Hard Country Read online

  Lacking the company of others, Mary Alice began talking to herself, letting her mind wander and her thoughts spill out whatever way they occurred to her. Mostly what she mumbled was idle chatter, but sometimes a word stuck in her head and she would whisper it over and over again as she went about her day. Other times her hatred for her life in this godforsaken place made her hiss out loud like a snake. When John was around she carefully guarded her tongue so as not to upset him.

  Today she had repeated the name John had picked for his baby, murmuring “Patrick, Patrick, Patrick,” in the hopes it would improve her disposition about the infant. But if it was to be a girl, he’d refused to pick a name, leaving that to her. She’d given it no thought until now, suddenly deciding Margaret would do. When he came home, she’d tell him Margaret.

  The dog started barking again and she looked out the open door hoping John had arrived, but there was still no sign of him. Thousands of bits of dust floated in the air on the shaft of light that shone on the dirt floor. Her skin felt dry and dead. All she wanted was for the baby to be born and the aches and pains to stop.

  After the spring thaw, they’d made a wagon trip for supplies to the army cantonment on the banks of the Sweetwater River. In spite of her urging him to remain at least a couple of days before returning to the cabin, John had started them home the following morning. Over her shoulder, the sight of the tidy rows of military buildings fading in the distance as they rattled over the ruts of the wagon road chilled her heart.

  Soon after they’d returned to the cabin, John’s brother and his family arrived, and for a while she enjoyed their company. But as time passed, she found Ida dull, Tom more boring than John, and their half-wild son, Timmy, a loud little devil. When they left to start a ranch nearby, she didn’t miss them at all. Yet, who was she to be so highfalutin? She was no better, was she?

  The dog’s constant barking agitated Mary Alice’s mind. Hadn’t she killed it with the shotgun and buried it? She got up, walked outside, and stared at the animal, chained to a post ten yards from the cabin door. The dog returned Mary Alice’s stare as it barked frantically. The day was blinding hot, with not a bit of shade, and no cooler outside than in. The sun pounded into her head while the dog snarled and yanked at the chain as if to attack her. She could feel something wet running down her legs. She raised the hem of her dress and saw dark red blood dripping onto her shoes. She sank to her knees and hugged her belly as pain seized up inside her.

  She felt sleepy and wanted go inside to lie on the bed. She tried to raise herself, but the pain came again, stronger, holding her down. She could feel the blood against her thighs.

  The dog howled with excitement.

  The contractions came faster and faster and she wondered if both she and the baby would be dead before John arrived with Ida.

  She decided it didn’t matter. She lay back and let the sun blind her open eyes.

  2

  John Kerney dug into the sun-dried, cracked earth at the base of the small hill that sheltered the spring and the small, sweetwater pond. Eight weeks of drought had about dried up the water, and the pond was but a third its normal size. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back and the sun burned his neck. He loosened the hardpan with thrusts of the shovel blade and threw the clumps of dirt into a pile that a steady southwesterly wind blew back into his face. The wind made the searing hot early evening even worse to bear.

  John Kerney paused, gauged the depth of the hole, and figured he had another two feet to go before he could bury Mary Alice deep enough to keep the wolves and coyotes away. He rammed the shovel into the ground repeatedly, hoping to hit some soft earth, and struck a big rock instead. He loosened the soil around it, pulled it free, and heaved it out of the hole.

  Inside the cabin, Ida tended to John’s newborn son. Mary Alice lay dead on the ground outside the door, covered in threadbare linens from the bed. Buddy, the mongrel dog she’d hated, strained against his chain. It had been barking with barely a pause ever since John and Ida had found Mary Alice lying in a pool of blood breathing her last, the baby about to be born.

  Most times the dog didn’t bother him, but today it set John Kerney on edge. He threw the shovel aside, got his rifle from the wagon, shot the dog where it stood, and returned to digging without a twinge of remorse.

  From inside the cabin, he could hear the weak, raspy cries of his son. With Mary Alice gone, what in the world would he do with a little one? It was a sorrowful day.

  John Kerney ran a sleeve across his forehead and looked over at the covered form of his wife. Had he ever really known her? Back in Kansas, she’d eagerly taken him as her husband, and for a while he thought she loved him. That notion passed when they reached Texas and a coolness settled over her. After a spell of getting used to her indifference, he’d found to his relief that it suited him. She never minded his silence, left him to himself, made few demands, gave herself to him without complaint in their bed, and had none of the sharp-tongue faults of the other men’s wives he’d met, including Ida.

  She had been a wee lass, with a tiny waist and a pretty face, puzzling and odd in her ways, and although he couldn’t say why, he would miss her. Best he could figure was she was not like most, and he wouldn’t come across the likes of her again.

  Finished with his digging, he went to Mary Alice, knelt down, picked her up, and carried her to the grave. She was light in his arms. Gently, he lowered her into the ground and uncovered her face so he could take one last look at her. The time in Texas had roughened and reddened her fair skin, and her blue eyes were pale and empty. He closed her eyes, covered her face so as not to throw dirt on it, and placed the big rock he’d dislodged from the grave at her feet. He thought about putting the dog in with her and decided against it. Although he’d long ago stopped believing in an afterlife, it was better to lay her at rest alone in keeping with her faith. The dog could stay where it fell for the coyotes or wolves to fight over come dark.

  He filled in the grave, made a mound over it, and fashioned a wooden cross from two pieces of wood he ripped from the barn wall. With the cross in hand, he led the milch cow to the wagon, tied it off, went to the grave, and stuck the cross in the dirt. At the pond, he shed his shirt and hat and dunked his head in the water. As he rose, he remembered Mary Alice’s laugh the day they’d found this place. Had he ever heard her laugh again? He couldn’t recall one more time that she had.

  He stood for a moment at the foot of the grave. The baby’s crying had stopped, and John wondered if it too had died. He turned and looked at the cabin, half expecting Ida to appear holding the lifeless infant. A swarm of flies buzzed around the body of the dog like a small dark cloud. He more or less liked Buddy and wasn’t sure why he’d shot him. Maybe because he didn’t want the mongrel following along once he left. Maybe because killing Buddy would have pleased Mary Alice.

  Inside the cabin, Ida sat at the table with the baby wrapped in a blanket in her arms. She was a stout woman with a broad face, a thick back, and arms as big as a man’s. Sturdy stock she was, as his brother liked to say with a laugh. A blood-soaked rag on the table and a bucket of red water at her feet told him that she’d washed the infant.

  “Why did you shoot the dog?” Ida asked, looking over at him.

  “No reason,” John said. “Does the wee one live?”

  “Yes, your son is sleeping.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “If we’d gotten here a little sooner, perhaps I could have done more.”

  John had almost killed a good team of horses driving at a murderous pace to fetch Ida back to the ranch, and there she sat accusing him of being partially to blame for his wife’s death. He clamped his jaw shut, crossed the room, and picked up the cradle. “Get ready; we’re leaving,” he said.

  Ida’s lips narrowed. “The baby needs quiet, sleep, and to be fed. Best we stay here till morning.”

  “We’re leaving,” he repeated flatly.

  Ida stared hard at her brother-in-la
w. Maybe he was smarter than her husband, and at first glance more appealing to the eye, with his tall frame and broad shoulders, but he wasn’t steady like Tom and he always seemed a bit brash in his manner.

  “You’re not coming back here, are you?” she asked.

  “I have the milch cow hitched to the wagon,” John said as he headed to the door. “Bring the baby and let’s be on our way.”

  Ida stood and followed John outside. “Did you say words over Mary Alice? She gave her life to give you the son you wanted. It would be the least you could do.”

  John turned and faced Ida with her stinging tongue. “I’m no preacher. I gave her a proper burial. That will do.”

  “Pray tell me how you will care for your child,” she called shrilly as he strode toward the wagon, carrying the cradle.

  “I do not know.” He returned to the cabin for the bundle of baby clothes Mary Alice had made and stored in the back of the cupboard.

  “Leave the child with us,” Ida said when he came back. “To raise.”

  John stopped in his tracks. “Did you talk to my brother about this?”

  “Mary Alice was frail and childbirth can be difficult. It was worrisome to me.”

  “Did you reckon Mary Alice would die?”

  Ida flushed a deep red. “I thought no such thing.” She thrust Patrick at John. “You haven’t even looked at him. Take your son. Hold him.”

  Gingerly, John took the baby. The tiny child almost fit in one of his hands. He peeled back the blanket. His head was covered in soft dark fuzz and he had a round little belly. Ida had neatly clipped and tied off the umbilical cord. The baby’s tiny fingers reminded John of Mary Alice’s dainty hands.

  “He looks healthy.” He handed Patrick back to Ida and helped her into the wagon.

  “He’s a strong one,” Ida said in a slightly more pleasant tone as she settled down on the plank-board seat. “What do you plan to do now with Mary Alice gone?”

  Kerney shook his head as he led the horses to the pond. “I don’t rightly know.”

  By the time he’d watered the horses, sunlight had faded fast behind a thin curtain of dust, throwing out a last glint of gold that stretched like a narrow ribbon across the horizon. He took one more look at the cabin and Mary Alice’s grave before turning the team away at a slow walk. Silently, he hoped Ida and the baby would stay quiet so he could do some hard thinking. In the space of an afternoon, his world had turned upside down.

  The horses knew the way to his brother’s spread, so John gave the reins some slack and watched nightfall mask the plains he’d come to love. During his time on the panhandle, he’d marveled at happening upon occasional small lakes, round as pie pans, that broke the plains, discovering thick groves of trees that stayed hidden in the creek beds until you crested the last hill, or watching an ocean of rolling green grass whipped by the wind after the spring rains brought the land back to life.

  But those feelings were now somehow changed with Mary Alice gone. The land no longer seemed to mean as much to him. Had he loved her without letting himself feel it? He felt remorseful about the possibility.

  He glanced over at the shape of the baby asleep in Ida’s arms. From the moment Mary Alice had told him she was pregnant, he’d thought mostly about the baby and hardly at all about her. But she was always meant to be there caring for their son. Now Tom and Ida would need to look after the child until John could find a way to do it on his own.

  He wasn’t about to search for another woman to take as a wife, and even if he did, he’d have to scout far afield to find one. On the frontier the chances of finding an unmarried woman who wasn’t a soiled dove or a saloon girl were about plumb zero. Moreover, the idea of marrying again held no appeal.

  The wagon ride was uneventful, and in the quiet of the night John Kerney tried to clear his mind. Patrick woke up once, crying, and Ida made Kerney stop for some fresh milk from the cow. She wet her fingers with it and let Patrick suckle, and soon he was fast asleep again. When they crested the small hill that sheltered the valley where Tom had built his home, they could see lamplight through the open door.

  “Appears my menfolk have waited up for us,” Ida said, trying to sound cheerful.

  John wasn’t so sure. In the light of a half-moon partially masked by a thin band of clouds, he could see the empty horse corral with the open gate. He hurried the team along and reached for his rifle.

  “What’s wrong?” Ida asked.

  “When I stop the wagon, you stay put,” John said as they rattled down the rutted incline.

  As they neared the ranch buildings, the moon broke through the veil of clouds, shedding enough light to reveal Timmy lying on the ground near the corral gate. Inside the corral, Tom was stretched out facedown, unmoving.

  The scream that came from Ida’s mouth was a sound John had never heard before. Clutching the baby, she flung herself off the wagon, raced first to Timmy then to Tom, and collapsed on her knees next to her dead husband. Her screams turned to gasping sobs.

  John Kerney went to Ida, took Patrick from her, and lifted her to her feet. He led her away from the bodies to the cabin and told her to sit in the rocking chair his brother had made out of cottonwood.

  When her sobs lessened, Kerney asked if she was able to care for Patrick while he tended to Tom and Timmy.

  She nodded and held out her arms for Patrick.

  “Stay here,” he said, handing Patrick to her. “Don’t come outside.”

  She nodded again, eyes wide with pain.

  “From the smell of it, he’s soiled himself.”

  “What are we to do?” Ida moaned.

  “First, care for the baby,” John Kerney replied. “That’s about all we can do.”

  He brought the cradle and baby clothes that Mary Alice had made in from the wagon, and he took a look around outside. Not only were all the horses gone, but the saddles and tack had been stolen from the barn. From the shod hoofprints he counted five riders. Neither Tom nor Timmy had been mutilated, which meant the murdering horse thieves weren’t Comanches, Kiowa, or Cheyenne. The killers were most likely white men, and were probably gathering Tom’s cattle for a trail drive to the nearest market.

  He looked in on Ida and Patrick to see how they were holding up. Dressed in some of the new clothes, Patrick slept in his cradle. The sight of him looking so peaceful made the dreadful day seem unreal. He could think of no worse way for a child to start life.

  Ida rocked gently in the chair with tear tracks on her cheeks, eyes dark and rimmed with pain. She looked half crazy. John hoped she wasn’t.

  “I’ll be outside for a time,” he said. “I’ll come get you when I’m done.”

  She gave him a blank stare and rocked a little faster.

  He carried the bodies in turn to a nearby arroyo, fetched a shovel from the barn, and began digging. With dawn about to break, he finished burying his brother and nephew. Too tired to think or feel, he walked slowly to the cabin to fetch Ida so she could say her good-byes. A brief thought of revenge seeped into his head and faded like a passing fog. Against who? he wondered. He’d talk to the army and tell them what happened. Maybe they knew who was out killing and stealing.

  He paused outside the cabin and looked at his hands. They were dirt black and sticky with dried blood. He washed up at the water barrel, trying to sort out what to do next. Nothing came to him.

  Ida was asleep in the rocking chair, as was Patrick in his cradle. Hunger pangs made John’s stomach grumble. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday. Sometime back, he’d helped Tom build a meat smoker out of an inverted barrel, with a bunghole for a vent and another hole used to keep a low, slow fire burning. Smoke-cured meat was suspended at the top of the barrel, but it still needed to be cooked before it could be eaten.

  He lifted the barrel lid, took out a fresh smoked slab of beef, took it to the cabin, got a fire going, cut the beef into strips, and put them in a skillet to sizzle. On a shelf above the fireplace was a jar filled with bread dough yea
st. He kneaded some of it, knocked it down, kneaded it once more, pressed it flat, and put it on a bakestone to be cooked over the fire once it rose. He found coffee, put the pot on to boil, and stood at the front door watching sunrise wash over the land. The sight didn’t move him as it had many times before.

  Behind him Ida stirred, and he turned. “We’ll have some breakfast soon,” he said.

  “I’ll tend to it,” Ida said without emotion, rising stiffly from the rocker, her face a blank mask. “But first, take me to Thomas and my Timmy.”

  John picked up Patrick from the cradle and led the way. He had buried father and son side by side under a young cottonwood that grew in the arroyo.

  Ida started sobbing as they approached and threw herself down between the two mounds, arms outstretched, embracing the graves.

  “No harm can come to them now,” John said.

  Ida called out to her husband and son, her fingers clawing the fresh dirt as though she was trying to unbury them.

  “No harm,” John repeated softly as he stood at the head of Tom’s grave. The early morning sun was hot in his face, but there were no tears in the corners of his eyes. Did he really care about nothing?

  He looked down at the baby boy in his arms, now awake and staring up at him. If he had a mind to believe there wasn’t much to live for, little Patrick made it a foolish thought.

  * * *

  Two days later, John, Ida, and Patrick arrived at the army cantonment by wagon, carrying Ida’s personal possessions and some clothes John had gathered up on a return visit to his ranch. While there, he went to Mary Alice’s grave once more. As he stared at the simple cross he’d fashioned, a sudden yearning for her hit him square in the stomach like the kick of a mule. He caught his breath and stifled a sorrowful sigh.

  The settlement outside the cantonment had grown considerably since John’s last visit. A trading post, livery stable, restaurant, Chinese laundry, several saloons, and a hotel now stood where buffalo hunters had once encamped to sell their hides to the Dodge City buyers.