Backlands

by Michael McGarrity

  Squirrel’s smile widened. “I’d be obliged.”

  Patrick called for a whiskey and placed more money on the bar. “Are you just passing through?” he asked.

  “I am.” Squirrel eyed the bartender carefully as he poured the drink. He picked it up with a shaky hand and downed it in a gulp. “That’s if I can earn some money. I need work so I can go back to Texas, where I’ve got some family.”

  Patrick hid a smile as he motioned for the bartender to pour another. Squirrel was a drunk, no doubt about it, and when sober, drunks worked for whatever wages they could get. “Ever do any ranch work?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Vernon replied, his eyes fixed on the bartender as he poured whiskey in the cup. “Farm work, mostly,” he corrected as he reached for the drink. “I’m a fair handyman, not good at everything, but I can drive a wagon, mend fences, cut wood, tend to chickens, hoe a field, and shoe a horse—whatever is needed around a place.”

  “Where did you last work?” Patrick asked.

  “I was a barn boy over in Willcox on a horse ranch.”

  Vernon knocked back his drink and kept talking. Patrick only half listened; he’d already decided to offer Squirrel work fencing the two sections. If the man agreed, and there was no reason to think he wouldn’t, Patrick figured it would serve two purposes: The fence would get built and his prison record wouldn’t get spread around town.

  Three whiskeys had made Patrick light-headed but far from drunk. He’d made a point of not telling Squirrel his real name. He looked around the room and didn’t see a soul who knew him. That was good. He looked back at Squirrel, who had stopped talking. Drunks were notoriously unreliable hands and required watching, but the risk was worth it. “I just may have some work for you,” he said.

  Vernon grinned. “I’d be much obliged if you did. I’ll work hard, I promise you that.”

  Patrick clasped Squirrel’s shoulder. “I believe you will. Meet me at the Engle train station the day after tomorrow at noon. It’s a town northeast of here a ways on the main line. Not that far. If you show up, you have a job.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Good, I’ll see you then. Have another drink on me.” He flipped a half-dollar tip to the bartender, put enough money on the bar to pay for two drinks, and left the cantina, happy with the turn of events. Squirrel would either show up in Engle or not. If he did, Patrick would stock the shepherd’s shack with vitals, let Squirrel live in it while he built the fence, and send him on his way when the work was done. If Squirrel didn’t show, Patrick figured he’d move on before too long and that would be the end of it. He doubted there was much of a chance his prison record and go-by name of Pat Floyd would catch up with him.

  ***

  Patrick slept poorly and woke up early with a dry mouth and dull ache in his head reminiscent of his drinking days. Fully sober, he had no longing for a morning whiskey to chase away the cobwebs, and that was a good sign. Maybe he could have a few drinks every now and then without backsliding into being a drunk again. He also had a clear memory of meeting Squirrel and offering him a job. In thinking it over, he liked how he’d handled the whole situation.

  The hotel boasted indoor plumbing, with a tub and hot water in the communal bathroom, and he made full, leisurely use of it, until a knock at the door made him get out and get a move on. He dried off, dressed quickly, shaved in his room, went to breakfast, and was the first customer to be served in the empty dining room. Over coffee, the dull headache receded and by the time he finished breakfast, he felt full of energy and ready to go.

  A hardware store by the depot, no more than a few minutes’ walk from the hotel, always opened early and stocked the barbwire he needed. In no hurry, he paid the check, settled the bill for the room, packed his gear, left it with the desk clerk, and walked to Emma’s house. Lights were on in the kitchen and smoke drifted from the chimney. He heard the back door slam and Matt’s pony whinny, and walked behind the house to the small horse barn. The pony was in the corral eating a bag of oats while Matt mucked out the stall.

  Matt heard Patrick’s footsteps and looked out. “Ma’s in the house,” he said tonelessly.

  “I came to see you and find out how you’re doing,” Patrick said.

  “Fine,” Matt replied before disappearing inside the stall.

  Patrick gave Patches a careful look. “You take good care of your pony. I admire a man who does that.”

  Matt’s movement inside the stall stopped.

  “You can learn a lot about a man by his horse,” Patrick continued. “Your pony tells me you’d be a good man to ride the river with.”

  Matt appeared in the stall doorway.

  “I ever tell you about a man named Cal Doran?”

  “Nope, but Ma has told me some about him. She says he was a good and generous man.”

  “That he was. He raised me up after my pa, your grandpa, died, and he had a pony named Patches.”

  “He did?”

  “Yep, and he truly loved that horse. Sometimes a man’s pony can be his best friend, the most important critter in a cowboy’s life. You can never own a pony like that. They just kind of pick you out and let you join up with them.”

  “How do you mean?” Matt asked. Finished mucking, he set the pitchfork aside.

  “It’s hard to explain,” Patrick answered. “Let me ask you this: What did you think when I first showed you that pony out at the ranch?”

  “Like he was special,” Matt answered. “The best-looking pony I’d ever seen.”

  “That’s what I mean, and he took to you right away, just like you took to him.”

  Patrick stepped inside the corral, unhooked the empty feed bag, and handed it to Matt. Patches snorted, turned his head, and looked him in the eyes. “You bring him out to the ranch next visit and we’ll work him into a top ranch pony. He’s got the smarts and the heart for it.”

  Matt brightened. “You mean it?”

  “I mean it.”

  Matt hung up the feed bag, put Patches back in his stall, and said. “You can come inside, if you like.”

  Patrick smiled. “I appreciate the invite, but I’ve got business to attend to and you need to get ready for school. Look after your ma and give her my best.”

  “Yes, sir, I will,” Matt answered gravely.

  “Adios.”

  Matt smiled. “Adios.”

  Patrick smiled in return and left, feeling almost buoyant, thinking there might be a chance to make friends with Matt after all. It put a spring in his step.

  4

  For a month, Vernon Clagett worked alone, cutting and hauling fence posts and stacking them at various locations along the perimeter of the pastureland Patrick Kerney owned. He saw Patrick about once a week at the shepherd’s shack when he came to check on Vernon’s progress and drop off supplies. On one visit, Patrick took him to Engle, where they picked up rolls of barbwire freighted by train from Las Cruces. While in town, he bought Vernon a meal but refused to advance him any money from his pay to buy a bottle of whiskey to take home to the shack.

  Vernon’s living quarters were sparse at best, consisting of a rough-fashioned plank-board bunk with a lumpy mattress, a small woodstove for heating and cooking, a shelf for provisions, a bucket for water, one hurricane lamp, and several wall pegs for clothes and gear. It had a leaky roof, drafty walls, and a smoky chimney and was home to numerous varmints and crawly critters that scurried across the dirt floor. Vernon offered no complaints. He’d lived in far worse conditions with little food and fewer prospects.

  At the outset of his employment, especially at nighttime, Vernon got so desperate for a drink he considered riding two hours to town and selling Patrick Kerney’s horse for a jar of rotgut. Only the knowledge that he’d likely never get away with it, and the fact he was too doggone exhausted to move, kept him from acting on the impulse. When the shakes, the swea
ts, and the blinding headaches came over him, he curled up on the bunk, laid low by the misery. Yet with each passing day he felt a little less sick and a little bit stronger, until finally the trembling in his hands stopped, his appetite improved, and he no longer stank from a putrid booze smell that oozed from his pores.

  On payday Patrick came at dawn and put twenty dollars in Vernon’s hand.

  “You can pack your gear, walk to town, buy a bottle, get drunk, and you’ll work for me no more,” he proposed. “Or you trail along to the ranch and keep your job for a spell.”

  “What about fencing the pasture?” Vernon asked, staring at the greenbacks.

  “That gets put off until I’ve got everything ready for spring works. When things are shipshape, you’ll come back here and start stringing wire. If you stay sober, that is.”

  “I’m building fence by myself?”

  “No, you’ll have help.”

  “What do you want me to do at the ranch?”

  “I got ponies that need to be shod, equipment to repair, a chuck wagon that needs a good greasing, and the like,” Patrick replied. “I’ll up your wages five dollars a month, but be warned, there’s no liquor to be found on my spread. I don’t allow it. A man with a big thirst has a far piece to go for a drink, and when he leaves he isn’t welcomed back.”

  Vernon considered his options. The headaches, sweats, and shakes were gone and he felt better than he had in years. Plus, he’d been told in Las Cruces that Patrick had one of the best outfits on the Tularosa, and he wanted to see it for himself.

  Vernon put the folding money in his pocket. “I’ll trail along,”

  “I’ll be back from town by early afternoon,” Patrick said as he mounted his pony. “Be ready then.”

  “You sure go to town more than any other country folk I know,” Vernon said with a friendly smile.

  Patrick stared him down. “Putting your nose into other folks’ business will get you sent down the road in a hurry,” he snapped. “You get my drift, Squirrel?”

  Vernon blinked and backtracked. “I didn’t mean nothing by it. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me Squirrel anymore.”

  Patrick nodded. “Fair enough. See you after noon.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Vernon replied. He watched Patrick ride away, thinking the man sure seemed to have more to hide than a go-by name and a prison record. It made Vernon all the more curious about him.

  ***

  Started back in the territorial days by Patrick’s father, John Kerney, and his partner, Cal Doran, the Double K was the oldest and most remote outfit on the east side of the San Andres Mountains. It was twenty miles to the nearest state road and about the same distance to Patrick’s closest neighbor. The ranch boundaries encompassed high-country meadows and foothill pastures that spread onto the Tularosa Basin. The basin, an expanse that filled the eye, stretched beyond blindingly brilliant sand dunes to the south and dangerous, ink-black malpais to the north. Most days the basin shimmered under crystal-clear skies, with mountains looming and lurking in all directions.

  Tucked into a shelf along the hillside of a meandering valley that dipped and rolled into soft foothills, the ranch headquarters was watered by a spring-fed pond and an intermittent stream that coursed to the basin and disappeared underground. The ranch house faced east, with a view of Sierra Blanca Peak towering over the Mescalero Apache Reservation in the forested uplift of the Sacramento Mountains forty miles distant. Most mornings brought brilliant sunrises that flung rainbow colors over the alkali flats bordering the Double K. Windbreaks and stands of cottonwood trees planted in the early days of the ranch gave it an inviting, comfortable feel, in stark contrast to the harsh desert landscape, ravaged by years of overgrazing and perpetual cycles of punishing drought.

  Because of the location, the ranch had no electricity or indoor plumbing, telephone service was years away, and although the government promised rural free mail delivery, it was spotty at best, given frequent washouts, rockslides, bad weather, and the breakdowns of the mail car.

  Every backcountry rancher with a motorcar or truck fastened cans of gasoline, oil, and water to their vehicles’ running boards as a precaution against inevitable disasters. Patrick knew the automobile had come west to stay but refused to own one until the roads were safer and filling stations more numerous. Until then, a horse and wagon were much more reliable in the unforgiving, treacherous mountains and desert of southern New Mexico.

  Patrick’s weekly trip to Engle was the only consistent way to stay in touch with Emma. Sometimes she sent a note to his post office box, but most times not. When he didn’t hear from her for a spell, he’d call her house from the Engle train station or send a telegraph wire asking about her health. She sounded chipper and fine when they talked, and she sent short, reassuring replies to his inquiries, but without seeing her face-to-face, Patrick continued to worry about her.

  This week a letter from Emma awaited him at the post office. She wrote that spring school recess started in two weeks and they would be arriving in Engle on the Friday evening train the day school got out. Patrick mailed back a note that he’d be waiting for them at the station, turned, and bumped into Albert Jennings on his way out the door.

  “Can’t say I’m glad to see you,” Al said dourly. Big-boned, with a jovial round face that matched his personality, Al was well liked by all his neighbors, except for Fermin Lucero, the sheep rancher who had sold out to Patrick. Al’s blue eyes and curly light brown hair concealed from strangers his Hispanic blood, a heritage from a grandparent on his mother’s side.

  “That ain’t very neighborly of you,” Patrick said with a grin. Al owned a ranch on the west side of the San Andres, right next to the two sections that now belonged to Patrick.

  “I guess it ain’t,” Al said with a smile. “How did you find out before me that Lucero wanted to sell?”

  “You tried to drive that old boy and his sheep off his property so many times, he was hell-bent not to sell to you,” Patrick replied. “So he came to me.”

  Al shook his head. “I should have known.”

  “That’s what I mean about you not being neighborly, getting Fermin all riled up at you like that.”

  Al threw back his head, laughed, and slapped Patrick on the shoulder. “I’m about as neighborly as you are when it comes to sheep. Can’t stand the critters. Let me buy you a meal and talk you into selling me that land. Hell, it’s across the mountain and a far piece from your boundary. Too damn inconvenient for you to own, I’d say.”

  Patrick nodded in agreement, but only about the offer of a free meal. A sign outside the hotel advertised fresh eggs on the menu and the cook made a decent cup of coffee. “I’ll let you feed me,” he said, “but don’t expect anything to come of it other than you being two bits poorer. I’m not selling.”

  Al grinned as he stepped off in the direction of the hotel. “That figures. Leastways, I’m hoping you’ll tell me what you plan to do with that pasture. I’ve never known you to buy land for no purpose whatsoever.”

  “It’s an insurance policy.”

  Al paused in front the general store. “Against what?”

  “Look up and down the street,” Patrick said. “What do you see?”

  “Engle,” Al replied, not bothering to look.

  “Rootin’-tootin’ Engle,” Patrick said. “Right?”

  Al paused and looked around. A barbershop, a saloon, and a dry goods store had closed in the last year, and the buildings remained empty. “Well, it ain’t as rip-roaring as it once was back in the boom days when they were building the dam; I’ll give you that.”

  “Someday when roads and cars replace trains, it’s gonna dry up and blow away,” Patrick predicted as he moved toward the hotel.

  “Maybe so, but what does that have to do with Lucero’s pasture?”

  “His sheep eroded the soil but didn’t kill
all the grass. I’m gonna fence it, rest it, sow seed in some places, bring the grasses back, put in a well, and keep live water running in the springs. Next time a bad drought hits, I plan to put my stock on it and maybe keep the Double K from going under.”

  “You’ve got some good high-country meadows to graze cattle on in dry times,” Al countered.

  Patrick nodded. “So do you. Think there’s enough browse to get you through a two- or three-year drought?”

  Al shrugged as he stepped into the hotel dining room. “That’s doubtful. How long you figure it will take to green up enough to use?”

  “Three to five years,” Patrick replied as he took a seat at an empty table.

  “That’s a long time to have land not working for you,” Al said, sliding into a chair.

  Patrick waved the waitress over. “We can’t keep ranching by throwing our livestock on overgrazed pastures and praying for moisture. It’s time we got a little smarter. Cutting back on the livestock and resting the land makes sense to me.”

  “You’ll lose profits,” Al cautioned.

  “I’ll earn less, but in the long run I may be able to keep what I have. If the land wears out, it’s no good to anyone.”

  Al pushed his hat back and scratched his chin. “You’ve chewed on this a while.”

  “I have.”

  “Let’s order,” Al said as the waitress approached. “We can talk more about it over a plate of steak and eggs.”

  “Suits me,” Patrick said.

  As they dug into their meals, the two men traded worries over falling cattle prices and rising operating costs, before Al returned to Patrick’s notions about resting his new sections. By the time they were ready to push back from the table, Al had thrown in on the idea, deciding to do the same with two sections that bordered Patrick’s new land. Although it was higher up the mountainside and more heavily forested, there were several large meadows with good, reliable water. They agreed to keep the sections fallow for at least three years and consult with each other before putting any animals on them.