Backlands

by Michael McGarrity

  Away from the bright green irrigated fields bordering the Rio Grande, the landscape hadn’t changed much since the arrival of motorcars. Unpaved dirt roads, often rutted, petered out when further passage by anything other than a horse and wagon proved impossible. The train entered the Jornada, a sandy, waterless, twisted desert country hemmed in by the Rio Grande to the west and a string of mountain ranges that blackened the eastern horizon, interrupted by broken tablelands and tumbled hills.

  The railroad tracks paralleled the old Camino Real, used by Spanish settlers traveling north to Santa Fe. For centuries the road served as the primary trade route between Mexico and remote New Mexico outposts. The small town of Engle, created by the coming of the railroad, sat in the middle of the Jornada and for a time had been an important commerce and shipping point for the large ranches, which often encompassed a hundred square miles or more, sprawling from the river to the mountains.

  Now in decline, the town consisted of a few remaining shops, post office, hotel, livery, train station, school, and some small frame houses, all clustered on the flats along the rail line. Because the town had no marshal and the sheriff was miles away in the county seat of Hot Springs, Engle was an attractive haven for drifting cowboys, transients, vagrants, and a smattering of notorious outlaws encamped in the nearby San Andres Mountains.

  On previous trips to the ranch, Matthew had always put on his sourpuss face during the journey, acting out of sorts for being forced to leave home during school vacations, thus abandoning his playmates and friends in Las Cruces. This time he seemed more agreeable, even somewhat eager to visit the ranch. Emma decided it had to do with escaping the aftermath of Jimmy Potter’s death, which continued to dampen Matt’s spirits.

  She sat across from him in the half-empty passenger car, watching as he read for the third time the book Gene Rhodes had sent him. The train lurched forward slightly as it gathered speed, causing Matt to look up from his book.

  “Are all the folks Gene writes about in his books and stories real people?” he asked.

  “As far as I can tell, I don’t think so,” Emma replied.

  “My teacher, Mr. Savacool, says that Gene shouldn’t write about real people and call it fiction.”

  “Why is that?” Emma asked.

  “He says it isn’t a made-up story if you just write about real people and tell what they did. He said the story Gene wrote about you was just a fancy newspaper article about something that really happened.”

  “Do you think Mr. Savacool is right?”

  Matt shrugged. “He knows a lot.”

  “Do you like Gene’s writing?” Emma asked.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Then that’s what matters,” Emma said. “I like his writing too. He knows what he’s writing about and wraps it up in a first-rate yarn that makes places and people come alive. Only very good writers do that.”

  “That’s the same way it is for me,” Matt said.

  Emma smiled. “Then we both agree that Mr. Savacool is wrong.”

  A worried look crossed Matt’s face. “I can’t tell him that.”

  Emma laughed. “You don’t have to and probably shouldn’t anyway.”

  Matt grinned. “I best not. Do you think Pa has read Gene’s story about you?”

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “I brought along a copy of it for him. Mr. Duncan at the drugstore had an extra one he gave me. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No, I’d like him to read it if he hasn’t already. It was a happy time for us back then.” The train slowed and Emma glanced out the window. Up ahead she saw the top of the water tower at the Engle station come into view. “We’re almost there.”

  Matt closed his book and scooted next to Emma for a look. “Do you see him?”

  “Not yet.” Emma stood quickly and reached for the bags. For a few seconds she felt dizzy and had to steady herself with a hand on the seat back. During the past week, her light-headedness had returned—not as severely or as consistently as before, but enough to be troubling.

  She handed Matthew his satchel and looked out the window again. There was no sign of Patrick, and his wagon wasn’t parked next to the station. “After the train stops, you go fetch Patches from the livestock car and I’ll find your pa.”

  “Okay.”

  When they disembarked, Matt left his satchel on the platform with Emma and made tracks to the livestock car at the rear of the train. Except for the stationmaster and the conductor, the platform was empty. Worried thoughts tumbled through Emma’s mind. Had something happened at the ranch? Had Patrick started drinking again?

  She hoped not. He’d promised Matthew that they would train Patches to be a working cow pony, and that promise had helped Matt perk up considerably about the visit.

  She glanced in Matthew’s direction and relaxed. Patrick and the train brakeman were at the livestock car pushing a ramp against the door. Lickety-split, Matthew jumped on the ramp, pushed open the door, and disappeared inside. Within a few minutes he reemerged, leading Patches off the car. Even from a distance, she could see a big smile on his face.

  She waited for them at the edge of the platform. Halter-led by Matthew, Patches came along a little skittish, eyeing the noisy locomotive suspiciously, with Patrick following a few steps behind.

  “Where’s your wagon?” she asked Patrick after he tipped his hat in greeting.

  “At the livery, where we’ll stable Patches,” he answered, picking up her bag and Matthew’s satchel. “I’ve taken rooms at the hotel for the night. I figure this young cowboy is old enough to want to stop sharing a room with his ma, so we each get one.”

  Matthew grinned. “Aces,” he said.

  Emma searched Patrick’s face. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Nothing special,” he replied as they ambled toward the livery.

  “I brought you the story that Gene Rhodes wrote about Ma, and you’re in it,” Matt said.

  “I’ve heard about that,” Patrick said. “Is it a good story?”

  “The best I’ve ever read.”

  “I’ll take a gander at it after we eat. The hotel dining room is serving up a special pork chop dinner tonight and I’m hankering for a plateful. How does that sound to you?”

  The idea of having his very own hotel room for the night and a plateful of pork chops at dinner made Matt pull Patches along to the livery in a hurry.

  ***

  Vernon Clagett didn’t care much for the Mexicans who’d showed up at the Double K. The first to arrive were three women and three men, including the young buck who’d greeted Patrick at the hacienda in Tularosa. To make room for them, Patrick had moved Vernon out of the casita behind the ranch house to bunk in the barn. Vernon didn’t like being ousted by Mexicans—the idea of it went against the grain—and he found it mighty irritating that they jabbered to one another in Spanish all the time. He righteously believed people should talk American in America, and that included Mexicans. And although they didn’t show him any disrespect, he didn’t cotton to them acting like they were equal to a white man. That just wasn’t right either.

  After Patrick left to fetch his son and ex-wife from the train station in Engle, Vernon felt downright surrounded by the Mexicans. The feeling had worsened this morning, when four more of them showed up, including two children. It was about intolerable until two neighboring ranch families arrived with a passel of kids, all white folks as far as he could tell, which eased his mind considerably. All told, a crowd of some twenty people were busy preparing for the fiesta that was due to start the minute Patrick arrived with his ex-wife and his young button.

  Before the first bunch of Mexican guests arrived with the temporary housekeeper, Patrick had left for a spell on two different days to invite some of the neighbors to the party. Vernon used the time to poke around for any valuables, gold, or money th
at might be hidden in the house or around the ranch headquarters. He found fifty dollars in greenbacks in a desk drawer he picked open, but nothing else worth stealing. He considered taking the money and leaving by shank’s mare but decided not to risk Patrick riding him down before he got far enough away. Besides, he was still curious about what might be hidden somewhere on the ranch. In Las Cruces he’d heard stories about treasure in the San Andres Mountains, and the Double K covered a big slice of that country. There was a legend of a lost, rich gold mine worked by a priest and his congregation back in the old Spanish days, tales of vast Apache plunder taken during the Indian Wars concealed in sealed-up caves, and rumors of a fortune in Spanish gold ingots buried deep inside an enormous mountain cavern.

  Maybe it was hogwash and had nothing to do with Patrick and the Double K, but Vernon wasn’t finished snooping around and remained convinced old Pat Floyd had something more than fifty dollars in a locked desk drawer that he didn’t want found.

  In the tack room, the driest, cleanest part of the barn, Vernon had assembled a stout bunk bed out of scrap lumber and covered it with a thick straw mattress made up of gunnysacks sewn together. It was away from the constant chatter coming from the ranch house, so after he put out a fresh salt block in the horse pasture, he went back to the tack room, closed the door, and began cleaning and mending the reins, bridles, and halters Patrick wanted put in good repair. Spring works would start right after the woman and the boy returned to Las Cruces.

  The room had saddles on built-in racks along one wall, with a row of pegs above for bridles and halters. A large trunk against the back wall held blankets, sheets, leg wraps, several worn-out Indian saddle blankets, and cloth scraps good for cleaning. On the very bottom was a smaller, padlocked army box with PVT. PATRICK KERNEY stenciled on the lid. Next to the big trunk stood an old Mexican cabinet made of thick pine on sturdy legs; it held grooming tools, spare bits, horse medicine, ointments, and a sewing kit filled with odds and ends of leather and rawhide good for patching. On top of the cabinet were some brand-new, shiny grain buckets.

  Vernon removed the army box with Patrick’s name on it and set it aside before getting to work. Patrick kept his tack, like his ponies, in top condition, so there wasn’t much fixing for Vernon to do. He cleaned everything good and started in on the saddles, mending a small tear on one fender, a loose seam on a skirt, and the binding to a billet strap. Done with repairs, he put the sewing kit away, returned the saddles to the racks, and inspected the padlocked army box.

  Born in a Brooklyn slum, Vernon had learned lock picking from his uncle, who’d used him as a lookout during burglaries before his parents moved the family west to Texas. It was a skill he’d honed over the years.

  Inside the army box he found a Rough Riders uniform, a campaign hat, two Spanish-American War Campaign Medals, and a Rough Rider medal from Teddy Roosevelt. In a small oilskin pouch tucked inside the uniform shirt were some military papers and hospital records made out for Patrick Kerney along with a letter granting a full pardon to convict Pat Floyd signed by the governor of the territory of Arizona and the superintendent of the Yuma Prison, Thomas Gates. Tucked in with the pardon was a letter from Mrs. Dora Ingalls, who oversaw the prison library. In it she wrote that Pat Floyd’s work as a trustee assigned to the prison library had been commendable and he deserved a second chance to become a law-abiding citizen.

  Vernon smiled and put everything back in the box except the pardon, which he hid in the bottom corner of his gunnysack mattress. He was one up on old Pat Floyd now, he thought gleefully. How he was going to turn that into an advantage, well, he would have to cogitate on that some before playing out his hand.

  ***

  Emma couldn’t remember the last time she’d truly enjoyed Patrick’s company, but it certainly preceded their divorce more than eight years past. Last night at dinner, he’d been almost charming, at ease with Matthew and attentive to her without his usual flashes of irritability or defensiveness. He completely captured Matthew’s interest by talking about how they would train Patches during this visit to the ranch, and he utterly surprised Emma by telling her about some rangeland he had recently bought and planned to restore. Patrick was normally closemouthed about anything to do with the ranch, and never loquacious by nature, so his unusual behavior kept Emma awake and wondering about him for a while after she tucked in a sleepy, happy Matthew and retired to her room.

  In the morning at breakfast, Emma half expected Patrick to revert to his typical distant ways, but he remained talkative, actually dawdling over his coffee after the meal, which she found amazing. Usually, he wanted everything done in a hurry so he could get on to whatever needing doing next.

  They left Engle with the morning sun warming the day, a slight breeze wafting down the slope of the mountains, and Matthew riding Patches ahead of the wagon with orders from Emma to always remain within sight.

  “He’d have to stray afar to get himself lost,” Patrick said.

  “Do you think I’m too much of a fussy mother hen?” Emma asked.

  “I didn’t say that,” he answered. “But it isn’t a bad thing for a boy to get lost once or twice. It can test his mettle and teach him a thing or two about life.”

  Emma glanced at Patrick. Was he talking about Matthew or himself? As a young boy, Patrick had often been alone and forgotten in the mining camps of northern New Mexico while his crazy aunt and her lover drank themselves into stupors.

  She reached over and gripped his free hand.

  “What’s that for?” Patrick asked, astonished by her gesture. She hadn’t deliberately touched him in years.

  “You weren’t lost as a child; you were abandoned.”

  Patrick slowed the horses. “I wasn’t talking about myself.”

  “I think you were,” Emma replied softly as she removed her hand. “And I think that’s why you hated me for leaving.”

  Patrick stopped the team and turned to face Emma. “I’ve never hated you. You’ve hated me for what I did to you.”

  Emma bit her lip, shook her head. “I take it back. It hasn’t been hatred for either of us.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Emma paused, collected her thoughts, and sighed. “I’m just starting to make sense of it now. In different ways, I think neither of us ever counted on anything good happening in our lives, and we were dead certain if it did it wouldn’t last.”

  “I’ll admit to that,” Patrick said as he flicked the reins to start the team. “But I don’t see it in you, not with your spunk and boldness.”

  Emma smiled plaintively. Acting brave and strong kept at bay the constant reality of being imprisoned, raped, and abused as a girl. That was how Patrick found her, yet he couldn’t or wouldn’t see the hidden damage it had done. She wondered how many untold women endured rape of one sort or another, and how many legions of men believed it to be their right. For Emma, forcing Patrick to accept the wrongness of his act had been a defiant moral crusade, one she’d been proud to win.

  “You never liked my boldness and spunk,” she said.

  Patrick glanced over at Emma. “That’s unkind of you to say.”

  Emma laughed.

  “So is laughing at me,” Patrick added.

  Emma laughed again. “I’m laughing because we’ve been talking, not squabbling, and you haven’t lost your temper yet.”

  Patrick smiled. “That’s true, ain’t it?”

  “Keep acting nice and I’ll start to expect it,” Emma cautioned.

  Patrick snorted. “Don’t count on it; I’m probably just off my feed.”

  “My goodness, are you showing a sense of humor?” Emma asked, feigning disbelief.

  “Trying to, I reckon,” Patrick answered with a grin.

  “Did you read Gene’s story about our roundup?”

  Patrick nodded. “It got me remembering that there were good times between us—lots of
them, as I recall.”

  “It wasn’t all dreadful,” Emma allowed. “And I don’t say that to sting you.”

  “Just to keep me at arm’s length,” Patrick ventured. “I’ve finally got that one figured.”

  There was no hint of bitterness in Patrick’s voice. Emma searched his face. “Have you?”

  “Yep.”

  “It would be nice if we could stay friendly, especially for Matthew’s sake.”

  “I’d like that,” Patrick replied.

  Up ahead, the fringe of the Jornada gave way to the upward slopes of the San Andres Mountains, a far gentler incline than the rugged eastern face of the mountains. In the distance where the road curved out of sight behind a grove of junipers, Matthew patiently waited on Patches.

  “How come you’ve been just dillydallying along this morning?” Emma queried. “That’s not like you. You’re always in a hurry to get back to the ranch.”

  Patrick flicked the reins and the ponies picked up the pace. “I hired on a man to help me get ready for spring works,” he explained. “No need to rush; he’s keeping an eye on the place.”

  Not convinced of Patrick’s truthfulness, Emma let it go by. “Still, I’d like to get there before nightfall,” she said. “Are you ever going to get a truck or a motorcar?”

  Patrick shrugged. “Maybe someday I will. A used army truck might do once the county gets around to building decent roads. I remember Cal telling me after he saw his first automobile that he didn’t want to be part of a world where folks stopped riding ponies. I guess I feel the same way.”

  Emma giggled.

  “What?”

  “It’s too late. That world is already here.”

  Patrick grunted disgustedly.

  “Are you becoming a cantankerous old man?” Emma asked.

  Patrick urged the ponies into a smooth trot. “There are worse things a man could become,” he answered, thinking about the hard cases at Yuma Prison and Vernon Clagett at the ranch. Maybe it hadn’t been smart to hire him on. “We’ll hurry along for a spell, if that will please you,” he added.