Hard Country

by Michael McGarrity

  10

  Cesario Chávez, the alcalde of Tularosa, called the men of the village to a meeting in Perfecto Armijo’s large parlor. As was custom, Ignacio stood at the back of the room with the younger men while his father and the other village leaders sat at the front of the sala facing the gathering.

  A heated discussion had broken out concerning what to do about gringo troublemakers who were streaming into Tularosa to patronize Señor Coghlan’s store and saloon. Women of the village were being accosted on the roads, drunks were riding wildly through the village shooting their pistolas and scaring the children, there were brawls and fistfights almost every night, painted women were whoring in the saloon, and some horses, cattle, and sheep had been stolen from the communal pastures.

  “José’s efforts to stop these troubles have failed,” Cesario said, nodding at José Candelaria, Ignacio’s uncle and the village constable. “Señor Coghlan and the americanos do not listen to him. We must take stronger action.”

  “Do you remember the last time we did such a thing?” Perfecto retorted. “After the americanos dammed the river to irrigate their farms in the mountains and slowed our water to a trickle? They would not listen when we talked, so we took up arms, destroyed their dams, and got into a big fight. And what happened, I ask you? The army soldiers came here with a cannon and threatened to reduce our village to nothing. They pointed that cursed thing at my house with my wife and children inside.”

  “Yes, we all remember,” Cesario replied. “But to this day no one has tried to deny our water to us again. If we do not stand up against Coghlan, Tularosa will only become more lawless and more dangerous as more is taken from us.”

  Perfecto snorted. “And if we oppose him, the army will not protect us from Coghlan’s banditos. They are all americanos.”

  “The soldiers will do nothing,” José Candelaria responded. “Nor will the county sheriff.”

  “They are Texans who despise us,” Perfecto said. “Spit on us.”

  “What do we do?” Cesario asked. “We built this village. We defended it against the Apaches before the Texans came.”

  “True, but we are not pistoleros,” Perfecto said. “I do not wish to see any of us shot down on the street.”

  “Is it that, or do you not want to offend Coghlan?” Cesario said. Perfecto’s sale of his village lots to the Irishman had made him the richest villager in Tularosa.

  Perfecto shook a fist at Cesario. “Do not insult me, Cesario. I am no man’s peon. I have fought by your side many times.”

  “That is true,” Cesario said. “I apologize.”

  “As constable, I will go to Mesilla and speak to the territorial judge about the lawlessness,” José Candelaria suggested.

  Cesario nodded and said, “A good idea. I’ll also go to ask him to come here to see our troubles for himself.”

  A murmur of approval greeted the idea.

  “First, we speak to Coghlan,” Cesario added. “So that the judge knows we have tried to solve our problems with the americanos.”

  Ignacio stopped listening. He knew, as they all did, that nothing would come of it. The territorial judge was a gringo and would side with Coghlan, who now owned most of the town. Aside from the store and saloon, he had also built a large wagon yard with rooms at the rear that he rented to travelers, cowboys, soldiers, and the painted women who pleasured them. For his wife, he’d built a spacious new house in the village, larger than any hacienda Ignacio could imagine, and his Three Rivers Ranch with the big casa northeast of the village stretched for miles. He controlled most of the water, which made him almost a king of the basin.

  More times than he could count, Ignacio had seen the men in this room, including his father, Perfecto Armijo, and Uncle José, remove their hats and step aside when Coghlan drove his team of matched caballos down the street. He had seen his mother and the other village women forced to wait in line at Coghlan’s store while the clerks served the Texans and other gringos first. And like the Negro Buffalo Soldiers, Mexicans could not enter the saloon.

  He knew the men of Tularosa were brave and proud, but Coghlan had beaten them. Not by force, but through greed, thievery, hired guns, and ill-gotten gains. Tularosa no longer belonged to la gente, and to speak to Coghlan only saved face, nothing more.

  At that moment, Ignacio came to a decision that had been building in him for some time: He would leave Tularosa. His reasons were many, and not least was the fact that Teresa no longer showed any interest in him. Her affections were increasingly drawn to Charlie Gambel, who had been denied Perfecto’s permission to court her but still persisted.

  Although Ignacio did not fully understand her fascination with Gambel, he realized that Charlie’s wild, outlaw ways appealed to her spirited nature. With the cowboy gone on a cattle drive to California, Ignacio had tried to win back Teresa’s attention but to no avail. He would leave in the hope that he could make his fortune and return to seek her hand after she gave up her girlish fantasy about Charlie.

  He had but a year to do it. Next month, Teresa would be fifteen years old and of an age to marry. He believed Perfecto favored him as a potential son-in-law, but he also knew Perfecto valued money and would not turn over his daughter’s dowry to a suitor with no means to support her.

  To improve his English, he’d read the book Señor Kerney had given him over and over again, sounding each word out slowly at first. He listened carefully whenever he was around the Texans and other americanos so he could say the words correctly. Now he understood the gringos’ speech almost perfectly and could reply in English without great difficulty.

  Perhaps he would go to Las Cruces, a town of more than two thousand—many of whom were Mexican—where a young man who spoke both English and Spanish surely could find employment. Or maybe he should go to Mesilla, the county seat, where even more opportunities might exist.

  He had been to both places once, and the visits had fired his imagination for adventure. True, they were far away, across the wide basin, through the blistering sea of white sand near the shallow salt lake, and over the pass near the mountains that cast a dozen or more jagged spires into the sky. It would be a long journey and perhaps dangerous now that some of the Apaches had escaped from the Fort Stanton reservation. But once he got there he was certain he could find work. First, however, he would travel to La Luz, where Manuel Gutierrez, a distant cousin, lived, to see if there were any jobs there. If he could earn some dinero quickly, then he would move on.

  Ignacio said good night to Perfecto and the others and walked into the cold night air behind his father and Uncle José, who were discussing when it would be best for them to meet with Coghlan and make the trip to Mesilla to see the judge.

  Again his thoughts turned away from the troubles caused by Señor Coghlan. Now that winter had arrived on the basin, it would only get colder, especially at night. He would need warm clothes and a bedroll for his journey, as he planned to camp out if necessary, with enough food to sustain him during the first few days. With only three dollars in silver coins, he would have to be very frugal until he found work.

  Tomorrow he would tell his parents of his decision and make preparations to leave. He was determined, excited, and at the same time anxious.

  * * *

  The long ride to Tularosa took John Kerney and Cal Doran first to a hacienda stage stop in a small farming community south of Santa Fe. The next day they dropped down a steep, rocky butte and traveled to the town of Albuquerque along the Rio Grande. From there they continued south in rough winter weather through an Indian pueblo and past small Mexican settlements perched on slender ribbons of fertile river bottomland. After four days and more than a hundred and twenty miles on horseback, they arrived in Socorro, a village west of the river situated at the base of a line of inviting mountains, barely visible under a low winter sky.

  The town was booming, with two new mercantile stores opened in advance of the pending arrival of the railroad, and Americans pouring in every day. On the town
plaza, miners in their red shirts, with wagonloads of silver concentrates bound for the smelters, and ox teams hauling processed silver-lead bullion from the smelters filled the streets.

  Days of riding with a cold, snowy wind in their faces had them both cussing the weather. They took a four-bit room at a hotel and ate a good meal in the dining room, where well-heeled speculators and out-of-town financiers sat at a large table filling the air with cigar smoke and talking business.

  In the morning, clear skies and a warmer day greeted them. They bought fresh victuals and reached the stage road to Fort Stanton well before noon. As they rode, Kerney discussed his plans for the ranch. He had his eye on the east slope of the San Andres Mountains, where there were some wide canyons with good grass and live water from year-round springs. Stockmen looking for fresh range hadn’t strayed there yet because of the Apaches, but with most of the Indians back on the reservation and quiet, unclaimed land was there for the taking.

  He wanted to put up a suitable house for Patrick, not a one-room, dirt-floor, earth-roofed cabin. To start out, he would build stock corrals, dig a well, and quarry rock for the house foundation and fireplace.

  It was an ambitious plan. If Kerney was plumb set on building a proper house, he would have to first build a road to cart wagonloads of lumber across forty miles of basin. But Cal said nothing about the difficuties ahead. Kerney was holding on to an idea of how he wanted life with Patrick to be the way a Saturday night sinner went looking for Sunday morning salvation. Besides, Cal cottoned to the idea of having a stake in a place he could call home with a partner he liked and trusted.

  His friendship with Kerney had been forged on the trail. Work for a spell with a man under harsh conditions and you get to know his true nature. Unlike most cowboys, Kerney wanted something more than just riding for the brand. He was smarter than most, levelheaded, and inclined to lend a helping hand when needed. Cal had learned that the day Kerney found him dazed from a fall on the Staked Plains.

  Maybe he wasn’t fun loving and sociable when it came to raising a little hell, getting a little drunk, or spending his money on women or cards, but he was about as reliable as a man could get and as loyal a friend a man could ever hope for. That was good enough reason for Cal to throw in with him.

  Patches had settled into a smooth, easy gait. There was nothing better than sitting a good horse on a fine day without a care to trouble a soul, and Cal let his thoughts skirt away from Kerney. Behind them the wide Rio Grande was a fading ribbon in a sea of sloping grasslands and hidden valleys. The oxbow curve in the river with the wide sandbar was no longer visible. Up ahead, hills decorated with scattered groves of trees promised thick forests beyond where the stage road climbed painfully along a ridge. Tomorrow, they would skirt the cliffs of the Oscura Mountains and cross Lava Gap through the dangerous malpais. From there it would be but a long day’s ride to Fort Stanton.

  Cal was happy to be out of the cold and snow and heading back to the stark beauty of the Tularosa which tested man and beast. It was a great pocket of sun-scorched land of alkali flats and white sand dunes where your eye could travel a hundred miles with nary a glimpse of any welcoming shade in sight. Cal was partial to it, even though it could sandblast body and soul. It was a clean, dry country, little touched by civilization, that kept the timid and faint of heart at bay. Cal liked that.

  Kerney called to him from up ahead at the foot of the hill, where the stage road began a perilous climb. Cal gave Patches a light touch with his spurs and cantered to where Kerney waited.

  * * *

  The sun nosed over the snowcapped Sierra Blanca, where winter had claimed the mountains. On the Tularosa a mile or more below the summit, dawn promised a sparkling-clear, mild day. Yesterday, when Ignacio had announced his decision to leave, his parents had tried to discourage him from going. But once it was clear that he would not change his mind, his father fell silent and his mother sighed a great deal. Although his brothers and sisters were in awe of his boldness, they could not imagine what life would be like without him. Antonio, the next oldest, was both excited and anxious about the new role he would have in the family.

  A light breeze caressed the bare branches of the cottonwoods as Ignacio made ready to leave home. His mother had washed, mended, and bundled his clothes. He carefully tucked the book Señor Kerney had given him inside the bundle. His little sisters had prepared another bundle of fresh tortillas, some hard candy from Coghlan’s store, frijoles with a packet of fat to cook them in, dried chilies, piñon nuts, and delicious, steamed prickly pear leaves called nopalitos. He would eat those first, at midday.

  In the chilly early morning, the family went to the church the villagers had built to fulfill their promise to God for their victory over the Apaches at the battle of Round Mountain. Together they knelt in front of the altar and prayed for Ignacio’s protection during his journey and for his safe return.

  Back home, his father presented Ignacio with the pistol he’d owned for many years, wrapped in an old piece of oilcloth. He also gave him two dollars in silver coins. His mother gave him a small cross on a chain to wear around his neck.

  On foot, carrying his parcels and bedroll, Ignacio set out for La Luz. The sun cast the mild light of early winter across the basin, rolling back the darkness of the distant mountains to the west. The day would warm but remain comfortable, unlike the searing heat of summer, and by evening he would be at his cousin Manuel’s house.

  With the village no longer in sight, in the vastness of the basin, along the lonely wagon road, a stab of apprehension gripped Ignacio, and for a brief moment he considered returning home. He slowed his pace until pride overcame misgivings, and then he walked on without looking back.

  * * *

  The once tranquil village of Tularosa had changed during Kerney’s absence. The hitching posts outside of Coghlan’s newly opened saloon and store were crowded with horses, and the wagon yard was full up with high-sided wagons and harnessed teams of docile oxen flapping their tails. There were more people along the road through the village than Kerney had ever seen before, most of them Texans and soldiers, and somebody had thrown up a huge house that towered over a nearby adobe casita. Kerney didn’t doubt for a moment that the palatial residence belonged to Pat Coghlan.

  They stopped first at the store, where they found a message waiting for Cal Doran and nothing for Kerney. He masked his disappointment by pretending to study the vast array of merchandise and goods stocked on the shelves and floor. No longer would the villagers need to trek once a year to El Paso or Las Cruces to stock up on salt, axes, powder and lead, matches, bolts of cloth, coffee and tobacco, or iron and steel. It was all here, including saddles, pistols, long guns, hard candy and trinkets for the children, and brightly colored ribbons for the women.

  Cal read his message, tucked it away in a pocket, and told Kerney they would have to part company for a time.

  “Seems some Texas boys shot up the streets of Lincoln, lit out, but promised to return soon to continue their jamboree,” he explained. “The sheriff wants me over there pronto to help keep the peace.”

  “Has the feuding started up there again?” Kerney asked.

  Folks in Lincoln had been outright killing each other with some regularity over the last several years and getting away with it scot-free. It had gotten so bad that soldiers from the fort had been called in more than once to settle folks down. A young cowboy known as Billy the Kid seemed to be smack-dab in the middle of the quarrel right from the start. Kerney had met Billy during the time he’d worked for Coghlan, and he seemed a likeable sort, although some thought him a cold-blooded killer.

  Cal shook his head. “No, seems this is a fresh bunch of ruffians. But I’ve got no squabble about heading over there. Fact is it works out perfect. My reward money is locked in the sheriff’s safe and I’m gonna need it if you want me to put up my share of our ranch.”

  “Are you done being a lawman?” Kerney asked.

  Cal grinned. “Yep, I believe I�
��m just not suited to the job. Besides, sooner or later, I’d have to arrest some of my friends, and that just doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “Then, let’s celebrate you being done with the law,” Kerney said with a smile. “I’m buying.”

  “I like that notion,” Cal replied.

  They stepped to the nearby saloon and pushed through the swinging doors into a busy, smoke-filled room. Although the day was no more than half gone, the place was doing a lively business in anticipation of the evening performance of a play, The Union Spy, announced by a poster on the wall and scheduled to start at eight o’clock. Admission cost a dollar and two bits, and the troupe would be performing nightly for only one week. A few pretty hurdy-gurdy girls were working the customers at the gaming tables. Kerney figured they’d either followed the thespians to town or were part of the troupe.

  At the bar, Kerney ordered shots, asked the bartender the whereabouts of Charlie Gambel, and learned he was on a trail drive west. Over drinks, Cal agreed to meet up with Kerney three weeks hence in Tularosa. Kerney would use the time to scout the east side of the San Andres in hopes of finding good land and a reliable source of water. But first, he’d visit John Good to settle up for the back pay owed him.

  “Be careful of that red-eyed wife of his,” Cal cautioned as they left the saloon. “She’s a true daughter of the devil, guaranteed.”

  Kerney laughed as he climbed into the saddle. “I will if you make sure those fun-loving Texas boys in Lincoln don’t shoot too many holes in you. I’d hate to lose a partner. Adios.”

  “So long,” Cal replied as he walked back to the saloon in search of another drink and some attention from one of the hurdy-gurdy girls.

  John Kerney gigged his horse and trotted south, mulling on how long it would take before he heard from Dr. Lyon. He had no way of knowing, but he was anxious to go get Patrick. At the same time, he was vexed that he didn’t even have a roof to put over the boy’s head. Besides all that, how would he manage to raise him without help? He was a greenhorn when it came to children, about as ignorant as they came.