Free Jim Kane - J P S Brown by J P S Brown

Whiskey Talk, three Brahmas that were still loose
on the ranch, and a paint burro he called Din.
    On this morning Din, as was his custom, had stationed
himself outside the door of Kane's shack, had formed his muzzle into
the shape of a megaphone, and was braying forth his special dawning
fanfare to awaken Kane. Kane swung his feet off the board shelf his
mattress and blankets were on, lifted the chimney off the lamp on the
broken chair by his bed, and struck a match to the wick. He put on
his hat, drew on the stiff Levis, stomped his feet into the boots and
spurs, stood in them, and put on his shirt. He forced Din the burro
away with the door as he stepped outside. He walked around the shack
to his kitchen, built a fire in the stove, and put his coffee on to
boil. He found a biscuit and gave it to Din on his way to the
corrals. Din followed him to the corrals. Kane gave each of the
horses under his charge an extra coffee can of oats for Christmas.
Din followed him back as he carried a bucketful of oats back to his
kitchen. He poured the oats into Din's pan by the open side of the
lean-to that was the kitchen. He got his bottle of Presidente brandy
from behind the stove and poured a swallow into his coffee, dunked a
biscuit in the coffee, and put the biscuit into Dirfs grain pan.
    " Noël, Din," Kane said. Din ate the
biscuit and turned his nose up at the grain, turned his nose inside
out again and looked at Kane. Kane gave him another coffee and brandy
biscuit.
    " Noël, Noël, Din," Kane said. Din ate the
biscuit and started on the grain again, grinding it slowly and
sparingly so as not to waste any. When he had finished the grain, he
began talking to Kane in that strange, rasping, whistling choke that
is the voice of the burro.
    " He must have liked you. I like you," Kane
said. "So why did He make you so ugly, Din? You are in all the
pictures of the Nativity. His mama rode you with Him in her arms to
Egypt when Herod was killing all the babies. You were around when He
amazed the doctors in the temple as a little boy. In that story you
bumbled along carrying people back and forth so He could give a
lesson to the doctors before His folks found Him. He rode one of your
white ancestors on Palm Sunday, the happiest day of His life, or at
least the day the largest consensus of humans were for Him. So then
how come your ears are so long and the hair on your back doesn't
shine, your tail is so inadequate, your head so big, and your
butt-end so peaked? And that voice! Like the true voice of one crying
in the wilderness!
    " You have been unjustly treated through the
centuries, Din. But you don't seem to realize it. You go along in
that little ugly shell of yours, doing what they prod you to do. They
make you do what your little carcass finds impossible to do. They
poke you with sticks demanding always more of you and instead of
quitting them and refusing them absolutely you go along at your own
pace no matter how much the poking hurts . so that you'll have enough
energy left in your carcass to do I them another job tomorrow. You
were not created to be servant for Great Societies, that's a cinch.
The Great Societies are begrudging you the few cactus leaves you eat.
You aren't fast enough or beautiful enough to serve them. You aren't
going to make anybody any money. You aren't going to be a warhorse.
Yet, at your own pace, you carried the Man everywhere He needed
carrying and He always seemed to have enough time to do the job He
did. No one can argue about the good quality of the job He did and no
one can say He didn't get results.
    " And look at you with a face only He and His
mother and yours could love! Even I treat you like a burro and
neglect your noble soul because you are so ugly. I lead you out, find
a devil of an escaped Brahma, rope him from my good horse, tie his
neck to yours, and ride away and leave you with him kicking at you
and hauling on you with the live hundred pounds he outweighs you. And
sooner or later one morning