The Cotton-Pickers

by B. TRAVEN

  Antonio was right. I made up my mind to bring my career as a cotton-picker to an end, once and for all. There was nothing to be got out of it, so it was pointless. What was Europe’s cotton consumption to me? If they wanted cotton over there, let them come over and pick it themselves; then they’d know what it meant to pick cotton. Heavy with this newly gained worldly wisdom I left Antonio’s stall and went over to the snack bar for some coffee and French rolls.

  20

  Next to me in the snack bar was an American, an elderly man, and obviously a rancher.

  “Are you looking for something?” he asked.

  “Yes, the sugar!”

  He passed me the enameled bowl.

  “I didn’t mean that,” he said, smiling. “What I meant was, would you like to earn some money?”

  “I always like earning money,” I replied.

  “Have you ever cut out cattle?”

  “I grew up on a cattle farm.”

  “Then I’ve got a job for you!”

  “Really?”

  “A thousand head of cattle, sixty heavy bulls among them, to be driven three hundred and fifty miles overland from my ranch to the port. We leave for the ranch tomorrow morning.”

  “Agreed!” I shook his hand. “Where can we make the contract?”

  “Hotel Palacio. At five. In the lobby.”

  These cattle couldn’t be transported by rail; there were no facilities for that, neither cattle cars nor loading points. As to overland drive there existed only few roads, many mountain ranges had to be crossed, swamps bypassed, rivers forded. Grazing pasture and water had to be found every day.

  “Three hundred and fifty miles?” I asked the rancher when we met to talk it over. “As the crow flies?”

  “Yes, as the crow flies,” said the rancher. Mr. Pratt was his name.

  “Dammit, that might turn out to be six hundred.”

  “Not so unlikely. Still, as far as I’ve figured, it might be possible to keep a fairly direct route.”

  “What about pay?”

  “Six pesos a day. I provide horse, saddle, and equipment. You cook your own food on the way. I’ll send along six of my men whom the animals are well used to — Indians. The foreman, a Mestizo, will also go with you. He’s quite a good man, reliable. I might perhaps trust him with the herd — but no. If he’d sell the herd on the way, and bolt, I could do nothing about it. His wife and children live on my ranch, but that’s no security! You could search for the likes of him forevermore in this country. Besides, I wouldn’t like to give him so much money to carry about; on the other hand, I couldn’t send him off without money. There are so many expenses on the drive and it’s not fair to tempt any man that way. As for me, I can’t stay away from the rancho that long. The bandits’d be around the place before you could say knife. That’s why I’d like to get hold of a gringo like you to take over the drive.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m as honest as you think. Not yet, anyhow,” I said with a laugh.

  “I, too, know how to bolt with a herd. After all, you’ve just picked me up in the street.”

  “I judge a man by his face,” Mr. Pratt went on; then, after a pause, “to be perfectly honest, I’m not trusting entirely to luck. I know you.”

  “You know me? I can’t imagine how.”

  “Didn’t you work for a farmer Shine?”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw you there. And I have Mr. Shine’s word that I can rely on you. So you’ll have the contract, you’ll drive the herd, and I’ll advance you money to pay your daily expenses.”

  “Very well! But what about the contract bonus?”

  Mr. Pratt was silent for a while, then took out his notebook, made a few calculations, and said: “I’ve leased pastureland near the port, two miles from the main terminal market. It’s well fenced. There I can wait for cattle buyers to come to me, and I’ll probably get orders for several shiploads. If not, I’ll sell the herd in small lots. I’ve got a good and very reliable agent there who’s been working with me for years, and has always got good prices.”

  “That’s all very well,” I interjected, “but what about my contract and bonus?”

  “All right. For each head that you drive through, sound from horn to hoof, I’ll pay you sixty centavos extra. If your losses are less than two percent, I’ll give you a hundred-peso bonus on top of that, plus your pay.”

  “What about the losses?”

  “I’ll deduct twenty-five pesos for every head lost above two percent,” said Mr. Pratt.

  “Just a moment,” I broke in. I made a few quick calculations myself on the margin of a newspaper. “Sold,” I agreed. “Let me have a note of the contract.”

  He tore a leaf out of his little notebook, wrote the conditions of our contract in pencil, signed it and handed it to me. “Your address?” he asked.

  “My address? That’s an awkward point!” (I really didn’t have an address.) “Let’s say right here, Hotel Palacio.”

  “Okay. All right.”

  “How do matters stand at present? Has the herd been cut out?”

  “No, not a single head has been cut out yet. There’ll be a few yearlings, but most of the herd’ll be two- and three-year-olds. Yes, a few four-year-olds, too. I’ll help you cut them out.”

  “All branded?”

  “All of them. No trouble there.”

  “What about the leader bulls?”

  “That’s your problem. You’ll have to see about them.” “All right by me. I can manage to pick them.”

  Mr. Pratt got up. “Now let’s have a drink, and then you’re going to have dinner with me. Afterward, I’ve got some private business to attend to.”

  What his private business was, that was no concern of mine. I’m not curious when it comes to private business. One of the many reasons why I am still alive.

  When we parted after dinner, Mr. Pratt asked how much advance I wanted. “Nothing,” I said.

  “What? You don’t need an advance?” He acted astonished. “That sounds funny. Where did you come by your cash on hand?”

  “In the gambling casino.”

  “Huh! I’ll have a go at it myself, Gales, later tonight. Maybe I can win your wages and bonus.”

  “You won’t win them from me, Mr. Pratt. You won’t even see me there, for I mean to keep what I’ve got.”

  “I wouldn’t want to win money off you, Gales. I’ll win it off the others. There’re always a few crazy ones in from the oil camps who can’t get rid of their cash quick enough. I’ll make a solo table with two or three of them. If you want to learn how it’s done, come along and watch me.”

  “No, thanks, not interested ! ” I said, and went on my way.

  21

  The next morning at five we boarded the train, a sixteen-hour express ride to the Pratt ranch ahead of us. I knew I’d be doing well if I drove the cattle back to the terminal in twice sixteen days.

  The express train was a good one, made in Europe. There were only two classes in the coaches, first and second, Mexico having less class distinction than some four-class countries of Europe. Here, a first-class ticket cost a little more than twice that of second class; but you traveled just as rapidly in second as in first, and second wasn’t at all uncomfortable.

  First-class seats were arranged in two rows with an aisle between, the passengers facing forward. In second class, where mostly the poorer natives traveled, benches ran along the sides of the coach and at right angles to the benches were more seats. All seats were innocent of upholstery; but most of the second-class passengers carried enough blankets and bundles to upholster theirs.

  The huge locomotives were fired by oil, and they had to produce great power to cross some of the highest railroad grades in the world. Behind the oil-tank tender were the express and luggage coaches and the mail car. Then came two long second-class coaches, a great first-class coach, and at the end ran the Pullman sleeper.

  At the head of the second-class coaches there was always a det
achment of soldiers, twelve to eighteen men, rifles loaded, an officer in charge. This detachment was a necessary precaution against attacks from bandits; but in spite of the presence of soldiers, such attacks still occurred. The ensuing battles between soldiers and bandits often lasted several hours and involved a number of dead.

  There were no such things as grade crossings with automatic signals, nor even signalmen. The train rushed at a mad speed through jungle, bush, and tilled valley, across upland prairies, and over the Sierra Madre Oriente, whose highest peaks are covered with perpetual snow. Bridges spanned wide gorges, forty, fifty, and two hundred yards deep and several miles long; the bridges were of wood trestle, and the train tore across them at terrific speed.

  Nowhere was the railroad track fenced off, and cattle, horses, burros, mules, sheep, pigs, goats, and wild animals of all kinds roamed along it and sometimes grazed or dozed between the rails. The locomotive gave off a blood-curdling hoot to clear the track, and sometimes the animals would clear off, and of course at other times wouldn’t budge until the train stopped and one of the soldiers got out and threw stones at them. Sometimes the beasts ran head-on into the locomotive, or were caught without warning around a curve; so that the railroad embankment all along the way was marked with animal skeletons on either side.

  Now and then we came upon wounded beasts, their legs crushed or bodies torn open, lying waiting for death, thirsting, crazed, under the tropical sun. No passer-by would kill them and put them out of their misery, because their owner might be lurking within sight and be capable of dragging the do-gooder into court and getting him fined for unauthorized slaughter of his beasts to the tune of fifty or a hundred pesos, or more. If you were pretty sure that you were unobserved you might put your pistol in the animal’s ear and put him out of his suffering; then you’d better take to your heels, pronto. It’s costly, taking pity on animals.

  All along the railroad the zopilotes, the vultures, squatted and waited for victims — dead burros, dogs, cats, pigs. On upland plains or coastal flats long stretches of the railroad served also for caravans of burros and mules, for the adjacent road was often swallowed by bush or rainy-season floods.

  The railroad was mainly of one track. Large water towers, wooden tanks on trestles, had been erected about every twenty miles so that the engines could refill. At many small stations the train seldom came to a full stop. A mail bag would be slung out and another one shot in. Some ice blocks, which were packed around with wood shavings to retard melting and then sewn into burlap, were simply tossed out for the consignee to pick up.

  Tickets could be bought at the various stations or on the train, costing 25 percent more on the train; an extra charge which didn’t apply, however, if a station had no ticket office. Many stations weren’t expected to sell tickets after five in the evening, in order that the ticket clerk be spared having money in his isolated office after dark, a thing which could cost him his life. After dark the tickets cost the normal price aboard the train. En route, the tickets were collected by a conductor who then tucked a small tab inscribed with the code of destination into the passenger’s hat band, thus keeping account of his many passengers.

  The soldiers usually sat about with their first-grade primers, trying to learn to read. They were all Indians and very few of them could read or write, but they were consumed with an ambition to learn. One would help the other, and when one had learned to write eso he would be full of eagerness to pass his accomplishment onto his fellows.

  About eight o’clock our train stopped for breakfast at a station which looked almost like a lively township. Mr. Pratt and I got off the train and entered a typical station buffet — Chinese café, of course. In fact, it was hard to find an eating place anywhere that wasn’t Chinese.

  After breakfast we walked up and down the platform where dozens of hawkers swarmed, offering things you’d never have expected to find for sale on a railroad platform: parrots, tiger cubs, skins of grown tigers, live iguanas, flowers, song birds in handmade wicker cages, oranges, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, sticks of sugar cane fresh from the field, candied fruits, tortillas, roast chicken, smoked fish, boiled giant crabs; bottles of coffee, lemonade, beer, wine, pulque. Ragged, barefoot Indian girls ran along the train to offer themselves as servant girls or cooks in households.

  For the twenty-odd minutes of the train’s stop, the station was like a fairground. Except for our train and the evening train, it dozed in a dead calm, but now it was enough to make your head spin. A freight train might come through and cause a slight stir among the railroad employees; but, without passengers getting on and off, the station was torpid and sleepy. Most of its of its daily life was centered on those lively twenty minutes or so when the morning train stood there; and any vendor who failed to do business during that time had failed for the whole day.

  At noon we arrived at a bigger station where we stopped for about forty minutes for the midday meal. In the station buffet thirty places were already laid on several big tables and half the plates were already filled with soup, for a quick glance was enough to tell the proprietor how many diners to prepare for. Then came the long, long exhausting afternoon through jungle, prairie like grassland, and bush. The train from the opposite direction that crossed with us at noon had brought the morning papers from the nearest city and these were sold on the train.

  At nine in the evening we got out at Mr. Pratt’s little home station. We stopped at the cantina, which was also the local post office. Mr. Pratt greeted the cantina owner, a Señor Gomez, and introduced me.

  Regular cooked meals weren’t to be had in a place like this, but you didn’t have to go hungry; you could in fact get a wonderful meal together. We bought a can of Vancouver salmon, a few cans of Spanish sardines in fine olive oil, a few cans of Vienna sausages (made in Chicago), a package of Kraft cheese, and some crackers. There were no bread or rolls. Bread doesn’t keep well in that climate; it turns hard, gets moldy, or is attacked by small red ants.

  With our canned snack we had bottles of Señor Gomez’s beer, and then went to work on his stock of tequila. After a while we were dead to the world, if not ripe for burial; so we went into the cantina’s poolroom, ourselves in our blankets, and lay down on the floor to sleep. Señor Gomez had a softer bed. He went to his wife.

  Thinking of a woman or of women in general — I can’t remember which — I fell asleep; and by one woman in particular, I was awakened the next morning. The woman in question was Mrs. Pratt. She had driven the Ford in from the ranch to do some shopping at the cantina and there she found her husband, though she hadn’t expected him, least of all on the floor of the poolroom, and in a well-soaked condition.

  Since the beginning of time, the innocent have had to suffer. I was innocent, so I had to suffer. Mr. Pratt was the model husband, but I — whom he’d picked up in the gutter — was the bum who had tempted and beguiled him and led him astray.

  For he, the good Mr. Pratt, would never have done such a thing on his own. Oh, no! As we were leaving, Mr. Pratt gave Señor Gomez a wink. Men always understand a wink, particularly if the two men who share the wink are married men trying to live in peace with their wives.

  “Well,” declared Gomez, “you had so-and-so many cans of sardines, and the sausages, and cheese,” — again the wink — “and you had two small bottles of beer, and Mr. Gales had four and three tequilas. That does it. I’ve chalked up the drinks on your bill.”

  Mrs. Pratt was well satisfied with her husband. (He could settle with Gomez later for the twenty or thirty bottles we’d tossed into the corner of the room. His credit with Gomez was very good.) But I got such a dirty look from Mrs. Pratt that I seriously considered canceling the contract then and there. For I had to spend at least two weeks in Mrs. Pratt’s house, while we were cutting out the herd for the drive, and what couldn’t this lady do to me in that time?

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

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

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

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

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