Backlands (36 page)

M
att drove the small Forest Service remuda west out of the national forest, through the village of Cloudcroft, and on to the tiny settlement of Mountain Park. Nestled against a mountainside in a narrow valley with stunning views of the Tularosa Basin and San Andres Mountains beyond, Mountain Park was a farming settlement known for producing tasty apples and sweet cider. It was a sparkling clear day and Matt could just make out the faint dip above the flats north of Rhodes Canyon that defined the boundary to the 7-Bar-K Ranch.

The roundup in the Lincoln National Forest was Matt's fourth in a year, each prompted by the need to get half-wild cattle off the land so CCC crews could start building fences and catchment dams on overused, eroded grazing allotments. Hubert Roddy, his old boss, now working out of Fort Bliss as the head honcho for all Forest Service CCC projects in the two-state region, had hired Matt as the boss for the roundups. The money meant the difference between barely scratching by and getting back into the business of raising quality beef and training the finest cutting ponies in the state. If the drought continued to ease and the economy kept improving, Matt had hopes for a brighter future.

Mountain Park wasn't much more than a bend in the road, but it was pretty, with a small white church in a stand of cedar trees sprinkled with benches and tables for summer picnics, and a substantial fieldstone grade school on a level spit of land tucked into a hillside. Neat rows of apple trees spilled into the valley, interrupted by farmsteads on a long ribbon of tillable bottomland. Towering above the village was the massive wooden railroad trellis, which snaked up to the cool pines in Cloudcroft. Below the settlement, a canyon cut into the flank of the foothills. The Forest Service ponies were bound for a pasture leased from a small farm belonging to Anna Lynn Crawford. A single woman in her mid-thirties who lived alone, Anna Lynn raised bees in hives behind her tidy cottage and sold the honey to grocers in the towns up and down the basin.

Matt always looked forward to returning the remuda to Anna Lynn Crawford's farm. He enjoyed her company and the chance to spend a pleasant hour with her over a cup of coffee in her kitchen. Although she was tall, always dressed in jeans and work shirts, wore little makeup, and was tanned from the sun, Anna Lynn was pure female. She intrigued him. In conversation, she could quickly fall into silence and look at him as though he was a complete stranger. If he asked what she was thinking, she'd answer with either a slight smile or a shake of her head and change the subject.

He was watering Patches at the trough in the pasture when she called out to him from the cottage porch to stay for coffee. He waved in reply, left Patches to graze, and joined her in the kitchen.

“Have you seen the newspaper recently?” she asked as he settled in at the table.

“Not for some time,” he answered.

“I thought not.” She handed him the front page from the
Alamogordo News.
The headline read:

RANCHER FOILS CATTLE THIEVES!

Last Tuesday, Patrick Kerney of the 7-Bar-K Ranch in the San Andres stopped rustlers in their tracks as they tried to make off with two truckloads of his cattle. According to Sierra County Deputy Sheriff Bob Singleton, a 7-Bar-K hand named Shorty Gibson threw in with the thieves to steal cattle from Kerney by trailing them to a shipping pen close to State Road 52 near Rhodes Pass, where he was to meet his criminal cohorts.

Suspecting something was amiss, Kerney, a former member of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, tailed Gibson to the rendezvous, winged one of the bandits, and disabled the trucks the thieves were using to transport the cows, thus foiling the theft.

Two men, Steve Havell and his son John, who was wounded by Kerney, were later apprehended by officers in Alamogordo at the train station after hitching a ride from an unsuspecting motorist. The abandoned cattle trucks were later determined to have been stolen from an El Paso livestock hauler, who was pleased to get his property back but dismayed that rancher Kerney had shot up the trucks, causing considerable damage.

When interviewed at the 7-Bar-K Ranch by this reporter, Patrick Kerney made no comment other than to say he was glad not to have lost his cattle to the thieves. He hoped the livestock hauler didn't try to sue him for damaging his trucks.

Kerney's son, Matthew, who manages the 7-Bar-K Ranch, was on a job with the Forest Service removing cattle from a Lincoln National Forest grazing allotment and unavailable for comment. Shorty Gibson remains a fugitive, and local authorities believe he may have left the state.

“Well, I'll be. Shorty a crook and Pa a hero,” Matt said, skimming the story again. “Doesn't that take the cake?”

Anna Lynn refilled his coffee cup. “I suppose you need to hurry back to the ranch.”

“Not necessarily,” Matt replied. “It appears the old boy has things well in hand.”

Anna Lynn smiled. “Will you stay for an early supper? I've a pork roast in the oven.”

Matt nodded. “With pleasure. I've been trying not to drool at the aroma.”

Anna Lynn rose from her chair. “Good. I'll get you a towel and you can wash up at the sink.”

As Matt dried his hands at the sink, a boy's voice called out from the porch, “Miss Anne, I've got those drawings you ordered.”

He turned to see a scrawny kid with a big head standing in the doorway with a sketch pad in his hand.

“Come in, Billy.” Anna Lynn retreated from the cookstove and wiped her hands on her apron. “Let's see what you've done.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Billy said, staring at Matt as he crossed to the table. “Is that saddled pony in the pasture yours?”

“It is.” Matt extended his hand. “I'm Matt Kerney. That pony is Patches.”

The boy's eyes lit up as he shook Matt's hand. “Billy Mauldin. Your pa stopped the rustlers. It was in the papers.”

“So I've just learned. What have you got there?”

“Drawings Miss Anna Lynn asked for.” He opened the sketch pad and placed three drawings on the table: a nicely rendered sketch of Anna Lynn's cottage, a drawing showing Anna Lynn in her beekeeper hood standing next to the row of hives, and a scene of the Forest Service ponies in the pasture.

“These are wonderful,” Anna Lynn gushed as she examined each carefully.

“Thank you, ma'am,” Billy said, looking pleased.

“How much do I owe you?” Anna Lynn asked.

“Seventy-five cents apiece,” Billy replied. “That's two dollars and twenty-five cents.”

“I'll get my coin purse.” She stepped into the bedroom.

Billy looked out the open front door at Patches loitering in the pasture. “I'll do a drawing of your pony for a dollar,” he proposed.

“Right now, on the spot?” Matt asked.

Billy nodded. “I'll do a quick one now for fifty cents. But for a dollar, I can do a nicer one. That's a fine-looking pony you have.”

“And you're quite a salesman,” Matt replied, putting a dollar in the boy's hand. “When you've got it done, leave it here and I'll pick it up the next time I ride through.”

Billy grinned and pocketed the dollar. “Thanks, mister.”

“Call me Matt.”

“Okay, Matt.”

Anna Lynn returned with her coin purse and tumbled some coins into Billy's outstretched hand. “Have you found another customer?”

“Yes, ma'am, I'm doing a portrait of Matt's pony.”

“Would you do a portrait of Matt for me?”

“You bet I will,” Billy said with a smile. “And because you're a repeat customer, it's gonna cost only seventy-five cents.”

“I'll pay you now.” More coins fell from Anna Lynn's to Billy Mauldin's hands.

Billy pocketed his earnings and had Matt sit on the porch step while he did some rough sketches. While Billy worked on his sketches, Matt asked how he'd learned to draw. Billy told him he was paying for a mail-order illustration course with the money he earned painting window signs, poster signs, and advertising banners for businesses up and down the roadway.

“I'll have this ready in a few days,” he said after releasing Matt from his pose. He stuck his sketch pad under his arm and said, “Adios.”

“Adios,” Matt replied as Billy hurried off on rickety legs to the pasture gate. He squatted on his haunches and started sketching Patches, who seemed to know what was up and stood stock-still as Billy worked.

Matt turned to Anna Lynn. “Why would you want a portrait of me?”

Anna Lynn smiled. “To keep, of course. Come inside and I'll serve up our dinner.”

Over dinner, Matt learned that Anna Lynn had been raised by a strict Lutheran farmer in Illinois who'd lost his wife at a young age. When he died, his five daughters sold the farm and went their separate ways, Anna Lynn coming west to New Mexico.

“On your own?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“To farm?” Matt asked.

“I wasn't sure what I wanted to do until I saw this land.”

“You've done all this by yourself?”

“Yes.”

Matt grinned. “My ma would have liked you.”

“Tell me about her.”

He told her about Emma, including her time on the ranch and the short story Gene Rhodes had written about her. He was drying dinner dishes standing next to her at the sink, their shoulders touching every so often, when he ran out of words. For a wonderful moment he felt contented and aroused. After the last dish was dried, he praised her cooking, thanked her for her hospitality, and stepped outside into the gathering dusk. Had that much time passed?

She was right beside him on the porch, their shoulders touching. “If you don't kiss me right now, I'll scream,” she whispered.

He pulled her to him, lifted her head, and kissed her, long and deep. “I could stay a while longer,” he said, his heart pounding.

Anna Lynn rested her head against his chest. “I'd like that.” She reached her hand deep into a front pocket of his jeans. “Come to my bedroom.”

“As you wish,” he mumbled.

She lit the bedside lamp and undressed before him, unself-consciously, slowly, revealing her long, slender legs, her narrow waist, her firm breasts. He stumbled out of his clothes and into her arms. They made wonderful love. As soon as they finished, they did it again.

“Can I spend the night?” he asked, not yet fully spent.

“Oh, please do,” Anna Lynn replied, nibbling his ear. “It's been a very long time since I've had a man in my bed all night long.”

He searched her face, beautiful in the lamplight, thought to ask when that might have been, but instead turned and pulled her warm body close. He felt her melding into him and decided it didn't really matter.

E
very time Matt visited Anna Lynn in Mountain Park, Billy Mauldin made an appearance with more sketches to sell, always at a discount for his best customers. Matt went home after each visit with one or two of Billy's drawings. He tacked them to the walls of the casita, where he bunked.

Young Billy had talent, especially as a cartoonist. But Matt's favorite piece was the drawing Billy had done of Patches loafing in Anna Lynn's pasture. He kept it in a special frame on the table in the sitting room next to the chair he used for reading.

On one of Matt's overnight stays in Anna Lynn's bed, she asked him if he thought she was wicked and immoral.

“I haven't thought about it or considered it,” he replied, taken aback. “Why do you ask?”

“I am not a whore, Matt,” she said seriously.

Her tone made Matt sit up in the bed. “Have I done something to make you think I don't respect you?”

Anna Lynn shook her head. “No, I just want you to understand that I'm virtuous in my own way.”

“And what way is that?”

“I'm faithful to all of my lovers.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “All of your lovers? How can that be?”

She sat up next to him. “I only have one lover at a time. As long as he shares my bed, no other man can have me.” Her expression left no doubt that she meant what she said.

Matt carefully weighed his response. “You're giving me fair warning, right?”

Anna Lynn's eyes lit up. “Thank you for understanding without making a fuss about it. I'd hoped you would.”

“Why is that?”

“Not once have you tried to lay claim to me.”

“That's an interesting way to put it,” Matt said. “Perhaps I've just been biding my time.”

Anna Lynn shook her head. “I don't think so. But I want you to know that I have no wish to marry, ever.”

Matt wondered why she was opposed to marriage but thought it best not to ask. “If you're planning to replace me, should I start having hurt feelings now, or wait until I'm dumped?”

Anna Lynn laughed wickedly, threw the covers back, rolled over, and straddled him. “I'm not through with you yet, cowboy. Not by a long shot.”

Over the course of a year, deep into the summer of 1936, Matt saw Anna Lynn whenever he could. It was always satisfying, but there was never enough time together for either of them. In fact, her only complaint was that his visits were too infrequent. Matt felt the same, but work came first.

On a late July afternoon in Mountain Park, Billy Mauldin arrived on Anna Lynn's porch with news that his parents had split up and he was striking out with his older brother, Sid, for Arizona. They'd lived there once before and they knew a lady who ran a boardinghouse who had agreed to take them in on credit until they got jobs.

“Since my brother fixed the engine on the Model T, I've gotta pay for the gas and oil on the trip,” Billy said. “So I'm selling the last of my sketches to raise the money.”

He spread the drawings from his sketchbook on the porch and waited patiently while Matt and Anna Lynn selected ten each at the discounted price of fifty cents apiece.

Anna Lynn gave Billy a worried look along with a five-dollar bill. “Are you and Sid going to be all right in Phoenix on your own?”

Billy's grin was cocky and self-assured. “We'll get along okay. You can bet on it.” He pocketed Matt's money and shook his hand. “You keep those doodlings of mine, because some day I'm gonna be a famous cartoonist.”

“I sure will,” Matt promised.

With a good-bye wave and a lopsided smile Billy sauntered up the canyon to the highway.

“He's a pistol,” Matt said. “I'm betting he'll do just fine.”

“Speaking of barrels,” Anna Lynn said, her hand reaching inside his shirt. “I'm in desperate need of some attention inside.”

“With pleasure, ma'am,” Matt said with a grin.

***

F
orest Service work had kept Matt busy to the point of forcing him to turn over the joint cattle operation to Al Jennings of the Rocking J and his son, Al Jr. Al had agreed to manage the herd, get the beef to the butchers in the fall, and split the profits equally with Matt, since the 7-Bar-K high-country pastures continued to have the only decent grazing land on either spread. That freed up Matt to spend his ranch time with the ponies and saved the cost of hiring a man to replace Shorty Gibson, who, according to rumors, was somewhere in Louisiana hiding from the law and living under an alias.

Patrick carried his load around the ranch without complaint. He kept the operation organized, well stocked, repaired, and in working order. He helped out with the horse training as much as his bad leg would allow and always had good advice on ways to school a reluctant pony.

He rarely went to town and had stopped drinking completely. Whatever fueled Patrick's suspicious and antagonistic nature had simmered down into an old man's occasional crankiness. For Matt, that change in Patrick was cause for great relief. He'd stopped worrying about his going off half-cocked into one of his rants and rages.

In spite of Matt's attempt to interest rodeo cowboys in his ponies, he'd sold only a few to some calf-roping and steer-wrestling cowboys who were just starting out on the circuit. But word was getting out that the 7-Bar-K sold quality horseflesh at a fair price. If those rodeo cowboys who'd bought from him started winning buckles and prize money, Matt was sure business would pick up.

In the fall, Matt planned to auction three of his top cutting horses and a half dozen of his best roping ponies. With the proceeds, he'd restart a program to raise ponies for breeding stock just like they'd done before the Depression.

In August, a letter came from Hubert Roddy asking Matt to visit with him within the next two weeks at Fort Bliss about a special job he had for him. Intrigued by the notion of taking a break from the ranch and the ponies, Matt wrote back setting a date when he'd come by and visit. Then he rode over to Anna Lynn's place and asked her to take a long-weekend getaway with him to El Paso.

She got excited about his invitation right away. After a long siesta in her bed, they agreed to rendezvous at the Hotel Paso del Norte after his meeting with Hubert Roddy. On Matt's way home, he called the hotel from a gas station in Tularosa and made the room reservation.

He loped Patches homeward thinking about his night in El Paso with Beth. They'd been so young and innocent in so many ways. It was a sweet memory etched into his mind forever. Matt wondered how different his life would have been if Beth was alive and with him now. He still loved her and maybe always would. But it wouldn't stop him from loving again.

***

O
n the day of his meeting with Hubert Roddy, Matt traveled to El Paso on an early train so he could get business out of the way and start his weekend getaway with Anna Lynn. Roddy's office was in a cramped room in an old converted barracks that housed the Forest Service CCC administration unit on the sprawling, dusty Fort Bliss army base just outside the city. He greeted Matt with a warm handshake, poured him a cup of coffee, plopped his boots on top of a knee-high pile of official-looking bound documents stacked on the floor next to his desk, and got right down to business.

“I need your help, Matt. One of my staff who did camp inspections took a promotion to California two months ago, and I haven't been authorized a replacement. I've got two men hurt and on limited duty, and my bosses are nipping at my heels about overdue reports. I need you to conduct six inspections in the next four weeks.”

“What exactly would I be inspecting?” Matt asked.

“Everything,” Roddy replied. “Don't worry, we've got all the forms and instructions you'll need, plus you'll be trained. The six camps are spread from hell-and-gone across Arizona and New Mexico, so I've arranged for the army to lend us an airplane and pilot to fly you around. Hell, I'd go myself if I had time, just to rubberneck from the wild blue yonder. Are you game?”

“I am, but I can't start until midweek.”

Roddy grunted in displeasure. “That'll have to do, I guess, since you're doing me a big favor. Be back here next Wednesday. I'm doubling your pay for this.”

Matt grinned. “That's good news.”

“You'll earn it. Camp inspectors aren't very popular, especially with the crooks who like to steal from Uncle Sam. Don't let on you speak Spanish; it may give you an edge.”

“Do I get a badge and gun?”

Roddy laughed. “I wish. The most I'm allowed to do is fire the miscreants. Washington doesn't want even a hint of scandal to surface about President Roosevelt's pet project. Pack light and don't worry about where you'll bunk here. We'll have a VIP room reserved for you at the Bachelor Officers' Quarters.”

“A VIP room,” Matt remarked, raising an eyebrow. “You bureaucrats sure live high off the hog.”

Roddy chuckled, swung his feet to the floor, and stood. “Ain't that the truth.”

***

M
att walked into the lobby of the Hotel Paso del Norte, thinking he had an hour or two to kill before Anna Lynn arrived, only to find her curled up in an easy chair with reading glasses perched on her nose, engrossed in a book. He bent down and got her attention with a kiss on her cheek that brought her out of the chair and into his arms. He'd never seen her look lovelier. She wore a pleated skirt, full at the hemline just below the knees, and a flowered blouse with padded shoulders and billowy sleeves.

“You're beautiful,” he said.

“Careful, or I may begin to think you're courting me,” she cautioned, her eyes twinkling,

“Never, my lady. May I carry your valise to our room?”

“I'll permit you to do that, as long as you behave properly when we're alone,” she answered regally.

They checked in, went to their room, and made love before venturing outside to stroll around the old plaza. The El Paso Gentlemen's Rio Grande Rowing Club, the classy speakeasy Matt had visited with Beth, had gone the way of Prohibition, replaced by a seedy, stale-smelling bar filled with loud, foul-mouthed drunks. After wandering in and out of shops, they returned to the hotel and had drinks in the fancy bar before Matt hired a taxi to take them to the Casa Blanca in Juárez for dinner. It was still a high-class bordello with the best restaurant in the city, filled with beautiful señoritas and wealthy clients from both sides of the border.

They left hours later, contented, satiated with fine food and wine, and pleasantly entertained by a cellist playing Mozart in the grand dining room. As they walked to their cab, Anna Lynn squeezed Matt's arm and said Casa Blanca was now and forever her favorite nightspot for secret rendezvous, lascivious liaisons, and decadent, scrumptious dining.

“It arouses all your senses,” she said. “Can we dine there again tomorrow night?”

“You bet,” Matt replied, feeling flush with the money he was about to earn on the Forest Service job.

“How did you come to know of this place?” she asked as she slipped into the taxi.

“I can't tell you,” Matt said mysteriously as he slid next to her. “It's a secret.”

She laughed and pressed against him. “Oh, I do like you, cowboy. Tell the driver to hurry to the hotel.”

When they kissed and parted at the train station on Sunday evening, they had exhausted each other in all the best possible ways.

***

C
aptain Cornelius Franklin, U.S. Army Air Corps, flew over the 7-Bar-K ranch house, dipped a wing of his Curtiss Falcon biplane, landed on the nearby hardpan alkali flats, and quickly decided the expanse of desert that stretched between the two mountain ranges was much more interesting from the air. He shut down the engine, climbed out of the open cockpit, lit a cigarette, and waited for his passenger to arrive. Within a few minutes two riders approached from the ranch, Matthew Kerney, whom he'd met at Fort Bliss, and an older fellow introduced as his father, who wanted a close look at the flying machine.

Accustomed to such requests, Cornelius walked the old gent around the plane, answered his questions, let him peer into the cockpit and the forward observation deck, and explained that the aircraft was used to provide commanders in the field with information on enemy armaments, positions, supplies, and troop strength. The old-timer shook his head in wonder and announced it was a shame such a contraption didn't exist when he was charging up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt.

A West Point graduate and avid student of military history, with sixteen years of stateside service, Franklin shook Patrick Kerney's hand and congratulated him on such a splendid accomplishment before getting Matt and his gear loaded onboard. He cranked the engine, gave a thumbs-up to the old Rough Rider, and went airborne, turning the Curtiss west toward the Gila Wilderness as they quickly gained altitude.

Spellbound, Matt craned his neck from side to side, trying to see as much as he could of the land rocketing by hundreds of feet below, the 7-Bar-K Ranch exposed in high relief with all its contours, ripples, peaks, and valleys spread out against an endless horizon.

All thoughts of his assignment, the endless forms he'd studied, the check sheets he was to use, the minutiae he had to scrutinize for each camp inspection, flew out of his head. Never had he seen anything so marvelous as the earth from the sky. The plane skipped over the green and muddy brown ribbon of the Rio Grande, rose over wrinkled, juniper-studded foothills, and fought headwinds as it climbed above the roadless, forested Black Range wilderness.

Suddenly, Franklin banked, slowed, and brought the biplane to a bumpy landing on a dirt airstrip that ran on top of a pencil-thin mesa. Landing gave them a telescopic view of a grassy plain encased in a wide, enormous basin. Franklin throttled back the engine, pointed at the ground, and shouted, “This is your stop. I'll see you in two days.”