Hard Country (53 page)

In the evening, after CJ was tucked into bed, Emma sometimes read aloud as Patrick and Cal worked at their chores. Patrick had lost all interest in books—hadn’t picked up one in years—and while Cal wouldn’t admit it, his eyesight had failed some and he frequently squinted when reading.

Newspaper and magazine stories about the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Boer War in South Africa had captured Emma’s interest, so she’d ordered two books by men who had lived through those exciting events. She’d just finished a story about a British medical missionary in China who had barely escaped being killed on the streets of Peking, and had begun reading
London to Ladysmith via Pretoria
, a book of field dispatches about the Boer War written by a British correspondent named Winston Churchill. Both books had her dreaming of seeing more of the world, which she knew would probably never happen. But it no longer made her sad. She was happy with her life far more than ever before.

Some evenings Cal, Patrick, and Emma talked over ranch matters. Changes in the cattle business had happened like lightning after a stock market panic in 1901, caused when railroad tycoons trying to outsmart each other started a recession. Live cattle prices plummeted, newfangled refrigerated railcars began shipping dressed beef to big-city markets across the country, and regional slaughterhouses had sprung up in St. Louis, Omaha, and most recently Fort Worth.

The time had passed when just about any cow a stockman delivered under contract got shipped. And packers weren’t just selling whole beef carcasses to butchers and grocers anymore. Now they were marketing high-quality quarters and halves direct to big-city restaurants and wholesalers. Cattle buyers were looking for cows that would meet the changing tastes of customers, who wanted better cuts of meat. They culled out unwanted animals prior to shipping, leaving the stockman to either unload the critters at a loss or throw them back on the range for another season.

For three years, the Double K sold all the Herefords they trailed to market but made no profit at all. And with lots of outfits struggling to get by, they made only a little money selling cow ponies to other spreads. To pay the bills, restock, and keep operating, they carried a five-thousand-dollar bank loan at ten percent interest paid semiannually. Fortunately, they’d been able to rent the house in town for enough to cover the interest on the bank loan.

Emma missed having her sanctuary in town where she could escape the menfolk, enjoy the occasional company of other women, and have the niceties of civilization close at hand. The western side of the Tularosa remained mostly unsettled, and the few ranches thereabouts were a long ride away, which made visiting difficult. Except for a rare overnight trip to see Ignacio and Teresa in Tularosa and the infrequent trips to Alamogordo and Las Cruces to buy supplies, her life was CJ and the ranch.

In another year, CJ would be ready for school. Emma had squirreled away the four hundred dollars Cal had given her when she was pregnant and planned to use it to move the renters out of her house and pay the interest on the bank loan. If that wasn’t enough to cover the interest, she’d find work in one of the stores on Main Street. She was determined CJ would be schooled.

She had said nothing about her supposedly weak heart. Soon after her second visit to see Dr. Drummond, he suddenly closed his practice and left the territory to return to St. Louis. The rumor was his wife hadn’t liked New Mexico one bit.

Feeling fit and healthy, Emma had no desire to find another doctor, and all the niggling concerns Dr. Drummond had planted in her mind about fainting or getting nosebleeds or having trouble breathing faded away.

During spring and fall works she went out on the trail with CJ at her side, driving the chuck wagon and cooking for the boys. The rest of the year, she worked hard from sunup past sundown and slept like a baby except when CJ woke her up with a cold, an ear infection, or a toothache.

Patrick had learned to use a gentle hand with her in bed, and she couldn’t imagine their lovemaking getting any better, but it did. She would have liked him to be more affectionate with CJ, but it wasn’t his temperament. He did, however, take pleasure in CJ’s company and didn’t mind him trailing around as he worked.

On a spring day when Patrick and Cal left early for a trip to the cabin in the high country to grease the windmills and clean out the dirt tanks, Emma yearned for some company. The men had taken CJ with them, Patrick and CJ on horseback—CJ with his cowboy hat pulled down over his ears and a big grin on his face—and Cal driving a wagon full of supplies for the cabin, with a pony named Cactus trailing behind. She’d never seen her son look so happy.

It was the first time CJ had ever been away from her for a day and a night, and it made her a little anxious and lonely.

All spring, angry winds had kicked up dirt and turned the sky smoky gray for days on end. Today the winds were calm enough to be outside without the dust and sand whipping in her face. She worked in the courtyard making soap from wood ash and bacon fat, churning butter, and mending shirts until the warm sun was noontime high. She finished stitching a tear at the elbow of one of Patrick’s shirts and looked up to see a rider approaching from the mountain trail that led south to Gene Rhodes’s cabin and horse camp, which had been washed away sometime back in a bad flood. She fetched the rifle kept by the kitchen door, leaned it against the courtyard wall, and waited for the rider to draw closer, wondering who it might be.

* * *

T
he sight of the Double K ranch house raised Gene Rhodes’s spirits. Two days ago he’d left the gold camp at Orogrande in the Jarillas Mountains in a hurry, after an argument over a crap game led to a fight with a colored man. Gene busted a half dozen beer bottles over the man’s head in order to lay him out cold and got banged up a bit in return. The man’s brother, who didn’t take too kindly to the outcome of the disagreement, came looking for Gene the next morning. He’d skedaddled before the brother found him or the law got on him.

Four years ago, his wife, May, had taken their young son, Alan, back east to her family’s home in New York State. Since then, Gene had faced hard times and some bad luck. He’d mortgaged his spread to Oliver Lee for two hundred and fifty dollars to pay May’s fare home, and lost the cabin and improvements in a flood after settling accounts with Oliver. His attempt to get the ranch going again and make a profit had fallen short during the recession, so the money he’d sunk into building a new tank had been for naught. He broke some horses that sold for not much money and finally had to take a job working for Oliver laying pipe in an irrigation ditch to carry water out of the Sacramento Mountains to the Orogrande gold camp. It was hard, grueling labor, but he worked with a number of old boys he’d ridden with in earlier times, so at least the companionship was enjoyable.

The only good to come out of his predicament since May left was that some of his stories and poems had been published. It wasn’t enough to pay for victuals, smoking tobacco, or feed for his pony for a month, but it kept him writing, twelve, fourteen hours a day when he had some time to himself or wasn’t working as a hand. It blunted the unhappiness he felt being so long separated from his family and the mortification he suffered for his shameful failure to provide for them.

Up ahead he saw a woman standing in the ranch house courtyard watching him approach. He reckoned it was Pat Kerney’s wife, Emma. He’d finally written that story about her making a hand on a roundup and sent it off to the editor at
Out West
magazine, thinking it the best yarn he’d set down yet. The editor rejected it as too unbelievable, saying his readers wouldn’t abide a female character who took on the attire and manners of rough-hewn cowmen. Gene had written back that he had a particular inability to write anything that didn’t ring true and hoped his pathetic failing wouldn’t keep the magazine from considering other stories he planned to submit.

He reined in at the corral and gave a howdy to Emma.

“Step down from that pony, Gene,” Emma said, “and I’ll feed you supper.”

“I’m obliged,” Gene replied. “But there’s no need for you to go to any trouble on my account. Are Pat and Cal around?”

“No, they’re not. I’m about to fix myself a meal and would appreciate your company. So light and come have some supper with me.”

“Since I know firsthand what a good cook you are, I can’t say no to you twice,” Gene said with a grin as he slid out of the saddle.

When he drew close, Emma saw that his left eye was swollen shut, he had a gash on his cheek, and his lips were bruised and puffy.

“I think I’d better patch you up before we eat,” she said. “Who did you tangle with?”

Gene shrugged. “Just some old boy who didn’t know better when to quit fighting.”

Emma sat him down at the kitchen table, cleaned his wounds, put some iodine on the gash, and covered it with a plaster.

“You’ll heal up in a day or two,” she said.

“I appreciate your kindness,” Gene said. “Where’s that youngster of yours?”

“He’s with his daddy and Cal up at the cabin.”

“I was hoping to stay there myself for a few days until I hear whether I’m in trouble with the law over the row I got into.”

“You can stay there as long as you like,” Emma replied as she stirred the simmering pot of stew. “Patrick and Cal will be glad for your company. Now, for supper, I’ve got stew, fresh-baked bread, and coffee. Will that suit you?”

“It will be the best meal I’ve had in weeks,” Gene said with a grin.

Emma served up a plate of stew and they ate and talked for a time about doings on the basin and along the Rio Grande. There was talk the Reclamation Service of the federal government might start building a dam on the river due west of Engle, where it swerved against a long, high bluff and veered toward the fertile farmlands of the Mesilla Valley. If the dam got built, it would create the largest manmade lake in the world and would tame a river that could be as dry as a wagon road one year and flood out every village along its banks the next. A new spur line from Engle would carry supplies and materials to the site by train, and a thousand men would work years to build it.

Gene talked about the ride he’d taken on the railroad that ran from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft. He described how the tracks climbed twenty-six miles, twisting and turning high into the Sacramento Mountains across deep, wide canyons spanned by long, curving timber trestles, and the spectacular views of the basin and western mountains on the switchbacks.

“It’s a genuine engineering marvel,” he added.

“I’d love to see it,” Emma sighed, thinking that while she was dreaming about China and South Africa there were things right in her own backyard she was missing out on.

“You’ll never forget it, guaranteed.” Gene sopped up the last of the stew gravy on his plate with a piece of bread. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, I wrote a story about how you made a hand on that roundup I hired on for, and sent it off to a magazine.”

Emma’s eyes widened in surprise. “It’s about me? I didn’t know you were a writer.”

Gene blushed slightly. “I’m trying hard to become one. I’ve had some luck with a few yarns getting published, but I’ve a far piece to go still. Not many folks know about my scribblings.”

“What happened to the story?”

Gene shrugged. “It didn’t come to anything. The editor turned it down. I’m gonna rework it some and try again.”

Emma’s eyes sparkled. “You’ll be famous someday; I just know it. I’d love to read it.”

“If I get it published, I’ll send you a copy.”

“Promise?”

“I swear to it.” Gene finished his coffee and stood. “I best be on my way. Thank you kindly for the tasty meal.”

“You’re welcome. Come by anytime.”

They said good-bye on the porch and Emma watched Gene ride off. She wanted to ask about his wife and young son back east but thought better about it. Rumor had it that May Rhodes had disliked the immensity of the Tularosa Basin, yearned for the orderly boundaries and tranquil fields of her home state, couldn’t abide the constant loneliness and unrelenting winds, and desperately missed her parents.

She wondered why Gene hadn’t left the territory to be with his family or found a way to bring them back to New Mexico. Did he miss them? Some men seemed careless about holding their families together, but Gene didn’t strike her that way. Maybe it was just that hard times had befallen him.

Turning her attention to her next chore, Emma cleared off the table and moved it to the corner of the room. With the men gone for several days, she’d give the wood floor in the kitchen a good cleaning and polishing. She filled a wash pan with soapy water, got down on her hands and knees, and started scrubbing, trying not to worry about CJ. She knew he was safe with Cal and Patrick.

57

C
al’s favorite pony, Bandit, had come up lame a few weeks back and still favored his left rear leg, so he’d cut out Cactus, a bald-faced black, to take up to the cabin. Cactus had sharp teeth and a free and easy gait and liked to pitch a few times after being saddled in the morning. He was the last of the pure mustangs in the Double K remuda Cal and Patrick had gathered in Chihuahua some years back. He’d earned his name by pitching Patrick into a stand of chollas the first time he was ridden on the open range.

More a range pony than a cow horse, Cactus did fine in among the more gentle ponies. But once he got free, his wild blood took over and he ran like the wind for the high country and was almost impossible to corral. He got sold to an outfit on the Jornada, but Cal had to take him back after he broke free on his way to his new home and took to the mountains. A month later, Patrick found him in the north pasture nipping at two old breeding mares in heat that had been separated from the herd.

On level ground or on a rocky hillside, Cactus could change strides as smooth as silk. That made for an easy day in the saddle, so Cal didn’t mind if the pony did some casueying first thing. After one or two mild bucks to assert himself, Cactus settled down and did as asked without complaint.