishing. The flavor is much better than the meat of the fat steer and is much preferred. Also here we do not have facilities against the screw worm. This is another reason we do not castrate. If an animal gets wormy it goes crazy and hides. This brush makes the care and curing of such an animal very difficult." `

This settled, Kane and the Lion inspected the cattle. The black bull was tied by his horns to a snubbing post in the middle of the corral. The post had been worn and burned by a thousand reatas. The bull was lean and shrunk from his ordeal in the sun. As the men approached him he drove off quick, thin, hind legs, his tail wringing, his lean flanks quivering, the corners of his eyes showing white half-moons.

"What do you think of him?" the patriarch asked.

"He's very thin," Kane said, looking at the shrunken sides of the black, at the tick enclustered cods swinging between his weak hind legs.

"He looks thin because he has been tied that way since Wednesday. He is very bronco. If we had let him run loose in the corral he would have jumped the trancas and got away. He got away twice that way. He will fill up and be back to his normal hair as soon as he is released and fed. All we have been able to feed him here is a little tasol, cornstalks. Feed is very scarce this time of the year, particularly this year. Alfalfa from the Rio Alamos valley is very expensive."

"Yes, alfalfa is expensive, y no dado, and not given, it is even more expensive," the Lion grumbled.

"Ha, ha, ha, the patriarch said.

A big red star was lying complacently in one corner. He was what the Mexicans call a "legitimate steer," having been castrated as a young calf before the bull characteristics could appear. He was by far the best animal in the corral. A brown-and-white bull and a brown bull were standing with their heads together in another corner. They kept their tails to the men.

The black-and-white bull had small, weak, cowlike horns that pointed toward each other. His horns were no good for rodeo. He had the sunken eye that blinked when the other did but did not see. He was so swaybacked his hind end seemed disconnected from his front end. When he walked his hind legs were pulled along aimlessly by the front legs. The hind legs headed first one way and then another like an old-fashioned child's cart that had a hinge in the middle and rear wheels that would not roll.

"We cannot use the black-and-white," Kane said.

"Why not? He is a good animal," the patriarch said.

"He is blind in the left eye."

"He will look better when you have fattened him. You said you bought black-and-whites."

"We said we bought black-and-whites with good horns. We said we did not buy cow-horns, which he has, blind cattle, which he is, and swaybacks which he also certainly is."

"What will you give for him?"

"Nothing. We won't buy him. We are interested only in the merchantable cattle."

"What are you going to give me for the other four head?"

"We will give four hundred pesos for the cattle."

"No, no, no! You said you were going to give five hundred pesos per head for all of them and now you say you only give four hundred pesos and you are turning down one of them, to finish me off."

"I'm sorry you misunderstood me. I told you we would come and look and if the cattle were worth five hundred pesos we would give it. These cattle are not worth five hundred. We are offering what they are worth," Kane said.

"They are worth more," the old man said.

"How much do you think they are worth?"

"You said five hundred pesos."

"No," Kane said.

"Give me six hundred for the red steer and five hundred for the rest and you don't have to take the black-and-white."

"We can't do it. Besides, you said you didn't believe steers were as good as bulls. How can you ask more money for the steer?"

The patriarch only looked at Kane. He knew the value of his steer as well as Kane did. The truth was that he had more bulls to sell than steers. He ignored Kane's question. He was not going to allow any reason but his own to enter into the trade.

"Well, as I told you, I have no necessity to sell. I can wait until after the rains when the cattle will be worth more. What is your ultimate price?"

"We'll give you four hundred twenty-five for the three head and five hundred for the red-steer."`

"Give me four hundred seventy-five for all four and take them."

"We cannot do that. Five hundred pesos and four hundred twenty-five, you asked for our ultimate price."

"I won't sell for that price. Give me four hundred fifty pesos for four head, take the black-and-white too, and I will keep the red steer. "

"We will not take the black-and-white at any price. If the red steer doesn't go we won't trade. He is the one that is making the price on the other three cattle. We'll give four hundred fifty pesos for the four good cattle and leave the black-and-white," the Lion said.

"No. Give me six hundred for the red steer and four hundred seventy-five for the three and four hundred fifty for the black-and-white."

"Let's go, Lion," Kane said and turned and walked out of the corral.

"I guess we don't trade," the Lion said to the rancher.

"You evidently have no need to sell."

"I don't have the necessity to sell. I will do better if I wait after the rains as is my custom."

"You will at that," the Lion said. He joined Kane by the truck. He winked. "He'll fall," he whispered to Kane;

"The mierda," Kane said.

"Wait a minute. Just a minute. Those cattle are not all his. His brand is only on the red steer. The others belong to the relatives," the Lion said.

The patriarch was discussing the trade with his brothers, sons, grandsons, and nephews. He would probably get his six hundred pesos for his red steer but he would have to give them less money for the other three cattle to do it.

At last he came to Kane and the Lion. He walked with straight, serious dignity. He turned and spoke an order to his sons, brothers, grandsons, and nephews. The brothers and sons in turn spoke orders to the grandsons and nephews and put reatas into their hands. The grandsons and nephews went into the corral and roped cattle. The black was untied and held. The trancas were lowered and the black-and-white ambled out into the brush in search of a meal.

"You said four hundred fifty pesos a head?" the old man asked the Lion. "Is that your ultimate price?"

"It was a minute ago. Now it is four hundred pesos," the Lion said and winked at Kane and showed his broken teeth.

"Now stop flogging me, Lion!" the old man said, smiling good-naturedly.

"Yes, we'll give the four hundred fifty," Kane said.

"Who pays the inspection papers?" the rancher asked.

"You do. The seller pays," the Lion said.

‘'I think you should pay it. It is only six pesos a head," the rancher said.

"Listen," the Lion said. "We are giving you more money than the cattle should cost. The cattle are not worth anything here on this ranch. We are paying for them here. We put a value, a price, on your cattle for you. Your cattle are going to market at no expense to you. You will be standing here with the money in your hand when we leave. We are taking all the risks you would ordinarily have to take if you had to take your cattle to market. All this is costing you nothing. The least you can do is pay your own tax and expenses on the cattle."

"Who do I make the guías, the brand inspection passes, to."

"To this man, Jim Kane, with destination Hermosillo," the Lion said.

They walked to the shade of the portal and the old man told his woman to bring his forms.

"I am also the cattle inspector of this region," he said. As Kane and the Lion sipped heavy coffee he filled out the factura, the bill of sale with its appropriate levy stamps, in Kane's name. Then he laboriously printed each brand with its number on the inspection papers. When Kane signed the inspection paper as buyer the old man admonished him to press hard with the pencil so that the weight of the signature would pass through the frayed carbons. Then he slowly, carefully, tore out the original white form and a yellow copy and a white copy for Kane. He left a blue copy in the book.

Kane went to the truck and brought back 1800 pesos in bills and paid the old man. The truck was backed up to the gate and while sons and grandsons held the animals by reatas around their horns from the bed of the truck, Kane and the Lion lifted them into the truck. When the cattle were all loaded Kane and the Lion drove the truck to another ranch to woo another rancher into gathering his cattle and the formal procedure of another trade began.

14
A Man From the Monte

Kane and the Lion were in Teresita's one evening drinking-beer and waiting for phone calls. A man came in and looked around the kitchen. He was a tall man and graceful as he walked in huaraches toward the table where Kane and the Lion were sitting. He stopped at the table and took a long look at the two men.

"Who is the one they call the Lion?" he asked.

"Andres Celaya at your service," the Lion rumbled politely. "Sit and have a beer with us. " The Lion used the familiar tú as he did with all the rancheritos when he first met them. The man stared at the Lion as though trying to see what there was about him that made people call him Lion. He barely glanced at the full bottles of beer on the table. He had no time for beer. Kane doubted he could hold a whole bottle of beer in his lank belly.

"Do you buy cattle?" the tall man demanded. "I have cattle to sell." He did not sit down with them.

"Yes, we do," the Lion said. "How many do you have?"

"I have fifteen head to sell."

"What kind of cattle?"

"Good cattle."

"How many two-year-old male cattle?"

"Fifteen."

"Where are they?"

"At my ranch, Los Cerros."

"I know the place. When can we see them?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"You have them all together?"

"Yes."

"What kind are they?"

"Cíbulo, Brahma. What price does the American give?"

"He is not buying Brahma. He wants corriente. I buy the Brahmas."

"What price do you give?"

"Depends on the cattle."

"Good cattle."

"I want to see them before I talk price."

"More or less what price?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow. "

"Until tomorrow morning then. Early."

"Early," the Lion said and the man turned and headed toward the door."

"Your name?" the Lion asked.

The man stopped, turned back, and looked at the Lion.

"Nieblas," he said. "Here or anywhere," and walked out.

The house Nieblas and his brother and their families lived in was old adobe with a brush roof covered by dirt. The house had been washed by rain so that the bottoms of the walls flowed into the ground. The house was fused with the ground. The earth might have only recently popped up here in the barest form of a house and was now slowly assimilating the house again.

Kane and the Lion stopped at the portal to wait. The Nieblas women were busy making cheeses. They were squeezing water out of whey and patting the whey into white, salted cakes, the panelas. They told the buyers that their men were in the brush gathering more cattle. The Lion asked for coffee.

One of the women handed them chairs. She brought them coffee and sugar and fresh slices of panela. The earthen floor of the portal was swept clean and sprinkled down with water. A baby lay in a crib that was covered over by a wire screen and hanging from the ceiling of the portal by hairy rawhide strings. The Nieblas men rode up to the corral leading two bulls when Kane and the Lion finished their coffee and got up from the table. The Lion had asked for the coffee so he asked how much he owed and one of the women took four pesos from him. The buyers walked through a shady mezquital, an arbor of giant mesquites. A new pickup shone under one of the trees.

"This is the only tool I've seen here that isn't rawhide, wood, mud, or rusty steel fifty years old," Kane said.

"These people don't spend their money," the Lion said. "They never kill a beef for themselves. They eat beans and panelas. The truck is for marketing their beef and panelas. They get the panelas from the milk they rob from the little calves. They don't believe in banks. Every penny they have ever made except for the very little they use for necessities, which for them are few, is probably hidden somewhere in the brush."

"What do they do with their money if they don't know how to enjoy life?" Kane asked.

"Look at them, Jim! They have a ranch and cattle, don't they? They probably sell three hundred cattle a year. Every time you and I get drunk and spend money (enjoying life, these men have saved the money for one calf or one cow instead of enjoying life. When you and I get enough money to buy a cow we get drunk. These men buy the cow instead." The Nieblas brothers were leading the bulls into the corral and did not look up to greet the buyers. They wore homemade bullhide brush jackets and chaparreras, chaps. The leathers they wore were stiff and coarsely stitched with rawhide. The big Sonora spurs strapped on their naked heels rolled on the ground behind their huaraches. The small ponies they had ridden after the bulls were dwarfed by the quantity of leather they carried: the goose-necked, armchair-cantled saddles and the broad armas that covered the shoulders of the horses. The ponies' legs below the knees and hocks were clustered with wicked cholla stalks.

The Nieblas brothers did not wait for Kane and the Lion to enter the corral through the gate but barred it in their faces and tied each pole into its holes in the gateposts with pieces of old reata. After they had released the two bulls they stood talking and coiling their alive-looking, well-made, well-tallowed reatas, their backs to the buyers. Then they began to work the cattle afoot. One of them roped a red bull and snubbed him to a post in the center of the corral. They tied him to the post by his horns.

The Nieblas that had talked to the Lion at Teresita's turned then to the buyers and said, "Ahí estan, there they are. The sixteen head in the corral were all Brahmas crossbred with native corriente. They were in good flesh. All were younger and lighter than the red bull the brothers had snubbed to the post.

"Why is the enchilado, the chili red bull, tied up?" the Lion asked.

"He is not for sale. We do not sell him."

"But why not? He is the best of the lot. He would give a better price to the rest of the cattle. If you don't sell him you lower the price of the rest." The Lion said this only as a point from which to begin trading since no price had yet been mentioned. He was only following the standard procedure of trades of the region.

The tall Nieblas stared at the Lion. Kane could see he almost hated the Lion and had contempt for buyers who came to pay cheaply for cattle he had carefully husbanded. Nieblas knew a buyer bought for profit and he could not stand the thought of anyone else's making money on his cattle.

"The enchilado is not for sale," he said and turned away from the Lion and pointed to the other cattle. "How much will you give for these?"

The Lion climbed into the corral. The cattle were restless and trotty. He let them go by him so he could get a good look at both sides of them. He pointed to a brown bull that showed less Brahma, more corriente blood.

"This one is not as much a Brahma as the rest," he said. Without a word the tall Nieblas roped the brown and he and the brother led the bounding and kicking bull through the gate and released him.

The Lion watched longingly as the brown trotted into the brush. The bull had been smooth-backed and in good flesh. The Lion knew that the Greek he was buying for would have been happy with the bull. The Lion had only been trying to make a trading point.

"Bueno," he said to the tall Nieblas when the bars in the gate were back in place. "Are you going to trade or are you going to let all the cattle out one by one before we can come to an agreement on` price?".

"You don't take anything you don't like," the tall Nieblas said. "Tell me which ones you don't like and we will remove them."

"I like them. I liked the brown you turned out. But I have to know how much you want for them. I can give more for some of them, less for others, but give me a basis for a trade."

"We want seven hundred fifty pesos per head. Take any you want at that price."

Kane guessed the cattle would weigh over six hundred pounds. At 750 pesos or $60 they would cost less than ten cents American money per pound. They would work for the Greek at that price but the Greek would not want to give more. The Lion had to get his share.

"I was thinking of offering five hundred pesos," the Lion said.

"These cattle are worth more money than that to the Americans. They are going to be sold for seven hundred fifty pesos here in this corral," Nieblas said.

"I am not an American. I am a Mexican," the Lion said. "Disgraceful fact. I am buying the cattle. I'll find the American for you."

"What will the American give?"

"That one on the fence is an American. Ask him. How much will you give for these cattle?" the Lion asked Kane.

"Leave me out of it. I don't buy Brahmas," Kane said.

"I am not fooled, " the tall Nieblas said to the Lion. "You are together. You have bought everything in this region with American money. "

"Come down a little on your price and I, a Mexican, will come up a little on my price and pay you with American money," the Lion said.

"I want seven hundred fifty pesos, no more, no less," Nieblas said. He walked over to Kane. "How much you give . . . cattle?" he shouted belligerently in pidgin Spanish at Kane, making wide gestures as though he might be talking to a deaf mute, and using the familiar tú.

'`I am only here to keep the Lion company today. I am not in the Brahma business with him," Kane said.

"You American?"

"Yes."

"You buy! Lion no buy! You buy! You pay me cattle! No Lion win money my cattle."

"No," Kane said, shaking his head.

The tall Nieblas stared at Kane. He believed Kane was lying. He wanted Kane to admit that he was the buyer. He whipped his leggings with the loop of the reata.

"You see? He does not buy Brahmas," the Lion said. "I am the one you must trade with. Come down one hundred twenty-five pesos on your price and I will come up one hundred twenty-five pesos and we'll trade for six hundred twenty-five pesos. That is a difference of ten dollars American which I will make on the trade for myself. This will be my fee for finding a market for your cattle."

"Where are you going to take them?" Nieblas asked.

"To Rio Alamos to Chavarin's corral. You know where it is?"

"I will take them in my pickup for you."

"How much will you charge me?" the Lion asked him.

"Three trips, three hundred pesos," Nieblas said.

"Take them then."

"Pay me now."

"I'll give you my check when you give me the guía," the Lion said.

"No checks. Cash. I want a rigorous accounting, " Nieblas said.

"When you give me the guía."

"I have to go all the way to San Luis to get the guía."

"Fine. Stop and get the guía on the way to Rio Alamos. San Luis is right on your way. I'll pay you as you deliver the cattle and the guías," the Lion said.

The tall man said no more. He turned and he and his brother set about releasing the red bull. They had made a sale and had kept their best bull. The deal was finished.

"When shall I expect you?" the Lion asked.

"Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow, " Nieblas muttered.

He and his brother were busy now. They paid no more attention to the buyers. They got on their horses and rode into the brush.

Kane and the Lion went back to Rio Alamos. Nieblas did not come with the cattle that night. He did not come the next day. He did not ever come.

15
The Weaning

Crudo means raw, but when applied to the state of one's health, it means hangover. Mexicans safer monumental crudas, both physically and morally. They are inclined to give their crudas the utmost respect and solicitousness. A man will excuse himself from work because of a cruda in the same way he would excuse himself because of a case of pneumonia. He will get away with this excuse certainly, his employer was on the same party. Mothers dote on their crudo sons. Wives forget the smell of the foreign perfume the unfortunate brought with him when he came home at four in the morning until after they have doctored him back to good, sane existence.

When Kane had been in Rio Alamos several months Don Eduardo Almada sent a messenger with word that he wanted Jim Kane to come out to his ranch and bid on the cattle. The messenger said the cattle were being rounded up and Don Eduardo wanted Kane to bring enough money in cash to pay for a hundred head. He wanted 600 pesos a head. If Kane didn't get out there the next day Don Eduardo was going to sell to someone else. Kane wanted the Almada cattle. Almada seldom sold big bunches. He, like most of the older ranchers of Southern Sonora, only sold full-grown cattle and only enough of these to meet the barest needs of his hacienda.

The Almada hacienda had been in operation one hundred years. It had its own mezcal plant and its own tannery. The dons that founded the ranch built miles of aqueducts that brought water to the hacienda from all parts of the ranch. The lumber of the original ranchhouse had been brought by ship around the Horn from Yucatan. A hundred peons had worked the mezcal plant, tannery, and the 500 irrigable hectares of the hacienda.

Don Eduardo did not inherit the ambition of his forebears. He had worn out two wives and after the second wife died he never remarried. He lived in a small house apart from the hacienda with two big lazy sons. No one did much work anymore. The vaqueros milked the ranch cows and their women made panelas, and cheese which they sold to make wages. Don Eduardo never paid them a wage. Fences, doors, clothing were patched with rawhide. The hacienda subsisted on beans and vegetables it raised, carne seca, jerky, from deer or javalina or an occasional beef (never its own), and corn tortillas.

Kane arrived at the hacienda at midmorning. The cattle were in the corral just as the messenger had said they would be. Don Eduardo was drunk and asleep on a cot in front of his shack with a liter bottle of mezcal in his arms. He was skinned up. His clothes were torn. His hair was covered with dried blood. His face was covered by a scab that extended from the top of his forehead to the point of his chin.

Kane found some vaqueros and they helped him work the cattle. Kane waited until sundown for Don Eduardo to wake up. He woke up mean. He said, "How long you been here, cabrón?" He was suffering from the cruda, the raw hangover. His hand was shaking so badly he couldn't open the bottle. Kane told him he had cut the cattle and was ready to trade. Don Eduardo didn't get up from his cot. He said, "My cattle are worth six hundred pesos a head, take it or leave it."

He took a big swallow from the bottle and lay hack down, groaning. The cattle were worth what he asked so Kane gave him the cash for 96 cattle and told him he would send the trucks for the cattle in the morning. It was already dark.

"No," Don Eduardo said. "You'll take them tonight. I don't want anything not belonging to me sleeping in my corral." Kane had to go back to town, get the trucks, and load the cattle out that night.

While the men were loading the cattle a vaquero told Kane the cause of the skinned head, the selling of the cattle, and the drunkenness.

Don Eduardo had a brother living nearby. He was the poor brother. He had inherited only a small part of the ranch. He lived more simply than Don Eduardo. He had no sons, no wife. He was all alone. When he needed a little extra cash he stole something from Don Eduardo and sold it. At the time Kane had bought the cattle Don Eduardo had a fine patch of tomatoes and the poor brother was in the habit of stealing a basket of the best tomatoes every two or three days.

Don Eduardo's two sons, having nothing to do, one day dug a six-foot-deep pitfall trap on the trail to catch the poor brother when he came to steal the tomatoes.

The brother did not come as expected. Late in the evening after the brothers dug the trap, Don Eduardo was coming down the trail with a big load of leña, firewood, balanced on his head. He stepped off into that trap. The leña drove him into the bottom of the trap like a hammer. Much later that night when Don Eduardo got home one son was lying in the doorway. The old man kicked him out of the way and said, "Get out of my way, mierda, manure," and went in the house looking for his bottle. The other brother proceeded to tell his father about the trap. The longer the brother talked the more he noticed about his father's skinned-up condition. Don Eduardo stared at the brother until he shut up.

"Yes, mierda, I know, mierda, because your beautiful trap just swallowed me," he said. "To this level we have arrived.? You have nothing more to do than commit atrocities against your own father, or your old uncle. I disown you both. Tomorrow we begin to gather all cattle on this ranch. Everything male from yearlings to ten-year-olds, if any, will be sold. I will keep only my cows and my herd bulls. You will take the money and remove yourselves from my sight. Go somewhere else to play with yourselves. I don't want to be reminded of your worthlessness, or mine."

16
Brahma

Garrett and March had not given Jim Kane an order for cattle for several months. Kane's note at the bank was overdue again when two steer buyers arrived in Rio Alamos, and sent word to Kane that they would like to see him. He found them in the Alamos Hotel having lunch. Kane knew one of them. He was Shorty Mulligan, a little, sawed-of whiskey-voiced ex-racehorse trainer.

"Hello, Shorty," Kane said.

"Jim, how the hell are you? This is my partner, Fats Potter."

Potter stood up. He was a big man with gray hair that hung in his eyes from under his hat. The tail of his old work shirt was out. He was not too fat. They shook hands.

"Sit down and have something with us," Potter said. "I'm having a beer. I sure like this Meskin beer."

Kane ordered a beer and sat down with them.

"I knew your father, Paul Kane," Potter said. "Where is he now?"

"I don't know," Kane said.

"I knew him when he worked for the Three W's outfit in Arizona. I had a little old store at Divide. Your dad was the best cowboy I ever saw. He couldn't stay away from the booze though."

"Were you at Divide? I don't remember you," Kane said.

"You were a little shaver. That store was the first business I had when I came from Arkansas. I was postmaster and chief bootlegger too. Your dad was my best customer."

"What brings you guys to Rio,Alamos?"

"Fats has a feedlot. He wants to stock some Mexican steers. Terry Garrett said you could help us buy them," Mulligan said.

"Don't try to buy a lot of them. I'll leave you some money and you buy whatever you see that is good," Potter said.

"You can start by buying my cattle. I've got one hundred forty steers out here," Kane said.

"We only want cheap cattle," Potter said.

"These won't cost you much. They are the cutbacks I have left from this year's buying. I've been feeding them for this market but you can have them if you like them."

They got in Potter's air-conditioned car and drove out to Kane's corrals. Potter carried beer with him.

Potter bought 70 head of the cattle. He wouldn't take the rest at any price. They were too thin and Potter wanted a different type of cattle. Kane barely got enough out of them to pay the bank.

By the time they started back to town, Potter was getting drunk.

"How's the girl situation in this town?" Potter asked.

"Same as nearly any town down here," Kane said.

"What do you mean by that?"

"They've got a whorehouse."

"Hell, I'm not going to no whorehouse. I want a skin cover for my room."

Kane looked out the window at the hot day going by.

"Hell, Kane, you are young and good looking. You must have a hundred girl friends in this town. How about fixing two old men up?"

"There's a pimp at the hotel. He's always available, Fats."

"You ain't following old Fats at all, Kane. Disease, man. Disease. You could fix us up better, I'm sure."

"You won't have any trouble, Fats. Just show a little blue fifty-peso bill."

"Hell, you might as well make the fifty instead of some Meskin pimp. Shorty, give Kane a fifty. What the hell, give him a hundred so he'll do his best. "

"Fats, I bet Jim has other business to attend to. He don't need to entertain us."

"Give him the hundred," said Potter. `

Shorty handed a 100-peso bill over the back seat. Kane took it. He put it in his money clip.

"Now I want two nice lookers. And clean, Kane, clean. Get that, boy?"

"That pimp at the hotel is the best I ever saw. You tell him early what you want and I'm sure you'll get the best he's got. He gets the best talent in town," said Kane.

"Look, I'm paying you to do it," said Potter.

"The very best I can do is introduce you to the best pimp in town. He's the one I consult. Thanks for the tip," said Kane, laughing.

Potter drank beer and looked straight down the road.

After a while he grinned. "Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah," he shouted as he steered the car into the hotel driveway. "Shorty, find that pimp and send him up to my room. Kane you come up and I'll pay you for those cattle."

Kane followed Potter up to his room. Fats opened a big, stuffed briefcase and took out his cattle drafts. He paid Kane for the 70 head. "Now Kane," he said. "I want you to buy anything that is cheap around here. Stick to young Brahmas and Brahma crosses. Don't buy any young corrientes like you've got left in your corral. If you buy those natives, make sure they have good horns so we can sell them to the rodeo producers."

"All right, but at what price are you going to receive these cattle?"

"I'll receive them at cost. You get two dollars a head commission. "

"Are you going to leave me some money?"

"I just paid you $3500 dollars, didn't I?"

"That's my money for my cattle. I'm talking about your money for your cattle I'll be buying. "

"Use your money until you need more, then I'll see about fixing it so you can draft on me."

"You going to pay me commission on cattle I buy for you with my money? I can't do it. I owe every penny you paid me. I owe it yesterday to my banker. You put it all up and I'll buy for you."

"OK I'll fix it so you can draft on me. Right as soon as you can, go and see old man David Brajcich and see if you can buy his cattle. I bought them five years ago. He's got good Brahmas. You can give three pesos a kilo and no more. Try to get calves and yearlings. I particularly don't want any of those big old outlaw steers and bulls of his. Too wild."

"Three pesos won't buy the cattle. He always wants three twenty-five or three thirty, and he won't sell calves or yearlings. He's probably got five hundred of those big cattle," said Kane.

"Well, see what you can do."

Kane got up to leave. "Come on," Fats said. "Stick around a while. Let's party. We got a lot done today and I'm not leaving until in the morning. There's a bottle of whiskey in my suitcase over there."

"Get the son-of-a-bitch out then," Kane said.

Fats got out a bottle of good American bourbon, split the seal, and poured two big shots in the hotel water glasses.

"Kane, I like you. I think you are going to make me money. Here's to that," Fats said, raising his glass.

When Kane got back to the room at sunup the next day, there were girls, clothes, empty bottles, pieces of Shorty Mulligan, and several managers and guests, complaints scattered in the room. Fats Potter was sitting up on the back of an easy chair, his feet in the seat, his hair in his gray-white eyes, both hands holding a bottle of whiskey, shouting, "Yah, yah, yah, I'm King of the Drunkards."

Kane worked half the morning and then went to see David Brajcich. He was a Slav who had come to the United States as a young man. He spoke good English. He was a wine maker. He had immigrated to Mexico and learned to . make mezcal. His ranch had big maguey groves on it from which he distilled the mezcal he called Tigrillo, little tiger. It had made him a rich man.

On this same ranch he had released good Brahma bulls with native corriente cows. He sold only when the huge ranch got so overstocked even a wine maker could tell it. His cattle were wild as deer but the difference was they could kill a man when he caught them. They should have been hunted with guns.

David Brajcich thought that because his cattle were half Brahma they were half made of gold. He priced them accordingly. He never sold young cattle. He figured the bigger they were the more money they would bring. He never figured on the amount one big steer ate or how many weaker animals starved while that big steer grew bigger, had to range farther for his feed, grew wilder until he wasn't merchandise any more than a wild bear is merchandise.

Kane tried to convince Brajcich of a buyer's point of view but still he couldn't buy the cattle. Brajcich didn't ever have to sell. He would wait until his cattle was worth plenty money. There was a gringo asking for his cattle so they must now be worth plenty money. All gringos were rich. He never put up anything to support the cattle. They never cost him anything. He only took from them when he felt like it. He never visited the ranch except to arrive at the distillery. His cowboys were allowed to milk the range cows and make cheese. The sale of the cheese paid half their wages.

It shocked him years later when he learned that his vaqueros had for a long time been selling his unbranded calves to a neighbor. This came as he was about to die and he never felt the loss of the cattle. He did, of course, feel the loss of his vaquero friends whom he had always vaguely admired. He had never really understood why they worked for practically nothing in the sun and thick brush with the beasts. Nor why all the cowmen he knew who lived on their ranches always looked so burned, worn, and tired, and always seemed so broke. Then on learning about his cattle, which had never been anything but precious, like jewels to him, mercifully to him and to everyone concerned, he died.

When Kane got back to the hotel that afternoon he found Potter and Mulligan had checked out.

He shipped the cattle he had sold Potter to Potter's ranch on the northern Sonora desert. The train passed through Potter's ranch and the headquarters had a siding where the cattle were unloaded.

Kane had bought two loads of cattle for Potter and was working them in his corrals one day when Shorty Mulligan drove up. He climbed up on top of the fence and watched Kane work. When Kane finally turned and said hello he told Kane he and Potter had bought the big Brajcich outlaws.

"When in the hell did you do that?" Kane asked him.

"The night after we left here. We made the whole trade over the telephone," Shorty said.

"How much did you give for them?"

"Three-forty pesos laid in your corrals."

"I thought you said you didn't want those big cattle. I didn't offer that much for the calves. I only offered him three-twenty-live pesos for the calves."

"I know, but Fats got a wild hair and decided he wanted those big steers, so he called Brajcich and bought them," said Mulligan.

"He meant to buy them when he told me he didn't want them, I bet," said Kane.

"Well, he bought them and wants to know if you'll receive them for us here and ship them to the desert, " said Mulligan.

"Shit."

"Come on. That's the way you've got to sneak up on these rich Mexicans. You got to fool them into thinking their cattle are cheap."

"Fool me, you mean. I never got any cattle bought and Brajcich got more than he would have taken from me for those big unmerchantables. You hotshots fixed it so I'll never be able  to buy those Brajcich cattle. He'll never believe what I tell him now.

"Well, there are five hundred cattle coming to your corrals and Fats authorized me to give you a quarter a head to receive them and ship them to the desert for us, if you want to."

That sure saves giving me two dollars a head commission.

"Take it or leave it, but if you don't take it tell me so I can have the trucks unload someplace else"

"When do they start coming in?" asked Kane.

"I'll be back in time to cut the cattle at the ranch. I'll let you know. Will you help us?"

"OK."

"How many cattle have you bought for us?" Mulligan asked.

"Two loads."

"Well, that's all we want for now. So don't buy any more. I guess you can ship them this week while you are waiting for the Brajcich cattle."

''Yeah."

"Draft on Fats for freight and feed and your commission on the two loads. Oh, another thing. We'll take the rest of your little cattle to the desert, if you want. If it will help you any."

"You want them?" asked Kane.

"No. We'll pay the freight and feed on them and market them for you. You price them, and then when we sell them we take back the freight and feed, give you back your price, and we split the profit."

"Guarantee me forty dollars a head sixty days from now and I'll ship them to you. I can't wait longer than that. Then you can pay me half of the profit whenever you feel like it."

"That's OK. We ought to be able to guarantee forty dollars easy enough."

"I'll ship them with the rest, " said Kane.

"Just a minute, Jim. There are some of those little rats I don't want under any condition."

"They'll all work, Shorty. "

"Some of them are too weak. Let's just ship a load."

"Well, cut them then."

Shorty got down off the fence and walked among the cattle in the corral. They were so gentle he could handle them afoot. He cut out 26 head of the smallest, thinnest cattle.

"Those are the cutbacks of the cutbacks of the cutbacks," Kane said. "The last of the ten thousand, of the great empire."

"They are pretty sorry, " Mulligan said. "If I were you I'd turn them out someplace where it won't cost to keep them and I'd just forget about them."

"I've got some sorghum grass, just enough for twenty-six head. I'll irrigate it and turn them out on it. "

"You can ship the other forty-four to us. We'll pay you when we sell them."

They were walking back to Shorty's pickup. He got in.

"No," said Kane. "Pay me in sixty days. I'm broke. I mean it."

"All right then. I've got to look at some cattle in Tesopaco so I'm going to get moving. I'll see you in a week, " said Mulligan.

"So long, Shorty. "

Kane spent a week repairing his corrals and pasture fences. He knew 500 wild beasts that were nothing like normal bovines were on the way.

When the first truck rolled up to his chutes he thought it was empty. The bottom half of the rack was solid board. Kane couldn't see anything in the top half of the rack.

The trucker backed up to the chute. Kane climbed up on the rack. All the cattle were down in a mass of sullen disorder. They had that moribund look, that abandonment of will that Brahma cattle get when they have been choused to their limit. They had quit in their tracks. Unable to hold their footing in the crowded, shaking truck, they had cramped up and given up and lain down one on top of another.

Kane opened the end gate of the truck. The driver was perched on top of the rack poking a big gray bull with a sharp stick. The bull just quivered with each poke and growled a deep, gruff exhalation of his frustration.

"Leave him alone, cuñado," Kane said. "He'll stay there forever if you keep that up."

Kane grabbed the horns of the bovine nearest the gate and pulled head and front legs around so they lay in the chute. Then he lifted on the tail. The steer jumped up and charged shakily down the chute looking for an opponent.

Kane had more room now and he began loosening the pile. Finally the bull the driver had been poking was the only one left. He was down with his head under him. His nose was half in a pool of fresh manure. Bubbles rose from under one nostril as he breathed. His eyes were turned up. He had quit. It was just more than he could bear. Kane pulled his head over and he lay flat. The eyes went farther away. They had become orientally passive. The bull was suspending his animation. He had poured gasoline on himself and set himself afire and was now going to die inscrutably. He had sent his being away and made his body impervious.

Kane jumped over the rack, found two sticks, and climbed back in with the bull. He picked up the limp tail, straightened it, and stood on the tuft at the end. Then he placed the sticks on two sides of the tail and squeezed them together with both hands on the ends. He rubbed the sticks briskly up and down the white tail. Little downy hairs began to depart from the tail, drifting lightly in the air. The pink hide began to show in spots. The being was summoned back to the present, to the here, to the now. It found sight again and then voice. The bull bellowed and lurched to his feet, sliding on the slick truck bottom. He whirled toward Kane but Kane was running through the gate. The bull charged after Kane through the chute and into the coral.

Every truckload that came in was full of mad, sulled up, skinned up, on-the-fight cattle. Kane had a man meeting the  trucks at the scale and Kane stayed at the corrals supervising the unloading. Mulligan was loading the cattle at the Brajcich ranch.

On the second day, in the evening, Kane had just unloaded a truck, when the driver walked up to him and handed him the weight slips.

"That's all of them, I guess," the driver said.

"Yeah, that's twelve head. That's what you've usually been hauling," Kane said;

"No, that's the total. We won't be hauling any more. Se acabó el ganado. No more cattle."

"I thought there were going to be five hundred head. This only makes one hundred twenty."

"Don David says that's all he's going to sell at this time."

"To finish me off!" Kane said..

"The gringo said he couldn't pay the price they had originally agreed on because the cattle are too wild. So Don David opened the gate and turned the rest of the cattle out."

Kane opened a gate and let the steers into a big pasture with the other cattle. The pasture was surrounded by a six-wire fence and completely shaded by álamos trees. That evening Kane went to the hotel to see Mulligan. He found him in his room sitting on the bed in a pair of pink silk pajamas. The white bare feet peeked out from under the too-long pajama trousers.

"Those cattle just ain't livestock, Jim," Mulligan said.

"They were tearing down the corrals and tearing themselves up, too. I don't know what's going to happen when we turn them loose on the desert. We'll probably never see them
again.

"Well, Shorty, I'm shipping tomorrow no matter what shape they're in. I can't afford to keep them for the thirty dollars you are paying me," Kane said.

"Go ahead," Mulligan said. "Sorry it turned out this way, but I've got to answer to Potter and I just couldn't take any more of those cattle at that price. We'll go ahead with our deal on your little cattle and you'll make enough to feel good again. The feed on the desert is really good and Potter will buy a lot of cattle from you next year if he likes you."

Kane went to the railroad office the next morning and ordered the cars. Then he looked up the vaquero truckers he always hired and told them what to expect. He didn't intend to drive those snuffy cattle through the town of Rio Alamos to the railroad yards. Mr. Potter and Mr. Mulligan were going to have to pay for trucks.

On the morning he shipped, it took Kane and five vaqueros several hours to get the cattle into the corrals. Train time was getting close. Finally all the cattle were in the pens and they started loading the trucks.

A big red steer about eight years old with a huge spread of horns kept circling the corral and ducking back every time a bunch was driven into the crowding pens off the loading chute. He would circle the corral; looking over the top crosstie at the shady álamos. As the cattle began to thin in the corral he became more frantic. He was standing at a water trough along the fence when he decided to jump. He cleared the trough and the top tie without touching either.

Kane's horse, Pajaro, was standing saddled outside the corral. Kane tightened his cinches, mounted, and took out after the steer.

Big Red High Horns threw his tail up and ran for the back fence of the pasture. He never hesitated when he came to it. He jumped it, but he misjudged his distance and jumped from too far back. His front feet cleared the top strand of wire but his hind feet went under it and over the second strand. He was trapped by the hind feet like a pilgrim in a penalty stock. Kane roped the big horns just as the wires snapped and the steer broke free again. Kane had him caught but he and the steer were on opposite sides of the fence. Kane led him down to a gate, unlatched the gate without dismounting, and rode through to the steer's side of the fence.

The big steer tried to hook Pajaro. Kane jerked him down and tied him to a tree. It was too near train time to try to lead him back to the corrals and load him. He tied the steer with plenty of slack so he could get up when he cooled off.

Kane rode back to the corrals in time to see a black, humpy bull jump the fence on the opposite side of the corrals from Kane. He jumped into another of Kane's pastures, a large one, full of brush. He was out of sight in an instant. They would have to get him later.

Kane opened the gate and rode into the corral. The big bull that had got the tail treatment in the first truckload had armed himself to fight and was defending the chutes. He didn't want to go back into the loading chute. His tail was scabby now and he was looking for revenge. None of the other cattle would pass by him and he turned back the ones that were inclined to enter the chute.

Kane roped him and threw the coils of the rope to one of the truckers. The trucker passed the rope up the chute into the truck and out the front end. All the truckers got on the end of the rope and pulled the bull around so he faced up the chute and then one of them stood in the truck at the end of the chute and waved his hat, taunting the bull. When the bull charged, Kane and the other vaqueros hazed the other cattle after the bull and they followed him into the truck.

One bull remained to be loaded. He had charged back through the gate out of the crowding pen when Kane had entered to rope the armed bull.

He was standing alone in the big corral now. When the men all turned their eyes on him he jumped the fence into a lane that separated the corrals from a neighbors salflower field. The fence around the field was overgrown with thick, leafy vines that were solid cover around the field. The lane curved round the field and out of sight toward the Alamos River. The bull threw a number 9 in his tail and charged down that lane toward the river.

Flaco Cota was coming up the lane around the corner from the corrals. He was carrying a bucket of milk. He was happy in the morning walking. He was singing loudly. Then un toronón of a bull, bent on escape, his thousand pounds in full velocity, rounded the corner and bore down on him. The happy sounds of Flaco Cota stopped in mid-phrase of the poem he sang and the sounds of terror of Flaco Cota took over. The bull's head lowered to the ground in order to get the tip of the horn as low as possible and drive it deeply into the slender obstacle which it must lift and toss out of the way, maybe destroying it satisfactorily. Flaco's arms raised. One hand held the full milk bucket. The movement of the bulk of the bucket caught the bull's eye and he drove his left horn, his best horn, at it. He drove it so hard his front feet left the ground, his spine stiffened and his head jerked sharply up.

It seemed to Flaco it rained milk for five minutes. He could not believe there had been that much milk in that little bucket. The smell of the milk was suddenly, inordinately, sharp in his nostrils. He became aware of how warm it still felt, though it was drying and getting sticky now. He was surprised that he even had it, sticky, in the small creases of his throat and under his chin. He was sitting there marveling blankly when Kane rode up..

Kane had heard Flaco's approaching song and had seen the milk bucket in flight over the vines in the lane and had been badly frightened for Flaco.

"Are you all right, Flaco?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Are you really all right?"

"What was that demon?"

"A bull, Flaco."

"Oh."

"I was really scared. I thought he'd killed you."

"Well, no, he didn't."

"Come on over to the corrals and I'll give you a trago for the susto, a drink for the fright."

Kane started to ride away. He stopped and turned back.

Flaco was sitting there, his legs spread out in front of him, his palms turned up on his lap. Milk was splattered all over him.

Flies were arriving lazily. Flaco smiled at Kane.

"You coming, Flaco?"

"Yes," said Flaco Cota and got up on his feet.

The last truck was pulling out when Kane got back to the corrals. He got out a liter of the mezcal lechuguilla from the glove compartment of his pickup and left it with the cowboys. He told them to drink it with Flaco for his susto. Then he and Benigno, the cowboy that worked steady for Kane, got in the pickup and followed the truck to the railroad pens.

While they were loading the last railroad car, a two-year-old steer slipped on the ramp between the dock and the car and fell through an opening beside the ramp to the ground. Before anyone could rope him or turn him back he was gone down the tracks. Kane and Benigno chased him in the pickup. The steer followed the tracks paralleling a big canal. When he got to a highway crossing, some loafers who were refreshing themselves at a soda stand jumped up and waved their arms at him. The steer turned off the tracks and across a bridge spanning the canal. He scattered bicyclists off the bridge. He left the highway and went into the backyard areas of houses that faced the highway. When Kane and Benigno got to the bridge they had lost the steer. Kane stopped the pickup on the bridge.

"And the steer?" he called to the loafers.

"Rumbo a las cases, toward the houses," one shouted.

They were very excited and laughing. A bull had blessed their morning.

"Vámonos, let go," Kane shouted and three of them got in the back of the pickup.

They heard a shriek and a woman burst out into the street from behind a house shouting, "¡Auxilio! There goes a bull with the rabies."

Kane got to the woman just as the steer broke from cover down at the end of the block. The steer was really running now. An old woman was sprinting after him waving a broom
and shouting, "Now you'll see who you scare. Now you'll see!"

The steer ran skidding across the highway, not looking back. Across the highway he found the great, smooth, uncomplicated openness of the municipal airport.

Kane gunned the pickup after him. He pulled up beside the running steer. The steer was hot, he had but one purpose, to get away from houses and to get to the brush he could see across the airport. He would not turn away from the brush. Benigno grabbed the steer's tail and pulled it over the windowsill and pulled down on it. Kane drove the pickup on by and the steer was neatly tailed over. Kane looked back and saw the steer rolling on his back with all four feet up in the air. Kane braked the truck, jumped out of the cab in a cloud of dust, and bulldogged the steer as he was getting up. There was no fight left in the steer. They tied him up and loaded him in the back of the pickup.

The switch engine was hooking on to the lead car whenthey got back to the railroad yards. The trainmen waited while Kane and Benigno loaded the steer.

Kane looked in the cars. The big cattle were caught now. They stood silently together. Their dark, almond, Brahma eyes looked out through the slits between the boards. Well, they'll be free a little longer once they get on the desert, if they get to the desert, Kane thought. My hand in their unhappiness is over.

That afternoon he went back to the place where he had the big steer tied. The steer hadn't been up on his feet since Kane left him. He was lying in the sun now and had made no
attempt to rise and walk around to the shady side of the tree.

"You must have missed fifteen or twenty roundups in your life, old steer," Kane thought.

"You brushed up and watched the cowboys go by with your buddies all gathered together and being driven down the road. You knew you'd never see them again. Then all of a sudden you got real scared at how close you had come to getting caught too and you ran off back in the brush until you couldn't smell or hear the herd anymore.

"How many cowboys must have been right on your tail, just waiting till you ran through a little clearing so they could rope those big horns of yours, and you found a deep, thick, spiny clump and you knew a trail through it and when the vaquero thought he had you, you turned sharply at right angles to his path and slipped through the brush and you were alone again.

"I wonder how they finally caught you. They probably starved you for water. They cut you off from your regular easy-to-get and easy-to-get-away-from watering places. Then they trapped you in a corral or waterlot when you just couldn't stand the thirst anymore. It took them years, though. I bet they haven't seen you ten times in your life. I bet you spent many, many nights smelling and listening to a watering place before you went down to drink. I bet it's been years since you watered in the daytime. I bet no one ever roped you on their little horses. You would have given them a hot sleigh ride through the stickers. .

"Now you are caught and you can't face getting up. You would rather lie there and die. You probably will unless I can figure a way to get you up."

Kane had brought a quart bottle of rum mixed with warm water and sugar. He hooked the steer's dry nostrils with thumb and forefinger and jammed the bottle in the corner of his mouth, pouring the toddy down his throat. He and Benigno got hold of the tail together and hauled up on it but the steer refused to stand on his hind legs when they cleared the ground. The stick treatment was just torturing him for nothing. The big steer just moaned softly and hooked the big horns weakly into the ground. Kane left him alone. If` he wanted to die, why not let him. He would never be merchandise. Maybe the toddy warm in his stomach would give him hope.

Kane and Benigno went to the corrals and saddled their horses. They rode out in the brush pasture to look for the black bull that had got away at shipping time.

The pasture was about fifty acres of thick brush cut in two by a wide right-of-way for a power line that passed through it. Benigno and Kane each took half of the pasture and started looking for the bull.

Kane always liked to ride in the brush. If he looked carefully and rode slowly he could find the trails used by the stock. They hadn't turned any of the Brajcich cattle loose in this pasture. They would have been too hard to find and drive out.

He hit the bull's tracks and followed them into a corner of the pasture. Big mesquite trees grew there and the ground was in solid shade. It was almost evening. Kane found tracks where the bull had nooned under the mesquite. He cut for tracks around the perimeter of bare ground shaded by the mesquite and found where the bull had left the corner and gone down the fence toward the right-of-way of the power line again. He followed the tracks down the fence and suddenly lost them. He circled away from the fence around a thicket of jócona, a straight, thorny, white tree. He couldn't} find where the bull had come out. He rode around the jócona again, searching in the deep shadows. When he got back to the fence again he saw the bull. The bull was standing in plain sight of the fence. He was black in the shadows. His head was turned away from Kane. He was standing absolutely still and dark, only his ears showed he was aware of Kane. The big, leafy, Brahma ears were bent back, the holes pointed directly at Kane. They twitched a little when Kane stopped to watch the bull. The ears moved slowly to where Kane's progress might have continued and when they heard nothing there they turned to the last place they had heard Kane and stopped again. The tip of one ear twitched a fly away. Kane didn't move. The ears examined the terrain in front of the bull, then returned again to Kane. The head turned slowly and one eye glared, unblinking lest movement attract, at Kane.

"Boo!" said Kane.

The black bull moved gracefully through the jócona. Kane skirted the thicket so as to head the bull down the fence. When the bull hit the trail on the fence, Kane spurred Pajaro at fullspeed after him, got his rope off the swells of the saddle, and built a loop.

"¡Ahí te va! He's coming to you!" he shouted to Benigno, but Benigno was late and the bull broke out into the right-of-way and back into the brush ahead of him.

Kane told Benigno to wait again in the right-of-way by the fence and rode after the bull. He tracked him into the corner where he jumped him again. He drove down the fence but the bull sensed Benigno in the right-of-way this time and cut away in front of Benigno, taking the same route back toward the corner.

Kane stopped to let Pajaro breathe.

"He takes that same trail down the fence pretty well," he said to Benigno. "Let's build a trap there. I'll go start him again. You go down the fence from the right-of-way and build a trap on the trail." Then Kane rode after the bull again. Benigno rode back to the fence, got off his mare, took down his reata, and walked up the fence. It was so quiet in the monte. There was complete silence and loneliness. No one may walk this trail again for years, he thought. A palo fierro, ironwood tree, stood on the edge of the trail. It had a fine trunk. Benigno wondered if anyone had ever noticed it before or if anyone would ever use it again for anything but firewood. Two sets of the bull's tracks marked the trail between the fence and the tree. Benigno tied the tip of the 70-foot rawhide reata to the trunk. He noticed how the wraps of the rope knocked off the little loose fringes of bark leaving the trunk smooth, used now. Then he spread a big loop vertically from the branches of the tree over the trail. He was fixing the bottom of the loop so that it was about three feet clear of the ground so it would catch near the bull's brisket, when he heard the bull coming swiftly through the monte.

The time he took to look up and see if he could spot the bull almost cost him his life. The bull was on him. Benigno took the quickest way out of there and the best running was straight down the trail. Black bull swiftly closed on running vaquero, both sprinting for their lives. Benigno felt the heat of the bull behind him. Benigno caught his breath, strained, and kicked in another bucketful of speed but just then he heard the reata snap tight. He turned in time to see the bull's jaws bulge as the head snapped back, the throat latch squeezed tightly by the rigid band of the reata, the belly turn up, the hind legs clear the ground, the tail whip, then the whole bull together again suddenly, all at once, slam down on his back.

Kane rode up. Pajaro was sweating, blowing. Benigno had the bull by the tail and was holding him down. Kane had not seen any of the action of the bull's being caught.

"We got him that time didn't we?? Kane said.

"Just like the grownups do," Benigno said, smiling, with sweat running down his face.

"Easy. Fácil," Kane said, dismounting and tying together a front foot and a hind foot on one side so the bull could walk but not run.

"Yes, easy," Benigno said, still smiling. "Easy runs the urine. He almost got me. I've got urines down both legs."

"Didn't I give you enough time?"

"Yes, but I got to dreaming about how alone it is in the brush."

They led the miscreant back to the corral and fed him there. Kane took a toddy to the red steer. He found him dead. He and Benigno skinned the steer and hung the hide to dry on the fence. They drank the toddy while they worked.

The next few days they looked for the gray bull that had frightened Flaco Cota. Finally they got word that he was in a big forest of álamos trees, an alameda, bounded by a nearly 360-degree bend in the Alamos River.

They took on Alejandro Pesqueira for help. Alejandro was riding the skinniest old bald-faced sorrel horse Kane had ever seen saddled in his life. Alejandro's saddle must have been fifty years old, but didn't look a bit older than the horse under it. The saddle was black, stiff and there were half-circles in the skirts where big rats had eaten on it.

Alejandro was rawly hungover. He was almost still drunk and almost sober and the pain, both physical and moral, was looming too close. He got down in the knee-deep clear water of the river as they were fording and scooped up handfuls to drink.

The alameda was completely shaded by the big trees. The first moments of riding in the shade on the soft ground pleasured Alejandro's brow but he knew the pleasure would not last long. It was too early and he had been very, very drunk. .

A woodcutter told them the bull had taken up with a bunch of cows. He knew exactly where the bull was at that moment. The bull had badly disquieted the woodcutter. When they found the bull and the cows, they separated.

Benigno and Alejandro circled the cows from opposite sides. They would drive the little herd toward Kane. Kane chose a spot hidden from the trail where he could charge the bull and drive him toward a small clearing. He waited a long time. The animals began to stir around him. A little flock of parrots alighted in a tree overhead, arguing. One wasn't saying anything. The others were giving him hell. The persecuted parrot looked away from them, then flew away. They followed furiously, still arguing. After awhile, Kane heard the cattle coming. They came softly, at their own pace, unaware of him. Kane moved Pajaro so that he stood on all four feet. He shook his rope out. Pajaro listened intently to the cattle. The bull came by ahead of the others. Pajaro set himself, trembling on his hind legs, and charged. Kane's rope snagged on a limb and he missed.

The bull left the herd. The men worried him all through the morning and afternoon. They had nearly spent their horseflesh. Alejandro was a ruin. Kane and Benigno were tired. They finally trapped the bull where he was surrounded by impenetrable thicket on three sides. Kane and Alejandro waited separately on two trails the bull had to take to get out of the thicket. Benigno went in and flushed him out.

The bull came out on Alejandro's trail. When he saw Alejandro he threw up his head and unhurriedly made for Alejandro. This was no obstacle. Hadn't he hooked the milk right out of the last one? Alejandro was swinging a long, long loop and shouting at the gray bull. The little horse was backing away down the trail. When the bull was very close, the horse turned tail to the bull and carried a grateful Alejandro away. Then the bull was gone again in the monte.

The men crossed the river and rode into San Isidro for a beer. They sat under a big mango tree and drank the pale beer from a pitcher. Alejandro ordered another, he said he was very thirsty. They all were, and the beer tasted the way Kane remembered it tasted the first time he got to drink beer as a boy.

They were a little tight when they got back on their horses after the third pitcher. It was dark when they got back to the lane by the corrals.

"It sure is dark in here," Benigno said. "Like for ghosts, Alejandro?"

"You believe in ghosts, don't you, Alejandro?" Kane asked.

"No, I do not believe in ghosts," Alejandro answered solemnly.

"How can you not believe in ghosts? You're riding one, aren't you?" Kane said. `

"Say anything you like to me, but don't insult my horse. This horse has seen good days, too. This horse was once nearly as large as Pajaro and he was a much better horse than Pajaro."

"I'm sure he was, Alejandro," Kane said. "We just wanted to know if you were afraid of ghosts."

"I do not believe in ghosts," said Alejandro. "I do believe in big, gray bulls and so does my horse."

The next day Potter called Kane. He was drunk on the phone. "Did you gather those steers, Jim Kane?" he demanded.

"Gathered one. One's out. One's dead."

"What's the matter? Can't gather the livestock?"

"It ain't livestock. It ain't even merchantable."

"Well, the seventeen head that died between Rio Alamos and the desert sure ain't merchantable."

"That many?"

"Yeah. That many. Cowboy. "

"Pard, you took great pains to buy them. They've been yours ten days now. You're their husband, pard, not me."

"Sell those you got left and send me the money. You bought any more of those little scorpions you sent me?"

"No. Mulligan said you didn't want any more."

"Well, at least somebody is trying to keep me from going broke. Of course, he has to. He'd starve without me."

"The cattle I sent you are sure a helluva lot better and cheaper than any you big executives bought down here," said Kane.

"Sure they are. They're winners. Yah, yah, yah, yah,yah."

"Well, what do you want? What did you call me for, Potter? I'm busy."

"Sure you are. You're a big businessman, ain't you? I wanted to talk to a big businessman. That's how I keep making money and you big businessmen stay broke."

"What else, Fats?"

"That's all. Good-bye, big businessman. Cowboy."

"Don't forget, Fats. In fifty days you pay me for my steers."

"Sure, big businessman. But that's Mulligan's deal. You see Mulligan about that. Forty-four head might break me but I think I can manage to pay off a big businessman like you."

The dunning was enough to make Potter hang up. Kane would remember that. He might want to get rid of Potter again sometime.

Thirty days later Kane saw Mulligan on the border. They had a drink together at the Cortez Motel on the American side. Mulligan told Kane his cattle were doing better than any he and Potter had on the desert. "They're so gentle you have to kick them out of camp to make coffee in the morning. They are just standing still and getting fat," Mulligan said.

"The little cattle I kept home are doing real well now," Kane said. "They've gained about a hundred pounds apiece already on the sorghum grass. I'll ship you those, if you want."

"No, we're coming off the desert in two weeks and we're going to clean everything up. I want to get shed of Fats."

"I don't. Not until he has the great bounty to pay me."

"Well, I'll see he pays you in two weeks. Your cattle and the ones you bought for him might be the only ones that make any money."

"I'm counting on it. In two weeks I'll be flat broke. I mean money for groceries broke."

"I'll see you get paid," Mulligan said.

Three weeks later Kane had not been paid. Mulligan and Potter had disappeared. Kane was reasonably sure Mulligan was gathering cattle on the desert and having trouble, but he knew Fats wouldn't be able to stay away from that feedlot of his for long. He kept calling the feedlot and Fats' home. Someone would always answer and ask who was calling, then leave the phone a while. When he came back to the phone he would say Fats was out of town or at that certain minute wasn't there. Fats was watering at night.

Kane was broke. He left Benigno with the cattle and horses, borrowed 200 pesos from a friend, and went to Frontera. He knew he was in for a long, dry summer. He realized his stake in Mexico depended on Fats Potter now . . . the life he wanted, the life that was natural for him. He didn't like the fact that it was in Potter's hands all of a sudden.

On the border again after a years absence, he was soon seeing his old friends. He went to Abe Femandez, a friend who had a mercantile store where all the cattlemen traded. He borrowed $500 from Abe. He gave Abe a 30-day postdated check.

He went to the motels and hotels and bars where he knew Mulligan or Potter would be stopping and asked his friends there to let him know when his partners came in.

Two weeks later May Randall called Kane from the desk of the Cortez Motel and told him his partners had just checked in. He went straight to their room. The door was partly open.  He walked in without knocking.

Potter was sitting naked on a chair. He had just finished showering. He was drying himself and watching television. He had spread a stream of water from the shower to the chair and it was still dripping off the chair onto the floor.

Mulligan was sitting on the pillow at the head of his bed in his underwear, smoking.

"Well, well, the big businessman? Potter said. He didn't smile.

"Hello, Fats. I would have bet you never bathed."

"Getting the sweat of a hard day's work off. I've been working hard all morning crossing cattle."

"Good. That is what I like. Hard-working partners. When is payday, partner?"

Mulligan set his bare feet on the floor and put out his cigarette. "Jim, boy. We only gathered twenty head of your little cattle. I don't know how many are left but we're going to start gathering again next week," he said.

"Shorty, pard, that's tough. I hope you get them all, because you owe me for all of them."

"Now wait. We're going to pay you for them but not until we see how many are left."

"You guaranteed me forty dollars a head for forty-four. That is all I want until you sell them. Then I'll bear my share of the loss, if any. If they don't make anything, then I'll have tough luck too. Right now pay me for forty-four."

"Well, I don't remember guaranteeing anything. What do you think, Fats?"

"That's your and his big business deal. I'm out of it," said Potter.

"Well, Jim, I'll tell you. A lot of those little cattle you sent me got killed by a train one night about two months ago. I don't know how many, if any, were yours."

"Come on, Shorty. A train doesn't run around killing twenty-four head of cattle in a single night out in the middle of the Sonora desert."

"This happened right in camp, Jim. Remember I told you they hung around camp all the time? Besides, a lot of them just were too weak and died."

"I also remember you telling me they were doing real well, better than any of your cattle. You didn't say anything about trains then."

"They haven't done well lately. We'll be lucky to break even on any of them. Of course, we lost freight and feed on the ones that died. We had a million expenses. We had to keep seventeen cowboys riding day and night, paying them double wages, to keep the cattle in the country."

"Where were those seventeen cowboys when the train went through camp? Are you trying to tell me none of them were in camp the night a train came through and killed twenty-four of my cattle?"

"No Jim. I'll tell you what, we'll pay you now for the twenty head and we'll pay the rest in a month when we finish gathering. OK? Fats, is that OK?" asked Mulligan.

"It's your deal. You make out the draft, if that's what you want, and I'll sign it. Forty dollars is all I want to give, though. Those cattle won't make money. I don't want him dunning me from now on for the cattle. I'll have a hard enough time coming out on them," Potter said.

"Is that OK, Jim? We'll settle up the rest in a month. You are getting a good price for your cattle." said Mulligan.

"Pay for forty-four now like you agreed to do," said Kane.

"Hell, Jim we haven't got any money now or we'd pay you now. If you don't see us, draft on us in thirty days."

"All right, if that's all you can do."

Mulligan filled out the draft and Potter signed it.

"Remember, Fats. I get paid in thirty days," Kane said.

"''Dun Shorty if you want to. Don't bother me with it."

"No, Fats. It's your money. You pay," Kane said.

"You just draft on us if you don't see us," Mulligan said.

"What about those three you've got in Rio Alamos?" Fats asked. "What are you going to do about them?"

"Go and get them, Fats. They're yours. I'll tell you right where they are. The thirty dollars you paid me to handle your thundering herd ran out a long time ago."

Kane took the draft down to Abe Fernandez' store and paid Abe the $500 he'd borrowed. He came out with the $300 change feeling bad he'd had to borrow. Even being able to pay hadn't opened Abe's closed face to him. Abe had been worried. He had been hearing things, probably.

With this $300 and the $960 they owe me I could go home, Kane thought, as he walked out in the street. The money would go a long way on the Alamos River. Three hundred dollars won't get me across the street here. I ought to go home anyway. I could find something to keep me going, I bet. But if I get back down there and I don't find something and they don't pay, then I got to come back and hunt them. If I stay here I catch them when they cross the cattle. Maybe I can get an order for cattle here anyway. It's a bad time, though. It's June. Everybody is stocked for the summer.

On the first of July Kane drafted on Potter. The draft bounced. Kane couldn't locate Potter or Mulligan. He made out another draft. He discounted 10 percent for death loss and $100 he stipulated on the draft as share of partnership loss. That draft bounced, too.

Kane knew a little more about Fats Potter now. Dick Spencer, an oldtimer at border trading, told Kane about some partnership cattle he and Potter had. They didn't sell the cattle on the border where the partnership was supposed to end. Potter said they would make more if he took them home with him to his feedlot. Several months later when Spencer asked for a liquidation Potter told him the cattle had all died.

"Watch him, Jim. Besides being a cow thief he'll pull a knife or gun on you. He pulled a long knife on me there in the Gay Nineties bar when I tried to get a settlement out of him. I just turned the whole deal over to him. It wasn't worth it to me.

"I'll tell you another thing. Potter will slander you. He's telling around you tried to draft on him for a load of cattle you didn't have. He said he had to take your draft book away from you. He says the only reason he didn't put you in jail was because he had known your dad so well."

"Dick, that is a dirty lie."

"Look, Jim, you don't have to explain to me. I know him better than you do. But you better put a stop to it. He's telling it everywhere and a lot of bootlickers that would like to have that draft book want to believe him."

Kane was out of money again. Rather than borrow, he took a job on construction of a bridge, pushing cement around in a wheelbarrow. He made $10 a day. He sweated hard in the sun and he joked the gross Mexican obscenties with his companions. In the evenings he cleaned up and roamed the trader hangouts looking for his partners and for an opportunity to buy cattle for someone so he could go home.

One evening he got a call from his friend Dan Gibson. Potter and Mulligan had landed in the Cortez Motel Bar. Kane thanked Dan, got in his pickup, and drove to the motel. He walked into the dark room and sat down at the bar with Gibson.

Potter was at the other end of the bar holding forth to a group of young Mexicans. Kane and Gibson listened to him tell them how smart he was and how many thousands of Mexican cattle he bought and he never failed to make money in a business that broke many.

Potter spotted Kane. He grabbed one of the Mexicans by the shoulder and pulled him over close. "There's Jim Kane," he said loudly, pointing at Kane. "Now there is a fine feller and a big businessman in Mexico. Big businessman and cowboy." He said something only the Mexicans could hear and they all laughed. Potter turned his back on Kane. The young men kept looking over at Kane.

"Let's go get him," Dan said.

"No, we won't get anything done. I want that money. I'll wait until his suckups leave."

Mulligan was sitting closer to Kane. He was talking earnestly to another Mexican. Kane got up and went over and sat next to Mulligan. Dan moved over next to the Mexican.

"Hello, Shorty," Kane said.

"Well, Kane. How the hell are you?" said Mulligan.

"I'm broke, Shorty. Pay me."

"Just a minute. I've got business with this man." He turned back to the Mexican who was talking to Dan now.

"He's got another beau now, Shorty," Kane said. "Talk to me a while."

"What were you saying?" said Mulligan.

"Pay me."

"I'll have to see how many of your cattle are out there but I think we overpaid you last time. A lot of your little cattle died, you know. I told you all about that the last time I saw you.

"Did you lose a lot of cattle, Shorty?" Kane asked.

"By last count we lost forty head," said Mulligan.

"My gosh. How many did you have on the desert?"

"We had twenty-seven hundred head."

"Shorty, you mean you had twenty-seven hundred head and you lost forty and you are trying to tell me twenty-four of them were mine? Shorty, I hate you lying to me," Kane said quietly.

"Kane, I'm not going to argue with you about it. As far as I'm concerned you've been paid all you are going to get."

"Don't argue. just stop lying and pay me."

"Kane, those cattle you sent were practically dead when they got to the desert."

"Look, Shorty. If those cattle had been going to die, that six hundred-mile train ride would have killed them all. I let you cut the weakest cattle out in Rio Alamos. I garbaged the tail end of them and they've gained at least two hundred pounds. Yes, and you told me thirty or forty days after they got there the cattle you took were doing real well. Now you say you lost forty head. I can account for twenty. Seventeen of the Brajcich cattle died on the train. Three stayed in Rio Alamos. And you tell me twenty-four of mine are dead. That adds up to forty-four cattle, Shorty, not forty. Stop lying, Shorty."

"Jim, be reasonable about this. Fats never has liked the deal I made with you and he's the man with the money. He won't even pay me what he owes me."

"So that's it," said Kane.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I can't do anything more for you."

"You poor little shit. Get out of my sight."

"I'm sorry, Jim."

"Go on, Shorty."

Mulligan got off the stool and left the bar.

A full shot of bourbon sat in front of Kane. Kane asked Manuel, the bartender, where it came from. Manuel said Potter had sent it over. Kane leaned over the bar and poured it in the sink. He ordered a double shot and when Manuel brought it, he took it and a glass of water and went over to a corner booth. Dan went over and sat with him. "Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah," Potter was saying.

Kane drank his whiskey slowly in the evening, waiting. Dan Gibson chose to wait with him.

"Jim, I'll back you in anything you decide to do. This is your night. You better do what you can. You might not get another chance," Dan said.

Later a young doctor, a friend of Kane's and Dan Gibson's, joined them. He had his wife with him.

Potter had moved over to the bar on their side of the room. People were leaving the bar. Potter had no companions now.

"Give Kane a drink. Give his friend, another cowboy, a drink. Give my friend, Doc Wagner and his cotton-headed wife a drink, " Potter said.

"Save your drinks, Potter. We don't want them," said Kane.

"Yah, yah, yah. The big businessman?"

"And keep your mouth off me. The only thing I want from you is a check for nine hundred and sixty dollars."

Potter walked over to the booth and stood over them. The doctor was sitting on a chair with his back to Potter. He had his hat on. A good $12 straw.

Potter snatched the doctor's hat. "Sure is a nice hat, doc. You a cowboy too? You head full of know-how. It need air, man.

All of a sudden there was a big switchblade snapping open Y in Potter's hand. He slid the point smoothly into the crown of the hat and sliced it off. He put the brim back on the doctor"

"Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah," Potter said and swaggered back to the bar.

Kane was out of the booth in time to hold the doctor back.

"Come on, Cotton," he said to the doctor's wife. "Please go home." He put his arm around the doctor's shoulders and walked him to the door. The doctor was very angry. The doctor and his wife went out the door. Dan Gibson was at the door too.

"I'm drunk, Jim. I'm going home now."

"OK, Hoot, " Kane said.

"You should have pounded hell out of him before now."

"Not here, Hoot. I've got to get him somewhere private. Across the line in the corrals would be a good place. I'll be damned if I'll go to jail over my own money."

"I guess you know what you're doing, Jim. Good night."

"Good night, Dan. Thank you."

Kane went in the restroom. When he came out Potter wasn't in the bar. Manuel motioned to Kane that Potter had gone out. Kane started out. Two of the restaurant waitresses were looking out the window.

"You better get outside, Jim. Potter has a knife on your friend," one of the girls said.

Jim stepped outside. Dan was in his car. Potter, holding the switchblade, was standing on the sidewalk in front of the car. "Yah, yah, yah, run, you little son of a bitch. I'll run your partner off next."

Dan fell out of the car and went for Potter. Kane got his hand on Dan's elbow just as he swung on Potter. It made the punch miss. Kane got hold of Dan and pulled him back to the car. Potter had been too slow or too scared to stick the knife.

"Let the young boy come on," Potter said, hefting the big knife in his hand. "Come on, boy. Come on."

"Go on home, Dan," Kane said. He turned on Potter.

"Put up the knife, Fats."

"Let your boyfriend make me put it up."

"Put it up before you have to eat it."

"Yah, yah, yah," Potter said. He turned and walked back in the bar.

"You shouldn't have butted in, Jim. He's got a lot coming to him," Dan said.

"He's mine, Hoot. Now you leave him to me and go on home."

Gibson got in his car and drove away.

Kane went in after Potter. He sat down next to him at the bar. "I thought you were gone, Kane. I didn't know big businessmen like you hung out in these old bars."

"Fats, now you are going to pay me so get out your little draft book."

"Let Mulligan pay you. It was his deal."

"It's your money, Fats."

"It wasn't my deal."

"No, but you are going to pay for it. I'm not going to wait very much longer, bigshot, then I'm going to start in on you."

`'Listen, punk. I'm bullet city. I've been shot, knifed, and busted up so much I've started to like it."

"Bigshot, you are going to have to like it because I'm going to give you plenty of it. What do you do that is big? What makes you a bigshot, Fats?"

"I'm not a bigshot. I just try to earn a few dollars."

"You never earn anything, bigshot. You get suckers like me to steal from."

"I haven't stolen anything from you."

"No, you haven't because you are going to pay me pretty quick for twenty-four head of cattle."

"Why don't you just admit you made a bad deal and write it off like I do when I make bad deals."

"I ain't a big enough shot. I can't afford to be a bigshot like you."

"Maybe you are in the wrong business. Maybe you ain't smart enough to be a steer buyer. I think you missed your calling. If I were you I'd go back down there and keep those Meskin women pregnant and raise a passel of Meskin generals. Now that is the way you could make money. Not in the steers. Steers is for oldtimers like me and your dad."

"You wouldn't make a pimple on a steer buyers ass, Fats. You're a bigshot. Where did you learn all about being such a bigshot, calling hogs back in Arkansas?"

"I know a little about this cattle business," said Potter.

"You know who to pick to do the work and how to keep from paying them. Only you are going to pay me." .

"I don't owe you. Mulligan does."

"You pay. Now I'm through talking, Fats. Pay me now or I'm going to start massaging your brain."

"Well, let's go see Mulligan in the room and get this straightened out."

They left the bar and walked through the parking lot. Dan Gibson was there sitting in his car. He got out. He got in step with Kane. The three men walked to Mulligan's room, where Potter woke him by shouting through the window.

Mulligan was sitting up on his pillow in red silk pajamas lighting a cigarette when they walked in.

"Shorty, if we owe this little chickenshit bastard anything, let's pay him right now and get him out of my hair," said Potter.

Kane set himself solidly on the motel's deep carpet and slammed a straight right hand into the side of Potters head. Potter half turned and nosedived, loosely unconscious, head-first, into the wall in the corner of the room. There was a hole in the plaster when he rolled back on the carpet. His head had punctured the wall where Kane's punch had driven it from  across the room.

Mulligan reached for the phone.

"Forget about that," Dan said. "You just sit up there like a pretty little girl on the bed. I'd like a piece of you myself."

Kane picked up a chair and slammed it against the wall. He rolled Potter over by the hair of the head and sat him up. He lifted him and slammed him into the chair. Then he faced the chair to the motel desk, jamming Potter between the chair and the desk. He got the briefcase and threw it to Mulligan.

"Get that famous draft book out and make me out a draft for nine hundred sixty dollars for twenty-four head of cattle so bigshot can sign it."

Potter moaned and fell out of the chair. Kane pulled up another chair and sat in it. He was cooling a little now and he realized he'd hit him too hard. It would never do to put him clear out or maybe kill him.

Mulligan finished writing the draft and laid it on the desk.

"He won't sign it, Jim," Mulligan said.

"I hope he doesn't I want to tap him some more. I'd like to tap on him till breakfast time."

''This won't get you anywhere, Jim. Be reasonable," said Mulligan.

"I'm through reasoning with you guys. It's collection night." He got up and went in the bathroom and got a glass of water. He walked back in the bedroom and poured it slowly on Potters nose. Potter started fighting for air and when he turned his head Kane poured water in a thin stream from up high into Potter's ear.

Potter sat up.

"Now, Fats, get up in the chair," Kane said nicely. Potter sat in the chair. He was very. pale. Things were happening to him.

Fats. Sign that draft our partner just made out. It's on the desk."

"I don't owe you," said Potter sullenly.

"Now Fats, don't sull on me. Just pay me and it'll be all over."

"Yah, yah, yah, yah, y—"

Kane lifted an arm and shovel-hooked three quick ones on Potter's kidney.

"Yah . . "

Kane hooked on the ribs. They were very satisfactory blows. They weren't homeruns like the first one that had busted the wall but they were nice base hits. Kane was set just right and he was in a position to pull the target solidly into each punch adding immeasurably to bite, leverage, and satisfaction. He worked on the other side, it was nicely padded with fat there, too.

"Yah . . ."

Kane jerked the head back by the hair.

"God, I'm tired of hearing that," he said and punched Potter softly in the Adams apple. Potter fell over like he'd been shot. He kicked convulsively. He gagged and threw- up.

"My God, Jim, y0u'll kill him. I'm sorry but I'm going to have to call the law," Mulligan said, swinging his little white feet purposefully oil` the bed and grabbing the telephone.

"Shorty, I don't want to start on you. Please don't make me. Just put down the phone," said Kane.

"Let me have the son of a bitch," Dan said. "I guarantee he won't do any phoning."

"No, Hoot. Hes going to be all right. Aren't you, Shorty?"

Mulligan put down the phone. "OK, but go easy on the man, Jim. You've already done enough. Hes going to need a doctor and a hospital as it is."

"Oh, I'm through if Fats is. Fats, are you through now? Don't say 'yah, yah' again."

Fats was on his hands and knees now, draining his lungs where he had choked them with vomit. There was a large purple lump on his cheekbone. Its swelling joined the big one on his forehead where he had butted the hole in the wall.

"Kill me. Kill me. Kill me," Fats groaned.

Kane took two short gliding steps and place-kicked Potter in the belly, stepped back one step, swung the leg stiffly, and kicked again. Potters arms collapsed at the shoulders and he fell over on his nose. His eyes stared at Kane. His shoulders were turned in, his mouth contorted. The great bulk of his weight was shuddering. It was all pressing down on its face. You could tell by the eyes that the man was gone for awhile. Then the man came back and the body relaxed and rolled over on its side and then it sighed and the man was all the way back in. The eyes closed peacefully.

Kane sat back down. He was surprised the eyes had not bothered him. He was collecting the debt and doing everything necessary to collect the whole debt. Kane's anger was collecting its part of the debt now. The abusive part of the debt required anger in the collection. The $960 part was necessary too. He must not forget about the dollar part.

"Fats. Fats, wake up," he crooned.

Fats lay there comfortably. He had his shoulders arranged right now. He had rolled over on his back and his arms were lying comfortably on his stomach. A

"Fats, wake up, " Kane said and got up from the chair. The creak of the chair got Potter's attention. The eyes opened wide. They looked fearfully at Kane. Evidently the man in there couldn't take it at all while looking at Kane. Kane did not like seeing the fear. He realized seeing the fear might stop him. Maybe he had done all he could now.

Kane stepped up close to the head. The eyes were transfixed. You might have thought the body was still unconscious. No part of it moved. But Kane could see the conscious terror of the man scrambling behind the eyes.

"Now, Fats, I know you would not like it if I started grinding my boot in your face. But I would like it and right now is all my turn, so get ready."

Fats rolled. over and got up on his hands and knees again.

"Kill me," said Potter.

Kane swung the foot again, punting, putting the boot to the head on the face side. The man left again and the body mass spread itself on the floor. Maybe the man was gone for good this time.

Dan Gibson grabbed Kane gently by the arm.

"Let's go, Jim. I think that's enough. We'd better get out of here now. "

Kane turned to Mulligan. I'm going now, Shorty."

"OK, Jim," Shorty said.

"You tell bigshot when he comes back that if anything happens to me or my friends because of this he's going to get worse. But tell him he's paid up now."

"OK, Jim."

"I sure don't ever want me to apply this to you, Shorty."

"You don't need to worry, Jim."

"That"s a relief, Shorty. You come back to Rio Alamos again sometime. I've enjoyed doing business with you. I like the way your partner pays off."

"OK, Jim."

"Come on, Jim. Let's get out of here," Dan said. They left the room.

"I'm going to Rio Alamos just in case he don't wake up," Kane said.

"Boy, let me shake your hand. You really savaged him," Dan said.

"Yeah, I sure did," Jim said. "I'd rather have the money but I'm going south, money or no money."

BOOK TWO

17
The Charreada

The vaquero is the Mexican cowboy. When someone calls a man a "vaquero" he is paying him a compliment. He is saying the man is more intelligent than the animals he handles. The vaquero knows how to treat his charges with gentleness as well as sternness. He will stay out in the dust, sun, brush, and harsh elements until he has cared adequately for the animals he looks after. And when he plays he often looks to his animals for his entertainment.

A charreada was being held on a Sunday afternoon at the hacienda of Don Tomás Piedras, the father-in-law of Juan Vogel. The charreada is the rodeo of charros and Juan Vogel invited Kane to go with him to the fiesta. On the way to the hacienda Juan Vogel told Kane that Don Tomás had been a charro all his life. He was a very distinguished member of the oldest charro association in Mexico.

The charro associations are dedicated to the preservation , of the traditions of the charro. Traditionally, the charro was the vaquero, the man who worked cattle, but he has evolved into one who stylizes the work of the vaquero. Members of the charro associations are amateurs. They show the art of working cattle in pictures they make for people to see while they handle cattle with horse and rope.

The charro wears the traditional big-winged sombrero tied under his chin; the butterfly-knotted tie adorning his breast; the leg-fitting trousers and leather leggings; the waist jacket with thin lapels held by one button over the breast. He uses the heavy-shanked, spoke-roweled, silver-mounted, blue-steel spur. He rides the naked-treed, wide-homed, charm saddle. These saddles have big cantinas, or saddlebags, behind the cantle. The stirrup leathers have no fenders. They are straight straps, narrower than a man's leg, to a small, square stirrup. On the bridle of his horse the charm uses a short, looped rein and the severe spade bit.

The Piedras hacienda was in the flat brush country west of Rio Alamos and close to the coast. Kane saw the dust of the fiesta rising from the arena long before he and Juan Vogel drove up to the hacienda. Cars and pickups were parked around a keyhole-shaped rock arena and people were watching the charreada from their cars.

Juan Vogel stopped at a mezquital by a clear pond where women were serving steaks that had been roasted on mesquite coals; kid that had been barbecued in coal-bedded pits; flour and corn tortillas; huacamole; and frejoles charms, the whole, richly spiced beans in their sauce. Canned beer lay iced in big tubs. Kane and Juan Vogel walked into the shade of the mezquital and began availing themselves of the food. A young charro, brown and dusty, hat on the back of his head, curly hair plastered with sweat on his forehead, walked up to them and handed them cans of beer. Juan Vogel introduced him as his brother-in-law, Mariano Piedras. The boy shook hands with Kane.

"How are you doing in the competition, Mariano?" Juan Vogel asked.

"No competition today. We are just playing. The first turn of the tailing is over. I won it. We are holding the bull riding and the team roping suertes, events, now."

They walked from the mezquital to the rock wall of the arena and stood between two cars in the sun with their arms resting on top of the wall. A big gate separated the straight part of the keyhole from the round part. When the gate was closed, the round part, called the ruedo, resembled a bullring. The inside of the ruedo, where the action was now taking place, was encircled by a board barrera the same as a bullring. A stocky, bowlegged man in a fine white shirt, now dusty, brown charro hat, and worn leggings stood at the head of his horse in the center of the ruedo. His brown face was intent on a wrinkled piece of paper in his hand. His goatee was pure white.

"That is Don Tomás, the father of my wife and Mariano," Juan Vogel said.

"My father is mayoral of the fiesta today," Mariano said. "He supervises and keeps order in the arena. He is also judging the suertes."

Hacienda vaqueros working at the bucking chutes in the ruedo were having trouble with a bull. The charreada had been suspended for a few minutes while the bull was prepared for the next rider.

"Papá," Mariano called to Don Tomás. "Papá."

The man turned toward his son. He looked over at the bucking chutes and saw that the bull was not in the chute yet. He walked across the dust of the arena to Kane, Vogel, and
Mariano.

"Are you ready to rope your bull in the terna, hijo?" he asked his son.

"Sí, Papá," Mariano said. "Will my father permit me to use the black mare in the terna?"

"Yes, but be careful with her, she is new," Don Tomás said.

"Yes, Papá," the boy said and left them.

"This is Jim Kane, Don Tomás," Juan Vogel said.

"Ah," Don Tomás said. "I asked Juanito to invite you here to show you what true Mexican hospitality is. I understand that Juan was not capable of extending hospitality to you. I have been wanting to meet the man who stood up and pounded my bronco son-in-law. You are welcome here. Pound him whenever you feel like it, with my permission, Juan Vogel took it in good humor. Don Tomás mounted his horse and rode back to the bucking chutes.

A band of mariachis was playing in the back of a truck by the bucking chutes. Mariano Piedras and another charro rode into the ruedo. They built big loops in their maguey ropes and sat their horses facing the bucking chutes.

The bull and rider were ready. The mariachis struck up "El Muchacho Alegre," "The Happy Boy," and the bull was turned out. The bull was a white, humpy Brahma. The rider held on with both hands to a rope around the bull's girth behind the hump. The rider had good balance and was spurring the bull well up in the neck. The bull bucked straight and shook himself and twisted sideways in the air after each lunge. He bucked across the arena and did not falter when he got to Mariano and the other horseman but lowered his head and charged between them and tried to jump the barrera in front of Kane and Vogel. He bounced off the barrera and fell back on his side in the arena. He came up with the boy still on his back. He bucked around the arena close to the barrera and strewed vaqueros out of the arena over the barrera. He bucked around again to where Mariano and his companion sat their horses. He stopped. The rider spurred him to start him again but he just trotted around with his tongue out trying to hook at the spurring feet.

Mariano's companion, an old man with long heavy mousetaches, rode his big sorrel gelding over to the bull. The bull whirled and faced him but did not charge. The man reined away giving the bull the horses hind end for a target. He made two passes at the bull in this way and the bull stood his ground. On the third pass the old man swung his loop overhead and approached the bull from the front. He released the loop in a downward swing by his left stirrup. The wide loop fanned up behind him, climbed higher than his head, and came down and settled exactly around the bull's neck. The old man rode away, took up his slack so that the loop caught only the horns, dallied on the saddlehorn, and led the stiff-legged bull away from the barrera. In the center of the ruedo, the rider untied his rope and dismounted from the bull. He received his applause from the people and the dianas, the short tune of fanfare, of the mariachis, saluted with his hand to his sombrero, and ran out of the arena.

Mariano Piedras rode his mare to the left side of the bull and threw his loop over the hind end of the bull. The big loop caught on the hips and whipped around in front of the hooks and under the belly from the other side, building a trap for the hind legs. The bull lunged and did not step into the trap. Mariano backed his mare off and started again with a small loop which he spun back and forth by his side from the mare's head to her tail. When the loop was large enough he flattened it parallel to the ground, the loop spinning like a wheel, brought it under the mare's neck, around the other side, around the mare's hind end, and back around the mare again as he rode up behind the bull. He snapped the rolling loop perpendicular to the ground, brought it around his horse again, and let it go. It yawned and rolled straight to the bull's hind legs and wrapped around them. When the bull lunged. this time both hind legs were caught in the loop. Mariano jerked his slack, turned his mare away from the bull, took a dally on the saddle horn, let the dally run on the horn as he rode away, and stretched the white bull full-length in the arena.

"Beautiful!" Kane said.

"Yes. That is the pial con floreo, heeling with a flowered loop," Juan Vogel said.

"Can you do that, Juan?"

"No, but I'm dangerous a la vieja."

"What kind of loop is that?"

"That is the loop you might throw in the same manner as you would throw a rope to your old lady."

"That is more the way I do it. But I want to learn this."

"Tell Don Tomás. He is always happy to recruit another charro. If he had his way every male on two legs in Rio Alamos would be a charro. He would even like to ban the tejano, the kind of hat you and I wear, in the State of Sonora. He has recruited doctors and lawyers into the association and they are learning tailing and roping. Some of them even ride the bulls."

"I thought charros of the caliber of Mariano and that old man with the moustaches were only to be found in the south of Mexico. I have never seen charros in Sonora."

"Don Tomás is from Puebla. The old moustaches, Don Paco, came here with Don Tomás many years ago, The boy that rode the bull is Don Paco's son. Since the boys have grown up they have formed a team to compete in charro competitions all over Mexico. A team usually consists of five men. The Rio Alamos group always has at least one doctor or lawyer who is willing to take his lumps to go along with them. But don't think there are many charros in Sonora. Rio Alamos has the only charro association in the state."

"Why is it that Sonora vaqueros are not more interested in charreada?"

"The Sonora vaquero likes the way of the American cowboy better. The vaquero is a good practical roper and horseman but charreada is the art of roping and horsemanship. The sons of Don Tomás and Don Paco were given the chavinda, the maguey rope, for their first playthings. Their baby cribs were saddles. The saying is, 'El charro se hace con baba, no con barba.' The charro is made when he is slobbering, cutting teeth, not when his beard is growing."

"We also say a cowboy is born, not made."

"This is true but the art of the charro must be taught to the small child and is much more complicated than the roping and riding of the cowboy. Not many cowboys could become good charros."

"Still, I'm going to learn that roping someday."

"Good luck. Wait until you try it. I don't say you can't learn it, though. Don Tomás tried to keep Adelita, my wife's sister, away from the horses and ropes in order to raise her to be a lady, but I believe she is a better charra even than Mariano. That is her over there by the chutes."

A small, brown girl in a leather split riding skirt and knee-length black English boots was laughing huskily at Mariano for missing his first loop at the heels of the white bull. The vaqueros at the chutes were enjoying what the girl was saying. The boy was looking down at his saddle horn while she derided him. A quirt hung from her left wrist and she whipped her boot top with it as she laughed up at the boy on horseback. She was bareheaded and her black hair hung straight down below her shoulders. It hung together in wild ropes like the hair of a Yaqui Indian. Don Tomás spoke to her and she turned and stalked out of the arena swinging the quirt in one hand and stroking the thigh of her own striding leg with the other.

"That girl has no pardon. There will be no forgiveness for Adelita Piedras," Juan Vogel said.

Don Tomás walked down the alley between the barrera and the stone wall to where Kane and Juan Vogel stood. Mariano rode in the arena following Don Tomás and leading Don Tomás' horse.

"You shouldn't stand here in the sun without beer," Don Tomás said. He turned to Mariano. "Go and get beer for us, son," he said. The boy was still smarting from his sister's teasing. He handed Don Tomás his reins.

"Three?" he asked.

"And one for yourself"

The boy rode away sitting his horse as proudly as he could, knowing Kane and Juan Vogel were watching him.

"How do you like the charreada?" Don Tomás asked Kane.

"Very much," Kane said.

"Are you a horseman?"

"After a fashion."

"He wants to be a charro," Juan Vogel said.

"Anytime you wish to join us you are welcome, Señor Kane. This is our national sport. It is Mexican one hundred per cent," Don Tomás said.

"The Lion says Jim is a good jinete, a good rider of bucking horses," Juan Vogel said.

"Why not? The Americans have great style in riding bucking horses and bulls," Don Tomás said. "The charro rides to stay on until the animal quits bucking. The cowboy rides to contest the horse or the bull for a short time to make a good picture of a horse bucking and a rider spurring. The American way of riding is an art."

"Mariano's roping is an art," Kane said.

"Yes, we attempt to make our horsemanship and roping an art. Did you see the tailing today?" Don Tomás asked.

"No, we came too late," Kane said.

"Tailing requires the art of horsemanship. Someday I'll invite you to try it," Don Tomás said.

"I'd like to," Kane said.

"Would you like to ride a bucking horse today?" Don Tomás asked Jim Kane.

"I had not thought of it."

"He has a bad knee," Juan Vogel said.

"The knee is all right," Kane said. "I could ride a bareback horse.

"All our bucking-horse riding in charreada is bareback. We use the pretal, the tight rope, only. We never saddle our bucking horses. "

"His knee is bad," Juan Vogel said.

"We would like an exhibition if you are willing," Don Tomás said.

"I'll attempt it, " Kane said. Mariano rode up with three cans of beer and handed them to Don Tomás.

"Would you like some of the fuerte, the strong drink, first?" Don Tomás asked.

"Let's see," Juan Vogel said. Without dismounting, Mariano leaned over Don Tomás' horse, took a thin, half-pint bottle of clear mezcal out of the saddlebag, and handed it to his father. Don Tomás handed it to Kane and Kane drank a big swallow to brace up his brain, the brain which had crumbled under stupidity when Kane had been faced with the dare of riding a bronc. Juan Vogel drank with relish, wiped off the mouth of the bottle, and gave it back to Don Tomás half empty. The charro drank again and the bottle went around again. Don Tomás emptied it.

"To bucking-horse riding!" Juan Vogel laughed, and saluted Kane with his beer. Kane chased the mezcal, not worrying about crowding its quality, with half of his can of beer.

"The next event is the escaramuza," Don Tomás said. "This is the ladies' horsemanship event. My daughter is captain of the team of Rio Alamos ladies." He handed the empty mezcal bottle to Mariano. "Co replenish this, son," he said. The boy rode away with the bottle.

"Are you married, Señor Kane?"

"No," Jim Kane said. He added immediately, "Nor do I intend to be ten years from now."

"We must introduce Senor Kane to some of our Rio Alamos ladies, Juanito," Don Tomás said. "We have fine women here, Senor Kane. Beautiful and good women."

"I've been watching them," Kane said.

"For example, in the ladies of the escaramuza, you, as a horseman, will see what I mean about our women."

The mariachis began playing the old song of the revolution, "Adelita." The arena was cleared and the gate opened at the far end of the straight track of the keyhole. Six girls on horseback riding sidesaddle streamed through the gate single file. They stopped their horses and stood them abreast halfway up the track. The first horse sprang into a run toward the ruedo. The horse was suffering from what cowboys of Kane's acquaintance called the 'green-eyed runaway.' The girl was spurring with the one stirruped foot and whipping with a long, thin, hardwood rod to get more runaway out of the horse. The girl was Adelita, daughter of Don Tomás. The big black stud horse she rode didn't have a spot of white on him. He stretched and ran as though there was no barrera at the end of the arena for him. The girl was wearing a black and gold brocaded sombrero over her brow. Her hair was plaited in one thick braid down her back.

The girl checked the big black in the center of the ruedo and he braked and slid on his hind legs, his front legs pawing the air together. The girl stilled the horse there and made a hand salute to her sombrero and rode to one side to wait for her companions to introduce themselves in the same manner. The team performed an intricate drill in the ruedo at full speed. Their final move was another headlong charge to the barrera. Adelita did not check the stud until his nose was about to strike the boards. When she turned him, his feet went out from under him and he went down. The girl arched her supple back and kept her seat and seemed to hover over the stud, unaffected by his struggles, while she switched and spurred him so thoroughly that Kane could see the hair fly off him. He scrambled to his feet and slammed against the barrera on the off side, the stirrupless side of the sidesaddle, regained his balance, and was spurred in a charge out of the arena. The rest of the team followed.

When the girls were gone and the gates had been shut on the ruedo, Mariano Piedras rode over to Kane and said, "My father says you are going to ride."

"I guess so," Kane said.

"When you are ready I will help you mount. We have a buckskin in the chute. He is the best we have. He bucks very well."

"Let's go then."

Kane climbed over the rock wall and walked down the alley of the barrera to the chutes. The buckskin was the same color as the Mortgage Maker colt Kane had ridden for Bob Keys. He was much smaller. This buckskin didn't weigh seven hundred pounds. He was narrow as a board. Kane looked at Mariano.

"This is him," Mariano said.

"He is very good to buck," a smiling vaquero who was perched on the back of the chute said.

"Well, let's have him then," Kane said and climbed onto the chute and strapped on spurs he borrowed from Mariano. Mariano and the vaquero wrapped a braided rope around the buckskin's girth and pulled out the slack. Kane got down on the black-striped back and planted his feet between the boards on both sides of the chute. He got his hand under the rope.

"Use both hands," Mariano said.

"What for? One hand is better style for falling off," Kane said.

Mariano tightened the rope and started to tie off the end.

"Give it to me," Kane said and took the loose, end and wrapped it around his hand and held it.

"You'll hang up to him that way," Mariano said.

"That's what I figure," Kane said. The vaquero smiled.

"Don't fall off then," Mariano said.

"I appreciate that advice," Kane said. .

"Ready?" Mariano asked, and got hold of the gate latch. What the hell, Kane thought. He lay back, looked at the sky, and said, "Turn him loose." He raised his inside foot as high as he could and drove the wheel-roweled spur behind the buckskin's ear as the gate opened. One thing about these gut hooks I'm wearing, he thought, they'll bring anything back to life that hasn't been dead more than ten days. He kept up the motions of spurring, but he never turned another hair on the buckskin. He never found the ragged little horse again. He could see no head, no shoulders, no withers in front of him. He could feel no barrel under his thighs. He was riding a bumpy rail that was the buckskin"s backbone. The buckskin stretched and snapped the backbone under him and Kane was sure every vertabra the horse possessed passed beneath Kane's buttocks like the teeth of a chain saw. Kane spurred high with one foot to keep his balance when the buckskin turned off the barrera, and missed. When the horse raised his head after the turn, both of Kane's feet were on the same side of the buckskin's neck. The horse wheeled away from the feet and Kane lay out over him off balance. He turned loose his hold on the rope. Gravity took over. Kane sailed out flat in the air, parallel to the ground, and landed on his back in the arena. He got up and leaned against the barrera to get his breath and looked squarely into the sun-flecked, yellow-brown, coyote-like eyes of Adelita Piedras, who was standing behind the barrera.

"¡Así me bajo yo!" Kane said. "That is the way I get off a horse." The girl did not say a word, showed absolutely no expression. She had seen nothing and Kane was not there. Kane looked away.

"You are supposed to hold with your spurs on the animal's sides and you are supposed to hold on with both hands to the pretal," Mariano Piedras said, trotting up to Kane, shaking his hand, and laughing.

"I don't know. I've never done this kind of thing before," Kane said.

"Yes. You would have better luck riding if you held on with all fours."

"Thank you for telling me. I'll try that sometime."

"They are not hard to ride once you learn a few things about riding," Mariano said.

"That was what I wanted to see!" Don Tomás said, walking up and shaking Kane's hand. "Short but beautiful. You spur, with fine rhythm, a dance on a bucking horse. This is the second time I've seen the American style of riding. I enjoyed it very much."

"I wasn't sure I had gone for a ride at all until I hit the ground on this side of the arena. I never found him,"`Kane said.

"He is over there. The buckskin. He still wears the pretal you used, see?" Mariano said, still laughing.

The girl was still regarding Kane with the quiet, yellow, coyote look that passed over the surface of him without judgment or evaluation but missed no detail of him. Kane climbed over the barrera into the alley to join Juan Vogel and Don Tomás. The girl walked away and Kane saw her join the other girls of the escaramuza at one of the trucks. He caught her quiet look several times while she was there. `

"Mariano will get the pretal for you," Don Tomás said. "He will manganear the buckskin. The mangana is the fore-footing loop.,)

Mariano mounted his little mare and stood her facing the barrera about ten yards away from the boards. He spun his loop in a show for the people. All his concentration was on the dancing loop as he brought it around on every side of the mare and above his own head. He dipped it lazily, he tripped its pace, he slowed it, he raced it, he winged it away and brought it back, all in time with the waltz, "Sentimiento" the mariachis were playing.

Without breaking the rhythm of the loop, he signaled Don Paco and his son, who were standing their horses near the buckskin. They charged the buckskin and drove him around the barrera from Mariano's right. Don Paco whipped the buckskin from behind with a long bight of his rope. The boy kept the bronc hazed against the fence from the outside. Mariano quickened the pace of his big loop, brought it to the ground behind his horse, rolled it end over end like a big wheel around his right side, rolled it past his horse's head to the barrera, brought it back to catch the front legs of the buckskin as he was stampeded past, pulled his slack, took his dallies, let the buckskin run on by, stopped his dallies, and the buckskin did a cartwheel on his front feet and slammed to the ground. The smiling vaquero of the chutes ran across the arena and took the pretal off the buckskin before he could get up.

Mariano and Don Paco and his son rode out of the arena. Then a big fat charro marched into the arena. He carried a can of beer. Kane had noticed him before. The man had been watching the charreada from the truck of the mariachis. He had contributed much song to the fiesta. He wore a khaki charro outfit too tight for him. The cloth stretched tightly over his pocketless buttocks. He wore a sombrero too small for him. The brim of the hat was fringed with red and black artificial fur. His adequate nose sagged like a bridge that was collapsing in the middle.

"¡Ese Chato!" people called to him from around the ring. "¡A torear, Chato! Let's fight a bull!"

"I didn't bring my cape. Besides that, I am drunk, " Chato said to someone behind Kane and Vogel. The vaqueros at the chutes had gone back to the corral and were busy there.

"You have done nothing to contribute to the fiesta today, Chato," Juan Vogel said to him.

"Didn't you see me in the colas, the tails?" Chato asked.

"We came too late for the tailing," Juan Vogel. said.

"I mean the colas at the mezquital, the tail of the line at the barbecue and the beer."

"We missed it. You must have excelled," Juan Vogel said.

"The colas at the free meat, the cold beer, and the music," Chato said.

"I bet you hightailed it often to the mezquital."

"Hee, hee, hee!" laughed Chato pleasurably.

"Here is your bull, Chato,".the smiling vaquero called from the chutes. The gate opened and a white yearling Brahma heifer was released into the arena.

"Hee . . .Chato said when he looked toward the chutes. The heifer charged the men in front of the chutes, clearing the arena there. She looked up, saw Chato, and gathered her gangly legs in a charge that gained lanky coordination as it progressed across the arena toward Chato. Chato was defenseless. He now was encountering himself repentfully in the center of an arena, drunk, with a furious animal bearing down on him. Only a moment before he had entered the arena to say an enjoyable hello to his friends. He threw his beer at the heifer but kept hold of the can. The heifer shied at the splash of foam that sprayed her and came on.

Chato threw the can of beer at her as she closed with him. The can bounced off her head high into the air and Chato avoided the first contact. The heifer turned back quickly. Chato swept off his sombrero, stuck his buttocks out, and passed her by him with the hat. He then ran to a gate in the barrera. She came after him, butting at his heels. .

The gate of the barrera opened into the arena. It was partly open. Chato got behind it and closed it to him in the face of the heifer. The heifer slammed into the gate, banging the back of Chato's head on a board over the gate. Now Chato's body was safe behind the gate but he had left his head in the arena. It was held there by the board over the gate and the top of the gate. His head was only six inches from the head of the heifer.

Each time Chato tried to move the gate out toward the heifer to free his head the heifer butted into the gate and drove Chato's cranium into the board. She would look up into Chato's eyes and try furiously to attack Chato's head. But she could not reach it. Finally she stretched out her black tongue, splashed it against his face, and bawled her hot, breathy voice all over his face in frustration.

"Chato," a heckler called from the crowd. "Get away from there! She'll eat you!"

"No, you are safe now, Chato. She has tasted you," another called.

Finally the smiling vaquero roped the heifer and led her out of the arena, freeing Chato. He stood in the alley rubbing the back of his head. Kane and Juan Vogel walked over to see if he was all right. Chato bent over to pick up his hat. The seat of his pants was split down the seam.

"The bull let the air into your pants," Juan Vogel said to him. Someone handed Chato a beer from over the wall.

"Hee, hee, hee," Chato said. The charreada was over.

A novio is one betrothed or committed to very stringent arts of wooing. To andar de novio, to go as a suitor, is a dedicated occupation for any man stricken with love, and the poor unfortunate may be at it for years before the lady decides he has had enough. Decent noviando for many girls entails no less time than a year. It entails the novio's visiting the novia at her house each and every evening without fail. This visit is called by the novio, "cumpliendo," fulfilling his obligation to his beloved. It entails the exclusive attention of the novio at all dances and formal gatherings of all the best families of the acquaintance of the novio and the most privacy the novio ever gets with his novia is when he goes with her and her chaperone to the dark movies. It entails constant attention by the novio without hope of surcease but does not require any, absolutely any, advances or favors of even the smallest kind by the novia. Her duties are only to stay out of the sun so as not to become browned by it and to look unobtainably desirable to the poor novio and to be very, very careful no one ever sees him touch her.

"You will stay for the dance," Don Tomás told Kane while they were drinking whiskey and soda in the living room of the main house of the Piedras hacienda.

"I'd like to, but I thought I would look for Juan Vogel and see if he is ready to go back to Rio Alamos," Kane said.

"You must stay. The day is gone now. We'll have a few drinks of whiskey here and then my daughter is going to serve posole, a special meal at any fiesta. After the posole, the dance will begin. Anyway, Juanito won't be returning to Rio Alamos tonight. He'll be occupied with strong drink and pretty girls at the dance. You can go back to Rio Alamos to work tomorrow. Tonight is time for festivities and you are my guest. Today is the feast of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of my daughter."

Kane and Don Tomás were on their third double drink when Adelita Piedras came into the room with the girls of the escaramuza. They stopped to greet Don Tomás.

‘'You did well today. Very well," he told them. "Do any of you know Señor Kane?"

"We do not have the pleasure, Papá," Adelita said. She turned the coyote gaze on Kane. "Patricia Adela Piedras at your service," she said, shaking Kane's hand.

"Jim Kane, your servant," Kane said.

Don Tomás introduced the other five girls and each of them smiled and shook hands with Kane.

"Are you going to change for the dance now?" Don Tomás asked the girls.

"Yes, Papá," Adelita said. "We will excuse ourselves now. I have much pleasure in knowing you," she said to Kane and all the girls repeated this and again shook hands with Kane. They left the room on dusty, booted feet, their spurs ringing.

Later the girls in their best dresses served the supper of posole, a stew made of meat from the head of a pork with boiled hominy. The girls served two score guests who came to the Piedras dining room. They kept the wine glasses full of red wine. They brought steaming hot tortillas from the kitchen to replenish the stacks on the table.

Adelita and her sister, Margarita, wife of Juan Vogel,welcomed each guest individually. Adelita was especially attentive to Chato, who had managed to arrive just in time to get the seat nearest the kitchen and by the fullest wine bottle. Guests left the table as soon as they were finished eating so their seats could be taken by others who were priming their appetites with drinks in the front room. Kane left the table at the same time Chato did. He was standing under the portal in front of the house lighting a cigar when Chato walked out.

"Ahh," Chato said. "A fine cigar. One of Don Tomás' cigars. Where is he keeping them?" Kane showed Chato where the humidor was. Chato went back inside. On his way to the humidor he stopped to talk to a mariachi who carried a big guitarrón, the big, pot-bellied guitar. The mariachi unslung the strap from over his shoulder and relinquished the instrument to Chato. Chato took it and went on to the humidor, passing clumsily and with many apologies through a group of people sitting with Don Tomás in the corner of the living room. He took a handful of cigars from the humidor, apologized again to the people visiting with Don Tomás as he bumped and twanged the guitarrón back through them, and returned to the portal.

"Hee, hee, hee," he said to Kane. He handed Kane two of the cigars he had looted.

"Are you going to the dance in the patio?" he asked Kane. "It is about to start."

"Maybe later," Kane said.

"Later we'll go together and I'll introduce you to my daughter. You are the one who hit Juanito Vogel, are you not?"

"Yes, we fought. My name is Jim Kane."

"Pedro Delgado, your servant. They call me Chato. Come on. We'll sing for a while. It is always good to sing on a full stomach, like a coyote."

Kane and Chato went to a square building that stood apart from the main house. Chato found a key above the doorsill and opened the door. He crossed the dark cement floor and lit a petroleum lamp on a heavy wooden desk. Mayo Indian rugs were scattered on the floor. A fireplace with a bell-bottomed chimney was set in the center of the room. Racks holding saddles and tack lined one side of the big room. A short and battered oak bar stood on another side. Long, axhewn, lacquered beams a foot apart held the high ceiling.

"This is the clubroom of the charros," Chato said. "What will you drink? Tequila? Good. We'll have tequila so the fiesta may continue for us." He poured a water glass full of brown tequila and handed it to Kane. Kane sipped it. Chato took it back, drank from it, and handed it back. Then he built a fire in the fireplace.

"La lumbre," he announced when the kindling was burning. "Now we have the fire, the full bellies, and soon, the music."

More charros came to the clubroom. Chato introduced them to Kane as they arrived. A guitar and a mandolin arrived with them. The music began. Chato plucked with two fat fingers on the strings of the guitarrón, keeping time. The other charros took turns singing solos. Each would present himself to sing, stand formally with his back to the ones that were playing, throw his head back, and sing as though five thousand people were listening.

They sang "El Novillo Colorado," the red steer; the huapango "Torero"; "Cuatro Milpas," the four cornfields; "Siete Leguas," Seven Leagues, the horse of Villa; and "Los Amarradores," a local corrido about a band of cattle thieves that had been caught by Don Tomás.

The charms asked Chato to sing "El Prieto Azabache," the song about the black horse that saved its master from Pancho Villa's firing squad. Chato didn't get up from his chair. He played his own accompaniment on the guitarrón. He closed his eyes as the sentiment of the song affected him. His voice broke and sobbed. Two minute tears escaped the corners of his eyes, glistened, and dried instantly on each side of his large, broken nose. At the end of his song he set the guitarrón down and wiped the end of his nose with his fingers.

"Hee, hee, hee," he said. He was very happy. He took up the guitarrón and began picking up and slapping down its strings again. "Thump thump . . . thump thump . . .thump thump," the potbelly of the guitarrón obediently said.

"¿Cuál otro?" Chato asked. "What other song shall we play?"

"¡Yá, Papá!" a plump, delicately complexioned girl who had come in during the song said. "The grand march of the dance is about to begin."

"The dance," Chato said. Everyone left the clubroom and walked through the darkness under the mesquites back to the main house. They passed through a long, beamed passageway between the front room and the dining room to the patio. The whole building made a square around the patio in the old colonial style. The door of each room opened onto the patio. A portal shaded a brick walk around the inside of the patio. Chairs were placed side by side under the portal. The guests and their ladies sat formally straight in these chairs. Vaqueros of Don Tomás in their work clothes and sweat-stained straw hats sewed drinks to the guests.

Chato left Kane and he and his companions of the clubhouse went to find their wives. Later Chato, washed, his bald head hatless, appeared with his wife and they took their seats on the edges of the dance floor.

The band of mariachis formed at one end of the patio. Don Tomás stood in front of the band facing the people. He wore a dark gabardine suit of gala, the formal wear of the charro, adorned with a pistol belt and revolver. He wore a black felt charro hat embossed with silver. He made a speech.

"Brother charros, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "You know this fiesta is to honor Saint Patrick, patron saint of my late wife and my daughter. On this occasion I wish to thank my daughter for the love and fine care she bestows on her brother and me here in this house. I know her mother, Patricia Piedras, may she rest in peace, is proud of her today. Now, in honor of Saint Patrick, divert yourselves."

The mariachis began the song, "Adelita." Don Tomás went to the edge of the dance floor and brought Adelita out of the shadows of the portal. He circled the dance floor with his daughter on his arm, presenting her to his guests. The girl, in high heels and stockings, in a dress with a short, hooped skirt and off-the-shoulders bodice, her hair beribboned and braided and shining, was beautiful. A Mexican eagle spread his wings in sequins on the front of her skirt. A large gold Virgin of Guadalupe medal on a heavy gold chain hung between the tops of her breasts and the moisture of her skin there caught the lamplight exactly as the gold of the medal did. Her straight, slim legs stepped precisely, the sway of her small waist causing the hooped skirt to spin slightly under the hips. When Adelita and her father had completed the full circle of the floor the other guests rose and all the ladies were presented in the same manner. After the grand march, Chato came up with his wife on one arm and his plump daughter on the other and presented them to Kane. Kane walked the girl to the dance floor and danced the first set with her, conscious of the dust, sweat, and manure smell of himself and the nostrils of the girl quivering frequently in distaste. After the dance he figured he was through with the dancing. He went in search of a drink.

The smiling vaquero who had helped Kane at the charreada was serving at the bar in the living room. When he saw Kane he poured him a large portion of Don Tomás' whiskey.

"Why so much?" Kane asked him. The man had poured him exactly the amount he had come looking for.

"In case there are any sore places," the vaquero said.

"None that matter," Kane said. "The buckskin didn't get a virgin."

"You bounced like rubber."

"I bounced because I was lucky."

"Still, you bounced with great style. You are with friends here."

"Thank you, but I should not get drunk."

The vaquero poured another measure of the stuff into Kane's glass.

"Sometimes it takes a good quantity of this for a man to realize he is not among strangers but among friends.

"Thank you," Kane said.

"Placido Ruiz at your orders."

"Thank you, Placido. Jim Kane at your service."

"Divert yourself here," Placido said, smiling.

"That is what I have set out to do," Kane said.

He took the big drink and walked out of the house. He lit another cigar and went purposefully back to the clubroom. He found the key and let himself in. He lit the lamp and replenished the fire. He thought, and now to see how it is that I shall divert myself here.

The saddles were singed and grooved under the horns where the maguey ropes ran with the dallies. The hats were big and heavy and, Kane thought, must get in the way when a man swung a loop over his head. Kane had always liked heavy spurs because of the good balance they gave a man's feet in the stirrup. One jab, well placed, and a horse with any sense would remember why he got it and do his best to avoid another like it for a long time.

Like Jim Kane, Kane thought. He will do well to remember how the spurring feels. He bet that Adelita would keep the hair flying off the cowboy she found to work her cattle for her. Jim Kane would do well to keep away from dances and willful girls and Fine future fathers-in-law.

Fiestas had better remain for Kane times to watch, fill the belly as Chato said, fill the spirit with wine, and listen to music. Listen to the music from here by the fire. The music is plainer, less noisy, and does not carry with it good-looking dancing legs here by the fire. Legs you'll want to get into bed and then legs that would drive the spur to make you go someplace you don't want to go. Better not be nice and polite and join the race after those legs.

Kane picked up a maguey and sat down with his feet on the platform the fire rested on. He built a small loop in the maguey and began roping the toe of one of his boots. He roped the boot and tried to jerk the slack quickly before the loop settled on the platform. In this way the rope would touch only the toe, never catch the boot below the instep. Very diverting.

Juan Vogel came into the clubroom. "What the chingados are you doing here, gringo? Have you quit the fiesta or what?" he asked Kane.

"No. I came to look at the tack. I was going right back," Kane said.

"I thought you would like the fiesta. That is why I brought you. This is a Mexican fiesta,. a time to get drunk, dance, and steal a girl. Not a time to think and look at saddles. Are you afraid of the girls?"

"Now you are being funny."

"Just grab their little soft hands with one hand and their nice little waists with the other hand, get up close to them, and you will see how nice and helpless they are."

"Lead the way then," Kane said.

At the patio Juan Vogel quit Kane and picked on one of the girls of the escaramuza to dance with. Mariano was dancing with another of the escaramuzas. His hat hung by its chinstrap from the butt of the pistol he wore. He was hugging the girl tightly and barely moving her around. His face was vacant and preoccupied with the great amount of getting acquainted he was doing. The bull rider was dancing with Adelita. The rhythm of the ranchera song they were dancing was exactly the same as the high pace or prance of a horse. Kane knew how to dance a little but he knew he would never be able to dance the ranchera the way it should be danced because he had not been born with the exclusively Mexican hitch in his getalong for the dance. Adelita and her partner were dancing the way the ranchera needed to be danced to. They were kicking up their heels to the tune of the music and doing it for the joy of what the music made their feet want to do.

Kane sat down in a chair under the portal while he watched the doings. Chato and Placido, arm in arm, came over to him.

"What a beautiful dance this is," Chato said.

"What a beautiful dance!" Placido, who was no longer smiling but was dead-eyed, wobbling drunk, said. Chato's hat was on the back of his head. The ends of the chinstrap hung over one ear. He and Placido settled themselves in chairs beside Kane.

"My drinks are risen," Chato said. "I must rest. Hee, hee, hee."

Kane heard the tap of high heels on the brick walk, a sure stimulant to his interest wherever he was.

"Adelita, preciosa!" Chato announced.

"Isn't she the lovely one?" Placido said confidentially in Chato's ear. "Isn't she the fine one?"

The girl walked directly up to Kane and he saw how trim and light she was.

"Move over, Chato," she said. Chato and Placido moved over one chair, leaving the chair next to Kane. Adelita sat between Kane and Chato.

"Senor Kane, you are not dancing," she said.

"I'm not very good at it," Kane said.

"Let Adelita show you," Placido said.

"You have not danced with me yet, preciosa," Chato said.

"You have not asked me, borrachito, little drunk, " Adelita said.

"But what could I do now that I am drunk? What a shame!" Chato said.

"Adelita, you should show our jinete how to dance," Placido said. "He is a very good jinete. He fell off today because he was not prepared. I let the buckskin out of the chute before he was ready," he lied nobly.

"Why do you not dance?" Adelita asked Kane. '"All the girls of the escaramuza want to dance with you. They are waiting for you to invite them."

"That seems like a good idea," Kane said, "but I'm taking care of Chato and Placido at the moment."

"Leave them to get drunk. They will do nothing worse than that for the rest of the night. They aren't going to dance with anyone. Don't you want to dance with me?"

"Yes. I like the idea," Kane said.

On the dance floor the girl was tiny. She could have weighed no more than eighty pounds. Kane thought this over for a few minutes.

Suddenly the girl shrilled in the artificial voice of the mascarita, "You are American?"

"You are my mascarita," Kane laughed.

"Yes. Your mascarita friend."

"It was you I danced with the night I fought with Juan Vogel."

"Perhaps. Maybe I tell you someday," she said in English.

"This is a joke on your brother-in-law, Juan Vogel. You should have heard what he said about the mascaritas?

"Don't say anything. My brother would hit me if he found me out. Decent girls don't go to the Paris de Noche cantina."

"If it is so bad what were you doing in there?"

"We saw you go in with Juan Vogel and the Lion. I wanted to dance with you."

"What if I had removed your mask?"

''You would have gone to jail. The identity of the mascarita in Carnaval is protected by law. "

"I wouldn't have. But some other drunk might have. Anyway, you were safe knowing the Lion and Vogel would have protected you in the Paris de Noche."

"Oooooooo, Vogel would love to find out something like that about me. He would have threatened to tell his wife and my brother and would have made us go all night all over town with him."

"That would have been fine."

"You don't know him. He would have kept us out all night and the only all-night bars are in the zone of tolerance."

"The zone of what?"

"Where the prostitutes are."

Kane laughed.

"Don't laugh. It isn't funny."

"Why did you go in the bar then if it was so dangerous for you."

''I told you. To dance with you. All of us wanted to dance with you."

"I bet. Who were the other girls?"

"I won't tell you. The one that had to dance with Juan Vogel was afraid that Juan Vogel knew who she was."

"He didn't know who she was."

"Well, she has stayed far away from him since. He was sticking his hands where they didn't belong."

"What did she expect?"

"Nothing better. My cuñado, Juan, is an animal when he is drunk."

"Who were the other girls that were with you that night? There were three of you."

"Why do you want to know? It is none of your business.'"

"You said they wanted to dance with me."

"Forget it. You don't know how to dance. They wouldn't like you."

"Teach me."

"Move your hips . . . up and down . . . move your feet too . . . with the music . . . forget it. Come on. I want to show you something." She held Kane's arm through hers and walked him off the dance floor. They passed Mariano standing alone under the portal watching an escaramuza girl dancing with Vogel and laughing. Mariano stared at Kane.

Kane knew that whatever had been started toward a friendship between Mariano and himself might end now because Kane was leaving the dance with his sister. The girl walked Kane out the rear passageway of the house.

"Hurry, Señor Kane. Right now is the best hour for what I want to show you," the girl said. She took him to the center of a corral completely surrounded by pitahaya. The silhouettes of the long, symmetrical stalks climbed in clusters, curving, thrusting, toward a full moon.

"This is my favorite place on the night of the full moon. I have always wanted to show this place to someone," the girl said.

"When did you decide to show it to me?" Kane asked.

"I don't know. Maybe since the first time I came to this place. Maybe all day today. Maybe just a minute ago."

"This is a beautiful place. Thank you for showing it to me," Kane said.

"They say the fruit of the pitahaya is good for potency and fertility. Do you think it is true?" she asked.

"It must be. All the Mexicans I know that eat pitahaya have plenty of buquis, children."

"Do you have any, Señor Kane?"

"No."

"Do you have a wife?

"No."

"Do you ever want to marry?"

"I haven't been thinking about it," Kane said. "Is that what you want?"

"Yes, someday?

"And now what?"

"And now I would like you to kiss me."

"All right, " Kane said and he kissed her. "And now we go back," he said.

"Let's give more first."

"This is your day, your fiesta. Your guests will miss you."

"For that reason. This is my day."

"No. Go back now. I'm not your novio, your suitor, nor will I ever be. Do this with a novio. Then marry him."

"All right. Later then."

"Not later," Kane said.

"Later," the girl said. "I'1l go in now but I'll see you later."

She took off the high heels and carried them. She ran across the corral and back to the house in her stocking feet. Kane lit a cigarette and walked back slowly. Here you go again, and what the hell are you doing here, he thought. In the passageway he heard the girl arguing with someone.

"I asked you where you had been," Mariano was saying.

"I told you. Are you deaf? In the corral."

"With the gringo!"

"Exactly. The same one you saw me go out there with."

"You fool! He fooled you."

"Fool? I like it. I am a woman. The gringo is a man. You hear? A man. Do you know what that is?"

"He will leave here when he is finished with you and with all of us and go back to the United States to his gringa."

"So what?"

"So he will make fools of all of us."

"Speak for yourself. Don't worry about me." The girl put on her shoes and walked away.

"Is everything all right?" Kane asked. He had walked up and surprised Mariano close in the dark.

"¡No hay problema! There is no problem!" Mariano said.

"Is there anything you need of me? Any way I can be of service to you?" Kane asked him quietly.

"No. Nada. No hay problema, Señor Kane," Mariano said.

Kane walked away from him and joined Chato and Placido, who were sharing a large glass of tequila with Don Tomás. Don Tomás handed the glass to Kane.

"How do you like the dance?" Don Tomás asked Kane.

"Everyone is happy and enjoying himself," Kane said.

"The jinete is happy diverting himself," Placido the vaquero announced. "He has found friends here."

"Hee, hee, hee, Jim Kane," Chato said.

"Have you danced, Señor Kane?" Don Tomás asked.

"Twice. With Chato's daughter and with your daughter. My duty dances. I don't know how to dance these rancheras very well," Kane said.

"All in good time," Don Tomás said. "Poco a poquito. Little by little. You must take your time and take everything at its own little pace. Slowly and carefully. That is the way everything is done here in Mexico."

"¿Qué chiste? What fun would he have in doing it our way?" Chato said.

"In dancing or in anything, the slow, careful way is always the more diverting," Don Tomás said.

"It is true what Don Tomás says," Placido said solemnly.

"True. Very true."

"I think I'm too old now to learn to dance in your way," Kane said.

"But you are not," Don Tomás said. "You are young, presentable. You should have no trouble finding girls to give you their slow, careful lessons."

"But then I would have to go around in the role of a suitor. I am past the age of the control, patience, and long-suffering necessary for being a suitor. No, I believe I will let the others do the dancing. I have retired as a dancer."

"¡Lástima! Too bad! A man so big and so impatient!" Don Tomás said.

"Life is short, Don Tomás. Too short for a man to press suit to girls to teach him dancing."

Don Tomás laughed. "I enjoy your views, Señor Kane. They are different, but they carry reason."

"Thank you, Don Tomás."

Don Tomás rose from his chair and stretched. "Now I must retire. Placido, you take Chato and some blankets to the clubroom. Señor Kane will sleep in the bedroom in the corner next to my room. Build him a fire in the fireplace. Good night!"

He shook hands with Kane and walked away.

Placido staggered ahead of Kane and Chato, leading the way to Kane's room. He wanted that chore out of the way before he passed out. He turned and motioned Kane to follow him each time he remembered what his errand was. The mariachis were still playing. The dance floor was crowded. Mariano and the other young charros were still dancing. Adelita was dancing. This was the shank of the evening. Placido muddlingly chose a key from a ring on his belt and unlocked the heavy door of a corner room. The room contained an iron cot with mattress and blankets rolled at its foot. A small table with two chairs stood beside the bed. An oil lamp was on the table. The fireplace also served the adjoining room, Don Tomás' room, and when Kane sat down to share the glass of tequila with Chato he could see into the other room through the fireplace.

Placido built a fire and sat down on the bed. The three men, at the end of their fiesta now, smoked and watched the fire as they finished their last glass of tequila.

"What a good fiesta we had!" Chato said.

"A good fiesta! Good fiesta!" Placido repeated, smiling now again because the fiesta was over and he would not drink any more after this glass he was sharing with Kane and Chato.

"With this drink I will go and sleep with the little angels," Chato said.

"Me too. Surely yes. But with my little old lady," Placido said.

"Don't you have at least one little song left in you, Chato?" Kane asked.

"No. Ya no. I have had my fill of music now for a while," Chato said tiredly and took one last swallow and stood up.

"Let's go, Placido." They shook hands with Kane and left. Kane was not ready for bed, but he did not want to leave the room Don Tomás had so carefully corraled him in for the night. He took off his clothes, turned down the covers and blew out the lamp. The room had no windows. He opened the door. He lay down and he could see the sky under the eave of the portal. The music was outside his door. He had been given the room adjoining his host's. What more did he want?

In a quiet dream, not asleep, he heard only one guitar playing softly, a guitar that seemed to hold vigil on the fiesta. The fiesta had not died but was slipping away contentedly toward tomorrow.

19
The Sierra Madre

A serrano is an inhabitant of the Sierra Madre. He is a mountain man. He is very much more his own man than the city man is. He has to do so much more with only his own faculties, his own hands. I know serranos who have to walk seventy miles to get to a store that stocks axes. Automobiles will never be available to him. He doesn't miss them. He can make better time in his mountains on foot or horseback.

The serranos lead very uncomfortable lives compared to what people in Brentwood, California, believe is comfortable. Serranos live at all times on the sides of the real mountains. They hang their corn crops on vertical slopes. They herd their cattle around rocky, brushy cliffs where, they should slip and fall, they would starve to death and the buzzards would eat them before they hit bottom. There is no level plain upon which the strolling is good. The streets fall through the villages and are so steep that they have been washed deeply by the fast water of the summer rains and only the bedrock of the mountain remains.

The serrano's life is not cluttered with possessions, nor with luxuries such as "fine" foods, liquors, bedding, entertainment, or roomy abode. He has little use for money, which is probably the reason he always has a little. He is a rich man as a rule, not only because he has little use for money but because he has such a superabundance of what he needs.

The little Cessna 170 bucked and yawed and fought to clear the oak-topped peak in the high wind of the Sierra Madre. It cleared the oaks by yards, pointed itself down the other side of the peak, and leveled off It landed on the side of a hill going uphill on a narrow strip of rain-washed red earth by a rock wall that swept past the right wing. It rolled to the top of the hill and stopped.

Kane and the Lion stepped to the ground. The leather-jacketed pilot unloaded two boxes of oranges, a bundle of blankets, and a new radio and set them on the side of the strip. He looked impatiently down the hill at a group of whitewashed buildings that shone in the clear mountain air at sunup. He walked back to the plane and opened the planes cowl and checked the oil. A cold wind uncombed his long hair and he put both hands on the hair to hold it down. He ran a pocket comb carefully through the hair and patted it back down.

"Too much wind," he said.

A vaquero spurred a black mule up over the hill. The armas over the vaquero's knees flapped in the wind. The mule shied at the shiny contraption parked on top of the hill, too much gleaming metal for his comprehension. The vaquero spurred the sidestepping mule around the pile of provisions the pilot had stacked by the runway.

"Where is the doña and the little girl?" the pilot asked.

"They are on their way," the vaquero answered.

"Please go back and tell them to hurry. There is too much wind,  the pilot said.

The vaquero spurred his mule into a running walk and went back down the hill and out of sight.

"When shall I come back for you?" the pilot asked the Lion.

"Day after tomorrow," the Lion said.

"Please be here early in the morning. We should have come much earlier than this. Too much wind."

A young woman riding a mule came over the hill. A metal suitcase was tied behind the cantle of her saddle. She wore a large straw hat with the brim pulled down. A white cloth under the hat protected the back of her head and neck and was tied under her chin. She was bundled in coats and sweaters and long skirts. She sat the mule sidesaddle but when she dismounted she uncovered a common, goose-necked vaquera saddle. She was very light-skinned and her face was pinched by the cold wind. A little girl rode up behind her on a small corriente pony. The woman helped the little girl dismount. The pilot loaded the woman's blankets and her suitcase and helped the woman and the little girl into the plane. The woman took off her hat and white cloth and shook and fluffed her long brown hair. The pilot started the plane's motor. The tail swung around. The plane taxied over the hill out of sight. The plane roared, came back, lifted into the air past Kane and the Lion, and banked around the oak peak toward Rio Alamos.

"Come on," the Lion said. "No need for us to wait here and freeze in this wind." He winked at Kane. "We'll wait for Arce at my father-in-law's house."

They climbed over the rock wall and stumbled down the steep, frost-hard, rocky hill toward the little town. They stopped at a white adobe house. The pine shingles on the roof
of the house were hand-hewn. The Lion knocked on the door and roared.

A small, whiskered old man, his face dry and darkened by sun, mountain cold, and woodsmoke, answered the door and quietly welcomed the Lion. Inside, the earthen floor was packed hard and clean. The white plastered walls were washed. A fire in an adobe oven warmed the room. Kane and the Lion sat on rawhide-covered chairs at a scrubbed, slatboarded table. A large woman in a shapeless cotton dress, an immaculate floursack bandana tied around her hair, her face clean and shiny and smiling, served them hot, black, syrupy coffee and white cheese.

The Lion lost his roar in that home. His speech became quiet, controlled. He and the old couple discussed the Lion's errand in the Sierra. A young man entered and respectfully, wordlessly, shook hands with the Lion. The old man sent the young man to the plaza of the little community to watch for Arce. Later the boy came back and told them Arce had arrived.

The town lay in a hollow. Houses had been built on the edge of a small, open plaza. The boy led Kane and the Lion across the plaza to a large store. The proprietor of the store told them Arce was on his veranda. Kane and the Lion passed through the store, up a short flight of steps, and out onto a long, open veranda that overlooked a deep canyon behind the house.

Arce was drinking coffee at a small table. When he turned in his chair Kane noticed he wore big serrano spurs on his black dress shoes. He had turned the spurs around so that they rested on his instep, allowing him the freedom of walking Without dragging the spurs on the ground. He was glad to see the buyers. He stood and smiled and the thick coffee filmed his teeth a tawny yellow.

Arce was very gracious and introduced Kane and the Lion to the proprietor and asked them if they needed anything from the store before they left for Arce's ranch. They said they did not.

"¿Bueno?" Arce said apologetically, as though he regretted they had to leave so soon after so long a journey as the one from Rio Alamos to the Sierra. "¿Nos vámos? Shall we go?"

"We're ready," the Lion said.

"Only I don't know if the Senor Kane is going to like the beast I brought for him to ride. Is he de a caballo, a horseman?"

"Don't worry about him. If he falls off we don't need him anyway," the Lion said.

Three mules were saddled and waiting outside. All of them were small, weighing six or seven hundred pounds at the most. Spurs hung on the saddlehorns of two of the mules. Kane put on a pair of the spurs and mounted a brown mule. The tree of the vaquero saddle was narrow and the stirrups were too short. Kane's knees were doubled up uncomfortably. The stirrups were so small and the noses of their tapaderas so short that Kane's feet would not slide all the way into them. He had to ride on the toes of his feet.

The Lion was in a worse predicament. He was a much bigger man than Kane; His legs were so doubled up under him that his Levis crawled up and showed hairy legs over the tops of his boots. Only the very tip of his boot fitted into the stirrup and the long spurs hung straight down.

A group of serranitos had gathered in the plaza to watch the departure of Arce and his buyers. They had been amused at the picture Kane made on his mule but when the Lion mounted they laughed quietly.

"¡Vale nada!" the Lion said. "It makes no difference!" He spurred the little mule into a lunge and warped the bridle reins over the mule's rear end. The mule paced down the street looking back at the Lion alternately out of the corners of his eyes as though he thought he really had a lion on his back. The three men rode out of` town and across a high, open plateau. The grass covering the ground was flaxen with winter. The cold wind was blowing. The little mules kept up a fast running-walk on the plateau. They slowed when the trail dropped into a deep, wide canyon. The canyon could have been a mile wide. Houses of a ranch at the bottom looked tiny, animals diminutive.

They rode four hours down the canyon. They passed through cornfields that had been grown on the almost vertical sides of the canyon. The tiers of dry cornstalks stood above the trail over the riders, heads and below their feet fell straight down into the canyon. On the trail they encountered cattle that unhurriedly took high ground above them at the sight of the riders and in a moment disappeared in oak brush.

From the plateau, the trail passed down through thick, tall oak; tall, fernlike higuera; and dense scrub oak. Overhead, the tops of mountains were crowned with forests of pine. Above these, so high their colors only occasionally glinted in the sun, flocks of squabbling parrots passed on their seemingly urgent business, quarreling about it as they went.

The men left the big canyon through a gap and rode down over a dim, brushy trail into another narrow, deep canyon. The floor of this canyon leveled off and widened and came to a dead end.

Arce stopped his mount at a place by a stream where a half acre of ground had been carefully cleared of brush, stumps, and rocks. A thick rock wall had been built around this clearing.

This was no stock pen. It had no gate. Arce dismounted and Kane and the Lion awkwardly got down and stretched their legs.

"We can rest here," Arce said smiling. My ranch is only a few hundred meters from here. I want to show you this place and ask our American friend his advice about business I may undertake inside this trinchera, rock wall.

"You see how steep the walls of the canyon are here? How good the earth is? How plentiful the water? This stream never dries. I have often wondered about the possibilities of success of a certain crop in this place. What do you think of the possibility of raising amapola in this place?" he asked Kane. ‘

"Poppies?" Kane asked. "I'll be honest with you. I know nothing about raising flowers."

"Maybe you can tell me something else? What is the American price for goma?"

"Gum? What kind of gum?"

Arce smiled at the Lion to see if his suspicions were true, that the American was only acting ignorant. The Lion showed him no expression.

"Gum of opium," Arce said.

"Ah," said Kane. "I know even less about that."

"I know it is good. The Sierra is ideal for the growing of amapola. This place is perfect. It is hidden. Disgracefully, it is against the law to raise opium poppies but a government airplane would have to pass directly overhead and would have only a very few seconds in which to see this spot from the air. Gum is grown in small patches all over the Sierra but, alas, the crops are often spotted from the air."

"You would be lucky if you were not spotted," the Lion said.

"Yes, I would plant on the chance that during the time my plants were in flower a plane would not pass close enough for the three or four seconds necessary to see my poppies."

"A slim chance. But what if someone informed on you?" Kane asked.

"The people of the Sierra are good. But there would always be that chance," Arce said, smiling.

"This place is on a trail to your ranch? Anyone who was looking for opium poppy growers might accidentally ride by here and see it and catch you," the Lion said.

"I would deny the crop was mine."

"Yes, but could you deny you knew about it? It is also a crime not to report such a crop, is it not?" asked Kane.

"Yes, but if I planted it I would make sure no strangers rode down to my ranch without my knowledge or without a guide, a guide I would assign to wait in the town in case any strangers wished to come into this area. Also, I am the comisario, the only law in this area. I would be warned if any lawman was coming to see me, in which case he would be taken to my ranch over the main trail."

"This is all very interesting to me," Kane said.

"Is it not?" Arce said, smiling. "That is why I brought you here. I knew it would be interesting to you."

"You might say this is a tourist attraction of the region," Kane said.

"Exactly," Arce said, smiling. "But only at certain times of the year and only now when the trinchera is barren of any crop. Right now you, the Lion, and I are the only tourists. I often come here and look at this place and dream of how one crop would affect my life. I am really the only constant tourist who comes to this place."

"How long have you been coming here?" Kane asked.

"Three years now, " Salvador Arce said.

The three men mounted and rode out of the box canyon, over a piney ridge, and into a steep valley. The small settlement of the Arce ranch headquarters lay in the bottom of this valley.

Arce's house was a large, two-story adobe. The edge of a cliff fell off steeply on three sides of the house. The men dismounted in a small patio enclosed by a rock wall that rimmed the edge of the cliff. One of Arce's mozos unsaddled the mules and fed them dry corn leaves in the patio.

One side of the house was a storeroom for the ranch commissary. Arce unlocked the storeroom, went inside, and opened the top half of the storeroom door. He distributed  canned goods and flour to four men who had been waiting at the house when he arrived. He also filled the pint bottles of the men with lechuguilla from a bluish, five-gallon jug. He poured some more into an enamel cup and handed it to Kane.

"Here is something for us to drink that will help us to remember the long trail more kindly," Arce said. "Bring it with you and we'll go to the field for the shoot." He led them down off the hill and around to a large field behind the big house. There, a large gathering of people had formed so quietly that Kane and the Lion were surprised to see them. Schoolchildren in their best clothes were being herded by a tall young man. Several men were waiting at the edge of the field where their mules and horses were tied under some trees. The hard, flat field was about one hundred yards long. The men carried old, single-shot .22 rifles.

The children were shepherded to one side of the field and made to sit in ranks. A young goat, bleating and dragging his feet, was led to a board fence on one end of the field. The goat's horns were fastened to the limb of a tree over his head and his legs were tied to the bottom of the fence. Only the agate-eyed face of the goat and about six inches of the neck could be seen above the fence.

Each of the men took a shot at the goat's face with his rifle from the other end of the field. The goat danced a quick little jig each time a bullet passed by or struck near him. The last man fired and a piece of one of the goat's horns disappeared. The Lion showed a long-barreled .22 pistol that he had been carrying in his belt under his shirt. "Heh, heh, heh," he growled, smelling innocent blood. "We will see." The meat was seventy-five yards away and its warm and appetizing bleat was stirring the Lion. He pointed the pistol and knocked the tip of the other horn off the goat. He handed the pistol to Kane. "Here. I spared him for you," he said. .

Kane aimed high and squeezed off the round. The goat dropped and hung from the tree by his horns. Everyone on the field ran to see where the bullet had struck. The goat was dead. The bullet had gone in the throat and hit the spine. Kane was not proud of the shot. He had hoped to hit the spot between the eyes or shoot over the goat's head and miss him completely.

"You hit him in the pure life, en la pura vida," Arce said. A mozo stabbed the goat's throat with a wide, sharp knife and sliced the throat open. The jugular emptied the goat's blood in a gush into a bucket a child was holding under the wound. The mozo carried the goat back to the patio of Arce's house and skinned it and jointed the meat. The shooting went on and three more goats were killed.

Women came to Arce's house and cleaned the paunches of the goats and filled them with diced little squashes, potatoes and onions, and sewed the paunches up with needle and thread. The joints of meat were placed in clay pots, the paunches on top. The lids of the pots were sealed with moist cornmeal. The pots were buried in pits on beds of live coals. Arce's young wife came over to greet Kane and the Lion. The girl was heavy-boned, with the plain, light, healthy features of the white woman of the Sierra. She wore dark clothing, black stockings, and chaste black oxfords. She invited the men into her kitchen and served them coffee. Aroe showed his guests "el alto," the upper story where they would sleep. They climbed up the notched log through a trapdoor to the room. Two heavily blanketed cots had been prepared for them. They washed in an enamel pan with water from a china pitcher and threw the water out the window to the field behind the house. A two-way radio in the corner of the room was Arce's communication with Rio Alamos and Chihuahua City.

When Kane and the Lion had washed they climbed back down to the kitchen where the lamps had been lit and the table set for supper. They ate small portions of fried potatoes, fried jerky, and fried beans with black coffee. They filled up on a pile of corn tortillas kept hot in floursack napkins on the table.

"Do you wish to attend the program honoring Benito Juarez?" Arce asked Kane and the Lion when they had finished supper.

"Of course," Kane said.

"After the ceremonies a dance will be held," Arce said. He led Kane and the Lion out of the house. The night was cold and the wind had not diminished. They walked across a wide stream to a small plaza. It was surrounded by small homes on three sides and a mountain several thousand feet high on the other. The people of the village were still inside their houses.

A stone bust of Benito Juarez in the center of the plaza decorated with homemade crepe flowers stared with stoic Indian pride into the wind. Benches were set on the ground around Benito Juarez. A small board stage was set up behind him.

Salvador Arce started a gasoline generator behind the stage. Lightbulbs strung around the plaza went on. He tried the speaker system. It worked falteringly. He found a phonograph and put on a record. He turned up the volume.

Accordion music of the Sonora-Chihuahua ranchers blared out over the Sierra Madre, riding the wind to the west across the black peaks in the cold dark.

People came out of their homes and began forming in the plaza. The profesór marched his half-dozen students to the stage. The tallest students stood on the ground in front of the platform. The small ones stood on the stage. The strident music of the phonograph was shut off. The children chanted student songs. Then each had a solo turn on the stage reciting singsong poems of praise to "El Benemérito de las Americas," Benito Juarez.

When these annual praises had been dutifully sung by the children and dutifully concurred to by the listening parents and grandparents, the barbecued goat was brought to the plaza. The meat was so well cooked that it slipped from the bones leaving them slick, clean, and shining. The meat was served on tortillas. After the last polished bones had been thrown to the town dogs, the benches were carried back and set under the strings of lights. The phonograph tuned up again and the dance began.

The old people who did not dance wrapped themselves in blankets and sat by fires laid around the dance ground. The fires threw quick, indistinct shadows on the sides of the big mountain. The girls, showing off their best dresses in the cold, hugged the young men who courted them to the tune of music on the dance ground.

The dance was still going strong after midnight. By then the cold had long since climbed into Kane's bones from the ground through his feet. Kane and Arce and the Lion started up the hill toward their beds. They crossed the stream and came upon an old man sleeping on the rocks in the path with his wine bottle lying on his hand. Arce awakened him.

"Prisciliano, you will freeze here," Arce said, lifting him by the arms to a sitting position. The old man gathered himself and sat up by himself, his old, cracked feet in their huaraches coming to life under him.

"Go to the fire, old man. Don't be dumb," the Lion scolded in the tone he reserved for old men, ignorant foreigners, and dumb Indians. The old man turned a clear, cold eye on the Lion."

"I am not dumb, young man," he said, "Háblame recio pero no golpeado. Speak to me loudly if you will but don't buffet me with your tone."

"Pardon me," the Lion said, mocking him. "I thought you were just another little drunk bent on freezing yourself to death."

"I am eighty-eight years old, young man, and I have never been drunk."

"Don't sleep here, Prisciliano," Salvador Arce said. "Go to the fire. Drink some coffee. Take care of yourself."

"Thank you, Salva, I will," the old man said, patting Arce on the leg and dismissing him.

Arce led his guests on up the hill and into the warm kitchen of his home. He stoked the fire in the stove to heat the coffee.

"Do you know who that old man is?" Arce asked the Lion, smiling.

"I don't think so," the Lion `answered.

"That is Prisciliano Guevara. The father of Saturnino Guevara."

The Lion looked blank for a moment, then comprehended.

"Ah, sí, sí," he said. "The father of the assassin?"

"Precisely." Arce smiled, satisfied the Lion knew who the old man was.

"What happened to the son, the tigre? Tell Kane about him," the Lion said.

Arce poured three cups of coffee. He addressed the story to Kane.

"This old Prisciliano is a very intelligent man. He came to the Sierra fifty years ago. The way you saw him there on the path is the way he arrived in the Sierra, with nothing. He had been a priest. He left his parish somewhere in the south of Mexico. I believe he came here in search of the treasures of the Spanish Jesuits. I think he thought he knew the whereabouts of such treasures from old maps he had seen. He never acquired any treasure, though. He worked in the mines as a laborer and spent his earnings on wine. He worked as a vaquero. He cut lumber. He helped build houses here. All his work has only been for wine.

"He took an Indian woman, a Guarigío. She bore him a son and died. Prisciliano didn't teach the boy letters or religion. He said the formal knowledge he had acquired in his previous life was better not known.

"The boy grew up like a wild animal. When he was a small child he was seldom seen and when he was seen he was always running away and soon out of sight. One day he must have frightened someone and enjoyed it because as he grew older he began to stalk his fellow man. One day someone killed a stranger on the trail and robbed him. The man's skull was crushed by a rock. Later, the maker of mezcal, the Indian Astolfo, was found in the Arroyo de los Bitaches in the night in his blankets by his fire with his head similarly crushed. People had seen Saturnino Guevara following Astolfo down the arroyo that day as he led his pack train toward Chinipas.

"The day after Astolfo was found, Saturnino showed up at the shack of Prisciliano drunk on mezcal. At that time Prisciliano had not seen his son for several months except at a
distance.

"Saturnino babbled for a while to Prisciliano about Astolfo and then fell into a drunken stupor. Prisciliano came here and told me he wished me to come and get his son, that the man was like a tigre acebado who killed only for the love of killing. I took several men with me to the shack. Saturnino must have seen us coming. He was gone when we arrived.

"Months later Saturnino attempted to kill a young man who was riding through the Sierra peddling sewing machines. He waited above a trail and dropped a rock on the boy. The rock missed the boy's head but crushed his hand where it was resting on the horn of the saddle. This time a hunter named Martinillo saw Saturnino. Martinillo, armed with his rifle, was stalking a deer on the other side of the canyon. He was far away but he fired close enough to scare Saturnino away from the salesman. `

"Martinillo can track a lion over the rock better than a hunting dog can. After he accompanied the salesman here he went back to the place where he had seen Saturnino last, taking with him a party of men. The wild man had made for the highest, most broken terrain in the area. He kept doubling back and watching his own trail as any clever predator will do. "Martinillo soon guessed the pattern of Saturnino's flight. He sent the party of men away as a diversion and went to a place by a very steep cliff to intercept the wild man. He saw Saturnino climb around a naked precipice, the only place the man could pass to double on his tracks in that area. He waited until Saturnino got off the sheerest, most dangerous part of the precipice and shot him in the leg and broke it.

"The men captured and held Saturnino there. They sent a man after me. Prisciliano and I went up there. All eight of us, concurring with Prisciliano, hanged Saturnino on that precipice.

"I didn't know you had caught him," the Lion said.

"We didn't advertise it. It died here."

"You acted justly," the Lion said.

"We did what was necessary, Señor Kane. We must tame this region or civilization will be too long arriving in the Sierra."

"I`m in accord with you," Kane said.

"The Sierra is most of the time peaceful but we have much hardship. Even our celebrations are hard to bear, as you witnessed tonight. We must fight hardship with reason."

Salvador Arce's cattle were in the corral for Kane to see early the next day. They were better cattle than Kane had been buying around Rio Alamos. They were better boned, better horned, stronger, and bigger. Arce agreed to deliver the cattle in Chinipas on a certain day.

20
Merry Gentlemen Resting

Kane and Abelardo Cuevas found the Valencia corrals high on a bare hill in the highest part of the sierra oscura, the dark Sierra, the unknown Sierra, north of Yecora, Sonora. It was December and a snowstorm was brewing in the wind that had been bunching its strength against them since before noon.

Kane and Cuevas had been riding hard since the very early, black, cold morning. When they got to the corrals, the wind was very cold. It rolled over the smooth, bald hill. Kane was stiff with the cold and fatigue. The little mule he rode was slowing and tiring. The wind was getting in its last blows. It spanked Kane's back and turned the back of his hat up. It blew the mule's tail around over Kane's leg. A gust made the mule stumble off balance. He scrambled tiredly to regain his footing just as they reached the top of the hill. The mule groaned. The extra efort had hurt him. He tried to step out surely toward the corrals on the even ground on top of the hill, but his legs trembled. He stepped, lifting each foot too high. Kane got off and led him the last few steps to the corral. He unsaddled him. He knew the wind would sap the strength in the animal's back if it blew the long sweaty hair dry. Kane turned his saddle blankets over, dry side down, and tied them on with his piggin' string so they wouldn't blow off the animal's back.

The cattle Kane had come to see were in the corrals. There were about one hundred head of corrientes, the common native cattle of the Sierra. Kane could see every size, color, and shape of corriente known to man, and some not known to many men. Cuevas had let the Valencias know by wire and messenger that Kane wanted to buy their big steers. The Valencia big steers were reputedly the finest steers to be found in one bunch in the Sierra oscura. A few of the cattle in the corrals were not good, big steers, but Cuevas had said he would buy any cattle Kane did not want.

Kane and Cuevas laid their saddles down next to the fence. They could see saddled horses tied next to an old log house. They walked over to the house. Cuevas shouted and someone answered from inside.

They stepped in the door. There were no windows in the place. The only light in the room came through the open door and places where the chinks had fallen away from between the logs in the walls, and from a hole in the roof choked with smoke from a fire on the dirt floor.

"Shut the door. It's cold," someone said.

"Very cold, " Cuevas said.

"Good afternoon," Kane said.

No one answered him.

Kane stepped over to one side of the door so his eyes could get used to the dark room. There were three men in the room, squatting around the fire. They were not Indians. They wore the homemade, two-layer, palm straw hats, peaked, with no crease in the crown and no shape to the brim, commonly used by the serrano, the man of the Sierra. Their feet were bare and unwashed for months in teguas, the homemade shoes of that region. The men squatted on their heels with their hands bared toward the fire. They were unshaven and they had even beards of feathery hair. They were the Spaniards, the Valencias, called Los Peludos, the hairy ones, by the beardless Indians of the Sierra.

They all looked straight at Cuevas. They were unsmiling, unwelcoming. They completely ignored Kane.

"We expected you this morning," the old one said gruffly. He had blue eyes. His nose was running. There was a clear drop ready to fall from the end of the thin, hooked nose. It refused to fall. The light from a chink on the other side of the old man made the drop glisten.

"How could we get here this morning? We told you we would be here today. It is a ten-hour ride from Yecora to this corral," Cuevas said.

There was a red-haired one. His eyes were red, too. They bored meanness at Cuevas. His cheekbones were burned and peeling. The raw spots had soft, white, blistery edges. He picked softly at the sore spots with the cushion of a dirty finger.

"The morning is the time to work these cattle. We wanted to get through with them early today, " the redheaded one said.

"Parece que no hay negocio. It looks like no business. We can't do business now, " the old Valencia said.

"Why not?" asked Cuevas.

"Well, this man, a rich man, flies around in an airplane and sends word he'll be here today to buy my cattle and we have the cattle in the corrals since yesterday. Then he doesn't get here at a good hour. The cattle are hungry and thirsty. We are hungry and cold and thirsty. We are poor. We have wasted much time for this man. Our time has increased in value and I'm afraid he won't be able to pay us enough for it now. "

"Look," said Cuevas. "Here we are on the day we agreed to arrive. You have the cattle in the corral. You were waiting for us. Why don't we just go and cut the cattle?"

"Let's see. We're going to see. How much are you going to give?" said the old one.

"We agreed on that before we came up," said Cuevas.

"Ah, pues no. Ah, well, no,"‘the old Valencia said. "That is not convenient now. You've made us lose time."

"We came on the day you requested in your wire. What is it you want?. How much do you want for your cattle now?" asked Cuevas.

"How much do you want to give?"asked the old one.

"How can we tell without seeing the cattle? You've eight different ages and kinds of cattle out there. We must separate them to see how much we can give."

"How much will you give for the cows?"

"Young cows six hundred pesos a head. Old cows five hundred."

"I told you there would be no business," the old one said emphatically.

"You agreed to gather for that. We agreed to come and look for that," said Cuevas.

"That was before you came late," said the old one.

"Let's go, Cuevas," Kane said.

"Wait a minute," Cuevas said.

"I'm going, " Kane said. He stepped out of the stuffy, smoky room and turned his face to the fresh wind. He heard Cuevas arguing with the Valencias.

"No, no, no, no, no," Cuevas said. "I'm not that way. When I bring a man all the way up to the fifth fornication to see some cattle at a certain price It expect you to stick to the conditions of an agreement?

"He can pay more," a Valencia said.

"He won't pay more," said Cuevas.

"All these gringos are rich. "

"This one isn't."

A Valencia said something in a low voice.

"No, no," Cuevas said. 'Tm going now, too."

The Valencias and Cuevas came outside.

Kane began saddling the tired little mule. The old Valencia came over to him.

"How much you give for cattle?" he shouted at Kane from three feet away. He spoke the way many people speak to a foreigner, as though he is deaf, stupid, and doesn't see well.

"Cuevas told you in the wire what I'd give," Kane said.

"Work, work, wait, wait, long time you. Want more money."

"I can hear very well. Please don't shout," Kane said moderately. The man made him feel almost prim.

"Want more money for cattle. Very, very good cow," the old man shouted, waving toward the corrals.

"You'll have to sell them to someone else then." Kane got on the mule. "Look, Valencia, your cattle are too good for me. Take them down to the coast yourself."

The brother of the redhead walked up to Kane. He was tall and thin. His clothes had been carefully mended and remended. He was cleaner than the other two, but he was as hairy-faced. The hair on his head thatched down under his hat, over his neck and ears. He wiped his nose with the back of a forefinger and looked up at Kane.

"Will you look at my cattle? They are right behind you in the small corral," he said.

Pretty smart Valencias, Kane thought. They are going to Mutt and Jeff me. They chose this one for the nice one because they think he's suave. He probably bathes now and then.

One's suave, one's gruff, and one's mean. That's the way to handle these rich gringo buyers that come up to their mountain trying to screw them!

"I'll look, but I won't give more than the price Cuevas told me you agreed on."

"That's all right."

Kane got off the mule and loosened his cinches. He followed the tall one through the gate of the corral. The small corral was right on the edge of a precipice where part of the smooth hill had split and tumbled clown. The posts surrounding the corral were held up by loose rocks stacked at their bases. There were a few old strands of rusty wire on the fence. The wire must have been 30 years old, judging from the size and shape of the barbs.

When Kane and the tall thin Valencia walked into the corral, the cattle all moved over to the edge of the cliff. They moved carefully on that side. The footing was sheer rock. They did not lean on the old fence. When a steer felt the touch of a barb he hastened away from the brink. Kane and Valencia moved over to the cliff side of the corral so their presence would move the cattle against the other side.

Kane looked down over the edge of the cliff. It was about 300 feet to the bottom where the tops of the pines pointed at him. Kane could see no reason why a man would build a corral next to a cliff when there was so much room everywhere else.

The cattle in the small corral were composed largely of yearlings. There were a few two-year-olds. They were all corriente. There were spotted cattle of all colors; paints, blue roans, red roans, linebacks, brindles, bald-faced ones, duns, browns, blacks, whites, reds, and grays. They were in good shape. The good horns were already six inches long or more on the yearlings and the twos had horns a foot and a half long. The twos would work for rodeo in the States.

"How much can you give me for the twos?" the tall, thin Valencia said softly, suavely.

"Four hundred pesos," said Kane.

"We are accustomed to selling twos at five hundred pesos, even six hundred during the rainy season."

"I'm not accustomed to giving that."

"Can't you give four hundred and fifty pesos?"

"How about the yearlings?"

"Three hundred."

"Give me three hundred and twenty-five."

"OK but give me the twos for four hundred."

The tall Valencia thought a moment. He wiped his nose. He walked toward the cattle, his back to Kane while he thought. The cattle moved restlessly, looking at him and looking away. The cattle on the fringe next to the man hunted openings between their brothers and shoved their way deeper into the herd, burying their senses in its warmth. The tall Valencia came back.

"Pues, I'm going to sell you mine. When will you take them?" he asked.

"I'll take delivery in Yecora on the twenty-fifth with the rest of the cattle I buy on this trip."

"Pay me ten pesos a head more for taking them to Yecora. They are good steers and I'm selling cheap."

"I'm sorry. I can't do it."

"I need some money now for provisions. For Christmas."

That makes him even suaver, Kane thought. He believes in spending at Christmastime.

"I brought money for that," Kane said. "I'll advance you ten pesos a head. But I don't want that lumpjaw, the swayback, the little one-eyed one, or the broken-legged one."

"Where are any cattle like that?" asked the Valencia.

"Inside the bunch. Watch the gate and I'll cut them out right now."

The Valencia didn't say anything. Kane walked down the fence quietly. The Valencia moved over and held the gate open. Kane loosened the bunch out of the corner and slowly walked each of the defectives out of the corral. He looked the herd over again, making them walk by him on one side and then on the other. He hadn't missed any unmerchantables. There were twenty-one head of fairly good cattle left, not the best, but good for the money he was giving.

Cuevas was walking toward him. "Did you trade?" he asked.

"Yes," Kane said.

"The old Valencia came around. He says he wants to see how much you can give for his cattle. They are in the big corral. He is waiting there for you," Cuevas said.

Kane turned to look once more over the cliff at the great chasm below this ineffectual fence full of gentle little cattle huddled in a corner for common warmth against wind, man, and space you fall in.

The old Valencia was in a corral full of very old bulls, oxen, and cows. Though Kane was financing the whole deal, Cuevas was going to have to market these older cattle. Kane didn't want them. He had expected Cuevas to trade for these cattle. He looked around and Cuevas was gone.

The cows were toothless shells. The bulls were all old and dome-headed and ridge-backed. The oxen had a little flesh on them but they, too, were old and they would be hard to drive down to the coast. A bunch of old oxen always gives the most trouble on a drive by breaking out at night and heading home.

"How much will you give me for the bulls? I don't want to sell you anything but the bulls. I'll sell you the bulls because I need money right now, " the old Valencia said.

"I don't really want any of them. Cuevas is the one who buys bulls," said Kane.

"Give me a price."

"Cuevas told you seven hundred pesos in the telegram?

"Cuevas is crazy."

"So am I for talking to you but I'll give you seven hundred for Cuevas."

"I want eight hundred fifty."

"How much do you want for the cows now?"

"You can't buy them."

"The 0xen?"

"There's a buyer coming next week."

"Friend of yours?"

"Very, very good friend." .

"You'll undoubtedly make him a rich man."

"What?"

"You'd better wait for your friend."

"I'll take eight hundred twenty-five for the cows," old Valencia said. "

"I don't want them, never have wanted them, and if Cuevas doesn't get here within another five minutes they'll die of old age."

"Give me a price for the oxen," the old Valencia said.

"Look, you'd better talk all this over with Cuevas," Kane said. "You want me to put a price on your cattle for you, that is, sell them for you to myself. You want me to drive them three hundred miles to market for you, they're worth nothing here. You never eat meat yourself. And to finish me off you want so much money for them you want my profit and for me to pay you for marketing them besides. You'd better talk to Cuevas, maybe he can do all that for you."

Cuevas came over to them. He was smiling. Maybe he thinks it's his duty to keep the peace here, smiling, Kane thought.

"The gringo came here to steal my cattle," the old Valencia said.

"See if you want the cattle, Cuevas. You will be handling them," Kane said.

"Go look at the redhead's cattle. You'll be surprised," Cuevas said.

Kane climbed over the fence into the next corral. The corral was full of corriente steers three and four years old, in their prime. Their black muzzles shone moistly. Their great, a dark eyes were flawlessly clear. Their good horns were so shining clean they looked polished. Their hides were velvety, the colors sharp in the late, overcast winter afternoon. The hides were unmarked by the many brands that would have indicated they were bought cattle. These were the Valencia criollo, the steers that had been chosen from weaning for best care, best pasture, so that they would someday bring the most money. There were about 45 or 50 head in the corral, a carload.

So this is what they've been doing, Kane thought. The tall, thin, suave one sells off the inferior young cattle at the price agreed upon, the old gruff one tries to force the buyer to take the old shells. It's a ladder they built to this corral. They made sure I would know these cattle were going to be impossible to buy unless Cuevas makes a deal for the old cattle.

The redhead was squatting against the fence across the corral watching Kane. Now for the mean one, Kane thought. I ain't going to take those walking harps of the old man unless
you practically give me these little beauts, mean one. And you don't look like the one to give me anything today.

The redhead kept looking at the pistol Kane was carrying. He wanted it. His eyes would move from Kane's pistol to Kane's chaps. He wanted them, too.

"How much for these steers?" the redheaded, mean Valencia asked.

"You should know how much you want. They're yours, aren't they?" said Kane.

"These are mine. All these novillones, big steers, are mine. These will cost you." He looked at Kane's pistol.

"How much you think they're worth?" said Kane.

"You are going to give me one thousand pesos in silver. Mexican silver. Gringo money is no good here."

"Why not?"

"This is Sonora, Mexico."

"You don't say," Kane said in English.

"What?"

"I'll give you eight hundred fifty pesos a head for them," Kane said. "Mexican silver money."

"Have you seen steers like this anywhere in the Sierra?" asked the redhead.

"Here and there at times."

"These are the best you've ever seen in your life, aren't they?" The redhead looked at Kane's pistol, at Kane's chaps. Kane said nothing. The son-of-a-bitch wants me to show greed so it will be more fun not selling to me, he thought. They bully you, they would like to steal from you, they insult your intelligence and now they try to put words in your mouth so they can quote the gringo cowbuyer to the next poor Mexican buyer they expect next week. And the Mexican will get the cattle cheaper. He'll drive them to Chihuahua City, go broke on them, and go back to work as a vaquero for somebody. But he'll always remember these beautiful steers and as soon as he gets a new stake he'll be back. Dammit, it's time to get on my mule and get out of here.

"You are going to give me one thousand pesos for these Sehores Novillones, these Mr. Big Steers," the redheaded Valencia said.

"No," Kane said. He was thinking of that tired little mule and having to get on him again.

Cuevas and the old Valencia and the tall Valencia came over. Cuevas took Kane by the arm and led him aside.

"¿Qué pasó, what happened?" Cuevas asked.

"Nothing. You?"

"Can you buy the old cattle?"

"Cuevas, what would I do with that pile of old bones?"

"I just wondered. I'm pretty sure they'll sell the big steers for nine hundred if you'll take the old cattle at eight hundred."

"Now that is logical as hell, isn't it? The steers are expensive at eight hundred fifty, which is what I offered. The old cattle are worth nothing. Why ask me? You are the bone collector. You buy them."

"I offered him seven hundred pesos only. That's what we agreed to pay. "

"Thanks for reminding me. Now let's get the hell out of here. It will be eleven o'clock before we get down to Juan's. We promised him we'd look at his cattle tomorrow."

"Don't you want to stay here? It's very late. You want to ride all that way in the dark?"

"There's a moon," said Kane.

"A moon for what?" the old Valencia said.

"We're going on to Juan's," Cuevas said.

"Don't you like the steers?" asked the old one.

"They are very good steers," Kane said.

The old Valencia smiled. "Then buy them," he said.

"They're too high for me," said Kane.

"No old cattle, no good steers. What did you come here for?" the old man asked.

Kane and Cuevas were silent.

"Ah!" the tall one said to the old man. "They didn't buy?"

"They didn't buy," the old one said, still smiling.

"If you didn't trade with them our trade is off," the tall, suave Valencia said to Kane. He turned and walked to the gate of the little corral and opened it. He took a stick and beat the cattle out of the corral.

"Open the gate," the mean, redheaded Valencia shouted.

The tall Valencia slid the gate poles out of their holes in the I gate posts and stood aside. The redhead drove the good steers out of the corral. The tall Valencia took off his hat and waved   it at them as they ran, bucking and playing, through the gate.

The cattle ran along the smooth rock of the top of the hill and then fled down off the hill out of sight. One fine brown steer stopped alone on the top and turned to face the man at the gate. He raised his muzzle curiously to smell the man again.

The tall Valencia stood looking at him. The wind blew the Valencia's hair across his face, it stirred the downy hair of his beard. Steer and man regarded each other and then the steer turned. Release, reprieve, the steer remembered. He jumped and kicked at the man and fled over the hill after his brothers. There was no longer a sign of a steer anywhere. It hadn't been five minutes since the gate had been opened. It would be five days before all the steers could be gathered and put back in that corral the way they had been.

The old Valencia was laughing. He was no longer gruff He had shown this gringo he was not a bluffer. Now he could be good-humored about it.

"Navarro will buy them," the old one said. "Navarro takes them to Chihuahua?

Kane turned and went to his mule. He pulled the slack out of his latigo and tightened his cinch. He pulled his flank cinch snug and buckled it carefully.

The old Valencia smiled."You see, it really doesn't matter to us whether we sell or not right now. We'll keep them until Navarro comes. We'll make carne seca, jerky, out of the old cattle now. Poor people eat pure carne seca." He was now disposed to letting Kane in on how things really were in the Sierra.

Kane untied the chamarra, the mule's hair lead rope.

"Plenty cheap cattle other Mexicans here Sierra. You buy plenty," the old Valencia shouted at Kane condescendingly, consolingly. '

Kane led the mule away from the fence. The redhead walked up close to Kane. He put his hand out as though to touch the butt of Kane's pistol. Kane moved out of his reach, brushed the redhead's hand with the back of his hand.

"How much did that pistol cost?" the redheaded Valencia asked.

"It was a gift," Kane said.

"How come nobody ever gives me anything like that?"'

"Don't they?"

"No. Never, never."

The redhead fingered the edge of Kane's chaps. "What fine leather. Almost like cloth. No good for the monte, the brush, though." He turned to the tall one. "Come here, little brother, and feel how fine this leather is. Is it really leather?"

Kane looked at the tall Valencia. He wasn't coming over.

"These chapurreras are really fine. The brush would tear them to pieces in no time at all," the redhead said.

"The monte is very bravo," Cuevas said quietly from nearby.

"If I can get that pistol, can I have it?" the redheaded Valencia asked.

"Don't make that mistake," Kane said.

"Lend me your pistol, gringo," the Valencia said, reaching for the pistol again.

Kane turned slightly and stamped his heel down hard on the bare instep of the redheads foot. He felt the outside button of his spur bite down the shin. He leaned toward the redhead and stepped off when the redhead jerked his foot. The redhead stumbled backward and almost fell. The first shocked, white slice of the injury started to color before his eyes.

"Excuse me," Kane said. He mounted the tired mule. The mule swayed a little under his weight. "Come on, Cuevas, we've got a long way to go," he said.

"Vámonos," Cuevas said.

Kane got the little mule going in a brave imitation of the good running-walk he had when he had been fresh in the morning.

"God rest ye merry, gentlemen," Kane sang softly. The first big flakes of snow began to fall.

21
The Husbandman

Consentido means favorite. A consentido is something you appreciate with all your heart. It is usually applied to some person, like a favorite son, but it is often applied to a special charge such as a favorite horse or dog or even a mule or an ox. Literally, the word carries an implication that a consentido is spoiled as he has the consent of his master in anything he does and his wishes have precedence over his masters But you are to he a good husbandman of your consentidos, you will see that they perform their certain duties.

Kane was on his way in to Yecora. He would be in that evening. It was the last day of the seven-day cattle-buying circle he had made in that part of the Sierra Madre. He was riding a little brown mule. The animal paced right along, probably sensing he would be home that night eating tasol, corn leaves, in his own corral.

Kane was nearing the ranch of an old man, Don Filomeno Borbón. Don Filomeno had been advised that Kane would arrive on this day.

Kane heard the dogs' barking announcing him before he saw the house. The road he followed was steep and the house and barn were on top of a hill. The mule climbed the hill eagerly. He gained the top and Kane saw that the road separated the house from the barn and corrals. The house had flowers planted inside a fence in the front. It was adobe with smooth, whitewashed plaster walls. The roof was covered with neat, hand-chipped pine shingles. An old couple was sitting in front.

The old man wore a peaked palm straw hat. The brim was pulled down all around. It was an old hat, stained in the front by sweat and strong tobacco smoke. The old man and his wife were smoking home-grown tobacco rolled in corn husks. When Kane rode up the old lady put her tobacco away. She got up and went into the house.

The corral was empty. Kane was disappointed. He didn't have much time to wait while the old man went after any cattle he might want to sell.

"Get down and rest. My wife is bringing you coffee," Don Filomeno said.

Kane dismounted and loosened his cinches. He shook hands with the old man, introducing himself.

Cuevas told me you were coming. I expected him to be with you," the old man said.

"He went around toward Maicoba to see some other cattle," Kane said. "Do you have any cattle for sale?"

"I have three young oxen. Look at them and see what you think."

"Where are they?"

"Down the hill there in the big pasture."

The old lady brought Kane a cup of hot, thick, black coffee."

"Gracias, señora," he said. He looked down where the old man pointed to the pasture. The pasture was covered with the dry cornstalks from last year's crop. It was a large pasture. Kane didn't think he would have time to see this little bunch of cattle. He had to look at a big bunch, maybe 70 or 80 head, yet that evening, and he would be two hours dickering with the owner. It was still a three-hour ride to Yecora. Kane was anxious to leave.

"Is there someone who can bring the cattle up here quickly? Pardon me, but I must move on down the road. It is getting late and I must see one more bunch this side of Yecora," Kane said.

The old man took a polished, hollow, bull horn that hung by a rawhide thong from a peg by the door. A mouthpiece was carved on the pointed end. The old man put it to his lips, cupped his hand over the open end to control the air in the horn, and blew. A sort of air-rushing blast of sound formed in the horn and as the old man removed his hand from the end the sound got wider and full of more air. It was a weak sound, a strange one, but unmistakably a sound, and the only one that existed on top of the hill at the time. The old man blew through the horn again and watched the dry stalks below in the pasture.

"They are coming," he said. He hung the horn on its peg.

"Bring salt for the bonitos, the beauties," he said to his wife.

She came out with a small flour sack full of coarse salt. The old man took it and walked across the road and slid the trancas, the poles, out of the gate posts and laid them aside. Then he looked down the road where Kane would be traveling when he went on his way. The cattle had skirted the bottom of the hill in a hurry and were starting up the road toward the house. They made mock passes at one another with their horns, kicked playfully at one another with fat quarters barely able to simulate a kick, and ran toward the house. They would stop, turn back, meet a companion, lower a horn as if to gore horribly, shake their heads, and lumber away up the hill again. When they got to the gate they all calmed down. They were like children marching obediently into school or to supper before the eyes of a stern master. They filed past the old man and quietly entered the corral.

The first to enter the corral were two young heifers. Their horns were perfectly formed and burnished clean. The horns looked varnished. Their eyes were youthfully clear, their hides shining. Following them were three young oxen. Kane had never seen oxen so well-matched or in such fine condition. They were not fat, just very big and husky. After them came five cows of the same color, a pale, almost yellowish, red. They were stately and dignified as they entered the corral.

The old man slid the smooth long poles back into the eyes of the gateposts and walked among his cattle. As he passed each one he sprinkled a small ration of salt on the moist nose. The long tongue would roll out and lick the nose clean of the salt and then tidy up the nostrils with the sharp flip. Small beads of moisture would spring back in profusion on the clean nose and the animal would smell lovingly of the old man. The three oxen moved together as synchronized as a drill team. They moved about the old man, making room for one another, not jostling or crowding the way most cattle in a herd crowd and push and mill to gain an advantage.

The old man gave each of his herd a touch and a word and each reserved his reaction to the man until it was precisely his turn to be noticed. Then each acknowledged the man's attention by licking the salt in his hand, or by smelling his arm, or by gently, tenderly, touching him with the base of the horns and the forehead. Each waited his turn patiently, with grace.

"The young cattle are all half-brothers and sisters," Don Filomeno said. "They are the offspring of these cows and a fine bull, the Enchanted, that I raised myself. The bull was only ten years old when the lightning killed him last summer. These cows are bred to him and will calve in the spring. Each year I have sold the calves at weaning because I have not enough feed to keep them all in the way they should be kept. The oxen are four years old now. They are well gentled and educated. They have fine dispositions which they inherited from their sire. They work indiscriminately together, none has a preference as to side or companion. If you like them you may take them."

"I do like them very much," Kane said.

"If you need them, want them, I will sell them to you."

"How much would you want for them?"

"I don't know what they are worth."

"They are worth a lot of money, Don Filomeno."

"Give me what you think is just."

"What will you do for oxen to put up your crop this spring?"

"I will manage my crop. If you want them take them."

"Don Filomeno, do you need to sell them?"

"Absolutely not. I am too old to ever be so much in need again."

"Would you mind if I didn't buy them?"

"Absolutely not. My wife will rejoice."

"Then, with your permission I am going to say good-bye, mount my mule, and get going."

"As you wish. It is too bad you came so far for nothing."

"I only wish I could see your oxen work."

"You are welcome to come to our house anytime, for any reason."

Kane untied his mule, shook hands with the old man, mounted the mule, and settled himself to the road away from the little farm.

At the bottom of the hill he saw the gate on the trail where he had first seen the oxen playing. He was glad he wouldn't be the one to take them away from the old couple. They would be going back through the gate to rustle in their cornfield again this evening.

22
The Circle

Trancas are used in gates. Two thick axhewn boards are placed in the ground on each side of a gate. These boards have holes bored in them through which the long, smoothly peeled trancas are slid, barring the gate. A saying: "brincar las trancas" means, literally, to jump the gate poles. It also means to get away, to get with the wild bunch, to go loose and free. It may also be used about the breeding gf a mare. If the stud gets in to breed the mare in the night and is led in by the owner of the mare, the owner of the stud could get angry. The owner of the mare might then explain the incident by saying, "¿Pués, qué quieres que haga? Tu semental brincó las trancas." Meaning: "What do you want me to do about it? Your stud jumped the gate Also meaning: Certain animal urges must be accepted as natural and borne with good grace. This saying is also often used to explain away the mischief of a man, as it is accepted among Mexicans that sometimes the stud in a man gains the advantage.

Juan Vogel and Jim Kane were horseback in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua. They had a big circle to make. They had three bunches of cattle to see. The first bunch was at a camp of Vogel's called Gilaremo. They were on their way to Gilaremo and noon caught them by a camp called Guasaremo. They left the trail and rode until they came to a small stream. They followed this stream up a trail through a brushy canyon. They bent over their horses' necks to ride through a low tunnel of vainoro. The vainoro filled the canyon. Its branches were long and supple with thorns that resembled the curved, hooked blade of a scimitar. When they straightened up they were in a hidden draw where the mezcal was being made.

Juan Vogel's uncle, Don Pepe, was a small man who did not smile when he saw his visitors. He was adjusting a long canal of bamboo halves that brought clear water from a spring to the copper dome of the still. He was fixing the angle of one section of the canal so that the cool water would drip at precisely the rate he needed on the dome.

A young Indian was carrying newly cooked heads of lechuguilla from a deep pit. The heads were brown and heavy. The swordlike leaves of the lechuguilla maguey had been hacked off and the heads resembled pineapples. Another Indian was pounding the heads flat with a heavy green club and carrying the pulp to a stone vat for fermenting. The young Indian, his face childlike under the black bangs on his forehead, laid the heads down and began chewing on a meaty piece of the pulp while he watched Vogel and Kane. Vogel traded for two five-gallon garrafones of the mezcal from the uncle.

The uncle caught a cupful of the wine as it dripped from the bung of the still. He handed it to Vogel, who sipped it carefully and passed it on to Kane. The stuff was warm and syrupy and did not have the tight, green kick of the cooled lechuguilla Kane knew. It made his jaws and ear canals ache slightly.

"You should sip only slowly. The warm stuff will hurt your throat," Vogel said.

The winemaker caught another cupful and handed it to Vogel and he and Kane drank again.

"Victorio, take the two garrafones to Gilaremo this evening on your burro," Vogel told the young Indian. The Indian barely nodded his head to show he understood.

When Kane and Vogel rode into the camp at Gilaremo the vaqueros were finished with their work for the day. The poles on the gate of a stone corral were tied with rawhide. Several cows and calves were in the corral. The vaqueros were butchering a javalina doe on her hide. A ramada served as a cookshack for the camp and a young girl was cooking supper.

Kane and Vogel and Vogel's mayordomo, a rosy-cheeked young vaquero, rode into a pasture above the camp to look at the rodeo steers that had been gathered and put aside there for Kane's inspection.

Very little fencing contained the steep pasture. A high cliff bounded one side; a miles-long escarpment of high precipices another; a ravine another. An old stone wall about a quarter of a mile long fenced the only natural access to the pasture near the camp. Kane saw the corrientes with horns good for rodeo in the pasture.

Kane and Vogel were at the cookshack drinking coffee when the young Indian, Victorio, drove his burro into camp. He unloaded the demijohns, set them under the ramada, poked his burro with a stick, and left the camp. That evening by the campfire Juan Vogel told the story of the Indian Victorio.

Victorio was a Guarigío, a tribe that is almost extinct. Every year in March Don Pepe Schmidt would go to the canyon at Guasaremo and use the spring to make mezcal and the variant of mazcal, lechuguilla.

Victorio and his cousin Cayetano worked as peons for Don Pepe at the distillery. Victorio had a way, almost an oriental way, of hiding so that a stranger wouldn't notice him even when he was working three feet away. He bobbed his hair in a straight line all around his head. It hung below his ears and he had a straight bang, black and shining, across his forehead. Victorio and Cayetano hunted the mountains for the ripe maguey and lechuguilla palms. When they found a ripe plant they would slice off the bladelike leaves around the thick head. They would then drive a peeled pine stick into the top of the head. The sticks they used had branch stubs on each end that served as hooks. The hook in the top of the fruit kept it from slipping off the stick and the hook on the opposite end would be fastened to a burro's pack saddle. The maguey heads are heavy with a strong acidic juice that could peel the hide off a burro or the skin off a man's hand. The hooked sticks kept the heads away from the burro's sides.

At the vinata the heads would be piled into big holes in which fires had been laid for long hours. The holes were lined with rocks that would be white hot when the heads were piled in. Then the Indians would lay date palm branches in several layers on top of the maguey heads and fill the holes to the top with mud. In this way the heads would cook in their own juice for twenty-four hours. Then Victorio would dig back down through the layers of mud and branches and throw the smoking rocks out of the hole until they came to the heads cooked light brown, their juice no longer harmful to the skin, their sections smarting, jaw-aching sweet. As they worked they would tear out large, soft and meaty sections, chew all the sweetness out of them, and spit out the tough fiber.

They would take the heads and beat them with clubs until the pulp lay out flat. They would place this pulp, sopping with juice, in vats partly filled with spring water and leave it there to ferment. When the odor of wine could be traced to a vat the juice would be drained from it and placed under a copper-domed distiller. A long wooden aqueduct from the spring would bring a steady drip of cool water to splash on the top of the dome. Inside, the vapor would run around the curved dome to the ducts and out the spout into a big five-gallon demijohn. It would drip out warm and sweet as a hot punch on Christmas Eve but if you drank too much of it that way it would anesthetize you. When you woke up you would find the stuff had braised your throat so you couldn't swallow and everything you tried to get down would stick in close in your gullet and quiver there for a bad while.

Victorio didn't drink mezcal. He had seen it make Cayetano crazy. He liked to take a small bottle home sometimes to his mother. Don Pepe would discount it from his wages. His
mother liked a small swallow in the mornings.

In the evenings at the vinata when the fires were out and the last clear shiny drop of mezcal had splashed into a thousand pearls in the demijohn and the holes with fresh heads cooking had been well covered, he would load a burro with tasol, cornstalk fodder, or leña, firewood, and drive him up the trail to his mother's house. As he drove his burro, he would rest. His strong legs would rejoice with every tired stretch of muscle. He would anticipate each old wonder around each bend of the trail that was so like his mother's face. Then he would see his mothers lamp where she had hung it under a beam on the porch and he would know she was waiting for him. She was always so happy if he brought her a bottle of the good mezcal, of the fuerte, the strong, she called it.

Victorio had one great vice. He was crazy for the dark honey of the panal, the wild bee hive. In the seasons when honey was plentiful he spent more time hunting panelas than he did working for Don Pepe. He would risk his life for honey. He often became so absorbed in the search and acquisition of a hive and finally the eating of the honey that he wouldn't get home at all in the evening. Often he would just stay out and eat the honey and lie down and sleep, full as a bear, under a rock. When he stayed out all night because he had gone too far in the high Sierras to be able to find his way safely home in the dark he would eat all the honey and forget to take any home to his mother. Then his mother, besides being nearly lunatic with worry for Victorio, would become angry with him for not bringing the panal home with him. She was an old one and he knew she had few pleasures. He often resented the vice in him that made him crave honey so much that because of it he denied his mother something she also enjoyed.

One evening after work at the vinata Victorio turned his burro loose on the field of tasol at Guasaremo and hurried away. He went up the trail exhilarated by the knowledge that he soon would be tearing open a panal and, unmindful of the defending bees, even loving them too, he would be feeding on the dark honey. For that morning on his way to the vinata he had seen a bee in the purposeful line of flight that told Victorio he was headed to the hive. Victorio had followed the bee and with the finest of happy lucks had traced its flight to a sheer cliff. He had stood directly under the cliff for a while until he had been able to locate the panal. It was fat, gray, and untouched. It hung from the tip of a branch on a withered bush near the top of the cliff

Victorio climbed an easy slope that reached the top of the cliff. He saw the panal on the face about 30 feet below him. He carried several peeled pine hooks with him. He cut fronds from leafy short palms that grew around where he stood. He braided these narrow palm strips together for a rope and tied it around a jutting rock on the brink of the cliff He made several more of the short ropes and put them in his mouth. He hooked one of the pine sticks into the rope tied on the rock and lowered himself over the brink. When his hands reached the bottom of the stick he hooked onto it with another stick and braced with his feet against the face of the cliff. He held on with one hand and deftly looped two half-hitches of palm rope around the hooks where they joined, binding the sticks together. In this way he lowered himself to within five feet of the panal bush before he ran out of sticks. He was just able to stand on the roots of the old bush. When he put his weight on the roots, the old bush quivered, the panal swung precariously. Victorio saw with satisfaction that it was very heavy. A bee struck him a piercing sting on the sole of his bare foot. Victorio laughed joyously. "Ah, no, little animal," he said.

"You can do me nothing. In just a moment I will have your good house and will go back up my staircase with it."

Victorio held to the hook sticks. He leaned out over the bush and reached for the panal with one hand. He could not hold his sticks and reach the panal. He was not long enough. He leaned back against the face of the cliff and released his hold on the sticks. All his weight was now on the roots of the bush. Victorio squatted on the base of the bush and tried to pull it around. He couldn't get it around. The bees hummed to the attack. One hit him on the chin, another on the neck.

Victorio smiled. One drove for his eye and stung him above the eyebrow. Victorio half stood, in a hurry now, and reached as far out as he could toward the hive and pulled the bush toward him. The panal came around. Victorio got hold of it with the other hand. It felt soft as flannel, fragile in his hand, but heavy, abundant. He detached it from the bush. He straightened. The bees were hitting him on top of the head. Victorio stepped on the bush's trunk above the roots so he could have room to turn around and reach his sticks. The bush lost it shallow hold on the cliff Victorio twisted toward the face of the cliff. He fell sliding on his front. The hand that had reached for the sticks could not find a hold. His fingernails scratched the rock. Victorio did not think to release the panal and try for a hold with the hand that held the treasure, he did not believe he was in that much trouble. Then he was no longer sliding but was falling free. He fell faster, uncontrollably clear of the cliff. He turned in the air. He saw down where he would land. He thought, I will land there, on that spot among those rocks. He saw the spot. He watched it as it rushed with terrible speed toward him. There was sound with a pitch of intense dreadful alarm in his ears but he was not afraid. He was not hurt. But then the spot hit him such a blow he could not believe it. Who would ever have thought the spot was there with such force? The bees kept stinging him. They had followed him down when he fell. They arrived at the bottom just a little after he did. Some continued to rush from inside the penal where it lay a few feet away from Victorio's hand. Others were trapped in the ooze of honey that ran from the crushed flimsy hull. The panal had been so full of honey it had not bounced.

In the night Victorio awoke. He felt he had been crushed into himself and in the center of himself he felt the core of pain. He wished he could draw all of himself to the core and rally all of his parts around it so as to be able to stand the pain better. His head was sticking out, his arms. They moved outside of him. It was hard to stand that. He wished they were crushed up safely inside him as were his legs. How very unfortunate that they stuck out away from him like that. He tried to draw them down. Then he felt them coming back toward the white core of the pain and he got them all around it closely. He could tell he was somewhere for a very long time but he couldn't identify where though he opened his eyes as wide as he could in there. He knew, though, that his mother was not there.

Victorio's mother went to look for him in the early morning. She did not call. He was too big, now, for that. She walked down the trail hoping to come upon him asleep by the
trail. Maybe he had brought her some of the strong, had begun to taste it, and it had ascended to his senses. There had to be a time that would happen. She stepped quietly, haltingly, begrudging each step, hardly wishing to touch her feet to the ground, wanting to fly and find in an instant her son safe to her again, not wanting to walk anymore to find him. She was really unable to walk fast enough if she let herself try to walk as fast as she needed to. She felt so earthbound, afraid to give in to her anxiety lest it drive her all of a sudden screaming and using up the faculties she needed suddenly, this minute, to find her
son.

She stopped going down the trail. He was not down here. She sat on a stump. It was an old stump, friendly. She had sat and rested there many times. She never before had realized, though, how impersonal it was. It could only help her if she chose to sit on it, otherwise it couldn't It could not tell her anything. She watched the sun bask down the cliff above her. It warmed the nice face of the cliff she had known every day of her life. Every single day. And she did not realize it but the first clue of her son's accident passed over her mind, for her eye noted the bush hanging differently, by the tip of one root, on the face of her old friend, with vaguely, vaguely, a soft reflection of a line of peeled sticks on its brow. She kept watching the sun's rays advancing down the face as the sun rose higher in the morning and the clue passed over her mind, over and over again, through the unconscious photograph of her eye so that now there was no question at all of going down the trail to the vinata or up the trail to home anymore, although she didn't consciously know why not. She felt that if she sat on her stump she would sooner or later know where her son was. She liked looking at her cliff for that reason. After a while she asked herself, "Why my stump and my cliff? My cliff there. My stump here. Every day of my life."

Later she stood on top of the cliff looking closely at it from its brow. She had to read carefully the bold face which had never on any morning of her whole life hidden anything until this morning. She was not surprised when she found the palm frond rope, the ladder of peeled sticks, the bush hanging starkly, the blue lump far below. "Oh, my God, oh, oh, oh," whispered the plaintive young-girl-again bleat of anxious love. Then the love wrenched her scrambling off the mountain to the bursting-lunged held-breath examination of the lump and the discovery that it lived. What a terrible thing remained of her love. What a misshapen, uglied, unfortunate, unfavored lump now, when yesterday it was a strong, whole, sound son. She ran from there, fleet as a young girl, partly from fear of the l ugly thing lying there, partly afraid her fear would prevent her from still loving it and doing all she could to save it.

Somehow that day the mother of the Indian Victorio got help to him before he died. They lifted him tenderly, with much consideration, and sweating and grunting from exertion I on the hard, broken ground, they carried the crushed mass that once had been Victorio back to the house of his mother.

The mother, gradually, with love, herbs, and patience centuries old, separated carefully the parts of the man and extended them away, relaxed, from the core of pain one by one to their properly sane, healthy places until Victorio was no longer lumped down to himself but standing upright again, a smiling young man.

Then finally, thank God, came the day when at the vinata Cayetano held up a peeled, hooked stick and said jokingly, "In the evening after the work we go to the panales, no, Victorio?"

And Victorio smiled quietly to himself and thought with pleasure of taking a small bottle of the strong to his mother.

The next day Kane and Vogel rode on a narrow trail just before a camp called Tecoyahui in a tunnel of vainoro bushes. They leaned down over the shoulders of their mounts to keep the hard thorns of vainoro from scratching their hats, clothes, and faces. In that tunnel they met first a bronc and then Pablo Ibarra who was riding a little dun mare mule. Pablo had the bronc roped around the neck and was driving him down the trail.

The men sat their mounts and visited in the tunnel of brush while they smoked homegrown tobacco rolled in corn husks. The bronc stood quietly in the bunch, intimidated by the brush, the other animals, and the men.

"It's good to see you and the alazanón, the big sorrel horse, again," Pablo said to Kane.

"Kane has a long way to go yet. He won't be here long. He's got to go to the border tomorrow after he cuts your cattle," Juan said.

"The border? ¡Híjuela, he can't do it!" exclaimed Pablo.

"I have to do it. You got married, eh Pablo? Pobrecito de tí, poor little you," Kane said.

"Ooo, it's been a whole year now. We already have the baby."

"How does your woman like it up here?"

"She says she doesn't like it, but she just got sane again from being pregnant."

"Do you have a son or a daughter?"

"A varón. A man.."

"How is the baby?"

"Small and helpless. Aren't they all?"

"Bueno, we'll see you. This gringo has to be in Tepochiqui to cut those cattle and get them started. We'll see you at San Rafael at dark, " Juan said.

Pablo shook hands with both of them as they squeezed their horses by him in the vainoro. He still kept control of the bronc, who saw the trail open below him when the men had ridden in.

The little dun mule braced way back on her haunches, the rocks rolling under her feet, her eyes. anxious, her ears working back and forth from her rider to the bronc as Pablo held her and let the lariat run on the six-inch horn of the A-fork vaquero saddle.

Juan and Kane soon climbed out of the brush. They stopped to let their horses blow on the first crest and they could hear the rocks rattling as Pablo passed down the trail. At noon they topped the high ridge where they could see the blue stream on the rocks of the Arroyo of Tepochiqui far below.

They went down to Tepochiqui camp, had lunch, cut the cattle, and saw the cowboys start the drive of the bought steers down the wash toward Gilaremo, where they would be joined with cattle Kane had cut that moring. Then Kane and Juan rode out toward San Rafael.

They arrived at the oak grove near the pasture fence of San Rafael just at dark. Pablo was waiting at the gate, a slight, wiry figure in dusty, scuffed leather. He was standing holding the reins of a brown mule with tapojo, the blind carried on the headstall over the eyes that identifies the bronc.

He had let down the poles of the gate and was standing there relaxed and smiling with an orange crush bottle full of lechuguilla.

He uncorked the corncob top and handed the bottle up to the men.

"Let's see if you like it," he said.

They drank sparingly, carefully, with respect. It had the taste and content of the hot-sunny, green-spiny, rock-hill country that mothered it. The three horsemen passed the spirit again after Pablo had closed the gate and mounted.

"This horse Pajaro sure revives with the lechuguilla," Kane said as they rode on. "He walks so much smoother it's like I just got on him fresh in the morning."

The dogs of the hacienda ran to meet them as they rode through the camp of Chon the Tarahumara, Chon the hunter. He stood leaning against a beam as the horsemen went past.
He smiled and greeted them.

There were cowboys waiting in front of the main building of San Rafael to welcome them. They took the reins, unsaddled the horses, and led them to water, and then measured out corn for them in troughs of hollowed logs.

The vaqueros admired the big sorrel horse.

"We'd forgotten how big that Pajaro really is," one of them said.

It was a joke in the Sierra that the first time Kane had made a buying circle up there he had been preceded by the announcement, "Here comes a gringo buying alacranes, scorpions (a name for the common native cattle of the Sierra, describing their big horns), and he is riding a horse so big his shoes weigh a kilo apiece."

They sat out on the porch of the big house of San Rafael passing the orange crush bottle and recalling horses and men they had known. The house was on top of a small hill on the edge of a draw that had been cleared for the hacienda. Oak and pine jutted in silent silhouette on the ridges all around them. The clearing was surrounded by a squat, square fence made, in the manner of the region, of rocks stacked tightly together. The herd of cattle Kane was to sort and buy were grazing in the clearing.

A woman's voice called them to supper.

They stepped into a spotless dining room. It's white-washed walls reflected brightly the white light of the butane lamp. The table was set with fine linen and shiny crystal and china. Kane could imagine the trouble it had been for Pablo to pack that stuff in to San Rafael on mules.

Pablo's wife came in and Kane was introduced to her. She was a small woman with a tight, closed face and eyes that did not see you. A perpetual stranger.

They ate dried beef fried, white cheese, fried beans, black coffee, the thick, corn gordas, tortillas, in the lamplight.

After supper they lay down between flannel sheets on thickly mattressed cots covered with abundant quilts. They slept the sleep of the ready-for-bed horseman, breathing the clean, dry, high altitude of the Sierra Madre.

Pablo woke them in the darkness. The guía, the first star that leads out the morning sun, had risen.

They wrestled with their clothes under the quilts, stamped their feet into their boots, and went outside to wash in the ice cold water Pablo poured from a pitcher for them. They could hear the weak cries of the infant awake in the morning. The child almost wasn't there.

Pablo's wife stayed in the kitchen during breakfast. She never presented herself or spoke to them again."

While they were saddling their horses Pablo said, "We've got a big Brahma bull we've been saving for Pajaro. He probably weighs four hundred kilos and he is a lion for fierceness. We've been trying to throw him to disinfect him of lice. He jerked two mules down and gutted a good little horse. I want you to throw him down for me."

"I'll be happy to," Kane said.

The cowboys spread out and penned the cattle in a corral. The gray bull with the black almond-shaped eyes, the black hump, and horns like bananas, moved majestically, brushing aside all before him as he eyed and smelled man.

Kane warmed the sorrel, galloping away from the corral on the frosty ground. The horse always liked to buck in the morning and the habit had kept him sound because Kane never did any heavy work on him without warming him first. Kane took down his nylon rope and tied hard and fast around the swells and horn of his saddle as he rode up to the gate. Pablo slid back the gate poles and Kane rode through.

"Be careful. He's a meat eater," Pablo said as he closed the gate behind Kane.

"Be ready to open that gate and we'll take him outside to educate," Kane said.

The corral sloped steeply. Kane rode to the top side and stopped his horse. The cattle milled quietly. The bull turned and faced Kane from the bottom of the slope. Kane lifted the loop softly and threw the flat, overhand "nightloop." It encircled the banana horns and was jerked tight around them. The bovine, startled, jumped straight up, stiff-legged, his big hump wobbling. Kane gave him slack and followed him as he bucked toward the gate. "Open it," he shouted and Pablo quickly complied.

The bull, unaware he was caught, charged toward the gate. Kane wanted him to think he was escaping. You can't ever out-stout them, you can sometimes out-prize them, you should always be able to outsmart them. This was a policy Kane always applied to the handling of Brahmas.

As the bull passed through the gate he jumped sideways, kicked, and blew snot at Pablo. Kane followed the bull out into the pasture and checked him once by stopping Pajaro and letting the bull hit the end of the rope. Then he gave him slack again and fell in behind him at a dead run. The big bull headed for the brush, running like a racehorse. Kane spurred the sorrel up close, threw the slack over along the right side of the bull and around his buttocks, and drove the sorrel on by, reining to the left. When the big sorrel horse, who weighed 1350 pounds, hit the end of the rope he was prepared for the jerk of bull on rope. The bull's head was yanked back to the right, the right horn was driven into the ground, the hind legs and hips flipped on over and slammed into the ground. Then the bull was spun on his side and dragged, all the air knocked out of him, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Kane coiled his rope as he rode back to the bull. The bull started quivering back to consciousness. A big, full sigh bathed his lungs and the nostrils began to flare with breath, blowing loose dirt and cleaning two little spots on the ground.

' Kane flicked the rope, loosening the tight band of the loop around the horns. The bull kicked both hind legs and jerked shakily to his feet. He threw up his head and shook his horns at Kane. There was a big clod of dirt stuck on the end of the right horn where it had been spiked deeply into the earth. The side of his head and the smooth, loose hide of the right side were powdery with dust.

The bull shook his head again and backed away. Kane started circling the bull just as he charged. Kane spurred the big horse off the horn as it hooked at the horse's thigh. The bull didn't have time to check his charge before Pajaro hit the end of the rope and jerked him down again. This time only the front legs buckled under the bull while the hind legs held him up and Kane dragged the bull's nose in the frosty gravel.

"You see, there's no SPCA here, bull. This is designed so you might not enjoy horsemeat anymore, little bull," said Kane.

The bull stood again. Kane circled him once, wrapping the rope around the hind quarters just above the hooks. As he passed in front of the bull again he dropped the wrap below the knees and rode off behind the bull pulling the rope under the front feet so that it wrapped around the hind legs above the hocks. The head was pulled back to the hind quarters and the hind legs were held up by the pull and the bull went down again, trussed in a package for Pablo's cowboys to bathe with insecticide.

"When he gets up from there he'll be hunting a friend," Kane said.

They let the bull up after drenching him with foul-smelling solution and he walked sorely away to a corner of the pasture to brood. The bull's big, leafy ears drooped. The strong stink of the dip and the mud that stuck to him, the awful smell of the man, and the brimstone taste of the violence that had been done to him detracted from the strong opinion he had of himself and he remembered his mother.

Kane led his horse back into the corral and by noon they had sorted out the cattle Kane would buy and drive to the railroad at Rio Alamos.

The vaqueros' wives had prepared lunch. Pablo, Kane, Juan, and the cowboys ate underneath a big mesquite tree in the lee of the corral. The women and boys were rolling blankets and packing mules with the camp the cowboys would use on their twenty-day drive to the railroad.

Kane looked up the hill. He could see Pablo's wife sitting on the porch. She had pen and paper and it looked as if she were writing a letter.

"Your wife is nice, Pablito," he said.

"I'm sorry we didn't have lunch at the house," Pablo said.

"My wife isn't feeling well and she has a lot to do with the baby to care for."

"Babies are a lot of work. What can I bring your wife from the States?"

"Only your safe return."

"There must be something your wife would like to have or that you would like her to have."

"Yes," Pablo said, looking away. "I'm sure she would want your safe return."

Kane studied the serious young rancher. Pablo had married a girl whose family worked hard for a modern Mexico. Her family was bent on acquiring modern ways and modern comforts. The girl had never worked with her hands, she had servants for that. She had been kept indoors so that the sun would not darken her skin. When Pablo had courted her in the closely chaperoned evenings she had seemed unreal. The clear, nearly transparent skin, the gentle manners, the finely tailored clothes on the innocent form, the perfect, clean-lined woman form, had made a dreamer of him. He dreamed with her of remodeling the hacienda at San Rafael. They would build an airfield. They would have electricity. Television. They would help the people. They would teach progress and industry and sanitation. Nothing would be impossible for them for they had new, modern ideas. The girl would make it all possible for she had spent her life storing energy to make Pablo a good wife.

After the wedding Pablo had taken her to San Bernardo, where they had mounted mules and ridden the 70 miles across mountains, dust, and heat to San Rafael. The girl had arrived so tired she had been sick for a week. She had been married to Pablo for a miserable year now and she had only been back to see her family, her own elegant little room in the dark cool house, once, to have the baby. San Rafael still had no electricity, no airfield, no toilet, no privacy. To her Pablo seemed dedicated to remaining at San Rafael forever and she was sure he meant to keep her there with him. No one helped her. Girls came from the ranches to help but they were dirty and they soon disappeared. The baby cried all the time. She was always being forced to do for some dirty riders that came in from the hills. She had to pick up their filthy bedding in the mornings. She was stuck on the least graced end of the world with a man who did not want anything she wanted.

Kane was ready to leave. He began tightening the cinches of his saddle on the sorrel horse.

"The big horse has already done a big day's work, " Pablo said.

"Yes, he has, but work won't kill him. We've got a long way to go," Kane said. "I'd better get started."

"It is twenty-five leagues to San Bernardo. You'd better stay the night and get a fresh start tomorrow," Pablo said.

"I must go. I have to be at the border before noon tomorrow."

"Let me loan you a fresh mount. It is the least I can do for you after the schooling Pajaro gave my seed bull."

"You can do that," Kane said.

"You can take the Macho Pardo, the brown mule. He is the best mule on the hacienda."

"You honor me, Pablo," Kane said sincerely. The Macho Pardo of San Rafael was famous for endurance and good sense. He was a burrero, son of a stud horse and mare jackass, that rare; union that the serrano believes produces the best saddle mule.

Kane took the rope off his saddle and walked with Pablo and Juan down to the corral where the saddle horses and mules were gathered.

"That one is the Macho Pardo," Pablo said, pointing to a mule standing apart. He was solid brown with no white or burro stripes anywhere on him. He had a small head with lantern jaws like a stallion's. His chest was wide, his hind legs straight, and he was high behind like a good horse. He was small. Kane figured he wouldn't weigh over 800 pounds. Kane got his rope ready and stepped into the corral. The little mule remained still, shot-hipped and resting, but his ears wagged at Kane. Kane walked around so that the other animals in the corral moved lazily toward the Pardo. The mule kept his eye on Kane and remained facing him while the other animals gathered around.

Kane lifted the loop gently and flattened it with a snap of his wrist over his head. It opened with a sudden flourish in the "houlihan". The mule didn't know he was caught until the loop had encircled his head and neck and struck his shoulders. He blinked his eyes in mild surprise when the loop settled. Kane stepped to one side and flicked the rope up high on the mule's neck and pulled the loop tight there. He pulled on the rope, causing the mule to take a step so that he would know he was roped.

Kane walked toward the mules shoulder. Pardo became increasingly more attentive as he watched Kane approach. The tips of the dark ears nearly touched as he listened to Kane's voice and heard Kane's step. Finally the wind of Kane's smell assaulted his nostrils. He expelled the smell violently but it returned with the next breath and the Macho Pardo of San Rafael scrambled backward in panic into the corner of the corral. His backside touched the wall and he jumped as though someone had prodded him with an electric hotshot. He ran down the corral wall, straining against the rope Kane had braced around his hips. The mule ran holding his nose high and away from the man to keep the evil stink from entering the brain. He had no more curiosity for this man.

Everyone was laughing.

"He's never smelled a gringo before," Juan yelled. Kane stood back, holding the end of the rope. The Pardo would glance quickly at him and then turn away in revulsion.

"See what comes of bathing," Juan said. "He doesn't like gringos bañados."

The vaqueros took it up.

"He's afraid of anything that bathes."

"I've seen him do that with a rabid dog."

'He's like all Mexicans. It's his rabies to feel water on his back and he naturally distrusts anyone who bathes."

Juan Vogel was standing there, feet spread wide apart, hat on back of head, mustachios bristling, laughing. To Kane, he looked like a big heavyweight rooster crowing with his chest puffed out, his spurs turned in.

"Sí," Kane said to Juan. "I know just how he feels. Haven't I been camping with you for the past twenty days? Your bad smell permeates the whole Sierra Madre Occidental. Any other mule would never have known there was a gringo around. This is truly a smart mule."

Kane had been moving up to the mule who still was trying to keep his tail to Kane but had enough respect for the rope to keep from bolting again. Kane picked up a bight in the slack behind him and slapped it hard on the mule's rump. The mule whirled and faced the man. Kane put a half-hitch around the mule's nose and led him to the gate.

"I guess even Machos Pardos can get used to gringos," Juan said, laughing. "The strongness of the smell soon deadens the nerve. He'll soon accept you like all the rest of us Mexicans do, blind to the fact that you are only here to exploit us and get rich on us."

"Poor Mexicans," Kane said with mock pugnacity. "If I exploit you any more I'll go broke. I pay enough to buy cattle equipped with radio and television."

Kane saddled and bridled the little mule and tied his cobija, a woolen Indian blanket, wrapped in a tarp, behind the cantle.

Pablo returned from the house with the orange crush bottle full of lechuguilla. He placed it in the morral hanging from Kane's saddle horn.

"Take this," he said. "So your Pardo doesn't get too tired. There are tortillas, cheese, and corn in the morral too."

Kane took the bottle out.

"El estribo. The drink for the stirrup," he said and took a drink and handed the bottle around, each man returning it to him after he drank. Kane took another drink and offered it to Pablo again.

"Save it, the road is long, " Pablo said.

Kane put the bottle up, mounted, and reined away. The little beast immediately fell into a running walk.

"Qué te vaya bien," the Mexicans said. "May it go well with you."

"Gracias," Kane called back.

He took the trail to Avena, climbing up through the timber until he topped out on a plateau that was solid rock on which were the homes of the mezcal makers of San Rafael. The place was deserted, although he could see that the pits where the heads of the maguey were cooked were covered, a sign the place was producing.

An hour later the mule paced in to the yard at the Vogel hacienda at Avena. Don Panchito, the caretaker, hailed him as he dismounted.

"Come in, come in, Don Jaime," he said. "Are you going on by or will you stay the night? Come in. Woman," he called, "warm the beans. Warm the coffee."

"No, Don Panchito. I really don't have time. I'm on my way to San Bernardo and I want to get off the mountain before dark."

"Take coffee then. Woman, warm the coffee for Don Jaime here."

Kane loosened the mule's cinch and tied him to a wooden fence. He walked with the old weatherbeaten man across the wide, cool porch to the front room.

The walls of the hacienda were at least 30 inches thick. The roof was covered with hand-hewn pine shingles that must have been 50 years old. The beams in the ceiling of the front room were over 100 years old and were intricately carved. They were covered with soot, smoke, and dust. There was a hole in the roof in one corner of the front room through which smoke escaped when Don Panchito built his fires on the floor. The dreams had left this hacienda, never intending to come ac . .

Don Panchito's woman came in smiling her greeting and bringing tar-black, sugar-roasted coffee in small, thick cups. They sat and talked while they sipped the coffee. The old man smiled his toothless smile and spat tobacco juice on the floor. His ninety-year-old feet reposed in huaraches. The old feet had been through a revolution that must have been a pure and honest effort for his man. He sometimes must have run in fear and ignorance and sometimes advanced in fear and faith. Those feet had also walked in the lettuce fields in Imperial Valley, California, and the sidewalks of Fresno in shoes for a time, shoes he had discarded on his return to the Mother Mountains. The old feet now were black and immobile under the chair. They were like leather with brown buttons for toenails. An old toe he must have broken lay crookedly over another. It was unable to contribute its full share to the rhythm of the man's walking as it used to do, but it was still there doing its best to grip one more hold for the shiny soul of the old man, whether to go get wood for the fire or walk to the highest point to watch the departure of a friend.

Kane finished the coffee and stood up, banging a spur loudly against a chair leg.

"You have to get going. Wait here a moment," Don Panchito said. He left ahead of Kane and went to his storeroom, which he unlocked and entered. Kane knew he did not keep it locked because he was afraid of thieves, but because he had been made responsible for this hacienda and must look after it with formal correctness.

Kane tightened his cinches and turned the mule around. Don Panchito came with a Pepsi-Cola bottle full of clear liquid and stoppered with a piece of corncob.

"Here, take this," he said. "The road is long."

Kane took a swallow and offered it to the old man.

"I never drink," the caretaker of Avena said.

Kane thanked him and walked around the mule and put the Pepsi-Cola in with the orange crush.

"Don Panchito, I'll see you," he said in English, his foot in the stirrup.

"Nombre sea de Dios. In the name of God," Don Panchito said and waved as though Kane was already a long way away and out of hearing.

Kane rode through the community of the peons of the Vogel hacienda. The dogs came running out to announce arrival and departure. The Mariposa dog of Manuel Rodriguez was standing near the door of the house barking solemnly, sparing energy. She was the best cow dog, cat dog, and javalina dog, in the Sierra Madre. She was so thin she looked like a black-and-tan harp.

He rode around the crest of the Avena mountain where he could see 100 miles of virgin timber along the Chihuahua-Sonora border. He crossed over the slab of rock that was the Avena airfield on the highest summit of the Sierra of the West. The little landing field was only about 300 yards long. It was surrounded on the sides by rock, on the end by pines, and on the approach by space. A plane that landed here had to touch its wheels down no more than 50 feet from the lip of a cliff that was 300 feet sheer.

Kane stopped the mule, dismounted, and reset his saddle and blankets. He let the wind from off the tips of the pines sweep between the saddle blankets and the mule's back before he cinched up again.

He started the mule down the next to the last steep grade he would have to traverse before dark. The little animal was still eager, but this would be the ridge that would begin to tire him. They traversed the slope in the sun and after an hour they started up the last climb in the deep shadow of late afternoon. When they reached the summit of the vertebrae of mountains that is the line between Chihuahua and Sonora, the Macho Pardo was taking his first deep breaths.

Kane was facing a setting sun over the Sea of Cortez. He unsaddled the mule to cool his back. This was Puerto de las Parvas, the port through which he was entering Sonora. Kane could see for great distances in every direction. Behind him the definition of the mountains of the Sierra Madre was obscuring with darkness. There were clouds below him drifting over the Chinipas canyon. At his feet were the vertical cornfields he would ride through to the Arroyo de los Mezcales. Toward the sun was the crooked path of the shiny water of the Alamos River leading to the coast. A cloud of dust hazed the Alamos Valley.

This was the sabana where the cattle would be night-herded in Chihuahua for the last time, where they would taste the wind off the coast. Kane saddled, mounted, and passed into Sonora. From now on it was all downhill to the U.S. border, 475 miles.

It was just getting dark when Kane reached the head of the Arroyo de los Mezcales. This was a wide river bed, the straight avenue through the brush country to San Bernardo. The little mule's pace had slackened on the hard descent from Las Parvas. Kane silently thanked the little beast for getting him to the arroyo in time to beat the darkness. The full moon would make it light enough in the arroyo tonight. They met a woodcutter entering the arroyo with his burro train. The man had begun whistling when he first became aware of Kane so as not to surprise him. They greeted each other in the darkness. Kane was revived by the man's courtesy.

The Macho Pardo had a ground-eating pace that pressed distance behind them. They passed the little settlements beside the arroyo in the night. Milk cows and saddle horses were shut up in tight little corrals close to the houses. Dogs kept their masters notified of progress of travelers in the arroyo. The weak light of lamps in the homes was absorbed by
the moonlight.

Kane raced the moon to the Cajon de la Virgen, a narrow ravine where the arroyo's waters had cut through hundreds of feet of rock., The cajón was a narrow alley that would be an obstacle of darkness in his path if he got there too late. When they reached the long stretch of pure sand that was the approach to the cajón the moon was almost directly overhead. The mule stepped silently around the first corner of the entrance to the cajón's walled passage. He suddenly halted dead still, stiffly poised and alert. In that same moment Kane heard the loud spitting hiss.

Directly in front and very close to them stood a solid black jaguar. He had warned them and stopped them so he calmly returned to his drink at the clear spring of the cajón. Kane sat the mule, thrilled by the privilege of the sight of the rare cat. The tigre cast a short black shadow on the sand bright with moon glare. When he departed he was a dark ghost springing quickly across the patches of moonlight up the wall of the ravine.

The Macho Pardo listened to the cat's retreat with his big, quick ears bowed forward. Finally he moved on, snorting and shying at the cat's watering place as they passed it. Kane spurred him to the center of the cajón, where a wide bulge was formed by a sharp turn in the arroyo. Here he dismounted and unsaddled the mule and led him to the spring where he drank. Then Kane gave him slack on the lead rope so he could lie down and roll in the clean sand. Kane tied the mule to a maguey that grew in the black rock of the wall, gathered a few small sticks, and built a fire. He got the morral and after removing the mezcal, cheese, and tortillas, he hung it, half full of corn, on the mule's nose. He sat on the sand near the little fire and warmed the tortillas and ate them with the fresh, moist cheese and small sips of mezcal. He listened to the mule grinding and swallowing the corn.

When he had finished his supper he lit a half pipeful of tobacco with one of the light coals that remained of his fire and stretched his legs out on the sand.

Kane looked at a spot where people of the region said the Virgin had appeared to someone, sometime. There, in the back of a niche, he could see something like the shape of a person burned on the rock.

Vigil glasses for candles were at the foot of the niche, though none had been lighted that night.

Kane said a Hail Mary, remembering at that moment the Blessed Mother of his childhood. He hoped it was true that she had been there.

When the pipe was out he rose, knocked out the ashes, gathered up the clean flour sack his supper had been wrapped in, and buckled up his chaps. The mule had only eaten half his corn, through he had long since stopped chewing. Leave it to a mule not to fill his belly with a lot of corn when he senses he's still got a long way to go, Kane thought.

The man and the mule drank side by side at the spring and then left the Cajón de la Virgen.

"Well, Pardito, you've got it made now because in a few short hours you'll be putting away the groceries in Poncho's corral," Kane said.

The little beast, refreshed, moved with his short, smooth, little steps down the arroyo. After a while they came to a wide lumber road that crossed their path and they followed it out of the arroyo.

When they reached a hill above San Bernardo, Kane reined the animal to a stop and turned for the last look at the black Sierra Madre. It's a short way out, but a long, long way back to you, lady, he thought. He could hear the San Bernado dogs barking.

An hour later he rode through the open gate of the corral behind Poncho Montenegro's store, unsaddled, rubbed the mule, and pitched him a block of hay. He shut the gate and walked through the back door of the store. Poncho woke and shined a flashlight on Kane's face.

"Is it you, Jaime? Where are you coming from?" he asked.

"San Rafael. Sorry I woke you, Ponchito."

"San Rafael? No, hombre. That is much road."

"What time is it?"

"Let's see. It is twelve midnight. What time did you leave San Rafael?"

"At noon."

"On the big horse?"

"The Macho Pardo."

"Another record for the Pardito! Let me get you a drink."

"I've got some of the best. Let's drink mine."

"Well, I've been abstaining, but I'll have one with you on a midnight after a ride like that. Let me get you some bedding. "

"No, stay in bed. I'm not staying. I have to be on the border by noon if I can."

"Well, if I can't make you stay I'll have a drink with you for your estribo." The tall, gentlemanly storekeeper everyone in the Sierra esteemed drank a big swallow of the mezcal.

"That's good lechuguilla," he said.

"Keep the rest of it. I have another bottle Don Panchito gave me."

"Ah, you arrive with momentum," said Poncho. "Your truck is full of gas and ready to go. "

"Did you get any use out of it while I was gone?"

"Yes, I hauled some posts."

"Good, will you board the Pardito until I get back?"

"I sure will, it's good to have him here."

"What can I bring you from gringolandia?"

"Some Chestairfeels," Poncho said, laughing self-consciously. "For the vice."

"They are yours. Well, I'll see you, and thank you, Ponchito."

"No reason to thank me. I hope it goes well with you."

Once he was in his truck and on his way, Kane became aware of the necessity for reaching the border that day. This was a deadline he was forced to keep. He could easily fail. He had been lulled into the peaceful independence that characterizes the children of the Sierra Madre. For a while he had actually felt at home in the Mother Mountains as though he were a legitimate son. He had forgotten he was an adopted child and that he had done the adopting.

The long highway miles fatigued him, but preoccupation with the urgent business on the border kept him alert. If he failed to arrive that day and turn in his truck permit or his passport, two little pieces of paper, he would be ruined. He would be unable to return to the Sierra to pay for the cattle, he would be fined, and he would lose his permit to do business in Mexico.

Kane made the 450 miles from Poncho Montenegro's store to the U.S. border in nine hours. He had stopped at his room only long enough to clean up and shave off his unacceptable moustache,

He spent the rest of the morning of his arrival arranging the papers on his pickup and his visa.

That afternoon he went across the line to the American side to visit his banker and bring him up to date on the stock he was bringing to market. They talked of the big-horned cattle Kane had on the way from Chihuahua to the States. They discussed the days the cattle would be driven on foot, train hours, and weight shrinkage the cattle would undergo before they would be marketable stock. The banker was a tough man and he trusted Kane's word.

When Kane stepped out on the street in front of the bank, he realized he had accomplished all the chores he had set out to do when he had left San Rafael the day before on the Macho Pardo.

He went back to the Mexican side of the border to the Hotel Toreo to have a drink.

The Count was standing at the bar when Kane entered. He was speaking to a man and a woman. They were tourists.

"You can't tell me it's not cruel, you know. I've been in Spain and I've seen the real bullfights, the best bulls. It's a disgrace in any part of the world," the man tourist said. The Count listened politely, nodding his head. He wanted to get away from them. He pretended he couldn't understand the tourists very well.

"You say you are the manager of the bullring," the tourist persisted. "Why do you allow yourself to profit from torture? Answer me that if you can."

The Count nodded vaguely, called the bartender and ordered the tourists another drink.

He turned away from them when they thanked him. He saw Kane.

"¿Qué hubo, Jim?" he said quietly. "What happened to you? We haven't seen you for months."

The Count was a tall man, very pale. He wore an expensive snap-brims beaver hat, a dark suit and tie, with a stickpin set with diamonds. He had a small, red, fresh flower in his lapel.

The bartender also walked over to Kane, offering his hand.

Kane shook hands with both men. "You both look very well," Kane said. "I guess the tourists aren't getting you down."

Roberto, the bartender, turned on his passive Indian bartender face and watched his boss.

"Oh, they are just having a good time," the Count said. "They've been in here since they came down from the hotel at about nine o'clock. They like the bulls but hate the bullfighters. I think they hate the bullring empresa even worse. It gives them a thirst to talk about it, though."

"They sure are getting tight," Kane said. "Pedro, I want to lease your Agua Clara ranch again. You got anything on it right now?"

"Just that little bunch of cows and calves. How many do you want to run?"

"About two hundred fifty head. They will be up in about three weeks." `

"Just tell my cowboy, Enrique, so that he can receive them off the cars."

"OK. I'll tell him tomorrow morning on my way south. Are you drinking?"

"No, thank you," the Count said. "I must go take my woman to see a new house." He turned to Roberto. "Give Jim a trago," he said. He waved at the tourists and left the bar. Roberto served Kane a straight bourbon and a glass of water.

"You going to get drunk, Jim?" he asked. "Because if you are, I'll get you a room."

"It's a good thing there aren't more bulls, there would be fewer Mexicans," the tourist shouted at Kane.

"No, Roberto. I have to get back to the Sierra tomorrow. I'm receiving some cattle," Kane said. ‘

"Hey, cowboy. Cowboy."

Kane looked at the tourists. The man was sitting slack-spined on the high stool with his elbows on the bar. The woman was wearing stretch pants. She had long, blond hair braided into one thick rope down her back. She was sitting up straight and pert. She couldn't keep her eyes off her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

The man had the woman's purse hanging from one arm. He is probably protecting it for her, Kane thought. From Mexicans.

"Pardon me, pardon me. I don't mean to be rude," the tourist said. "Are you from here?"

"Yes, I am," Kane said.

"You a cowboy`?"

Kane kept quiet.

"You take care of cattle for somebody?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, tell me just one thing. Why don't you do something about these bullfights?"

"I do. I go to them when I can."·

"You mean you like them?"

"Yes."

"You must be a phony. No real cowboy would like to see bullfights."

"How about the man who raises the bulls?"

"Sadists. You'd have to be sadistic to like seeing a beautiful animal hacked to death."

"I agree."

"Tell me one thing then. Why do you like to see bullfights?"

"How do you like to see cattle killed?"

"I don't like anything like that."

"You like beefsteak?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't beef get killed before it gets cut up and stacked in your freezer?"

"Yes, but I don't pay to witness it."

"The fact is they are killed with no regard to whether or not they want to live and you really don't care about how the cattle die that appease your appetite and satisfy your belly."

"I like cattle. They are nice, gentle animals."

"Sometimes the kind you eat are. Some cattle are brave though. Some are cowardly. The Mexican would rather not eat the brave ones. The bullfight has regard for the bull's will to live. It would be a waste to disregard such a bull. No one ever willfully turned a gentle animal into the bullring. That would be torture."

"It's all cruel torture to me."

"But it wouldn't seem cruel to you to lead a one thousand-pound brave bull into a chute of a slaughterhouse and drop a hammer on his head, then hang him up by his heels and carve him into steaks?"

"Well, it's a shame to kill those beautiful animals at all. They have a God-given right to live."

"That is why we should have cattle, I guess," Kane said. "To look at. To pray to." He got up, waved to the passive Roberto, and went out.

He got on the telephone in the evening and asked around the country for offers on the cattle he had in the Sierra Madre. Then he went to a hotel and lay down on the bed to watch television and relax. Late at night the ego-mongers on television were frantically baring their selves for everyone to see. It was surprising to Kane how far a little talent or good looks pushed these people. Kane was embarrassed for them, so he listened to them and watched for some saving decency they might bring out, but they seemed to revel in getting baser about themselves. They puffed their breasts and fluffed their tails like pouter pigeons. They were still I'ing and Me'ing, not having been completely heard, Mister, I ain't through, when they were cut off because it was time for "The Star Spangled Banner."

Thank God we still have "The Star Spangled Banner," Kane thought as he went to bed.

He was back in San Bernardo by evening the next day. He walked up to Poncho and handed him the cigarettes. "I guess that proves you've been to gringolandia," Poncho said. "The Pardito isn't even rested yet."

"It's a shame I had to ride him so hard, but your government is very exacting of gringos, with good reason, I guess.

"You mean with mostrencos, unbranded mavericks like you," Poncho said, laughing. "The Pardo hasn't been hurt, don't worry. I have bad news for you, though. Pablo killed himself the evening after you left."

"No! I can't believe it. You mean he committed suicide?"

"He shot himself through the roof of the mouth."

"The wife?"

"They had a fight and he killed himself. She sent Chonito the hunter to Chinipas where they wired for the plane. The plane picked her up at Avena at sunup yesterday. She left her baby with the maids at San Rafael. They say she didn't even say good-bye."

23
The Brown-and-White
Spotted Aristocratic
Corriente

In Mexico the word corriente means common or plain. The word is used to describe the usual run of the cheap and mediocre.

When applied to cattle, corriente means native cattle. The corriente is a descendent of the cattle the Spaniard brought to Mexico, the same cattle the Texas Longhorn descended from. But corrientes are not defunct like the Texas Longhorn. The Mexican corriente still abounds in spite of hunger, drought, deprivation, and degeneration.

Since he is common and cheap to buy, people think he is inferior, a butt of jokes. A joke circulates among cattlemen in Mexico about a cattle buyer who went to see a bunch of cattle and after he looked them over he told the owner he didn't want them after all.

"Why?" asked the owner, "I told you they were corriente before you came to see them and you said you didn't mind it if they were corriente."

"Yes. I said that," said the buyer. "But your cattle are mucho muy corriente, very much too much corriente."

"What the devil! Common is common. I said they were common. How can any common thing be too common any more than any aristocratic thing be too aristocratic?" said the owner.

"Now you have it," said the buyer. "I want aristocratic corrientes."

The cow was poor.

Someone had tipped· her big horns back with a saw. The swelling rings on her old dead horns showed she had a lot of age on her. Along her backbone, which was very prominent, with each vertebra clearly distinguishable, her dark brown hide was faded and bleached and stretched to a golden brown. She stood in a wash that fell off a mountain of  the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua, her belly tight and swollen. It was time for her, the sixth time for she was seven years old, to have her calf

The brown cow moved slowly out of the still heat of the open wash into a tunnel of vainoro, the thick spiny brush that grew solidly along the sides of the wash. She probed her way through the unyieldy thorned branches to the dark uncluttered shade next to the trunks. There in the private depths of the vainoro she dropped her calf, a brown-and-white spotted bull calf.

She licked her calf clean. He staggered on weak legs with each swipe of her rough tongue. She nudged him onto her sparse teats and he took the vital first milk, the milk that gave him his mothers resistance to disease. When he had nursed she left him full and sleeping, the tiny head flattened to the ground, the large clean ears down flat against the head, and left the tunnel of vainoro to feed and water.

Later, when the calf awoke alone, he raised his head. Instinct kept him quiet. He moved only his head, ears twitching at the insects that came to investigate his new live warmth. Then his tail began to wring spasmodically on the ground as he examined each new wonder in the vainoro and longed for his mother. Once, the heavy steps of a large animal passed in the wash below and the calf lowered his head to the ground, stretched his neck out along the ground, and stilled his ears and tail.

A few days later it became necessary for the cow to range away from the vainoro and she took the calf out of his tunnel. He trotted out on long knobby legs close at her side, shying at the marvel of a butterfly, a lizard, or the smell and sign of an old bull.

During the ranging the vacuero Manuel Rodriguez saw the cow had calved and, with the help of his dog, drove her to the corral of his camp at El Naranjo. He took the calf from his mother. He tied him down. He took out his sharp knife and seized a stiff healthy ear and earmarked the calf. He carved a round hole, called a balazo, or bullet hole, in the center of one ear, and he sliced off the whole curve of the underslope of the other ear. The calf now bore the official mark of all livestock of the El Naranjo ranch. Manuel shut the calf in a small corral with several other calves. He then turned the brown cow out into a pasture where she joined other cows that were being milked.

Each morning the cows would call at the gate of the corral, bawling for their offspring. Manuel and his son let them in, roped them, hobbled their hind legs, and released the calves to let them suck. When the cows were letting down their milk freely, the men caught the calves and tied them to the fence and milked the cows of all but a small portion of their milk. Then the calves were untied and allowed to strip the cows of the last of their milk. The brown-and-white spotted calf slobbered ravenously over his mother's little udder, butting it in consternation when it went dry, his long black tongue curved around a teat, the pure eyes half closed in delight.

During this time the calf learned to respect the men. He learned the rope around his neck had an end to it and would jerk him back sharply when he ran against it. He learned to undergo patiently the hunger that was to dominate him for most of his life. He found his corral had bounds but he never respected them. He was always hunting a way out of the corral.

The brown cow was milked for a month and then was replaced by another cow and released to take her calf back to her querencia, her favorite range. The calf was now dead of hair and weak from having been robbed of the greater part of his early nourishment. He was stunted and potbellied. With the milk that had been robbed from the calf Manuel Rodriguez's wife had made cheeses and fresh curd panelas which they sold. These cheeses paid the biggest part of Manuel's wage and was the reason he worked for the owner of the ranch of which the brown cow and her calf were units of livestock.

Hunger was the rule in the Sierra Madre. El Naranjo was small and overstocked. This part of the Sierra Madre was not cow country, not grass country. Grass grew only from July until the middle of October and had dried up and been eaten up by November. Then hunger took over again and got worse each month until the July rains began again.

The owner of El Naranjo was Juan Vogel. He could not live on his ranch because he could not make a living there. He paid Manuel Rodriguez a small wage and gave him the right to milk the cows for the cheeses. Juan took what his ranch and livestock produced as a supplement to his living in town and rarely returned anything to the ranch for its improvement.

Summer had begun when the brown cow was released from the milking: The land and foliage of the Sierra Madre were brown. Cattle moved little in the heat of the day and browsed at night on brush, pechita beans of the mesquite trees, leaves of the tuna, prickly pear cactus, and the cholla cactus. Mother cows eating the fierce needle-like spines of the cholla would get their cheeks, muzzles, and foreheads covered with pieces of stalks of cholla. The spines festered on the cattle and prevented them from browsing and grazing normally. Gradually these cactus eaters became addicted to cactus, as they could eat nothing else. The tips of their tongues split, their mouths filled with thorns until they constantly frothed, expelling valuable fluid. These cattle were able to eat less each day until they became so thin they resembled racks with dusty skins stretched tightly over them. They became bellyless, wild, and covered with parasites. A cow man wondered what sort of soul or spirit kept them alive, certainly nothing requiring food or drink.

Then, when it looked as if there was not another bite of feed anywhere in the Sierra and cattle ranged like goats up on the cliffs in country apparently impossible for a bovine, and every inch of the Sierra had been picked over, the summer rains began and grass sprouted.

The brown cow ranged far from Manuel Rodriguez' camp. She and her calf summered in a tiny meadow on a stream of clear water surrounded by straight pines high on the border of Chihuahua and Sonora.

When winter came the feed was gone in the meadow and the two moved down into the brush country where the spotted calf had been born. Here they ranged until the spring when the browncow had her seventh calf, a black heifer calf. The spotted calf was a yearling now. He had been weaned by his mother but he still ran by her side.

One day Manuel Rodriguez came for the brown cow again and she and her heifer calf and the spotted yearling were driven to the corrals where the cow was taken for milking again. The spotted yearling stayed close to his mother when ever she was turned out of the corral but he was becoming accustomed to ranging farther away each day looking for better feed, as there was not enough for him near the camp of Manuel Rodriguez. One evening he stayed away from his mother for the first time in his life. Gradually his visits to his mother became fewer as the rustling for feed became more difficult. He began to hunt new ranges and when his mother was turned out again the brown-and-white spotted yearling was on his own.

His pointed little horns were growing fast, nearly an inch a month now. The short hair under each eye was black and formed black crescents, a natural protection against the glare of the sun. He was light brown and white over his head, neck, and foreparts, but along his flanks and rear the spots changed to a reddish brown and were small and numerous, like reddish brown grains. He was almost a roan on his hindparts but he wasn't a roan. He was a granizo, with a multitude of distinct freckles on his hindquarters.

The yearling was learning to be alone. He found it natural to hide when a man passed near him. Alone, it was easy for him to climb high in the Sierra and feed in places his mother had not been spry enough to take him. He traveled silently on small rock-trimmed hooves. He picked his way patiently and surely over vertical slopes of smooth rock. He never wasted energy in being curious or calfish for he had none to waste, his process of making a living in that country took every bit of his nerve and guile. He never passed up a chance to eat, his every waking moment was dedicated to feed. He became as crafty and wild as the pumas, jaguars, and ocelots he encountered in their pursuit of a living.

Once, during the rainy season when the grass was good in the high pine country and the acorns were thick under the oak trees, the spotted yearling had been grazing two days without water on the new grass in a shaded ravine. In the evening he finally headed for water. He topped out over a sharp ridge covered with pines and walked down over needle carpeting into the steep shade of late afternoon. He could smell the deep cold water in the spring of an arroyo far below him. He rounded a bend in the trail and came upon more cattle on their way to the spring. He followed them on the narrow trail. The trail rimmed a precipice of sheer white rock.

The cattle slowed as each negotiated a slab of slanted rock in the trail that was the top of the precipice. Cattle were gingerly picking their way across the slab, placing their hooves flat and shifting their weights carefully, using the friction of their hooves to keep them standing on the smoothly polished rock. Three young bulls were on the slab. An old bull just ahead of the spotted yearling was getting ready to step on the slab when directly above them and so close they could smell his breath, an old lion raised up and screamed. The hooves of the first bull at the head of the file flashed out from under him. He slammed against the rock on his side and began sliding off the slab. Just as he reached the perpendicular, he found footing on a tiny shelf and he regained his stand, but he lost his hold again and cartwheeled off the mountain. The second bull had lost the footing of his hind legs and he slid off the mountain looking frantically up into the eyes of the lion, pawing at the slab with his weightless front feet. The third bull had managed to turn and head back toward the trail where the yearling and the old bull stood frozen, but the blast of the lion's scream had turned him involuntarily down the mountain and he never regained his footing. He rolled off. The lion crept stiffly off the rock above the trail and looked down into the .gorge where the three bulls had fallen, ignoring the old bull and the yearling. Then he took the trail down to the bottom of the gorge.

The spotted yearling's companion was a very old black-and-white muley bull. The old bull's hornless head was dome-shaped on top with a large thatch of hair topping the dome and a triangle of white hair on his forehead. His eyes bugged like a Jersey milk cow's. He was narrow between his front legs, long and slightly swayed in the back, high and bony in the hips. He stood on daintily slim white-stockinged legs. He was incredibly old, having seen eleven summers, and had missed being gathered in ten roundups.

Now Old Bull and the yearling stood on the trail above the sweet water they had anticipated, but which now was impossible to get. The terror died out of them. Old Bull eyed the polished rock in the trail ahead. He had never liked this place because of the danger of a careless step, an unprovoked slip. He disliked it even more now after having seen his three partners fail on it. Old Bull had ranged with them for the protection of their young horns and had paid for their company by a merciless bullying from them. Now they were a mass of pulp feed for an old toothless lion in the gorge and Old Bull wasn't going across the place ahead that had been avenue to their deaths. He turned in the trail and became aware of the yearling standing quietly behind him. When he started back up the trail the yearling followed closely. Together they went off in search of new country, new water.

The two stayed together for the next year, a bad time, a dry and hungry year, in which they ranged far and did not fare well. During this year the brown-and-white spotted yearling grew into a two-year-old bull with high proud horns. His horns were black tipped, ivory white at the base. They were reminiscent of the horns of the bulls of the fighting caste of Spain, his ancestors. But he was thin, and tick-and lice-ridden. He looked like a scorpion. The beautiful thick horns on the thin little body resembled the pincers of a scorpion. The root of the tail and the anus peaked out like the tail end of an ant. Down between the hind legs hung the scrotum with the two great eggs. He consisted only of horns, genitals, and appetite.

One morning he and o1d Bull were standing on the side of a hill warming themselves with the first of the day's sun when they both smelled man. They stood quietly smelling him, gradually gathering their faculties and their strength, noting the extent of their capabilities but not wasting an ounce of them, waiting to see what they would need. They were too weak for instant flight. They must locate the man and see what he would do. They did not raise their heads. When the man came near he was above them. He was afoot in  huaraches. He shouted at them and they moved smoothly, effortlessly, waiting for an advantage, a chance to hide or get above the man. Near the bottom of the hill they hit a trail and began trotting, hoping to outdistance him. They came to a wash at the bottom of the hill and were temporarily out of the sight of the man.

They trotted down the wash. They found a way out of the wash and climbed back up toward where they had been sunning themselves. They kept in the brush, climbing steadily and unhurriedly. The man, from above the wash, watched a place in the trail on the other side of the wash where the two bulls would have to appear. When they did not show he struck for high ground, anticipating that the cattle would double back. He was swift. He did not look at the ground. He watched above him until he saw two spotted coats flash through a brief opening in the brush above him. He noted the angle of their climb and he made a wide circle toward the top of the hill to intercept them without their seeing him until they should meet with him. The man climbed faster than the cattle. He did not sweat nor draw a long breath. He shook out a loop in the recently tallowed rawhide reata in his hand. He reached the crest of the hill at exactly the same time the old spotted bull did. The old bull did not pause or flinch from the man. He lowered his head and dove down the other side of the hill. The brown-and-white spotted two-year-old had been surprised by the appearance of the man and he stopped, for once not following unquestioning after Old Bull. The man, like the old bull, did not pause but instantly began swinging the loop over his head. The brown-and-white spotted bull whirled in fright, shocked into flight at last by the long-remembered whirr of the reata and charged back down the mountain. The man sprang after him, headed him off, and roped him. The bull bucked and bulled his neck, dragging the man behind him through brush and rock. The man gave slack, ran to a tree, and took a wrap on a branch. The spotted bull hit the end of the reata and bucked in circles around the tree. He plunged through the brush, careless of rock or cactus until he crashed to his knees into a young spiny mesquite bush. The man let him rest there for several moments until the spotted bull freed himself of the bush and stood clear. He shook his horns in an effort to free them of the rawhide that encircled them. The man unwrapped the end of the reata from the tree and tried to drive the bull down to the trail again but the bull was too intent on freeing himself of the reata and paid no attention either to the man or the ground over which he floundered. He lunged for higher ground, tossing his horns as high as he could and shaking them. He passed through a cholla bed and came out with the thorned stalks clinging to his head and sides. The man secured him to another tree and cut a short green post which he tied around the spotted bull's neck so that it dangled between his front legs. He took the reata off the horns and turned the spotted bull loose. The bull made an effort to gain the crest of the hill again but when he tried to run the big post banged against his front legs, tripping him. He needed to walk slowly and carefully in order to be able to move at all. The man walked him off the hill, down the trail, and into a holding pasture with several other cattle. The man roped him again and removed the post. That afternoon Old Bull was brought in, too.

A few days later, the cattle in the holding pasture were gathered and shut up in the corral together. The corral was not new to any of the cattle. As calves they had all endured hunger in this same place during the time their mothers had been milked. Here they had known loneliness, fer, and anger. The cattle were well acquainted with this corral. Now they had been gathered in the corral to be sold.

The men caught the brown-and-white spotted two-year-old bull and branded and vaccinated him. During that day and the next the cattle were run back and forth a hundred times in the corral as each bull was roped and branded. In the evenings, the cattle were surrounded by vaqueros and driven to a stream and watered. Then they were shut up again for the night in the corral, the gate poles, the trancas, were tied in their slots with rawhide, and the cattle were fed tasol, cornstalk fodder. The spotted two-year-old bull learned to hook short, twisting thrusts with his horns so as to miss no time eating. Old Bull stayed by his side. The tasol in the corral never lasted long. One day the trancas were let down and the cattle were counted out the gate and headed up a trail. They were driven for days across the Sierra Madre. They left the Mother Mountains they knew and hit new, wider, trails, the track of thousands of cattle that had gone out before them.

During the night the herd was watched over by the vaqueros on the sabanas, the bedgrounds. These grounds were chosen for their openness and for natural barriers that detained the cattle in the night but allowed them freedom to graze. Each days drive between sabanas was a jornada, a journey.

The brown-and-white spotted bull arrived at each sabana weaker and more footsore. He was hungry, too, but hunger was a dull state he was accustomed to. It was spring, the driest time of the year. Feed was meager. Many herds had passed over the trail before this one. The sabanas were grazed clean, but the spotted bull and Old Bull always found something to eat; the bark of a tree, a leaf of a prickly pear, a bud on the end of a young twig.

Each night Old Bull took his companion and made an attempt to escape, but they were always turned back. Old Bull was increasingly sad. He missed his old haunts. He wanted to be back in his querencia. One day he sat down in the trail. The herd was driven on without him, but a small boy was left to watch him. Small Boy chattered constantly at Old Bull who rested, enjoying his stay in the pine shade. Small Boy found a stick and poked in astonishingly tender places, interrupting the pleasure of the stay. Old Bull passively stayed down. Then Small Boy got two short sticks, stood on Old Bull's tail, grasped the sticks in both hands with a stick on each side of Old Bull's tail, and rubbed the sticks up and down with Old Bull's tail squeezed in between them. Old Bull got up. Old Bull and Small Boy caught up to the herd at the sabana that evening.

On the eighth day of the drive the herd arrived at a corral in a village at the foot of the Sonora side of the Sierra Madre. The cattle were driven through a chute. At the end of the chute the brown-and-white spotted bull shied at a pool of water. He didn't want to step into the water but the bulls behind him pushed him into it. The pool was shallow. He trotted through it. He came to a longer pool. The bull ahead of him, fooled by the small pool behind, had stepped confidently into the long pool and had submerged completely out of sight. He had come up swimming. The brown-and-white spotted bull stood on the slick cement at the brink of the long pool, loath to step into the dark water. It smelled bad. He was crowded from behind. A sharp horn drove into his hams. He leaped as far as he could from his last step on the cement and plunged to the bottom of the stinking mess. When he surfaced he turned his nose skyward, nostrils cringing, horns bobbing above the water. He swam for his life. At the end of the pool his feet struck a rough good step and he emerged, thoroughly violated by the malodorous bath, but disinfected of lice and ticks. He had undergone his first dip of insecticide.

During the night the herd in the corral diminished as trucks came and vaqueros loaded them with cattle. The brown-and-white spotted bull ate nothing that night. He was far from even the odor of cattle feed. The first cocks were crowing when he was packed on a truck with other cattle. All night he slid and fought for his balance on the deck of the truck. The deck was slick with manure and urine of the cattle that had been hauled before. The road was rough and steep. The spotted bull was crammed by the other cattle on every curve, every hill.

In the morning he was unloaded into another chute and given another foul dipping. Then he was fed the first good feeding of his life. He had arrived at a market, had become merchandise. He rested.

The cattle were rested and fed well for ten days by their buyer before they were packed into a boxcar on a train and shipped north along the Sonora Coast to Hermosillo. This trip took 20 hours. In Hermosillo, the cattle were unloaded and inspected for ticks in individual compartments in a chute. One bull was found to have a live tick and the cattle were dipped again and put aside for eight days in quarantine corrals. Here they were fed dry milo maize fodder, poor nourishment for weak cattle, but good feed was scarce in Sonora that year. In the Hermosillo corrals the brown-and-white spotted bull came in contact with the contagious that could make him "unmerchantable," unmarketable. His load of stock came out of the eight-day quarantine at Hermosillo with wart virus and ringworm from cattle that had passed through there before them. The cattle were dipped again and loaded on the train and shipped 250 miles and 30 more hours north where they got a deadly break in their luck. They were waylaid by a thief. Jim Kane, the buyer of the cattle, had the cattle sold to a cattleman in Wyoming. He was required to deliver the cattle to the Wyoming rancher on the American side of the border. Before he could deliver, the cattle needed to pass a sixty-day quarantine period. This period was imposed on all cattle passing out of the fever tick zone south of Hermosillo. No tick zone cattle could be exported without being quarantined sixty days in the clean zone north of Hermosillo.

Jim Kane had shipped 1030 head of cattle from Rio Alamos, his headquarters, to the town of Norteña in northern Sonora. the ranch outside Norteña on which the cattle were to spend their quarantine had been rented by Kane's partner. The owner of the ranch was trusted completely by Kane's partner. The man was so trusted that Kane's partner had not found it necessary to see the ranch or be present to receive the cattle as they arrived.

Kane had been completely occupied in the mountains of the Sierra Madre, buying and bringing the cattle out. He did his work slowly, on horseback. He came out of the mountains with the cattle. He doctored and fed them at his pasture in Rio Alamos and from there he shipped them as they were ready and strong for shipping. He had not been able to see the quarantine ranch. He had taken good care of his cattle and had shipped them from Rio Alamos, confident that they were passing into good hands.

After Kane shipped the last load of cattle, he spent a week winding up his Rio Alamos business. During this week he sent 10 tons of cottonseed meal, 20 tons of cottonseed hulls, and 3 carloads of alfalfa hay to Norteña to supplement the dry pasture the cattle would be ranging on. He realized this was not enough supplement, but it was all he could acquire in the droughty state of Sonora that year. He had hoped to feed the hay to the weakest cattle and to the cattle he would castrate during their ten-day hospitalization period.

Kane caught up with the brown-and-white spotted bulls load of cattle at the end of their eight days of quarantine in Hermosillo. He accompanied the load to the unloading point in Norteña. The ranch was 15 miles from this little town. The owner of the ranch lived in the town. Kane located him and introduced himself. The owners name was Armando Espil. He was a tall, blue-eyed Mexican. He invited Kane to breakfast. He was very polite. He introduced Kane to his plump, working, silent wife and to his tall, blue-eyed son, who stood around and watched, and listened silently, and who silently disappeared when he heard Espil invite Kane to go see the cattle. Espil loaded Kane into a factory-new-smelling Chrysler sedan, turned on the air conditioning, and rolled up the air-tight, sound-tight windows. The car shockproofly, soundproofly, bumped over a rough dry street to Espil's new corrals at the edge of town.

Kane got out of the car. He had expected to see only one load of cattle. He saw the corrals were full of his cattle and sensed the first nudge of disappointment. It is the feeling any husbandman senses when he sees his charges have fallen into the hands of a thief. During that first moment at the corrals Kane didn't want to believe his cattle had been exploited. In the next moment he was convinced they had been.

"Why are the cattle here?" he asked Espil.

"These cattle were in terrible shape when they arrived here. They would have died at the ranch. I kept them here for a few days to rest and feed them. Kane, you shouldn't have shipped cattle in that condition. I have already spent three thousand dollars of my own money in feed keeping them alive."

"We rented your ranch, Espil, not your corrals. Is there no feed on your ranch?"

"Much, much feed. Yes. But I didn't want to turn them out until they had all been castrated and allowed to gain back their strength."

"Some of these cattle, the strongest, are two loads of bulls and oxen. There they are over there. You have them separated, I see. I castrated the bulls on my place in Rio Alamos. They are the first, cattle I shipped you. They've been here over a month. Why have you kept them here?"

"Those bulls and oxen were in very bad shape. Very bad. Six of them died here in spite of all I did to save them." Kane remembered the big fine oxen and bulls he had brought down from the Sierra early in the spring. He had rested them for three weeks on good alfalfa pasture after the bulls had been castrated. The bulls had healed and gained weight on the pasture. The oxen had filled out and put on flesh. Kane climbed over the fence into their corral. They were emaciated. He counted them. There were 26 cattle short. Nearly a load. The cattle had nothing to eat. They moved gently out of Kane's way or lay still as he walked through them.

"Where are the rest of these cattle?" Kane asked.

"They are all here or in the other corral. Six died, I told you. I have the hides in the warehouse.

Kane saw that a big brindle ox, the best of the lot, was missing. He remembered buying him from Tino Sierra in Guadalupe Victoria. Kane walked through the gate into a big corral where the remainder of his cattle were kept. The corral held smaller cattle, yearlings, two-year-olds, and three-year- olds. They barely had room to lie down. They were in worse condition than the older cattle. They staggered when they walked. Their hind legs interfered with one another. Their . thin necks were unable to hold up the heavy horns. The brindle ox was not in the bunch. Not a leaf a stalk, a semblance of feed, was in the troughs. The brown-and-white spotted bull shuffled away from Kane. He had just been unloaded from a 500-mile train ride and a week on short rations and he was stronger than any of the cattle that had been kept by Espil to be "strengthened."

"When do you feed my cattle? What do you feed my cattle, Espil?"

"We feed very early, very early. While you still are sleeping peacefully in your cool motel room enjoying your rest."

"And what do you feed them?"

"Cood alfalfa hay from this region."

"What part of the alfalfa? The pure little odor? ¿El puro olorcito?"

"Ha, ha, ha. You are funny. You speak very good Spanish. You have become more Mexican than even I am. How long have you lived in Mexico, Jim?"

Kane climbed the fence out of the coral.

"What happened to the meal and hulls I sent you?"

"Oooooooo, I fed it last week. You sent very little. Imagine! You only sent ten tons of meal. That is only twenty pounds apiece for a thousand cattle."

"And the twenty tons of hulls?"

"I fed it with the meal."

Kane was sure the man was a liar and a thief now. Cotton seed hulls are very linty. If you feed a bucketful of it there will be traces of it in the trough, in the corral dirt, in the manure, for months.

"Where did you unload that feed?"

"In the warehouse, where else?"

Kane walked over to the warehouse. Espil walked behind him. Kane slowed up so that Espil could catch up and walk abreast of him. Espil stayed behind.

In the warehouse Kane found not one hull, not one speck of lint, not a trace of the greenish brown dust or strong warm odor of cottonseed meal. The six hides were stacked in a corner. Kane uncovered each dry crackling hide. No brindle.

"Let's go back to the motel. I have some telephoning to do," Kane said.

At the motel he telephone his Mexican lawyer at Frontera and asked him to come to Norteña. He then got into his pickup and went to the railroad office to see if his alfalfa had arrived. The alfalfa had been on the rails for over a week. At the depot he found the feed had arrived. He arranged for trucks and took the hay to Espil's corrals. He filled the troughs all they would hold. They held 300 of the small, light, Rio Alamos bales. He left his vaquero, Cruz Gastelum, who had come along with the last load, to watch over the cattle. Then he got in his pickup and went in search of the Lion.

In Norteña Kane stopped at a gas station and asked for the Lion. The mid-afternoon sun made the white floury dust on the streets white hot. No one was in the streets.

"Where is the Lion?" Kane asked the boy who took care of the gas station.

The boy smiled. "Who knows where the Lion prowls now. He is a lion."

"Where does he live?" Kane asked.

"The Lion lives everywhere. Sometimes here in Norteña. Sometimes in the brush. All depends on what he is hunting."

"Where is his woman? His sons?"

"Which woman? The legitimate? The legitimate is in the town of Iglesias, about thirty kilometers from here. The querida, the lover, is here in Norteña."

"Where does she live?"

"In front of the old Hotel Cuatro Milpas."

Kane drove to the hotel and parked the pickup. He crossed the baking street to the door of the house. Lolita answered the knock.

"And the Lion? Where is he?" Kane asked.

"Ooooohhhh, Meestair Kane," roared a voice from inside. The girl smiled and opened the door. "Pase, come in," she said.

"What the chingaos are you doing here," asked the Lion.

"I'm trying to clean some cattle so I can take them to the States."

"Where are you cleaning them?" the Lion asked, laughing.

"I thought at the Espil ranch."

The Lion laughed harder.

"Why are you laughing? Kane asked.

` "At my compadrés ranch?" the Lion managed through his laughter.

"Is he your compadre?"

"Seguro que sí. Surely he is."

"That finishes me off. Here I come to get you to help me and find he is your compadre. Who baptized who?"

"My compadre is godfather to my oldest son."

"Sonofabitch!" Kane said in English.

"Hee, hee, hee," said the Lion.

"Well, I've got to get my cattle out of his high-priced corrals and get them something to eat before they all die or get eaten by Mexicans."

"You should see how good that meat is," said the Lion. He pointed to a clothesline outside the window. Meat was drying on the line. "My compadre brought me a hind quarter, a large hindquarter. He said it was from a fat heifer he butchered, but I knew by the taste it was from one of those 7X branded corrientes of yours I've been seeing arrive this month."

"I bet you ate my brindle ox," Kane said.

"Probably."

'Sonofabitch. "

"Not only that but I found my compadre a trucker to take nineteen head of fat cattle to Mexicali for the butcher."

"Is Espil fattening cattle?"

";N0, h0mbre!" .

"Has he got any cattle at all?"

"¡No, hombre! Shut your mouth! The bank embargoed his ranch and his cattle six months ago. He has no cattle he can sell or butcher. He built those corrals after he sold the cattle in Mexicali."

"He owns no ranch?"

"Didn't I just tell you? The bank owns the ranch now."

"Sonofabitch!" Kane said. "Do you, Lion, know anything about what happened to some feed, some cottonseed hulls and meal I sent up here?"

"No." No one can say no like a Mexican looking away from you or looking at a space two inches from your nose. "Didn't you see any meal around Espil's corrals?"

The Lion remembered something. He made a decision. He leveled his eyes at Kane.

"Hombre," he said. "Of course! I rode horseback past my compadrés new corrals about a week ago late in the evening. I saw a truck loaded with cottonseed meal. I needed a sack of meal for my milk cow in Iglesias so when I got here I took my truck and went back to get it. What do you think?"

"Mierda! What?"

"No meal. The truck was gone when I got back." The Lion roared with laughter.

That afternoon the Lion helped Kane find a thousand acres of Wheat stubble. The fields were well shaded and had plenty of grass on their irrigation ditch banks. Acres of wheat in thickly bordered areas had been left intact by the combines. Kane was sure his cattle would do well here during their quarantine period if he supplemented the stubble with stronger feed.

The next morning Kane's lawyer arrived at the motel. He was a young, slightly built, clean-cut boy just out of school, very formal. He accompanied Kane to Espil's corrals. The troughs, still, held more than half the hay Kane had fed the day before. The cattle were full. Kane explained the cattle's problem as they returned to the motel. The lawyer took off his coat and tie and sat in the corner of the room with a news magazine when Espil came into the room.

"Espil. I'm taking my cattle out of your corrals today," Kane said.

"It is about the right time now although I think we should wait until they rest up on a good feed before you move them to my ranch."

"Yes? Well they aren't going to your ranch after all. I bought some wheat stubble for them."

"What about my ranch?"

"I'm not going to use your ranch, Espil."

"Oh, yes, you are. Your partner and I have a deal. Those cattle stay with me until I hear from him."

"You have no deal with my partner to feed those cattle in corrals."

"Yes, I have."

"Let's see the deal."

"What?" ·

"Let's see your contract."

"We have no contract. We made a deal by giving our word to one another. That is good enough for me, man."

"Not good enough for me. The cattle go out of there today. The cattle wear my brand. They are inspected here to me and they go where I say they go."

"You are going to pay me what you owe for the feed I've given the cattle before they take one step out of my corrals."

"All right. Let's see what the cattle owe you."

Espil opened a large briefcase, fixed a pair of glasses on his nose and lifted out a sheaf of receipts. He got paper and began adding the receipts. After the careful adding of the numbers of the receipts he underlined the total and handed the paper to Kane.

d "Only three thousand six hundred and three dollars," he said.

Kane took the receipts. Most of them were from a Norteña hay dealer.

"Who is José Nolasco?" Kane asked.

''He is a feed dealer here in Norteña. A fine man. An honest man. He is my compadre."

"All right. I hope he gave you this paper cheap. It was nice of you to feed my cattle so well. But I just can't pay you one cent of the money you say you were out, because for one thing, I don't owe you. We rented your ranch, not your corrals. We had no agreement for you to feed hay in corrals. For another thing, I just plain won't pay you because you never gave the cattle a third of what you are charging me. I don't know how the cattle have stayed alive."

"You are mistaken. I fed them well."

"How much did you feed? How many bales this last week, for instance?"·

"Three hundred bales a day."

"How much did the bales weight?"

"They are heavy bales from this region. They weigh over one hundred pounds."

"So you fed twenty-one hundred bales of alfalfa hay this last week?"

"Yes."

"And sixty thousand pounds of cottonseed meal and hulls I sent you?"

"What?"

"The meal and hulls I sent."

"I fed it week before last."

"I only sent it a week ago, Espil."

"Well, yes. We fed that too."

Kane laughed. "Boy, Espil, muchacho, Espil, we aren't playing marbles. You know how much I fed those cattle yesterday?"

"Mucho, mucho, too much. I saw the troughs still full of hay this morning. Your alfalfa is bad, stemmy. They can't eat it. You fed bad hay."

"I fed three hundred bales yesterday. They weigh forty-five pounds apiece. I fed six tons and the troughs are still full and the cattle are full. You are saying you fed fifteen tons early yesterday and the cattle were out of feed by 10 A.M."

"Some days they fill better than other days. These corrientes are bad, bad class. They fool you. They are no good to anyone."

"My friend, no cattle can live with a thief. Don't you think I can tell when my cattle have been starved?"

"You don't know these corrientes. Man, you are used to those good gringo Herefords. These Mexican corrientes will give you a lesson on how to lose money. "

"You mean Mexican corral owners," Kane said.

"Well, pay me so you can take your cattle out of my corrals. I don't want scorpions around my outfit anymore. They are bad for my reputation." He handed Kane the receipts. .

"Use that paper to wipe with," Kane said. .

"Look, gringo. I don't want trouble. I am an honest man and I don't like fights. If you don't pay me right now I'll have to take you to the judge who is my compadre also."

Kane's lawyer laid aside the magazine and stood up briskly. He took a business card from his wallet, flapped the wallet shut, and handed the card to Espil.

"Manuel Escudero, licensed attorney, at your orders," he said.

Espil scanned the card for a long moment. He removed the glasses and looked blindly at the card. He put the glasses back on and read the card again. He looked up at the lawyer and smiled.

"Thank you," Espil said. "Armando Espil, your servant."

"Now," the lawyer said. "In case of legal action in this problem, I must tell you, Señor Espil, we will demand against you for failure to feed the cattle and for taking the cattle under false pretenses. That is, you pretended to have a ranch which you did not have. And we suspect you will be unable to deliver all of the one thousand and thirty head of cattle that were shipped to you. In that case we may investigate further into any transportation of cattle you have made within the last month."

Espil smiled his best blue-eyed, tanned-face smile.

"No trouble. That is what I said and what I mean. If your ideas don't conform with mine, I bow to your better judgment. Like any friend I want what is best for your cattle. Take them tomorrow or anytime with my full consent. "

"Now," the lawyer continued. "We are prepared to pay you a dollar a head for all cattle removed from your corral for your care and any feed you might have given if you will pay us the cost of any cattle that are missing from the one thousand and thirty head."

"Six died. Kane saw the hides."

"All right," Kane said. "I'll go for six."

"Let's just call it even," Espil said. "You don't owe me a veinte centavo piece. Let's just say I did you the favor from a good heart."

"You say it, Espil," Kane said.

Espil gathered his papers, folded them neatly into his businessman's briefcase, put away his glasses, shook hands, and left.

Kane took the lawyer to his private plane at the airport and then went hunting with the Lion.

Kane and the Lion hired vaqueros and drove the cattle to the wheat stubble the next day. Kane allowed the cattle to rest and fill 10 days and then began castrating and doctoring warts and ringworm. The brown-and-white spotted bull was in the first corral full of cattle the men worked.

The Lion sat his horse in the corral and looked at the brown-and-white spotted bull and laughed in a high mocking voice. The spotted bull stood in a corner of the corral. His hip bones jutted angularly. His head was low under the heavy horns. He had started to move down the fence, had been blocked by the Lion, and turned head and front legs back away from the Lion. But his hind legs had been too weak to turn back and they had not changed course with the rest of the bull. There they stood, still headed down the fence, as though completely independent of the front quarters, waiting a new command. And between them in all their majesty hung the cods a lion was intent on acquiring.

"Are you absolutely certain you want to castrate this animal?" the Lion asked.

"Of course," Kane said. "Why?"

"I'm afraid it will unbalance him and his head will fall to the ground. He is so weak he will never be able to pick it up. Also with such an operation you could be in danger of removing a portion of his brain."

"Very funny. Just catch him for me. That is all you are supposed to do. Not give so much advice."

"Maybe you would like to dehorn him at the same time. In that way you would not only be helping him to maintain his balance but you would help take away the look of an insect he has."

"What do you mean insect? That is a good, sound, corriente bull. He is beautiful."

"He looks like the cross between a scorpion and an ant. Look at those horns. Exactly like the pincers of a scorpion. Look at that tail end. It comes to a point. It protrudes and then it tucks under. Exactly like an ant."

"Ha, ha, ha, funny. Funny, " said Kane. "Rope him."

"But wait. I see now why you love him so. Those bangs of shaggy hair over his horns and eyes. That long, dead hair on his sides. Those skinny flanks. Those bright little eyes. He also resembles a monkey. Could he be a relative of yours? A pariente?"

"Of your mother, ¡Ya basta tus payasadas!" said Kane. "Enough of your clowning!"

"Heh, heh, heh," said the Lion. "We'll see if he can be roped like cattle can be roped. If so I will concede he may possibly be a distant relative to a bovine."

The Lion began to swing a big loop in his reata. He swung the loop counter-clockwise to his side. The spotted bull wavered out of the corner toward the center of the corral. The Lion let go of the loop. It sailed open and arched to the bull. It landed on the bull's hind quarters, caught them, and whipped under his belly from the side opposite the Lion making a trap for the bull's hind legs which he immediately stepped into. The Lion pulled out all the slack of the loop catching the hind legs below the hocks. The bull continued to shuffle along, the tied legs in the loop rubbing together. The Lion dallied the reata around his saddle horn and rode away. The bull sat down. His hind legs were held off the ground by the reata. He lay over on his side giving no battle. A vaquero knelt on his neck and held one front foot while Kane castrated him and scraped and iodined his warts and ringworm. When all operations were completed and the animal was no longer a spotted bull but a spotted steer, `Kane let him up. The steer walked slowly over to join his mates in the corner of the corral. The scraped circles where the ringworm had abided were naked and stained brown with iodine. Kane took the two great testicles and put them in a bucket of water.

"Two kilos of botana," said the Lion.

"Mucha carne," said Kane. "He commences to produce. You see how happy he is now?"

"I was sure he was going to stand on his head."

"Well, you can see he did not. We only changed his mind from love to grass."

Kane and the Lion made camp under a mesquite on the edge of a dirt tank of water and stocked in provisions. The two men worked happily together out of that camp.

One afternoon Kane roped a black bull to doctor him for warts. When the bull hit the end of the rope he stepped falsely and dislocated a shoulder. With only 30 days left in the quarantine the bull would never get well enough to make the 200-mile train ride to the border or the 1500-mile trip to Wyoming. Kane and the Lion walked the bull to the shade of their camp and tied him to the mesquite.

The Lion, savoring the fresh meat he would soon have, gleefully sharpened his big butcher knife and cheerfully, gloatingly, stuck it into the bull's throat. The bull was emptied of his blood in a splash. The Lion held a bucket under the fountain of blood he had opened and he kept the long knife in the throat, twisting the blade to give maximum flow as the blood spilled out. The bull was emptied of his life and became insensate in less than a minute. The Lion took all the blood he could and set the bucket aside. Then he stretched the bull out and skinned him and butchered him on his own hide.

The two men saved the best steaks and the meat of the head, heart, liver, kidneys, and the little marrow gut to be eaten fresh. They put the bucket of blood on the fire to boil. Later they would fry the blood with onion. They cleaned the paunch and sliced it up and put it with the meat of the jaws and tongue and cleaned jellylike hooves with the outer shell removed. This would make menudo, the drunkard's soup.

They lay live coals out evenly on the ground and sliced liver, heart, and kidneys into long thin slices and lay them on the coals to broil. They wrapped the steaks and ribs in several layers of canvas tarp so they would be able to broil them later. Finally, they boned all the rest of the meat and sliced it up in large, nearly transparent sheets, for jerky. They would take a big piece of pulp and start slicing on one side, extending the pulp into a sheet. They salted it heavily, covered it with black pepper, and hung it up to dry. The sheets hung so thin the sunlight could be seen through them.

Three more of the cattle died during quarantine. They had been too needy when they arrived at the stubble field. Kane and the Lion, with vitamins and drugs, the soft loop of their ropes, their eyes sore and red from the glare of the sun on the yellow fields, cared for, and brought the remainder of the cattle through the 60 days.

At the end of the quarantine the spotted steer had strengthened and rid himself of his warts and ringworm. He had found the bearded grain heads where they stood in bunches missed by the combines or where they lay in piles of chaff the machines had deposited in the fields. He also found his old sustenance, the pechita of mesquite and the bark of the palo verde trees growing on the edges of the fields.

His companion, Old Bull, had not fared so well. The teeth weren't good. He did well to survive, for he was getting past his best ability to adapt to new surroundings and feeds. He didn't take to the hard, bearded grain in the glaring fields. He preferred to stay in the shade of the trees and pick at the palo verde bark and pechita.

The cattle were driven to the railroad. They were loaded on freight cars again. They traveled all one night and were left on a siding at a junction to wait for another train that would pull them to the border. The cattle stood on the cars the next day and the next night. During the night at the siding the Old Bull tired and lay down. The car was tightly filled with cattle. The old muley's tired bones chilled. When the train lurched to a banging start in the morning, cattle ground their hooves over Old Bull but he was able to get to his feet. A big red ox leaned on him and Old Bull was unable to raise his head from under the belly of the ox. Had he been blessed with horns he could have made room to lift his head. As it was he stood there stiffly tired and badly injured, his neck stiffening, his head hanging more each mile. But he held his feet through the swaying, staggering, aching day and when the train arrived at the border he walked off the car unaided when the door opened onto a new chute at new corrals in strange surroundings once again.

Old Bull tried to drink the unfamiliar water but the pain in his sides and bones discouraged him. He shuffled to the corner where his companion, the brown-and-white spotted steer, lay, and chose a place beside him. He knelt his sore knees and slowly tucked his hind legs neatly up under his belly, lowered the old hind end softly, passively, to the ground, and closed his eyes for the last time. During the night his head slipped quietly over, the bug eyes half opened, the legs stretched out, he lay flat on his side, and his tough old spirit left him. He was no longer merchandise to anyone. In the morning Kane found him dead that way and remembered when he had first seen the old dome-headed thing at the El Naranjo roundup in the Sierra Madre. The cattle had been two days without feed. Kane had closed the lids on the water trough after the cattle had watered out on unloading the day before. The cattle would not feed or water now until they arrived on the American side of the border after being weighed for the customs duties. The brown-and-white spotted steer was hustled into a chute where boards were shoved in front and behind him, separating him from the other cattle. Men in white coats scratched him over with their fingers searching for warts, ringworm, abcesses, parasites. His eyes were examined. He danced in the chute. He poked his nose through the cracks between the boards of the chute searching for a way out. After his examination he was weighed with ten other cattle. He was dipped again, his last dip, and finally passed for export to the United States.

That afternoon, he was loaded on railroad cars again. The cars were still for hours. When they finally rolled they went only as far as the American side of the border where the cattle were unloaded again and weighed for American duties. In the American corrals they were finally fed and watered. The cattle rolled again after one night's rest. On the eighth day the cattle left the border, the brown-and-white spotted steer was crowded into the corner of a car. The deck was slippery there, and in one jolting start of the car the massive press of the cattle lifted him clear off his feet in the tired crush of their falling weight against him. He felt his sides give, his hip bones slammed and were pressed into the side of the car. A horn went in his flank, his brisket drove into the end of the car, his head bent back to the hip. Mercifully the car jolted again, backward, and the mass of cattle stumbled forward, releasing him. He got three feet on the deck but one front foot hooked over the neck of the steer that had gored him in the flank. The goring steer lost his balance when the train started again and the spotted steer's hind legs skittered on the slick deck. He fell on his side in the corner where he remained in a state of trampled, stood-upon, half-consciousness in a cold urined mud bed. He had become one of the unfortunates. Later in the passive bovine enduring of his predicament he smelled the pine country where he and his mother had grazed in peace during the spring and summer months of his calfhood. Suddenly, there were no hooves standing on him and he was aware he was alone in the car.

Boy Decker had been standing outside counting the steers off car 2168. According to his list there should have been 50 head of cattle on the car.

"We're one short," he shouted to his father, a stocky man in a Stetson hat, who stood on the loading chute, a grave look on his face. He examined the list in his hand.

"Look in the car, son," he said, watching the cattle as they passed into the corral. I

Boy stepped into the muck of the car. He saw the smudged lump of the brown-and-white spotted steer lying flat in the corner. One dead, the boy thought. He walked over to the comer. The steer's deep eye was clear. It looked at him. The boy called to his father. The big man came stamping into the car. He stood over the steer, his new boots buried in the sand, urine, manure slush. The boy was passing his hand over the steer's eye. The steer blinked at the hand. The big man pulled the tail out of the slop and lifted on it. The boy picked up the head and without speaking the man and his son tried several times to lift the steer to his feet. The steer could not find his legs. Each time they cleared the deck the legs swung numbly beneath him. The only life in the steer was in his eyes. They kept blinking with the effort of trying to find the legs. The man dragged the steer by the tail across the slush, out the door, and down over the boards in the loading chute to the dry dirt of the corral.

"Well, there he is, the last of the thousand," the boy said.

"Try to get him up," the cattleman said. He went away to look after the feeding and watering of the rest of the cattle. The boy bent the steer's knees up under his brisket and lifted his hind end by the tail so that the legs rested under the belly. In this way the steer could sit up with his legs under him, his head off the ground. The head and horns wobbled heavily, barely above the ground. The steer kept his head up. The ears investigated the man above him. The dry muzzle, from which drained the residue of pneumonia, sniffed the pine air. The tongue made a feeble effort to clean the nostrils. The teeth ground in the head.

The boy pushed the steer over on his dry side and rubbed the side and legs that had been down in the car. He worked the legs, bending and straightening them briskly. He sat the steer up again and lifted on the tail. The steer finally stood on his hind legs. The boy lifted on the horns and the steer stood up. The boy got away from him. The steer staggered a few steps, smelled the water in a trough in the corral, and walked to it, the legs swinging fragilely under him, miraculously not catching on each other. The steer drank sparingly at the trough. He stood at the trough a long moment, smelling the boards of the corral and looking around. Later the boy came for him in a truck and loaded him with other weak steers.

He was unloaded in a large pen used in winter to protect a haystack. The boy stuck him several times with a needle and shoved large pills down his throat before he turned him loose in the pen. The steer watched the boy drive away in the truck. When he was sure the boy had gone he walked out into the pen. The grass in the pen was two feet high. He did not know what the lush green at his feet was. He smelled the over-whelmingly delicious aroma of tender grass but he had never seen green grass in this abundance and did not know what it was. He walked to the southern side of the pen and looked over the barbed wire fence. This was the way back to the Sierra Madre. The sun warmed his back and brought strength and appetite to him. He bent his head to eat and found his muzzle nearly smothered meadow grass. He swiped out a sticky feverish tongue to the tender stems and began to chew. As he ate, his mouthfuls got larger and the tongue and the jaws came unstuck, more vigorous.

The steer ate and rested in the pen for a week. The boy watched his progress. Each evening he brought water to the steer. He noticed the steer slept only on places he had grazed clean. He was hoarding his groceries. He did not mess up his clean grass. Each day by early afternoon he would be forced to lie down, his paunch full and bulging on the ground, unable to pack the bulk around or to cram in one more tongueful. He would lie there ruminating and chewing his cud until he shifted the weight around in his stomachs before he could go at the green grass again.

A week after they arrived at the ranch all the cattle were gathered and weighed. They had filled an average of 80 pounds per head above their duty weights.

When the brown-and-white spotted steer finished the feed in the pen he was recovered enough to be turned out with the rest of the Mexican steers in the big meadows. He had been in the meadows two months, October breezes were bringing the first smells and skies of snow when Jim Kane and Juan Vogel of the El Naranjo ranch visited Wyoming at the invitation of Mr. Decker.

The day the visitors went out to see the cattle was dark and overcast. The cattlemen drove around the meadows in a pickup. The gentle steers paid no attention to the machine. They moved reluctantly out of its way, too intent on eating. To Kane and Juan even the older bulls and oxen appeared to have grown several inches in height and breadth. The brown-and-white spotted steer lowered his head and shook his horns in mock ferocity at the grill of the pickup as it approached him. Mr. Decker stopped the pickup. The steer's coat was growing with the change of weather. The coat was spotlessly clean, the brown spots clearly distinct on the tidy white of the coat. The black muzzle glistened with beads of healthy moisture. The horns had filled with marrow and shone as if polished. The dark crescents underlined luminous eyes that curiously watched the men over the hood of the pickup. When the pickup began to move again the spotted steer challenged. As the machine moved forward the steer backed rapidly and lowered his horns to the grill. Then when he couldn't back fast enough he whirled, kicked, and ran ahead of the machine, bucking and twisting and shaking his horns.

"I remember when we gathered that steer," Kane said.

"He was in the last bunch we shipped up here."

"He was the last steer in the last car," Mr. Decker said.

"We had to drag him off. But we got him up and he stayed up. Now look at him. Winter is here, though. These cattle have never faced a Wyoming winter. We'll just have to keep them fed and see what they do. I've got several thousand tons of oat insulage."

"They'll do all right," Kane said.

"Es hijo de la vaca jasca," Juan said. Criolo mio."

"Juan says this steer is son of the brown cow of his ranch. I know the cow. She has a calf every year. Next spring we'll ship you another bunch just like this bunch."

"We'll see," Mr. Decker said. "I'm just now getting over the scare these gave me when they got off the train. If we buy we are going to buy earlier next year. Let's see how these do first and hope the market holds. Sometimes no one wants Mexican corrientes at any price."

"I hope they do you a good job," Kane said.

"They are doing a good job. They've done just exactly as you said they would so far, " Mr. Decker said. "I'll tell you one thing. They are gentle. They don't take time off from eating to spook at anything. "

They drove into a pasture where some Hereford heifers were kept. The heifers were all exactly alike in color and size.

"What do you think your spotted steer will weigh, Jim Kane?" Mr. Decker asked.

"I guess he'll weigh three hundred pounds," Kane said.

"How much will the paint of brown steer weight?" Kane asked Juan in Spanish.

"One hundred thirty kilos mas o menos, more or less," Juan said.

"Juan says he'll weigh about two hundred eighty-six pounds."

"How much do you think these heifers will weigh? They will be two years old next spring," Mr. Decker said.

"It has been so long since I judged this kind of cattle I couldn't say for sure, but I'll guess six hundred pounds," Kane said.

"We weighed them the other day. They weigh six hundred eighty-five."

"These heifers weigh better than three hundred kilos and they aren't two years old yet," Kane translated to Juan.

Juan shook his head in admiration. "Look at such meat, will you?" he said. ''They are exactly alike. Like beans in their pod. Ask Mr. Decker how he tells them apart. Tell him they don't look like cattle to me."

Kane translated. Mr. Decker laughed.

"I had the same trouble with your Mexicans at first. You learn to distinguish between them with practice. However, generally speaking, I couldn't pick one of these heifers six months from now and say what cow was her mother unless she had a special, different, characteristic. I have nine hundred fifty of these heifers in this pasture. They don't vary five pounds from one another."

The cattlemen were driving through the beautiful woolly Herefords when the first snow of the year began to fall.

The cattle all survived that first and hardest winter of their lives by keeping their noses buried in the warm oat insulage. By May the brown-and-white spotted steer weighed , 550 pounds.

In June he was set apart with 24 other steers of the same size and breadth of horn and rented to a rodeo producer. The rodeo steers were trucked to town and unloaded in corrals. One afternoon the spotted steer was run into a chute. He had been through enough chutes to know that something unpleasant usually happened to him at the end of them. But he was released from the chute. He found himself all alone in a big arena. Immediately he was chased by horsemen to the end of the arena. He had gained a lot of strength in the meadows. He easily outran the horses, he thought.

The horsemen returned him to the same chute. He knew what to expect outside now and he anticipated outrunning the horse-man smelling thing again. He was like a racehorse in a starting gate anticipating the opening of the gate, the ring of the bell. This place was so nice to run in. He had never seen a place where he could just throw up his tail and fly, certainly not in his rocky, steep, Sierra Madre.

A cowboy nodded and the gate flew open. The brown-and-white spotted steer threw a number 9 in his tail and exploded into a run. For the first five or six jumps he was all alone. He faltered. He slowed up and coasted jauntily. Then from behind came an awful eruption of hoofbeats. He threw up his head and sprinted. Before he knew the horsemen were close they bracketed him. He felt a weight behind his withers, heard the pop-slap of leather, saw the horses go on by, and was stopped by a man the horses had left on him. The man pulled down on his left horn until his tail end started to swing around in an arc. Suddenly the man pulled on his right horn and shoved his muzzle skyward, twisting his neck around. He got a good look at the clouds, his feet went out from under him, and he slammed down on his side with all four feet sticking out. Then he was released. He found he was completely unhurt. He got up and trotted, unpursued, free, to the end of the arena. He had been bulldogged.

He was used in bulldogging events for several weeks. Most of the time there were many people around. People did not bother him. People that came near on foot outside the corral looked at his horns and stayed outside. Only the horsemen ever touched him in the game they played with him. These men that smelled of horses fed him well, too. He adapted to the new life of being run once or twice a week, traveling in a truck once a week, and eating and resting most of the week. He gained weight.

The spotted steer had long since learned he couldn't always outrun the horsemen so he began to watch them and seek ways of keeping them from catching him. He was strong and trim and getting smart. If the horsemen made one mistake the spotted steer would get to the corral at the end of the arena free. He tried never to run out of the chute the same way twice. At times he would wait until he felt the man shifting his body from the running horse to his back and he would put on the brakes causing the man to skim along his back. If the steer lowered his head at the right moment the man would skim on by, miss the horns, and spill in the dirt in front of the steer. Then the brown-and-white spotted steer would walk up, shy at the lump on the ground, and go trotting off down the arena to the free corrals.

Sometimes he liked to take a sharp right turn out of the chute and run down the right side of the arena close to the fence. If the horsemen were not extraordinarily fast they never caught the spotted steer. But as he gained more weight he got lazy and no longer enjoyed outrunning the horsemen.

One time he tried turning in front of the horse just as the man was getting on his back but he caused a bad wreck. The horse had gone right over the top of him and the man had ended up someplace between the steer and horse. The steer never tried that trick again. He didn't like the squashing and skinning he got in the encounter. .

He began to resort almost exclusively to "scotching," the first trick of "setting up" just before the cowboy was settled on his back. If the man managed to get on him and stop him he would brace himself and stand there while the man twisted on his neck with all his might. Then when he fell he would try to fall with his legs under him, "dog fall," and sometimes he would have the satisfaction of catching the cowboy under him.

.The steer, being a dumb animal, of course had no way of knowing he was making himself unpopular with the bulldoggers when he did these things. Cowboys do not like to draw steers that may put them in the hospital. Also, in order to be able to win any money in rodeo and thus continue rodeoing, a cowboy must qualify with the steer he is bulldogging. In order to qualify in the contest the bulldogger has to wrestle the steer down on his left side so that all four legs are sticking straight out.

The brown-and-white spotted steer was only run for the bulldogging a few times after he became a chronic "scotcher" and "dog faller." He was turned out on a meadow for a while where he gained more weight. He had been on the meadow for about two weeks when he was caught again. This time he was taken to an arena, turned out of the chute, and given a very good headstart. He was chased again but this time he was roped around the horns by one horseman, then roped around V the heels by another horseman and faced back the way he had come. He had practically been broken to lead in Mexico so after a few weeks of this roping when his horns got sore at the base from too much jerking he learned not to hit the end of the head rope so hard. This gave him time to stay out of the range of the heel rope pretty well. When his heels were caught, sometimes he would lie down peacefully, lazily. This also disqualified the ropers from the contest.

The spotted steer kept gaining weight. He was big enough for the single steer roping now.

One day the men turned him out of the chute with a good headstart the same as usual. When he felt the rope jerk tight on his horns he slowed down to ease the shock of the expected yank from behind. Instead, he felt the rope whip around his right side and around his hind legs above the hocks. He saw the big horse driving off to the left front of him. Suddenly, his head was wrenched down to the right, his right horn went into the dirt clear to the base and his whole body vaulted on that horn into the air and he slammed down on his side, his muzzle pointed back to the chutes. Then he was spun on his side and dragged. He was still being dragged by the powerful horse with all the air knocked out of him when the cowboy dismounted and tied him.

The fifth time the brown-and-white spotted steer was "fair-grounded" in this way he got up with a loose right horn and a nosebleed. Boy Decker was competing in that rodeo and he noticed the steer's horn was broken. He spoke to the rodeo producer and that evening the trucks took the rodeo steers back to the meadows of the Decker ranch.

The brown-and-white spotted steer was dizzy for a few days but soon his appetite returned. The August green grass was in its prime. The steer was in his prime. He dearly loved that green grass. He felt sound, except for the horn that drooped over his eye. He was often reminded of how tender it was. He would have to be careful when he was playing with another steer to hook only with the left horn now. He could feint with the right horn. However, he really didn't have much time to bother about playing or hooking anything in that heaven of green grass.

BOOK THREE

24
Onza

The huarache is a sandal. In the southern part of Sonora and in the Sierra Madre Occidental men use a huarache made of used tire treads. The slab of tire is lashed on to the sole of the foot by leather thongs. Men who wear these huaraches almost never wash their feet, so a coarse lacquer of dirt, sweat, and body oils form to protect the feet. The blunt toes become shock proof. The huarachudo, wearer of the huarache, runs through cactus, over rocks, snow, or ground heated by 110 degrees of sun, without looking down.

Wherever you go in Mexico you see that the average peon wears huaraches. Shoes for him are unnecessary and impractical. He prefers the liberty of his huaraches. Shoes are hot in the summer, cold in winter, and hurt the feet all year round.

The puma stepped up to the trail behind Juan Vogel and watched him. ride away. He did not see Kane coming along behind him. He was intent on crossing the trail unseen behind Vogel and observing the man as long as he had his chance.

Pajaro stopped while he decided what this animal was that blocked his path and what he, Pajaro the horse, was going to do about it. The puma whipped his tail audaciously as though playful at the idea that he could watch Vogel but Vogel could not see him. But he was careful to keep the exuberance of the tail from moving the rest of his body in case it should discover him to Vogel.

Vogel rode out of sight. Pajaro, deciding on his own next probable action, snorted, looked back to assure his getaway path, and returned his attention to the puma.

The puma crouched when he heard Pajaro snort. The tail lay flat and immobile. The head was facing down the trail but the animal's attention was behind him now. Pajaro was stilled again by what he was seeing. The puma was not sure he knew what was behind him. He was upwind from Kane and couldn't smell him. He was downhill and at a disadvantage. He didn't want to turn his head. He was hiding by trusting only to his camouflage.

The puma flattened his ears and waited for Kane to move. Pajaro didn't move an ear or an eyelash. Kane watched the puma. Now he wasn't sure the animal was a puma.

The animal's head and shoulders were massive. The hind quarters were narrow. Unlike most pumas, this one had no heavy belly. He resembled a greyhound in his middle. He was yellow rather than tawny. A dark brown stripe marked his backbone. He looked like a prehistoric lion. He seemed to be a more feral breed of cat than the puma.

"You better move," Kane said out loud to him. "Before someone else comes along and moves you with a thirty-thirty."

The animal jumped to the top of a rock overhanging the steep uphill side of the trail. His big claws scraped and held there for a moment but he lost his grip on the slick rock and scrambled back to the trail. Pajaro snorted and ran backward. This must have eased any fears the animal might have had about a dangerous foe behind him and he turned and looked at the horseman for the first time. He ignored the horse and looked Kane in the eye. He saw he had plenty of time to get out of the trail and go on about his business.

When he moved again Kane saw he was an old feline, one who had lost most of the spring in the big paws but, nevertheless, was still confident of his strength. This time he moved toward Kane and Pajaro to a place where he could get off the trail without clumsiness or loss of dignity. This move scared Pajaro into another fit of running backward. The old cat walked off the trail, paused on a rock, rolled his coarse, old whiskers in a peeved half-snarl, and went on about his business.

Kane pressed Pajaro to pass the place where the beast had crouched. The horse, who only lately had been tired and lazily conservative of each step he took, was now electric hot-wired in every fiber.

"Did you see that big lion?" Kane called to Juan Vogel when he caught up with him.

"What lion?" Juan Vogel asked.

"Well, maybe he was a lion. He was a big, dun animal. He had a dark stripe down his back and a big head. He crossed the trail between us." '

"I didn't see him," Vogel said. He had been riding now for six hours. He was tired and he had two more hours to ride. He didn't feel like turning in his saddle to look at Kane when he talked to him. He didn't feel like talking about anything to anyone. He kept riding.

Kane and Pajaro were no longer tired. A predator beast had freshened their trail for them.

"Well, he sure was there," Kane said. "Pajaro and I saw him, didn't we, Pajaro?" Pajaro was now again doing the going down of the trail that was expected of him but with more impulse in each chamber of him than before.

A few hours later Kane and Juan Vogel rode into Macarena. They dismounted in front of Antonio Almada's store and were invited to sit with him under the portal that shaded the back of the store. Antonio Almada was schoolmaster, mayor, postmaster, and comisario of Macarena, Chihuahua. His wife brought mezcal and lime halves to chase it with while Almada pumped Kane and Vogel for news of Rio Alamos. Pajaro and Vogel's bay horse were being fed tasol and corn in a courtyard below the porch where the men were resting. .

"The alazanón is one of the largest horses I have ever seen," the schoolmaster said. "A good horse. Bueno, is he fino, a horse of fine blood?"

"He is what we call quarto de milla, a quarter horse," Kane said.

"A boy who came off the trail ahead of you told us that Juan Vogel was on his way here to Macarena accompanied by a giant gringo riding a big sorrel horse that wore horseshoes weighing a kilo apiece."

"As you see, Jim Kane is no giant. He could not be much longer than two meters and the alazán wears shoes that weigh only a pound a piece," Juan Vogel said. Now that he was in off the trail and resting he could smile and be pleasant.

"I would like to mount such a horse one time," the schoolmaster said.

"He is well-educated," Juan Vogel said. "Jim roped calves for us at Gilaremo when we branded. The horse works alone while Jim gets down afoot to handle the calves he has roped."

"I've heard of horses who work that way. The Texans have such horses. Are you a Texan, Senor Kane?"

"No. I am from Arizona but Texans and the vaqueros of Arizona work cattle more or less in the same way."

"I would like someday to mount such a horse," the schoolmaster said again.

Kane did not offer the man his horse. Instead, he sipped the mezcal the man had given him.

"Jim says the horse is a one-man horse. He doesn't work for other men," Juan Vogel said. s

"Ah, well. Justly so. We of Chihuahua say that we never loan our pistol, our woman, or our horse," the schoolmaster said.

"In Sonora they say the same thing," Juan Vogel said.

"We of Arizona believe the same," Kane said.

"What did the big horse do when you saw the lion?" Juan Vogel asked, laughing.

"Not much," Kane said, studying Vogel's face for foolishness. "You don't believe I saw a lion, do you?"

"I don't say you didn't see a lion. I only say I didn't see a lion," Juan Vogel said, keeping a sober face.

"What lion? Where?" the schoolmaster asked.

"Jim and the big horse saw a lion that did not look like a lion on that long descent into the canyon of Los Sauces," Juan Vogel said.

"What do you mean, 'the animal didn't look like a lion'? Was it a lion or wasn't it?"

"It must have been a lion," Jim Kane said. "But it was not like any other lion I have ever seen. It was bigger than an ordinary mountain lion. It was lighter in color and had a much larger head. It moved heavily but was not big-bellied."

"Maybe it was an onza," the schoolmaster said.

"I've heard of the onza but I thought it existed only in legend, " Kane said. `

"The onza is fable to people who do not live in the Sierra. To us of the Sierra the onza is real."

"Well, the man saw him so he was not a legend. just another old lion." Juan Vogel said.

"We call onza the animal who could be the cross between the tigre, or jaguar, and the leon pardo, or puma. He is bigger than the puma. He is yellow-dun in color with a long-haired dark strip down his back. Some say he is a hybrid like a mule and cannot reproduce. I don't know if this is true but I have seen onzas myself," the schoolmaster said.

"When did you see an onza?" Juan Vogel asked skeptically.

"Seven years ago Tino Sierra's vaqueros killed two half-grown onzas and brought them here," the schoolmaster said."Believe me, they were real onzas, Señor Kane. At least they were specimens of the animal we know as the onza in the Sierra. No known specimen of the onza exists anywhere in any museum or zoo in the world. I know this because I investigated in Chihuahua City that year when Tino's vaqueros brought those animals in. I know something else about them . . ."

"And what would that be?" Juan Vogel said.

"The animals Tino's vaqueros brought in had only one gut from their throats to their anuses. They had no stomachs."

"Ah, now you have gone too far, Antonio. You can't expect us to believe animals of such simple digestive systems could survive in the Sierra. They would have no stomach for it," said Vogel, laughing at his own wit.

"And another thing," the schoolmaster said.

"What now?" Vogel said.

"The guts of those young onzas were full of grass."

"Enough. You'll finish me off with your discoveries," Vogel said, laughing as hard as he could to make the schoolmaster stop looking so sober and believable.

"We know the onza thrives in the Sierra, " the schoolmaster said, refusing to smile. "Many of us believe they do very little harm. Maybe they do us no harm because this is the only terrain left to them in which they can survive."

A boy of about fifteen came in carrying a carton of canned beer.

"With your permission, profesór," he said to the schoolmaster, "my father sends this cartoncito to Señor Vogel and the Americano with his compliments?

"What else did Tino Sierra say when he sent you with the beer, Amador?" Juan Vogel asked the boy, laughing and opening three cans of warm beer.

"He said he would send more beer when this carton was finished."

"What else?"

"He said he would continue to send beer and if you got drunk on his beer before you came to our house he was going to find a club and come over here and beat you with it," the boy said, smiling.

Vogel roared, laughing. "Tell Tino Sierra we'll be over when we finish this carton," he said.

The boy left. The schoolmaster, Kane, and Vogel drank the ten cans of beer in the carton. The tall and sturdy wife of the schoolmaster set a table with clean linen and silver and  served them a supper of jerky, potatoes, beans, and flour tortillas.

When they had finished supper and were smoking and Kane was thinking he was ready for his bed, the boy, Amador Sierra, appeared again with another carton of beer.

"With your permission, profesór . . .the boy began.

"¡Ah, cómo chinga ese Tino Sierra!" Juan Vogel said.

"Come on, Jim. We'll do well by going over to visit him now and getting the errand over with, otherwise he will bother us all night."

Tino Sierra was a man sixty years old. He was the man who had matched Kane and Vogel in the arm wrestling in Teresita's restaurant the day Kane had arrived in Rio Alamos in search of the Lion. Tino was an Indian. He owned a store in Macarena. He worked several gold mines and he also bought gold from individual miners in the Sierra. He owned a cattle ranch and he took cattle on trade in his store.

Kane was told by Juan Vogel that no one had ever seen Tino Sierra wear a coat or a pair of shoes. He disdained the tire-soled huarache. Instead, he wore a sole of thin leather on his huarache. He slept on the floor in his store between the counter and the door. He could not sleep on a bed for he knew no boundaries in his sleep and was so bronco he bucked off a bed in the night.

Juan Vogel said that about twice a year Tino Sierra took his gold to Guadalajara to sell. He took two gold bars weighing a kilo a piece in his pockets and walked the hundred miles to San Bernardo where he caught transportation to Rio Alamos and Guadalajara. He covered the one hundred miles from Macarena to San Bernardo afoot in two days, the same time the buses took to carry him the thousand miles to Guadalajara. Juan Vogel said Tino Sierra carried his huaraches in his hip pockets on those hundred-mile walks to San Bernardo so he would not wear them out.

Tino Sierra always got drunk in San Bernardo when he returned from Guardalajara. This drunk that he always celebrated in San Bernardo was the cause of his always going afoot across the Sierra. He was incapable of staying aboard a horse when drunk. He could not ride from Macarena to San Bernardo because he would have no way of returning the horse to Macarena.

Tino Sierra, drunk in San Bernardo with his 25,000 pesos in his pockets from his gold` money and a pack train with provisions bought and paid for, always felt rich enough to wear his huaraches on the trail home to Macarena. He would set out in his huaraches and when he began to sober up would lie down under a sheltering rock to sleep. He would remove his huaraches so he could sleep more comfortably and would always forget them when he resumed the trail, sober, in the morning. He always arrived home in Macarena barefoot again.

Juan Vogel and Jim Kane heard a guitar, an accordion, a violin, and someone singing somewhere up the street. They smelled hot chili and the powdery fluff of flour tortillas. The night freshened the smells of the brush around the town. Stars reflected in the wide, deep Otero River that flowed under the cliff below the town.

The music was coming from Tino Sierra's store. Most of the people of Macarena were there. Kane and Vogel passed through the people on the back patio where the musicians
were playing.

Tino Sierra was dancing solo in the middle of the patio. He was dancing the Mayo Indian venado, the deer dance. His dark, lean face was shiny with grease and sweat. His gray hair was neatly barbered under the straw hat. His white dress shirt was filthy and unbuttoned. He was barefoot. He had lost his huaraches somewhere again. His broad feet looked numb and rubbery as they stamped and scuffed and shuffled on the beaten dusty ground of the patio; as numb as the immobile face, the stiffened arms and torso, and the rigid legs that pounded the feet in time with the music.

Tino Sierra's wife, a plain, thin woman, gave Kane and Vogel seats at the kitchen table by an open oven where she was cooking.

A tiny boy sat at the table eating his supper of red chili meat and tortillas with his fingers. His round black eyes stared at Kane unashamedly as he ate and got chili all over his face. His little legs stuck straight out from the chair under the table, He wiggled his bare toes, ate his chili with his fingers, and stared at Jim Kane. This was Miguel, five-year-old son of Tino Sierra.

Amador, the older son, came up to the table and got permission from Juan Vogel to take Pajaro and the bay horse to the river to water.

"OK!" a voice rasped incongruously through the quiet-voweled Spanish of the voices at the party. "Nevairbecausstheless, OK! Yo boracho spik Eenglis!" Tino Sierra said, planting both hands on Kane's shoulders from behind. Then he laughed and said, "I knew Juan Vogel would come when he found out I was giving my beer away. "

"I wanted to see you drunk again, Tino," Juan Vogel said. "It is so seldom that I see you drunk and barefooted and with your shirt unbuttoned."

Tino walked around the table and stood over Juan Vogel. "Has the gringuito beaten you up lately? Maybe I can pay him to beat you up for me," he said.

"No. He likes me now because I brought him to the Sierra. I gave him the opportunity to see the onza today and to see savages like you at play. Button your shirt if you are going to stand over me like this! It gives me nausea to see your naked navel!"

"Hah! Because you wear an undershirt all the time and underpants, you believe me to be a savage because I don't wear them. This for your undershirt!" Tino said, and grabbed Juan Vogel's undershirt where it showed inside his shirt collar and ripped it out. The snaps of Juan Vogel's Western shirt unsnapped and Tino tore the whole undershirt out without harming the outer shirt. He waved the undershirt over his head.

"I present to you, my invited guests, half of Juan Vogel's interior clothing. I will produce the lower half next," he shouted bloodthirstily.

"Come on then and get it over with. " Juan Vogel laughed.

"Not now. Later, when you are not prepared for it," Tino said. "Now we must have respect for the feast day of my comadre, Isabelita." He left them for a few moments and came back with a comely young girl whom he presented to Kane. "Jim Kane, this is my comadre, Isabelita. You may dance with her but do not take her out of the house. That honor and privilege I reserve for myself, " Tino said.

Kane danced with the girl and other girls Tino Sierra presented to him. The fiesta gained momentum. The mezcal and beer took hold of the guests. Just when it seemed to Kane that the musicians were making their best music and warming to it with the spirits, the fathers of the town crossed the patio and took their daughters arms and escorted them home. Tino was insisting on accompanying his comadre Isabel when her father arrived and took her away from him. The hour was early but the dancing had ended. .

Tino Sierra was drunk as were all the men who remained at his house. The musicians were drunk and continued to play and sing. They charged fifty centavos for a song. They did not rest. They patted their huaraches on the ground keeping time. The bones in their naked toes rose and settled in the dust in pace with their music.

Juan Vogel had been in the store. He came back to the table where Tino Sierra now slumped. Two men were with Juan Vogel. Vogel carried a pair of new boots. He turned Tino's chair around so that Tino's legs were out from under the table. Tino only vaguely noticed this. Juan Vogel picked up one of the legs and placed the sole of one of the new boots against the bare sole of Tino's foot, measuring it. Tino began to regain consciousness.

"These will fit. Hold him now," Juan Vogel said to the two men. One man, smiling self-consciously, held Tino's arms and shoulders against the back of the chair. Another man sat on his lap. Juan Vogel straddled a leg and began working one of the boots onto Tino's stubby foot. Tino came to. He bucked. He kicked at Vogel with both feet but the weight of the men held him down. He howled when he realized the fullness of the atrocity being done to him. He shouted obscenities at Juan Vogel. .

"Quiet! Sssst! Tino! Don't be a bad talker," his wife admonished him. She was drying her dishes. Little Miguel watched from his chair by the fire, smiling and wiggling his toes with happiness.

When Tino saw that all his protestations and threats did not influence Vogel, he sulled. His leg became so limber that the man on his lap had to hold the leg so that Vogel could push the other boot on. When both boots were on the limp feet the three men turned Tino Sierra loose.

He sat in his chair seeing no one. He refused to look at the booted feet. He ignored the feet as though he had disowned them and they were no longer part of him.

"Come on now, Tino," Juan Vogel said. "Get up and walk. See how reasonable people get about in this epoch."

"¡Viva México!" Tino Sierra shouted as though he, a patriot, had just been stood against the big wall for his turn before the firing squad.

"Try to walk, Tino. The boots are from your own shelves. They won't kill you," Juan Vogel coaxed.

"¡Viva México! ¡Viva Benito Juarez!" And bad act the mothers of all the French tyrants!" Tino Sierra shouted with brave style into the face of his persecutor.

"Come now, Tino. The revolution has enabled all men, even Indians like you, to throw away their huaraches and wear leather boots." Juan Vogel said.

"And bad act the mothers of all mercenaries! German!" Tino Sierra shouted at Juan Vogel.

Juan Vogel stopped laughing. He lifted Tino Sierra off his chair and tried to stand him up in the boots. The boot soles would not touch the floor. Their outer edges dragged. Tino sagged. His arms slid through Vogel's hands, his limp hands met over his head, his rear end bumped the floor. Vogel motioned to his two deputies and the three men lifted Tino again. Vogel held him from behind by the waist of his pants and tried to make the boots meet the floor properly as the two men carried Tino along. The toes of the boots pigeon-toed and dragged across the floor refusing to step, but making twin toe trails across the dust of the patio where Tino had so recently danced so manfully the fine cultural dance of the Mayos.

They left Tino Sierra sitting on his crumpled legs in the center of the patio. He had triumphed. He had not taken one step in the new boots. Juan Vogel went into the store and filled a liter bottle with mezcal from a barrel and gave it to his deputies. Then Kane and Vogel went back to the schoolmaster's house and went to bed.

The two deputies built a fire for the night on the edge of the river under the cliff below Macarena. They sat by the fire with their blankets over their shoulders, the bottle of mezcal between them.

"That Juanito Vogel thinks of imaginative jokes to play," one of the deputies offered sadly.

"Yes. He and Tino Sierra are always joking with each other;" the other deputy said. "Very funny. All very funny, ha, ha." He tried to laugh. He could not be altogether happy because he wanted to start drinking from the liter of mezcal and he could see his companion wasn't in the mood to drink yet. His companion wanted conversation first.

"Yes, it was all very funny, but Tino irrigated everyone with curses," the first deputy said.

"I don't believe he meant our mothers," the second deputy said. "He wouldn't have meant to curse our mothers. It was Vogel he was angry with."

"Vogel and the French. Is Vogel a foreigner? I never thought he was."

"Vogel is German. His father was German."

"Still, his father was born in the Sierra and his mother is Mexican. She was raised in the Sierra. In Chinipas."

"Yes, his mother is Mexican."

For a moment they silently thought over this last truth they had unearthed.

"It all leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I am sorry I helped Juanito Vogel," the first deputy finally decided.

"Compadre, have some of Tino's wine to clean your mouth," the second deputy said, keeping his eyes on the mezcal.

The first deputy reached for the bottle. A heavily whirring, swishing object hit the fire beside the two men and sprayed them with flame and sparks. A second whirr, a second swish, and sparks exploded inside the head of the first deputy just as he looked up into the clear night to see where the first missile had come from.

"And bad act all the mothers of all the traitors to the revolution and Benito Juarez and Tino Sierra!" a powerful voice shouted from the cliff of Macarena above the deputies, heads.

The second deputy looked down and saw that the new boots lay on the sand near them. They had been slashed by a knife in the freeing of the toes of Tino Sierra.

"See? He hasn't forgotten, compadre," the second deputy said. "I told you. Nor will he forget. Did the boot hit you?"

"Sí."

"What a vicious man! Where did it hit you?"

"Exactly on my calabaza, my gourd."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm better now, " the first deputy said, picking up one of the boots. "I'll wager the new boots are beyond repair."

"¡Lastima! It was not the fault of the boots," the second deputy said. "Do you think you could swallow a little drink now.

"Yes. I think so now," the injured deputy said.

25
The Eagle

Kane traded for the Macarena cattle the morning after Tino Sierra's party. He would receive the cattle and pay for them in Chinipas. He and Juan Vogel rode across the mountains as far as Tetamoa that evening.

Tetamoa was a camp on the ranch of Don Marcos Aguilera. Don Marcos had sent word to Kane and Vogel that he had fifteen head of young bulls for them. The camp was at the base of a mountain on the Chihuahua-Sonora Divide. They arrived at Tetamoa at dark. Vogel did not want to go up the long climb over a trail of sheer rock to Don Marcos' headquarters at the top of the mountain in the dark. The two men unsaddled their horses, fed them, ate supper with Don Marcos' goat herd, and bedded down at Tetamoa for the night.

Late in the night when he had long been asleep a drunken voice calling Vogel awakened Kane.

"Get up, Juanito. Get up," the voice demanded.

"Get up, Juanito," another voice said in a copy of the first voice's tone.

"What is it?" Juan Vogel answered from deep in his blankets.

"You must get up and come with us to La Haciendita. My patron is waiting for you to come and see his cattle. He is impatient?

"Our patron is impatient, " the second voice demanded.

"Where do you come from so late at night, Beto?" Juan Vogel asked.

"From Macarena and Tino Sierra's wine barrel," the voice called Beto answered.

"We are drunk," the second voice said. "You want a trago, Juanito?"

"Find a place to sleep and we'll go up together in the morning," Juan Vogel said.

"No. Now. Right now. At this very moment we are going up," Beto said.

"Ahorita, no mañana," Beto's echo bragged.

"In the morning," Juan Vogel said.

"What's wrong? Are you afraid? I know you have ridden this trail in the dark many times before. Will your companion fall off the big, fat sorrel? Are you afraid for your companion?"

Beto's voice taunted.

"Go to bed. We'll go up in the morning," Juan Vogel said.

'`No. I'm going to La Haciendita to my patron who needs me. I am a horseman. I'm riding a good horse, not a pig's slop," Beto said.

"Tomorrow we'll be waiting for you at La Haciendita. We'll wake up in the morning in La Haciendita ready to help our patrón," Beto's companion boasted.

"Go on then and stop bothering me," Juan Vogel said.

The two horsemen screamed the Mexican grito which is part song; part triumphant exultation in an ability to survive the here and now; part challenge to man, beast, and natural barriers; and part weak mewing for their humble state on God's earth. Kane heard them spurring their horses up the mountain; heard the horses sliding and recovering under the spurs; and heard rocks rolling long after the sounds of the horsemen had gone on.

Kane and Vogel were three hours riding to the top of the Divide in the morning. They could see hundreds of miles in the two states from the top. The top was called "El Durazno" because of a grove of peach trees English miners had planted there. The puncture that had been the mine of the Englishmen on the side of a canyon below the summit was healing now. The beams in the entrance had fallen. Cattle were using the entrance for shelter. They were using the rusty mill to rub themselves on and the open yard of the mill for an hechadero, bed ground.

Around the crest of the mountain on the Sonora side they came to the buildings of La Haciendita perched thousands of feet above the Arroyo de los Mezcales like an aerie.

Don Marcos Aguilera came across the terraced patio of his front yard to meet them. The patio had been leveled against the precipice so that horsemen would have a place to dismount.

Don Marcos was a heavy man. His long, hook-roweled spurs dragged the ground behind his scuffed boots. He wore a bandanna across his brow. His straight-brimmed hat was tied by a string behind his head. He had the eye and the nose of an eagle. He didn't look at Kane and Vogel as though they were his prey. He was happy to see them, if that is possible for an eagle. He smiled through his short, thick, white beard.

"Get down and come over to the coffee. I built a fire under it when I heard you riding over Durazno," he said. Kane and Vogel dismounted, tied their horses, and loosened their cinches. Don Marcos swung two chairs around and set them down for Kane and Vogel. He brought three cups of the syrupy black coffee.

"I hope you like my ‘coffee," he said to Kane. "I have no woman to make the coffee here at La Haciendita. This is the coffee I made early before I rode this morning. I just returned and haven't had time to make fresh coffee."

"Where did you ride this morning?" Vogel asked him. "I went below to Mezcales looking for the rest of the bulls I promised you."

"How many have you gathered, Don Marcos?" Juan Vogel asked.

"I gathered fifteen head of the good toretes. I didn't have anyone to help me. The boys left me three days ago for the fiesta of Tino Sierra in Macarena and returned only last night. Look at them and you will imagine the condition in which they arrived." Don Marcos pointed to the ground by one of the houses. Two forms lay between a lime and a banana tree in the shade, their heads resting on their arms.

"Tino Sierra's fiesta ended yesterday morning," Juan Vogel said.

"Ah, the boys had reason to stay away so long," Don Marcos said. "But now I have only fifteen head for you. All the cattle had been running in this canyon below us, but I found nothing this morning. Most of the cattle have relocated toward Agua Zarca, the old watering place in the canyon north of here. All tracks go that way. I'll be unable to deliver the cattle I promised."

"How many cattle in all did you hope to deliver, Don Marcos?" Jim Kane asked.

"Forty or fifty head," the old man answered.

"I only expected you to have fifteen head anyway. It is lucky that you only gathered that many," Kane said.

"A misunderstanding," Don Marcos said. "Juanito Vogel told me you would receive all the two-year-old bulls with good ' horns I had." .

"I didn't know you had so many," Juan Vogel said. "You remember? I only got fifteen from you last year."

"Yes, Juanito, but I had sold last year before you took the fifteen. I haven't sold any cattle yet this year. You will take the fifteen head if you like them, will you not?"

"Of course," Jim Kane said.

"Let's go see the fifteen head," Juan Vogel said. "Jim and I must go on to Chinipas today. He will begin to receive all the cattle he has bought in the Sierra in Chinipas tomorrow.

The cattle were in a rock corral in the canyon below La Haciendita. A stream seeped into a rock-and-mortar trough in the corral. The cattle had been well cared for during their confinement. They were full. The corral was matted with cornstalks under their feet. Plenty of feed was still before them and they looked gorged as they chewed their cuds, lumbered about, or lay grunting on their stomachs. These were the first cattle Kane had seen in the Sierra Madre that were able to lumber.

They were at least a hundred pounds heavier than any he had traded for. Their horns were long and symmetrical and shone as though buffed and polished. These cattle were worth more money than the best cattle Kane had bought in the Sierra. He was sure Don Marcos would ask at least $60 a head for them, if not more, and they were worth it. The trouble was going to be that Kane wasn't authorized by March and Garrett . to pay more than $40 per head for the cattle.

"How much money do you want for your cattle, Don Marcos?" Kane ventured.

"How much are they worth?" Don Marcos asked. "They are only corrientes. Juanito said you wanted corriente, and corriente is all I have."

"Don Marcos, these are very good toretes," Kane said. "That I know. They are good as far as corriente can be good.

"To tell the truth, I don't know if I can pay you what they are worth."

"I don't believe you are that poor a man," Don Marcos said, narrowing the eagle eye, an eye that saw eight times more than the normal human eye, an eye that now was reappraising Kane.

Kane would have liked to draw Mr. Juan Vogel aside at that moment to ask him how generous he, Juan Vogel, had been with Terry Garrett's money, but being under the fierce eye of an eagle made such a move impossible.

"Don Marcos, let me ask you one question," Kane said.

"Speak," Don Marcos said quietly.

"How much money did Juan Vogel say I would give?"

"Juanito Vogel didn't speak for you. He said he would give four hundred seventy-five pesos per head. How much is that, Senor Kane?"

"That is thirty-eight dollars American. Not enough money for these cattle."

"No, no, no. Don't try to spoil the serrano, Senor Kane. I buy cattle in the Sierra too. If you have paid more money for this class of cattle you have paid too much. You will spoil us with your American money. "

`Tll give you five hundred pesos, forty dollars, for the cattle delivered in Chinipas," Jim Kane said.

"I told Juan Vogel I would deliver in Chinipas for four hundred seventy-five and I will do so. I want no more money and no less."

"I'll give the five hundred pesos to Juan Vogel then," Kane said.

"You will do right if you do so," Don Marcos said. "This is the generous way. "

"Not generous enough, but as generous as I am authorized to be," Kane said.

"We should all do the best we are able to do in these operations," Don Marcos said.

The three men rode back up to La Haciendita. Kane and Vogel stayed aboard their horses. They would have to ride on in order to get to Chinipas before dark. Don Marcos quickly wrapped a lunch of jerky and cheese in a clean flour sack and put it into the morral on Vogel's saddlehorn. He added a pint bottle of lechuguilla, "For when your horse tires," he said. The two men reined their horses to leave.

"How many days before you start your drive from Chinipas?" Don Marcos asked Kane.

"We should start in a week," Kane said.

"This will give me a few days to look for more cattle before I drive to Chinipas," Don Marcos said.

"Don Marcos, I am committed to receive about one hundred head from Ezequiel Graf in Chinipas. This hundred head plus fifty head that will arrive from Arce's ranch, fifty head from Macarena, thirty-five from Vogel's ranch, and your fifteen will make two hundred and fifty head. I've been authorized only enough money for two hundred and fifty. I won't have enough money to pay for more." ;

"I'll look in Agua Zarca canyon," Don Marcos said. "I may I find more cattle there."

''Don Marcos, if Graf has a hundred head I won't be able to pay for any more cattle from you."

"I'll bring them anyway. I'm sure you'll find a way to pay for them, tarde o temprano, sooner or later," Don Marcos said and walked away, relinquishing Kane and Vogel to the trail.

26
Chinipas

"Adiós," Juan Vogel would say to the women as he and Kane rode down the street in Chinipas in the late afternoon.

"Adiós," the women would say and turn back into their homes.

Cattle were raising dust in a corral down the main street from the town plaza. A crowd of men and boys in the street by the corral moved toward Kane and Vogel when they dismounted in front of the store of Ezsequiel Graf.

Ezequiel was behind his counter when Kane and Vogel walked into the store. He was a young man with tight, curly hair. He talked fast and moved fast. He had an unusually long stride for a medium-sized man, the stride of a man used to walking in the mountains. He strode from one end of the counter to the other, tending to his customers as he carried on his business talk with Kane and Vogel. Men of the town came in to make small purchases so they could listen to the talk about the cattle Kane was buying.

Ezequiel would serve a man a pack of cigarettes or a peso's worth of panocha in a whirlwind of unwasted motion and then stand before him looking him in the eye like a good retriever and ask, "¿Qué más, what more?" The customer, loath to see the Graf machine stop, would ask for a box of matches. The matches would appear almost instantly on the counter before him. "¿Qué más?" Graf would ask again. Unless the customer was exceedingly strong of character he would be compelled to ask for another small article and this rhythmic working of the machinery would continue until a small gear would engage a slot in Graf 's memory of the customers line of credit and he would not ask "¿Qué más?" again but would bring out a ledger and enter the new purchase and thus dismiss the man. The customer's time would be up in the store and he would feel compelled to leave. He would say "Until later" to Vogel and step outside and wait nearby to watch for another chance to speak to Vogel. `

Graf said he had one hundred and ten head of bulls in the corral but he was not sure Kane would want them all. He said another man had eighteen head for sale but he had not brought them to Graf. Kane might be able to come to terms with this other man and use the eighteen head to replace any cattle he did not want among those in the corral. Graf said he would take Kane to see the eighteen head as soon as he could get away from the store.

Kane went next door to a telegraph office and wired Terry Garrett in El Paso telling him to send $10,000 in cash in Mexican pesos by airplane to Chinipas. When Graf was ready to go, Kane mounted Pajaro and waited in the street. Men and boys loitered there watching Kane and admiring his horse and gear. Graf came down the narrow alley from behind his store riding a brown mare mule. The mule skimmed over the cobblestones in a running walk. Graf rode a well-made vaquero saddle with new armas. His hat, a stiff, plastic, imitation straw, perched high on top of his head above his long forehead.

The street became a trail at the edge of town. The two men rode along an old, narrow-gauge railroad. They passed a large mill in good repair. The mill had served the Palmarejo mine, a rich mine that had been run by a British firm. They crossed the Otero River, shallow that time of the year, and came to a small green pasture on the edge of the river. A short, swarthy Indian wearing a high-crowned palm hat was waiting for them at the pasture gate.

"You are very late," the man said petulantly. "I was about to release the cattle."

"Here is the man, the buyer," Graf said, not bothering to explain his tardiness.

"How much for my cattle?" the swarthy man, whose name was Felizardo Trigueno, said.

"How do I know? I haven't seen them yet," Kane said.

The man took a long look at Kane. He was dissatisfied with Kane.

"They are in the pasture. You would have to ride through the pasture," Felizardo said.

"That is what we are here for, to ride across the pasture and see the cattle," Kane said.

Felizardo the Swarthy still did not budge from the gate. '"The cattle are loose in the pasture. They are not together," he said.

"We aren't afoot," Kane said. "We'll ride around the pasture and look at them."

"But I am afoot," Felizardo said.

"You don't need to accompany us, Felizardo, " Graf said. "I can show Señor Kane the cattle. I know which ones you wish to sell."

"He doesn't need to see the cattle. They are all good cattle. I'll tell him what they are worth and he will see the cattle when I bring them to Chinipas and he pays me for
them."

"If you thought I didn't need to see the cattle why did you wait here for us?" Kane asked impatiently. The trail had been long that day and he was short-tempered. "I didn't ride over here on a tired horse to buy cattle I couldn't see or to talk nonsense with you when I could have stayed in Chinipas having a drink and feeding and resting my horse. I'll have to see the cattle if I am to buy them and that is my last, bad-acting word."

Felizardo untied the rawhide on the gate and slid the poles out of the holes on one side and let the ends down on the ground. Graf and Kane stepped their horses over the poles and entered the pasture.

"Wait until I close the gate and I will accompany you as best I can," Felizardo said. He closed and tied the gate and followed them. He kept pace with them very well in his huaraches. Kane thought he could probably outwalk Pajaro on a day the horse was fresh. They walked over a rise. The cattle were grazing in an open meadow that had been out of sight of the gate."

"Are these the cattle?" Kane asked Graf.

"Yes," Graf said. He turned to Felizardo. "I thought you said the cattle were not together?" he said.

"Of course they are together," Felizardo said.

Kane counted the bulls. "Are these eighteen the cattle you have for sale?" he asked Felizardo.

"You see eighteen toretes, don't you? Do you see more? Do you see less?"

"Señor, I have never been here before in my life," Kane said. "I don't know how large this pasture is or how many cattle you might be running in it besides these. Kindly tell me how many cattle you have for sale."

"Don"t you see? Eighteen head. Look at them. You came to look, did you not? Look at them and satisfy yourself."

Kane rode around the cattle. Three head were line bulls like those of Don Marcos Aguilera. Twelve head were cattle in thin condition, but strong enough for Kane's purposes and they had good horns. Three head would not work for Kane in any way. One of these was a short yearling with little, spike horns. One was a good-horned, red, four-year-old, but he was thin, dead-haired, and hollow-eyed. One was cow-horned and bob-tailed. Kane rode back to Graf and Felizardo the Swarthy.

"I'll buy fifteen head of them if your price is right," he said to Felizardo.

"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.

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, Señor 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. "

Kane thanked the judge and excused himself. When he got outside he sighed with relief He realized gratefully that the judge had saved him a lot of money.

"Just a minute, Ezequiel," Kane heard the judge say. "Stay here with me a moment. I have something to ask you."

Kane left them to their conversation and went back to the store. Santiago Brennan and Juan Vogel were having a discussion over a bottle of lechuguilla. Kane took a glass with them to celebrate the fairness and wisdom of the judge. Ezequiel came in then with sympathetic looks for Kane.

"The judge asked me to tell you about the water fund," Ezequiel said.

"Ah, yes. The water fund," Juan Vogel said.

"And what is the water fund?" Kane asked.

"The judge is in charge of collecting for the water fund. He levies a tax of five pesos per head on all the cattle that pass through Chinipas for the water they drink. This money is applied to a fund that is being accumulated for the purchase of a new water system," Ezequiel said. He looked for a while at Kane. "The judge asked me to remind you to come over to his office and make your contribution before you leave Chinipas with your cattle."

"How many years has the water fund been in existence?" Juan Vogel asked.

"About five years, more or less," Ezequiel said.

"When do you think they will have enough money in the fund for a water system?"

"Probably never, " Ezequiel said.

"Right. Never," Juan Vogel said. "Because there is no water fund. I myself have given enough money in the past five years to pay for the water system five times."

"Maybe he wants a very, very good water system," Ezequiel said, trying to joke.

"Who cares?" Kane said. "My cattle are drinking and grazing on the river. It is of no importance to me where the water money goes. The old man is entitled to the money anyway. for performing the beautiful quite, capework, on Felizardo."

"You are right, Jim. You are learning. Always we must remember to grease the machine. It doesn't run well without grease," Juan Vogel said.

Salvador Arce came into the store. "Senor Kane, we are going to put on a dance this evening. You and Senor Brennan are invited," he said.

"What is the occasion?" Kane asked.

"All the vaqueros and cattlemen from the cattle drives are here. All of them have relatives here and we feel a celebration and dance is warranted," Salvador Arce explained.

"Salvador needs no occasion for dancing," Vogel said. "He is a serrano bronco. When he is in town he dances. He should want especially to celebrate today. He sold you his fine cattle and so contributed to the salvation of a gringo. He is Salvador, our savior."

Salvador smiled and shook his head at Juan Vogel. "¡Ah qué Juanito!" he said. "Let's warm ourselves for the dance." He produced another bottle of lechuguilla.

"To the Chinipas water system!" Kane toasted, raising his glass.

"May it always be at our disposal!" Juan Vogel said.

The dance was held in the large, closed patio of the old-fashioned municipal building. The girls of Chinipas came down the streets to the dance in groups of three and four. All of the girls were well-dressed, well-scrubbed, well-shod, and pretty. The young men dressed up in clean dark trousers and white shirts. Most of the young men wore huaraches, but a few wore black dress shoes. Kane washed and shaved and got out the clean shirt he had rolled in his blanket. The shirt was wrinkled but it still smelled good. He walked over to the dance with Vogel and Brennan and Graf when they heard the music begin. Arce was at the door welcoming everyone.

The music was provided by a phonograph on electricity from the Chinipas town generator. Loudspeakers were set up on two corner pillars of the patio.

The girls Kane and Vogel and Brennan asked to dance did not seem to mind them. The men of Chinipas presented their daughters and nieces and granddaughters to Kane and Brennan for the dancing. Arce and Graf provided them with lechuguilla to keep them from feeling any chill in the evening.

During the dance Kane caught Felizardo the Swarthy giving him dirty looks. Felizardo was talking to himself and also glowering at Santiago Brennan who was dancing for the second time with the same girl. Kane and Juan Vogel laughed at Felizardo talking to himself and he saw them laughing at him. When Santiago returned to the table Felizardo strutted over to address Brennan.

"You should not believe, because you are a gringo and a guest in this town, that you are free to take your liberties with our women," he said, refocusing his eyes on Brennan because he was too close and the drunken focusing he had done on Brennan from the other side of the room was no longer adequate. '

"I am not a gringo, my friend. I am Santiago Brennan from Chihuahua, a Mexican, and your servant," Santiago said, standing up and taking Felizardo's hand in his much larger hand. Felizardo, refocusing up at Santiago's face, smiled at him when he got the face in sight.

"Well, maybe not a gringo, a pocho," Felizardo said. Pocho is the name applied by the Mexican national to the one of Mexican blood who has been born a United States citizen or has renounced his Mexican citizenship for United States citizenship. The word implies a cowardly running away to a softer life and also implies that the pocho is a traitor to his blood.

"My friend, I am not a pocho. My father is Mexican and my mother is Mexican and they taught me manners. I don't take liberties with decent women."

"So you are saying our girls in Chinipas are not decent?" said Felizardo, taking a step backward.

"No, you are. You said I took liberties with the women here," said Santiago, stepping back and squaring off like a golfer about to tee off.

"Ah, well," Felizardo smiled. "There is no problem, is there? I made a logical mistake. I thought only a pocho would be associating himself with a night-crawling lombriz, worm, like your gringo companion?

"Don't be mistaken about the fact that I will knock your mouth completely off your face if you don't get out of my sight," Santiago said.

"I don't know how to fight with my hands," Felizardo said loftily and turned on his huaraches and left the dance.

Later, Juan Vogel in his cups was dancing the guajolote in the middle of the patio with a pretty girl. He looked like a big turkey gobbler strutting and tramping around the gracefully dancing girl. He pressed his chin on his puffed chest. He clasped his hands behind his back and crooked elbows and shoulders forward. He shoved his hat to the back of his head and danced. Kane watched and thought he would rather be there watching Vogel than be anywhere else doing anything else in the world at that moment.

Strange as the effects of the lechuguilla had been on Kane, he was clear-headed for his work the next day. He spent the morning in the store hiring his crew of vaqueros for the drive; advancing money for them to leave with their families; buying their provisions for the trail; and hiring pack mules for their beds and provision.

About noon the sounds of a disorder aroused the town. Everyone in Graf's store went outside to see what was happening. Beto, the vaquero of Don Marcos Aguilera, was riding a bucking mule across the plaza. The mule bucked around a little bandstand that stood in the center and up to the steps of the church. Beto, hatless, his shirttail out, his wild, dirty hair matted, gave as much as he took from the black mule. He spurred the mule with the big hooks on his huaraches with every jump the mule made. The mule balked on the steps of the church. Beto drove the spurs as though to gut the mule and the mule bucked up more steps toward the entrance of the church. Beto was about to Christianize a mule. He got the mule to the top of the steps and tried for the dark entrance, but two townsmen turned the mule back from the door of the church. Beto spurred the mule back through the plaza. The mule trotted along bowing his neck against the hackamore rein.

A herd of cattle entered the plaza. Kane saw Don Marcos behind the herd. Beto's mule crowded against the mare Don Marcos was riding, crushing Beto's leg against, Don Marcos, saddle. The cattle passed in front of the store and walked slowly down the street. Kane counted 36 head. Some of the cattle had time to stop and browse on young green trees that had been planted in the plaza. Don Marcos turned his mare away from the herd and rode over to the front of the store and dismounted. Beto's mule tried to follow the mare, but Beto straightened him and went on with the other vaqueros driving the cattle down the street. Beto kept his eyes straight ahead. He was proud everyone had seen him ride and manhandle the mule.

Don Marcos shook hands with everyone in front of the store and walked in, asking for coffee. "I didn't have my coffee this morning," he said. "That Beto was carrying the coffee and I the black mule lost it when he bucked off down a barranca this side of Tetamoa yesterday. We never found the coffee or the pot."

"That is a fine mule, Don Marcos," Salvador Arce said.

"He must be tough to be still giving Beto trouble after a drive from La Haciendita to Chinipas."

"The mule is tough but the Beto is tougher," Don Marcos said. "He won't leave the mule alone. When the mule bucked into the barranca Beto lost his hat and he didn't let up from his spurring of the mule long enough to recover it. The mule would settle down if Beto would let him. Beto has too much milk for his own or the mule's good."

Kane was counting his cattle to himself the Arce cattle, 50; the Macarena cattle, 50; the Chinipas cattle, 94; the Vogel cattle, 35; and now the Aguilera cattle, 36; That made 265 head. Kane had 15 head of cattle more than he could pay for. The cost of 250 would average $36 a head. He had saved an average of $4 per head under the $40 he had asked Garrett for, but that $4 was less than he needed for expenses. He only had $800 left after advancing money to the vaqueros and buying provisions. He was going to have to pay railroad freight from Creel to Chihuahua. He didn't know how many more expenses he would have before he got the cattle to Chihuahua. How was he going to pay Don Marcos for 15 head? As he sat there and listened to the men talking about wild mules and wilder vaqueros his face got hot and a hot sweat of embarrassment came out on his brow and under his collar.

He got hold of Santiago Brennan's elbow and led him outside.

"Can you fly back to Chihuahua and get more money, Santiago?" Kane asked him. I

"Yes, I could. How much do you need?"

"At least a thousand."

"Pesos or dollars?" Santiago asked, laughing. .

"Dollars." `

"Where would I get it?"

"From Garrett, like you did the money you brought yesterday?

"Garrett only authorized his bank to pay the ten thousand dollars I brought yesterday. His bank wouldn't pay another draft from me."

"Can't you call Garrett from Chihuahua and get him to authorize payment on another draft?"

"You are not in luck, Jim Kane."

"Why not?"

"Mr. Terry Garrett and Mr. Ira March are gone with their girl friends in their airplane on an extended trip. They are going to Houston, San Antonio, and New Orleans, among other places, and they are going to finish the trip by attending the Indianapolis five-hundred-mile race. No telling where they are now. No way we can get ahold of them."

"God Almighty!" Kane said. "Off to see the races? The races? By God, they ought to be worried about this bunch of cattle. I ought to pay everyone off and turn the cattle loose on the river until the little masters get back from their party."

"Why don't you?"

"No, as the Mexican says, it's not the fault of the cattle. The cattle ought to have a chance to make money for someone. Even if it is only for me. The best thing I could do would be to go to Rio Alamos with the cattle. The drive is only five days to Rio Alamos and I won't need money there. I could stay there until Garrett got back from his trip with some money?

"He said for me to tell you to take the cattle to Chihuahua. He said he made sure the whole state of Chihuahua is clean. The cattle won't have to be quarantined and will be able to cross the border after a few days' rest. You aren't going to like another bit of news Garrett said to pass on to you."

"What other bad news?"

"Garrett said for you not to draft on him for any more money for cattle. He said to tell you he was out of money and that you had your quota for this bunch of cattle."

"Well, if he wants them in Chihuahua to Chihuahua they will go. At least they will go as far as I have money to take them," Kane said. He went back into the store and sat down with Don Marcos.

"Don Marcos, I am embarrassed to tell you I only have enough money to pay you for twenty-one of the thirty-six cattle you brought," Kane said in front of Arce, Vogel, Graf, and Brennan and got it over with. `

"So what is your greatest problem, young man?" Don Marcos asked calmly.

"It means I can't pay you for all your cattle. I barely have enough money left now to take the cattle on to Chihuahua. My problem is that I'm going to back down from receiving fifteen head of your cattle. If you want, I'll pay the expenses of your drive from La Haciendita and back and you can take all the cattle back."

"You bargained for fifteen head of my cattle, did you not?"

"Yes," Kane said. "But I should have made it clearer to you that I didn't want any more cattle."

"You made it clear enough. I also told you that I was confident you would pay me sooner or later, did I not?"

"Yes."

"Do you like the cattle?"

"Yes," Kane said. "They are the best I've seen in the Sierra."

"Then pay me for the cattle that you are able to pay for and take the rest fiado, on my good faith and confidence. You can pay me when your patron gets the cattle. D you think they are the kind of cattle your patron will like?"

"He had better like them," Kane said. Juan Vogel, Salvador Arce, Ezequiel Graf, and Santiago Brennan all laughed, looking at Kane, when he said this. They did not turn away from him to laugh.

"Then the cattle themselves will assure me of the money. Take them," Don Marcos said.

27
Creel

The smoke of hundreds of forest fires palled the Sierra Madre on the flight Kane and Vogel made with Santiago Brennan to Creel the next day. The fires were small. The weather was dry and windy but Vogel told Kane that the country was so steep and broken that canyons and gorges and rocky bluffs contained the fires in small areas until they burned themselves out.

Creel, on its high, open, rocky plain on the eastern slope of the Sierra, was windy. A headwind buffeted the four-passenger plane while Brennan piloted it in the approach over the sawmill of the town, then close above the town, to the landing strip. The headwind changed just as Brennan leveled the plane on the edge of the strip. The wheels met the gravel of the strip sooner and faster than Kane and Vogel would have liked. The mountains seemed very quiet and still to Kane when he got out of the plane with his feet on the ground.

The strip was about three miles from town and Santiago was in a hurry to get back off the ground before the winds got worse so Kane started walking alone toward town. He walked a half hour before a truck loaded with lime stopped and gave him a ride.

Creel was dry with a high-altitude, choking, windy chilliness. Its streets were potholed and eroded by winter and heavy lumber trucks. Its buildings were small, low, featureless, and flimsy. Kane would have bet the natives didn't sing and dance much in Creel. He watched a tall, thin Tarahumara Indian in white breachclout on long-thighed, undernourished, bare legs wipe his runny nose as he walked around the corner of a building in the windy brightness of the town.

Kane got off the truck at the main store and went inside. A tall blond storekeeper wearing a good Stetson hat and a holstered automatic on a clip inside his belt was behind the counter.

Kane asked him if he knew of any trucks Kane could hire to haul cattle. The man took Kane down the street and introduced him to Elfigo Batista. Batista was a curly-headed, bright-faced, polite young man. He was energetic in every movement and expression.

"I have two hundred and sixty-five cattle coming this way from Chinipas," Kane told him. "In two weeks they will be as far as Cuiteco. The vaqueros tell me the road is passable for trucks from Cuiteco to Creel. I need trucks to meet the cattle and haul them back here from Cuiteco."

"I have fifteen trucks with stock racks. What kind of cattle are they?" Elfigo Batista asked.

"Two-year-old corrientes," Kane said. "Fifteen trucks will be enough. How is the road between here and Creel?"

"The road is good. The people who are building the railroad across the Sierra have been using it to haul their material and workers. The only bad feature of the road for the hauling of cattle will be its cuestas, its steep grades."

"How far is it from Creel to Cuiteco?"

"One whole day's drive to Cuiteco and one day and one night back up to Creel loaded with cattle."

"I'll meet you in Cuiteco in about two weeks," Kane said.

"How will I know when your cattle will be in Cuiteco," Elfigo Batista asked.

"I'll send you the airplane or wire you when I leave Chinipas," Kane said. "In the meantime I'll give you a deposit to reserve the trucks. How much are you going to charge me?"

"Seven thousand five hundred pesos. Five hundred pesos per truck, " Batista said without batting an eye.

Kane gave him 750 pesos in cash and got a receipt while the pistol-carrying storekeeper watched, calculating the value of the bills in Kane's roll.

"Why are you bringing cattle all the way across those mountains from Chinipas when you could buy better cattle and all the corriente you want right here?" Pistol asked Kane.

"How much does a two-year-old corriente with good horns cost in Creel?" Kane asked Pistol.

"You mean a rodeo?"

"A good-horned corriente."

"You mean a rodeo. I have sold cattle here before for American rodeo so I think I know what you want these corrientes for. Cattle precisely good for rodeo are hard to find. Not all cattle are good for rodeo."

"How much are they worth here?" Kane asked again. "Nine hundred to one thousand pesos for rodeos," Pistol answered.

"That is why I'm bringing mine all the way from Chinipas. If they cost one thousand pesos here, they cost double what the Chinipas cattle will cost laid in here."

"Who do you think you are trying to fool? I know what they cost. Haven't I been selling rodeos here for ten years? No one can lay rodeos in to Creel for five hundred pesos. If you think you can do it I'll pay you seven hundred fifty pesos a head for every rodeo you bring to Creel."

"I'll keep your offer in mind," Kane said.

"When you get here with the cattle you bring all the facturas and guías with you so that I can give you a new inspection and dip the cattle in my vat before they go on. If you don't have all the legal papers on the cattle I will not allow them to go on to Chihuahua from here. We do everything in the strictest legal manner here," Pistol said.

"Sure. I didn't expect you would do it in any other manner," Kane said. "Thank you for all your help and information."

"No reason to thank me. Remember what I said," Pistol said. His face was set against Kane. He walked away back down the street to his store.

Elfigo Batista gave Kane a ride back to the airstrip. On the way Kane asked him if he was going to have trouble getting his cattle through Creel.

"Only if you let someone give you trouble," Elfigo Batista said.

28
Rajón

Rajar means to crack. If I say of a person, "se raja," it means he is incomplete and will crack when his mettle is tried. "Es muy rajado" means he is completely untrustworthy, his word is no good, he is a coward, he will back down on you and he will run to a higher authority to get out of any predicament that a man would feel an obligation to face by himself. A rajón truly has tremors in the faults of him.

Santiago Brennan took Kane and Vogel back to Rio Alamos. At the airport Kane went to the phone and called the Lion. The Lion came to the airport in Kane's car. Brennan flew on to Frontera that evening, He would return to Rio Alamos in two days. "At least you are never afoot. You left here horseback and now you come back in an airplane," the Lion said. "What did you do with your horse?"

''I left him in Chinipas with Ezequiel Graf. I'll need him on the trail for the cattle drive. Did you receive the last load of cattle, Lion?"

"Oooooo, since when? I've been holding fifty head for you at Chavarin's corrals for three weeks now," the Lion said. "I had a good mind to sell them and make myself some money and buy you a fresh bunch. I got tired of looking at them and turning down buyers. You should have seen the buyers that were here looking for rodeos and slobbering over your cattle. I was sad because I could see a good profit for myself in your cattle and I had to turn those fat buyers away."

They drove Juan Vogel to his house and he invited them inside. Vogel's wife, Margarita, was in a good humor seeing her husband. She was sister to Adelita. She gave the men cold beer while she watched her stewpot full of boiling meat, potatoes, green vegetables, and spices. Another pot of boiling beans was making flat brown bubbles that sent out the odor of the beans to mix in the kitchen with the smells of the stew and the Indian smell of the cornmeal tortillas she turned on a flat iron next to the pots. She kept the three men drinking beer while she set the kitchen table. Then she ordered them to wash their hands for supper.

"And where is my son?" Juan Vogel asked his wife when they had settled down at their places for supper.

"He spent the day at the ranch with my father," Margarita Vogel said. "He'll be home very soon now."

The back door slammed and they heard the little boy running across the tile of the front room to the kitchen. He braked in the doorway and his attitude changed from excitement to belligerence when he saw his father. He puffed out his chest as much as the little potbelly protruding over his belt would allow. He doubled his fists and charged his father, showing the whites of his eyes like a young bull.

"¡Dame un peso, Papá! Give me a peso!" he shouted, swinging his fists at his father. Juan Vogel laughed and held him at arm's length with one big hand. The boy straightened; his fists at his sides; his tiny, striped, charro trousers sagging over his boots; his charro hat showing a sweaty, mussed foretop; and gave his father the ultimatum, "A peso or your life, jodido!"

"¡Oigame! Bad mouth. Don't call your father that name," Margarita Vogel scolded, spanking him on the seat of his pants. He gave his mother slight notice and charged his father again and then Adelita Piedras came into the room and pulled the boy off his father.

"You can't hit your father. God will punish you and your arm will fall off. Hit me if you are man enough," Adelita told him.

"I don't hit women," the boy said haughtily.

Kane realized that Adelita Piedras was standing larger than life right in front of him. Her hair was parted in the middle and hung in thick waves on her shoulders. She wore wedge-heeled, hand-carved, sandals, not manure-encrusted knee boots. Her knees shone under her tight skin as she knelt by Juan Vogel's son.

The girl's eye fell on Kane as she calmed her nephew. She looked softly and briefly at Kane, looking with shy care for his approval. The men rose and she shook hands with each of them before she sat down with them at the table. During the supper the girl's voice was very clear to Kane. Her eyes were very clear. They seemed darker now and did not have the tawny, speculative, animal gaze in them.

When the supper was over Kane and the Lion excused themselves, saying they had business to attend to at the corrals of Chavarin before dark. They went outside and got in the car. The girl came after them and stopped them before they drove away.

"Are you coming to the ranch tomorrow, Sunday, for the colas, Senor Kane?" she asked him. She was standing above the car on the high curb. She was wearing worn golden bracelets on her fine wrist.

"Are you having a tailing competition tomorrow?" Kane asked.

"Yes. I invite you and the Lion," she said.

"¿Cómo no? Count on us to be there," the Lion said.

"Come at noon for the barbecue. The tailing will begin at three in the afternoon," the girl said.

"We'll be there. Thank you," Kane said.

"Heh, heh, heh," the Lion said in a low, leering growl when he had driven away from the girl.

"What are you so smug about? What are you thinking?" Kane asked him.

"Nothing. Just nothing. They call you tontito, little dumb one, no? You don't know what the girl wants from you, no? You are just a tontito, no?"

"I admit she is a beautiful girl."

"Ah, you admit it, eh? But of course you do nothing about it. A fine, young gringuito like you."

"Forget it."

"Heh, heh, heh," the Lion said. "I will but you should not." He turned a corner and they met sixteen bulls trotting down the street three blocks from Chavarin's corral.

"Your cattle!" the Lion exclaimed, stopping the car. He jumped out of the car and waved his arms and stopped the cattle in the middle of the street.

"Now what are you going to do with them?" Kane asked him.

"You go on to the corral and see if all the cattle got out. Bring someone back to help me and we'll put these back in," the Lion said.

Kane drove on to the corral. Chavarin, bareheaded, barefooted, his shirt open down the front, his shirttail out, was driving cattle back into the corral. He had probably been taking a bath or a nap when the cattle had gotten out. The cattle were gaunt and hungry-eyed. Chavarin's nephews were helping him. Kane got out of the car and greeted him.

Chavarin bent down to pick something off the sole of his foot and didn't answer the greeting. Kane went into the corral and counted the cattle. Thirty-three head were in the corral. Kane loaded the two nephews in the car and drove back to help the Lion. Chavarin was not in sight when the Lion penned his cattle. The Lion was counting the cattle when Chavarin came back buttoning his shirt and wearing a new pair of boots and a new palmetto hat.

"Bueno. One is missing," the Lion stated.

"One is missing?" Chavarin asked, stepping into the corral and counting the cattle. He counted twice. "True. One is missing," he stated. He did not seem to know more than that.

"Yes. One is missing," the Lion said. "The biggest one. The big black-and-white."

"What do you mean the b1ack-and-white? Isn't that the black-and-white standing there? Of course that is the black-and-white standing there."

"No, I don't mean that one. I mean the one I bought from Gonzalo Gomez. He was forty kilos heavier than any other bull in this corral."

"This is the only black-and-white I've ever seen in this bunch."

"You mean you don't remember the big torete I bought from Gomez? The one Gomez brought here in his truck the day you gave the party for your nephews?" the Lion demanded.

"Yes, I do. This is him," Chavarin said, grabbing one horn of the gentle black-and-white bull. The bull backed away from him.

The Lion walked over to the car and got a bundle of inspection papers out of the glove compartment. He found the Gonzalo Gomez papers. He went back to the corral and compared the brand on the paper with the brand on the black-and-white bull. He showed the paper to Chavarin.

"Does that look like the same brand that is on this torete?" the Lion asked Chavarin.

"You had better ask Gomez to correct the guía on this bull. He put the wrong brand on the guía," Chavarin said, bending over and trying to tie two pieces of barbed wire together with his bare hands to patch a hole in the fence. Kane found his gloves in the back of the car and went over to help Chavarin.

"Here, let me tie the wire. I have gloves," Kane said.

"I'll tie it. I don't care about my hands. They are accustomed to work," Chavarin said sulkily.

"I don't care about your hands either," Kane said goodnaturedly.

"Oh!" said Chavarin, exasperated. "This is good por mientras, for the time being." Kane saw that his splice would not last five minutes. The two ends of the wire sprang apart when Kane touched the splice.

"Por mientras, mierda," said Kane. "Too much of this corral is already made por mientras," and he made a strong splice with his gloved hands.

"You have no right to stand here on my place and accuse me. If you were ever around here to attend to the needs of the cattle you would know that I take good care of them," Chavarin said.

"The reason I haven't been here is because I've been paying you," the Lion said. "Didn't I pay you wages for the week yesterday at Teresita's."

"That is why I work. To get paid. Do you think I would work like a slave if I didn't need the money?"

The new palmetto hat was now cocked rakehellishly over one eye and he looked down at the new boots to see if dust and manure had altered their sheen. Satisfied all was cared for properly now by him, he walked gracefully, like a gentleman, to the fence.

"You had better get me some more feed for these cattle this evening or my fence won't hold them tonight," he said.

"You'd better get on the trail of that black-and-white bull tonight," the Lion said.

"I'll tell you. I'm not going after that bull tonight or any other time. That is not my job. I am not a slave. I'll keep these cattle one more week while you decide what to do with them and then I want them out of here. I need the corral for some cattle I'm buying, " Chavarin said.

"Are you going to start your dairy business again?" Kane asked him. I

"Perhaps."

"In that case you don't need to wait for your corral another week," Kane said. "I know you are a busy man. We'll be back tonight for the cattle."

"Well, you aren't satisfied with me anymore," Chavarin whined. "I don't want to be in the way of anyone who is not satisfied with my work. For my part, I have enjoyed our association up to now. And, Señor Kane, I would be happy to keep the cattle here as long as you wish under a new agreement."

"No, thank you. We'll have them out of here tonight," Kane said..

"Be sure you bring your accounts. I will have mine ready also. We must settle our accounts. These cattle do not go out until we have put our accounts in order," Chavarin said. This was a threat, as though he was saying, "Now you are going to have to pay the hardworking peón whom you have wronged but who is smart enough to stand up for his rights." This attitude of the wronged peón he made clear by his words, but the expensive white palmetto and the new boots made a liar of him.

Kane and the Lion found trucks for the cattle and sent them to the corral. They bought another truckload of hay and sent it to Juan Vogel's corrals near the Alamos river on the edge of town where the cattle would be penned. When they got back to Chavarin's after dark the cattle had not been loaded. The truck drivers were standing at the chutes. One truck was backed to the chutes ready to load. Chavarin was in the corral with the cattle. He walked up to the fence, leaned casually on the top wire, and handed the Lion an old piece of wrapping paper.

"What is this?" the Lion asked.

'`This is my claim for what is owed me," Chavarin said.

"I'm not going to try to read it in the dark. How much is it?" the Lion asked.

"Among other things, you owe me four hundred pesos for the money I put out for these cattle, not including other money I spent out of my own pocket for.

"No, no, no, no. It is of no import to me how you sacrificed yourself for us out of the goodness of your heart or any such mierda. How much is the total of what you say we owe you?"

"Four hundred pesos for the money I spent, it is all there on the paper, fifty pesos for the day I worked today, twenty-five pesos for . .

"Why fifty pesos for today? I have never paid you more than thirty pesos a day, and that is more than you are worth."

"Thirty pesos for me and ten pesos apiece for my nephews. They helped me today."

"Ah, yes. The nephews earned it doing your work for you. Pardon me. Now how much is the total of the account?"

"Give me back the paper, please," Chavarin said. He smoothed the paper, lit a match so he could see his figures, and said, "One thousand and three hundred pesos and that is all that is owed me after the years of serving you and that is not including money I . . ."

"Did you find the bull, the black-and-white you lost?" the Lion asked him.

"It is my belief the bull you mention has never been in my corral," Chavarin said.

"I don't believe I would have to look very far to prove you sold that bull," the Lion said. "Load the cattle," the Lion shouted to the truckers. Kane got himself into the corral and separated fifteen head in the darkness and he and the truckers loaded them. The Lion helped them load the second and third trucks. After the trucks were gone, the Lion walked up to Chavarin.

"Where is my saddle, my nylon rope, my spurs and chaparreras, and the bridles?" he asked. Chavarin went to the hay barn and brought back the spurs, the chaps, bridles, and two ropes.

"Where is the saddle?" the Lion asked.

"I sent it to get it repaired for you," Chavarin said, offering the equipment.

"When did you send it?"

"Last week."

"A lie! The saddle was in the barn this afternoon."

"Listen, Lion! If you continue to accuse me I am going to turn the matter over to my uncle. I don't have to listen to your accusations. My uncle, the Ministerio Público, will settle this for us."

"The saddle needed repairs, I guess," the Lion said. "When you get it back from the shop, sound and whole, stick it in your ass. Also keep the rope I gave you. I never take back a gift."

"No? ¿Para qué? What do I need it for now?" Chavarin said plaintively. He put the gear in the back of Kane's car. Kane and the Lion went back to Teresita's. The Lion reached into the back seat for the gear. He stepped out of the car and looked at it. He got back into the car and turned on the dome light and searched the back seat for something. He l separated the gear on the seat, looking it over again.

"¡Cabrón!" he said.

"What's wrong?" Kane asked.

"The cabrón kept both nylon ropes," the Lion said.

In Teresita's kitchen Kane and the Lion figured the Lion's expenses and commission on the 49 head and Kane paid him $100. Then Kane remembered how short of money he was himself.

"Lion, do you think you can loan me about five hundred dollars for expenses of shipping this bunch and expenses. I am bound to have on the Chihuahua cattle?" Kane asked.

"Jim, this money you gave me is the first I have seen in two weeks," the Lion said.

"What about Squeaky Panopoulous? You still have his money, don't you? I'll be able to pay you back as soon as I get to Chihuahua. I'm sure Squeaky wouldn't mind. I would do the same for him."

"Squeaky and I have terminated our business. He was here two weeks ago to receive the Zaragoza cattle when we weighed them."

"You made something on those cattle, didn't you?"

"I should have. The cattle only cost him ten cents American per pound. He came here prepared to pay eleven cents or three pesos a kilo. I got old Zaragoza to come down on his price to two eighty-five a kilo. I thought Squeaky was going to give me the fifteen centavos difference?

"So?"

"So he squeaked and gave me a dollar a head commission and instead of handing me my commission he said he would credit me against what he said I owed him." The Lion lowered his voice. "On top of that I owe Teresita a month's phone bill of long distance and room and board for myself and Lolita."

"Why didn't you get Squeaky to pay that before he left?"

"Me dio pena," the Lion said. "It embarrassed me."

"I didn't know a lion could be embarrassed?

"Sometimes we are embarrassed by our appetites," the Lion said mournfully, like an old lion with a stomach ache.

29
The Tailing

Colas means tails. Most animals have them. Indians say that a coyote gets his tail wet he can't run. He becomes, as it were, rudderless. That's how much his tail is necessary to his well-being because gf a coyote can't run he's as good as dead. Certainly the bovine is controllable by that handle so handy to the cowpuncher or the vaquero. A tail fits so easily into a man's hand and the tuft on the end of it will keep it from slipping a man's grasp. The tail is used by men to help the weak bovine to his feet, to wake up the sleepy bovine, to urge on a stubborn bovine who is ignoring what is best for him, to keep the mean and angry bovine from the balance he needs to drive a big horn into some poor unfortunate.

The undisciplined bovine might break and run and refuse to be turned by a horseman. He might never before have had occasion to respect a horseman. He might be running head up and bent on escape with a number 9 curled in his tail and be headed for the tall tules. The rider might not have time to tangle himself to a bovine with his rope. He also might not want to strangle the bovine. Strangulation often makes a whole relationship strained. The rider may have other business just as pressing at the moment as turning one bovine who sufers from the green eye. So he might grasp the bovine's most proximate hand hold. It then becomes only a simple matter to take all the wind out of the bovine by busting him down because a bovine on the dead run can be handled so easily by the tail a  four-year-old on a fast horse can do it. When the steer gets his wind back and gets up you can be sure he'll hunt a friend, and the next time a horsemen comes coasting up to turn him he'll turn.

The Brahma steer kicked dirt into the adobe wall behind him as he sprinted through a small gate into the open. Mariano Piedras was waiting outside the gate for him. Mariano saluted the steer with hand to hatbrim and spurred his black mare broadside to him. The mare crowded the steer against the wall of a 60-meter track. She pressed the running steer so close to the wall that he lost balance and momentum for an instant.

This was not the first time this Brahma had been driven out of the barrier by the horsemen. He knew if he gained the lower end of the track he would escape. He was a strong 750 pounder. His Brahma blood gave him fleetness and grace and now he threw up his head and ran with all his might. The black mare coasted along close to his side until she was rating him, keeping pace with him. When her shoulder was even with the hip bone of the steer she neither gained more on the steer nor slowed down, but held her ground.

Mariano Piedras, smiling, reached down and patted the steer twice on the root of his tail. This gesture, called the pachoneo, like the salute to the hatbrim, was another formal preliminary to the event called the colas, the tailing of the steer. To Jim Kane, who was watching with great interest, the pachoneo resembled a caress, an indication that the steer now belonged to Mariano and Mariano was relishing putting an end to the flight of the steer. Mariano took the tail in his hand, leaned back in his saddle, and kicked his foot in its stirrup over the tail. He straightened in the saddle and wrapped the tail around his shin. He reined the mare away from the steer, opening a gap between mare and steer. The black mare backed her ears, thrust her muzzle forward, and, with nerve and muscle bunched in pulling the tail, passed the steer.

The Brahma's hind end was pulled around until it was almost directly behind the black mare before Mariano Piedras released the tail. The Brahma kept turning, doing. a little hopping dance to keep his feet, until he was looking directly back the way he had come. But now there were two different momentums working on him besides the force of gravity; the momentum of the pull of the black mare, and the momentum the steer had built up of lean, running steer. The hind end kept turning until the front end took over. The front end was still going the way it had been going before the tail had been jerked. The hind end could not catch up to the front end and the front end could not stop and wait for it. The steer fell smoothly on his side. He spun along the ground. He stopped spinning and rolled over on his back and got a good look at all four of his feet in the air. Finally he lay still, his hind end, his front end, and all his momentums back together again and Mariano Piedras had cinched the tailing competition of the day for his team.

Next, the announcer in the booth above the lienzo charm at the hacienda of Don Tomás Piedras requested Mariano to tail a steer a la Lola, Lola style. Mariano unsaddled the black mare and mounted her bareback with both his legs on the side," the steer would run. The announcers commentary sounded like this:

"¡Sale el novillo y sale el jinete! The steer is out and the rider is out!"

"¡El jinete saluda! The rider salutes!"

"¡Pachonea! He pats the steer!"

"¡Agarra la cola! He grabs the tail!"

"¡Levanta la pata! He raises his foot!"

"¡Arciona! He wraps the tail!"

"¡Y tumba! And throws the bull!"

The people watching the exhibition honked the horns of their cars and applauded. This was the finest exhibition of horsemanship Kane had ever seen. Mariano had been riding sidesaddle, no saddle, at full speed and had wrapped the tail on his leg. He had lain back over the mare to sustain the weight of the steer, had changed the momentum of the steer, and then had released the tail just before the weight would have snatched him off the back of the mare.

But near Kane was a cynic who was not impressed with what Mariano Piedras had accomplished. The cynic was a small boy, dirty, barefoot, shirtless, and wizened. He mimicked the announcers voice as he trotted about, intent on a game of his own;

"¡Sale el novilloooo, sale el jineteeee!" the boy sang.

"¡Saludaaa!"

"¡Pachoncaaa!"

"¡Agarra la cola!"

"¡Leoanta la pata! He lifts his leg!"

"¡Y mea! And pees!"

A horse race had been matched and Kane and the Lion drove to Don Tomás' airstrip to watch it. A crowd of men had formed at the finish line to drink and make bets. Cars and pickups lined the airstrip close to the finish line. The Lion left Kane at their car and joined the men to make his bets. He stood a foot taller than the rest of the crowd and his deep laugh sounded often.

Kane sat on the hood of his car and waited for the race to begin. The starter was nearly an hour shouting his "Santiago," his signal for the race to begin. A line had been drawn across the airstrip at the starting end. The Indian jockeys, their hair tied back with bandanna brow bands, their knees tied to their mounts by wide cloth straps, rode back and forth to the starting line. The starter required that they ride up and stand their horses' front feet on the line. He also required that all four feet of each horse to be on the ground before he would give the signal to start. A tall palomino horse was matched against a short, chunky, bay mare for four hundred meters. Four hundred varas, or stakes, one meter apart had been stuck in the ground in a straight line down the track to the finish. The horses would run on each side of the line of varas.

"¡Santiago!" the starter shouted and the race was on.

"¡El puro palomino!" the women shouted from the tops of the pickups. "The palomino is leading!

The men on the finish line crowded the sides of the track, barely leaving enough room on each side of the varas for the  horses to pass. The closer the horses got to the finish line, the closer the men crowded into their path to see which one was leading. At the last instant before the palomino crossed the line, the crowd pushed back and the men tumbled and fell out of his way.

Kane went over to the crowd to see how the Lion had done on the race. The Lion was surrounded by arguing men and he was shaking his head and laughing. Chavarin was in a crowd of eight or ten men the Lion was collecting money from. The Lion collected from the last loser who owed him, saw Kane, and started walking toward him.

"Heh, heh, heh!" the Lion purred. Kane and the Lion had their backs to the men with Chavarin.

"¡Oye, gringo! I'll match my bay mare against that big sorrel cochinada, pig-slop, you ride," someone shouted. Kane turned and recognized Beto, the vaquero of Don Marcos Aguilera, who had taunted Kane drunkenly about Pajaro in the night at Tetamoa and whom Kane had seen riding the bronc mule in Chinipas. The boy must have flown in to Rio Alamos with the bush pilot who made regular flights to and from Chinipas. Chavarin was standing by him, laughing and hiding his rotten teeth behind his hand. Kane bet himself that Chavarin was encouraging Beto to brace Kane in the crowd. Kane turned away from them and walked on.

"He is afraid!" someone else called.

"So rich and so afraid!" another shouted.

"A coward!" another shouted. "Let him go."

"Gringo!" Beto shouted. Kane turned to go back. The Lion grabbed him by the arm.

"Don't pay them any attention," the Lion told him. "They are nothing but a bunch of cow thieves and liars. Chavarin is probably trying to instigate trouble."

Kane pulled away from him and went on toward them.

"Maybe they can fist fight as well as they can cuss fight," he said. He walked up to the bunch of them and faced Beto. Beto was cocky with his beer and his new hat, his new snap-button Western shirt, and his crowd of friends at his back. Kane knew how Beto felt at that moment. Kane had been Beto's size once and he admired the boy. He knew how Beto had lost the old hat riding a wild mule bucking in a canyon, in the Sierra and scattering Don Marcos' coffee all over the canyon.

"You think you are muy gallo, much rooster?" Kane asked him quietly. "Are you someone I know? Only my friends call me 'gringo' and I would like to know who you are and what you are, as I don't know you."

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.

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 consider 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.

"Absolutely not," he remembered telling the Ministerio Público.

Kane recognized the pugnacious queer Juan Vogel had unmasked at the dance of the mascaritas in Old Town the night Kane had arrived in Rio Alamos. This queer was short and slight in build with a heavy beard and plucked eyebrows. He paced barefoot up and down the length of the bullpen, his hand on one hip. This was the hand with the painted fingernails. Once in a while he would go to a bowl and throw up. Then he would continue his promenade, his expression unaffected by the ravages of his throwing up. Periodically he would check his paseo at the bars of the door to the pen and inquire politely, quietly, but with much perseverance, for a drink of water. He would put his forehead to the bars, stick his nose through the bars, gaze down the side of the building, and when he saw a movement of someone in the courtyard would utter quietly, "Ssssst, ssssst, agua. We have no water. Sssssssst, sssssssssst, ssst. " Not achieving a response, he would gaze another long moment and then resume his promenade, speaking to no one, noticing none around him, with one plucked eyebrow raised.

The pugnacious queens partner in crime, the one who had been accompanying him when he had been caught breaking the law, was a tall, well-built queer who was evidently not crudo, rawly hungover, nor thirsty. The tall queer was busy putting on his face. He lounged on his pallet of blankets, arching his arches and keeping his bare toes pointed while he daubed a blue cream on his face with one hand and held a small mirror daintly to his face with the other. His hair, which he was careful not to muss as he probably had not the tools or concoctions to care properly for it in jail, was done up high and well lacuered in a wild-beehive-like, nest on top of his head. He told another prisoner conversationally the blue cream was for removing his whiskers.

One of the wheels of the bullpen was a lightweight professional fighter called the Combustible Kid. He was serving two years for burglary. He rated a private room off the courtyard but was well-liked by the guards and the mayor's son and so was allowed his preference of staying in the bullpen for the companionship it offered him. Kid Combustible's chest, back, arms, hands, and abdomen were covered with tattoos. He was telling the other wheel of the bullpen, a tall, narrow shouldered, potbellied, spindly-legged, blue-eyed Indian about the brief-day's respite the Kid had enjoyed in town the day before.

The mayor's son had needed the Kid in order to settle an account with a citizen of the town. He had promised the Kid the day off and supper and a movie in town if the Kid would help him settle the account. The mayor's son wanted the citizen pasted in the mouth.

The Kid had rapped on the citizen's door at suppertime. "Telegram for Señor Fulano," he had called. Señor Fulano came to the door chewing on a bite of his supper and the Combustible Kid hit him and the bite stuck on the porch ceiling. After the Kid's supper and movie the mayor's son had taken the Kid back to jail altogether satisfied with the account. The Kid's scarred face was contented as he told the story of his Sunday outing.

The Combustible Kid and the tall, blue-eyed Indian kept the bullpen very much in order. They supervised the morning sweeping and the arranging of the pallets. They had their pallets spread next to those of the queers. Everyone else in the bullpen except a reserved, very noble-looking, quiet, young Indian, was either too old, too young, too senile from wine and age, too idiotic, dissipated, unconcerned, too hungover, or lacking the will to have any force in the bullpen. Anyone that had cigarettes or received extra food from outside always offered some of the booty to the wheels before partaking themselves, showing an inclination to keep the brains and the power of Blue Eyes and the Kid on their side. In order to keep this balance of power Blue Eyes and the Kid befriended Kane since Kane was bigger than they were by at least fifty pounds and they knew Kane was in there for fighting and they had no idea how long he would be in there. Neither did Kane. He also wanted to be friends. "Absolutely not," he had told the Ministerio Público loftily.

The two wheels were also in control of the bullpen's social betterment program. They joked with the queers and the feeble-minded without bullying them, making it clear to the community that these lowest companions were also human and had equal rights in the bullpen. They advised the hang-overs about what they could do under the cell's meager facilities to relieve their aches and carried water to those who were too weak to get up when the water ration was brought in by the guards. A gallon of water disappeared like a drop of sweat in hell. The Kid and Blue Eyes saved their cigarette butts for those who had no means of getting their own tobacco. They were respectful and compliant to the feeble, old, and demented.

The guards, knowing the extreme thirst of their charges, drank cold, giant Cokes outside the bullpen door. They hoped in their warm hearts that the thirsty prisoners would thus, to a small extent, vicariously find relief The guards saluted each other before the bars of the door, clinked the full bottles together, crooked their little fingers on the bottles, and sipped Coke unctuously. The Combustible Kid told Kane that Kane could tip the guards and extend to them the correct submissive tone and be allowed to pass the day in the sun and fresh air of the courtyard. Kane said he did not wish to overcrowd the courtyard and perhaps take the guards away from their business of relieving the thirst of the prisoners. He preferred to stay in the bullpen where he would be no trouble to the guards.

Kane wasn't worried about his comfort. He was only cautious about not sitting down and not leaning against the walls because of the lice. He would have to spend a full night there before he stopped guarding against the lice. He calculated he would possibly be able to go one night in there on his feet without sleep and maybe another day with hopes he would get out of the bullpen in the day. He already had one sleepless night in his head. If he didn't get out tomorrow he would have to relax his vigilance against the lice and let them graze on him for no one can go two nights on his feet without sleep and without knowing when he is going to get out of jail. Other than the discomfort of worrying about the lice and having to stay on his feet away from the wall, Kane was getting along well enough in jail because he was sure the Lion was going to get him out. Kane had suffered other forms of jail and he didn't feel as though he was losing a maidenhead. The jail was no different than other ways of being closed up with other people with no way of getting away from them and nothing to do. Kane felt discomfort only because in this situation everyone in the cell was forced to become the complete social animal and show only the sides of himself that were common to everyone else in order to subsist under bullpen conditions. The real life of everyone in the bullpen had been suspended. The selves they showed were their most unattractive selves because they were all alike.

The bullpen life was to Kane worse than solitary confinement for in the bullpen his every act—his eating, his drinking, his bowel movements, his smoking, his talking—would have to be done as carefully common to everyone else as possible. This sort of existing was deadly as it had absolutely no human object. "Absolutely not, " Kane remembered stating to the Ministerio Público. "Absolutely."

It seemed to Kane that passengers on an express bus suffered a sort of bullpen confinement except that they had the objective of destination. But if the express had motor trouble and suddenly stranded the passengers way out, frighteningly lost to the destination, with no idea of when the destination would be attained, the real lives of the passengers stopped and the ugly, social, common selves emerged more with each hour of the suspension. Kane didn't mind the bus too much when it barreled along smoothly. He could cover himself on the bus with a newspaper or he could go to a bar during the rest stop to drink as many gin and tonics as possible. Almost nobody that rides the express bus goes to the bar during the rest stop.

The guards finally came for Jim Kane and took him back across the empty courtyard they had been guarding with their Cokes, through the steel doors, and down the corridor. He saw big hats on the other side of the last door and Juan Vogel and the Lion were under them, grinning at him. Kane talked and answered their questions offhandedly, half-consciously, while he waited for the guard to come on and open the last door. Then Juan Vogel said Chavarin was going to settle for $200 and that Kane had better pay it and get the trouble finished. The Lion said the police had officially taken Kane back to Teresita's restaurant because they had reported this on the mileage ticket of their squad car. No charges had been filed against Kane and there had been no warrant for him. Officially, the Ministerio Público didn't know Kane was in jail. Vogel and the Lion weren't going to be allowed to see him anymore because he wasn't going to be in the jail officially anymore. They also said a lawyer would probably cost $200 and Kane would have to wait in the jail until he got a trial. Kane did not say "Absolutely not" this time. He called the guard and got his money out of the envelope and handed it back through the bars to the Lion. Kane was then escorted back to the bullpen where his fellows expressed sorrow he had not been released.

Time stopped for Jim Kane. He thought, here I am again in the very old familiar place here and now again and he presented himself to himself again. He realized he had not seen himself for some time. He allowed that realization to pass because he might realize something unbearable about the here and now and he didn't want anything unbearable hanging around for the unknown time he had left to him in the jail. About sundown Juan Vogel and the Lion were back and Kane was passed all the way out until the last indifferent iron gate shut behind him.

Driving back to Rio Alamos in Juan Vogel's car, Juan Vogel started shaking with quiet laughter.

"Now what?" Kane asked him, smiling through his injuries.

"I was just thinking how funny it is that you put yourself in jail."

"How do you figure I put myself in jail?" Kane asked him.

"All you had to do this morning was offer to pay one hundred dollars in a kind way before the Ministerio Público was forced to put a price on Chavarin's hurts. Then he would have only asked for two hundred dollars and you wouldn't have had to go to jail."

"The only trouble with that idea is that I wouldn't have given two hundred dollars. I wouldn't have given a veinte centavo piece."

"Ah, you wanted to go to jail?"

"Now how do you figure I wanted to go to jail?"

"You went, didn't you? You could have paid to get out

before you got in. He had the jail for you when you went in to see him. He always has the jail. Didn't you know he only wanted money to keep you out of his jail? Didn't you know he was Chavarin's uncle?

"I knew he was Chavarin's uncle all right."

"Then you went to jail because you wanted to," Juan Vogel laughed.

"Ah, these Americans and their philanthropy," the Lion sighed.

"What philanthropy? I was blackmailed."

"What philanthropy. See how generous you are? You don't even realize the good you have done this day. First, you spent a solid day in public lamentation for the harm you did a poor working man. Second, you donated a fortune in gold for the poor man's future well-being. And third, you have remedied a shame that has plagued him for years," the Lion said.

"What shame?" Kane asked.

"You know how he has always hidden his mouth behind his hand when he laughed? Now he can smile without ever again having to hide his teeth from the world. Now he has Jim Kane's smile. A brand new set of teeth, even and white. You paid for them. His smile will be even more brilliant than yours.

32
The Drive

Santiago Brennan flew Jim Kane and the Lion to Chinipas. The plane flew close over Kane's cattle by the river, cleared some big guamúchil trees, and landed on the short, crooked, dippy, uphill strip.

Kane had cleaned up all his business in Rio Alamos. He and the Lion had shipped the last fifty head to Hermosillo, the cattle Chavarin had waylaid. They were in the hands of the rancher who would be quarantining them. Room and board and telephone bills were paid in full in Rio Alamos. Kane had left the town without looking back.

Santiago was going on to Creel to tell Batista to meet Kane's herd with his trucks at Cuiteco on the new railroad in fourteen days. Kane and the Lion watched Santiago take off and then walked to Chinipas.

Ezequiel Graf was not at the store. The Lion borrowed Juan Vogel's bay horse and saddle and Kane saddled Pajaro. They rode out to see the herd. The cattle had rested and filled in the four days since Kane had left Chinipas.

The vaqueros started the cattle on the drive for Creel the next day. Kane was happy to be making tracks. Each track Pajaro made was carrying Kane farther away from some demand on him in Rio Alamos; the honorable claim on him by a polite man who would like Kane to do right by his daughter; a girl who wanted Kane to provide for her in his future; a legal system which was probably planning new ways to make Kane provide for future meals for the new teeth he had bought for Chavarin.

Kane and the Lion were the only men on the drive who were going horseback. They led two packmules with the blankets and provisions. The ten vaqueros worked the herd afoot. The cattle were driven in three separate bunches and allowed to graze the whole way. The drive started south along the Otero River and would head east on the third day. Two of Don Marcos Aquilera's bulls, a brindle and a black, kept trying to turn back. They wanted to go back to their home ground. They constantly, persistently, pressed more work on the vaqueros as they tried for escape. The brindle would amble slowly and stubbornly at right angles to the path of the herd. The black was a fence crosser. Every time the herd neared a fence he got on the other side of it and separated himself from the herd.

Finally the Lion roped the black to bring him back from across a fence. Kane told him to hold the black while Kane roped the brindle. The brindle had wide horns that spread out straight from the sides of his head. When he separated himself from the herd again Kane cut in behind him and rode to him. Kane caught only one horn at the base. He stopped Pajaro and the brindle kept running. The nylon rope stretched, held fast to the horn, the brindle twisted his head slightly and the rope came off his horn, snapped back like a rubber band, and hit Kane on the cheekbone, unhorsing him. Pajaro ran a few steps and stopped. He turned and looked back surprisedly at Jim Kane as if to say, "Now I know that wasn't right." Kane heard the roar of the Lion laughing at him.

One of the vaqueros led Pajaro back to Kane.

"You are supposed to catch both horns, jefe, chief,  the vaquero said solemnly. Kane sat on the ground rolling a spur rowel with his finger while he waited for his eyes to uncross and the numbness to go out of his legs so he could get back on his horse. The vaquero picked up the nylon rope and held it up to Kane's face.

"The cable left its signature firmly on your face, jefe," he said. Kane felt his cheek and cheekbone gingerly with the smallest, most tender tips of his fingers and with them sensed ' a four-inch length of broken skin far away on the edge of his numb face.

"A perfect imprint of each coil of the hard twist, jefe. The chavinda almost unmothered your face," the vaquero said sympathetically. Kane thought, a lot is happening to unmother me lately.

"What is this cable used for ordinarily?" the vaquero asked, comparing the nylon with the soft coils of his well tallowed reata.

"Ordinarily for roping bulls by both horns," Kane said. It is called a nylon rope."

"Ah, sí, sí, sí, sí. The lasso would be very heavy for me."

"The nylon can be very heavy on the headbone," Kane said and got back on his horse. He caught the big brindle and led him back to where the Lion was holding the black fence-crosser. The vaqueros brought a mancuerna, an iron swivel with a ring on each end, and tied the two bulls to the rings, necking them together. The black and the brindle bucked and strained against each other, then went straight for the center of the herd and stayed there.

The first night's sabana, or bedground, for the cattle was in a rock corral under a sheer cliff on the edge of the river. The vaqueros shut the cattle in the corral at dark and laid their own beds around the outside of the corral.

The Lion had elected himself cook for the drive. He had made sure all the fresh provisions were packed on the mule he was leading. His saliva began flowing as he unpacked his mule. It increased as the intended dinner gathered momentum with his slicing of the meat into thin steaks and with Kane's building of the fire. His appetite grew larger and manifested itself in a low, grumbling laugh as he warmed the cooked beans he had bought that morning from a woman in Chinipas. His tastes burst forth into grunting, gasping laugh when he salted the meat, bunched coals away from the fire, and laid the steaks on the coals. He unwrapped a bundle of flour tortillas from clean flour sacks, unfolded big sheets of tortilla, and laid them on the coals, grinning at Kane for approval for his foresight in buying the tortillas from the Chinipas woman. When a tortilla was warm and smoking in spots from the coals, he picked up a steak with the tortilla and handed it to a vaquero. There were no dishes on the drive. Tortillas were used to pick up and hold meat and wipe up beans from a common bowl. Each vaquero carried his own cup for coffee and his own knife.

Breakfast was coffee, beans, and tortillas. Lunch was sardines, canned fruit, and tortillas. When no fresh meat was available supper was canned meat, beans, tortillas. The Lion made the tortillas on the trail, the tortillas called gordas, thick tortillas of corn meal or flour. When the herd was near a ranch where he could borrow a stove or a large flatiron he made big, sheetlike tortillas.

Kane had never seen men work so hard requiring so little food and clothing. The vaqueros dressed in thin cotton shirts, baggy jeans pegged at the bottom, huaraches, and straw hats. Each carried a water gourd slung on a string or net from his shoulder, and a reata. The vaqueros smoked coarse, home-grown tobacco rolled in com leaf. They lighted the cigarettes by striking white rock to the steel of their knives and livening the spark in pieces of yesca, the spongy pulp from the center of dead oak.

The cattle were never out of sight of the vaqueros, neither on the high, rocky, brushy trails over gorges, nor on smooth, open plain. The men never relaxed their attention to the cattle. They could read a bull's mind and always be one step ahead of him. In the nights, the vaqueros rolled in their  blankets and slept on the ground with their feet to the fire, their hats lolling on the sides of their heads, their heads pillowed by their arms. They rose early, before the coming sun pushed the cold air of the night over them at dawn, and stood wrapped in their blankets by a new fire. In the days, they went effortlessly by the cattle, saving their own and the cattle's energies. They never rushed themselves or hurried the cattle.

As the drive progressed the cattle walked in an accustomed rhythm that matched the erect, attentive pace of the vaqueros. The cattle knew instinctively where the vaqueros were at every moment and a bull knew without looking at his herder when he had made one step out of the grazing boundaries of the herd.

After a few days the black bull and the brindle walked, drank, and ate together as one in this rhythm of vaquero and herd. They were untied from each other but they stayed together for the rest of the drive as though they were still necked together.

At the end of the fourth day's jornada, or journey, the herd arrived at the ranch of Carlos Esmit, the ranch called El Término. Kane and the Lion ordered the vaqueros to hold the cattle off the ranch while they went ahead to ask Esmit for permission to pass through his ranch.

The two men rode over a high trail through oak country to a basin where the headquarters of the ranch lay. The basin was rimmed by a squat, rock fence. The basin covered about a half-section of land. It had been plowed and cultivated in contours on the slopes and planted in corn the previous summer. The cornstalks were so thick the ground could not be seen and the basin glared yellow in the sun. The headquarters lay in the center of the bottom of the basin. The main house was a square, stuccoed house, whitewashed and clean. A log barn stood by the wide, rock corral. A tight log stable stood by the barn. A stream of clear water ran through the basin and filled a lake held by a rock dam below the main house. A four-wheel-drive pickup truck was parked in front of the house.

Kane and the Lion tied their horses outside the corral and walked to the door of the house. An elderly lady answered the door. She wore a plain cotton dress, long, thick hose, and laced, low-heeled shoes. Her long hair was neatly combed and braided in a thick coil at the nape of her neck. She recognized the Lion and invited the two men into the house. She made coffee and warmed a batch of sourdough biscuits for them while they told her the reason for their visit. They heard a dog barking and went outside.

A tall, thin man was dismounting from a black mule at the door of the stable. He wore starched Levis, a clean Levi jacket, a good Stetson hat. The only apparel he used that was not the same as that of an American cowman was the huarache on his naked foot and the heavy Chihuahua spur on the bare heel. The man studied Kane and the Lion closely as they walked toward him. He unsaddled the mule and turned him loose in the cornstalks. The Lion introduced Kane to Carlos Esmit. Esmit did not tip his hat for Kane as was the custom of the Sierra. He had blue eyes and a light complexion.

"Are you a Texan?" he asked Kane in English with a heavy Mexican accent.

"No, an Arizonan," Kane said. .

"What brings you this far out of the way of the other Americans?"

'Tm taking a bunch of cattle to Chihuahua. We would like your permission to pass through your ranch. We would like to bed the cattle near here tonight, Senor Esmit.?

"How many cattle?"

"Two hundred sixty-five head," Kane said.

"I only have this pasture of cornstalks. The stalks were picked over by my stock through the winter. But the dam is full of clear water. You are welcome to sabanear your cattle here if you like."

"This would be a good place for us, thank you." ‘

"Then bring your cattle," the man said.

"I will go and tell the vaqueros to come on with the cattle," the Lion said and mounted the bay horse and rode away.

"Do you speak Spanish?" Carlos Esmit asked Kane.

"Yes," Kane said;

"Better. It would be better if we spoke Spanish. I haven't spoken English in seventeen years."

"You speak good English."

"My father was an Englishman," Carlos Esmit said. Kane had never heard of the name Esmit.

The two men walked to the house. Kane took off his chaps and spurs outside the kitchen door. They went in the house and sat down in the front room. The man had a good collection of books. The furniture in the room was simple and well made. Kane, for the first time since he had come to the Sierra, was sitting on stuffed furniture. The house was lighted by electricity supplied by a diesel generator in a shed near the house. Carlos Esmit took a pipe from his collection on a rack near his chair, filled it with the roughly cut, home-grown tobacco of the  Sierra, and lit it.

"You don't smoke a pipe by any chance, do you Señor Kane?" he asked.

"Not very often," Kane said.

"I thought perhaps you might have some good pipe tobacco with you. The only place I can get pipe tobacco is in Chihuahua and I haven't been to Chihuahua in eight months."

"I thought you would go to San Bernardo and Rio Alamos for your provisions. Aren't you closer to San Bernardo?"

"Yes, San Bernardo is one long day's ride horseback. But I completed a road this spring from this ranch to the road the government built from Creel for use in the construction of the railroad. I bought a pickup and now I can use it to bring my provisions from Chihuahua. I make the trip to Chihuahua in the pickup in two days and I can bring back more than ten mule-loads in the pickup. As you know, there are no roads except horseshoe roads from here to San Bernardo. With the pickup I can bring equipment and material like lumber and glass that I could not bring from San Bernardo on mules. I brought my generator in the pickup."

"I see. Progress has found you in the Sierra Madre, Senor Esmit."

"Yes. In a year or two the railroad will be completed across this Sierra between Creel and Topolobampo and I will have only a half-day's drive to take my cattle to Temoris on the railroad. It sounds odd to hear you, an American, call me Esmit, Señor Kane."

"I was wondering about your name. It is an odd name."

"Odd? The name should not sound odd to you. Smith?"

"Smith?" asked Kane.

"My name is Charles Smith," the man laughed. "I write it Charles Smith. The serrano's pronunciation is Esmit. Didn't anyone tell you that you had a countryman living in the Sierra?"

"No one. Not even the Lion."

"That is the way of the serrano. Some of them may be too young to know my father was English. Some may have forgotten. But though I was raised in Chinipas, I am an American. I was born in El Paso. My father was a mining engineer and he became an American citizen. He was working for a British mining company when he bought this ranch. When the company moved out of Chinipas he went back to the United States. During the Second World War my wife and I worked in an aircraft factory near Los Angeles, California. We saved our money and came back here and bought the ranch back by paying the taxes owed on it. We also bought more land and we bought our livestock.

"I want to tell you it was hard when we first came back. We didn't have much money left after we bought our livestock and the additional land. We tightened our belts many holes during the first years we were here. We had the radio. We had our books. We had our work and that is all we had. We built this house and the furniture in it. We built the barns, the stables, the corrals, the fences. Our cattle were very far removed from the market. There is very little demand for corriente cattle and the only cattle that thrive here are corriente cattle, so, naturally, we raised corrientes and barely made enough each year on beef and cheeses to make a living.

We managed to save a very small amount of money. Most of the money we paid for the pickup was money we got from our car when we sold it on leaving California and interest that money accrued in the bank these last seventeen years.

"The Sierra, the mountains, is the society we always craved. The people and the Sierra are parts of the same element. The mountains are as much a part of the society here as the people are. We have found that the people and the factories and the freeways and the pricetags of California were all one and the same element. The people were good and bad as they are everywhere, but the freeways and the pricetags on everything were bad for us. Have you ever seen a pricetag on anything in the Sierra, Senor Kane?"

"No," Jim Kane said.

"People in the Sierra know the worth of what they own. If you go into a store in Chinipas to buy goods you ask the storekeeper how much they are worth to him and then you bargain with him for what they are worth to you. When you leave the store you are in possession of goods that are of real value to you and you are not made poorer in acquiring them.

In California the merchant sold articles that didn't last. If he had sold goods that would have endured, he would have gone out of business. The buyer needed goods he could use and throw out of his way because his environment demanded conveniences of this sort, goods he did not have to husband. The merchant put pricetags on the thousands of these conveniences because he could not remember what they were worth, the same goods could be worth twenty dollars today, five dollars in six months, and nothing next year."

Charles Smith and his wife fed Kane and the Lion and put them up in beds with clean sheets and mattresses that night. The vaqueros camped on the dam and ate fresh meat from a yearling Kane bought from the Smiths. The cattle filled on the cornstalks and rested their feet on the soft ground of the basin pasture.

In the morning at breakfast Charles Smith asked Kane to look at his best bull. The bull was a good, red Brahma Smith had bought in Chihuahua. The bull was suffering. The end of his penis had swollen and he was unable to draw it into the protection of his sheath. The long sheath, characteristic of Brahma cattle, nearly dragged on the ground and the skin of the end of the penis was swollen and dirty from bumping the ground. The bull would never again be serviceable if the sheath were not shortened so that it cleared the ground. The senior bull of Rancho El Término needed a circumcision. Kane told Charles Smith he had never performed the operation but had seen it done. Charles Smith asked Kane to operate on his bull.

The Lion and the vaqueros caught the bull in the corral and stretched him out on the ground for Kane. Kane cut a V out of the hide of the front of the sheath and sewed it back together, shortening it so that it did not hang down but lay along the bull's belly. Then he tied a cloth sack fashioned for the purpose by Mrs. Smith around the swollen end. This sack he filled with cotton and soaked with salt water.

"You should keep the sack soaked with boric acid. I know of no better medicine you could use. Now, how much money do I owe you for the yearling and the sabana?" Kane asked.

"Nothing. Nada; No mas.”

"¿Cómo que nada?" Kane asked.

"How much do I owe you for operating on the bull?"

"Nada," Kane said, smiling.

"Then you owe me the same nada for the yearling and the sabana," Charles Smith said.

Kane went to the house and thanked Charles Smith's wife for her hospitality. Then he led Pajaro to the gate where Charles Smith waited to close it after Kane passed through. "When they give you your American money for these weeks of work in the Sierra, bring it back to the Sierra. You can do more with it here," the rancher said to Kane, shaking his an .

"Thank you," Kane said. "We'll see."

33
The Horse Killers

Vultures wheeled in the floated as though on a step, and rolled lazily again in their own circular paths in the sky above the trail ahead of Jim Kane's herd.

"The horse killers," the Lion said. "They must be killing now even though this is the wrong time of the year."

"What horse killers?" Jim Kane asked.

"These men buy and steal horses and burros and butcher them, dry their meat, and sell it in Mexicali and Juarez."

"Who would buy horse and burro jerky?"

"The city people who don't know they are buying horse and burro jerky."

"These horse killers must be nice people," Kane said.

"They have the right."

"Who has the right?"

"The ones who make the horse jerky and the ones that eat it," the Lion said, laughing. "Be nice. No fights. We will sabanear with them. They will have tasol for their horses and these cattle aren't going to get anything to eat on the trail until we get out of this horse country. I know how to keep you out of trouble, Jim Kane."

"How is that?"

"You don't talk Spanish."

"Sure I do."

"I mean you don't talk Spanish while we are with the horse killers. I'm going to tell them you don't know a word of Spanish. That way I'll do all the talking and we'll have some fun. We'll get the feed cheaper that way too."

"Yes? How will I know that?"

"Don't be a pendejo. You'll be hearing us talk."

"I don't know, Lion. I might bite off my tongue trying to keep silent."

"Understand me! It will be a diversion from this dirty, dusty monotony of a trail. And it will probably be profitable?

"Bueno. I'll try it," Kane said.

"I'll tell them the herd is mine. Before we leave here they will owe me and we might get off without paying them for the fee."

"That is fine. How will they owe you, Lion?"

"I know every brand in this country and the owners of the horses might not know the horse killers are killing their horses."

"How do they keep from getting caught if they steal horses when the vultures are always marking their sabanas?"

"They kill seldom, they kill many, and they move, how else? They 'water at night,' they pay the mordida to the judicial, and they stay away from the villages and ranches. They play the ladino, the mostrenco, the mustang, like you do, Jim Kane. None of them are from this country. They are not known here and people who may see them do not bother them. If these horse killers are the ones I know, they are from Rio Alamos."

A rider on a black horse came off a hill toward them from one side of the herd. He was covered by stiff, poorly tanned, bullhide chaps and jacket. His lean, baked face was scratched from running horseback in the brush. He rode toward Kane and the Lion and they stopped their horses.

"What are you skulking about for, Lion?" the rider asked, smiling.

"Skulking? Yes, I'm skulking along behind two hundred sixty-five head of toretes," the Lion boomed at him.

"Where do you take them?" .

"To Creel."

"Ooooooo! It is closer to San Bernardo. Are they yours or are they the meestair's?" the rider asked, indicating Kane.

"They are mine," the Lion answered. Kane looked away from the Lion and the horse killer as though he didn't understand their conversation.

"Who is he?" the horse killer asked.

. "He is a gringo who wanted to accompany me on this drive for a diversion, a recreation. He can't speak a word of Spanish."

"He chooses an odd way to divert himself," the rider said, gazing speculatively at Kane's saddle, chaps, pistol, hat, horse. "Where did you find that sorrel horse he is riding?"

"That is a horse he brought here from the north," the Lion said.

"He looks like a good horse."

"He is a good horse if only for the meat he would give," the Lion said.

The horse killer rode around behind Pajaro and looked at the horse's hind quarters. . `

"Look at those quarters! They would give one hundred kilos of fresh meat apiece," the horse killer said. Kane looked back at him smiling brightly, dumbly. The horse killer smiled back at Kane.

"And the gringo? How much meat do you think he would yield?" the Lion asked.

"Plenty, and all sweet if it is anything like a gringa girl's meat. That is the kind I have always wanted to taste, the meat of a gringa woman, but maybe I should settle for a gringo man," the horse killer said, and he and the Lion laughed. And Kane thought, all right, you Lion, you snaggle-tooth.

Eight horses were in the corrals of the horse killers. The horses all were skinny with tight, dusty, dry hides. Five horse killers were sitting on the rock corral, their mounts tied under trees outside the corral. Another horse killer was leading a bay mare down a wash below the corral. The vultures now had given up their soaring and were flying low over the rider and the mare. The mare was to be killed and quartered in the wash. The vultures would get her fresh blood and bones.

The horses in the corral had been sheared of the long hair of their manes and tails. A big pile of horsehair lay outside the corral. The hair would be used for bosals, lead ropes, cinches, and headstalls the horse killers would braid when they weren't about their more profitable business of butchering horses.

When the cattle had been penned and the vaqueros were at their leisure, the horse killers quit work to visit with them.

The Lion walked to the corral and looked at the eight head of racks on which horses had once walked. A roan horse in the bunch was a fair-looking pony. He was young, with remnants of a fine, wide, barrel chest and straight legs. A white ring surrounded his eye, an eye that showed life and spirit in spite of the certain doom awaiting him from starvation if the horse killers didn't beat starvation to the meat that still abided on his bones.

"That horse looks like a horse I once saw on the ranch of Salvador Arce," the Lion announced, pointing to the roan. "This horse is a huinduri, an Appaloosa, is he not? That looks like the maple leaf brand of Arce on the horse's hip. How did you find this horse so far from the ranch of Arce?"

The scratch-faced horse killer who had met Kane and the Lion on the trail got into the corral and walked around the roan horse. He examined the brand closely though the maple leaf was twice the size of a man's hand and could be seen clearly from across the corral.

"I don't know how the horse finds himself all this way across the Sierra from the ranch of Arce if he belonged to Arce," Scratch Face said.

"Maybe you bought him from someone who bought him from Arce," the Lion offered.

"Yes. If the horse belonged to Arce we bought him from someone who bought him from Arce," Scratch Face said, closely examining the brand again.

"He looks like a good little horse. Are you going to meat him?" the Lion asked innocently.

"Oh, yes. He is for the meat, " Scratch Face said, straightening from his examination and walking back to the rock wall the Lion was sitting on. "He has much meat on him."

"He looks like too good a horse to butcher, " the Lion said. "Why don't you ride him? He looks like a better horse than any of these ghosts you are riding."

"Oh, yes. He is a very good horse," Scratch Face said, looking at his companion horse killers and laughing with them about something. "He has a good pace and he never tires. The kind of pace ideal for old women and young girls, an easy pace on tender rumps, or brittle ones."

"How about for gringos?" the Lion asked. "My gringuito says he would like to own the little huinduri if the horse is docile. He does not like broncos."

"The huinduri would be ideal for the gringuito as I just finished indicating. I bet the gringuito suffers from tender, soft little nalgas."

The Lion made a series of profound signs with his hands to Kane and uttered words like "caballo," "quieres, do you want," "comprar, to buy," to Kane. Kane, in turn, made signs to Scratch Face that he wanted him to saddle the roan horse.

"I thought you said the gringo couldn't understand Spanish," Scratch Face said to the Lion, ignoring Kane's communication.

"He only asked you to saddle the huinduri and mount him and ride him so that he could see if he was gentle," the Lion said.

"Yes, but he understood your words," Scratch Face said.

"No, he didn't. I can make him understand anything I want without words. Didn't I tell you he doesn't understand a word of Spanish?" the Lion said.

Scratch Face walked up as close to Kane as the rock fence i would allow and shouted, "You, buy horse, much money," gesticulating and pointing to the palm of his hand. Kane looked to the Lion for translation.

"You see? He doesn't understand you," the Lion said. He gave Kane another series of signals slow and profound. Kane turned and looked speculatively at the horse and then at Scratch Face and then turned to the Lion and gave him a good series of gestures profound.

"He wants you to ride the huinduri for him," the Lion said.

"Saddle him and ride him, Leobardo," Scratch Face said to a wan-faced horse killer sitting on the fence.

"You think I'm crazy enough to go along with your clowning?" Wan Face said soberly. "I don't want to get killed today."

"The horse is gentle," Scratch Face shouted at Kane, twisting his face belligerently.

"He doesn't understand. But I do. I understand why you don't use the huinduri for a saddle horse now. He is bronco. Besides that he has the maple leaf brand," the Lion said.

"No, no, no, he would make the gringo a good horse. Tell him I'll trade him the huinduri for that sorrel horse he is riding. The huinduri is a better saddle horse for this country than the sorrel and the sorrel has more meat on him. I could ride the sorrel for a month and he would still give me more meat than all eight horses in this corral put together."

"No deal. We can't trade. The huinduri doesn't belong to you," the Lion said, taking Kane's arm and walking away from the corral. He walked to a pile of corn leaves outside the corral.

"Give this pile of tasol to me for my cattle and horses," the Lion told Scratch Face when he caught up to them.

"Why not, Lion? Take whatever you want. We are going to kill these horses tomorrow. We won't need much tasol. Only enough for our saddle horses," Scratch Face said.

The Lion called two of the vaqueros and told them to feed the horse killers' saddle horses and give all the rest of the tasol to Kane's cattle and horses and mules.

"Wait a minute. How much are you going to pay me for the tasol, Lion?" Scratch Face asked.

"What? I'm giving you back the good huinduri horse," the Lion said.

"What? The huinduri is already mine."

"Then take back the tasol and give me back the huinduri," the Lion said. "It is all the same to me. The huinduri is a good horse. Give me all the ownership papers on him. I need the papers."

"But what have you given me for the huinduri?" Scratch T Face cried.

"The tasol, of course," the Lion said. "Must I talk plainer? I would not want to take the huinduri back to Chinipas where Arce would reclaim him for wont of papers, so I am going to let you keep him, but you are going to pay me the tasol for him.

"¡Ah qué León tan listo! How smart you are," Scratch Face said, clapping the Lion on the shoulder.

"Give the horse killers' saddle horses a good feed," the Lion ordered the vaqueros who were distributing the tasol. "I am sure by the looks of them they will appreciate a good feed."

That evening while Lion was making supper, Scratch Face came to the campfire with a horse loin.

"Here is fresh meat for you," Scratch Face said.

"Horse meat? No me gusta, I don't like it," the Lion said.

Scratch Face offered it to some of the vaqueros. "No me gusta the meat of a horse," each of them said. Kane refused it saying, "Thank you," in English.

''Do you think he knows it is horse meat?" Scratch Face asked the Lion.

"No. Of course not. He thinks you are killing coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions out here," the Lion growled.

"Well, I just thought gringos might eat any kind of meat. I heard they did."

"This one doesn't eat the meat of a horse."

"Is it true, Lion, that you can make him understand any word in Spanish?" Scratch Face asked craftily.

"Naturally. I told you so, didn't I?" the Lion said.

"Are you sure he doesn't talk the lengua Maya, the Indian tongue? Is that how you make him understand? He looks like an Indian of some type."

"Didn't I tell you? He is a gringo. He speaks only English."

"Leobardo says he knows a difficult word in English. He says he bets you can't make the gringo say the word," Scratch Face said.

"Bueno, how much do you want to bet?" the Lion asked him.

"I believe that between us all at our fire we can raise one hundred pesos."

"Get it ready. We'll be up there after supper," the Lion said.

Later, Kane and the Lion went to the horse killers fire. They were sitting there waiting, and grinning at Wan Face, who was in possession of the precious knowledge, the knowledge that would defeat the Lion. Wan Face was taking his knowledge and the responsibilities of his superior advantages of language very seriously and his countenance demanded respect.

"Leobardo once spent a year working on the shrimp boats of Guaymas and during that time had many occasions to see the word ‘shrimp' written in English," Scratch Face began. "You might not know this, but much of our Mexican shrimp from Guaymas goes to the United States. The gringos cannot get shrimp in the United States and must come to Mexico for their shrimp. We have many products the gringo needs and one of the most valuable ones is shrimp."

"Sí, sí, sí, sí, sí," the Lion said impatiently, "We all know how much the gringo needs our Mexican products. So what is the word you want to bet on?"

"So now Leobardo has written on this paper which I hold the word for shrimp in English. If the gringo can write the word on the other side of this paper exactly as Leobardo has written it, you will collect the one hundred forty-five pesos we are betting. " Scratch Face laid the bills on the ground and the Lion counted them, showing a disinclination to handle the money. He didn't show any of his own money.

"But my system of signals with the gringo only has to do with cattle and horse. I don't even know if my gringuito knows the English word for shrimp and if he does he probably doesn't know how to spell it. He is almost totally ignorant of letters because he is from a region in the United States where there are no schools," the Lion said mournfully.

"Come on, Lion!" Scratch Face taunted. "You can't rajar, crack, now. Your big front is cracking. You can't back out. You already agreed to take the bet."

"I didn't say I would take any bet. You said one hundred pesos," the Lion complained.

"We bet one hundred forty-five pesos now. And we'll bet another fifty pesos and there they are," Scratch Face said, throwing another 50 pesos on the pile. "Don't show us you are afraid and don't cry because gringos are ignorant. We all know gringos are ignorant." The horse killers all, except the complacent Wan Face, laughed.

"All right. I won't let you laugh at me for backing out. I'll call the bet, " the Lion said angrily, and took out the cash and matched the entire bet.

He stood up and motioned for Kane to stand up and then began an intense series of signals with hands and fingers, rolling of eyeballs, stamping of feet, gestures which he repeated several times, indicating the paper and pencil in Scratch Face's hand. Kane looked to the Lion and Scratch Face. He looked at the Lion and then at the paper and pencil, the Lion and paper and pencil, then, rapidly, Lion-paper, Lion -paper, Lion-paper. Finally he offered to take the paper and pencil from Scratch Face and looked to the Lion and the Lion indicated "yes." Kane took the paper and laid it flat on the palm of one hand and held the pencil over it to write with the other hand and gazed expectantly at the Lion for more instructions.

"I must rest," the Lion said. "This is so difficult." He sat down and took several deep breaths. Kane stood as quiet as sin when it is in the next room and studied the Lion's smallest move.

"How will I ever make him understand ‘shrimp'? I took five minutes trying to make him understand he was to take the paper and pencil," the Lion complained to Scratch Face.

Kane thought, yeah, you son of a bitch and your games, and if I don't have a change of heart you will gyrate for two hours making me write shrimp.

The Lion finally got up on his haunches and started going through his signals again. Kane stood dumbly, for as long as he could bear to see the horse killers seeing him act so dumb, until he no longer could stand their comments on his ignorance, through the Lion's usual signals. Kane did not take it to understand any of these usual signals so the Lion rested again.

When he began again he changed his signals and began roaring like the waves, hissing like the wind on the foam on his mouth, swimming like a beached whale, showing the pink of his gums for the color of a shrimp, and showing the curved little finger to be the shape of the shrimp. Kane did not deign to understand these signals either. But when the Lion, in desperation, pulled out the end of his penis, presenting it as possibly resembling a shrimp, Kane surrendered and wrote shrimp on the back of the paper. The horse killers roared, mocking the Lion for his aspect-of-a-shrimp, size-of-a-shrimp penis. Even the money he won from the horse killers did not help the Lion feel the sense of triumph he wanted. He had been made to work too hard and give up too much for the money.

"You mostrenco, you ladino, you don't have a loyal bone in your body, do you?" the Lion said to Kane on the way back to their fire. "If you hadn't taken that last signal I would have despaired. I would have let them take the money. "

"I'm sorry, Lion. I am so dumb I just couldn't understand what you were trying to say and then I remembered you said if we stayed here with the horse killers it would be a diversion for us. I want to thank you for that. I was not having any fun until you put on that free show for me," Kane said.

When Kane had finished counting the cattle out of the corral the next morning he rode over to say good-bye to Scratch Face.

"I want to thank you for the fine entertainment and for the pleasure of knowing you. You and your men made the evening I spent with you a perfectly enjoyable one," Kane said to Scratch Face in fluent and well-rehearsed Spanish, and rode away.

34
Cuiteco

The quiet valley of Cuiteco reverberated with heavy machines during the time the vaqueros called the second sleep, the time between midnight and four o'clock. Kane got up from the ground with his thick, Mayo blanket over his shoulders and met the Lion at the fire.

"The trucks are on time," the Lion said. The lights of a line of trucks shone toward the village of Cuiteco from the upper end of the steep valley. They came on and stopped in the village.

Elfigo Batista, the owner of the trucks, walked down to the camp of Kane and the Lion at dawn.

"Are we on time?" Batista asked. "We drove all night."

"You are just in time," the Lion said. "We got here with the herd yesterday at noon. We can start loading the trucks as soon as you bring them down."

"We'll start loading at noon. The drivers are sleeping now," Batista said.

The mayor of the town came smiling to the campfire and introduced himself. A small boy was with him. The mayor asked to see the guías and facturas of the cattle and Kane got them out of his saddlebags. The mayor took the papers and began examining the brands on the cattle. He seemed to be having difficulty reading the brands although all the cattle had the scorched Rv brand on their sides.

"I'd better go explain the trail brand and save him the trouble he is having," Kane said.

"He needs no explanation. These are just his preliminaries for collecting mordida, his bite out of the gringo's rump."

The Lion laughed. "Leave him alone and he will waste less of your time and effort."

The mayor came back to the fire. He pocketed Kane's papers. He was not smiling now.

"Where were you taking these cows?" he asked Kane.

"Cows?" Kane asked him. "We don't have a cow in the bunch. They are all toretes."

"Toretes then". Where were you taking them?"

"I am taking them to Creel as the papers state."

"Where did you get the cattle?"

"I got them in Chinipas. They have already been inspected through to Creel."

"These cattle are not going to Creel or anywhere until I have inspected them properly and have made sure they were inspected in Chinipas?

"The papers you have in your pocket all have the seal of the inspector in Chinipas. They also describe each torete and the brand of the ranch he came from. They also show the trail brand."

"Yes, but they cannot leave here until I have made my inspection. I just looked the cattle over and I am satisfied it will take me a few days to complete my inspection. Also, I may have to go with these papers to Chinipas and verify the Chinipas inspectors inspection."

Kane, speechless, turned to the Lion.

"Ha, ha, ha," the Lion said.

"Ha, ha, ha," Kane said mirthlessly.

"You may think this is all ridiculous and a matter for jokes but I take the matter seriously," the mayor said. "We of the Sierra take any movement of cattle seriously. I must be in complete accord with the inspector from Chinipas before I will allow these cattle to go on past Cuiteco."

"You have telephone communication with Chinipas, do you not?" Kane asked.

"Yes, we have a line," the mayor said.

"Then why don't you call Chinipas and talk to the inspector? I am sure he will advise you to allow the cattle to pass on." Kane was remembering happily his contribution to
the Chinipas water system.

"We might call. I don't guarantee we will resolve the matter by telephone, though," the mayor said.

Kane and the Lion followed the mayor and the little boy up the hill to the village. The telephone of Cuiteco was in the mayor's front room. He graciously offered chairs to Kane and the Lion and called in his daughter to make the call. She left the earpiece of the telephone on its hook and wound the crank of the bell several times. She did not pick up the receiver to see if anyone answered in Chinipas but let it stay on its hook. Then he left the room. The girl sat by the phone reading a copy of Romance juventud, a comic-book type of true love magazine that used photographs of its soulful protagonists instead of drawings and caricatures. Jim Kane squirmed in his chair. The girl slumped over the magazine, protecting it lest anyone steal a look at its pages. The Lion lit a cigarette, sighed, and stretched his six feet four inches like a board against his chair.

"Señorita, would you please try to ring Chinipas again?" Kane asked the girl.

The girl did not look at him but raised her head from where it hung on her slumping spine and called "Papá" through curtains to another room. The mayor came back in the room chewing on a bite of his breakfast.

"Yes, daughter? What is it?"

"El señor," the girl stated, letting her head loll back and taking the pages of another magazine, one entitled Novelas de Amor, in her slack hand.

"And what can you be offered, señor?" the mayor asked Kane.

"Would you please ring Chinipas again? They didn't answer," Kane said.

"They didn't answer? Don't they answer, daughter? I'll try again." He cranked the telephone violently several times and started to walk out of the room.

"Aren't you going to pick up the receiver?" Kane asked him.

"There is no need of that," the mayor of the village of Cuiteco, Municipio of Chinipas, Chihuahua, said. "They will ring back when my ring reaches Chinipas. This is an old line with old wire and sometimes it takes days for a ring from Cuiteco to reach Chinipas. We need a new line."

Kane left the house and walked back down to his cattle with his head down. Later the Lion came down off the hill with the mayor.

"Give him five hundred pesos," the Lion said. Kane dug in his saddlebags, his back to the mayor, and got the 500 pesos and gave up the money.

"Ah, is this a contribution for the new telephone line?" the mayor asked Kane, smiling.

"Yes. I hope this helps you. You have been most hospitable to us," Kane said.

"In that case I believe you can go ahead and load your cattle. I don't want to hold them any longer. It is not the poor cows fault that the wire to Chinipas is bad. I will continue to attempt to get in touch with the inspector of Chinipas but I am sure all your papers are in order. I will let you know what the inspector tells me if he calls back before you leave."

"Thank you. My cattle appreciate it," Kane said. The mayor gave Kane the inspection papers and went back up the hill.

The vaqueros loaded the cattle by roping them one by one and dragging them into the trucks. When the cattle were all loaded Kane paid the vaqueros what he owed them. He also paid them for two days they would be on the trail back to their homes. He took his saddlebags and blanket and put them in the truck Elfigo Batista was driving. He took off his chaps, spurs and pistol and laid them on Pajaro's saddle.

"I charge you with the alazán, the sorrel, and my gear, Lion," he said to his friend Andres Celaya.

"Don't worry a minute about him. I'll care for him as though he were my own," the Lion said. "I'll leave him and the gear at Graf's store in Chinipas. When will you be back for him?"

"I don't know. Maybe in a week or ten days? Where are you going from here, Lion?"

"After I leave the Pajaro in Chinipas I am going to Guadalupe Calvo. I have a friend there that says he has maps of treasure the Jesuits left, " the Lion said.

"If I'm not back to Chinipas in ten days take the Pajaro back to Rio Alamos and I'll send you money so that you can take him back to the border for me."

"Bueno," the Lion said. "Don't worry about him. Worry about yourself now."

Kane handed the Lion some money he had separated from his saddlebags.

"No. Keep it this time, Jim," the Lion said. "Use it to come back this way and we'll look for the Jesuit gold."

"Well then, thank you, amigo." ·

"We are friends. We'll see each other again," the Lion said. Kane got into the truck with Elfigo Batista.

35
The Cuidadores

Elfigo Batista's truck was first in the line of fifteen. At the first level stretch of road above the valley of Cuiteco Kane asked Batista to stop the caravan. Five of the eighteen head of bulls in Batista's truck had lost their footing in the climb out of the valley. Kane climbed in with the cattle and tailed the five bulls back to their feet.

Each of the other trucks carried an extra man besides the driver. This extra man served as cuidador. He was in charge of the cattle on the truck. Some of the cuidadores carried electric hotshots or prodpoles which they used to urge fallen cattle back to their feet. Kane saw that down the line of trucks the cuidadores were doing their jobs.

Cattle that suffered most in the shifting press of weight down the uneven road in the steep hills were cattle standing by the tailgates of the trucks.

All of the 265 head were leg-weary and footsore after fourteen days on the trail. They would never become adjusted to the constant shifting balance of footing in the eighteen hours on the trucks from Cuiteco to Creel.

Cattle, at times, were lifted completely off their feet by the press of the load in the climbs, dips, and descents through the mountains. Few level places gave the cattle time to regain their balance. The road passed along the edge of the Barranca del Cobre, the deepest canyon in Mexico. The government had built trestles for the railroad that were as high as 900 meters from the bottoms of the gorges.

On descents, the cattle would fall toward the front of the trucks and cattle in the rear that had been lifted off their feet against the tailgate would fall back to the floor without regaining their footing. On climbs, these cattle would be trampled as the load was pressed back over them. On level stretches, the trucks would stop and the cuidadores would climb the racks of the trucks to survey the mélée. They would find cattle lying on top of other cattle that were lying on their own heads, cattle with their hooves stuck through the spaces between the boards of the racks, cattle in the corners with their heads twisted over their backs and held fast by horns wedged through the racks. The cuidadores would untangle the mass and the trucks would go on again.

In the evening, at a farm in a small, grassy valley, a place called Los Tascates, Kane unloaded a red bull that had been so trampled and gored that he would never get to Creel alive. Kane gave the farmer a bill of sale for the bull. Kane knew he would never return for the bull because it would cost more than the bull was worth to take him alone to market. If the bull continued on the trip he would never be good for anyone. The farmer, wordlessly, without smiling, took the bill of sale.

Long after dark the caravan came to a campfire in a high stand of pine where a half-dozen Tarahumara Indians were roasting a string of squirrels on a spit. These Tarahumaras seemed to have had more exposure to Mexican ways. Whatever business they had on the road was not disclosed but they were dressed in the baggy jeans and huaraches of the serrano. They wore the wild hair of the Tarahumara with bangs carefully trimmed over their brows. They had a quantity of mezcal and a hollow, lutelike, stringed, toneless instrument one of them played tunelessly. The truckers warmed tortillas at the fire of the Tarahumara, joked with them as they ate their supper, checked the cattle again, and went on.

Two bulls in Kane's truck had become so weak and injured by midnight that Kane slung them with ropes on the sides of the racks so they wouldn't be trampled. After midnight the cuidadores and the cattle were so exhausted that no more could be done to keep the cattle on their feet. The trucks went the last three hours of the trip into Creel without stopping and backed into the pit embarcadero at the dipping vat before dawn. Many of the cattle were down in the trucks. The truckers unloaded the cattle and turned them loose in a pasture by the dipping vat in the darkness.

All the cattle walked off the trucks under their own power except two in the last truck. These two were the brindle and the black Kane had necked together on the first day of the drive. They probably had been weaker than the rest because of the extra exertion they had made adjusting to each other the first days they were necked together.

Kane was exhausted from lifting on tails and horns, from climbing over and down off the racks of the trucks countless times, and from having slept cold fourteen nights on the trail drive. He could not lift himself again to help unload the last truck. He sat on the frosty ground under a tree by the truck and watched the truckers unload it.

Two cuidadores dragged the brindle and the black to the open tailgate. The two men giggled hysterically from a combination of fatigue, relief at seeing they only had two more bulls to unload, and their own clumsiness in the manure-slippery darkness of the truck.

"This one looks like you, Loco," one cuidador said to the other as he embraced the horns of the black bull and lifted on the front end. "He has horns as big as yours, he is black as you are, and he turns his eyes inside-out the same way you do when your old lady holds your head next to those big bosoms of hers. The only difference between you and this bull is that not everyone can see your big horns. Only I know they exist."

"You wish your old lady had bosoms instead of those two fried eggs she has plastered on her chest, Loco," the cuidador lifting on the tail of the black bull said.

"My old lady doesn't need big bosoms as long as your old lady has big bosoms, Loco," the one embracing the horns said. "As long as I can visit your house three times a week. "

They couldn't get the black to stand on his own feet so they dragged him to the edge of the truck and rolled him off He landed on his head, horns in the ground, neck bent, hindquarters lying on his head and front quarters. "Be careful of those horns, Loco," the man who had been on the front end said. "They look just like yours and I don't want anything to happen to them. I have been a long time making you a pair of horns like that, three times a week for three years has made you a beautiful set of horns."

The two men turned back in the truck and stood over the brindle. "This one is lying awfully flat, Loco," the man who had the wife with the big bosoms said. "He looks like you do when my old lady is through with you on Fridays." They dumped the brindle off the truck on top of the black. Another cuidador who had been inspired by the two in the truck walked over to the brindle and pulled him off the black. He lifted on the tail until the brindle's feet were on the ground and then he put himself up against the bull's rear end and made the humping motions of a bull on a cow, his arms stiff down the brindle's sides. "Here is one bull whose cods will never again serve him. I'm going to have him while he is still warm and good for something. Maybe the injection of my syringe will revive him. " The bull-humper giggled. The brindle couldn't stand the weight and collapsed on his side. The bull-humper fell on top of him giggling.

Kane sat completely rendered out of his will and watched the cuidadores clown over the dying forms of his cattle. After all, he thought, what would my getting angry do to revive the cattle? They are past being teased, or hurt, or driven. They don't resent being made sport of. How could I educate a Creel, Chihuahua cuidador at dawn to bring the brindle and the black back to life? The cuidadores wish them no harm, they are only pointing out the cattle didn't make it any further out of the rough old Sierra, ha, ha, ha.

The trucks were pulling away and heading toward Creel. Elfigo Batista stood in front of Kane.

"We have a hotel in Creel," Batista said. "I'll take you to the hotel and bring you back in the morning. "

"Where can I buy alfalfa hay for my cattle?" Kane asked. "We have no alfalfa in Creel," Batista said. “There is wheat straw in that barn." He pointed to an old lumber barn by the dipping vat. "Urrea, the storekeeper who introduced us the day you came to Creel, owns the straw."

"Help me drag the brindle and the black to the barn," Kane said.

"The barn is locked," Batista said.

"I'll unlock it and we'll feed the cattle. You be a witness and count the bales we feed, " Kane said.

Kane and Batista dragged the bulls to the barn. Kane unscrewed the hasp off the door and they laid the two bulls on the warm, loose straw inside the barn. The two men broke sixty bales of the straw on the ground outside the barn. When they were finished feeding, Elfigo Batista said to Kane, "You had better come with me to the hotel. It has good beds. You will rest well there today. "

"I'd better not leave this barn alone with the door open," Kane said. "The owner might make me pay for every bale if someone comes to steal. I'll sleep here."

"I'm going then," Batista said.

"Thank you," Kane said. He threw his saddlebags down for a pillow and rolled in his blanket on the straw.

Kane dreamed he was a Chinaman and he owned a store in the Sierra. One night he was sleeping on the ground and he heard tanks of war coming down the road. Jim Kane, whose name in the dream was Chan Kane complete with pigtail and silken cap, had many thousands of pesos in gold coin hoarded in the walls of his store but he always slept outside on the ground so that the ground would warm him if there was any danger to his Chinese heart.

Now this war tank warned of a revolution that was appropriating all business and wealth of foreigners and Chan Kane got up from the ground and hired Elfigo Batista to take him to the coast with his gold. He and Elfigo Batista loaded all the gold on mules and they started down off the Sierra. Elfigo Batista led the pack string and Chan Kane rode in the rear. The first mule in the string carried only a pack saddle and a large, empty, canvas pannier.

They came to the Fuerte River and Elfigo Batista said that federal troops were camped over a hill on the other side of the river. He told Chan Kane to hide in the empty pannier so the troops wouldn't see him. The federals were accustomed to seeing Elfigo Batista lead his pack string over this crossing and would not question him. Chan Kane got into the pannier and Elfigo Batista laid him over the mule, sewed up the mouth of the pannier over Chan Kane's head, and tied the pannier on the saddle. In the middle of the river, when the mule began to swim, Elfigo Batista cut Chan Kane's pannier off the mule and Chan Kane went to the bottom ofthe river like a stone. The current was bumping him over the stones on the bottom and Kane was drowning and he woke up. Pistols Urrea, the Creel storekeeper, was standing over him prodding him in the back with the toe of his boot.

"Wake up. It is day now. Wake up, man," Pistols said.

Kane was so wrapped in the blanket with his arms folded on his chest he 'could not unwind.

"You touch me again with that boot and I'll show you how awake I am," Kane said.

"Well, get up so you can pay me for the hay you fed your cattle. I must see your papers and make a new inspection and we must dip these cattle today," Pistols said and walked outside. Kane sat up and unraveled himself from the blanket. The scab from the rope whip on his face was dry, peeling, and sore. The brindle bull that had been the cause of the scab was lying dead at Kane's feet. The black was not in the barn. Kane got up and went outside. He noticed for the first time that the soles of both of his boots were worn through. Even his socks were worn through. The black was eating wheat straw with the rest of the cattle. He counted them—263 cattle were around the wheat straw resting, eating, or drinking from a stream of milky water that ran through the pasture. He had left the red bull with a farmer. The brindle was dead, the first dead, and he wasn't paid for yet.

"How many bales did you feed`?" Pistols asked Kane.

"Elfigo Batista and I fed sixty bales," Kane said.

"You should have asked my permission to feed that hay."

"I did not feed hay. I fed wheat straw. Batista said there was no hay in Creel." `

"Stealing hay is a serious matter in Creel," Pistols said.

"If you want to call it stealing I stole some straw. What is half a ton of straw worth?"

"Bales of wheat are worth two dollars a bale in Creel. We have had a bad season here."

"A bad season but not bad for business."

"Pay me now."

Kane got the 1500 pesos out of his saddlebags and paid.

"Now you had better come with me so that we can make out the sanitation and brand inspection passes for the cattle," Pistols said.

Kane got his saddlebags, screwed the hasp back on the door with his knife, and got in Pistols' pickup with him. Pistols waylaid Kane for another 1600 pesos across the counter of his store for the sanitation and brand inspection fees. Kane went down the street and found Batista and paid him what he owed him. Batista told Kane he would provide him with five men on the following morning to drive the cattle to the rail yards and load them on the cars. Kane paid Elfigo the five men's wages in advance. He went to the rail yards and hired six cars for Chihuahua. The cars were already standing by the stock pens. He went to the telegraph oflice in the railroad station and wired Juan Palomares, a trucker Kane knew in Chihuahua, asking him to have trucks at the rail yards to pick up his cattle when they arrived. Then Kane went to the hotel and paid for a room for one night in advance. When he got in the room he found he had exactly 18 pesos or $1.44 American left in the saddlebags. He had not paid the rail cost. He could pay that in Chihuahua. And how would he pay the rail cost in Chihuahua?

Creel was windy and cold. Kane had no fire. He went to bed with all his clothes on. He slept until afternoon when he walked out and watched Pistols' men dip his cattle. He counted the cattle again. He still had all of them. They hadn't eaten a third of the wheat straw but they were doing their best. Kane went back to bed.

The train was to leave at 8 A.M. The last bull was loaded at 8 A.M. The switch engine picked them up at 10 A.M. Kane bought his cuidador ticket and boarded the caboose thinking, one thing about it, the railroad will have Kane and all his cattle in Chihuahua now and they can't send us back, even if we can't pay. But the ferrocarrileros will be standing in their station with the palms of their hands showing when I try to unload my I cattle. I hope I can get them unloaded before the ferrocarrileros find out I can't pay.

Kane sat on the eight-inch padded plank through the day and the night and the next day, to Chihuahua. Whenever the train stopped he climbed through the cars and tailed up his cattle. The cattle kept their feet well through the trip. The fat railroad men with important faces impressed with themselves passed coldly into the caboose, took one look at the scab on Kane's face, and went out without speaking to him.

He climbed into the little gondola tower of the caboose to see if he could see the trucks of Juan Palomares while the train was rail-bumping into Chihuahua. He saw them. The working, carefree truckers were smoking and horseplaying around their trucks. Kane thought, I drew to an inside straight.

Kane didn't get off the caboose until the cattle cars were sided near the trucks. He told Juan Palomares to load the trucks and to take the cattle to the packinghouse corrals and, in case Kane wasn't there, to feed sixty bales of alfalfa hay. He helped walk the cattle from car to truck until he saw three railroad officials come walking toward the trucks and then he walked around the trucks to the railroad office. He asked briskly, confidently, in the office how much he owed and they told him after examination of a yellow telegraph communication, 6,000 pesos plus 2,000 pesos demarrage. Kane asked why the demarrage. They said Kane had been two hours late loading his cattle. He had been told to load his cattle by 8 A. M. and he had not finished loading until 10 A. M., causing the train to arrive in Chihuahua two hours late. Kane said, "Muy bien", and walked out. The three officials were walking, facing him but not seeing him because of their officious conversation, back toward the office where, undoubtedly, the truckers had said Kane had gone. He detoured them by going back around the stationhouse, around the cattle cars, around the caboose, to the car that was being unloaded. He worked fifteen minutes more walking cattle onto the last truck and trailer. He saw the officials, deep in their conversation, strolling back toward the last, lonely trailer. Kane went through the cattle car, climbed out of the high offside window in one corner, climbed around the caboose, and got onto the rack of the trailer on the opposite side from the officials as the truck pulled away from the train. He held onto the rack as the truck drove away and rode "with the machine. He had left his blanket, his saddlebags, and his hat in the caboose.

At the first taxi stand Kane appeared at the driver's window and told him to stop. The driver stopped. Kane jumped off the truck and got into a taxi and told the driver to go straight to the Hotel Victoria. Kane's Uncle Herb Kane stayed at the Victoria when he was in town.'

At the desk of the Victoria, the clerk told Kane that Herb Kane was not registered. Kane asked permission to use the phone and called the home of Santiago Brennan. Santiago was in El Paso. Kane was walking out of the lobby toward his taxi when he looked in the bar of the Victoria and saw big hats. The first Big Hat at the bar, an old Big Hat, told him kindly that Herb Kane had been staying at the Hotel Avenida but was leaving town that day. Kane pushed the taxi on to the Hotel Avenida. The clerk there told Kane that Herb Kane had checked out only a few minutes before Kane had come in.

Kane got back in the taxi and figured his Uncle Herb wouldn't get out of town any other way but by private plane if he was leaving that late in the day. He told the cabbie to hurry to the airport. The cabbie was happy to do it as the fare to the airport and back would be as substantial as the gringo could be conned into paying. The taxi made a circle around the block and stopped for a light. Kane looked out the window at the people waiting for the light. He was looking for pretty girls but he saw his Uncle Herb standing on the corner, briefcase and suitcase in bland. Kane piled out of the cab and grabbed his Uncle Herb.

"Pay my cab, Uncle Herb. You're not going anywhere after all, " the bareheaded, coatless, whiskered-scab-faced Jim Kane said.

"Black Man, where's my silver, ruby-eyed, steerhead tie clasp?" Uncle Herb asked.

Kane had drawn one card, the king, to a royal straight flush.

36
Quarantine

Your cattle must be quarantined sixty days, Senor Kane," . the man in the Union Ganadera, the Cattleman's Union, in Chihuahua said.

"Take me away to the chingada," Kane said. "My buyers told me the whole state of Chihuahua was clean of the fever tic."

The man turned to a well-lighted map that covered the wall behind his desk.

"Look here, Senor Kane," the man said. "There are nine municipios in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua that are still considered fever-tick-infested areas. See, they are all circled plainly on this map and Chinipas is one of them. Where are the cattle now?"

"At the empacadora, the packing house."

"Our inspector will supervise the examination of your cattle for ticks. They will be dipped again and ear-tags indicating the date the cattle began their quarantine will be put on each steer. In sixty days you will be able to export them to the United States. Your uncle Herb Kane is a member of the Cattleman's Union and he can acquire your export permit for you. Come back in sixty days and we will arrange all your necessary papers."

Kane thanked the man and turned away from the desk. He walked out of the modern office of the Union Ganadera and down the stairs to the street. He thought, so this is this and that is that and the cattle won't cross until the middle of July. I could have taken the cattle through Rio Alamos and they would have crossed three weeks earlier. Tut-tut, Terry Garrett and Ira March, don't blame me. I hope you enjoyed the 500-mile race in Indianapolis.

Kane went back to the Hotel Avenidai He wore a new palmetto hat, a new pair of low-cut boot-shoes, and new shirt and trousers his Uncle Herb had staked him to. Uncle Herb was sitting in the lobby with his glasses on his nose reading the Chihuahua paper. He had already gone to the railway station and paid Kane's rail fees and demarrage. Kane sat down with him and told him what the man at the Union Ganadera had said. Uncle Herb handed Kane the papers on the cattle.

"Where did you get them, Uncle Herb?" Kane asked him, glad the papers had been salvaged.

"The railroad officials had them. They found them in the caboose. They knew someone would be back for them. They would have held them and tied the cattle up until someone paid the freight."

"My hat, saddlebags, and blanket?"

"I didn't ask about them and they didn't offer to return them. The man at the union said the cattle would have to be quarantined?

"Yes."

"I thought so. I was so sure the cattle would have to stay that I rented you a ranch seventy miles from here. It is a good ranch and better than is usually available in this state this time of the year."

"Thank you, Uncle Herb."

"So now I've found you a ranch. I already paid your trucking from the railway station to the packing house. You have a new hat and new clothes. I'll be back to Chihuahua next week and take out an export permit for the cattle for Garrett. The trucker Palomares is going to bill me for trucking the cattle to the quarantine ranch. He won't charge me as much as he would you. If I were you I would castrate the cattle in the packing house corrals and let them rest and fill up on good hay there another week before I trucked them to the ranch."

"I plan to do that, Uncle Herb."

"You want some good beer and some good carne, Black Man?"

You bet."

"We'1l go eat and then I'm going to have to go back to El Paso. I've got you all straightened out for now."

Uncle Herb took Kane to the brewery beer garden. It was Sunday afternoon and the parking lot, with its shady ramadas and waiters hurrying back and forth to customers sitting in their cars, was crowded. They went into the dining room of the beer garden and ordered carne asada, broiled steak, broiled kidneys, marrow gut, and a large pitcher of the dark golden beer. They put their hats down on empty chairs by their table. The table was covered by a clean tablecloth.

While they were waiting for the meal Uncle Herb said, "You don't mean to tell me you are going to stay in this sorry business, do you?"

"Why not? This business has been good for you, hasn't it? If I ever gain half the respect you have in these two countries I will have achieved something," Kane said.

"Black Man, I've stayed in this business because I've never known anything else. You have an education. You can do better than I have ever done. Maybe it is time you thought about doing something you are better suited to do. We don't always get to live the way we want to. Haven't you learned that let? Your education must have given you some ideas about at."

"My education taught me there is no legal or moral law against being what I am."

After dinner they went back to the hotel. Uncle Herb got his baggage and paid his bill at the desk. He wrote Kane a check for $100. Kane walked out to the corner where he had caught Uncle Herb on the street the day before. He waited with him there until a taxi came by.

"Well, Black Man, do your best, " Uncle Herb said. They shook hands and Uncle Herb got into the cab.

37
Settlement

Jim Kane was in a deep sleep in his room in the Avenida one afternoon after he had come back from seeing his cattle and taken a long, steamy shower. His telephone rang.

"Well, we are finally here. Where are you?" The voice on the phone belonged to Terry Garrett.

"Where in the hell are you calling From?" Jim Kane asked him.

"Yeah, your Uncle Herb told me you were in Chihuahua City with the cattle. Why didn't you call me?"

"I tried to get ahold of you when I needed you badly three weeks ago and you were nowhere to be found. I tried once after I got here and I couldn't locate you. My Uncle Herb gave me all the help I needed here so I didn't need you except to tell you your cattle were here and my job was finished."

"You should have been with us in E1 Paso last night. We had a party." .

"Yeah?" Kane said. "So what?"

"So we are still partying. Come on over and have supper with us."

"Where are you?"

"At the Palacio. Room 408."

"All right. I'll be over after a while."

"Come over now. We've got a bottle of Scotch."

Kane dressed in a clean, starched shirt and his clean Levis that had been sewn together in the split places. He went downstairs and had a drink in the bar. He went out on the street and got a shoeshine. He didn't much feel like going in on the tail end of a party of Terry Garrett's that had probably been going on for a month but finally he walked to the Palacio and went up to Garrett's room. The black-haired girl that answered the door was wearing an eye-patch like a pirate. Her black panties and bra and high-heeled shoes matched the eye patch. She wasn't wearing anything else.

"Yeah!" the girl breathed and voices in the room roared with laughter. Kane looked past her and saw Terry Garrett, his hat on the back of his head, his blond hair in his eyes, sprawled on an easy chair with a tall drink of whiskey in his hand.

"There's Jim Kane," Garrett shouted. "Give it to him, Lucy." The girl reached for Kane, pulled him into the room, threw her arms around his neck, and smooched him on the mouth. Kane walked into the room with the girl hanging on his neck like a necktie. He shook hands with Garrett and the girl was still hanging on. Santiago Brennan came in from an adjoining room and shook hands. He mixed Kane a double Scotch and soda. Kane walked over to the bed and dumped the girl on it.

"Meet Lucy Luz, our one-eyed stripper from Juarez," Garrett shouted.

"Hi, Jim Kane," Lucy Luz said from the bed, folding her good-looking legs up. "What happened to your face?"

"Hi," Kane said without looking any more at her. "Where's Ira March? he asked Garrett.

"I've got him working. He's delivering some of the cattle you sent us from Rio Alamos. He's getting the money. We need the money. How have you been doing? What kind of cattle have you got?"

"Good cattle. They are at the packing house. 'I castrated them day before yesterday. "

"How many?"

"Two hundred sixty-three head."

"Did you lose any on the trail?"

"No. I lost two on the trucks to Creel."

"Well, I should have been there to help you. I knew you must have been in need of help, but I was so busy I just couldn't make 'er."

Santiago Brennan laughed at him. "He was so busy partying the only way I could get him down here was to bring his missus along too," Brennan said. "But to hell with the business now. Let's order some steaks and drink some whiskey now. Talk business tomorrow."

"Right!" Terry Garrett said.

Kane drank three double Scotches in a hurry. Lucy Luz went through her one-eyed strip act without music, which helped Kane toward catching up to the party mood of Garrett and Brennan. He was on his fourth double when the phone Lang in Brennan's room. Brennan talked for a minute and came back.

"That was Roy Cunningham. He's coming up. He's been in Chihuahua several months buying horses. Roy is an ex-rodeo hand and a double-tough son-of-a-gun," Santiago said.

Roy Cunningham was a tall man, wide in the chest and shoulders, so big he filled the door when he came through it. His black hair and eye-fold showed his Indian blood. Lucy Luz did not welcome him as she had welcomed Kane. A waiter came in behind Cunningham carrying a tray with a bottle of Scotch, a pan of ice, and several bottles of mineral water. Cunningham looked at the check and put some bills on the tray. The waiter counted the money at a glance and hesitated, expecting his tip. "Get out of here," Roy Cunningham said without looking at him. The waiter hurried out. He had not ventured a look at Lucy Luz.

The four men and the girl drank and feasted on steak and high conversation. When the whiskey was gone they got a taxi and headed out of town toward more girls and the music. Kane was sitting in the front seat of the taxi next to the door. Cunningham was in the middle next to the driver. Santiago, Lucy, and Garrett were in the back seat. The cab wasn't going fast enough to suit Cunningham so he stomped his foot down over the driver's foot on the accelerator. A busload of people stepped out in front of the headlights as the runaway cab sped off a narrow bridge. Cunningham grabbed the wheel, sounded the horn, and steered the cab through the people as they dove and scattered off the road like quail. The cabbie covered his eyes with his hands.

They stopped the cab at a bordello and nightclub called the Kilometro Cuatro, a place lying in wait for customers who didn't know enough to pay for each round of drinks as they were served. The customers got drunk and when the bill was presented they couldn't argue about the exorbitance of the price of the party. The customer couldn't argue because if he did the waiter called the cops and the cops made the customer pay more.

Santiago Brennan ordered a bottle of champagne. The four men drank this bottle toasting the girl.

The waiter brought another bottle of champagne. He said the new bottle had been sent by a young Mexican who was seated at a table by himself across the room. The young man l nodded when the four men and the girl looked his way. , Santiago stood up and motioned to the young man, inviting him to join them.

"This is Guillermo Santini," Santiago announced. "He likes Americans. He especially likes American girls. He wants to practice his English on us."

"He can like us as long as he keeps ordering the champagne," Kane said.

The smiling young man in his dark suit sat down at the table. Terry Garrett took Lucy to the dance floor. Garrett danced as though his feet were six inches off the floor and he wore a big crooked grin on his face. He could see nothing. The house finally ran out of champagne. Not even a bottle of warm champagne was left. The four men and the student and the girl ordered a bottle of tequila, lime halves, and salt. Kane drank tequila out of his champagne glass and got up and found himself a soft, brown, nameless girl to dance with. Roy Cunningham found himself a tall peroxide girl in a red satin dress. Santiago Brennan danced with Lucy. The dance floor t was crowded and the three couples were dancing on the edge of the floor near the table where Terry Garrett and Guillermo Santini were sitting.

Garrett was drunk now. His head was nodding and would soon be under him like a weak old steer's who was down in a ditch. Santini was talking to him but Garrett wasn't listening. Santini politely patted Garrett on the shoulder to get his attention. Garrett revived and looked at Santini. The Mexican smiled and repeated what he had said. Garrett reached up with both hands, took off his own hat, pounded the Mexican three times on the head with it, put it back on his head, and laid his head down on the table. Guillermo Santini stood up in a very formal, dignified manner, his face red with embarrassment, and postured before Garrett as though he might be removing a pair of white gloves to slap Garrett's face with. He carefully removed Garrett's hat and slapped Garrett's head with it. When Garrett looked up again Santini hit him a fine right hand between the eyes. Garrett did a backward somersault on his buttocks and spilled out on the dance floor at Kane's feet. Kane and Cunningham picked Terry Garrett up and propped him, soundly anesthetized, back on his chair. The .three valiants sat down and drank a toast to the brave, fallen Garrett and threw their champagne glasses against the wall. They called the waiter and ordered more glasses.

A floorshow began. The first girl who came out was a dancer. She was out of shape. Her heavy thighs shook excessively beneath the folds of her buttocks. She tried to dance her scuffed shoes above the floor but they crashed back to the floor too abruptly. She didn't take off any of her clothes because she couldn't use her hands at the same time she used her feet. Her hands fluttered erratically as they tried to keep time with her feet but the stomps jarred away the movement of the hands before they could describe flight. She did have a genuine smile on her face, a smile she showed intimately to each someone in the audience she could catch looking at her. Kane joined in a sound applause with everyone else when she lumbered toward her dressing room at the end of her dance. He figured she must be trying a comeback.

The second girl was young and confident of her body. She could afford her brilliant, jaw-aching cold smile. She had long hair that hung uncombed to her hips. She began to do what she knew the customers had come to see. She took her clothes off gracefully to the tune of music. She was down to the last strip of her raiment, the strip she knew was driving the customers mad, when she began making gyrating passes at Jim Kane, who was sitting at the edge of the dance floor. Kane turned to Hoy Cunningham and said, "If she makes one more pass at me like that I'm going to jerk that thing off her."

The girl came wiggling back. Kane waited until she turned away wiggling and he snatched the seat of the G-string. He jerked it hard to tear it off clean without hurting her but it held and the girl came with it. He pushed her back out to get a new pull and her hair stood up and when he jerked again harder the hair waved in a wide arc over her head and covered her face and she came skidding across the table. Kane let go of her, her modesty still intact, as she slid across the table. She landed like a cat off the other side of the table, scooted on all fours under the table, and was gone across the dance floor.

"I have called the judicial police. Please pay your bill," announced the manager.

"But you've got it wrong," said Santiago. "I've always heard the saying was "Pay the bill or you call the police.'"

"You owe one thousand seven hundred fifty pesos. Five hundred for the costume, and one thousand two hundred fifty for the champagne, the tequila, and the glasses."

"Very reasonable," said Santiago. "I would like a receipt. Never mind, my check will be my receipt."

"I will not take a check, " said the manager. He was not a foolhardy man. He stood a good distance away from the table. Santiago wrote out a check, signed it with a millionaire's flourish, and tore it from his checkbook. He handed it to Cunningham. The check was signed "Terence P. Santiago."

Cunningham handed it to the manager. ‘"Get out of here," he growled. The manager took the check and walked away.

"Hell, I didn't tear the girl's jockstrap. That is the toughest costume I ever saw and it so little," complained Kane.

"I wouldn't have paid that bill if I was you, Santiago. What a clip joint this is."

"Let's get out of here. I've got horses to ship tomorrow," Roy Cunningham said.

They picked Garrett off his chair and started carrying him to the door.

"Where's Garrett's girl friend, Santiago? Cunningham asked.

They turned back toward the room. Lucy was sitting in a corner with the young Santini. He was practicing his English with her. Santiago gave over his portion of Garrett and walked over to Lucy. Santini stood up in his sedate, red-faced way and stepped away from the table. Santiago asked Lucy Luz something. She was sober. Her eye was shining as though she was so filled with happiness. Maybe she had found true love. She answered Santiago and he nodded and came back.

"The missus says she ain't coming just yet, " he said. They rode the taxi back to the hotel. Kane paid the cab while Santiago was very solicitously lifting Garrett out of the back seat.

"Here, let us help you," Kane said and got hold of one of Garrett's legs. Cunningham held the other. Santiago dropped the head and shoulders to the sidewalk and Kane and Cunningham dragged Garrett by the feet across the lobby of the hotel, head bumping on stairs, into the elevator, of the elevator, and down the hall to 408. They couldn't find a key so Kane kicked the door open. They dumped Garrett on his bed and said good night. Kane shook hands soberly and started to leave.

"You can have 508 if you want it," Santiago told them. "I didn't know but what you might want to stay here after the party and I reserved 508 for you."

"Not me," Roy Cunningham said. "I've got horses to ship in one hour. I'm getting away from you drunks."

Kane went up to 508. He didn't have the key so he kicked the door in and went to bed. .

He awoke late the next evening. The door was destroyed. He put the pieces of plaster that lay in the room back around the door. He hammered the doorjamb back in place with his boot heel. Then he saw he would not be able to get out the door without ruining his repair job. He wanted to get out of the room and back to the party of his very good friends. The room had twin beds. Kane shoved one bed over to the window. He tied the bedspread around the bed. He tied sheets and blankets to the bedspread and hung them out the window in a string. He went out the window of 508 on the sheets hoping 408 was on the room below him. The ground was at the end of a cement well five stories below him. Just before his feet reached the top of the window of 408 the sheets gave and he slipped down to the windowsill. Jim Kane kicked the window. Voices in the room stopped. Kane began to believe he had not heard the voices in the room. He kicked the window again. He could not turn loose the sheets and try to open the window as there were no handholds or footholds outside. The windowsill was too narrow to stand on. He kicked again and the curtain in 408 parted and Garrett looked Kane in the eye and let the curtains close. Kane kicked again and the curtain parted and Santiago Brennan saw Kane hanging there. Santiago opened the window and pulled him inside the room. Terry Garrett was sitting in one of the easy chairs.

"Why did you help him, Santiago? I would have left him hanging out there at least until he said please," Garrett said. Kane was just hungover enough that he didn't think had said anything funny. Santiago Brennan handed Kane a drink. Kane quaffed half of it and sat down.

"Garrett woke up this morning swearing off the party," Santiago said.

"Garrett likes to leave his partners hanging. He has been leaving me hanging for a month now. A month hanging in Chihuahua is too long to hang. He should swear off the party,"
Kane said.

Garrett ignored Kane. He felt the back of his head. "All I know is that I've got too many bumps on the back of my head," he said. "You are a line pair of friends. I have more bumps than I have friends. How did I get the bumps?"

"I don't know," Kane said. "We carried you like a baby and put you to bed. Do you suppose you fell out of bed?"

"That could have happened," Santiago said. "He didn't have his sleeping partner to watch over him last night. Have a drink, Terry.

"No more drinks," Terry Garrett said. "How many cattle did you bring me, Jim Kane?"

"Two hundred sixty-three head. I told you last night."

"You might as well forget about anything you told me last night. I don't remember any of it. When are the cattle going to be able to cross the border?"

"Didn't Herb Kane tell you when you saw him in El Paso? Don't you remember seeing him either?"

"I remember seeing him. I don't remember what he said. What about the cattle? Are they in good enough shape to cross.

"They will be when the government lets them out of quarantine in sixty days."

"Quarantine? I thought you said they were coming out of the clean zone, Jim Kane. You said the whole state of Chihuahua was clean."

"I never said that. You told me the whole state was clean and to bring the cattle out this way."

"Well, Ira March told me we could bring them this way without a quarantine. Ira March is to blame then."

"Blame him if you feel you should blame someone, " Kane said.

A "I'm not blaming anybody. It's just another thousand dollars or more expense on cattle I won't be able to sell. The rodeo market will be dead when they finally cross and this deal is just one more to add to all the deals that lost me money this year, " Garrett complained.

"You do have a hangover, don't you? And a bellyache," Kane said.

"How much do I owe you besides what the cattle have already cost me and will continue to cost me`?"

"I've got two dollars a head for five hundred fifteen head coming, plus my hotel bill here in Chihuahua. You owe Uncle Herb the freight from Creel and other expenses he gave me for the cattle since I've been here."

"Why five hundred fifteen head? We commissioned you to buy five hundred head."

"I took the additional fifteen head because I made commitments in the Sierra to buy cattle and I had to take all the cattle delivered to me. Call it public relations. I still owe for fifteen head. I didn't have enough money to pay for them. The man let me bring them in on credit. Of course, two of them died on me between Cuiteco and Creel."

"I can't pay for them," Terry Garrett said. "My bank only allowed me credit for five hundred cattle in Mexico. I don't have the money for fifteen more."

"You would have the money if the cattle could cross to the States today, wouldn't you?" Kane asked.

"Of course. I would have a buyer standing in El Paso waiting for the cattle if they could cross today too. The money from the sale would be in my bank long before the draft for the fifteen head would clear out of Mexico. I could pay for them in that case."

"Terry, it is not my fault the cattle have to be quarantined."

"I know that, Jim. But that doesn't change the fact that I can't write you a draft for fifteen head of cattle in Mexico right now.

"Give me your personal check for the cattle then."

"I can't. I don't have six hundred dollars. I've lost too much money this year and I've had too many expenses lately. I just haven't got it in my personal account. "

"Make me out a draft for my commission and I'll go over to the hotel and bring you back the papers on the cattle," Kane said and walked out of the room.

He walked down the street hungover and disappointed in Terry Garrett and surprised at how firmly and strongly his feet struck the pavement. He thought, I guess I'm not the first cowpuncher who had to pay for part of the boss' one-eyed stripper and his Indianapolis 500. Kane got his papers and went downstairs and paid the clerk his hotel bill with the last of the money his Uncle Herb had given him.

In 408 Kane gave the hotel receipt to Terry Garrett and Garrett paid him in cash. Garrett then handed Kane a draft for $1,000, his commission on the 500 head.

"As I understand it, you still own thirteen head of the rodeos you bought, Jim," Garrett said.

"Fifteen head," Kane said.

"I thought you said two died. Were they two of yours or two of mine?"

"Two of yours died. I was working for you, wasn't I? That was the reason I made that flight out of Egypt with the cattle, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, but I never saw the cattle, Jim."

"You mean you entrusted me with twenty thousand dollars to buy cattle for you and I bought all the cattle and accounted for every penny and now you could believe I invented two cattle so I can get eighty dollars out of you?"

"Well, I'm not paying for them. You can do what you want with the thirteen head. Cut them out and take them away or I'll take them with mine and sell them for you."

"Keep them and sell them for me. What can I do with them? I'll just have to trust you with the six hundred dollars I have in them, won't I?" Kane said angrily.

"Now listen. I'll sell them and give you top price for them, Jim."

"You'd better, Garrett, and none of them had better die."

"Come on, Jim. Have a drink, " Garrett said. "I'll make us both one." Garrett got up from his easy chair and walked over to the dresser where the liquor was. "You might as well come on out to Arizona with me. I can give you a job in the feedlot. I sure can use you," he said while he was pouring drinks.

"No, thanks. I left my horse and saddle in Chinipas." Kane got up to leave.

"Well, stay a while and we'll have supper. You don't have to take off right this minute," Garrett said. He didn't hand Kane the Scotch he had mixed. Kane walked over, picked up the strong drink, and drank it down.

"Thanks," he said, and left the room.

38
Big Country

Get down off the big sorrel. I have the food prepared. I expected you today or tomorrow, " Don Marcos Aguilera said when Jim Kane rode up to his door at La Haciendita. Kane got stiffly down, loosened Pajaro's cinches, and tied him to a post in the yard. Don Marcos untied Kane's new blanket from behind the saddle and carried it to a chair by the kitchen door.

"I can't stay, Don Marcos. I only stop to pay you for your cattle. I must go on to San Bemardo this afternoon."

"But you will arrive there in the night., You must eat and have a drink with me to rest your horse.—You can go on refreshed," Don Marcos said. He went inside the house and brought back to cups full of the clear lechuguilla and the two men tipped their cups and drank. "To the corriente, the common," Don Marcos said, and they drank again.

Kane took an envelope that was folded in his chaps pocket and handed it to Don Marcos. Don Marcos sat down at a table under the ramada. He took off his hat and smoothed his thick, coarse, gray hair with a heavy, callused, brown hand. He unfolded the envelope and pressed it down flat on the table. He opened the flap of the envelope and took the money out. He laid the empty envelope carefully on the table while he looked at the bills in his hand. Then he slowly counted the money.

"Correcto," he said. "Thank you, young man." He picked up the envelope, put the money back into it, and went into his house and put it away. He brought back a bottle of lechuguilla and poured the cups full again. He brought out two plates of fried jerky, fried potatoes, and garbanzo, and two small cups heavy with thick coffee. "Eat," he said. "I will bring tortillas."

When he returned he laid the dish of tortillas on the table and carefully unfolded the clean, warm flour sack that covered the dish. "Tortillas," he said, showing them to Kane. He folded the flour sack back over the dish.

"I will eat with you now. With your permission," Don Marcos said, and sat down with Kane. "But first, we drink our mezcal. Not the best but very good."

"Very good mezcal, Don Marcos," Kane said.

"What will you do now, young man?" the eagle-faced old man asked Jim Kane while they were eating.

"I don't know, Don Marcos. I'm going back to Rio Alamos. My car is there."

"Stay in Rio Alamos. Stay in Mexico."

"I'm not sure. I would like to stay if I could win my living. Do you know anyone who needs a cowboy?"

"Yes. All of us in the Sierra need a man like you to help us market our cattle. You have the connections we need. You have the grace we need."

"Yes, but I don't have the money you need."

"Money? Do you need money? I'll give you back the money you brought me. I'll make you a gift of it."

"No. I don't want your money, thank you."

"Now you see? You don't need money. You already have the qualifications necessary for you to stay."

"I own a bed and a saddle."

"You see? This requires no money. It requires men. Do you know that one hundred years from now men will continue to live on La Haciendita and I will be dead and forgotten? When I die, La Haciendita will continue unchanged. I hope whoever is here will live as well as I have. If you stay and work here and help La Haciendita the life will be better in the next generation for La Haciendita."

"Don Marcos, that would be true if I owned land and had my own cattle and a way to prosper. But I own nothing. I have no roots here as you have."

"This is foolishness. No one owns La Haciendita or the Sierra or any big country like the Sierra. The eagle lives a full a life in the big country. Does he own it? Does he have money?"

"No, Don Marcos. But he is not a man."

"Ah, you see? If the eagle lives well, how much better must a man live who is not an animal, not a brute. If an eagle is free to fiercely live as he does, how much more free is not a man to live with his reason?"

"What you say is true but a difficult way for a man to live."

"Difficult? Yes. For you to have to be a man in order to make a better life than the eagle, a man, not pig slop."

"I believe as you do, Don Marcos. I hope I can stay. I will need luck, though."

"Oh, I believe in luck. You will need luck. Each new day is a new venture. If the eagle is unlucky enough to sleep he will miss the early hunt. If the fish is unlucky enough to sleep, the current will take him away. But the true eagle does not sleep nor does the true fish always allow the current to happen to him, or if he does he swims back, no matter how swift the current, to his favorite hole where all the campañero fishes will sing and dance on his return."

"Sometimes they sing and dance if he doesn't return."

"Then he should have been a true fish and lived as a fish, not as an oyster. Only an oyster or an angel has no drives and is in firm possession of all God's answers. Only an angel or an oyster can live without knowledge of song and dance. They have no drives, no desires, no questions, and no luck."

"I've heard men say that a man makes his own luck, Don Marcos."

"A person who says he makes his own luck has never sought his fortune, has never ventured, has never questioned his own talents or been driven by what was inside his manhood. Such a person was not given life by Cod to be an angel. He is a fantoche, a person who wants to be, makes signs to be, what he is not and will never be. He is less_than a man, less than an oyster, he is even less than an angel."

Kane rose from the table. "I must go, Don Marcos. Pardon me."

"This is certain and I am keeping you. I am the current that is keeping you away from what you must do. Be gone but come back."

"I will, Don Marcos."

Kane shook hands with Don Marcos and got his blanket. He tied it behind his saddle. He tightened the horse's cinches and mounted.

"The big Pajaro is thinner now," Don Marcos said. "He is more horse and less what he had been eating before he came to the Sierra. He is in the pure hair of a horse now."

"Yes. He has had something to do," Kane said.

"As have you, Don Marcos said. Kane reined Pajaro to leave and Don Marcos said, "Wait. " He went inside again, was gone awhile, and came back with a Coca-Cola bottle full of lechuguilla stoppered with a corncob.

"For when your horse gets tired," he said, and put the bottle in the morral hanging on Kane's saddlehorn. He stepped his huarached feet away from the big horse so he wouldn't get them stepped on when Kane reined the horse by him.

Kane rode down the dry steep trail into the canyon of El Durazno. The thick brush in the canyon was barren now and Kane could see more of the ground of the big country than he had been able to see when he had been to see the cattle at La Haciendita before.

Pajaro stepped surely like a mule and Kane thought in Spanish, I have a horse, not pig slops. At least I have the tools I need to get along here. I have this big horse that has turned out to be a good one in any country. The Pajaro is more useful here than he would be in any country. He is not wring-tailed or high-headed, and he knows where the ground is at all times. Besides that, he is as good or better than any beast native to the Sierra. And Pajaro, under criticism, stepped off the mountain and didn't roll rocks or shy from the gorges. . .