The Last Ranch

by Michael McGarrity

  “Okay, put that in writing like I asked,” Matt said.

  Nicolls stifled a grimace. “I’ll have Dr. Virden give you a memo.”

  The men locked eyes. Matt wasn’t about to thank Nicolls for screwing him. As he turned and left to find Dr. Virden, Nicolls reached for the phone.

  ***

  Matt met with Virden, got his memo, picked up some mail in his office in-basket, and called Mary at the ranch. Without railing about Dr. Nicolls, he briefly told her what had happened. After she recovered from the news, they agreed to meet at the cottage as soon as possible to hash things out. He got home to find Kevin in the driveway changing the oil in Mary’s car.

  “About done?” he asked.

  “I just finished up,” Kevin replied, closing the hood to the car.

  “Good, come inside. We’ve family business to discuss.” He looked over to see Mary at the back door impatiently waiting.

  “Mom says they want you to work at Fort Stanton.”

  “Yep, but we’ve got a lot more to talk about than just that,” Matt said. “Come on, jingle those spurs.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Matt answered, smiling at Mary as he walked up the back steps with Kevin at his heels. The delicious smell of a fresh-baked apple pie greeted him as he gave Mary a kiss.

  “Did you make a pie for me?” he asked.

  “No, it’s an experiment,” Mary replied, straight-faced. “I’m thinking I’ll bake twenty pies each week and have Kevin sell them door to door all over town so we won’t be homeless when you tell Nicolls to stuff the job he offered you.”

  “Is that what I’m going to do?” Matt asked with a grin.

  “I don’t know, is it?” Mary asked arching her eyebrow.

  “Let’s talk about it over a slice of that pie,” Matt countered as he guided Mary to the kitchen table, his arm around her waist.

  She pulled away. “You damn well better tell Nicolls to stuff it. For a man of your caliber and reputation, a forced transfer and demotion is unthinkable.”

  Matt settled into a chair and examined the huge apple pie, the perfectly browned crust rising almost three inches above the pie tin. “I agree, but we need to plan what comes next. With no more paydays, getting back to ranching isn’t going to be without risk. And we can’t ask Al and Brenda to carry us while I build up our horse business.”

  She sliced into the pie and put a wedge in front of Kevin, who had his fork at the ready. “We cash in everything, sell this place, and just do it!” she announced, her tone suggesting argument would be fruitless.

  As Kevin attacked the pie, Matt grinned at Mary.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Is there a piece of that for me?”

  “Only if you promise me that we’ll do it.”

  “I promise.”

  Mary smiled sweetly. “That’s better.” She slid a second slice onto a plate and handed it over. “Okay, now let’s make a plan,” she said, her eyes dancing with excitement.

  Over pie—two wedges for Kevin—they discussed what to do. The cottage would get spruced up and go on the market within a week. Anything they didn’t want or need at the ranch would be sold through classified ads in the newspaper. They’d both cash in their retirement pensions and Matt would take his accrued vacation time in a lump-sum payment. They’d sell Mary’s car, used mostly for trips around town, and put the money on a new ranch truck with Matt’s old truck as trade. Mary still had money in savings that they’d continue to keep as reserve. Finally, Matt would pay off all the odds-and-ends bills he could while he was still drawing a paycheck, allowing them to make a fresh start with almost a clean slate.

  Throughout the discussion, Kevin stayed quiet, watching and listening. What had started as depressing news about his dad’s job predicament had become a full-blown, optimistic scheme to return to ranching. If it meant he probably wouldn’t have to go to a new school and live in a new town during his senior year, Kevin thought it was a perfect plan. Matt busily wrote stuff down: how much the cottage might sell for, what he expected to earn before he quit his job, how much they had in savings, what a new truck would cost, and how much it would cost to buy more ponies to increase the herd.

  They talked about the Rocking J land. As a full partner with Al and Brenda, Matt had used what he’d learned working in the field to improve both the west slope high-country pastures and the predominantly low-lying Jornada desert grasslands. Fully recovered from the drought of the fifties, the land was now in good shape with live water in several canyons and draws, capable of sustaining additional ponies.

  Listening, Kevin could hear their growing enthusiasm. Their excitement made him realize that with the loss of the 7-Bar-K there had been a void in their lives.

  He decided to pipe up and pitch in. “I can drop out of school if you need me to.”

  Harsh looks seared into him from across the kitchen table.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Mary said emphatically.

  “And forget about asking us to let you join the service,” Matt added ardently. “Your job is to finish high school and go to college.”

  “But if you’re not working for the Ag Department anymore, I’ll have to pay tuition. And then there’s books, room, and board,” Kevin countered.

  “Keep your grades up and you can qualify for a scholarship,” Mary replied.

  “I’ve been thinking about joining junior ROTC as an elective my senior year,” Kevin said. “They offer scholarships for college students, and according to my guidance counselor I’d stand a good chance to get one if I took the class. But if we’re not living in town anymore . . .” He let the potential impediment hang in the air.

  Matt sighed. “We’ll work it out.”

  “The school bus still stops at Engle for the ranch kids from the Jornada,” Mary said. “You and Dale can use Patrick’s old truck at the ranch to drive back and forth to the bus stop. On days when you have extracurricular activities, you can either drive to school or we can come fetch you.”

  “Can I keep rodeoing?”

  Matt pushed the pen and paper aside. “I don’t see why not. We’re making changes, not eliminating what’s important in our lives. Besides, having you compete will be great advertising for our ponies. Especially if you do well at state.”

  Kevin grinned. “I’ll do my best, promise.”

  “Will you miss town?” Mary asked.

  Kevin shrugged. “A little bit. Jeannie mostly.”

  Dad smiled sympathetically. “That’s understandable.”

  Mary put a thoughtful finger to her lips. “Gus Merton might be able to help us with information about financial-aid programs at the college.”

  “We don’t have to jump on that right away,” Matt replied.

  Kevin grinned in agreement. “Yeah, Mom, let me at least start my senior year first.”

  Studying the calendar on the refrigerator door, Mary wasn’t listening. “Erma gets back from France in three weeks. I wonder if she’d consider boarding Kevin during his freshman year.”

  Kevin felt a rush of excitement. Erma threw the best parties with the best-looking coeds and dozens of other interesting people. Plus, she was one of the coolest and most popular professors at the university. And living off campus sounded a heck of a lot better than sharing a dorm room with guys he didn’t know. Suddenly, maybe it wasn’t too soon to start making plans for college.

  She turned and looked at Kevin. “Unless of course you’d rather stay in a dorm with boys your own age.”

  Kevin shrugged nonchalantly and tried to sound impartial. “I don’t know. Maybe we should see what Erma says when she gets home.”

  Dad pushed back from the kitchen table. “Let’s take a break from all this figuring.” He dug for his car keys and tossed them to Kevin. “Since we’ve already had apple pie for
dessert, I suggest we all go to Larry’s Drive-In for cheeseburgers and fries. You’re driving.”

  ***

  Larry’s Drive-In sat on a bend in Main Street just before the entrance to the Carrie Tingley Hospital. Drivers parked under a long metal canopy, where carhops took their orders from large printed menus mounted on posts in each parking space. Off to one side was additional, uncovered parking next to several picnic tables with umbrellas, where folks who didn’t want to sit in their hot cars could dine. Inside was a small, air-conditioned dining room with a long counter where carhops picked up orders for delivery. Still early enough to not be packed with customers eager to avoid the heat, Matt snagged an empty table near the front window. He ordered double cheeseburgers, fries, and soda pop for everyone.

  While they waited for their food, he told them he’d been granted two weeks of administrative leave to move the family before starting the job at Fort Stanton, but instead of taking the leave he would simply resign, and give Nicolls two weeks’ notice instead.

  “Why did you ask for the administrative leave in the first place if you knew you weren’t going to use it?” Mary inquired.

  “I wasn’t about to simply cave in to Nicolls and quit on the spot,” Matt explained, glancing from Mary to Kevin. “Plus, I wanted to make sure that we were all in this together.”

  “Are we keeping this a big secret until the day you quit?” Kevin asked.

  “I’d like to,” Matt replied.

  “What else are you up to?” Mary prodded, convinced Matt was plotting something a little more cagey than figuratively thumbing his nose at Nicolls.

  Matt smiled. “Nicolls loves to trumpet his latest efforts to professionalize the department. He’ll probably issue a press release announcing my transfer weeks before I’m due to report to Fort Stanton. Quitting unexpectedly will leave him with some explaining to do.”

  “Don’t you have to give a reason?”

  “Nope. But if I’m asked officially I’ll say it’s for personal reasons.”

  Mary clapped her hands. “I love it.”

  “It might not cause Nicolls any grief, but I can privately rub his nose in it.”

  Mary laughed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, please do it.”

  “Can I tell Jeannie?” Kevin asked.

  “On the day I resign,” Matt answered. “Keep it under wraps until then.”

  Jeannie was visiting with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Albuquerque for two weeks, so until she returned staying mum wouldn’t be a problem. “What about telling Al, Brenda, and Dale?” he asked.

  “We’ll let them in on it,” Matt said.

  “Cool,” he said, accepting his mom’s barely touched bag of French fries.

  ***

  By the time Jeannie returned home in early August, rumors had already spread across the region that Matt was being transferred to Fort Stanton. The fact that their house was on the market and they were planning to hold a garage sale was proof enough that the rumors were true. Matt’s staff began asking about his job change, and in early August he confirmed it. The news broke in the local paper causing Nicolls to officially announce Matt’s transfer and the appointment of his successor. His comment that Mr. Kerney would do a great job at the Fort Stanton Experimental Ranch made Matt chuckle.

  During Jeannie’s visit with relatives in Albuquerque, she’d attended several teach-ins at the university and participated in campus peace vigils organized by students. She returned excited about the growing antiwar sentiment in the country. Because she was one of the youngest activists to have been arrested, she’d been treated as some kind of celebrity. Her head swirling with newfound popularity, she was seriously thinking about dropping out of school, leaving T or C, and joining the antiwar movement full-time.

  “You can’t be serious,” Kevin replied as they sat in their favorite drugstore booth waiting for the waitress to come and take their order.

  “Why not?” Jeannie replied, her voice filled with resolve. “You’re moving to Fort Stanton with your parents, so there’s little to hold me here.”

  Kevin leaned across the table. “It’s a secret, but my dad’s not taking the job. He’s going to resign and we’re moving to the ranch instead. So I’ll still be around.”

  The waitress approached. Jeannie ordered a Coke and onion rings to share. Kevin asked for a ginger ale.

  “Why all the secrecy?” Jeannie didn’t sound very excited that he wasn’t moving away.

  “I better not say any more.”

  Jeannie scowled at him. “I’m your girlfriend and you can’t tell me?”

  “I promised my dad.”

  Jeannie eyed him warily. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “That’s what it sounds like to me.”

  Kevin sighed. “Okay, he’s being pushed out of his job and told to go to Fort Stanton. He doesn’t like the way it’s being done so he’s keeping his resignation secret from his boss until the last minute.”

  Jeannie shrugged indifferently. “That wasn’t so hard. But I don’t see what the big deal is.”

  “There isn’t one, I guess,” Kevin said. He paused while the waitress delivered the sodas and onion rings. “It’s sure not as important as stopping the war in Vietnam.”

  Jeannie reached for an onion ring. “No, it’s not. Let’s not get started on that subject, okay?”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t care.”

  Kevin sipped his soda. He’d thought he knew her well, but now wasn’t so sure.

  ***

  The day Matt drove to Las Cruces to personally tender his resignation and put in his paperwork to cash in his retirement account, an offer at almost full asking price was made on the cottage. The buyers wanted to close by mid-September.

  His resignation caused a short-lived stir among the ranchers, farmers, and community organizations he’d worked with over the years. According to old friends in the department, Dr. Nicolls appeared unaffected by his abrupt departure and the slight embarrassment it may have caused him. Matt didn’t care; he’d made his point.

  Two days after registering for his senior-year fall classes, which included signing up for Junior ROTC, Kevin got a note in the mail from Jeannie breaking up with him. She blamed it, as she put it, on his decision to “support a militaristic government.” A week later he learned from one of her friends the real reason was a college student at UNM she’d met and fallen for during one of the teach-ins. He thought to ask her directly to tell him the truth, but her chilly attitude dissuaded him.

  By the middle of September, the family was settled on the Rocking J and into a good daily routine. It surprised Kevin how quickly he seemed to be getting over Jeannie and how much he enjoyed being back in the country. Maybe, when it came to girls, he was getting the hang of not letting his feelings get the best of him.

  34

  Since he’d been cut loose by Jeannie, several other girls were showing interest, but with the start of the new school year, Kevin didn’t have time to mope about losing a girlfriend or find a new one. His days, including the weekends, were filled. Each school day morning he drove with Dale in Patrick’s old pickup either to the bus stop in Engle or on to town because of their after-school activities. Sometimes it was Spanish Club or Junior ROTC drills for Kevin, and for weeks Dale had football practice that kept them in town late. Kevin used the time at the town library to study and do his homework. When they did take the school bus, the frequent stops between Engle and school took over an hour each way.

  At the ranch, he had daily chores helping his dad with the ponies and his mom around the house. In what free time he had, he practiced team roping with Dale and worked hard at getting better at steer wrestling and calf roping. It got so that Al jokingly made him rotate the critters he practiced on so as not to wear them out. When he could, Matt g
ave him tips on saddle-bronc riding. Sometimes late at night he’d fall asleep on the small desk in his bedroom and wake up with his head on an open textbook. Some days, staying awake in his last afternoon class was barely possible.

  Dale and his parents lived in the original Rocking J ranch house that had been expanded over the years into a long, L-shaped, low-slung, pitched-roof home snugly nestled behind a grove of tall pine trees and surrounded by a split-rail fence. It sat facing a meadow about seventy-five yards away from Kevin’s front door. Having started out as a small cabin used by Al and Brenda when they first married, from the front the Kerney house looked much as it did the day it had been built. But over the last few years Matt had expanded it out the back and more than tripled the size. It now had a large eat-in kitchen, a sizable bathroom, two roomy bedrooms, and a small mudroom off a deep screened-in porch, which gave a nice view of the San Andres to the east rising above. The renovated front room served as the living room. Windows bracketing the front door gave an unimpeded view of the ranch road winding up from the Jornada to the entry gate, where both the Rocking J and 7-Bar-K brands were prominently displayed under a sign that read: J & K LAND AND CATTLE COMPANY.

  Some evenings, sitting on the back porch, Kevin could clearly visualize the 7-Bar-K ranch on the other side of the mountains and the sweet ranch house that sat perfectly situated on the shelf overlooking the Tularosa. He missed the old place and held close the memories of the good times he had there with his gramps. He and Dale still snuck onto the missile range whenever they could, ostensibly to scout for strays—that was their agreed-upon story in case they got caught—but mostly to poke around the 7-Bar-K homestead and watch what the army was doing at the rocket launch pads and tracking stations that peppered the basin. Occasionally Matt and Al went with them. It was great fun to outfox the roaming MP patrols, hide from the choppers, and search for the various electronic gadgets installed on the fringes of the missile range that the army used to detect interlopers. The loss of the ranch to the army still remained an unspoken hurt to all of them, Al, Brenda, and Dale included.