Rhizomania Part 7

“Our families go back a ways,” said Shorty. “And I know your mama and daddy. We got some of the same problems, wouldn't you say so? We all get shoved around by the ones that have the money and the big say-so, ain’t that true?”

“I guess,” said Jorge slowly, squinting and trying to focus.

I’m going to rely on you,” Shorty said.“I know you’re the kind of man who will give me the honest word if I ask for it.”

“All us Lujans are honest,” said Jorge, looking down at the broken matchsticks scattered among the tufts of prairie grass.

“Everyone around here knows that's the truth," said Shorty, looking at Doran. Doran nodded.

"So," Shorty continued, "you don’t think your brother was the one that jumped him” — Shorty indicated Doran with a callused thumb — “last night?”

“Cesario never hit nobody in his life,” said Jorge. “He don’t believe in it.”

“He don’t believe in it?” asked Shorty.

“That’s right,” said Jorge. He cleared his throat and spat, well away from Doran’s boots. “Mama and the priest, they both told Cesario the Bible says don’t fight.”

“That what you think, too?” said Shorty.

“I don’t know,” said Jorge. “I don’t know the Bible like I should. Books don’t help me any. Cesario and me can’t do our letters. No school for the Mexicans around here.” The whiskey in Jorge’s blood showed its strength again, and he swayed a little on his wide-set feet. His brow crumpled into ridges as he struggled to remember what he’d been talking about. His face brightened as his next thought came to him. “The priest can’t tell lies.  He don’t want Dios to kill him with lightning or something.”

Shorty, looking down at the ground, nodded and waited for a moment before speaking again. “If Cesario knew who jumped Doran and cut the fence, would he tell?” 

“What do you think?” said Jorge.

“I think your brother don’t want Sayre’s men to jump him.”

Jorge, hesitant and confused, clumsily changed the subject. Abandoning his earlier self-consciousness about his damaged hand, he pointed at Shorty with his bent, crooked fingers. “Sayre’s cut fences before. Or his men did.”

“Where at?” Shorty reached for his tobacco pouch.  “Down on his south ranch?” The little man changed his mind, and pocketed the pouch. Perhaps he didn’t want to roll his own smokes in front of a man who could afford ready-mades. Or anyway, a man whose brother could afford them. 

“Yep, the south ranch,” said Jorge. He circled to the bay’s saddle and loosened a latigo strap to open a smooth leather bag hanging just below the cantle.  From the opened bag, Jorge took a small bundle wrapped in a filthy, greasy rag. He unwound the stiff, stained cloth deftly with three fingers of his damaged hand, revealing a dirty flat-sided bottle stoppered by a crude bit of cork. Inside the bottle, bits of crumbled cork twirled about in the murky liquid. Jorge pulled out the rough stopper and drank messily. He held the bottle, which bore the torn remnant of a Lydia Pinkham Vegetable Compound label, out toward Shorty. The older man accepted it with a nod of thanks, and poured several swallows of the murky stuff down his gullet. Then, to Doran’s horror, Shorty lifted inquiring eyebrows at Jorge and held the bottle in Doran’s direction.  Jorge gave a short, swift nod.

Shorty thrust the grimy bottle into Doran’s hand.  Doran thought it best not to think at all. He put the narrow, chipped mouth of the bottle to his own mouth and tipped it up. His palate burned and his throat went numb. He couldn’t tell if he was swallowing or not. A bit of stray cork hit the back of his throat and he feared for an instant that the lime-soaked churros might leave his gut and splash onto his new boots.  But Doran swallowed hard, blinking, and the food stayed down.  He gave the dirty bottle back to Jorge. Thankfully he watched Jorge jam the cork back into the bottle. It was only going around once.

Shorty had accepted a machine-rolled cigarette from Jorge, and now Jorge now held the somewhat crushed box of Admirals out to Doran. Doran, still slightly queasy, pulled out a cigarette and smiled feebly. Shorty produced a match from his shirt pocket, and as he inhaled, Doran was relieved to find that the good-quality cigarette smoke numbed the bad whiskey’s bitter burn inside him. Soon the pleasant taste of properly-cured tobacco had also soothed Doran’s mouth and throat.

Doran tried not to shift his weight from foot to foot. He wanted to know exactly what Jorge Lujan knew about the axe-handle attack on him. Shorty’s slow, easy ways were hard to suffer through. But Doran had to admit the creeping pace and roundabout talk probably made it easier for Jorge to provide information that might help him and Shorty, since the information could endanger the Lujan family. Especially if John Sayre’s incoherent shoutings from his lofty front porch were actual signs of things to come.

“You know why Sayre cuts the fences, don’t you?” Jorge began winding the wrapping cloth back around the old Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound bottle. “He pushes the cows out of his pasture. That’s what he does with his sick cattle.”

“I thought his men was over at our place looking for water,” said Shorty.

“They were doing that too.” Jorge cleared his throat and spat on the ground again, then put the nearly-empty bottle, wrapped in its greasy rag into his saddlebag. He fastened the latigo with fumbling fingers that displayed his drunken state. “But the main thing is that Sayre don’t take care of his stock. Doctor Morton’s a good vet, but Sayre don’t listen to him. He hires men that don’t know nothing about cattle. Gets the ones that can’t work nowhere else, bums and thieves and men that beat horses.”

Click here to go to Part 8.