Backlands Page 35

  Matt had shamed him into getting back on his feet, forced him back to work, and saved the ranch. It was the Double K no longer. Matt had sold the brand to a Texas oilman who masqueraded as a rancher. Now it was the 7-Bar-K Ranch. Although Patrick still had a hard time getting his mind around the change, he harbored no resentment. In fact, not much aggrieved him anymore.

  Matt had used the oilman’s money to buy a small herd of cows and throw in with Al Jennings to sell beef to butchers in Silver City, Roswell, Las Cruces, Socorro, and smaller towns that supplied CCC camps across the southern part of the state. They were resting the high pastures every winter to allow the grass to recover, supplementing with feed when they restocked in the spring, and, so far, selling every animal after fall works.

  Each of the last two years, both outfits had made enough money to stay debt-free and pay taxes, which put them way ahead of most other family-run outfits that were still in business. But Matt wasn’t satisfied with getting by in hard times. He’d also taken on all the temporary work the Forest Service sent his way, and he poured his paychecks into a small herd of ponies he was training with Patrick’s help to be topflight cutting horses. Once they were finished and ready for sale, Matt planned to put out an auction notice to regional stockmen’s associations and the six-year-old Rodeo Association of America. If he could attract the interest of rodeo cowboys and the big ranchers who promoted the sport, training cutting horses might become a steady, lucrative enterprise.

  Patrick had grown up thinking of rodeoing as nothing more than a cowboy pastime done for fun and bragging rights. It had taken Matt’s savvy to recognize that it was now a business that needed quality horseflesh in order to operate.

  Matt was away from the ranch for several weeks, ramrodding a Forest Service roundup of livestock from a grazing allotment in the Lincoln National Forest. In his absence, Patrick worked the ponies. Although his gimpy leg limited how much he could do in the saddle, he made progress with each of the twenty-five.

  Patrick made good time to the cabin. Happy Jack, Shorty’s horse, was saddled and waiting in the corral next to the cabin when he arrived. He dismounted and called out a hello that brought Shorty to the open door, spurs jingling. He was stocky and short, with wide shoulders and legs about as bowed as could be.

  “You look ready to skedaddle,” Patrick said.

  “I’m a man hungering for some female companionship,” Shorty allowed, fixing his hat firmly on his head. “I moved the herd to the tank pasture this morning. They’ve got water and grass. No need to trouble yourself with them until I get back, unless you’re just hankering to ride up and take a look-see.”

  “Maybe come morning.” Patrick handed Shorty his pay envelope. “Where you headed?”

  Shorty grinned. “First to Engle, then on to El Paso by train. I’ll get me a room at the Hotel Paso del Norte and look up a little lady friend of mine name of Millie, if she’s still in town. I’ll be back in three days.”

  “Does that give you enough time to kick up your heels?”

  Shorty laughed as he stepped to the corral. “It will have to do. She’ll have my pockets emptied by then anyway. Adios.”

  Patrick waved good-bye as Shorty loped his pony down the trail. Not sure if he wanted to loll around the cabin until morning, he tied Ribbon to a corral post, went inside, stoked the coals in the woodstove, warmed up the half-full coffeepot, poured a cup, and wandered back out the front door. From the looks of things, Shorty’s anticipation of a weekend with Millie had distracted him from work. He should’ve been cutting winter firewood for the cabin. Instead, he’d let the woodpile get way too low. And the corral gate hung lopsided from a sloppy piece of work where he’d reattached a hinge to the post.

  Back inside the cabin, Patrick noticed that all Shorty’s gear and clothing were gone, cleaned out like he wasn’t coming back. That struck Patrick odd, as the old boy had just rode out with only his saddlebags and the clothes on his back.

  He climbed aboard Ribbon, trying to decide which direction to take, north or south. If Shorty had moved the herd north to the tank pasture, he’d done it a month early. What cause did he have to do that? And if a body was in a big hurry to get south to El Paso, why use the trail that led to the state road? Making horse tracks over the mountain and down the gentle western slopes of the San Andres would save a lot of time.

  If Shorty had moved the herd like he said, Patrick would cut trail after an hour of fast riding. Should he spend his time checking on the herd or follow Shorty? Since hiring on, that old boy hadn’t done anything untrustworthy. Still, logic told him it was best to keep an eye on the cowboy, not the cattle.

  He urged Ribbon down the trail, careful to stay far back and out of sight. Horse tracks showed that Shorty had set a fast clip. Patrick wondered if his uneasiness was misplaced. Could be the cowboy was simply in a hurry and riding to town on the trail he liked best. He mulled turning back until he caught sight of Shorty cutting across the open, teardrop canyon where they gathered cattle for shipment. There were at least forty cows in the stock pen and two empty livestock trucks idling nearby.

  Shorty was selling more than half the herd to cattle thieves. Patrick marveled at the idea of stealing cows by the truckload and figured it to be a first, because he’d never heard of such a thing before.

  He backed up behind the ridgeline and made a slow descent out of sight, contemplating the situation. By the time he got below, slow and easy so as not to be spotted, the cattle would be loaded. If they were ahorseback, he could shoot the two drivers out of their saddles. But once they were under way in the trucks, he’d have a hell of a time stopping them. Counting Shorty, the odds were three to one against him.

  Patrick considered his options. The stock pen was a mile in from the state road on a dirt track that squeezed through the canyon with passage for one vehicle at a time. If he wanted to stop them, he’d have to hurry. He eased Ribbon down the rocky back side of the canyon to a narrow arroyo and spurred the pony on. Blowing hard and lathered, Ribbon got him there just as the sound of the approaching trucks drew near. He dismounted, pulled his long gun from the scabbard, shooed Ribbon away out of danger, dropped to one knee, chambered a bullet, and waited. The nose of the first truck appeared around the bend. He put a bullet in the radiator and another in the windshield next to the driver’s head. He got to his feet and hobbled as fast as he could for cover, expecting to hear gunfire and feel the jolt of a bullet in his back. All he heard was cursing.

  On the back side of the canyon, he crawled to the summit, dragging his bad leg, with loose stones clattering underfoot. No gunfire yet, so he hadn’t been spotted. But where the hell was Shorty with his Winchester?

  Out of breath and sweating like a pig, he took a quick peek down at the trucks. There was no one in sight. He put two bullets through the hood of the lead truck to disable the engine, and two into the second truck.

  “You son of a bitch,” a man called out.

  “Turn my cattle loose,” Patrick yelled back.

  “If we do, then what?”

  “Where’s Shorty?”

  “He turned tail.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I swear to it, mister.”

  “Let me see you and your partner with no pistols showing.”

  “You ain’t gonna kill us?”

  “I should. The last man that tried to steal from me is dead. Come out where I can see you, let my cattle go, and you’ll live.”

  Only one man was doing the talking, and that troubled Patrick. He squirmed a few yards away and turned on his back to keep an eye out for a sneak attack from behind.

  “What about the law?” the man called.

  “I reckon by the time I get my cows back to the stock pen and go to town for the sheriff, you boys will be long gone.”

  “What about our trucks?”

  “While I don’t cotton to the notion of
cattle thieves going scot-free, the trucks stay where they are and you leave by shank’s mare.”

  “We gotta think on that.”

  “Take your time,” Patrick glanced over the edge. There was no sign of either driver. He turned back, caught sight of a figure sneaking to the cover of a boulder twenty feet down the canyon wall, and shot him in the shoulder. The man—more a boy than not—yipped like a puppy in pain, his eyes wide. Patrick slid down and disarmed him.

  “Did you kill him?” the man below bellowed, worry in his voice. “Is he dead?”

  “Not unless I shoot him again.”

  “No need for that,” the man replied, his voice quavering. “I’ll free your cattle now. Just bring the boy to me.”

  “He’s your kin?”

  “He’s my son.”

  “I winged him; he’ll survive. Tell me again where Shorty is.”

  “He’s long gone with our money, I swear.”

  “Put your pistol and any other weapons on the hood of the truck and I’ll bring him to you once my cows are loose.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Patrick kept his eye on the man until he shucked his pistol and released the first truckload of cattle. Then he turned his attention to the boy, a kid no more than sixteen, who was shaking in shock and fear.

  “Have you done any thieving like this before?” Patrick asked, wrapping his bandana tight against the boy’s wound.

  The boy shook his head. “No, sir. Am I bleeding to death?”

  “Nope,” Patrick said as he helped the boy to his feet. “You’ll live. Let’s go. Slide down backward facing me.”

  When they reached the dirt track, he poked the barrel of his rifle in the boy’s back and told the man to show himself. He hurried into view, and there was no doubting the family resemblance. Both had the same long noses, big ears that stuck out, and yellow hair. Neither looked like the hardened criminals Patrick had known in the Yuma Prison, but that didn’t soften his attitude. When the second cattle truck was empty, he pointed his rifle in the direction of the state road and said, “Git, and don’t ever come back.”

  The man nodded as he led the boy away. “I swear we won’t.”

  Patrick whistled for Ribbon to come. When the pony trotted to him, he mounted quickly and followed behind the would-be rustlers to the state road.

  The man stopped in the middle of the road. “My boy needs a doctor,” he pleaded.

  “Then its best that you get a move on,” Patrick replied with a wave of his long gun. He was not in a charitable mood.

  He watched them disappear from sight before turning to gather the cattle and push them along to the stock pen, where he’d rest them for the night. It had been a helluva good day, one of his best in years.

  33

  Matt 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 th
e 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.”