The Last Ranch (17 page)

That weekend, Mary went with Matt to the ranch while Erma stayed at home feigning the onset of chills and a fever. It was a sweet ruse on her part to make sure Mary had Matt's undivided attention. The ploy was so blatant that Mary teased her about it on her way out the door. Erma stuck her tongue out in reply.

The long drive to the ranch started out uneasily, with Matt making nervous small talk and Mary chattering too much about nothing at all. By the time they were on the outskirts of town, they'd relaxed enough to enjoy each other's company. Matt mentioned tidbits of information about the landmarks and historical sites they passed along the way, which delighted Mary. On an unmarked farm road that paralleled the Rio Grande, he told her the true story of Consuelo Merton's ancestor, who moved his family to the west side of the river after the Mexican War so he could retain his Mexican citizenship only to lose it in 1854 when the United States bought millions of acres from the government of Mexico and promptly gave most of the land away to robber barons to build a railroad to Southern California.

They drove by the melting adobe ruins of old Fort Selden, where Matt's grandfather, John Kerney, finally found his lost son, Patrick, after many years of searching. At Rincon, a small village once a haven for outlaws and cattle rustlers during the territorial years, they turned east on a dirt road not shown on any map to the Point of Rocks, where early Spanish explorers camped before beginning the arduous journey across a hundred-mile stretch of desert, and where raiding Apaches waited in ambush for unwary settlers traveling north.

Along the remnants of the wagon road known as the Jornada del Muerto, Matt talked about the historic old ranches that had once thrown tens of thousands of cattle onto the range back in the day of the huge spreads; the Bar Cross, the 7-T-X, the Diamond A, the John Cross, and the Double K—now the 7-Bar-K.

Mary wondered about the brand change for the ranch, and Matt explained he'd been forced to sell the original brand during the Great Depression to keep from going under. It still rankled him to think about it.

He described Moongate Pass, a gaping, semicircular cut in the San Andres Mountains that on certain nights the rising moon filled perfectly. Back when Engle was more than a dilapidated semi–ghost town on the Jornada, folks would gather outside on a clear night to watch the full moon settle for a moment in the cradle of the cut. It was a breathtaking natural wonder to behold.

Without thinking, she almost asked him to bring her to see it some evening, but her good sense intervened. Until she knew if there was to be more to their relationship than a hastily agreed upon visit to his ranch, she didn't want to show too much eagerness to be with him, which might be off-putting. She quickly torpedoed any further speculation about the subject and returned her attention to the landscape.

To Mary's eye, it was a harsh and a beautiful land. Dry and dusty, worn thin by overuse, peppered by cactus and mesquite, it captured her imagination. She wanted to jump out and explore every mountain range, every thin ribbon of dirt track that disappeared into the vast tableland, every distant mesa. The sheer overwhelming power of the land deserved a major expedition, and since coming to Las Cruces she'd seen too little of it.

Matt had more stories as they entered the San Andres Mountains. The one about Eugene Manlove Rhodes publishing a short story about Matt's mother on a cattle roundup particularly intrigued her, and his surprising announcement that he personally knew Bill Mauldin as a young boy in New Mexico and as a soldier in Sicily made her impatient to see the cartoons he'd drawn about Matt's “war escapades,” as he put it, and learn more about them.

Her first view of the astonishing Tularosa Basin from the heights of the San Andres took her breath away, and it was equally spectacular from the 7-Bar-K Ranch headquarters. As they drove past a line of power poles that marched down the mountainside to the ranch house, Matt happily noted that with some help from the army, which now controlled more than a million acres in the basin, they'd finally gotten electricity at the ranch last year.

The ranch headquarters sat in a horseshoe-shaped valley that dipped to low rolling foothills. A cottonwood-shaded stream wandered through a grassy pasture and disappeared into a wide, sandy arroyo that snaked down to barren Alkali Flats pressed against the base of the foothills. On a wide, level shelf nestled against the valley's north slope stood a house made of thick adobe walls with a pitched roof, a deep veranda, and a commanding view of the basin. It was protected by a lovely windbreak of old cottonwood trees, bare of leaves but still majestic with heavy, thick boughs bent low to the ground.

A mud-plastered, flat-roofed adobe casita was linked to the house by a courtyard wall. Above the enclave, a small family cemetery enclosed by a fence dominated a knoll with a clear view of distant mountains. A dozen or so steps below the house, a barn, two corrals, a chicken coop, a windmill, a water tank, and a water trough sat at the edge of the fenced pasture, where six fine-looking ponies lazily slapped their tails and grazed on winter hay spread along the ground.

Matt slowed to a stop next to an old 1920s Chevy truck and a newer prewar Ford pickup. He'd written ahead to say he was coming to the ranch with Mary as his guest, and waiting for them on the veranda were the Sawyers and Patrick Kerney, who was easy to pick out as Matt's father by his features, height, broad shoulders, and blue eyes, clearly discernable under the brim of his cowboy hat.

Matt put his hand lightly on Mary's shoulder and smiled. “Remember, you asked for this.”

“No, you invited me,” Mary corrected. “But I'm already enchanted. Can we go riding this evening after supper?”

“Yes, ma'am, the ranch is yours to do as you wish for the weekend.”

On the veranda, hat in hand, Patrick greeted Mary with a smile and introduced her to Jim and Millie Sawyer. Jim wore thick glasses perched on a wide nose that had a downward slant, giving him an inquisitive look. Millie, in a checkered print dress and starched apron dappled with spots of flour where she'd wiped her hands, had a square face with a thick chin, giving her a truculent look that quickly evaporated in her warm smile.

Because Jim and Millie lived in the casita, Mary was to occupy Matt's bedroom, which had been cleaned and prepared for her
with fresh bed linens, several soft pillows, and a set of neatly folded bath towels. He plopped her suitcase on the bed and told her the bathroom at the rear of the kitchen had indoor plumbing, a tub and a toilet, but cold water only, so if she wanted a warm bath, the kettle first needed to be heated on the cookstove.

“Where will you be sleeping?” she asked, looking around the room. On the dresser were the two framed, autographed Bill Mauldin cartoons he'd mentioned, and on the wall above the bed was a lovely pencil drawing of a saddled pony. A series of wall pegs held chaps, a battered cowboy hat, a pair of spurs, and an old, handmade hackamore. The room window looked out on the veranda and the basin beyond, the mountains lit up in delicate detail by the low afternoon light of coming winter.

“On my bedroll in the barn tack room. It's quite comfortable.”

“I didn't mean to put you out.”

Matt laughed. “You aren't. It's a sight better than bunking with my pa. I'm guessing Millie has something special cooked up for dinner. We'll have time before we sit down to eat to take a nickel tour of the old homestead.”

“Just give me a minute,” Mary said.

“Take your time,” Matt said backing out of the open doorway. “I'll wait for you on the veranda.”

After he closed the door, Mary took a close look at the Bill Mauldin cartoons that conveyed his classic tongue-in-cheek humor. It made her eager to know more about Matt's war service.

Humming to herself, she quickly unpacked, brushed her hair in the mirror above the dresser, freshened up in the bathroom, and went looking for Matt.

***

T
he tour was marvelous. Of all that she saw, she enjoyed the family cemetery best because of the stories Matt told of the kith and kin buried there, especially his older brother, CJ, killed in the Great War and buried in France. The pride he had about his family and the ranch, and his struggles to save it during drought and the hard times of the Great Depression, served to heighten her growing feeling of respect for him.

At mealtime, Millie served up a scrumptious dinner of corn bread, chicken-fried steak, baked potatoes, and canned string beans warmed in butter, which Mary, to her amazement, devoured. It was as if for years without knowing it, she'd hungered to break bread in the company of such people in a place exactly like the 7-Bar-K. It felt like home in the best sense of the word; a feeling she'd never truly had before.

Over dinner Patrick enthralled her with stories of being a young boy living through the Indian Wars, and his later experiences in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. He seemed friendly enough, but every time she looked directly at him, he dropped his gaze and paused before resuming his tale. It made Mary unsure whether he liked her or not.

After dinner she helped Millie with the dishes at the kitchen sink. When the menfolk adjourned to the living room, she learned that Matt had sent a letter to the ranch with clear instructions for Millie to make sure the house was spic and span with everything squared away before their arrival.

“I can't remember a time before when he was ever the least bit bossy with me about my housekeeping,” Millie whispered conspiratorially. “Not once, mind you, so you must be pretty special. But don't you dare say a word that I told you.”

Flattered to learn of her importance to Matthew Kerney, Mary crossed her heart. “I promise. You like him a lot, don't you?”

Millie nodded. “I'd claim him as my own kin if I could.”

The squeaking kitchen door stopped their conversation. “The moon is up,” Matt said as he stepped inside. Instead of his glass eye he wore an eye patch. “Are you ready to go riding?”

With a smile Millie relieved Mary of the dish towel. “You go on. I'll finish up here.”

She thanked Millie, grabbed her jacket, and followed Matt outside, where he introduced her to his pony Maverick, a sorrel gelding with powerful legs suitable for scrambling up and down mountainsides, and Peanut, a pretty blue roan mare. Both were saddled and snorting impatiently to get going.

For a time they leisurely trotted up a well-traveled ranch road to the lip of the valley, where the mountain pressed against a narrowing passage. There they stopped to view the ranch bathed in moonlight below.

“It couldn't be more beautiful,” Mary said.

“My grandfather had a good eye for the land.”

“He did indeed,” Mary replied. “Speaking of your kinfolk, I can't tell if your father likes me or not.”

“He can be hard to read, but he does. He's cautious with his feelings. He got heartbroken by the little daughter of a woman I once cared about. He's never been the fatherly type, but that little girl sure got to him. I don't think he ever really forgave her mother for taking her away.”

Mary waited for more, but Matt's silence signaled he wasn't ready to elaborate. She took a different tack. “Those cartoons Bill Mauldin gave you are a treasure. Every veteran I know would brag constantly about being the subject of one of his cartoons, let alone two.”

Matt laughed. “Hilarious as they are, Bill drew them true to what happened. I got a medal for talking some Italian soldiers
into surrendering and another one for capturing a band of German ponies. Those cartoons turned me into a laughingstock with the guys in the regiment and a war hero here at home. Go figure.”

“That's it?” Mary asked, unconvinced.

“Pretty much.”

“And your eye?”

Matt's sunny expression melted. “A horse blew up in front of me. It got spooked and stepped on a land mine.”

“How awful that must have been for you and the horse.”

Matt glanced at her in surprise. “You're the first person who ever expressed a hoot or holler about that poor critter. He was a big, handsome chestnut gelding with four white stocking feet, and as spirited, smart, and agile as they come. We took to each other right away. A day doesn't go by that I don't think about him, and the men I lost.”

He saw the explosion in his mind's eye. Abruptly he averted his face, gave rein to Maverick, and started back toward the ranch. “We need to take these ponies down to the pasture and give them a good run. Are you game?”

The time for questions had passed. “I am,” Mary said, turning Peanut to follow.

They galloped the ponies in the pasture until they began to lather up and then cooled them down at a walk before taking them to drink deeply at the trough. By the time Mary got to the barn with Peanut, the night air had chilled her, but once inside and out of the breeze she soon warmed up.

“You're a good rider,” Matt said as he led Peanut to her stall and put oats in her bucket. He gave Mary a towel to wipe her pony down.

“I'm rusty and sore as hell,” Mary corrected, trying to ignore the painful kink in her side as she rubbed Peanut dry.

“You'll survive,” Matt predicted with a chuckle.

He guided Maverick to his stall, spilled oats in his bucket, gave him a quick wipe, and closed the gate. The pony promptly lifted his tail and dumped a smelly load of horse apples on the straw-covered floor.

Matt hoisted his saddle and headed for the tack room. Lugging her gear, Mary followed. In the tack room he turned on the wall switch that illuminated a bare electric lightbulb that dangled from the ceiling on a cord. A series of built-in saddle racks lined one wall directly opposite a crudely fashioned wooden bunk with a thick straw mattress covered in gunnysack. Against the far back wall stood a large old trunk and a tall Mexican cabinet on sturdy legs. Above the saddle racks a row of wall pegs held bridles and halters. Cracks in the lumber on the interior side of the outside wall were stuffed with old newspaper to insulate against the cold.