by J P S Brown
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 sti
ll 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.