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

you are standing in my camp with a
gentled Brahma by your side. You come back because you have to. I
have made you a slave to grain and a slave to Kane because Kane has
fingers with which to free you from the Brahma. If I was you I'd kick
up my heels, leave a few hard turds at Kane's kitchen door, and run
braying away the first time I was untied from a Brahma. I might just
give Kane a kick in the slats for good measure. Isn't that the way
Kane has been acting, his own way of doing?"
    Din walked into Kane's kitchen to get closer to
Kane's voice and Kane's coffee and brandy biscuits.
    Gunga, Din," Kane said. "Gung away outside
my kitchen. No room in the inn, Din." He dunked another biscuit,
pushed Din out of his kitchen, rubbed Din's ears, and gave Din his
biscuit.
    " Noël, Noël, Noël, Din. And that's all your
Christmas this year," Kane said.
 
 
    8
Afoot
    By New Year's Eve Kane had gathered and delivered all
the delinquent steers. His colts were gentle and needed a rest. His
saddle horse, Pajaro, was ridden down. Din the burro was gaunt and
too gentle. Kane was gaunt and too cranky. He turned the livestock
out to pasture and went to Phoenix to the Adams Hotel.
    In his room he poured himself a glass of whiskey. He
took off the clothes that in another day would have grown to his
hide. He turned on the hot water in the shower. He sealed up the
bathroom with wet towels. He sat on the toilet seat and drank his
whiskey and steamed and sweated in an abundance of comfortable
moisture. He poured pitchers of cold water on himself. His whole hide
drank. He showered. He shaved with a mirror. He examined his teeth in
the mirror. He washed his head with mange cure. He turned on the
television. He got in bed between fresh sheets. He drank another
glass of whiskey. He slept an undreaming, sunken peace with no spurs
on. He awoke and ordered up rare roast beef, a mountain of mashed
potatoes, a great tossed salad, and a pitcher of black beer. After he
ate he slept again. He awoke again and dressed in clean dress shirt
and sweater, clean starched Levis, his drinking hat, his drinking
boots, and went down the street to the Cow Palace Bar to celebrate
New Year's.
    He was back in camp with a hangover on New Year's
Day. He knew his body was back at camp because he could see his hands
and feel his feet. The legs swung and jarred his feet against the
ground. His mind was still numbly away from camp but close enough so
that the messages from the eyes to his brain were received clearly.
Startlingly, painfully, achingly, sometimes faintly, but always
clearly. The messages must remain simple. Complicated messages
physically shocked the receiver, the brain.
    He walked out into the pasture with a morral of grain
and caught Pajaro, mounted him bareback, and drove the colts into the
corral. The day was bright as goodness. The fine heat of its bosom
punished him. In the corral he slid off Pajaro and gagged. He stuck
his head up to his neck in the cold water of the horse trough and
held it there as long as he could. He came up for air and did it
again. Came up again and did it again. Each time he looked around
more calmly at the world around him under the water upside down. The
cool world under the water was a much finer place for the reunion of
his mind and his body. When he rose from the trough the reunion had
been made but his brain still ached as his mind shifted around in
there accommodating itself.
    Kane decided he would ride his colts one more time
and turn them out. He caught the black paint, Warwhoop, saddled him,
and rode out. The effort of saddling had worn him out and he was
happy when he finally found himself astride the colt and being
carried.
    He rode straight down the road toward the highway.
This morning he would Indian it. He would not school his horses. He
would let them give him hours of sun and movement and self-denial.
They would make him well from the sickness of having too much fun. He
did not smoke, cough, or smile. He just rode