by J P S Brown
Kane got back in the taxi and figured his Uncle Herb wouldn't get out of town any other way but by private plane if he was leaving that late in the day. He told the cabbie to hurry to the airport. The cabbie was happy to do it as the fare to the airport and back would be as substantial as the gringo could be conned into paying. The taxi made a circle around the block and stopped for a light. Kane looked out the window at the people waiting for the light. He was looking for pretty girls but he saw his Uncle Herb standing on the corner, briefcase and suitcase in bland. Kane piled out of the cab and grabbed his Uncle Herb.
"Pay my cab, Uncle Herb. You're not going anywhere after all, " the bareheaded, coatless, whiskered-scab-faced Jim Kane said.
"Black Man, where's my silver, ruby-eyed, steerhead tie clasp?" Uncle Herb asked.
Kane had drawn one card, the king, to a royal straight flush.
36
Quarantine
Your cattle must be quarantined sixty days, Senor Kane," . the man in the Union Ganadera, the Cattleman's Union, in Chihuahua said.
"Take me away to the chingada," Kane said. "My buyers told me the whole state of Chihuahua was clean of the fever tic."
The man turned to a well-lighted map that covered the wall behind his desk.
"Look here, Senor Kane," the man said. "There are nine municipios in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua that are still considered fever-tick-infested areas. See, they are all circled plainly on this map and Chinipas is one of them. Where are the cattle now?"
"At the empacadora, the packing house."
"Our inspector will supervise the examination of your cattle for ticks. They will be dipped again and ear-tags indicating the date the cattle began their quarantine will be put on each steer. In sixty days you will be able to export them to the United States. Your uncle Herb Kane is a member of the Cattleman's Union and he can acquire your export permit for you. Come back in sixty days and we will arrange all your necessary papers."
Kane thanked the man and turned away from the desk. He walked out of the modern office of the Union Ganadera and down the stairs to the street. He thought, so this is this and that is that and the cattle won't cross until the middle of July. I could have taken the cattle through Rio Alamos and they would have crossed three weeks earlier. Tut-tut, Terry Garrett and Ira March, don't blame me. I hope you enjoyed the 500-mile race in Indianapolis.
Kane went back to the Hotel Avenidai He wore a new palmetto hat, a new pair of low-cut boot-shoes, and new shirt and trousers his Uncle Herb had staked him to. Uncle Herb was sitting in the lobby with his glasses on his nose reading the Chihuahua paper. He had already gone to the railway station and paid Kane's rail fees and demarrage. Kane sat down with him and told him what the man at the Union Ganadera had said. Uncle Herb handed Kane the papers on the cattle.
"Where did you get them, Uncle Herb?" Kane asked him, glad the papers had been salvaged.
"The railroad officials had them. They found them in the caboose. They knew someone would be back for them. They would have held them and tied the cattle up until someone paid the freight."
"My hat, saddlebags, and blanket?"
"I didn't ask about them and they didn't offer to return them. The man at the union said the cattle would have to be quarantined?
"Yes."
"I thought so. I was so sure the cattle would have to stay that I rented you a ranch seventy miles from here. It is a good ranch and better than is usually available in this state this time of the year."
"Thank you, Uncle Herb."
"So now I've found you a ranch. I already paid your trucking from the railway station to the packing house. You have a new hat and new clothes. I'll be back to Chihuahua next week and take out an export permit for the cattle for Garrett. The trucker Palomares is going to bill me for trucking the cattle to the quarantine ranch. He won't charge me as much as he would you. If I were you I would castrate the cattle in the packing house corrals and let them rest and fill up on good hay there another week before I trucked them to the ranch."
"I plan to do that, Uncle Herb."
"You want some good beer and some good carne, Black Man?"
You bet."
"We'1l go eat and then I'm going to have to go back to El Paso. I've got you all straightened out for now."
Uncle Herb took Kane to the brewery beer garden. It was Sunday afternoon and the parking lot, with its shady ramadas and waiters hurrying back and forth to customers sitting in their cars, was crowded. They went into the dining room of the beer garden and ordered carne asada, broiled steak, broiled kidneys, marrow gut, and a large pitcher of the dark golden beer. They put their hats down on empty chairs by their table. The table was covered by a clean tablecloth.
While they were waiting for the meal Uncle Herb said, "You don't mean to tell me you are going to stay in this sorry business, do you?"
"Why not? This business has been good for you, hasn't it? If I ever gain half the respect you have in these two countries I will have achieved something," Kane said.
"Black Man, I've stayed in this business because I've never known anything else. You have an education. You can do better than I have ever done. Maybe it is time you thought about doing something you are better suited to do. We don't always get to live the way we want to. Haven't you learned that let? Your education must have given you some ideas about at."
"My education taught me there is no legal or moral law against being what I am."
After dinner they went back to the hotel. Uncle Herb got his baggage and paid his bill at the desk. He wrote Kane a check for $100. Kane walked out to the corner where he had caught Uncle Herb on the street the day before. He waited with him there until a taxi came by.
"Well, Black Man, do your best, " Uncle Herb said. They shook hands and Uncle Herb got into the cab.
37
Settlement
Jim Kane was in a deep sleep in his room in the Avenida one afternoon after he had come back from seeing his cattle and taken a long, steamy shower. His telephone rang.
"Well, we are finally here. Where are you?" The voice on the phone belonged to Terry Garrett.
"Where in the hell are you calling From?" Jim Kane asked him.
"Yeah, your Uncle Herb told me you were in Chihuahua City with the cattle. Why didn't you call me?"
"I tried to get ahold of you when I needed you badly three weeks ago and you were nowhere to be found. I tried once after I got here and I couldn't locate you. My Uncle Herb gave me all the help I needed here so I didn't need you except to tell you your cattle were here and my job was finished."
"You should have been with us in E1 Paso last night. We had a party." .
"Yeah?" Kane said. "So what?"
"So we are still partying. Come on over and have supper with us."
"Where are you?"
"At the Palacio. Room 408."
"All right. I'll be over after a while."
"Come over now. We've got a bottle of Scotch."
Kane dressed in a clean, starched shirt and his clean Levis that had been sewn together in the split places. He went downstairs and had a drink in the bar. He went out on the street and got a shoeshine. He didn't much feel like going in on the tail end of a party of Terry Garrett's that had probably been going on for a month but finally he walked to the Palacio and went up to Garrett's room. The black-haired girl that answered the door was wearing an eye-patch like a pirate. Her black panties and bra and high-heeled shoes matched the eye patch. She wasn't wearing anything else.
"Yeah!" the girl breathed and voices in the room roared with laughter. Kane looked past her and saw Terry Garrett, his hat on the back of his head, his blond hair in his eyes, sprawled on an easy chair with a tall drink of whiskey in his hand.
"There's Jim Kane," Garrett shouted. "Give it to him, Lucy." The girl reached for Kane, pulled him into the room, threw her arms around his neck, and smooched him on the mouth. Kane walked into the room with the girl hanging on his neck like a necktie. He shook hands with Garrett an
d the girl was still hanging on. Santiago Brennan came in from an adjoining room and shook hands. He mixed Kane a double Scotch and soda. Kane walked over to the bed and dumped the girl on it.
"Meet Lucy Luz, our one-eyed stripper from Juarez," Garrett shouted.
"Hi, Jim Kane," Lucy Luz said from the bed, folding her good-looking legs up. "What happened to your face?"
"Hi," Kane said without looking any more at her. "Where's Ira March? he asked Garrett.
"I've got him working. He's delivering some of the cattle you sent us from Rio Alamos. He's getting the money. We need the money. How have you been doing? What kind of cattle have you got?"
"Good cattle. They are at the packing house. 'I castrated them day before yesterday. "
"How many?"
"Two hundred sixty-three head."
"Did you lose any on the trail?"
"No. I lost two on the trucks to Creel."
"Well, I should have been there to help you. I knew you must have been in need of help, but I was so busy I just couldn't make 'er."
Santiago Brennan laughed at him. "He was so busy partying the only way I could get him down here was to bring his missus along too," Brennan said. "But to hell with the business now. Let's order some steaks and drink some whiskey now. Talk business tomorrow."
"Right!" Terry Garrett said.
Kane drank three double Scotches in a hurry. Lucy Luz went through her one-eyed strip act without music, which helped Kane toward catching up to the party mood of Garrett and Brennan. He was on his fourth double when the phone Lang in Brennan's room. Brennan talked for a minute and came back.
"That was Roy Cunningham. He's coming up. He's been in Chihuahua several months buying horses. Roy is an ex-rodeo hand and a double-tough son-of-a-gun," Santiago said.
Roy Cunningham was a tall man, wide in the chest and shoulders, so big he filled the door when he came through it. His black hair and eye-fold showed his Indian blood. Lucy Luz did not welcome him as she had welcomed Kane. A waiter came in behind Cunningham carrying a tray with a bottle of Scotch, a pan of ice, and several bottles of mineral water. Cunningham looked at the check and put some bills on the tray. The waiter counted the money at a glance and hesitated, expecting his tip. "Get out of here," Roy Cunningham said without looking at him. The waiter hurried out. He had not ventured a look at Lucy Luz.
The four men and the girl drank and feasted on steak and high conversation. When the whiskey was gone they got a taxi and headed out of town toward more girls and the music. Kane was sitting in the front seat of the taxi next to the door. Cunningham was in the middle next to the driver. Santiago, Lucy, and Garrett were in the back seat. The cab wasn't going fast enough to suit Cunningham so he stomped his foot down over the driver's foot on the accelerator. A busload of people stepped out in front of the headlights as the runaway cab sped off a narrow bridge. Cunningham grabbed the wheel, sounded the horn, and steered the cab through the people as they dove and scattered off the road like quail. The cabbie covered his eyes with his hands.
They stopped the cab at a bordello and nightclub called the Kilometro Cuatro, a place lying in wait for customers who didn't know enough to pay for each round of drinks as they were served. The customers got drunk and when the bill was presented they couldn't argue about the exorbitance of the price of the party. The customer couldn't argue because if he did the waiter called the cops and the cops made the customer pay more.
Santiago Brennan ordered a bottle of champagne. The four men drank this bottle toasting the girl.
The waiter brought another bottle of champagne. He said the new bottle had been sent by a young Mexican who was seated at a table by himself across the room. The young man l nodded when the four men and the girl looked his way. , Santiago stood up and motioned to the young man, inviting him to join them.
"This is Guillermo Santini," Santiago announced. "He likes Americans. He especially likes American girls. He wants to practice his English on us."
"He can like us as long as he keeps ordering the champagne," Kane said.
The smiling young man in his dark suit sat down at the table. Terry Garrett took Lucy to the dance floor. Garrett danced as though his feet were six inches off the floor and he wore a big crooked grin on his face. He could see nothing. The house finally ran out of champagne. Not even a bottle of warm champagne was left. The four men and the student and the girl ordered a bottle of tequila, lime halves, and salt. Kane drank tequila out of his champagne glass and got up and found himself a soft, brown, nameless girl to dance with. Roy Cunningham found himself a tall peroxide girl in a red satin dress. Santiago Brennan danced with Lucy. The dance floor t was crowded and the three couples were dancing on the edge of the floor near the table where Terry Garrett and Guillermo Santini were sitting.
Garrett was drunk now. His head was nodding and would soon be under him like a weak old steer's who was down in a ditch. Santini was talking to him but Garrett wasn't listening. Santini politely patted Garrett on the shoulder to get his attention. Garrett revived and looked at Santini. The Mexican smiled and repeated what he had said. Garrett reached up with both hands, took off his own hat, pounded the Mexican three times on the head with it, put it back on his head, and laid his head down on the table. Guillermo Santini stood up in a very formal, dignified manner, his face red with embarrassment, and postured before Garrett as though he might be removing a pair of white gloves to slap Garrett's face with. He carefully removed Garrett's hat and slapped Garrett's head with it. When Garrett looked up again Santini hit him a fine right hand between the eyes. Garrett did a backward somersault on his buttocks and spilled out on the dance floor at Kane's feet. Kane and Cunningham picked Terry Garrett up and propped him, soundly anesthetized, back on his chair. The .three valiants sat down and drank a toast to the brave, fallen Garrett and threw their champagne glasses against the wall. They called the waiter and ordered more glasses.
A floorshow began. The first girl who came out was a dancer. She was out of shape. Her heavy thighs shook excessively beneath the folds of her buttocks. She tried to dance her scuffed shoes above the floor but they crashed back to the floor too abruptly. She didn't take off any of her clothes because she couldn't use her hands at the same time she used her feet. Her hands fluttered erratically as they tried to keep time with her feet but the stomps jarred away the movement of the hands before they could describe flight. She did have a genuine smile on her face, a smile she showed intimately to each someone in the audience she could catch looking at her. Kane joined in a sound applause with everyone else when she lumbered toward her dressing room at the end of her dance. He figured she must be trying a comeback.
The second girl was young and confident of her body. She could afford her brilliant, jaw-aching cold smile. She had long hair that hung uncombed to her hips. She began to do what she knew the customers had come to see. She took her clothes off gracefully to the tune of music. She was down to the last strip of her raiment, the strip she knew was driving the customers mad, when she began making gyrating passes at Jim Kane, who was sitting at the edge of the dance floor. Kane turned to Hoy Cunningham and said, "If she makes one more pass at me like that I'm going to jerk that thing off her."
The girl came wiggling back. Kane waited until she turned away wiggling and he snatched the seat of the G-string. He jerked it hard to tear it off clean without hurting her but it held and the girl came with it. He pushed her back out to get a new pull and her hair stood up and when he jerked again harder the hair waved in a wide arc over her head and covered her face and she came skidding across the table. Kane let go of her, her modesty still intact, as she slid across the table. She landed like a cat off the other side of the table, scooted on all fours under the table, and was gone across the dance floor.
"I have called the judicial police. Please pay your bill," announced the manager.
"But you've got it wrong," said Santiago. "I've always heard the saying was "Pay the bill or you call the police.'"
"You owe o
ne thousand seven hundred fifty pesos. Five hundred for the costume, and one thousand two hundred fifty for the champagne, the tequila, and the glasses."
"Very reasonable," said Santiago. "I would like a receipt. Never mind, my check will be my receipt."
"I will not take a check, " said the manager. He was not a foolhardy man. He stood a good distance away from the table. Santiago wrote out a check, signed it with a millionaire's flourish, and tore it from his checkbook. He handed it to Cunningham. The check was signed "Terence P. Santiago."
Cunningham handed it to the manager. ‘"Get out of here," he growled. The manager took the check and walked away.
"Hell, I didn't tear the girl's jockstrap. That is the toughest costume I ever saw and it so little," complained Kane.
"I wouldn't have paid that bill if I was you, Santiago. What a clip joint this is."
"Let's get out of here. I've got horses to ship tomorrow," Roy Cunningham said.
They picked Garrett off his chair and started carrying him to the door.
"Where's Garrett's girl friend, Santiago? Cunningham asked.
They turned back toward the room. Lucy was sitting in a corner with the young Santini. He was practicing his English with her. Santiago gave over his portion of Garrett and walked over to Lucy. Santini stood up in his sedate, red-faced way and stepped away from the table. Santiago asked Lucy Luz something. She was sober. Her eye was shining as though she was so filled with happiness. Maybe she had found true love. She answered Santiago and he nodded and came back.
"The missus says she ain't coming just yet, " he said. They rode the taxi back to the hotel. Kane paid the cab while Santiago was very solicitously lifting Garrett out of the back seat.