Backlands (35 page)

While working for the Forest Service, Matt had seen a new pamphlet from the quartermaster corps for use in the CCC camps. It listed more than five hundred required food items, set minimum daily meal portions for each enrollee, and outlined menus and recipes for camp cooks to use. The pamphlet called for a lot of beef to be served to those hundreds of hungry CCC boys just about every day.

Matt put Al's letter aside. Tomorrow he'd ride up to the high pastures and take a look at the land. Although it was frustrating not to have Double K cattle grazing in the high country, if he agreed with Al's assessment, he'd mosey over to the Rocking J and make the deal. He'd take Patches and trail Calabaza. Both ponies needed the exercise.

He pawed through the rest of the mail and unearthed a letter from a Texas rancher that got his full attention. Mr. Kenneth Killebrew, owner of the Double K Ranch outside of San Angelo, had recently bought a second spread in the Cimarron to use for spring and summer grazing. Killebrew wanted to know if the Double K stock brand registered in New Mexico was for sale. If it was, he offered five hundred dollars.

Matt crumpled up the offer to throw it away but stopped. Five hundred dollars was a huge windfall. It was enough to put some cattle back on the land, pay for feed, hire a hand, and get the critters fattened up in time to sell after fall works. With new CCC camps scheduled to open in Mayhill, Capitan, Carrizozo, Corona, and a dozen more spots near the basin, the market for beef would grow. Now was the time to restock and sign delivery contracts with the butchers who'd be supplying the beef to the camps. Producers were looking to unload their herds and were selling cheap. Maybe Al Jennings would be interested in throwing in with Matt on a larger scale.

Pa wouldn't like giving up the brand, but he didn't have a say in it. Either sell the brand or lose the ranch. Matt pulled the brand book out of a bottom desk drawer and thumbed through it, looking for a brand to replace the Double K. As far as he could tell, the 7-Bar-K brand was available. If so, it would do nicely. Seven was a lucky number, and seven Kerneys had lived on the ranch since John Kerney staked his first claim to it.

It was time to make a fresh start with a new brand. With five hundred dollars of Kenneth Killebrew's money, he just might be able whip the god-awful Depression and the lingering drought, or at the least fight them to a draw.

P
atrick Kerney reached down, carefully guided the foot of his bad leg into the stirrup, and told his new pony, Ribbon, to walk on. It was an hour past sunup, and out in the pasture Calabaza nuzzled Stony, ignoring Patrick completely. He turned up the trail that led to the high country, where Shorty Gibson, the cowboy Matt had hired two years ago for room, board, and twenty dollars a month, was encamped at the cabin for the summer.

Calabaza and Stony were old ponies now and well past their prime, as was Patrick. Assuming he had the year of his birth right, he was sixty. At his age, he had no quarrel with putting those two ancient ponies out to pasture in spite of what it cost to feed them. It brightened his day to get up every morning and see those two old friends lazing and loitering together.

At the top of the hill he paused at the family cemetery, where John, Emma, and Molly were buried along with Cal Doran, John Kerney's partner, and George Rose, a top hand and old friend. Patrick had once told Emma that CJ belonged buried among his comrades in a military cemetery in France, but he'd changed his mind. CJ should be resting here with his family on Kerney land, with the wide, forever views of the Tularosa.

Ribbon snorted in impatience and Patrick gave him rein. He was a sturdy eight-year-old gray gelding with a thin stripe that curled like a black ribbon on his right haunch, thus his moniker. He wasn't the fastest pony, or the smartest, but he suited Patrick just fine. He had a nice steady gait, an abundance of endurance, and a calm personality.

It was an unusually cool July morning by way of a cloudy sky. Although the drought hadn't ended and the monsoons hadn't arrived, a series of light rains over the past month had somewhat refreshed the high meadows and pasturelands. Up-country, eighty head of cattle grazed on the only good patch of grass on the entire eastern slope of the San Andres. The rest of the range was dust covered and sandblasted.

Matthew had asked Patrick to spell Shorty for a long overdue promised weekend off. Patrick was glad to do it. In fact, he liked the fact that Matt ran the show, and although he'd never say so, it eased his mind considerably to have him in charge. Modern ranching required men with more smarts and education than he had, and Matt had plenty of both to spare, plus damn good horse sense.

Matt had shamed him into getting back on his feet, forced him back to work, and saved the ranch. It was the Double K no longer. Matt had sold the brand to a Texas oilman who masqueraded as a rancher. Now it was the 7-Bar-K Ranch. Although Patrick still had a hard time getting his mind around the change, he harbored no resentment. In fact, not much aggrieved him anymore.

Matt had used the oilman's money to buy a small herd of cows and throw in with Al Jennings to sell beef to butchers in Silver City, Roswell, Las Cruces, Socorro, and smaller towns that supplied CCC camps across the southern part of the state. They were resting the high pastures every winter to allow the grass to recover, supplementing with feed when they restocked in the spring, and, so far, selling every animal after fall works.

Each of the last two years, both outfits had made enough money to stay debt-free and pay taxes, which put them way ahead of most other family-run outfits that were still in business. But Matt wasn't satisfied with getting by in hard times. He'd also taken on all the temporary work the Forest Service sent his way, and he poured his paychecks into a small herd of ponies he was training with Patrick's help to be topflight cutting horses. Once they were finished and ready for sale, Matt planned to put out an auction notice to regional stockmen's associations and the six-year-old Rodeo Association of America. If he could attract the interest of rodeo cowboys and the big ranchers who promoted the sport, training cutting horses might become a steady, lucrative enterprise.

Patrick had grown up thinking of rodeoing as nothing more than a cowboy pastime done for fun and bragging rights. It had taken Matt's savvy to recognize that it was now a business that needed quality horseflesh in order to operate.

Matt was away from the ranch for several weeks, ramrodding a Forest Service roundup of livestock from a grazing allotment in the Lincoln National Forest. In his absence, Patrick worked the ponies. Although his gimpy leg limited how much he could do in the saddle, he made progress with each of the twenty-five.

Patrick made good time to the cabin. Happy Jack, Shorty's horse, was saddled and waiting in the corral next to the cabin when he arrived. He dismounted and called out a hello that brought Shorty to the open door, spurs jingling. He was stocky and short, with wide shoulders and legs about as bowed as could be.

“You look ready to skedaddle,” Patrick said.

“I'm a man hungering for some female companionship,” Shorty allowed, fixing his hat firmly on his head. “I moved the herd to the tank pasture this morning. They've got water and grass. No need to trouble yourself with them until I get back, unless you're just hankering to ride up and take a look-see.”

“Maybe come morning.” Patrick handed Shorty his pay envelope. “Where you headed?”

Shorty grinned. “First to Engle, then on to El Paso by train. I'll get me a room at the Hotel Paso del Norte and look up a little lady friend of mine name of Millie, if she's still in town. I'll be back in three days.”

“Does that give you enough time to kick up your heels?”

Shorty laughed as he stepped to the corral. “It will have to do. She'll have my pockets emptied by then anyway. Adios.”

Patrick waved good-bye as Shorty loped his pony down the trail. Not sure if he wanted to loll around the cabin until morning, he tied Ribbon to a corral post, went inside, stoked the coals in the woodstove, warmed up the half-full coffeepot, poured a cup, and wandered back out the front door. From the looks of things, Shorty's anticipation of a weekend with Millie had distracted him from work. He should've been cutting winter firewood for the cabin. Instead, he'd let the woodpile get way too low. And the corral gate hung lopsided from a sloppy piece of work where he'd reattached a hinge to the post.

Back inside the cabin, Patrick noticed that all Shorty's gear and clothing were gone, cleaned out like he wasn't coming back. That struck Patrick odd, as the old boy had just rode out with only his saddlebags and the clothes on his back.

He climbed aboard Ribbon, trying to decide which direction to take, north or south. If Shorty had moved the herd north to the tank pasture, he'd done it a month early. What cause did he have to do that? And if a body was in a big hurry to get south to El Paso, why use the trail that led to the state road? Making horse tracks over the mountain and down the gentle western slopes of the San Andres would save a lot of time.

If Shorty had moved the herd like he said, Patrick would cut trail after an hour of fast riding. Should he spend his time checking on the herd or follow Shorty? Since hiring on, that old boy hadn't done anything untrustworthy. Still, logic told him it was best to keep an eye on the cowboy, not the cattle.

He urged Ribbon down the trail, careful to stay far back and out of sight. Horse tracks showed that Shorty had set a fast clip. Patrick wondered if his uneasiness was misplaced. Could be the cowboy was simply in a hurry and riding to town on the trail he liked best. He mulled turning back until he caught sight of Shorty cutting across the open, teardrop canyon where they gathered cattle for shipment. There were at least forty cows in the stock pen and two empty livestock trucks idling nearby.

Shorty was selling more than half the herd to cattle thieves. Patrick marveled at the idea of stealing cows by the truckload and figured it to be a first, because he'd never heard of such a thing before.

He backed up behind the ridgeline and made a slow descent out of sight, contemplating the situation. By the time he got below, slow and easy so as not to be spotted, the cattle would be loaded. If they were ahorseback, he could shoot the two drivers out of their saddles. But once they were under way in the trucks, he'd have a hell of a time stopping them. Counting Shorty, the odds were three to one against him.

Patrick considered his options. The stock pen was a mile in from the state road on a dirt track that squeezed through the canyon with passage for one vehicle at a time. If he wanted to stop them, he'd have to hurry. He eased Ribbon down the rocky back side of the canyon to a narrow arroyo and spurred the pony on. Blowing hard and lathered, Ribbon got him there just as the sound of the approaching trucks drew near. He dismounted, pulled his long gun from the scabbard, shooed Ribbon away out of danger, dropped to one knee, chambered a bullet, and waited. The nose of the first truck appeared around the bend. He put a bullet in the radiator and another in the windshield next to the driver's head. He got to his feet and hobbled as fast as he could for cover, expecting to hear gunfire and feel the jolt of a bullet in his back. All he heard was cursing.

On the back side of the canyon, he crawled to the summit, dragging his bad leg, with loose stones clattering underfoot. No gunfire yet, so he hadn't been spotted. But where the hell was Shorty with his Winchester?

Out of breath and sweating like a pig, he took a quick peek down at the trucks. There was no one in sight. He put two bullets through the hood of the lead truck to disable the engine, and two into the second truck.

“You son of a bitch,” a man called out.

“Turn my cattle loose,” Patrick yelled back.

“If we do, then what?”

“Where's Shorty?”

“He turned tail.”

“I don't believe you.”

“I swear to it, mister.”

“Let me see you and your partner with no pistols showing.”

“You ain't gonna kill us?”

“I should. The last man that tried to steal from me is dead. Come out where I can see you, let my cattle go, and you'll live.”

Only one man was doing the talking, and that troubled Patrick. He squirmed a few yards away and turned on his back to keep an eye out for a sneak attack from behind.

“What about the law?” the man called.

“I reckon by the time I get my cows back to the stock pen and go to town for the sheriff, you boys will be long gone.”

“What about our trucks?”

“While I don't cotton to the notion of cattle thieves going scot-free, the trucks stay where they are and you leave by shank's mare.”

“We gotta think on that.”

“Take your time,” Patrick glanced over the edge. There was no sign of either driver. He turned back, caught sight of a figure sneaking to the cover of a boulder twenty feet down the canyon wall, and shot him in the shoulder. The man—more a boy than not—yipped like a puppy in pain, his eyes wide. Patrick slid down and disarmed him.

“Did you kill him?” the man below bellowed, worry in his voice. “Is he dead?”

“Not unless I shoot him again.”

“No need for that,” the man replied, his voice quavering. “I'll free your cattle now. Just bring the boy to me.”

“He's your kin?”

“He's my son.”

“I winged him; he'll survive. Tell me again where Shorty is.”

“He's long gone with our money, I swear.”

“Put your pistol and any other weapons on the hood of the truck and I'll bring him to you once my cows are loose.”

“Yes, sir.”

Patrick kept his eye on the man until he shucked his pistol and released the first truckload of cattle. Then he turned his attention to the boy, a kid no more than sixteen, who was shaking in shock and fear.

“Have you done any thieving like this before?” Patrick asked, wrapping his bandana tight against the boy's wound.

The boy shook his head. “No, sir. Am I bleeding to death?”

“Nope,” Patrick said as he helped the boy to his feet. “You'll live. Let's go. Slide down backward facing me.”

When they reached the dirt track, he poked the barrel of his rifle in the boy's back and told the man to show himself. He hurried into view, and there was no doubting the family resemblance. Both had the same long noses, big ears that stuck out, and yellow hair. Neither looked like the hardened criminals Patrick had known in the Yuma Prison, but that didn't soften his attitude. When the second cattle truck was empty, he pointed his rifle in the direction of the state road and said, “Git, and don't ever come back.”

The man nodded as he led the boy away. “I swear we won't.”

Patrick whistled for Ribbon to come. When the pony trotted to him, he mounted quickly and followed behind the would-be rustlers to the state road.

The man stopped in the middle of the road. “My boy needs a doctor,” he pleaded.

“Then its best that you get a move on,” Patrick replied with a wave of his long gun. He was not in a charitable mood.

He watched them disappear from sight before turning to gather the cattle and push them along to the stock pen, where he'd rest them for the night. It had been a helluva good day, one of his best in years.