Backlands Page 39

  Thunderstruck, Matt stayed up late into the night, long-ago memories whirling through his head.

  ***

  A week before the auction, Matt had hired a man to smooth out the ranch road with a grader and spread gravel where needed to accommodate the folks traveling to the sale in their automobiles and trucks. When the fellow came for his money, Matt was busy with the ponies and sent Pa out to look the job over before paying. Pa returned and reported that the road was much improved, so Matt paid the man and thought no more about it. Riding Patches over the road on his way to town, he was surprised by how much better it was. It was in such good shape he thought maybe it was time to get a truck. If he could find a good used one in Alamogordo at the right price—maybe one that needed some work done to it—he’d stay over in town for a day or two to fix it up and drive it back to the ranch.

  He decided to stable Patches at a livery in Tularosa and hitch a ride to Alamogordo. If he wound up buying something, he’d hire a stable boy to bring Patches back to the ranch.

  As he loped Patches along, his thoughts turned to Porter Knox. While they were currying the ponies before the auction, Earl Hightower told him he’d heard Porter had abandoned his family and left Tularosa. Evangelina and the children were back living with her parents. Word was that Knox had stolen the money from the camp to wager on cockfights held at an arena on a small farm near Three Rivers.

  Matt wondered if he knocked on Flaviano and Cristina’s door, would he be welcomed or turned away? Would they blame him for not turning a blind eye to Porter’s wrongdoing? Would it matter if they knew how much it grieved him to bring ruin down on Evangelina, his own younger brother, and little María Teresa?

  Matt hadn’t seen anyone from the family since the day Knox had confessed to his crime at the Mayhill Camp. Surely they knew the part Matt had played in Porter’s downfall. He decided not visit the Armijos. He didn’t owe them an explanation for what had happened. There was no way to explain doing your duty instead of not doing it.

  The coming of dusk brought heavy clouds that darkened the sky early, but a short string of brand-new streetlights on Main Street, courtesy of a new federal program to bring electricity to rural places, cast a bright white glare that bounced off store windows and illuminated empty sidewalks. He settled Patches in at the livery and walked down Main Street to the filling station on the south side of town, which stayed open late to serve stray travelers passing through. He hunkered down on a stool by the soda-pop cooler, hoping for a motorist to stop for gas so he could thumb a ride.

  He got thinking it might be fun to show up at Anna Lynn’s in a new truck and take her out to dinner in Alamogordo. Maybe surprise her with some chocolates as well. After dinner, they’d drive to White Sands National Monument and watch the moonrise over the dunes.

  The sound of voices on the street drew Matt’s attention. Four boys appeared, laughing and joking with each other in Spanish as they made a beeline for the soda pop cooler. One of them was Juan Ignacio, who stopped in his tracks as he drew near and glared at Matt. He was fifteen now and not a skinny kid anymore. He’d filled out in the chest some and towered over his companions.

  Matt got to his feet as Juan approached. “Hello, hermano.”

  “I ain’t your brother,” Juan said as he balled his fists and barreled into Matt, flailing wildly at him.

  Slammed against the filling station wall, Matt wrapped Juan in a bear hug. “Jesus, calm down, little brother.”

  “Don’t you call me that,” Juan hissed. “You ruined everything.”

  Matt tightened his hold, eyeing Juan’s three companions, who stood motionless, watching. “Porter did that, not me.”

  Juan struggled in Matt’s grip. “We’ve got nothing now because of you.”

  “It wasn’t me that did it,” Matt reiterated. “If I let you go, can we talk?”

  After a long minute Juan nodded.

  Matt released his hold. Juan punched him in the eye and danced back out of reach, his face flushed with anger.

  “Hit him again,” one of Juan’s buddies encouraged. His two companions hooted their approval.

  “Don’t try,” Matt cautioned. The commotion brought the filling station attendant to the open bay door holding a large wrench in his hand.

  Juan hesitated before dropping his fists to his sides. “I spit on you. Stay away from me and my family.” He turned to his companions. “Let’s go.”

  Quietly and in unison the boys backed away.

  “Are you all right, mister?” the attendant asked.

  Matt’s watery eye started to swell. “Yeah, thanks.”

  Excited chatter and boisterous laugher from Juan and his buddies cut through the night air. Juan Ignacio paused and looked back at Matt one last time before disappearing into the darkness.

  ***

  In the morning, Matt awoke in his Alamogordo hotel room with a beauty of a shiner and the sad memory of his encounter with Juan Ignacio. After breakfast, he did his banking and went looking for a truck from one end of town to the other, stopping at every garage and automobile dealership along the way. His black eye got a lot of attention, but no mention was made of it. A cowboy with a shiner was no rare sight.

  He was halfway into his search when a helpful garage owner named Billy told Matt about some folks he knew who were trying to sell a truck he’d serviced for them since it was new. Billy vouched that the vehicle was in good shape.

  He paid the owner a visit and struck a good deal for his 1934 Chevy half-ton pickup in need of a tune-up and a new starter. He drove it to Billy’s garage and spent the remainder of the morning installing new spark plugs and a rebuilt starter and changing the oil and filter. He fired it up and let Billy take a look under the hood.

  “You want a job?” Billy asked.

  Matt laughed. “Nope, but thanks for the compliment.” He paid his bill for the parts and the oil and drove the Chevy out of the garage.

  On New York Avenue, he stopped and bought a box of fancy chocolates at a drugstore. At a nearby barbershop he got a shave and a haircut before heading out to Anna Lynn’s farm.

  He’d kept his hotel room for another night, hoping to entice Anna Lynn back after dinner and a romantic moonlight stroll through the White Sands dunes. He glanced at his face in the truck’s rearview mirror and had to laugh. There sure wasn’t anything appealing about his battered mug. He hoped the idea of a night out would trump his bruised and beaten appearance.

  He drove with the windows down and the wind blowing through the cab. The Chevy felt solid on the road. The engine hummed, with no worrisome rattles or shakes of the chassis. He turned off the pavement onto the gravel road that snaked up the foothills through High Rolls and Mountain Park, before the steep climb to Cloudcroft.

  He was feeling good and his head had almost completely stopped aching. He couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate his successful horse auction than in his new truck on a night out with his sweetheart.

  At Anna Lynn’s, Matt brought the truck to a stop and tooted the horn. He hopped out with the box of chocolates in hand, grinning in anticipation. She met him on the porch before he got halfway up the path, and she wasn’t smiling.

  “You can’t come in,” she said without emotion.

  Matt’s rush of good feelings evaporated. “Why not?”

  Her face was a mask. “I’m seeing someone else now.”

  “Is he here with you?”

  Anna Lynn shook her head. “No.”

  “Who is he?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “So you can go do something stupid?”

  “That’s not why I asked.”

  “What happened to your eye?”

  “An angry kid punched me because his pa did something stupid.”

  “What did he do?”

  “You
don’t need to know.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “Hurt.”

  “I told you from the start who I am.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t make it hurt less. Don’t worry, I won’t be a pest.”

  Anna Lynn’s expression softened just a bit. “I wish you’d had more time for me, Matt.”

  “I didn’t choose to be neglectful.”

  “I know that.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t criticizing.”

  Matt turned to leave.

  “We can be friends,” Anna Lynn offered.

  Matt swiveled back to face her and placed the box of chocolates at her feet. “Adios, friend.”

  She stood rooted on the porch with her arms folded and didn’t say another word.

  He drove away thinking there are good times and there are bad times, and he’d just had both come tumbling down one after the other. He had nobody left now except Pa, who wasn’t a damn bit good at being a paterfamilias. It took Matt most of the way back home to shake off feeling sorry for himself.

  On his next trip to Alamogordo he learned that Anna Lynn’s new lover was the High Rolls CCC camp commander, who could get to work in a jiffy whenever he stayed over. According to those citizens most interested in Anna Lynn’s personal affairs, he was an overnight guest more often than not.

  Matt worked hard at trying to be angry at her, but the fact that he missed her got in the way.

  37

  Matt returned from town with a Chevy pickup, a black eye, and a sour mood that hung around for a long time. He wouldn’t talk to Patrick about what happened and he stayed close to home, going to town only once in two months for necessary business. All of his time and efforts went into the ranch, the ponies, and the cattle grazing in the high pastures. He seemed to want no company other than the companionship of the animals. Patrick let Matt alone. Sometimes silence was the best gift you could give a body who was hurting inside.

  When it came time to restock groceries, supplies, and feed for the critters, Matt sent Patrick to town on the errand. In Tularosa, he learned about Matt’s scuffle with Juan Ignacio, who’d accused Matt of getting Porter Knox fired from his job. In Alamogordo he ran into a fella from Mountain Park who told him that Matt’s lady friend had thrown him over for another man, some army guy from a local CCC camp.

  Patrick knew Matt had lost people close to him, especially Emma and that gal Beth he’d been sweet on. But what had happened to him in Tularosa and Mountain Park steamed Patrick. To be undone by some fickle, heartless floozy and assaulted by Juan Ignacio for something not Matt’s fault was unfair. He had cause to sulk some, but Patrick didn’t want him turning hard, mean, and suspicious. That had caused his own downfall with Emma and all his children. Matt deserved better.

  As the end of the 1930s drew near, both the weather and the economy had improved a mite. Not enough to cause unbridled optimism—no rancher ever felt that secure about the future—but enough to hold out some hope for a few more profitable years. In the spring of 1939, Matt held another successful pony auction. In the summer he sold six geldings to the army boys from Fort Bliss who unexpectedly showed up and liked what they saw. At the end of fall works, they realized a nice increase in beef prices. As a result, the ranch was on the way to the best year since the stock market crash of ’29.

  Patrick was proud of what his son had accomplished and told him so, but Matt quickly brushed the compliment aside. Matt had stopped being sulky and sour in favor of acting brusque and fretful. It showed in the permanent furrow etched across his forehead and the downturn in his mouth caused by the lack of a smile.

  The ranch still had no electricity or telephone or even a promise from public officials that those utilities would come to the Tularosa Basin any time soon. But when regular air delivery of the Albuquerque newspaper to El Paso, Las Cruces, and a few other towns started, Matt paid the pilot to drop a copy of the Sunday edition in a paper bag when he flew over the ranch headquarters. Much to their dismay, the paper sometimes wound up in the water trough, unreadable. But it quickly became a Sunday ritual for the two men to settle down after chores and read the paper together over a fresh pot of coffee.

  The headline for September 3, 1939, read:

  BRITAIN, FRANCE DECLARE WAR ON GERMANY!

  The lead story described Germany’s massive invasion of Poland early on a Friday morning and the stunning retreat of the Polish Army across wide stretches of the country.

  “We’ll be in it for sure,” Patrick predicted, his bad leg elevated by a cushion on top of a crate in front of the couch, his coffee cup within handy reach on a side table.

  “Roosevelt says we’re staying neutral and out of it,” Matt countered from behind the desk.

  “That’s not gonna happen. We’ll be in the thick of it soon enough. When the drums start beating, stay out of it if you can.”

  “I’ll serve if called,” Matt replied, thinking of CJ.

  “You’ll be called up, bet on it. But you don’t have to prove anything to me. I’m not partial to the idea of you getting shot or worse.”

  “You served in Cuba and CJ was in the last war.”

  “Yep, and I got wounded and CJ got dead. That ought to tell you something about how god-awful war is.”

  “You’d worry about me if I went?” Matt asked somewhat surprised.

  “And then some,” Patrick replied. “Besides, who’d look after the ranch and the ponies? I’m too old and crippled to handle it all by myself.”

  “Well, it’s nothing we have to worry about right away.”

  “Still, you think on it. The army’s gonna need beef, and a lot of it, once our part in the shooting war starts. A cattleman who helps feed an army is just as important as a soldier in the trenches.”

  “I never figured you to be a pacifist.”

  Patrick guffawed. “I ain’t. But sane men don’t start wars; politicians and dictators do. And it’s always because they want something that doesn’t belong to them, no matter how many big words they use to pretty it up.”

  “I take it back; you’re unpatriotic.”

  Patrick grinned, showing his set of perfect false teeth. “That’s a helluva thing to say to an old war veteran.”

  ***

  Over the course of the next year, the welcome arrival of more moisture and the gathering promise of war improved the price of beef enough to allow Matt to put more cattle on the high pastures. The 7-Bar-K finished up fall works in the black once again. On September 7, 1940, when the Nazis started bombing London, Matt figured it was only a matter of time before America entered the war. Nine days later, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, requiring all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five to register for the draft, and he was sure of it.

  In spite of Pa’s advice to stay out of the fighting if he could, Matt decided to serve when his time came. He registered and was given a II-C deferment by his draft board because of his occupation as an agriculture producer. With the country still at peace, he decided to take the deferment until he could find a way to keep the ranch operating and Pa looked after while he was in uniform.

  In November, he took off for the high-country pasture trailing a packhorse loaded with cabin supplies, with plans to stay up-country to fix fences, cut cord wood for the cabin, do maintenance on the dirt tanks, and patch the cabin roof. He told Pa he’d be gone two, maybe three weeks but didn’t say he first planned to slip over to the Rocking J to propose a scheme to Al Jennings and his family.

  He made good time to the cabin got the supplies put away and the ponies fed and bedded down in the corral. He patched the roof, lit the stove, and fixed supper. After a good night’s sleep, he saddled Patches and started a leisurely ride in the chill of a crisp, clear autumn morning over the mountain to the Jennings spread.

  He always enjoyed visiting the Rocking J, sheltered as it was in a pretty forest meadow with a vi
ew through the pines of the Jornada, vast and seemingly empty. The squat wooden windmill next to the water tank greeted him with a slow creak in a light breeze. The small stone and mud-plastered adobe ranch house, surrounded by a fence to keep out grazing ponies and their droppings, looked as though it had been fixed to the land forever. Smoke lazed up from the chimney. Under the shade of the porch Matt could see Al Jennings in his favorite chair watching his approach.

  “Light,” Al said. “Now that morning chores are done, Dolly has brewed up a fresh pot.”

  Matt slid down and Patches trotted away for a drink from the water tank. “I’m obliged.”

  “What brings you visiting so early in the day?”

  “I’ve got an idea in my head that needs explaining to you, Dolly, Al Jr., and his new bride, if you’ll kindly hear me out.”

  Grinning, Al rose from his chair. “We’re always interested in what the Kerney menfolk are scheming. Come on inside and we’ll make a powwow.”

  The front of the ranch house consisted of the kitchen and a small parlor with a fireplace. There was just enough room for six people to squeeze around the kitchen table for a meal, and the small parlor could accommodate the same number if two stayed standing. To the rear were two tiny bedrooms, barely large enough to turn around in. The house had sufficed for Al, Dolly, and Al Jr., but with the arrival of Brenda Jennings, formerly Brenda Cowen of Hot Springs, the place was downright crowded.

  Matt had danced with Brenda at her wedding reception in Hot Springs after drinking a whiskey to celebrate with Al Jr. outside the church reception hall. She was a calm, hefty gal with broad features and a warm smile who always brought the word comfortable to Matt’s mind.

  Al jokingly assembled his family at the kitchen table by announcing that Matt had asked to waste everyone’s time to talk about some harebrained scheme. Dolly brought cups and the coffeepot to the table and they made small talk for a sip or two until Al Sr. ordered Matt to get on with it.