Hard Country Read online

  When a fierce storm brought winter to the mountains, Kerney dropped down into the deep shade of a canyon of spruce and aspen that led to the town of Cimarron. A watering hole and stomping grounds for cowboys, rustlers, gunslingers, outlaws, and mountain men, the town sat along the Santa Fe Trail on the edge of a boundless short-grass prairie that rolled eastward through hills and river valleys.

  During his search for Patrick, he had been in Cimarron once before, and the town was passing familiar to him. A two-story adobe with a wide veranda filled one side of a plaza ringed by cottonwoods. Not far from Lambert’s Saloon on the road through town, a three-story stone gristmill powered by water from a deep ditch stood near the Cimarron River’s edge. Outside the plaza, adobe dwellings were scattered about in slapdash fashion. Away from the dirt houses, a small church with a cross nailed to a wooden belfry marked the town’s cemetery grounds.

  Kerney had a month’s wages in his pocket and a thirst, so he hitched his horse to a post and went into Lambert’s Saloon. He made his way to the bar through a crowd of cowboys, traders, road agents, travelers, and miners playing cards and jawboning, found elbow room next to a whiskered old-timer, and looked around the room for familiar faces. In a corner at a monte table he spotted Dick Turknet and the two cousins, Billy and Walt Clossen. Charlie Gambel was nowhere in sight. Turknet glanced his way but showed no sign of recognition.

  Kerney had wanted to see Turknet again, but not now while he searched for Patrick. He couldn’t risk riling the gunfighter and jeopardizing his own safety. Uneasy that Charlie might show up and make a play, Kerney downed a quick drink, left the saloon, stabled his horse, and rented a room at the big adobe hacienda on the plaza. He paid extra for a bath and scrubbed and soaked in the water until it cooled down and he started to shiver. He dried off, dressed, and took scissors to his beard, cutting it to a nub. Peering closely in the mirror, he shaved the rest of his beard off and then hacked at his hair with the scissors until he could see the tips of his ears. Figuring he looked almost civilized again, he went to bed feeling better about himself than he had in months.

  Come morning, after a sound night’s sleep and a dime breakfast, he made the rounds, asking merchants and any strangers he happened to pass about his son and Virgil Peters. As usual, he made a point to question the womenfolk of the town, who might be more inclined than their husbands to notice a young boy and a man traveling alone.

  At midday, with nothing to show for his effort, he went to the saloon with the waning hope he might learn something from customers still sober enough to wag their chins. It was half-crowded, mostly with gamblers and hard-bitten miners at the tables, and they surely wouldn’t cotton to any uncalled-for interruptions on his part. At the bar, Dick Turknet was talking to the saloon owner, Henry Lambert, a Frenchman who’d once been Abraham Lincoln’s chef and had official letters framed over the bar to prove it.

  Kerney looked cautiously around for the cousins and Charlie Gambel, but he didn’t see them. He turned back to Turknet, who eyed him with interest, said something to Lambert, and walked to where Kerney stood.

  “You’re John Kerney,” Turknet said, showing yellow teeth stained brown by tobacco juice.

  Kerney nodded and looked around again. “I am. Where’s the rest of your outfit?”

  “If you mean young Charlie Gambel, he’s still down on the Tularosa, lovesick over some little Mexican gal. He sure doesn’t think kindly of you.”

  “I know it.”

  “And he’s turned himself into a fair hand with a .45 in the hopes y’all will meet up again,” Turknet added. “Course, the question is, does he have the grit for killing? I think he does. What did you do to rile that boy?”

  “Saved him from a hiding or worse,” Kerney answered.

  Turknet shook his head. “Some folks just don’t take to being treated fair and square. It gets them out of sorts.”

  “Charlie’s a bit chuckleheaded.”

  Turknet smiled. “Yep, he’s short on brainpower, but that doesn’t make him less bothersome to a peaceable man like yourself.”

  “I expect you’re right.”

  “Cal Doran said you had an interest in how I came by some Texas horses I sold to Sam Wilcox.”

  “I am, if you’re inclined to tell me,” Kerney said guardedly. Turknet hitched his thumb in the belt above his low-slung holster, which made Kerney a mite more nervous.

  Turknet shrugged. “Not much to tell. Those horses along with some others were part of Bud McPherson’s remuda at his hideout in the brush country. Don’t know how Bud came by them exactly, but I’ve never known him to put good money in an honest man’s pocket for an animal he admired. His boys got captured by Texas Rangers and wound up hanged and in shallow graves, but Bud got away and was looking to shuck Texas and ride north to Montana. I gave him half what those animals were worth and he gladly took it, eager as he was to make tracks.”

  “Bud McPherson,” Kerney said.

  “That’s the man to talk to,” Turknet said. “But be careful if you cross his trail. He’s got snake blood and will strike fast if you accuse him of having a long loop.”

  “Did he spend any time up by the panhandle?”

  Turknet shrugged. “Can’t say I know for sure, but him and his boys covered a lot of country.”

  Kerney thanked him for the information, and Turknet took his leave, joining the cousins, who had just entered the saloon and had sidled up to the bar. He made quick work of asking questions about Patrick to patrons willing to hear him out and left Lambert’s empty-handed, wondering if Dick Turknet had spun him a yarn or told the truth about Bud McPherson. He guessed the truth but wasn’t completely sure and didn’t see much sense in drifting north to Montana to find out.

  But for the first time, thanks to Cal, John Kerney felt like he had some reliable information about Tom and Timmy’s killers. He wondered what made Turknet come to figure he was such a peaceable man. Likely by way of Cal Doran, Kerney supposed, smiling at the thought. Or was Turknet just pointing out that he held the upper hand when it came to any thoughts of gunplay?

  The sunny, cool day had turned dismal and cold, with a stiff wind running down the canyon and heavy gray clouds ringing the mountains. Earlier, Kerney had found the small adobe church locked, but now smoke rose from the chimney. He rode over and found an Indian woman inside cleaning a wooden altar under the watchful eye of a young friar.

  “Do you speak English, Padre?” Kerney asked as he removed his hat.

  “Of a sort,” the priest replied softly with a Spanish accent. He had a long, thin nose, red hair, and a heavily freckled face. “How may I help?”

  “I am looking for my son, a boy of four. He was in the care of a man named Virgil Peters, who wrote me he would give him to strangers if I didn’t come fetch him. I’ve been searching for them ever since.”

  The padre looked at Kerney sympathetically for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, I have met this man, at Fort Union. He asked me to take a young orphan boy and find him a new home. He said he could no longer care for him.”

  The priest smiled slightly and made a helpless gesture with his hands. “But my duties require me to travel to many parishes, so I could not take the child. I told him my superiors in Santa Fe might find a family willing to adopt the boy. I advised him to go there.”

  John Kerney could barely contain his delight. “When was this, Padre?”

  “Two months ago, but he did not wish to go to Santa Fe, as he planned to leave for Dodge City as soon as he could find somebody to take the child.”

  The thought of following another long, cold trail turned Kerney’s delight to dismay. “Do you know what happened to the boy?”

  The priest shook his head. “Sadly, no, but I have prayed for his safekeeping.”

  “Thank you, Padre.”

  “Go with God,” the priest said as he made the sign of the cross, “and may he grant that you find your son. I will pray for you both.”

  “Gracias, Padre.”

 
Outside, John Kerney mounted up in thick snow falling from a low cloud that almost clipped the treetops. The wind had stopped howling, and nary a breeze touched his face. He cast a wary eye skyward. The storm had settled over the prairie. The whole country was about to get downright swampy before it froze rock solid.

  He hadn’t been to Fort Union before but knew it was a ways south on the Santa Fe Trail, a good fifty miles or more. Two days’ travel certain in this weather, with cold camps at night and poor browse for his horse.

  He chewed on the idea of bedding down in Cimarron until the storm broke but decided to move on. Fort Union was the main hub along the Santa Fe Trail for goods and supplies traveling to all points of the compass. Thanks to the priest, he now knew Patrick was alive and not a slave to some savage Ute Indian or living in a Mexican sheepherder’s hut out on the prairie. Leastways, that was fact two months ago.

  Best to get back on the trail before he gave in to the dark suspicion that Patrick was so far gone from the territory that he would never find him, no matter where he traveled or how long he looked. Although he was closer than he’d ever been to finding his boy, he felt no better for it.

  He got his gear together, bought some provisions, including a small bag of oats for his horse, wrapped his blanket over his coat around his shoulders, and started out for Fort Union. The thick, wet snowfall dampened all sound except the slight creaking of his saddle leather and the soft fall of his horse’s hoofs. Ahead, he could see no more than ten feet through a curtain of snow now falling harder. He pulled his hat down to his ears and spurred his horse into a trot.

  It was loco to be traveling in this weather, and he knew it. He could freeze to death, get his scalp lifted by Indians, or be robbed and murdered by a road agent for his horse, gear, and the twenty dollars in his pocket before he got ten miles out of town. If that happened, Patrick would never know who his people were or where he came from. The thought didn’t sit well with Kerney, so he silently vowed to write everything in a letter to Patrick once he got to Fort Union. The boy might never get to read it, but at least the truth of things would’ve been told.

  The storm worsened into a whiteout, and a little more than ten miles along the trail, Kerney found refuge in the village of Ryado. Given shelter by a family who lived in an adobe house that had once belonged to Kit Carson, he sat over a home-cooked meal and told the rancher and his wife the whole story from beginning to end of why he came to be traveling in such a dreadful blizzard, starting with the birth of his son, the death of his wife, and the murder of his brother and young nephew.

  He’d never spoken of it before in detail to anyone, and telling it to strangers he might never see again made it easier. In the back of his mind he knew he was practicing out loud for the time when he would set it down on paper.

  He finished his tale, and with hot coffee in hand, Kerney and the rancher talked about the coming of the railroad up near Willow Springs, where he’d gone to look for Patrick earlier in the summer. A tunnel had been blasted and cut through the mountain pass, and soon tracks would be laid south toward Santa Fe. Both men predicted it would change their world, but other than turning the Santa Fe Trail into a forgotten wagon road, neither could say exactly how.

  In the morning the storm had passed and Kerney set out under a clear sky, bright sun, and a blanket of snow that nearly blinded him with reflected light. Underfoot the ground was soggy, and at times his horse sank above its fetlocks in the mud. He passed by a low butte with snow still clinging to the sheer south face, and soon the village of Ryado faded into a blur behind him.

  It would be slow going to Fort Union, but Kerney didn’t mind; he rode with the wind at his back and a wee bit of renewed hope that he still might find Patrick.

  * * *

  A cold camp and a clear, freezing night got John Kerney up and back on the trail long before dawn. He made good time on the hardened trail, which in places was more than a hundred yards wide, and by first light spotted the fort in the distance, the buildings harsh against the horizon, in stark contrast to the rolling, snow-covered prairie. He arrived early enough to find mule teams and freighters in the wagon yard readying to leave to take advantage of the improved conditions.

  The fort was a huge compound, far bigger than Fort Stanton, with rows of company barracks, officers quarters, married enlisted quarters, stables, shops, sheds, quartermaster storehouses, offices, and a hospital. Constructed out of adobe, fired bricks, milled lumber, and dressed stone, it was the finest set of buildings Kerney had seen since coming west. At the headquarters building he introduced himself to a company clerk and asked to speak to an officer. The corporal escorted him to another office and introduced him to Lieutenant Hendricks, the regimental adjutant, a stocky, bearded man with a clipped eastern accent.

  He started to explain his purpose and the lieutenant quickly cut him off.

  “Your name, sir, is enough to tell me why you are here,” Hendricks said sternly. He remained seated behind his desk and did not show the slightest courtesy. “Straightaway I can tell you that your son is with the post surgeon, Dr. William Lyon, and his wife. Dr. Lyon is on a leave of absence but asked me to advise you—if you presented yourself—that he and his wife wish to adopt your son. Your consent to allow them to do so would be most welcome. Virgil Peters told the doctor that the child was never in your care since his birth and you would likely welcome the opportunity to see the boy adequately cared for and properly raised.”

  Kerney looked at Hendricks in silence, trying to take in and size up what he’d been told. All he could hear was the ticking of the wall clock. He reckoned he’d been marked as a no-account who had abandoned his son, and nothing he might say to this officer, or the good doctor and his wife for that matter, would change that opinion.

  He felt no pleasure or relief, knowing Patrick was alive and safe. What circled around in his brain was the singular fact that Patrick had a chance for a good home and future, things Kerney held in short supply.

  “Mr. Kerney,” Lieutenant Hendricks prodded, his tone harsh.

  Kerney thought about his dead brother and young Timmy, about Ida, who—barmy or not—had cared for Patrick as her own, and Mary Alice, whom he should have loved better. “Patrick’s my son and I will not give him up,” he finally said.

  “I see,” Lieutenant Hendricks said flatly. “Do you read and write?”

  Kerney nodded.

  “Good.” From a desk drawer Hendricks took a paper, wrote on it, and gave it to Kerney. “That is the address of the War Department in Washington. You may write to Dr. Lyon there, if you wish to do so. Use the sergeant major’s desk in the outer office, but make haste, as the mail leaves at noon.”

  “You have no other address for him?”

  “I do not,” Hendricks replied. “The doctor and Mrs. Lyon are traveling extensively, visiting family throughout New England and Maryland. If you write to him at the War Department you are assured he will receive your correspondence.”

  “When will the doctor be coming back to Fort Union?”

  Hendricks shook his head and stood. “He won’t be returning. He is on leave pending new orders.”

  “What are his new orders?” Kerney asked.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Hendricks answered.

  “Do you have word of Virgil Peters?”

  “You’ll find his gravesite in the post cemetery. He fell ill and died of a disorder of the blood soon after putting the lad in Dr. Lyon’s care.”

  Hendricks put on his great coat, adjusted his forage cap, buckled his saber belt, and picked up his gloves. “I have duties to attend to. When you’ve finished, leave your letter with the corporal.”

  Hendricks gestured toward his office door. “Now, if you please.” In the outer office he told the corporal to supply Kerney with paper, pen, and ink.

  “This man is writing to Dr. Lyon at the War Department. Rather than sending it by mail, I will include it in our official dispatches so that it can arrive there with all due speed.”

/>   “I’m obliged,” Kerney said.

  Hendricks nodded curtly and left without saying another word.

  He sat at the sergeant major’s desk and wrote the same story he told to the rancher in Ryado, adding to it as his memory served. It took hours to put it on paper, and his hand was stiff when he finally finished. He read it, decided it would have to do, and wrote a note to the doctor.

  Dear Dr. Lyon,

  I take up this pen to write you with thanks for your kindness to my son, Patrick. With this I send the story I put down on paper so that he might know how he came to have so much hardship. Please read it to him. I searched for Patrick over many months and I cannot give him over to you to be adopted. I will do my all to raise him right. Write care of Coghlan’s Store, Tularosa, New Mexico Territory, and I will come and fetch him.

  I now close. Obliged and in your debt,

  John Kerney

  He sealed and addressed the letter, left it with corporal and went outside, wondering if he’d just taken from Patrick the best chance the boy would have for a fortunate life.

  Across the way he could see a lot of activity in the wagon yard. Fort Union served as the main quartermaster depot for the territory, supplying all the other posts in New Mexico. Maybe he could find work. He stepped off briskly to find out.

  * * *

  As he approached headquarters, Lieutenant Hendricks watched John Kerney cross the quadrangle in the direction of the quartermaster stores and wagon yard. He knew precisely where his dear friends William and Polly Lyon were staying while on leave of absence. He knew they couldn’t have children and he had seen how much that little boy had brightened their lives in such a short time, especially Polly’s. But William Lyon was a stickler about doing things right, and Hendricks knew he’d turn that child over to John Kerney no matter how many protests Polly made or tears she shed.