The Last Ranch

by Michael McGarrity

  The ranch headquarters sat in a horseshoe-shaped valley that dipped to low rolling foothills. A cottonwood-shaded stream wandered through a grassy pasture and disappeared into a wide, sandy arroyo that snaked down to barren Alkali Flats pressed against the base of the foothills. On a wide, level shelf nestled against the valley’s north slope stood a house made of thick adobe walls with a pitched roof, a deep veranda, and a commanding view of the basin. It was protected by a lovely windbreak of old cottonwood trees, bare of leaves but still majestic with heavy, thick boughs bent low to the ground.

  A mud-plastered, flat-roofed adobe casita was linked to the house by a courtyard wall. Above the enclave, a small family cemetery enclosed by a fence dominated a knoll with a clear view of distant mountains. A dozen or so steps below the house, a barn, two corrals, a chicken coop, a windmill, a water tank, and a water trough sat at the edge of the fenced pasture, where six fine-looking ponies lazily slapped their tails and grazed on winter hay spread along the ground.

  Matt slowed to a stop next to an old 1920s Chevy truck and a newer prewar Ford pickup. He’d written ahead to say he was coming to the ranch with Mary as his guest, and waiting for them on the veranda were the Sawyers and Patrick Kerney, who was easy to pick out as Matt’s father by his features, height, broad shoulders, and blue eyes, clearly discernable under the brim of his cowboy hat.

  Matt put his hand lightly on Mary’s shoulder and smiled. “Remember, you asked for this.”

  “No, you invited me,” Mary corrected. “But I’m already enchanted. Can we go riding this evening after supper?”

  “Yes, ma’am, the ranch is yours to do as you wish for the weekend.”

  On the veranda, hat in hand, Patrick greeted Mary with a smile and introduced her to Jim and Millie Sawyer. Jim wore thick glasses perched on a wide nose that had a downward slant, giving him an inquisitive look. Millie, in a checkered print dress and starched apron dappled with spots of flour where she’d wiped her hands, had a square face with a thick chin, giving her a truculent look that quickly evaporated in her warm smile.

  Because Jim and Millie lived in the casita, Mary was to occupy Matt’s bedroom, which had been cleaned and prepared for her with fresh bed linens, several soft pillows, and a set of neatly folded bath towels. He plopped her suitcase on the bed and told her the bathroom at the rear of the kitchen had indoor plumbing, a tub and a toilet, but cold water only, so if she wanted a warm bath, the kettle first needed to be heated on the cookstove.

  “Where will you be sleeping?” she asked, looking around the room. On the dresser were the two framed, autographed Bill Mauldin cartoons he’d mentioned, and on the wall above the bed was a lovely pencil drawing of a saddled pony. A series of wall pegs held chaps, a battered cowboy hat, a pair of spurs, and an old, handmade hackamore. The room window looked out on the veranda and the basin beyond, the mountains lit up in delicate detail by the low afternoon light of coming winter.

  “On my bedroll in the barn tack room. It’s quite comfortable.”

  “I didn’t mean to put you out.”

  Matt laughed. “You aren’t. It’s a sight better than bunking with my pa. I’m guessing Millie has something special cooked up for dinner. We’ll have time before we sit down to eat to take a nickel tour of the old homestead.”

  “Just give me a minute,” Mary said.

  “Take your time,” Matt said backing out of the open doorway. “I’ll wait for you on the veranda.”

  After he closed the door, Mary took a close look at the Bill Mauldin cartoons that conveyed his classic tongue-in-cheek humor. It made her eager to know more about Matt’s war service.

  Humming to herself, she quickly unpacked, brushed her hair in the mirror above the dresser, freshened up in the bathroom, and went looking for Matt.

  ***

  The tour was marvelous. Of all that she saw, she enjoyed the family cemetery best because of the stories Matt told of the kith and kin buried there, especially his older brother, CJ, killed in the Great War and buried in France. The pride he had about his family and the ranch, and his struggles to save it during drought and the hard times of the Great Depression, served to heighten her growing feeling of respect for him.

  At mealtime, Millie served up a scrumptious dinner of corn bread, chicken-fried steak, baked potatoes, and canned string beans warmed in butter, which Mary, to her amazement, devoured. It was as if for years without knowing it, she’d hungered to break bread in the company of such people in a place exactly like the 7-Bar-K. It felt like home in the best sense of the word; a feeling she’d never truly had before.

  Over dinner Patrick enthralled her with stories of being a young boy living through the Indian Wars, and his later experiences in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. He seemed friendly enough, but every time she looked directly at him, he dropped his gaze and paused before resuming his tale. It made Mary unsure whether he liked her or not.

  After dinner she helped Millie with the dishes at the kitchen sink. When the menfolk adjourned to the living room, she learned that Matt had sent a letter to the ranch with clear instructions for Millie to make sure the house was spic and span with everything squared away before their arrival.

  “I can’t remember a time before when he was ever the least bit bossy with me about my housekeeping,” Millie whispered conspiratorially. “Not once, mind you, so you must be pretty special. But don’t you dare say a word that I told you.”

  Flattered to learn of her importance to Matthew Kerney, Mary crossed her heart. “I promise. You like him a lot, don’t you?”

  Millie nodded. “I’d claim him as my own kin if I could.”

  The squeaking kitchen door stopped their conversation. “The moon is up,” Matt said as he stepped inside. Instead of his glass eye he wore an eye patch. “Are you ready to go riding?”

  With a smile Millie relieved Mary of the dish towel. “You go on. I’ll finish up here.”

  She thanked Millie, grabbed her jacket, and followed Matt outside, where he introduced her to his pony Maverick, a sorrel gelding with powerful legs suitable for scrambling up and down mountainsides, and Peanut, a pretty blue roan mare. Both were saddled and snorting impatiently to get going.

  For a time they leisurely trotted up a well-traveled ranch road to the lip of the valley, where the mountain pressed against a narrowing passage. There they stopped to view the ranch bathed in moonlight below.

  “It couldn’t be more beautiful,” Mary said.

  “My grandfather had a good eye for the land.”

  “He did indeed,” Mary replied. “Speaking of your kinfolk, I can’t tell if your father likes me or not.”

  “He can be hard to read, but he does. He’s cautious with his feelings. He got heartbroken by the little daughter of a woman I once cared about. He’s never been the fatherly type, but that little girl sure got to him. I don’t think he ever really forgave her mother for taking her away.”

  Mary waited for more, but Matt’s silence signaled he wasn’t ready to elaborate. She took a different tack. “Those cartoons Bill Mauldin gave you are a treasure. Every veteran I know would brag constantly about being the subject of one of his cartoons, let alone two.”

  Matt laughed. “Hilarious as they are, Bill drew them true to what happened. I got a medal for talking some Italian soldiers into surrendering and another one for capturing a band of German ponies. Those cartoons turned me into a laughingstock with the guys in the regiment and a war hero here at home. Go figure.”

  “That’s it?” Mary asked, unconvinced.

  “Pretty much.”

  “And your eye?”

  Matt’s sunny expression melted. “A horse blew up in front of me. It got spooked and stepped on a land mine.”

  “How awful that must have been for you and the horse.”

  Matt glanced at her in surprise. “You’re the first person who ever expres
sed a hoot or holler about that poor critter. He was a big, handsome chestnut gelding with four white stocking feet, and as spirited, smart, and agile as they come. We took to each other right away. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about him, and the men I lost.”

  He saw the explosion in his mind’s eye. Abruptly he averted his face, gave rein to Maverick, and started back toward the ranch. “We need to take these ponies down to the pasture and give them a good run. Are you game?”

  The time for questions had passed. “I am,” Mary said, turning Peanut to follow.

  They galloped the ponies in the pasture until they began to lather up and then cooled them down at a walk before taking them to drink deeply at the trough. By the time Mary got to the barn with Peanut, the night air had chilled her, but once inside and out of the breeze she soon warmed up.

  “You’re a good rider,” Matt said as he led Peanut to her stall and put oats in her bucket. He gave Mary a towel to wipe her pony down.

  “I’m rusty and sore as hell,” Mary corrected, trying to ignore the painful kink in her side as she rubbed Peanut dry.

  “You’ll survive,” Matt predicted with a chuckle.

  He guided Maverick to his stall, spilled oats in his bucket, gave him a quick wipe, and closed the gate. The pony promptly lifted his tail and dumped a smelly load of horse apples on the straw-covered floor.

  Matt hoisted his saddle and headed for the tack room. Lugging her gear, Mary followed. In the tack room he turned on the wall switch that illuminated a bare electric lightbulb that dangled from the ceiling on a cord. A series of built-in saddle racks lined one wall directly opposite a crudely fashioned wooden bunk with a thick straw mattress covered in gunnysack. Against the far back wall stood a large old trunk and a tall Mexican cabinet on sturdy legs. Above the saddle racks a row of wall pegs held bridles and halters. Cracks in the lumber on the interior side of the outside wall were stuffed with old newspaper to insulate against the cold.

  Matt put the tack away and turned back to Mary. “You’ve never said anything about your family.”

  “I don’t have much of one to talk about,” Mary replied.

  “Were you an orphan?” Matt asked somberly.

  “Not technically or legally,” Mary replied breezily, trying to organize her thoughts. “The best way I can put it is I have an older brother who’s a selfish bully and parents who barely tolerated me from the day I was born. Sometimes, they couldn’t even do that. They weren’t happy with each other, and I think I was a big mistake they wished would just go away, which is exactly what I did when I got up the courage. I haven’t seen any of them since the day I left for the navy.”

  “That sounds miserable.”

  “It’s not something I like to talk about.”

  With a soft rag, Matt cleaned the dust off the saddles and changed the subject. “How long did you serve in the navy?”

  “Four years.” She told him she mustered out in ’47 as a chief petty officer, and that except for recruit training, she’d been posted at the Treasure Island Naval Station in the San Francisco Bay. Then she paused, waiting for the typical snide comment combat vets usually made about toy soldiers who pulled easy stateside duty during the war.

  “A chief petty officer,” Matt said, visibly impressed. “You must have been some humdinger to make rank that fast.”

  Blushing, she almost hugged him. “That’s very nice of you to say. I was good at my job. I thought about staying in and making it a career.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t, otherwise we never would have met.”

  “Well, we did and here I am,” Mary replied, reluctant to get caught up too quickly by his obvious interest in her. “Do you have a copy of the story written about your mother?”

  Matt opened the Mexican cabinet and handed her a dog-eared magazine, already turned to a page titled “Emma Makes a Hand.”

  She sat on the edge of the bunk with Matt beside her and started reading. From the opening sentence to the very end, the story engrossed and entranced her. How lucky Matt had been to have such a woman for his mother. It made her a bit jealous.

  “Patrick used to say she was one of a kind,” Matt remarked. “She died too young.”

  “I would have loved to have known her.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, stifling any further thoughts of Emma. Abruptly, he took the magazine from Mary’s hand and put it away in the cabinet. “That’s my reading copy for interested parties,” he explained. “Hidden away in my desk I’ve got a brand-spanking-new issue of the magazine I’m keeping for posterity, except to date there are no future generations of Kerneys on the horizon.”

  Mary raised an eyebrow. “Really? What about the woman with the young daughter who touched Patrick’s heart?”

  “Now, that’s not fair. I already told you about Beth, and that wasn’t easy to do. But to be clear, that little girl wasn’t my daughter, although I would have gladly adopted her.” He gave her an appraising look.

  “What?” Mary asked.

  “Most gals I know don’t need to be prodded to talk about themselves.”

  “Most guys don’t either,” Mary countered. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” Matt replied. “But I’ll let you off the hook for now. What was the navy like?”

  “At the time, it was exactly what I needed.” She stopped and angrily shook her head. “That sounds so selfish. The world went to war, millions died, and I got what I needed.”

  “You contributed and served honorably,” Matt said. “That matters.”

  “You’re sweet to say that.”

  Matt swiveled to face her straight-on. “You’re not ready, are you?”

  “Ready for what?”

  Matt stood. “To trust me. Never mind, I understand. I’ll walk you to the house.”

  Mary grabbed his hand. “Sit down. I’m not very brave when it comes to talking about myself. I get tied up in a knot.”

  Refusing to let go of her hand, Matt sat close to her and waited.

  She drew a deep breath, smiled, and said, “Okay, here goes.”

  They talked for hours. Mary told him about her love affair with Brian Sullivan, their plans to marry after the war, his family’s Montana sheep ranch, where she’d expected to live after their wedding, and how his death on Iwo Jima had shattered her.

  Matt understood. He spoke about Anna Lynn, the woman who had stood by and cared for him during his slow recovery from his wound, and how in spite of his honorable intentions she steadfastly refused to be anything more than his lover and how slowly over time she distanced herself from him. He didn’t mention the cause—her killing of Fred Tyler. Instead he described her daughter, Ginny, the sweetest little girl imaginable, and how he was weary of losing the people he loved, starting with his brother and his ma.

  It made Mary yearn for a family to love. She shared painful memories of her father’s rages, her mother’s coldness, her brother’s constant taunting and teasing that she was ugly and stupid, and her steadfast belief, until she met Brian, that she was unlovable. Just putting it into words exhausted her.

  Matt described the nightmare memory of Patrick, drunk and yelling at Emma and CJ outside a hotel, denying he was Matt’s father, scaring him half to death. He recounted Patrick’s drunkenness and mean-spiritedness, and their fistfight on the college campus, in retrospect about nothing much at all, on the very day he met Beth.

  They laughed that it was all too melodramatic and decided Matt was the lucky one to have at least one parent to love, twice lucky to have had an older brother to adore, although their bond was tragically cut short, and fortunate a third time to have made peace with Patrick, something Mary never expected to achieve with her parents.

  Talked out, they walked to the veranda and said good night. Impulsively, Mary hugged him before hurrying inside. She slipped into her nightgown and, with moonlight
cascading through the window, lay awake in bed thinking. In college, she’d had unsatisfying sex several times with a college boy who’d been unsure and awkward. Certain her own unattractiveness was at fault, she hesitated before trying sex again with another student several years older who had aroused her with his lively mind, only to be disappointed by his desire to satisfy himself with no thought to her. It wasn’t until she met Brian that lovemaking became a wonderful, shared pleasure that now was mostly a receding memory.

  In Las Cruces, she’d been discreet, choosing carefully whom to sleep with. But those few men fell far short of what she knew was possible between lovers. She wondered if Matthew Kerney would be any different.

  She’d diligently tried to contain her sexuality, or at the very least to mask it, but it was undeniable and unrelenting.

  She decided she was being stupid. She’d wanted Matt to touch her, hold her—no, dammit, she wanted him inside her. Come what may—be it good, bad, or indifferent—she decided to give it another try. At the worst, it would only be another disappointment.

  She threw off the blankets, dressed, made her way to the barn, tiptoed into the dark tack room, found her way to the bunk, and whispered, “Are you asleep?”

  “Not even close,” Matt whispered back.

  She undressed, slipped under the blanket, and reached for him as his arms enfolded her. They kissed softly, gently, their hands exploring, their legs entwined. She could sense his eagerness, feel her own quickening pulse. She guided her hand to his hard member, slowly caressing it as he turned on top of her. She spread her legs to receive him and gasped with pleasure as a wonderful erotic pulse vibrated inside her when he entered.

  ***

  Over the weekend, they made love at every possible opportunity: in his truck, in the barn on bales of hay, late at night in the bedroom, during their horseback rides. On their return to Las Cruces, they even detoured to the village of Hot Springs on the Rio Grande and rented a motel room for several hours, leaving the bed a moist tangle of sheets.