Jim Kane - J P S Brown (53 page)

"
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."