Hard Country Read online

  Cal peered at the gash. “You’ll live. Let me check the squaw; then I’ll tend to you.”

  “She’s pregnant and not doing too good,” Kerney said.

  “I can see that,” Cal said as he approached the sweat-drenched woman. She was a girl, really, probably not even Teresa’s age. She hissed at him with angry eyes but was too weak to do any harm.

  “She’s got a broken leg,” he said. “Looks recent.”

  “I know it,” Kerney said as he pulled the kicking Apache boy upright and wrapped him in a bear hug. “Think you could climb down the hill and get your lariat so I can hog-tie this critter before he cracks my shins?”

  “I’d be glad to oblige,” Cal replied.

  He scrambled down the hill, came back with the horses, handed over his lasso, and watched as Kerney wrestled to get the squirming boy hog-tied.

  Finally finished, Kerney stood, brushed the dirt off his hands, and gave Cal a pointed look. “Thanks for all your help, partner.”

  Cal grinned as he watched the boy wriggling on the ground like a trussed-up lizard. “That was a tidy piece of work,” he allowed as he placed a boot on the boy’s back to hold him down while he inspected the dent in Kerney’s forehead. “Looks like you’ll survive. Keep an eye on the squirt while I get something to doctor you with.”

  He found some liniment in his saddlebags, cleaned the wound with his bandanna, and covered it with salve. “I think we should build a travois and get this squaw to the ranch pronto.”

  The squaw had stopped moaning and moving. Kerney bent down on one knee and lifted her buckskin skirt. Blood saturated the ground, and she was bleeding heavily. “There’s no time,” he said. “She’s dropping the baby right now.”

  Although many times in the past he’d helped cows and mares during a difficult birth, he wanted nothing to do with this pregnant squaw. The damn Apache with her big belly was like a punishment from on high, a harsh reminder that he hadn’t been there for Mary Alice. The image of his dead wife on the West Texas prairie outside their cabin welled up in his mind.

  “Give me a hand with her,” he said, trying to shake off that eerie feeling. She kicked with her good leg and tried to scratch him. Pressing her chest, he forced her to lie still as Cal gently spread her legs. Kerney probed gently with a finger until he touched something in the birth canal.

  “Push!” he shouted.

  The girl looked at him with frightened, confused eyes.

  He made a shoving gesture with his free hand. “Push!”

  With her face contorted in pain, the girl began pushing.

  “Harder, dammit!” he yelled, willing her to get it done.

  She screamed and pushed until Kerney was able to gently wrap his forefinger and thumb around the baby’s head and carefully begin to tug it free…. With one last push by the girl, the baby and the afterbirth gushed out.

  The infant, a boy, was small, silent, and blue. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. Kerney’s heart sank. He pulled the cord free and slapped the baby hard on the rump. Nothing. He did it again, hoping to hear a cry. Nothing.

  “Baby’s dead,” Cal said in a whisper.

  Kerney looked at the girl and shook his head.

  She took a deep breath, turned away, and wailed.

  “Untie the boy,” Kerney said. He put the lifeless baby on the ground next to the girl and cleaned her up some before adjusting her skirt.

  Cal looked over at the boy. He’d flipped over on his side and was watching them intently. “You sure?”

  “Yep. Feed him some of that chicken he stole while I scoop out a hole for this little one.”

  “We’re gonna have a gully washer of a storm before we can get these two back to the ranch,” Cal said as he loosened the rope.

  Kerney looked up. Heavy gray clouds filled the night sky. Miles away, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, moving fast in their direction. “If she’ll eat, give the girl some chicken too,” he said.

  The storm came pounding down as Kerney finished digging the grave with his bare hands for the dead baby. He laid the tiny body gently in the hole, covered it with dirt, and put a big rock on top to discourage wolves and coyotes. Somewhere, someday, an Apache family would mourn if they weren’t all dead already.

  Near the drowned campfire, Cal had built a travois using juniper saplings and his slicker, while the Apache boy sat at the side of the girl, silently watching.

  Kerney gathered some branches, fashioned a temporary splint on the girl’s leg, and carefully secured it with rawhide.

  “Did they eat?” he asked Cal as they carried the girl to the travois.

  “The boy did.”

  “Let’s get them home,” Kerney said, wrapping his slick over the boy’s shoulders.

  “Then what do we do with them?”

  “After the squaw heals up a bit, I’ll carry them to the reservation.”

  “If they don’t kill us in our beds first,” Cal said.

  “We can lock them in the saddle shed if you like.”

  “That’s not neighborly,” Cal replied. “I’ll keep an eye on them.” Soaked to the bone, he got in the saddle and started down the hill, the travois dragging behind Patches.

  With rain splashing over the brim of his hat, splattering his shoulders, Kerney offered a hand up on his horse to the boy, who shook his head wordlessly and hurried ahead to walk next to the girl on the travois.

  Kerney followed along, wondering what had put those two out here on their own. All he could figure was they might have been part of Nana’s band that had clashed with the Buffalo Soldiers farther north in the mountains. When retreating from their enemies, warring Apaches were sometimes forced to leave behind the old, the sick and the wounded to fend for themselves. If they survived, they’d trek many miles back to the reservation or to their remote Apache sanctuaries in the western mountains. The girl’s broken leg was recent, so he figured her pregnancy must have slowed them down in the rugged high-country terrain. He wished he could talk Apache so he could find out what had happened. Maybe he’d learn more once he got them to Fort Stanton.

  Every dry arroyo they’d crossed tracking the Apache boy from the ranch was now a torrent of angry water, and getting across ate up considerable time on the way home. It was well past midnight when they reached the ranch house. Teresa had all the kerosene lamps lit and placed on the veranda, while Ignacio stood waiting, long gun and pistol in hand, with Patrick at his side.

  Kerney slid wearily out of his saddle and smiled at his son, who didn’t even look at him as he jumped down to grab the reins of Cal’s horse.

  17

  For several days after the Apaches arrived at the ranch, Patrick watched the boy like a hawk. The Indian refused to go into the ranch house and slept outside on hard ground. He refused to touch the blankets Teresa put out for him, and the only thing he accepted was a plate of food at mealtimes. He ate on the veranda under the window of the bedroom where the squaw with the broken leg had been put up.

  He stayed there all day long, hardly moving. Once in a while he said something to the squaw in Apache through the window, but that was the only talking he did. Patrick threw pebbles at him to see what he’d do, but he didn’t even flinch. He just stared at Patrick with empty eyes.

  He was skinny but strong looking, with long dark hair that hung loose over his shoulders, dark skin, and a round face. His fierce eyes showed nothing, and he didn’t seem to care if Patrick watched him for hours and hours.

  The more Patrick watched, the more intrigued he became. He’d never seen anybody be so silent and motionless for so long. The squaw in the house was the same way: quiet and still. He’d wondered aloud if the squaw was the boy’s mother, but Cal said she was too young.

  Patrick had no use for mothers. Ida had told him over and over again that she was his mother, but sometimes when she got drunk she’d say he was an orphan and cry about a boy called Timmy. John Kerney told him his real mother had died on the prairie giving birth to him and that Ti
mmy had been Ida’s son and would’ve been Patrick’s cousin if he hadn’t got killed by outlaws.

  Ignacio’s wife, Teresa, who was nice, would sometimes try to give him a hug, rub his hair, or kiss his cheek—which he didn’t cotton to at all. She had been teaching him the Mexican lingo and once he overheard her tell Ignacio in Spanish that he needed a mother. He didn’t speak to her all day because of it. He never wanted to have a mother ever again.

  Worst of all had been Dr. Lyon’s wife, who told him he was bad and sinful and took a strap to him almost every day for misbehaving. She whipped him for not minding, for being lazy, for not remembering to say his prayers correctly. She kept him away from other children, locked him up when visitors came, and threatened him with more thrashings if he ever told the doctor about getting switched. Except for the good food she fixed him and the clean clothes she gave him to wear, he hated her.

  Patrick was equally disinterested in having a father. Ida had told him Virgil was his pa and made him call him that or she would smack him. But when Virgil hit her and took her money, she said John Kerney was his real pa and no good to boot. When he lived with Dr. Lyon, he’d been forced to call him pa or get another hiding from his wife when he wouldn’t do it.

  Slowly Patrick had come to believe John Kerney was his true pa, but it didn’t mean much because he didn’t trust grown-ups no matter who they were. He’d been handed off from one to another, with no one wanting to keep him permanent like. And while he was glad to be rid of Dr. Lyon and his wife, didn’t miss Ida and her crazy ways, or drunk Virgil, and the year at John Kerney’s ranch had been the best of his life, he didn’t think it would last. For now, he slept warm in a bed at night, hadn’t gone hungry once, and hadn’t been whipped or hit. Still, he kept watching and waiting for it to go bad again, to be told he was a devil’s child, to be slapped and punished, and to get sent away with some stranger.

  The next time it happened, Patrick decided he would run away and live like an Apache.

  Since coming to the ranch, Patrick had heard the story several times about how his real mother had died in Texas, how bad men had killed his uncle and cousin, how John Kerney had sold everything to give Ida money to take him to Dodge City and care for him there, and how after learning Ida had died he’d searched for months to find him. Cal swore to him that it was fact, but the story didn’t make Patrick either happy or sad. It was just a story.

  He didn’t remember much about Dodge City. But he had vague memories of living with Ida in a tiny room at the back of a general store, being hungry and dirty, wearing clothes too big or too small, going barefoot, and being sent away when Ida was busy with a man. After Virgil moved in with Ida, they both started drinking a lot, leaving Patrick to play in the muddy Dodge City streets with other ragamuffins and come home hungry to the stink of sweat and whiskey. He hated that smell. When Ida died at the mining camp, he often waited for hours in a cold tent with nothing to eat. When Virgil didn’t come and didn’t come, he went begging for food or money from the other miners or drunks in the tent saloons, who sometimes gave him two or three cents.

  Patrick trusted nobody: not Cal, the person he liked best of anybody he’d met in the whole world, not Teresa, the nicest lady he’d known, not Ignacio, who called him the little jefe and also taught him Spanish words, and most of all not John Kerney, who had saved him from Mrs. Lyon’s whippings.

  On the third day after the Apaches came to the ranch, Patrick screwed up his courage, walked across the veranda to the Indian boy, and sat next to him. The Apache didn’t move, didn’t look at him, and didn’t say a word. Patrick adjusted himself against the wall, crossed his legs, and remained motionless until he couldn’t stand it anymore; then he jumped up and went to see what Cal was doing.

  The next morning, he decided to try it again to figure out how the Apache could stay so still for so long. After his morning chores and again after lunch and supper, he went back and sat with the Apache, each time waiting it out a little while longer, until his muscles started twitching and he had to get up and move. Not once did the Apache say anything or even look his way.

  Finally, Patrick got bored. It was dumb to sit and do nothing, dumb not to talk, dumb to sleep on the hard ground for no good reason, dumb to be a stupid Apache. He figured Apaches were just plain crazy. “Savages” were what they were called, and Cal said the word meant wild and inhuman.

  Patrick stood up and saw John Kerney watching him from the end of the veranda. He was about to turn away when John Kerney motioned for him to approach. He screwed on a sour face and walked over to him very slowly.

  John Kerney smiled at his son. “Do you think you’d like to see where the Apaches live?” He pointed at the faraway mountains to the east.

  “Maybe,” Patrick said, hiding his enthusiasm for the idea. “Am I going to live there?”

  “No, your home is here. This is your ranch. I keep telling you that.”

  “Are there army soldiers where the Apaches live?” Patrick asked.

  Kerney nodded. “There’s a fort there. It’s a nice one.”

  “Will you leave me with the Apaches?”

  Kerney shook his head. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because.”

  “I won’t, promise.”

  Patrick looked him squarely in the eye without blinking. “Can I go now, John Kerney?”

  Kerney suppressed a wince. Having Patrick call him by name always hurt. “I keep asking you to call me Pa. It’s more natural.”

  Patrick shook his head. “You can whip me if you want.”

  “It’s no cause for a whipping.”

  “Can I go?”

  Kerney nodded. “Get along.”

  Watching Patrick run off toward the corral, where Cal was shoeing a pony, he wondered if he’d ever get through to the boy.

  A week passed, and at supper one night Teresa told Kerney that the Apache girl was healed up enough to take back to the reservation.

  Except for Cal, they would leave in the morning. In Tularosa, Teresa would visit her family, while Ignacio, Patrick, and Kerney pushed on to the reservation. On their way back, they’d pick up a load of lumber from the sawmill, which Kerney needed for the barn he planned to raise, collect Teresa away from her parents, and head home.

  The trip caused great excitement and talk around the table. Even Patrick was eager to go, for he wanted to see how savage Apaches lived. That night, he dreamt about the morning he woke up to find Ida lying dead in bed beside him.

  18

  The news that John Kerney was bringing two Apache children to Fort Stanton caused quite a commotion when he appeared outside the fort. More than three dozen Mescaleros met the little party as it crossed the river, and they trotted alongside the wagon until it stopped in front of the post headquarters, where the Indian agent, Mr. Llewellyn, and Captain Carroll waited.

  Llewellyn had orderlies carry the girl on a stretcher to the hospital under the watchful eye of an Apache scout and put the boy in the custody of an army sergeant. When Kerney asked why all the precautions, Carroll told him the two were brother and sister of Nana’s second in command, Kaytennae, and needed to be questioned.

  Llewellyn hoped having them back on the reservation might entice Nana and his band to leave the warpath and return to Fort Stanton. Captain Carroll didn’t think their safe return would make one bit of difference to the old chief. Kerney pretty much agreed with him.

  He left Ignacio at the wagon with Patrick, who watched the milling Mescaleros with wide eyes, and crossed the quadrangle to the hospital, where the post surgeon, Dr. Newton, met him on the front porch. Newton told him the girl would walk, but with a limp, once she recovered, and asked about the baby. Kerney said the baby had died, and Newton nodded, saying he figured as much.

  Kerney thanked the doctor for the information and hurried next door to the quartermaster’s store, anxious to know if the proposal he’d delivered two months ago to provide fifty saddle-ready cavalry horses to the army in six months had been app
roved. He was bidding against the Coghlan outfit, which had pretty much monopolized livestock contracts at the fort for the past five years, and didn’t think he had much of a chance. All he could hope for was a small slice of the pie.

  The quartermaster, Lieutenant Dawson, greeted Kerney with a firm handshake, escorted him into his office, and handed him a printed document that read:

  QUARTERMASTER GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS

  GOVERNING THE PURCHASE OF HORSES

  FOR ISSUE TO CAVALRY REGIMENTS

  Cavalry Horses: To be geldings of hardy colors, sound in all particulars, in good condition, well broken to the saddle, from 15 to 16 hands high, not less than 5 nor more than 9 years old, and suitable in every respect for cavalry service.

  “Would you be able to fulfill all those specifications?” Dawson asked as he settled in behind his desk.

  “I surely can,” John Kerney replied, his voice catching in his throat.

  Dawson smiled. “Our post commander feels strongly that your service to the regiment at Hembrillo Canyon deserves to be rewarded. Therefore, I am authorized to contract with you for fifty cavalry horses to be delivered here six months hence.”

  “That’s mighty generous,” Kerney said, trying not to gulp. As soon as they got back to the ranch, he and Cal would have to hive off in a hurry down to Mexico and buy at least sixty or more horses, trail them home, and get busy breaking them. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

  Dawson slid a paper across his desk, handed Kerney a pen, and indicated where to sign.

  Kerney scrawled his name, stood, and shook Dawson’s hand.

  “I’ll see you in six months, Mr. Kerney,” Dawson said, “with fifty horses ready for inspection.”

  “You have my word on it, sir,” John Kerney replied.

  He left the lieutenant and crossed the quadrangle with his mind racing ahead to all that needed doing. If the day wasn’t already more than half gone, he’d start for the sawmill immediately, load up the lumber for the barn, and set off for the ranch at first light.