by J P S Brown
"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. Tonigh
t 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 smel
l 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.