Hard Country (20 page)

As Ignacio showed her the casita, her eyes filled with tears. It was far more than she’d expected. He’d plastered the inside walls with mud and finished them with a coat of yeso, a form of white lime. The dirt floor had been sealed with ox blood, and on one wall hung an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in a frame he’d carved by hand.

He had furnished the casita with two surplus army barrack chairs and a table brought from the quartermaster at Fort Selden, a used bed frame purchased from the newly refurnished Rio Grande Hotel in Las Cruces, and a mattress ordered from Chicago, freighted in by train to the railroad siding at Engle, on the Jornada, west of the ranch. Everything was spotless.

“Do you like it?” he asked. “I can build another room if it’s too small.”

Teresa spun around. “It’s perfect.”

As she marveled at his thoughtfulness, she remembered her mother’s words on a day long ago when they had argued about Charlie Gambel.
The gringo will bring you nothing but heartbreak. Ignacio will give you a home.
Her mother’s prophesy had come true.

“Are you crying?” Ignacio asked.

“A little bit,” Teresa replied with a smile. “Happy tears.”

She caressed his cheek and kissed him. She’d been headstrong back then, unwilling to see all the qualities that made her best childhood friend such a good man. “I know married women from our village,” she added, “who can only dream of having such a wonderful husband as you.”

Ignacio beamed. “Let me show you the ranch house.”

A few steps away stood the larger ranch house, where John Kerney, Patrick, and Cal Doran lived and where Teresa would do the cooking. There was a brand-new cast-iron wood cookstove in the large kitchen that was an absolute delight. She stopped and inspected it carefully before Ignacio dragged her away to see the rest of the house. It meant no more bending over a scorching hearth to stir pots and boil coffee.

Like the casita, the house was built with double adobe walls to stay warm in winter and cool in summer. The roof was pitched, the floors were wood rather than dirt sealed with ox blood, and it had a long veranda that provided a grand view across the basin. On very clear days, Teresa was quite sure she would see wisps of chimney smoke from the haciendas and farms in her village.

Two bedrooms and a large parlor were at the front of the house, with the kitchen at the back. In the enclosed courtyard between the two houses, a well had been dug so that water was close by, and Ignacio had built an
horno
so she could cook outside when the weather permitted.

“Can I keep my chickens and rooster here?” she asked John Kerney.

“Yes.”

“Thank you for the casita,” she said.

“Don’t thank me,” John Kerney replied. “Your husband did it all by himself. In the evenings when most men wouldn’t care to do another lick of work, he put up the adobe walls. He harvested, cut, and dressed the vigas that span the ceilings. The only help he got from us was raising the vigas and finishing the roof.”

“But you let him build it on your ranch,” Teresa said.

“Let him,” John Kerney replied with a chuckle. “We couldn’t hold him back once you agreed to marry him.”

She looked over the courtyard wall to the corrals near the pond and saddle shed. They were entered through ax-dressed gates, and between the timber fence posts, stands of dressed cedar poles were tamped into the ground, braced with long horizontal saplings, and laced together with strips of green rawhide that shrank and pulled the poles tight together. In the horse corral there was a
bramadero
, or snubbing post, in the center, used for breaking horses to the saddle.

“I hope you like it here,” John Kerney said.

“I know I will,” she replied, wanting her words to come true.

16

T
eresa’s initial misgivings about living away from her family lingered for a time. It was pleasant enough in the valley, far nicer than she had imagined, and unusually heavy spring rains had turned the land green with tall grasses and wildflowers. Birds nested in the cattails and reeds around the pond, the stream through the valley ran crystal clear, the livestock looked sleek and healthy, and her herb and vegetable garden flourished.

But in spite of how nice it was, she missed her family, especially her sisters, as well as her friends, neighbors, and close relatives she’d known all her life. And while she appreciated the company of John Kerney and Cal Doran—when they had time for it—she yearned for the companionship and closeness of women.

Señor Kerney sensed her longings for home and frequently asked in his halting Spanish if she was content.

“You worry too much about me,” she finally said.

“I know how lonely it can get for a woman,” he replied.

“There is too much for me to do to be lonely.”

“Work doesn’t fix loneliness,” he replied with a tight-lipped smile, “especially in a place pretty much empty of people.”

It wasn’t until Señor Cal told her the heartbreaking story of how Kerney’s wife had died that she understood his concern for her well-being. It made her think even more kindly of him.

The rains continued throughout the spring, and by early summer the entire basin was in bloom. Clusters of brilliant red desert paintbrush, scarlet penstemon, pale blue gilia, and bright yellow Mexican poppies grew in profusion along arroyos. Beargrass and yucca flowered, and the soaptree yuccas grew tall, slender stems fifteen feet tall. Cholla and prickly pear cactus put out clusters of wine red and golden yellow blossoms.

Victorio and his warriors had been killed late the last year in a battle across the border with Mexican troops at Tres Castillos, and except for some Apache raids in the mountains of western New Mexico and the northern Sierra Madres of Mexico, most of the territory had remained peaceful. But in July, a band led by Nana, an old Apache chief who had been with Victorio at Tres Castillo, ambushed a pack train in Alamo Canyon south of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, wounding the chief packer and stealing three mules. The army tracked the Apaches into the basin, and at Laguna Springs they found the murdered and mutilated bodies of Victoriano Albillar from Tularosa and a man and a woman from the village of Mesilla. Suddenly, war with the Indians had erupted again.

At the ranch, the men stayed close by and kept their rifles at hand, but the Apaches skirted north, where they clashed with Buffalo Soldiers in a gap between the San Andres and Oscura mountains and then fled across the Jornada to their home range high in the San Mateo Mountains, raiding and killing for provisions along the way.

News of fresh depredations came to the ranch by way of a small detachment of soldiers patrolling the San Andres. A posse of miners had been attacked outside of the boomtowns of Winston and Chloride, a railroad work crew had been shot up in Rincon, and four Mexican sheepherders had been murdered at a stage stop on the Rio Grande.

Over the next few weeks, the skirmishes and battles continued far to the west and south of the ranch, with the army flooding the region with companies of soldiers while old Chief Nana and his warriors continued to elude capture.

On a late afternoon, after a light shower, with billowing clouds thick in the sky promising more rain, Teresa stepped into the courtyard to pick squash from her garden and water her chickens. She counted the hens, found one missing, and looked for it over the courtyard wall. It was nowhere to be seen. She returned to the casa, got the pistol Ignacio had given her for protection, and searched around the ranch house. Still there was no chicken to be found.

She looked out over the valley for any sign of the hen. At the dirt water tank Cal Doran and Patrick were moving some cattle back to the high pasture. In the horse corral, John Kerney and Ignacio were working two of the Mexican ponies that had recently been saddle broke. Soon the three men and Patrick would come stomping into the house over the hardwood floors, spurs jingling, wanting their supper.

Calling for the chicken, Teresa circled the ranch house and froze when she spotted a fresh moccasin footprint in the dirt and another one close to the courtyard wall near several hen feathers. Frightened, she returned quickly to the house, rang the bell on the veranda to summon help, and hurried inside. Ignacio and John Kerney arrived first, and Teresa told them of her discovery.

“A small footprint,” she added. “Perhaps a child. I think they steal a chicken.”

“Apaches don’t travel alone,” John Kerney said. “Stay inside with Ignacio while I take a look around.”

He returned to the house just as Cal and Patrick rode up. “We got us an Apache visitor somewhere hereabouts,” he said. “Maybe more than one, I’m guessing, but all I’ve spotted so far are the same footprints Teresa found. Looks like they stole one of her hens from the courtyard.”

“Can we track him?” Cal asked.

Kerney nodded. “I think so. It could be a child. The prints are mighty small.” He looked at Patrick. “You go inside with Teresa and Ignacio.”

Patrick shook his head. “I want to go with you and Cal.”

“Do as I say,” Kerney ordered.

Patrick slumped in the saddle and didn’t move.

“Mind your pa,” Cal said.

Patrick slipped off his pony, tied it to the veranda railing, and stomped inside.

Kerney threw a leg over his horse and put his rifle in the scabbard. “I swear that boy acts more like you’re his pa than me.”

“Nothing I can do about it except chase him away,” Cal replied. “Which way?”

“West up the canyon,” Kerney answered. “Don’t chase Patrick away. Best he has someone he likes.”

“Even the longest road has an end,” Cal said. “He’ll come around.”

* * *

T
hey lost the tracks twice on rock ledges and had to ride in ever-widening circles to pick up the trail again. It was getting on to dusk as they followed the footprints north over a juniper-studded hill. High up on the next ridgeline, behind a towering rock outcropping, they spotted telltale campfire smoke. They left their horses out of sight, picket staked near a tree, pulled their rifles, and started climbing at an angle toward the outcropping. Halfway up, they caught the scent of roasting chicken.

John Kerney pointed left and then right to signal they should split up and come in on both sides of the outcropping, and began working his way carefully up the southerly slope. Cal cut back in the opposite direction and began climbing. Before he reached the top, an Apache yell broke the silence, followed by a string of John Kerney curses. He scrambled up the last ten yards to find Kerney with blood running down his face, holding down an Apache boy no more than twelve years old who was kicking to get free. Behind him on the ground was a pregnant Apache squaw struggling to get up. She collapsed on her back and started moaning.

“This little savage tried to kill me with a rock,” Kerney said. “Almost put my eye out.”

Cal peered at the gash. “You’ll live. Let me check the squaw; then I’ll tend to you.”

“She’s pregnant and not doing too good,” Kerney said.

“I can see that,” Cal said as he approached the sweat-drenched woman. She was a girl, really, probably not even Teresa’s age. She hissed at him with angry eyes but was too weak to do any harm.

“She’s got a broken leg,” he said. “Looks recent.”

“I know it,” Kerney said as he pulled the kicking Apache boy upright and wrapped him in a bear hug. “Think you could climb down the hill and get your lariat so I can hog-tie this critter before he cracks my shins?”

“I’d be glad to oblige,” Cal replied.

He scrambled down the hill, came back with the horses, handed over his lasso, and watched as Kerney wrestled to get the squirming boy hog-tied.

Finally finished, Kerney stood, brushed the dirt off his hands, and gave Cal a pointed look. “Thanks for all your help, partner.”

Cal grinned as he watched the boy wriggling on the ground like a trussed-up lizard. “That was a tidy piece of work,” he allowed as he placed a boot on the boy’s back to hold him down while he inspected the dent in Kerney’s forehead. “Looks like you’ll survive. Keep an eye on the squirt while I get something to doctor you with.”

He found some liniment in his saddlebags, cleaned the wound with his bandanna, and covered it with salve. “I think we should build a travois and get this squaw to the ranch pronto.”

The squaw had stopped moaning and moving. Kerney bent down on one knee and lifted her buckskin skirt. Blood saturated the ground, and she was bleeding heavily. “There’s no time,” he said. “She’s dropping the baby right now.”

Although many times in the past he’d helped cows and mares during a difficult birth, he wanted nothing to do with this pregnant squaw. The damn Apache with her big belly was like a punishment from on high, a harsh reminder that he hadn’t been there for Mary Alice. The image of his dead wife on the West Texas prairie outside their cabin welled up in his mind.

“Give me a hand with her,” he said, trying to shake off that eerie feeling. She kicked with her good leg and tried to scratch him. Pressing her chest, he forced her to lie still as Cal gently spread her legs. Kerney probed gently with a finger until he touched something in the birth canal.

“Push!” he shouted.

The girl looked at him with frightened, confused eyes.

He made a shoving gesture with his free hand. “Push!”

With her face contorted in pain, the girl began pushing.

“Harder, dammit!” he yelled, willing her to get it done.

She screamed and pushed until Kerney was able to gently wrap his forefinger and thumb around the baby’s head and carefully begin to tug it free…. With one last push by the girl, the baby and the afterbirth gushed out.

The infant, a boy, was small, silent, and blue. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. Kerney’s heart sank. He pulled the cord free and slapped the baby hard on the rump. Nothing. He did it again, hoping to hear a cry. Nothing.

“Baby’s dead,” Cal said in a whisper.

Kerney looked at the girl and shook his head.

She took a deep breath, turned away, and wailed.