Backlands

by Michael McGarrity

  “I’ll fence my sections after spring works,” Al said.

  “Good deal.”

  The friends grinned and shook hands.

  “I didn’t figure to come to town and get caught up in some conservation scheme that’s gonna cost me money,” Al said.

  “You need to put that money you’ve got sitting in the bank to work,” Patrick countered, tongue in cheek.

  The thought of cash in the bank made Al chuckle. “Maybe I should, if you’ll put on paper I get first offer to buy if you ever decide to sell.”

  “We don’t need a paper for that,” Patrick said. “Another handshake will do.”

  Pleased with their agreement, the two men shook hands again and parted company.

  ***

  A week after arriving at the Double K, Vernon went with Patrick by wagon across the basin to the village of Tularosa. It was an all-day journey from sunup to sundown under a blue sky in a gusting breeze that now and then lashed dust into their eyes. They crossed a grim landscape of prickly pear cactus, mesquite, swales of yucca groves, stands of greasewood, and vast sandy beaches cut by wide arroyos. It was about as desolate a slice of country as Vernon had ever seen, impressive only for the vastness of the parched land and the mountains surrounding it. He thought it a harsh, unappealing country with little value.

  But the village of Tularosa surprised Vernon. When they first raised it up, the town appeared like an oasis at the foot of stacked hills that strayed to high country. In town, under cottonwoods that arched with bursting leaves over low adobe houses, surrounded by irrigated fields along a narrow river, the basin vanished from view.

  At a well-tended, large hacienda on a side road, Patrick stopped the wagon and called out in rapid Spanish to a young man busy removing a broken section of rim from a wagon wheel. The young man turned, smiled at Patrick, replied, and hurried inside.

  Patrick handed Vernon the reins, got down from the wagon, and said, “Wait for me at the general store. It’s the first building after the hotel on Main Street.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?” Patrick asked.

  Vernon shook his head. “Hardly a lick. All I made out from what you said were the words for mother and howdy. I didn’t understand that Mexican boy at all.”

  Patrick eyed him suspiciously. “You know what an ardilla is?”

  “Nope. What does it mean?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Remember, you get drunk and you’re fired. If you try to bring whiskey to the ranch, you’re fired. ¿Comprende?”

  Vernon nodded. “I understand that Mex word.”

  “Good. Wait for me at the store.”

  The young man appeared in the hacienda doorway and motioned Patrick to enter.

  “What’s that other word mean?” Vernon asked again.

  “Ardilla?”

  “That one.”

  Patrick rattled something off in Spanish that made the young man in the doorway laugh.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said a man who is called Squirrel by others should at least know his nickname in Spanish.”

  “It means squirrel?”

  “Yep. Now, get along,” Patrick said as a handsome older Mexican woman brushed past the young man in the doorway and hurried toward him.

  Vernon started the team of horses, wondering what had brought Patrick to Tularosa. Over his shoulder he saw the woman reach out, take Patrick’s hand, and lead him into the hacienda. He wondered who the woman was and why Patrick had made him come along when any other boss would have left him at the ranch working on chores and such. It didn’t make much sense.

  After a stop at the post office to mail a letter to his sister in Texas, Vernon parked the wagon in front of the store and took a good look up and down the street. Across from the hotel a cantina attracted a lot of customers. Vernon sauntered over and found the place jammed with men crowded at the tables, lining the long bar, knocking back shots, sipping beer schooners, and filling the air with tobacco smoke. He doubted there was a Revenue agent any closer than El Paso and figured the sheriff had more important matters to attend to than interfering in the late-afternoon pastime of his voting constituents.

  He licked his lips and hesitated for a moment before turning on his heel and walking away. At the general store, he spent some of his wages on a shirt, a pair of jeans, a cheap denim work jacket, and cigarette fixings, before heading back to the cantina, where he bought a bottle. Behind the cantina, he took a quick swig and then another before hiding the bottle in his bundle of new clothes, which he stuffed under the wagon seat.

  Vernon was certain Patrick was concealing something, and he figured it was more than doing time in Yuma Prison twenty-some years ago. Sure, Patrick was tight-lipped and standoffish—a lot of bosses were like that—but what else did he want kept secret? Vernon recalled that Patrick had been locked up in Yuma for robbery. Maybe after his parole, he’d returned to his stealing ways before trailing back to New Mexico. Maybe he’d arrived home with a sizable stake of other people’s money he’d been using over the years to keep that pretty ranch of his operating in the black. There had been a number of lone-bandit holdups from the old days in Arizona and western New Mexico that as far as he knew had never been solved. Some were big paydays for the robber, if he recalled correctly.

  The Double K sure looked like money, the way it was kept up and all. The room at the ranch house where Patrick had him bunk was nicer than any dingy two-bit hotel room, and a hell of a lot nicer than any tar paper shack or bunkhouse. And the herd of horses he owned were the finest cow ponies Vernon had ever seen.

  He rolled a cigarette, lit it, contemplated what to do, and decided to have another drink of whiskey while he waited on Patrick. He took a long swallow, poured out the remaining liquor, kicked the empty bottle under the stairs to the general store, and smiled. His plan was simple: stay sober, find out what Patrick had hidden and where it was stashed away, and then steal it.

  ***

  Teresa Magdalena Armijo Chávez sat at the table in the huge kitchen of her hacienda, hands busy with sewing while Patrick Kerney ate a bowl of stew and told her his worries about Emma. He spoke effortlessly in Spanish, which she’d taught him as a young boy. Even back then, he’d never been close to her, or anyone else for that matter. Not until Emma.

  Miguel, her youngest child, now fully grown and soon to marry, sat next to Patrick. On the night Miguel was born, his father, Ignacio, dead these past five years, staggered home drunk in the company of Patrick and Cal Doran after a fistfight in a cantina with a gringo pistolero. Because it was the only time he’d ever come home drunk and because he had beaten the pistolero senseless with only one good hand, it became one of Ignacio’s favorite stories to tell.

  Teresa kept her eyes on her sewing. For the way he’d destroyed his marriage, she had little sympathy for Patrick. It saddened her to hear Emma’s condition had worsened over the winter, and although Patrick reported that she’d recovered some, he sounded so discouraged about it that Teresa found no comfort in his words.

  “Does she still refuse your help?” she asked.

  “I can’t do a darn thing for her,” he said. “She’s bringing Matt out to the ranch next Friday, and I’m looking to hire on a woman to cook and such during their stay and through spring works. I don’t want Emma showing up trying to prove how much she can do around the place. Last time she got sick in Las Cruces, young Matt did the chores, and that isn’t right. With somebody already there to do the work, I won’t have to argue with her about it, and Matt won’t have to care for her if she falls ill again while I’m away with the livestock.”

  More than slightly surprised by Patrick’s intended thoughtfulness, Teresa looked up from her sewing. “I have a niece, Evangelina. I could speak with her. She’s my oldest brother’s only daughter.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Patric
k said. He knew Teresa’s brother Flaviano from years back when he visited the family with Cal Doran, but he didn’t remember Evangelina. Because village girls married young, he asked her age.

  “She’s almost twenty.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Not married?”

  “No.”

  Patrick wondered if there was something not right with her but held his tongue.

  Teresa ignored his doubtful expression and turned to Miguel. “Go ask your uncle Flaviano and Evangelina to come here right away, if they can.”

  Miguel got to his feet. “Should I tell them why?”

  “Yes,” Teresa answered.

  Miguel left. Patrick waited for Teresa to say more. Instead she returned her attention to her sewing. Her hair had gone gray some, but not completely, her hips were a bit fuller, and she was a touch rounder from bearing four children. None of it took away from her intelligent, inquisitive dark eyes and her pretty oval face.

  Never good at making small pleasantries, Patrick lowered his head and concentrated on finishing his bowl of stew. As he soaked up the last of the contents with a warm tortilla, Miguel returned with Flaviano and his daughter in tow. A slight girl with long, thick black hair, she stood partially behind her father, her face hidden. It wasn’t until they joined him at the table that Patrick saw the large birthmark on the left side of her face. Pale, almost colorless in contrast to her olive complexion, it covered her cheek and circled above her eye, ending in a slash on her forehead.

  Patrick looked away so as not to stare and concentrated on Flaviano.

  “You seek a housekeeper, my nephew tells me,” Flaviano said. Thick in the chest and big in the arms from years behind a plow, he had a soft, high-pitched voice and a bushy black mustache that covered his upper lip.

  “Only for a time,” Patrick replied, glancing with a smile at Evangelina. She kept her head lowered, face partially averted. Ignoring the birthmark was difficult, but Patrick saw a strong resemblance to Teresa.

  “Miguel says she would look after Emma and your son while they stay with you at the ranch,” Flaviano said.

  “More to do the cooking, cleaning, and washing,” Patrick corrected. “Unless she gets sick, Emma’s not one to be looked after.”

  “She cannot be there alone with you or other vaqueros only,” Flaviano stipulated.

  “If you say so,” Patrick replied.

  Flaviano nodded. “I say so.”

  “That’s okay by me. I’ll pay her cook’s wages for a month, guaranteed, even if Emma and Matt leave before the month is up. Either way, I’ll get her right home to you. I need her to start in a week.”

  “That is fair,” Flaviano said, turning to his daughter. “You will work for Señor Kerney.”

  “Yes, Papa,” Evangelina said softy, glancing shyly at Patrick.

  “Miguel and I will bring Evangelina to the ranch a day or two early,” Teresa declared, clapping her hands together in delight. “And we’ll make a fiesta for Emma and Matthew.”

  “There’s no need to go to all that trouble,” Patrick said, although the idea intrigued him. Perhaps a party at the ranch was exactly what was needed to soften some of Emma’s bad memories.

  Teresa laughed. “Ah, Patricio, you never were one for fun. But this time you have no choice. It has been far too long since I’ve seen Emma, so either we have a small fiesta to celebrate the reunion of old friends or I will ask Flaviano to forbid Evangelina to work for you.”

  Grinning, Patrick pushed back from the table. “You drive a hard bargain, Teresa. But if we’re gonna do this, let’s make it a surprise.”

  Teresa beamed with pleasure. “Yes, what a fine idea.”

  “Come in five days, so we can get everything ready,” Patrick suggested. Feeling suddenly expansive, he turned to Flaviano. “You and your wife must also come. I have more than enough room.”

  Flaviano smiled warmly. “Gladly. We’ll come the day before, and I’ll bring my guitar.”

  “Good.” He thanked Teresa for her hospitality, said his good-byes, and left the hacienda with a pleasant feeling of excitement and anticipation about the surprise party for Emma. The idea of it put him in such a good mood, seeing Vernon lounging on the steps in front of the general store didn’t sour it at all. If Vernon was drunk, he was fired. If he was sober with a drink or two under his belt, Patrick just might keep him on.

  “Have you been drinking?” he asked as Vernon scrambled to his feet.

  “Some,” Vernon replied, “but I ain’t drunk.”

  “How much is some?” Patrick demanded.

  “Two drinks since we got here,” Vernon replied defensively.

  “Got a bottle hid somewhere to carry back to the ranch?”

  “Nope, I was planning to but changed my mind. Poured it out and threw it away. It’s under the stairs.”

  Patrick took a look, gave Vernon fifty cents, and pointed to the diner down the street. “Get yourself a meal while I care for the horses and get some provisions. We’re heading back home in half an hour.”

  “We ain’t staying over in town?”

  “That’s right,” Patrick answered as he swung up onto the wagon seat. “Jingle those spurs.”

  “I’m going,” Vernon replied, setting off for the diner.

  “Half an hour,” Patrick called after him, “or I leave you behind.”

  ***

  Patrick kept the team of horses at a steady trot until nightfall. He stopped to make camp under a clear, star-filled sky, with a sliver of moon cresting the Sacramento Mountains, and had Vernon build a fire next to a large cairn on the west slope of a wide arroyo. Vernon had the coffeepot boiling by the time Patrick finished unhitching, watering, and hobbling the ponies for the night. He added a rock he’d picked to the cairn and warmed his hands at the fire.

  “What’s the marker for?” Vernon asked as he poured Patrick a cup.

  “An old boy name George died here on his way home to the ranch during a big gully washer. Crawled under the wagon, went to sleep, and never woke up. Leastways, that’s what I believe happened. His heart gave out on him.”

  “Is he buried here?”

  Patrick shook his head. “We laid him to rest at the ranch.”

  “One of them graves up on the hill behind the ranch house?”

  “That’s right,” Patrick replied.

  “He must have been a good man for y’all to do that.”

  “He was.”

  Vernon threw a mesquite root on the fire and hunkered down on his bedroll. “Look here, I’ve been meaning to apologize for mistaking you for that Pat Floyd fellow.”

  “Pay it no mind,” Patrick said. “From what you said, it was a long time ago when you knew him in prison. I don’t envy you the time being locked up.”

  “Ain’t no fun losing your freedom,” Vernon allowed, stringing along with Patrick’s charade. He wondered how far he’d take it. “I appreciate you giving me work, knowing I was in prison and all.”

  “You’re earning your keep. Besides, there isn’t a good man in these parts who hasn’t stretched the law every now and then.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill anyone,” Vernon said, thinking Pat Floyd knew different. “How come you didn’t ask me what I’d done?”

  Patrick shrugged. “It isn’t my place to ask.”

  “I reckon that’s so,” Vernon said, deadpan to keep from laughing in Patrick’s face. “I was a clerk in a store and I got caught taking things. I’d never done anything like that before. I pled to petty larceny to get a lighter sentence.”

  “Bad luck,” Patrick said.

  “You could say that,” Vernon replied.

  Patrick finished his coffee and said, “I’m gonna turn in.” He spread out his bedroll feeling good about hornswoggling Vernon, who’d been sent to Yuma Prison for manslaughter. As he recalled, it had something to do wi
th a barroom fight that went bad. Vernon’s lie was proof enough to Patrick that he had him fooled. “My son and his mother are coming out to the ranch in a week to stay a spell,” he added, “and I’m gonna throw a surprise party for them.”

  “You gonna want me to make myself scarce and head back to the shepherd’s shack?” Vernon asked.

  “No reason why you can’t stay and enjoy the fun,” Patrick replied, feeling magnanimous. “I’ve hired a girl to keep house and cook while they’re here, and folks will be coming in from Tularosa. Tomorrow or the next day I’ll ride out and invite some neighbors, folks Emma liked when she lived at the ranch.”

  “She just lives in town now?”

  “We got a divorce a while back,” Patrick answered as he pulled off his boots and stuck them in the bottom of his bedroll.

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Ain’t something I like talking about. If you stay sober, I may keep you on for a spell. I know what liquor can do to a body.”

  “I guessed maybe you did, what with your rule against liquor at the ranch and your hard talk about it. How you gonna keep folks from drinking at the fiesta?”

  “I won’t even try,” Patrick replied as he settled under the blanket. “But remember, you’re the hired hand. Either you’re man enough to avoid temptation, or you’re not. Get drunk and you’re fired.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Patrick grunted and rolled on his side. “We start early come morning.”

  Vernon covered up with his blanket and let his thoughts roam. He’d have a chance to take a real good look around the ranch when Patrick went off to invite neighbor folks to the fiesta. If he got lucky and found valuables, or better yet a sizable amount of cash money, he’d take it all, steal a pony, and skedaddle. If not, he’d keep looking when he had the opportunity.

  Either way, he wasn’t gonna leave the Double K with just wages in his pocket. His time working at the Double K was gonna cost old Pat Floyd a hell of lot more than that.

  5

  Emma fully expected to arrive in Engle and find Patrick ready to start out immediately on the lengthy wagon ride to the ranch. Consequently, she boarded the train with Matthew equipped not only with enough clothes for their ten-day stay, but with blankets, hats, scarves, and mittens to keep them warm on a journey that would last deep into the night.