Hard Country

by Michael McGarrity

  Why should a worthless drifter with no prospects other than a dollar-a-day job be allowed to spoil their happiness and ruin a child’s opportunity to be brought up in a decent family?

  Inside headquarters, the company clerk handed Hendricks a packet of documents with the envelope containing John Kerney’s letter to Dr. Lyon at the War Department on top. He sent the corporal away to get the daily troop muster reports, went to his office, and burned Kerney’s letter in the woodstove before sealing the documents in the courier’s pouch.

  Hendricks had a good feeling about it. It was the Christian thing to do for all concerned.

  9

  At the wagon yard Kerney talked to a freighter named Joseph Cooney, who hired him as a driver for a quartermaster supply train leaving for Fort Marcy in Santa Fe under military escort. It was the first time in months he would have a job with more than five dollars left in his pocket, and that felt good. In fact, the whole damn day felt good.

  Kerney loaded and tied down the cargo, inspected the wagon to make sure the wheels and brakes were in order, and was about to hitch his team of mules when Cooney came up to him.

  Near Kerney’s age by his looks, he had a thick brogue, a nose that had been broken at least once, big hands, and long arms that hung down almost to his knees. He glanced at the loaded wagon and gave Kerney a brief nod of approval.

  “Now, where in Ireland were you born?” he asked.

  “County Clare,” Kerney answered.

  “’Tis a charming part of our fair land.”

  “As long as the English rule it,” Kerney replied, “it’s only a lovely place to be from.”

  Cooney chuckled. “True indeed. Now, are you the John Kerney poor Virgil Peters was looking for?”

  “I am. Did you know him and my son?”

  “I knew both man and boy. Virgil worked for me for a time until he took sick, and the post surgeon could not save him. Not a jovial sort; sad he was to have lost his woman and bad tempered to have fallen on hard times. Now, your boy Patrick, he’s the quiet one. Looks a bit like you. Same chin, and the nose too, I’d say. Busy with his hands he was, always making things out of bits of wood and tiny sticks. Liked to take things apart. The doctor’s wife took quite a shine to him.”

  Cooney paused and looked up and down the line of wagons. “Best to hitch up your team.”

  “What kind of man was Peters?” Kerney asked as he guided the mules to the coupling tongue of the wagon.

  “A good man when sober, he was,” Cooney replied. “A bit surly at times, as I said, but drunk or sober I never saw him lift a hand to the boy. He took no notice of the lad most of the time, which made the wee one lonely. The child was left to his own devices, but Peters fed him and always made sure he had a place to rest his head.”

  The post quartermaster stepped out of his office and waved to Cooney. Cooney waved back.

  “Look lively there, now,” he said to Kerney. “Not a moment to lose.”

  Grateful for the job and for knowing Patrick was alive, and wanting the time to arrive quickly when he would hear from Dr. Lyon, Kerney tied his horse to the back of the wagon and climbed onto the driver’s seat.

  * * *

  The wagon train made good time for the remainder of the day. By the next dawn, the snow on the prairie was mostly gone, melted by yesterday’s sun and strong, tepid evening winds that came out of the southwest. Back on the trail, the day turned unseasonably warm and the rutted road became thick mud: a gooey, slippery sludge that slowed progress.

  With the sun low in the west and a chill in the air, the caravan entered a sheltered valley and crossed two rivers running full from the recent storm. At dusk they made camp under a grove of tall cottonwoods near the settlement of La Junta, where a railroad crew was laying track.

  At mealtime, the drivers sulked about the railroad, none of them happy about the loss of jobs sure to come when the trains started running all the way to Albuquerque next year. Kerney left them to their brooding and walked out into the prairie. The mule teams and the army horses had been settled down in a vale between two small hills, and a couple of the pony soldiers were riding night herd.

  Kerney didn’t mind at all the impending arrival of the railroad, since it meant he’d be able to quickly get Patrick when the time came without having to spur a tired horse for hundreds of miles to reach a railhead.

  He’d need money to fetch the boy, and even more before that to make a place for them to live. He wondered what kind of work might be had in Santa Fe. Cattle and sheep ranches wouldn’t be hiring this time of year, but maybe he could get taken on at a wheelwright shop or with a blacksmith. He had some experience with both trades. He decided not to get to niggling his head over it.

  According to Joe Cooney, they would have a long day on the trail tomorrow to Las Vegas, and maybe two or three days more, depending on the weather, to reach Santa Fe.

  The full moon was up in a clear sky, casting a weak glow on the distant white-capped sierras the Spanish called the Sangre de Cristo Mountains—“Blood of Christ” in English—supposedly named because of how the light sometimes flashed bloodred on the peaks.

  Kerney had crossed over that high country and knew the rough terrain could be fearsome. But after Las Vegas the wagons would veer south past mesas and buttes, skirt the mountains through a narrow, low-lying pass, and traverse foothills to reach Santa Fe. He wondered what the territorial capitol looked like, and for the first time in a while felt eager to face a new dawn.

  * * *

  In Santa Fe, Kerney got paid, and at a dusty mercantile store on the plaza he bought clothes and a new pair of boots. He found a lodging room to rent from an elderly mestizo woman who had a small house near an old adobe church on the other side of the river, where he cleaned up, changed into his new duds, and went looking for work.

  All in all, Santa Fe was a disappointment to him. There was nothing grand or notable about it, nothing that gave the town any distinction as a civilized seat of the territorial government. The building where the governor resided was an ancient fortress a block long with four-foot-thick exposed adobe walls that faced the plaza. A rickety wooden portal ran the length of it, and only the front side had been plastered and whitewashed.

  On a small rise a block away, a cathedral was under construction, several modern homes had been erected on residential streets near the governor’s residence, and some new commercial buildings and hotels had gone up on the square. But aside from those improvements and one or two stately old haciendas with courtyards, the town was mostly a hodgepodge of ugly, mud-plaster adobe houses and outbuildings much like those in the isolated mountain villages Kerney had passed through over the last few months.

  Dirt-roofed peasant houses were tucked into the roll of land above the town site on bare, treeless plots, and small farmsteads were spread along the banks of the river a short distance from the plaza. Farm animals and horses roamed free through a large marsh and communal pastures adjacent to the town, often running at large through the streets, chased by their owners.

  There was active commerce in the core of the town, and most successful businesses appeared dominated by a group of American traders, lawyers, merchants, and government officials, along with a few prominent Mexican families, who acted for the most part like Spanish grandees. For residents and travelers alike, public gambling seemed to be the most popular sport in town, and the consumption of cheap liquor the most common diversion.

  From Kerney’s perspective, Fort Marcy was Santa Fe’s saving grace. It provided much to the cultural life of the city and even had a regimental band that gave free concerts, played at fandangos and dances, and paraded through the streets on patriotic holidays.

  The fort was a marvel. Located behind and next to the governor’s residence, it was laid out with military precision. Built mostly of adobe and brick, it had several rows of new officers quarters, with large windows, fireplaces, and wide porches. The parade grounds were well tended, and there were separate quarters for the
band and noncommissioned officers, a barracks for enlisted men, a hospital, and the usual assortment of stables and shops.

  After three days of looking for work with no luck, Kerney sat in his room and counted out the money he had left. If he remained in Santa Fe and kept paying for lodging, meals, and the cost of stabling his horse, he could last two weeks before going bust.

  But he had no intention of staying. He needed to get back to the Tularosa pronto to wait for a letter from Dr. Lyon to arrive at Coghlan’s store. He had enough to get there with a little left over and was about to feel glum about it when he suddenly remembered that John Good owed him almost a month’s wages.

  He counted his currency and coin again. His first night in town, out of curiosity he had poked his head into a number of the gambling dens. Some were splendorous, with sparkling chandeliers and fine furnishings, and some were nothing more than smelly mud huts with earthen floors. Not much of a gambling man by nature, he had avoided the lure of wasting his money on games of cards.

  Except for the necessity of new clothes and boots, he’d been penny-pinching since the day he left the Tularosa. After all, he was in the hole to Cal Doran. He’d been eating on the cheap, trying to conserve every dime. He looked at the greenbacks and silver and decided that he had cause to celebrate and treat himself to a good dinner. With Patrick alive and being well cared for, that was reason enough.

  The Exchange Hotel on the corner of the plaza had a dining room that offered expensive meals. He had decided not to stay there because of the cost, but the dinner menu looked good, all the chairs in the room matched, there were clean napkins on the tables, and the crockery wasn’t chipped or cracked.

  He brushed his hat, dusted his boots, put some money in his pocket, hid the rest in his bedroll, and walked across the river to the hotel. In the dining room he ordered a cut from a saddle of mutton frosted with cooled meat drippings, a coronet of peeled vegetables, a slice of mincemeat pie, and a pail of beer. When his dinner came, he dug in with gusto and hardly lifted his gaze from the plate. He couldn’t remember better eating since the day Mary Alice had fixed a pie and a roasted beef to celebrate the arrival of Thomas and his family in the Texas panhandle.

  He dawdled over the best cup of coffee he’d had in years and listened to the laughter and chatter of men and women arriving at the gaming rooms on the other side of the small lobby. He paid for his meal and with three dollars still in his pocket had a growing itch to spend it. Why not on a game of chance? If he could win a few hands, maybe he’d have enough to pay his debt to Cal Doran the next time he saw him.

  It was Friday night, and the big gaming room at the hotel had attracted a crowd. There were fancy ladies on the arms of young, off-duty officers from the fort at a craps table and a group of prosperous-looking businessmen playing poker in a corner. The rest of the crowd was made up of traders, wagon men, a few cowboys, several slick gamblers wearing string ties and brocade vests, some tough-looking hombres sporting fancy six-shooters, and a number of painted ladies.

  Kerney started at the blackjack table and drew two tens in his first hand. An hour later he was up fifty dollars. He slipped a month’s pay into his boot and took a seat as the seventh man at a five-card draw poker game. He lost his first two hands but started with a pair of eights in the next deal, drew another eight, took the hand with three of a kind, and from then on kept winning. By midnight, three men had dropped out, new players had taken their places, and he was up by five hundred and twenty-five dollars, which was way more than he could ever earn in a year.

  Ready to leave the game with his winnings, Kerney looked at the men sitting at the table. He’d come out unarmed, figuring to have a good meal and then go straight back to his room. One of the players, a man with a waxed mustache, soft hands, and the look of a professional gambler, had been at the table since Kerney joined the game and wasn’t happy about his losses. He figured him for a hidden gun. Two others wore six-shooters waist high but seemed peaceable enough. The rest weren’t showing any iron, but that was no comfort.

  The cards were dealt. Kerney bet, then folded before the showdown even though he had a strong hand. The gambler took the pot.

  “I’m done, gentlemen,” he said as he stood, put the greenbacks in his pocket, and scooped up the silver.

  “That’s not very sporting of you,” the gambler said. “Sit down and let’s play a few more hands.”

  Kerney smiled at the man. “The cards fell my way tonight. No need to get ornery about it.”

  “I said sit down,” the gambler repeated as he placed a Colt Dragoon .44 on the table and covered it with his hand.

  “The man said he was done for the night,” a familiar voice behind him said, “so unless you want to get hauled off to the undertaker, get your hand off that Colt, push back from the table, and stand up.”

  Kerney turned to find Cal Doran at his shoulder, his eyes riveted on the gambler. He had a deputy sheriff badge pinned on his shirt.

  The gambler scrambled to his feet.

  “That’s good,” Cal said. “Pick up your money and leave the pistol where it is. You can claim it at the sheriff’s office in the morning. Now, skedaddle.”

  As the gambler fled the room, Cal took the Colt, stuck it in his waistband, and grinned at Kerney. “Let’s go into the saloon so you can buy me a drink.”

  “Or two,” Kerney said, smiling back. “I never figured you to still be in Santa Fe, and a lawman to boot.”

  People moved aside as the two men made their way to the saloon. “Hell, this town about broke me in less than two weeks,” Cal said. “I drifted south and got hired by Pat Garrett as a deputy. I brought a prisoner up from Lincoln to a judge who plans to hang him, and I’m headed home tomorrow.”

  At the bar, Kerney ordered a bottle of rye whiskey, paid for it, and pushed some bills over to Cal. “That’s what I owe you. Thanks for the loan.”

  Cal looked at the money but didn’t touch it. “How much did you win tonight?”

  “Over five hundred, plus another thirty in my boot.”

  Cal let out a low whistle and pushed the money back toward Kerney. “I thought we were gonna go partners on that ranch when the time came. I’ve got some dinero to contribute to the cause from rewards I’ve collected, so I can match you dollar for dollar.”

  A thousand dollars was a fortune. It meant enough money to build and fully stock an outfit. “You certain you want to do that?” Kerney asked.

  “Damn right I do. Now, did you ever find that boy of yours?”

  “I found him, but I still have to fetch him.” He told Cal about the priest in Cimarron, what he’d learned at Fort Union, and the letter he’d written to Dr. Lyon at the War Department.

  “It’s just a matter of time.”

  “That’s real fine,” Cal said as he raised his glass. “Here’s to getting Patrick home to our ranch safe and sound.”

  The two men clinked glasses and drank.

  “I ran into Dick Turknet in Cimarron,” Kerney said, “and I’m thinking you may have told him I’m a peaceable man.”

  Cal chuckled. “You are, mostly. Did he say where he got those horses?”

  “First, how did you get him to agree to tell me?”

  “Dick’s a scoundrel and a thief, but we go back a ways. I caught him and the cousins trailing some ponies that a rancher up by the Organ Mountains had reported stolen. I gave them the choice of leaving the county or trimming a tree once a judge and jury got through with them. What did he tell you?”

  “He gave me the name of Bud McPherson, who lit out to Montana after his crew had been strung up by some Texas Rangers.”

  “That squares.” Cal poured himself another drink and one for Kerney.

  “You think Turknet told it to me straight?” Kerney asked.

  “Yep. Are you planning to hunt McPherson down?”

  “I can’t see chasing him to Montana, not with Patrick needing to be fetched when the time comes. Maybe McPherson will lope south, and then I can settle
accounts.”

  “That’s being a bright boy,” Cal said. He called the bartender over, gave him the gambler’s pistol and four bits, and asked him to leave the gun with the sheriff in the morning.

  The barkeep nodded, put the pistol under the counter, slipped the coins in his apron pocket, and went back to serving drinks to loud cowboys at the end of the bar having a high-heeled time.

  “I’m staying here tonight,” Cal said. “You can bunk with me.”

  “No need,” Kerney said. “I’ve rented a room from an old lady just across the river.”

  Cal shook his head in strong disagreement. “At least three hombres followed you in here and are waiting for us to part company and go our separate ways. You step outside alone and unarmed and I guarantee you’ll be robbed and murdered before you get ten feet. You bunk with me. Let’s have one more drink and call it a night.”

  Kerney poured the shots.

  “We can have a good breakfast in the morning, buy victuals, and be heading south before midday,” Cal said. “There’s a hacienda down a ways on the camino where we can put up tomorrow night.”

  “That’s all right by me,” Kerney said after downing the shot.

  “So where are we gonna start this ranch of ours?” Cal asked as they left the bar.

  “In the San Andres most likely,” Kerney replied. “There are some wide canyons with good grass and year-round springs.”

  “Old Apache camping grounds by the sound of it.”

  “Could be,” Kerney replied. “When we get back to the Tularosa, I need to visit with John Good about wages owed to me.”

  Cal smiled broadly as he unlocked the door to the room. “I’ll gladly ride along with you to see his charming wife again and make sure he fights you fair and square when he refuses to pony up.”

  “Think it will come to that?”

  “Maybe so,” Cal said.