Backlands Read online

  In spite of all the glitz and excitement, LA hadn’t escaped the Depression. On Sunday afternoon family drives with Daddy, they frequently passed by unsavory places where vagrants lived in tent cities, hobos clustered on street corners looking for handouts, and immigrant families had spilled into and filled some of the older, run-down neighborhoods. Food lines for the unemployed outside the churches stretched for blocks, and on cool nights the temporary shelters were quickly filled by the homeless. Big, beefy policemen patrolled in paddy wagons, rounding up tramps and beggars who were quickly replaced by new drifters.

  Daddy made Beth and Emily promise to stay away from such places and threatened to take away their privileges if they didn’t obey. Both girls swore to follow his wishes.

  On weekday evenings after dinner, Daddy worked on business in his study while Beth, Emily, and Mother gathered in the front room to chat, listen to the radio, and write letters. Beth wrote regularly to Matt, describing where she’d gone, what she’d done, and what she’d seen in the most glowing terms possible, hoping he missed her so badly he’d be unable to resist coming to see her no matter what. In her attempts to sway him she’d repeatedly refilled the fountain pen he’d given her.

  So far her appeal to his adventurous spirit had been trumped by his empty pockets, although in his most recent letter he said his boss at the Railway Express Agency might give him a free pass to ride the caboose on a freight train to Los Angeles. She was thrilled by the prospect. If she could get him here, he just might like it enough to want to stay.

  She finished her latest letter to him, sealed it in an envelope, and settled into a chair on the front porch. Inside, Mother and Emily were listening to the Amos ’n’ Andy show on the radio. Las Cruces had one radio station that played mostly instrumental music and went off the air at sundown. In the Los Angeles area, dozens of radio stations were on the air morning, noon, and night, many of them broadcasting national shows originating from Chicago, New York, and other cities. It was like listening in as the entire country talked, sang, joked, laughed, and danced. Mother was so fascinated by it she scheduled her evenings around her favorite shows.

  The evening air was cool and pleasant and the neighborhood was quiet. All the houses on the street, which ran up a gentle hill behind the cliff that bordered the beach, were situated to give a view of the ocean. The cottage Daddy had bought sat on the crest of the hill, with a front lawn that sloped deeply down to the sidewalk. Although Mother had called the cottage small in her letter, it was the largest house on the street, with three bedrooms, a full bath, a study, a large kitchen, a walk-in pantry, a dining room, and a front parlor.

  Beth had dreams about a house of her own with Matt, and someday a baby or two to love after he finished college. For now, there was no need to rush headlong into family life. She was sure that whatever Matt chose to do, he would succeed at it. He was confident, smart, and hardworking. For herself, she didn’t want to be just a wife and mother. She’d dreamt of becoming a doctor since childhood and had no plans to abandon her goal. Now that she was better she needed to stop wasting time. She would visit the state university campus near Beverly Hills tomorrow and find out about the curriculum.

  Suddenly impatient, she needed Matt sitting right next to her so the two of them could work everything out. Would it be Los Angeles or Las Cruces? College work here at the state university or at A&M? Matt’s cute New Mexico casita or a darling cottage in LA? The mountains or the ocean?

  In the gathering dusk, with the last bit of pink from the sun a thin ribbon draped along the far edge of the ocean, a convertible car with the top down pulled to the curb in front of the house. Walter Armistead, the fellow Emily secretly adored, hopped out and hurried up the pathway to the house. Beth had gone with Emily to a party Walter threw at his family’s beach house and had met him there. His father, Harry Armistead, was a native Los Angeleno who owned farmland that enriched the family with revenue from the production of dozens of oil wells.

  Walter was a college man at the state university. He was tan, handsome, charming, and wealthy. Beth had made it a point to advise Emily about the hazards of such a combination, but she wasn’t sure her message had sunk in.

  Walter reached the porch step and spotted Beth sitting in the shadows. “Hello, Beth,” he said.

  Beth rose and said, “How nice of you to remember me.”

  “I never forget a beautiful woman.”

  “Emily will be delighted to hear that.”

  Walter laughed. “Touché. Is she here?”

  Beth opened the screen door. “Yes, come in.”

  Before Walter could take a step, Emily appeared at the door.

  “Why, Walter, how nice it is to see you,” she said sweetly, breaking into a big smile.

  Instead of digging an elbow into Emily’s side, Beth excused herself and joined Mother in the parlor. She made a conscientious effort not to eavesdrop by listening to Will Rogers cracking jokes about the Congress on the radio. After a few minutes she heard the sound of a car driving away.

  Emily appeared in the parlor. “We’ve been asked to go sailing tomorrow,” she said.

  “Both of us?” Beth asked.

  Emily nodded. “With Walter and another boy named Clarence. I didn’t tell Walter you’re madly in love with somebody else and he should forget about bringing Clarence.”

  “Are you trying to get me in trouble with Matt?” Beth asked, delighted at the prospect. She hadn’t been sailing in ages. “What time?” she asked excitedly.

  “Early in the afternoon,” Emily answered.

  “Perfect. In the morning we have to go to the university so I can find out what courses of study they offer.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready to go back to school full-time?” Mother asked.

  “I am. I must. Either here or back in Las Cruces.”

  Mother looked shocked. “You can’t possibly be thinking of returning to New Mexico to continue your studies.”

  “The college there is very good,” Beth answered, knowing her heart belonged to Matt first and foremost, no matter how lovely living in LA might be.

  ***

  Beth returned from her morning visit to the university elated. Not only would all her college course work transfer if she decided to enroll, but she also qualified for resident tuition, which lowered the cost of attending considerably. She had also learned about the medical school at the University of Southern California.

  Before leaving with Emily to meet Walter and his friend, she wrote to the school requesting information about admission requirements. With no such program in New Mexico, she would have to go elsewhere for her medical training, so why not LA when the time came two years hence?

  They met Walter and his friend Clarence Whitmore at the Armistead family beach house, a large, two-story, pitched-roof cottage with rows of windows facing the beach, the ocean, and the nearby Santa Monica Pier. Clarence had a tan that matched Walter’s, along with a very masculine physique, perfect teeth, and pale brown eyes. Beth reminded herself to warn Emily again to protect her virtue. But from her own experience with Matt, she doubted such a warning would have a lasting effect.

  Although the marina was only a mile away, Walter drove them there in his Buick convertible. The cook at the beach house had packed a picnic basket and filled a wooden ice chest with bottles of wine, beer, and soft drinks. At dockside they loaded everything onto Walter’s thirty-foot mahogany single-masted racing sloop, and soon they were cutting along smoothly on a quiet sea, the coastline receding quickly.

  They sailed out to the casino ship, circled it twice, listening to the music and laughter coming from onboard, and then tacked southward for a time before furling the sail to drift while they picnicked. Beth sat aft with Clarence making small talk, barely listening to him as she nibbled a sandwich. The sky, the salty smell of the ocean, the sight of seagulls above, the gentle rocking of the sloop, the
waves lapping at the keel—it was almost heaven.

  She couldn’t resist the water and slipped over the side. Emily soon joined her, followed by Walter and Clarence. They chased, dunked, and splashed each other for a time before setting sail for the marina. When they drew within less than a mile, Beth decided to swim the rest of the way. The water was warm, the waves gentle, and she’d been swimming longer distances with Emily in the mornings.

  She put her bathing cap on and jumped back in the water. “You go on. Wait for me at the marina. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Emily said reluctantly, leaning over the side.

  Beth laughed and splashed her. “Go on or I’ll beat you there.” She pushed off from the sloop, kicked her feet, settled into a steady, easy rhythm, and turned her head in time to see the sloop cruise by, Emily smiling and waving madly.

  She was almost halfway to the marina, where she could see the sloop tied up at the dock, when chest pains hit her. She stopped, floated, and waited for them to stop, but they only got worse. She started coughing and continued to tread water until the hacking stopped. When the chest pains lessened, she settled into a slow backstroke. She could feel the strength draining from her arms and legs. In her mind, she focused on reaching the dock and climbing out of the water, but every tortured muscle in her body ached. Her head pounded and the pain in her chest intensified into shock waves that traveled up and down her side.

  She fought against the tide, but the marina came no closer. Finally exhausted, she could go no farther. She stopped, floated, and watched the shore recede as the tide took her out to sea.

  ***

  When Sam Miller hired him for one day of work to clean and reorganize the storeroom, Matt thought he was just being generous as usual, but the storeroom was a mess. It took him a full day to get it shipshape. He was on the loading dock in the alley stacking the last of the empty crates and shipping cartons, eager to get home in the hope that a letter from Beth would be waiting, when Gus and Consuelo appeared in the doorway, both pale and teary eyed.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  27

  After six months of getting by on occasional work and still flat broke, Matt moved back to the ranch with only his clothes, some personal possessions, and a few things he was unwilling to part with, including letters Ma had written for him to find after her death and CJ’s letters he’d sent home during the Great War. He was glad to leave Las Cruces and escape everything that reminded him of Beth. He rented the house in town, furnished, to the new Railway Express agent and his family, and hired his old neighbors and friends, Nestor and Guadalupe Lucero, to keep an eye on the place and do any needed minor repairs for a few dollars a month. They were glad to earn the money.

  Like most folks across the country, Matt had soured on banks. After a run on deposits, Edgar Worrell had closed his bank, leaving his customers out of luck. Because Matt had no more money to lose, the bank failure didn’t hurt him in the pocketbook. But to avoid future financial catastrophes, he had his tenant pay the rent to the lawyer Alan Lipscomb, who took a small fee and mailed a monthly check directly to Matt at the ranch. Most of the money went for ranch expenses, primarily feed for the horses and such, but he socked away a little bit whenever he could and had twenty-two dollars reserved for his own use, which was now about two weeks’ wages, if you were lucky enough to have a job.

  The Studebaker had finally sold to a new instructor at the college who’d seen the notice at Sam Miller’s store. He bought it the day before Matt moved to the Double K. Matt used the money to pay his delinquent property taxes and interest. It covered just what was owed.

  In his free time at the ranch, Matt kept his distance from Pa by turning the casita into his private bailiwick. The small parlor became a library-study, with a handmade bookcase he built out of scrap lumber. Ma’s sewing table became his desk, and a beat-up, mouse-chewed comfortable chair he found dusty and dirty in an unused barn stall was perfect for reading next to the corner fireplace. He’d brought only a few of his favorite books from home, but on each trip to town he picked up a couple more for a penny or two each.

  The bedroom contained an ancient iron bed frame and mattress, a row of hooks he installed along one wall for his chaps, hats, jackets, and coats, a chest of drawers with a mirror he used for shaving, and a chamber pot. Tucked in the corner of the mirror was the photograph of Beth in her swimming suit, posing cutely for the camera. Although it broke his heart to see it every day, he couldn’t put it away.

  He’d done two mustang roundups with Pa since returning, and while they’d corralled more than fifty critters, only thirty wild, unbranded, sound-looking ponies were pastured at the ranch. The rest were too weak, lame, or sick and had to be turned loose. Most would become prey for coyotes and wolves, the resident mountain lion that roamed the ranch, or one of the few remaining black bears that still ranged the San Andres. Matt hated to see it done, but there was no other choice. With all their spirit, even the sick and lame wild ponies were a sight to warm any horseman’s heart. Matt figured he’d never experience as much blood-pounding freedom as that of a wild mustang stallion running his mares to safety out on the flats.

  Pa had signed up for a small monthly veteran’s pension earned for both his Rough Rider service and the wounds he suffered in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. That went to buy staples, groceries, and necessities. Thanks to the pension and rent money coming in, the Double K was doing better than most outfits on the Tularosa.

  Even with the luxury of cash money every month, the Double K suffered. Once the finest ranch on the western slope of the Tularosa, it was now sunblasted and in need of repair. Paint peeled off the barn siding, the ranch house roof was a patchwork of emergency fixes, the veranda sagged, the adobe courtyard wall was crumbling in places, the henhouse had collapsed, and drought had killed some of the big old cottonwoods in the windbreak and turned the pastureland brown. Most days brought blowing dust that cast a haze over the basin.

  It was annoying to have so much go unattended because you either fed the ponies or fixed something, but not both. Still, the Double K was surviving while homesteads and smaller ranches across the basin were being abandoned. Some folks hung on without hope, living as squatters on outfits that had been sold out from under them for back taxes. It was a sad, mean situation.

  The only time Matt spent with Pa was while they were working or at the meal table. They took turns with the cooking, but the fare was always pretty much the same: canned beans or vegetables, beef done up one way or the other but mostly fried, and bread with maybe some jam on it as a dessert. As far as Matt could tell, Pa wasn’t drinking, and while he appreciated his staying sober, he didn’t say anything about it. It was as though they lived worlds apart on the same speck of dirt under a blistering sky.

  The nights were the worst for Matt, when everything was quiet except for the wind in the trees, the call of an owl, or an occasional coyote chorus. It was then that the pain of losing Beth was a torment. He’d kept all her letters, had all of them about memorized. They made him feel cheated out of being loved, just like Ma’s death had cheated him. The notion that he was destined to lose every person he ever treasured or loved made him cynical and bitter.

  When he was with Pa, not much talking got done. They could go sunup to sundown working ponies without a lot of chatter. Matt liked it that way just fine. By disposition Pa wasn’t a talker, and since Beth’s passing Matt had nothing much to say either, mostly for fear of breaking down like a weepy little kid. He’d had only one good cry since her drowning, and that had welled up the day he’d learned of her death.

  One night at dinner, Pa showed Matt a letter from the U.S. Army at Fort Bliss soliciting contracts for cavalry horses to be delivered within three months, paid for upon the completion and passage of a fitness inspection. The army wanted geldings, fifteen to sixteen hands high, between five and nine years, sound in all particulars and saddl
e broken.

  “We’ve got twelve, maybe fifteen, out in the pasture that will do,” Pa said. “The army has bought from the Double K before with no complaints. I figure to sign us up. It means they’ll send some officers out to see what we have before they give us a contract.”

  “Do you think the army is interested in mustangs as cavalry mounts?” Matt asked. “We’ve never sold those kinds of ponies to the army before.”

  “Don’t see why not if they meet all the particulars. Besides, what other choice do we have?”

  “Getting twelve or fifteen ponies ready in three months won’t be easy.”

  “You got something better to do with your time?” Pa asked.

  Matt shook his head.

  Pa sent a letter off to Fort Bliss the next day, and while waiting for a response they worked the ponies hard, getting them gentled and saddle broke. Three weeks later, two remount officers from Fort Bliss arrived at the ranch in full regalia, including English riding boots, Sam Browne belts, and expensive hand-tooled riding crops. Out in the pasture, they looked at the mustangs in total disbelief, politely said they simply wouldn’t do, thanked Pa for his interest in the remount program, and drove away in their army automobile. Matt leaned against the truck fender and waited on Pa’s reaction.

  “Dammit, they’re just polo-playing sissies in army uniforms,” Pa grumbled. “They think only Thoroughbred bloodstock makes for a good horse.”

  “Now what do we do?” Matt inquired.

  “We keep at it with these ponies. I need to sell them by year end; otherwise, we’re gonna be in a big mess.”