Jim Kane - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  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 wi
thers, 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 th
e 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.