Hard Country (28 page)

As they loped along, Makiah urged Patrick to stay away from the sinful temptations at Díaz’s hacienda. All it did was whet his appetite. When they parted outside of town, Cal watched Makiah ride off and wondered what kept a scripture-quoting Mormon working for a sly old sinner like Díaz.

“Was he serious about the hacienda?” Patrick asked.

“Sure as shooting he was,” Cal replied. “You ain’t seen nothing like it. It’s one fancy place. So fancy, no leg irons are allowed. Best we stop for a bath, shave, and a fresh set of duds before we show up for supper.”

Patrick grinned. “That’ll be all right with me.”

On a side street in Juárez, not far from Díaz’s hacienda, they put their horses in a livery, bought some new duds at a dry-goods store and had a bath and a shave at a barbershop next to a small hotel. Over coffee in the hotel dining room, Patrick asked Cal to settle up.

“Am I buying you out?” Cal asked.

“Yep,” Patrick replied.

“Then I need a paper from you saying so,” Cal said.

“A handshake ain’t enough between us?”

“Not when it comes to owning land. See if the hotel proprietor has paper and ink, and we’ll study on what to write.”

When Patrick left, Cal calculated how much money he could give as a partial payment to buy out their partnership. He decided on four hundred, which would leave enough to get home and tide him over for a spell.

Patrick came back with an inkwell, pen, and paper. “Who’s gonna write it?” he asked.

“You’re selling, so you do it. Put down for the sum of four hundred dollars as part payment, you agree to sell your half of the Double K ranch to me, Calvin Doran.”

Patrick began to write. When he finished, he looked up. “What else?”

“The final payment will be half the money loaned by a bank on the Double K ranch less four hundred dollars, making me, Calvin Doran, sole owner. You give up all claims to the Double K.”

“If I give up all claims, how will I know how much money is half?”

“Put it down that you have the right to examine all the bank papers.”

Patrick wrote it down. “Done.”

“Sign your name and put in the date.”

“Maybe I should look for someone who’ll pay more for my half,” Patrick said.

“You can do that if you want,” Cal replied.

Patrick shook his head. “Nope, this will do.” He signed with a flourish and gave the paper to Cal.

Cal put it in his pocket and slid the greenbacks across the table to Patrick. “You can roam fancy-free now, amigo.”

Patrick grinned. “Let’s head on over to the hacienda and celebrate.”

Cal sipped his coffee and smiled at the eager young cowboy, all cleaned, wearing new duds, smelling like lavender, with money in his pocket and raring to go. He’d brought him up the best way he knew how, and now it was up to Patrick to pick the trail he wanted to follow.

“Put some of that
dinero
in your boot before we leave,” Cal cautioned.

“Good idea.” Patrick stuffed money down his boot and stood up. “Is the food any good? I could eat a bear.”

“Best food in Juárez,” Cal replied, “and the women ain’t bad either. But old Makiah Whetten warned you off them.”

Patrick laughed. “That won’t stop me.”

“Didn’t think so,” Cal said as he adjusted his hat and headed for the door.

25

M
artin Cardenas, the man who ran the hacienda for Díaz, greeted them when they entered the bar and said Don Emiliano would be with them shortly. Built low to the ground, Cardenas was a bull of a man with a thick neck and arms that bulged against the sleeves of his coat. Cal whispered something to Cardenas as he escorted them to Díaz’s table. After the bartender brought glasses and a bottle of tequila, Cardenas excused himself and left the room.

“What did you say to him?” Patrick asked.

“I asked about a certain girl,” Cal said.

“Why, you old bull,” Patrick said with a laugh.

Cal smiled. “Don’t you ‘old bull’ me, youngster.”

Patrick chuckled. “That Cardenas is a tough-looking hombre.”

“He keeps the peace,” Cal said as he poured shots of tequila and raised his glass. “
Salud.
”

“
Salud,
” Patrick replied. He knocked back the shot, felt the fiery liquid sear his throat, and took a good look around the room. The adobe walls were whitewashed and the bar was made out of solid wood, with a brass foot rail. All the tables and chairs matched, and the place was as neat as a pin. The girls with the customers were all young and pretty, and none of the men looked rowdy.

He poured a second round just as Díaz entered the room and joined them at the table. Cal introduced Patrick to Díaz and the men shook hands.

“The señoritas will be fighting to oblige this young man once they meet him,” Díaz said with a laugh. “You may have to stay for a week to please them all, if you can afford it.”

“He can’t,” Cal said.

“How sad. Many hearts will be broken. Come, let us have a drink and then eat. Afterward, you are my guests for the night and Martin has a room ready for you.” Díaz poured a shot.

“You are a generous man, Emiliano,” Cal said.

“My enemies do not think so,” Díaz replied. “
Salud.
”

Two drinks later they were seated in the dining room at Díaz’s private table. Bread and tortillas were brought to the table along with wine and a vegetable soup. Roasted chicken stuffed with onions came next, followed by chili peppers stuffed with minced meat smothered in sauce.

The cups were silver, and according to Díaz the serving plates were blue-and-white Spanish porcelain. The wine, he said, was from El Paso.

Patrick ate until he could hold no more. Never had he had such a good meal in such a fine place. He leaned back in his chair, sipped wine, and took a good look around the room. The men, Mexican and American, all looked prosperous and old. Probably in their forties and fifties, Patrick guessed, which was about Cal’s age. There wasn’t a dirty, smelly waddie in the whole bunch. The only American he recognized was Pat Garrett, who had a redheaded señorita sitting on his lap. As sheriff, Garrett had visited the Double K several times looking for outlaws, and stayed overnight at the ranch more than once.

Patrick reminded himself that the fancy ladies in the room were just a bunch of gussied-up, sweet-smelling soiled doves, no different from the saloon and dance-hall strumpets he’d known as a young boy. No different from Ida.

The sight of Virgil Peters ushering a stumbling drunk to their tent in the mining camp and Ida shooing him outside came into his head. Many a night he’d sat out in the cold, waiting to be let back in, listening to the grunts and groans while Virgil stood guard in front of the closed tent flaps. He pushed the thought out of his mind.

Díaz passed around cigars and a waiter lit them. Patrick didn’t like tobacco much, but he puffed on his as Cal and Díaz talked about improved ice-cooled railroad cars that could cart dressed beef for a thousand miles with no spoilage. They were in wide use back in Chicago, Boston, and New York City, but they wouldn’t work in the desert country, where there was little to no ice to be had.

The señoritas in the room were much more interesting than talk about dressed beef, ice, and railroad cars. A small, dark-haired girl particularly drew Patrick’s eye, but he didn’t know how to go about arranging a poke. Back in Tularosa at Coghlan’s saloon, all a man had to do was look at one of the women and she was ready to take him to a room and lift her skirt.

He’d done it only a couple of times with Coghlan’s hurdy-gurdy girls when Cal was away on sheriff business, and it hadn’t gone so good. He blew the plug and got bucked off sooner than he should have, and it mortified him greatly.

He stopped staring at the dark-haired girl and glanced at Díaz, who grinned at him.

“The señoritas in the room are already engaged for the evening,” he said, reading Patrick’s mind. “However, as you walk down the hall to your room, you may see one you like through an open doorway.”

Patrick nodded as if to signal that he knew exactly how to behave and kept puffing on his cigar. He waited until Díaz and Cal returned to their conversation before pushing back from the table and leaving the dining room. In the hallway, Martin Cardenas gestured at the several open doors.

“Any one, señor,” he said softly. “Your room is through the passageway at the end of the hall. Señor Cal has already paid for your señorita.”

“
Gracias,
” Patrick replied as he headed for the hallway, eager to see if there was a tiny, dark-haired whore in any of the rooms with open doors. He wanted a tiny one.

Cal watched him go, and after a few minutes of jawboning, Díaz excused himself and left Cal alone at the table. He was about to get up and say howdy to Pat Garrett, who’d hired him as one of his deputies during the Lincoln County War, when he heard a woman’s high-pitched cry and saw Martin Cardenas barrel down the hallway past the open dining room door.

Curious about the commotion, Cal stepped into the hallway in time to see Cardenas fling Patrick out of one of the rooms, pound him with his fists, and drag him past the barroom into the courtyard. The patrons emptied the bar to watch the fight, and Cal pushed his way through in time to see Patrick take a powerful body blow that doubled him over. He dropped his guard, and Cardenas quickly drove a combination of punches into Patrick’s face, raked his knuckles across his cheeks, and hammered a hard left hook into his left ear. Patrick tried to backtrack. Cardenas grabbed a handful of Patrick’s shirt and drove a fist into his mouth that buckled his knees. He gave him a hard push, and Patrick fell, his head bouncing on the ground. Someone in the crowd hollered bravo. Cal had to admit that Martin had put on one hell of an exhibition. He wasn’t even breathing heavy.

“You have no part of this, señor,” he warned Cal. “Take him out of here and do not bring him back.”

“I’ll surely do that if you tell me what caused the whipping you just dished out,” Cal said evenly, inspecting Patrick’s face. One ear was slightly torn, his face was skinned, both eyes were swollen, and his lower lip was mangled.

“He beat the señorita, so I beat him,” Cardenas replied.

“Fair enough. Do you know why he hit the señorita?”

“Does it matter, señor?”

“I guess not.” The courtyard had emptied. “When he comes around, I’ll walk him out the courtyard gate.”

“
Bueno.
Tell him never to come here again.”

Cardenas left and returned quickly with Patrick’s hat, boots, and money. Cal hunkered down next to Patrick and waited. When the young man woke up, Cal lifted Patrick to his feet, stuck his hat on his head, and walked him slowly out to the street toward the little hotel.

“What happened with the girl?” Cal asked.

“It’s none of your business,” Patrick slurred through his busted mouth.

“Was she trying to kill you, steal your money?”

“No.”

“Then you had no cause to hit her.”

“When is hitting a whore bad?”

“No woman deserves a beating because of what she does for a living.” Cal stopped in front of the hotel. “Martin Cardenas will kill you if you go back to the hacienda. You savvy?”

Patrick nodded.

Cal handed him his boots. “Your money is in your boots. Get a room.”

Patrick rocked, unsteady, on his heels. One eye was closed and he could barely see out of the other. “I’ll see you
mañana.
”

Cal sadly shook his head. “Nope, we’re quits.”

He turned back toward the hacienda. He needed another drink to help him get over the anger he felt toward Patrick. Had he really failed him that badly?

26

P
atrick woke up with a splitting headache, his mouth dry with caked blood. He forced one eye open. He was on a bed jammed up against the wall of a tiny room. His hat hung on a wall peg and his clothes were on the floor next to a washstand with a water pitcher and a basin. His face felt like a bull had stomped on it. The memory of the beating coursed through his aching head.

At the washstand, he filled the basin, splashed water on his face, and squinted into the mirror. He had two black eyes, red welts on his cheeks, puffy lips, a loose tooth, and a gash above his right eye. A small chunk of his left earlobe dangled like a glob of fat.

Had Cardenas done all that damage with just his fists? He hadn’t even thrown a punch at the hombre. He must have looked like a sissy getting whipped like that.

He sank back on the bed and glanced out the narrow window. It was light outside, but he didn’t know what day it was. His head wasn’t working too good, but he recalled Cal walking him down the street to the hotel, handing him his boots, and saying something about his money. He sat up and looked at his pile of clothes. His boots weren’t there. On his hands and knees he searched under the bed and pulled out the boots. In one of them he found his money jammed against the toe. He got dressed, stuffing his bloodstained, torn shirt into his pants and his greenbacks into a pocket. He pulled his hat down low and left the hotel, hoping not to be seen. Fortunately there was no one in the lobby. He stepped outside and looked skyward. Best he could tell with his fuzzy vision, it was getting on to midday. He walked to the livery stable, where the old man who looked after the horses glanced at him and pointed to a stall. There he found his horse, along with his saddle, rifle, six-gun, and all his gear.

“The
americano
you came with gave me money to keep an eye on your things,” the old man said.

“When was that?”

“Last night, very late. He woke me up.”

“Is his horse here?”

The old man shook his head. “He left real early.”

“
Gracias.
”

“
De nada.
”

He saddled his pony and rode out of Juárez, glad to be rid of the town, Cal Doran, and the Double K. He saw no need to return to the Tularosa ever again. The last dozen years had just been a wreck waiting to happen, and he’d been smart enough not to get trapped into believing it would last. He’d always figured that when push came to shove, no one would stand by him.