The World in Pancho's Eye - J P S Brown

by J P S Brown

  Mikey and Forbes rode the train together to Phoenix after school let out for the summer. In Phoenix they caught the Greyhound bus to Tucson and then the Citizen Stage to Nogales. The "stage" was a twenty-passenger motor bus.

  Viv was in Susanville, California, pasturing a herd of steers. Maggie planned to spend the summer with him, so she arranged for Mikey to stay with Paul on the Apache Indian reservation. Paul now worked as a government stockman for the Apache herd near McNary. Mary Bell was Mikey's new stepmother.

  Mikey visited his home for one evening. The next morning he, Maggie, and Nina headed for the White Mountains in Maggie's black coupe. The route was paved to Tucson but unpaved for the next two hundred miles through Florence and Globe, across the Salt River Canyon and over the Mogollon Rim to McNary. They arrived in McNary late and stayed the night in a boarding house that belonged to the Southwest Lumber Mill.

  Mary Bell Summers came for Mikey the next morning. Maggie only stayed long enough after Mary arrived to see that Mikey's gear was stowed in Mary's car. She gave Mikey a peck on the cheek without looking at him, turned away, loaded Nina, and headed home. Nina did not get within fifty yards of Mary. Mary explained that she needed to run an errand and could not take Mikey with her. She drove out of town, stopped under a pine tree, told him to get out and wait, made a U-turn, and

  drove away.

  Mikey saw an Apache wickiup in the timber about fifty yards away. He sat and waited under the pine tree. Maggie had not wanted to eat in the boarding house that morning. In fact, she left town so quickly to get away from Mary that Mikey missed breakfast, too. Every now and then he turned toward the wickiup to see if anyone would come out. Smoke issued from its stovepipe.

  Finally, an Apache woman came out to sweep the space in front of the door. She wore a calico dress with a high collar. The hem was ankle-length and she wore teguas, the same kind of rawhide-soled moccasins that the Yaquis wore. Her hair was combed straight and shiny to the waist. She smiled at Mikey and said something to someone inside the wickiup. A gray-haired lady in calico came out and looked straight at Mikey. She nodded to the younger woman, shyly covered her mouth with her hand, laughed, and turned away.

  The younger woman spoke to someone else inside the wickiup. A boy came out and carried a tin cup and a rolled tortilla to Mikey. Mikey did not doubt for a moment that the boy spoke Spanish. He did not know Apache, but he did not think anyone as brown as this boy would be comfortable in English. "¿Qué hubo?" he said in Spanish. "How's it going?"

  "Qué hubo," the boy said. "Tomu, take this." He handed Mikey the tortilla. A dollop of fried beans was wrapped inside it. The tin cup was full of sweet, hot coffee and canned milk.

  "What's your name?" Mikey said.

  "Juan Bueno. You?"

  "Maikeh."

  "Your father is El Pol, no?"

  "Pol Somairs."

  "He's my friend."

  "How do you know him?"

  "He cowboys with my father and grandfather at the Haystack. I cowboy, too, but not today. Here, you can have this." He handed Mikey a shiny steel ball bearing, a steelie. Mikey gave Juan Bueno a stick of gum. Juan Bueno peeled off the paper and chewed the gum. He took out a pocketknife with the handles broken off the frame, found a bare slash in the bark of the pine tree, and dug off a hardened drop of pine resin for Mikey. He dug out another for himself, put it in his mouth, and broke it up with his new gum. "Chew that pine rock," Juan Bueno said.

  The resin was brittle and broke up easily, then turned soft and blended with Mikey's gum. He took out the wad and looked at it. The pine drop had turned into gum. It tasted good with the spearmint and made a bigger wad to chew.

  Juan Bueno led Mikey to the wickiup and told him the younger woman was his mother, Filomena, and the older was his grandmother, Nana. The women also spoke Spanish. Both gravely shook hands with Mikey and looked into his eyes. Their hands were clean and wet with water.

  "How do you know Spanish, Polito?" Nana asked.

  "From my parents," Mikey said.

  "Are you Mexican?"

  "Sonoran. And you?"

  "If you want to know, I'm Sonoran, too. Did you know that?"

  "No."

  "I was born in the Sierra Madre near the pueblo of Mulatos."

  "I don't know Mulatos, but l know the mountains of Magdalena."

  "My mother was Yaqui."

  "My mother was born in Patagonia. I knew Yaquis who walked through the Sierra de San Juan when I was little."

  "Were those the ones who said you were titiritero?" Nana asked. "Your father told us about those Yaquis."

  "They said I was a wizard." Mikey laughed self-consciously.

  "Your father told us about that. I think it's true that you are titiritero. Your ojos de gato, cat eyes, help you for that. Is that how you knew to speak to us in Spanish?"

  "I only thought you would understand me better."

  "All Apaches do not speak Spanish. Apaches don't go to Mexico as they used to because there is a bounty on our heads as there is for the Yaquis. Few of us speak Spanish now. My mother taught me. Her mother taught her. My husband is Apache and also speaks Spanish. My son-in-law, Juan Bueno's father, is Apache and speaks Spanish. They were both with Jeronimo. Do you know who Jeronimo is?" The woman smiled.

  "No. Did he run from the soldiers through the Sierra de San Juan with the Yaquis?"

  Both women laughed. "No," Filomena said. "Maybe, but not when you were there. He was an anciano, an ancient one of my husband's and my father's time. The Americans pronounce his name Geronimo."

  "Juan Bueno's father lived with Geronimo?"

  "Yes, he did, and his father did and his father before him."

  Filomena laughed again. "But Juan Bueno's father is also anciano. More ancient than los cerros, the hills."

  The women promised Mikey that he would meet Juan Bueno's father and grandfather at the Haystack Ranch where they worked with Paul. Mikey had heard of Geronimo, but he thought he was only a fictitious character, a make-believe movie opponent of Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, and Gene Autry.

  Mary showed up and Juan Bueno told Mikey to give back the steelie, because he thought it would be safer with him. Mikey was positive it would be safer with him. After one school year at Saint Michael's he could not promise that he would not lose it before bedtime. He never saw it again, but he and Juan Bueno were friends, and he could have anything Mikey owned after that.

  Mary asked Mikey a lot of questions on the way out to the Haystack and told him everything he wanted to know about his father. He did not ask many questions about Paul. Usually, people who said they loved his father thought it gave them a reason to run him down about his drinking. Mikey did not know one bad thing that came from Paul's drinking. He did not even blame Maggie's divorce on it. Mikey had been with him a lot when he drank whiskey and did not know why anyone would think it was bad. He knew of men who lied and stole in the cattle business and went to Canal Street on their wives and their families did not quit them. He wondered why people thought Paul's drinking gave them the right to condemn him to his son. No matter how much a person professed to be Paul's friend, usually he found an opening to condemn him for his drinking. Mary looked happy and healthy, so Mikey did not ask her how Paul had been doing with his whiskey.

  The Haystack Ranch headquarters was in an open, grassy draw. The corrals dominated the place. They were connected by alleys that made it easy for a few hands to cut and work thousands of cattle. The saddle house was made of pine logs and the main house where Paul and Mary lived was a one-room log cabin with an outhouse in the back. A veranda with a pine floor shaded the front door. The stove and kitchen sideboard were just inside the door. Paul and Mary slept in a bed near the stove. Mikey unrolled his bed on a cot at the other end of the room. A window was across the room from Mikey's bed. A costumer stood between his cot and the bed that Paul and Mary shared.

  Mary told Mikey to stay outside while she prepared supper, so Mikey put his saddle, blankets, chaps, and bridle in the
saddle house. A windmill pumped into a storage tank that stood on a tall stanchion near the saddle house. A nearby pump house held a large engine in its cool, dirty grease. Mikey climbed the windmill tower and looked around. Smoke rose from another camp of tents a quarter mile away, and he figured it was the camp of Juan Bueno's father, grandfather, and the other cowboys. A herd of horses grazed in the draw a half mile away. The afternoon was cool and the place was still. Thin smoke rose from Mary's stove. Meadowlarks sang in the draw. Chipmunks chattered in the timber. A flock of blue jays swooped on the corral to water in a trough. The big draw was bordered by the ponderosa pine forest. Cedar and oak also grew in that forest, but the pine trees overshadowed everything. The smell of pine was so heavy that Mikey could taste it on his tongue. He was still on the tower when Paul drove up in a pickup at sunset.

  Mikey sat on the top of the tower and watched. Paul looked slim, hard-twisted, and brown. His hat was near full destruction. His boots were tiny and he walked with a lot of muscle. Mikey did not think he had ever seen his father with whiskers on his face. Every morning Paul found himself some hot water and used his shaving mug and razor. His face looked like saddle leather in color and texture, and the lines on it could have been made by the tool of a saddle maker. The lines were all caused by his smile when he played and by his squint against the sun when he worked.

  Mikey was about to climb down out of the tower when he heard Mary's voice rise in anger. Mikey settled back. "Well, how long is he going to stay?" she demanded. "I suppose you think I'm going to put up with your kid all summer." She banged something on the stove. Mikey did not want to hear any more of it. He could not hear what Paul said because he was so soft-spoken, but he could not miss anything Mary said. He stayed in the tower and tried not to listen. Paul did not call him until long after dark. Mikey climbed down from the tower before he answered.

  "Where were you, son?" Paul asked when he hugged him.

  "Way on over there on the other side of the pump house," Mikey said.

  "Well, what do you think of the place?"

  "I like the smell of the pines and the green grass."

  "Wait until you see some of these cienegas, meadows. Wait until you see the elk and the bear, son. We have a lot of good horses, too."

  Mary did not speak to Mikey at the supper table; she did not even look at him. He was to find out that as soon as Paul came home she swelled up and became sullen to keep his attention. When Paul asked Mikey if he wanted more to eat, Mary gave an impatient sigh and sat back in her chair. After that, Mikey would have starved before he asked for more. When Paul asked Mary if she had bought any milk, she asked him why he thought she would do that. When Paul said that growing boys needed milk, Mikey said, "Oh, I'm used to going without milk." That was a lie. The Brothers owned a good farm in Bernalillo, New Mexico. A truckload of milk, butter, meat, vegetables, and preserves was sent to the school every week. The boys were given almost all the milk they wanted.

  Mikey would have done anything to get along with Mary. He had been friends and classmates at Lincoln School with her nieces and nephews. He would not have chosen her as a stepmother, but now that she had become one, he needed to be a gentleman and her friend. After that first supper, he could tell that he had about as much a chance of love and affection, even friendship, from Mary Bell as he did from Hitler. He remembered that he had once heard Paul and Bud Parker call her Madam Hitler.

  When Mikey bedded down in the quiet of the White Mountains that night, he thanked God for this chance to cowboy with Paul again. He decided that he would not worry about anything as hard to get as the love of a stepmother. He knew that he would get along with Paul's crew. Most cowboys were regular and open with each other. They did not have any conceits that way. They got along as teammates who faced the same dangers, hard work, and fun. They watched each other's backs, even when they did not like each other.

  Everybody liked Paul. Most cowboys liked whiskey as much as he did, so they were not ones to hold his drinking against him. The kind of men who came to work and quickly latched on to the conviction that they were better than Paul because they did not drink as much as he did usually did not turn out to be good cowboys. A man had to be reckless to be a cowboy. He often had to throw himself away like a drunkard in order to get out in front of a cow. If he was a good cowboy who did not drink, he at least did not think he was better than anybody who did. If he drank, he was usually too wild and crabby to think he was any good at all. Paul said he knew Mormons and Texas Baptists who did not drink but who turned wilder on cowboying than any cowboy ever did on drink.

  The next morning Mikey met two Apaches, Severiano and Victoriano, and Lyle Maneer and Curry Jones, two white cowboys. Uncle Art Robinson, Nina's brother, was also there. Lyle Maneer and Uncle Art resembled each other so much they could have been brothers. Both were short, wiry, hard twists. Both were as soft-spoken and serious as the two Apaches.

  Severiano and Victoriano were old fellers. Curry, Lyle, and Art were only in their twenties. None of them ever made an undue sound or wasted motion. They did not have expression when they were at work horseback. Their spirits minded their big horses. All the muscle was in the horses, and at least half the spirit and brains belonged to the horses. The decisions were made by the men, but the horses deserved the victories.

  The horses knew when a victory had been won in the work but showed it only in a momentary lift of their tails, a firmer step, or a haughty look. Once in a while a horse would throw up his head and nicker in triumph after he had won a hard victory. The cowboys might look at each other out of the corners of their eyes in appreciation of something they had won, but they were too modest to rave over a victory they could not have won without their horses. The cows too often won the victories. The most a cowboy would let himself do when he won was smile to himself when no one was looking. Most cowboys watched themselves closely to make sure they did not do more than that. Cows knew too many ways to bring cowboys down off high horses.

  Curry Jones was born a cowboy, did everything right by instinct, and talked all the time. He could tell a long story or say the words to a long song while he did the most difficult cowboy work and never skip any of the story or stop for interruptions. He never showed unkindness to animals or persons. Impatience was not in him. He required one full minute to say good morning. He always called Mikey M-i-c-h-a-e-l P-a-u-l which he needed ten seconds to say.

  Mikey found new tools at the Haystack that he had never used before. The outfit used wagons and teams of big horses. Two brown horses and two bays made up the teams and they could also be driven as a four-up. They were bred half Government Thoroughbred and half Clydesdale.

  The remuda was made up of thirty-six large mountain horses that were out of Thoroughbred mares by Government studs. If Mikey could have stood Pancho beside them, the little Mexican would have looked like one of their colts. Curry told Mikey that, except for a half Shetland in Mikey's string, they all weighed more than thirteen hundred pounds. Mikey had never known a desert remuda that big. The Haystack horses were bigger because of their breeding but also because of the green grass they ate day and night, month after month, and year after year in the high country. Paul caught the morning mount of horses in his usual way. He ran them into a rail pen along one side of the main corral, waited until they quieted with their heads over the rail, roped them with a soft loop from behind, and led them out to their riders. Mikey's top horse was a tordillo, a light gray horse. The horse turned, faced Paul, and walked toward him before the loop even tightened on his neck.

  Mikey climbed on the rail and bridled him. He was a monument, a statue of a horse and he stood as still as a boulder for Mikey. He was the color of granite and from a distance his eyes were navy blue. His eyes were so dark, Mikey could not see the brown mud of the world inside them unless he was only six inches away.

  "His name is Eagle," Paul said. "He understands Spanish. You ought to feel at home here, son. Most of the men talk Spanish and so do the horses."
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  After the crew saddled their horses, they harnessed the teams to the wagons. With Curry's guidance Mikey helped harness horses for the first time in his life. Curry went by steps, front to back, the way harnessing has been done forever, then showed him how to line up the horses, bridle them, take down the lines, and hitch them to the wagons. The teams were young and juicy and Paul used them every time he could invent a reason.

  The crew loaded the wagons, turned the remuda out on the road, and headed for Horseshoe Meadows where they would gather and brand calves. Curry and Lyle drove the teams and the rest of the crew drove the remuda. One wagon was loaded with a chuck box and the food provision, beds, and cooking gear. The Hooligan wagon was loaded with salt and grain for the horses, a coil of rope, wire, staples, tents, and tools.

  Mikey's stirrups were short. His legs were a lot longer than they had been when he put up his saddle last fall. He would have to unlace the leathers that evening and lengthen them. The crew used the day to move to Horseshoe Meadows and make camp. A bell was belted around the neck of a bronc named Pesa and the remuda was grained and turned into a horse pasture.

  Mikey helped Curry sweep and mop the cabin floor and air it out. Everybody found a place on the floor for his bed. The Apaches owned Saltillos, long, wide, tightly woven woolen blankets they could wear like ponchos over their shoulders. They laid on half and covered themselves with the other half. When they were asleep, their heavy hair spread out on the floor. Their eyelashes stuck out in twenty different directions and interlocked. Father and son slept silently side by side and only their black and white hair showed over their black and white Saltillos. Paul told Mikey they were better to camp with than anybody he knew. They were silent, neat, clean, and wise. Cowboys and vaqueros tried to be that way in camp but often strayed because they knew they would be forgiven as they were when they were home.

  Every night, after every man was in his soogan, Curry engaged Paul in soft conversation. Curry did all the talking in a slow, deep drawl that doped Mikey off to sleep. Mikey seldom awoke in the night, but when he did, it was to be sucked into a draft of wind and sound from Lyle Maneer's and Curry Jones's snoring. On that first night, Paul opened his bed in front of everybody, took a sack of rocks he had collected, and sprinkled them on his flannel sheets. Victoriano and Severiano smiled and said nothing. Lyle and Art grinned. Curry said, "Well, Paul's graveling his highway to heaven again/' He turned to Mikey. "Did you know your dad did that, Michael Paul?"