Backlands

by Michael McGarrity

  Patrick smiled. “No need to worry on my account, boy. If your ma and Teresa made a private treaty, then you’re part of the Chávez family clan for certain.”

  Matt’s expression cleared. “I never had an aunt before. Next to Ma, she’s the nicest lady I know.”

  “I agree with you there, old son,” Patrick said.

  Matt stared at the footlocker with Pa’s name and rank painted on the lid. “Ma told me about how you fought in the Spanish-American War as a Rough Rider.”

  “I did.”

  “Can I look inside?”

  “Sure.” Patrick unlocked the box and opened it. “There’s nothing important to see, just old army stuff.”

  Matt sat on the floor, carefully picked up Patrick’s squashed campaign hat with the crossed-sabers insignia, and put it on his head. It sank below his ears.

  “It’s a mite big,” Patrick said as he hunkered down. “But it looks good on you.”

  Matt took out the folded uniform shirt, the pants, the boots, and the leggings and inspected each item before picking up Patrick’s medals. “Ma gave me CJ’s medals to have,” he said. “I keep them in my room.”

  “You can have mine if you like.”

  Matt grinned with pleasure. “Thanks. That’s swell.” He turned each medal over in his hands and studied them. “I’ll put them on my dresser with CJ’s.” He looked at Patrick with wet eyes. “Sometimes in my bedroom, Jimmy and me would pin CJ’s medals on our shirts and pretend we were brave soldiers getting decorated by a general. I miss him a lot.”

  Patrick nodded. “I know how that is. I lost a pal in the Rough Riders and I still think about him to this day.”

  “You do?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m gonna go into the army when I grow up.”

  “I figured as much, but don’t tell your ma that.”

  Matt nodded wisely. “I already know not to. She’d scalp me. Are we going to work Patches some more today?”

  “We will, later on. With Vernon having quit me, I’ve got some range work that needs doing that can’t wait.”

  “Okay.”

  From the veranda, Evangelina called out in Spanish that food was on the table and people were waiting for their company.

  “What did she say?” Matt asked.

  “Breakfast is ready. Best you start learning Spanish if you’re gonna have a tía.”

  “Who taught you?”

  “Your tía Teresa,” Patrick replied. “Put those medals in your pocket and let’s go get some grub.”

  “Can I wear the hat?”

  “You sure can.”

  ***

  At breakfast, Patrick announced Vernon’s sudden departure from the Double K and it caused nary a stir. No one raised an eyebrow, asked any questions, or showed the slightest remorse about his leaving, which relieved Patrick of the need to make up a tall tale about his going.

  Emma was downright high-spirited at breakfast, making plans with Teresa to travel to Tularosa for Miguel’s wedding later in the year and arranging for Teresa to visit her and Matt in Las Cruces before the wedding. She had a glow that put color on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. Patrick hadn’t seen such a frisky, happy look about her in years, leastways not when she was in his company.

  “Miguel will be the last of my children to marry, so you must come help us celebrate,” Teresa said to Patrick.

  “You must,” Miguel echoed. “It will be a grand fiesta. Many friends and relatives will be there. It will seem like the old days in Tularosa.”

  “I reckon I can’t miss it,” he answered, glancing at Evangelina as she circled the table, clearing away dishes. Her smile didn’t hide her sad eyes. “Are you ready to hitch up your team?” he asked Miguel.

  “Sí, my friend,” Miguel replied. “It is time to take my mother home so she can pester me about all that I must do before the wedding.”

  “Can I help with the horses?” Matt asked eagerly, putting the Rough Rider campaign hat on his head.

  “Come along,” Patrick replied. “We’ll show you how to hitch a team to a wagon.”

  Matt looked at Ma for permission.

  “Go on, gentlemen,” Emma said with a smile, and she shooed them out the door.

  ***

  Soon after Teresa and Miguel departed, Patrick announced he had work to do out on the flats and made horse tracks to where he’d buried Vernon. Once at the cave, he worked hard and fast but carefully. When he was finally certain no one would ever suspect a body had been buried at the foot of the mesa, he started for home. He’d covered all the bases save one: the missing Yuma Prison pardon. He had to find it.

  He dozed in the saddle on his return to the ranch, turned Calabaza out to pasture, and spent a fruitless hour searching the tack room. He pulled everything away from the walls, looked under the trunk and the bunk bed, searched shelves, cubbyholes, and saddlebags, and stopped looking when exhaustion and frustration took over. The pardon could be hidden anywhere on the ranch headquarters. He would make a more thorough search after Emma and Matt returned to town.

  He put everything back where it belonged and found Matt astride Patches at the hitching post, impatiently waiting to start the next session.

  “Where’s Calabaza?” Matt asked as Patrick approached.

  “We don’t need his help today,” Patrick replied. So far, everything he’d done with Matt had been purely to see how the boy sat a saddle and handled his pony. He was a natural on horseback, but pleasure riding was vastly different from working a top cow pony. The real training of the horse and rider was about to begin.

  “Head on over to the corral,” Patrick ordered as he stepped off toward the big circular corral bordering the pasture.

  “What are we gonna do?” Matt asked.

  Patrick stopped and explained to him that Patches was about to start learning three things: how to keep his head down; how to turn with his head, not his shoulder; and how to back up.

  “That’s all?” Matt asked, hoping for more cattle chasing.

  “For today.” Patrick opened the corral gate and waved Patches inside. “It takes plenty of time and schooling to finish a top cow pony. You best be sure this is something you really want to do before we get started.”

  Matt nodded. “You bet I do.”

  Patrick swung the gate closed. “Okay, then. Gallop him around the corral until I say stop.”

  Matt spurred Patches into a gallop. It didn’t take but a half dozen turns for Patrick’s campaign hat to fly off Matt’s head. Patrick retrieved it and called for him to rein in.

  “What do we do first?” Matt asked as he drew rein. He looked over Patrick’s shoulder and waved.

  Patrick turned to see Emma smiling and watching from the closed gate.

  “Back him up slowly,” Patrick said, happy to see Emma standing there with the sun on her face, looking so alive and healthy.

  He worked with Matt and Patches for an hour, and Emma stayed to watch the whole time. She opened the gate for Matt, and he rode through, beaming down at her as he trotted his pony to the barn.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him happier with you,” she said as Patrick latched the gate.

  “He’ll make a hand, if ranching is something he decides to do.”

  “Is that what you want for him?” Emma asked.

  Patrick hesitated. “I don’t know. But the Double K will belong to him someday, if drought and the bank don’t take it from me before I die.”

  “We should talk about his future. I’ve made some plans for him.”

  “Haven’t we already gone through that?” Patrick asked.

  “Not completely. When I pass, you’re going to have to take him in and be his pa until he’s grown.”

  “I know that, but your passing isn’t a subject I care to discuss much. What else have you go
t up your sleeve?”

  “Can we take a moonlit ride together tonight and talk about it then?”

  Patrick smiled. “Now, that’s something we haven’t done in years. Are you still able to sit a horse?”

  Emma laughed. “Why would you doubt it?” She touched his arm. “This has been our best time at the ranch since we started coming. Matt hasn’t groused once about missing his friends in town, and I’m totally spoiled having Evangelina here to take care of everything. Thank you.”

  “No need to be thanking me,” Patrick said, thrown off stride by her warmth, remembering how tender she could be. Unwilling for Emma to see his longing for her, he turned quickly on his heel and headed for the barn. “I’ve chores before dinner.”

  “Pick out a gentle saddle pony for me,” Emma called after him.

  “I already got that figured,” he called back to her. He’d put her on Stony, the twelve-year-old gelding he had given Miguel Chávez to ride.

  ***

  With the moon as clear as crystal and the sky awash with stars, they rode first to the small family cemetery on a hill overlooking the ranch so Emma could visit for a spell. Patrick hung back to give her time alone for private thoughts.

  Four graves with markers, enclosed by a picket fence, overlooked the basin. Here Patrick’s father, John Kerney, was buried along with his best friend and partner, Cal Doran. Next to him was Cal’s friend and hired hand, George Rose, and in the smallest grave, Baby Molly, Emma’s firstborn.

  Emma had never known John Kerney, who’d carved the ranch out of wilderness, but she knew the story of how he’d searched and found his young lost son and brought him home to safety. What he did for Patrick had always touched her heart. Cal and George were family to her: Cal dearer than flesh and blood, the wisest and truest friend; George steadfast and kind, whose friendship never wavered. And Molly, beautiful Molly, born out of so much pain and suffering.

  Knowing what he knew, would any other man but Patrick have taken up with her and Molly? She gasped at the thought that perhaps she’d been too unfair, unyielding, unforgiving, with him. With tears for all the good and bad memories, she returned to Patrick, who waited with the horses.

  “You’ve kept it very nice,” she said as he gave her a leg up.

  “That’s our history.”

  Emma nodded. “Except for CJ buried in France.”

  “With his comrades, as he should be,” Patrick noted.

  “Yes, I suppose so, although I’d rather have him here at home,” Emma said. “Promise you’ll bury me next to Molly.”

  “I won’t listen to that kind of talk.”

  “Promise,” Emma prodded.

  “Is that your wish?”

  “Yes, but not yet,” she replied with a laugh, and she spurred Stony to a trot.

  They rode in silence up the canyon to a small meadow cut by the stream that meandered down to the ranch house. The basin, partially muted in the gray and brown of a dry winter under a night sky, ran to a darker hue against the Sacramento Mountains. A light breeze rustled through the mesquite and floated up to them like a whisper. Electric streetlights in the town of Alamogordo forty miles away winked like mysterious heliographic Morse code messages.

  “Do you remember how angry you were when you learned Cal had willed the ranch to both of us?” Emma asked.

  “Why open that old wound now?” Patrick replied.

  “Because I don’t want you snarling at me about what I want you to do for Matthew.”

  “Are you fixing to tell me something that will rile me?”

  “Before this visit, I’d say yes,” Emma replied. “But now I’m not so sure.”

  “I’ll hold my tongue,” Patrick said gruffly. “Say your piece.”

  “After Matthew finishes grade school, I want you to promise me that he’ll go on to high school and graduate.”

  Patrick looked at her in stunned disbelief. “How in the hell can he live here at the ranch and go to high school in town at the same time?”

  “He can board with a family in town during the school year,” Emma answered. “There will be money to pay for it.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to go to high school?”

  “He will.”

  “You’re cocksure of that?”

  “Yes.”

  Patrick shook his head in wonder. “Well, if he’s anything like you, he’s already smarter than me by a mile.”

  “You’ll do it?”

  “Have you put something in writing with your banker and lawyer?”

  Emma nodded.

  “It figures.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m trying to hold my tongue like I promised, but it chafes me to know you don’t trust me to do right by him.”

  “What I’m asking is no different than what I’d be demanding if we were still married, living here on the Double K, and raising Matthew together.”

  “And you’d hound me about it until you got your way,” Patrick added.

  Emma smiled. “Probably.”

  “You’d like him to go on and be a college man, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s my dream.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. Are we done talking about what’s gonna happen after you die?”

  “Why does it trouble you so?”

  “It just does,” Patrick said, stifling the impulse to tell Emma he loved her, always had, always would.

  The chill of the desert night had deepened, and a shiver ran up Emma’s spine. She started Stony down the canyon and called over her shoulder, “Are you coming?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Patrick responded.

  Emma had bundled up for the ride, but it didn’t keep the cold from numbing her arms and legs on the ride home. By the time they arrived at the ranch house, her hands tingled, her feet were freezing, and the wind against her face felt like pinpricks. She dismounted feeling weak, dizzy, and short of breath but determined to care for her pony without Patrick’s assistance.

  He took the reins from her hand. “You look done in.”

  “I am,” she admitted, her resolve weakening.

  “Go on,” he ordered, nodding toward the house, feeling done in himself. “I’ll care for the ponies.”

  “Thank you. Good night.”

  “Buenas noches.”

  He watched her walk to the house before attending to the ponies. By the time he had Calabaza and Stony in their stalls, the light in Emma’s bedroom was out. He walked softly past Matt, who had taken to sleeping on the veranda every night. Scrunched up under a pile of blankets with only the top of his head showing on the pillow, he looked peaceful and innocent. In his bedroom, Patrick took off his boots, stretched out, and pulled a blanket up to his chin. He’d been this weary many times before; ranch work often demanded it. But tonight his heart felt worn out. He was tired of being alone; tired of being without a family; tired of his failures as a husband and father, which had put him in such a wretched state.

  He had almost gotten Emma back tonight. He’d sensed it, felt it on their ride. Now it was too late. He fell asleep thinking almost was a useless word.

  8

  For three days, Emma was able to hide her failing health only because Patrick and Matthew were away from the house much of the time. They worked with Patches, fixed fences, cared for the ponies Patrick hoped to sell, and moved cattle from the higher pastures closer to ranch headquarters in anticipation of branding during spring works.

  At mealtimes and in the evenings, she marshaled enough energy and cheerfulness to convince them she was simply fighting a mild springtime cold. She wanted nothing to spoil the good time Matthew was having with Patrick. He loved every new adventure with his pa and came home tired and ravenously hungry. In the evening, he chattered on about the events of the day, wolfed down his dinner, and before last li
ght was deep in sleep wrapped up in his bedroll on the veranda. It made Emma’s spirits soar to see Patrick and Matt getting along so well.

  On one morning over breakfast, Patrick said, “If Matt wants it, he’ll be a stockman from the heels of his boots to the crown of his hat, and a damn good one too.”

  Matt’s grin lit up his face.

  “Is that what you want?” Emma asked Matthew.

  Matt shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Would you want it enough to give up your schooling to be a rancher?” she prodded.

  “Why would I have to do that?” Matt asked, his grin fading to a frown.

  “You don’t have to,” Emma said, hiding her relief. “You can learn all your pa can teach you by coming to the ranch during school vacations and summer recess.” Emma turned to Patrick. “Isn’t that right?”

  “I reckon so,” Patrick said.

  “I’d like that the best,” Matt replied. He finished the last bite of his second stack of hotcakes and stood. “May I be excused?”

  “You may,” Emma said with a nod.

  “I’ll be with you shortly,” Patrick said. He waited until Matt scooted out the door before turning his full attention to Emma, searching her face intently. “Seems you’re more than just sick with a springtime cold.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You haven’t been outside once since Matt and I rode in yesterday evening. You don’t stay lying about unless you’re really wore down.”

  “I’m fine,” Emma protested in a hurt tone of voice. “If I’ve spent too much time inside it’s because this place deserves a good cleaning from years of your neglect. I’ve been helping Evangelina, and that has tired both of us some. Ask her.”

  “Is that true?” Patrick asked, looking at Evangelina, who’d been listening at the dish tub.

  “Sí, it is true,” Evangelina fibbed, as she promised to do if Patrick questioned her about Emma’s health.

  “I didn’t bring you out here and pay you wages to put Emma to work.”

  Evangelina blushed. “I am sorry, señor.”

  “Don’t you snap at Evangelina,” Emma cautioned sternly. “I help her because I enjoy the company and this house needs our attention.”