Hard Country (15 page)

“Done.” Kerney handed Good the money.

Good examined the bills before folding them into his pocket. “I didn’t run you off today because you had reason enough to quit me and go looking for your son,” he said gruffly. “But the next time you come here I
will
run you off for causing my wife grief. My boy Ivan will cut out those horses and give you those halters. Then you git. I’ll have no further truck with you.”

Kerney touched the tip of his hat. “As you wish.”

Good and his brother turned and stomped silently back into the house as Ivan hurried to his horse to chase down the roan and sorrel. In ten minutes, Kerney was on his way down the canyon to the village. At the livery, he left the horses in the corral, paid the stable boy for their keep and oats, and went to the creek bed where Ignacio waited.

“Let’s mosey over to the store,” he said. “We need to get you outfitted.”

Ignacio turned his hands palms up. “I have no money.”

“I’ll pay and you’ll work it off at five dollars a month.”

“But I still get some dollars each month?”

“Yep, ten, and then fifteen when you’ve paid me back in full.”

At the store, Kerney bought a used twenty-dollar double-rigged stock saddle, a bridle, a new fourteen-dollar packsaddle, a five-dollar pistol that came with a belt and holster, and a box of cartridges. He gave the pistol, belt, and holster to Ignacio and told him to pick out a pair of boots, a shirt, a rain slicker, and a hat to replace his straw sombrero. After Ignacio made his choices, Kerney paid the clerk and they carried everything back to the stables. He brought the blue roan out of the corral and told Ignacio to saddle it.

“This horse is mine?” Ignacio asked.

“Only to ride for now,” Kerney said. “Treat it right and I might sell it to you someday.”

“And the saddle?”

“That’s yours. No self-respecting vaquero would hire on as a hand using another man’s saddle.”

Ignacio stroked the cantle. “It is very nice.”

“Stop admiring it and put it on the pony. Tighten the front cinch first.”

“
Por qué?
”

“Because the horse requires you to do it that way.”

“A joke—as you say—no?”

“Not a joke. He’ll chuck you off if you don’t. It’s a matter of good horse sense.”

Ignacio shrugged and saddled the horse as he’d been told.

Kerney inspected the cinches, adjusted the stirrups, and handed Ignacio the reins. “Now ride it,” he ordered.

As Ignacio swung into the saddle, Kerney slapped the roan hard on its flank and it took off at a gallop. Ignacio managed to keep his seat without grabbing leather, but it was nip and tuck for a while as he bounced around. He reined the horse to a stop in the middle of the road and came back to Kerney at a walk.

“Well, you can ride, sort of,” he said. “A couple of months in the saddle every day should get the kinks out.”

“What are kinks?” Ignacio asked.

Kerney carefully considered his reply. “You need to learn to keep your seat and smooth out your ride.”

“I’ll do better,” Ignacio promised.

“I know you will.”

He showed Ignacio how to put the packsaddle on the mare and told him to practice doing it several times, then change into his new duds and wait for him.

Back at the general store, Kerney stocked up on two weeks’ worth of victuals, new blankets for the bedrolls, cartridges for his rifle and pistol, two good lengths of rope, two shovels, a spanking-new coffeepot, and some sturdy canvas sacks. He was settling his bill with the proprietor when a young man entered the store, unwrapped a Colt Dragoon revolver from a dirty oilcloth, and placed it on the counter.

Kerney studied the man as the proprietor continued counting out the change due him. A smooth-faced lad, he dressed as a cowboy, but Kerney doubted the genuineness of his getup. Under his open woolen coat he wore a red miner’s shirt, a sure giveaway, and when he tilted his hat back there was no telltale white forehead above a tan face, which branded every true waddie that lived and worked in the out-of-doors. His six-shooter hung in a brand-new holster without a scratch on it, and his broad-brimmed hat showed no sweat stains at all.

“Now, that’s some six-shooter,” Kerney commented cordially. “Looking to sell it?”

The young man smiled and nodded. “I surely am.”

“Mind if I give it a gander?”

The tenderfoot handed Kerney the pistol. Over four pounds and more than twelve inches long, it was big and unwieldy. The initials CC were carved on the stock, and the cylinder had USMR stamped on it for United States Mounted Rifles. He smiled at the lad. “How did you come by this old gun?”

“It was my pappy’s,” the pilgrim said.

Kerney grabbed the pilgrim’s gun hand to keep him from clearing leather and raked the barrel of the Colt Dragoon hard across his cheekbone. “You’re a liar and a thief. Undo your gun belt or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

With shaking hands and blood pouring down his face, the kid did as he was told.

The storekeeper started to move away. Kerney told him to stand pat and poked the kid in the stomach with the Colt. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Sam, Sam Nash.”

“Turn out your pockets.”

“I’ve got no money. I lost it all at faro.”

Kerney poked him again. “Do as I say.”

Nash turned out his pockets. Sure enough, he was busted.

“You stole a book,” Kerney said. “Where is it?”

“I burned it.”

“Back up to the door,” Kerney ordered as he stuck the Colt Dragoon in his waistband and drew his pistol.

“Don’t shoot me,” Nash begged as he raised his hands and inched backward.

“I’m taking your gun belt and six-shooter as payment for the pistol, money, and book you stole from my hired hand. If you come looking for me or for him I will kill you.”

“I won’t. Swear, I won’t.”

Kerney waved his pistol. “Git.”

Nash turned, crashed through the door, and ran helter-skelter down the street.

Kerney holstered his revolver and turned to the shopkeeper. “Do you know if young Sam Nash has any kin hereabouts?”

“None that I know of. He’s a newcomer out of Kansas, as I recall. Been here about a week.” He held out Kerney’s change.

Kerney pocketed the money and scooped up the holstered pistol and gun belt. “I’ll be back for my victuals and supplies in a bit.”

“Take your time,” the shopkeeper replied, his voice a bit shaky.

* * *

T
en days into his search for a homestead, Kerney had yet to find what he was looking for. He’d been in and out of canyons and flats along both sides of the San Andres, had trailed down draws and arroyos, traversed pastures twenty miles long, and climbed ridges and gaps in the high country. Nothing yet approached what he wanted, and he was starting to think that he might have to settle for less.

After a hard, difficult ride into a wide canyon that coursed east toward the Tularosa, Kerney called a halt for the day. While Ignacio got busy caring for the horses and setting up camp, he grabbed his rifle and followed a footpath that led to a rock outcropping at the base of a ridgeline. There he found painted images of mounted warriors and miniature drawings of cougar, javelina, deer, and dragonflies. It was an Apache camping ground for certain, perhaps even a sacred site. A well-worn trail close to water from a spring at the foot of a peak to the north probably ran from the mountains west of the Rio Grande all the way east to the Apache lands and Fort Stanton. The canyon was thick with dormant bunchgrass that waved in a lazy breeze, and there were stands of scrub oak scattered about, but the soil was poor and rocky, not fit as a permanent livestock pasture.

He returned to camp, where Ignacio had a fire going and the coffeepot on. He hunkered down, poured a cup, and drank it thinking that taking on Ignacio had been the smartest thing he’d done in a while. The boy made good coffee and was turning into a hand faster than Kerney thought possible.

“Does this place have a name?” he asked Ignacio.

“Hembrillo Canyon,” Ignacio replied. “It is a word for a seed or nut.”

“What kind?”

Ignacio shrugged. “I’m not sure.” He glanced around the broad canyon. “The only thing I see that bears a nut are the small oaks. Is this the place you pick for the ranchero?”

“I’m not partial to it, although it’s a nice slice of outdoors.” Kerney picked up his rifle, mounted his horse, and gestured at the bald mountain to the north. “There’s enough daylight left for me to have a closer look at the source of the spring. Appears to be higher up in that crevice.”

He followed a narrow ledge and reached the crevice where the water flowed, but it wasn’t the source of the water. The gap widened enough for a horse and rider to pass, and Kerney followed it to a pool that bubbled out of the hard rock on the mountainside.

He knelt and sipped the water. It was cold and pure. Would the stream dry up in the summer? If he dug a well down on the canyon floor, would he hit bedrock before he reached water? Was there other water nearby that might be easier to get livestock to?

He walked his horse to the gap and froze. Below, two riders were at the camp. One rider held a pistol on Ignacio while his partner watched off to the side like a spectator, hands resting on his saddle horn. The man with the pistol motioned to Ignacio, who slowly dropped to his knees, crossed himself, and lowered his head. Kerney didn’t wait to see more. He pulled his rifle from the scabbard, knelt, sighted carefully, and shot the cowboy with the six-gun out of his saddle. Quickly, he swung to fire on his partner, as the man’s hands jerked off the saddle horn and flew into the air.

“Don’t shoot,” the rider called out. “I’ve got no part in this squabble.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them, and call out your name,” Kerney ordered.

“Bill Bonney,” the rider shouted, looking up at the mountain.

“Billy, its John Kerney here, and I’ll gun you down if you so much as twitch a hair.”

“I ain’t moving, John,” Billy the Kid yelled.

Slowly Kerney mounted, his rifle trained on the kid. “Who’s your partner?”

“That there was Charlie Gambel,” Billy replied, “and you shot him clean through. Mind if I liberate my gun belt and climb off this horse? I sure could use a cup of coffee.”

“Drop the gun belt, but stay put until I get there.”

Kerney waited to ride into camp until Billy’s gun belt hit the ground.

Billy smiled as he rode up. “It’s been a while, John. Now, how about that cup of coffee?”

“Climb down,” Kerney said.

Billy jumped out of his saddle, went over to Charlie Gambel’s body, and prodded it with the toe of his boot. “Dead, sure enough. I expect you want me to help bury this old boy?”

“That would be neighborly.” Kerney swung off his horse. “If we plant him now, you can stay for supper.”

“I’d be obliged,” Billy said.

“Seems you didn’t care if Charlie did some killing here today.”

Billy smiled. “Weren’t my business.” He took Charlie’s legs and dragged him into the tall bunchgrass.

“Was old Charlie your pard?”

“Can’t say that he was,” Billy answered. “I was just wandering back from Arizona with him. We quit a trail drive there. Didn’t feel like riding on to California.”

Kerney grabbed two shovels and handed one to Billy. “Dig,” he said.

“I never did like old Charlie much,” Billy said as he started digging. “He was just about as useless a cowboy there ever was.”

“That he was,” Kerney replied.

Behind them, Ignacio’s breathing had slowed to normal. His heart no longer thundered in his chest and his ears had stopped ringing. In the space of a minute he’d gone from being almost killed to seeing Charlie Gambel fall off his horse dead.

He was glad Charlie was dead. He thought about Teresa and smiled.

12

T
hroughout the winter and into the first chilly days of spring, from sunup to sundown, John Kerney and Ignacio Chávez labored to start Kerney’s ranch in a meandering valley north of Hembrillo Canyon. Formed into a horseshoe shape that dipped to low, rolling foothills, it had good grasslands watered by a spring-fed pond surrounded by reeds and cattails. An intermittent stream shaded by cottonwoods wandered through the tall grass and disappeared in a flat-bottomed arroyo that coursed into the Tularosa Basin.

From the upper reaches of the valley, Kerney could look out on the barren alkali flats, the blinding, sugar white sand dunes, the ink black lava fingers of the malpais, and the far-off eastern mountains, which cast powerful sunrises over the land most every morning.

Above the pond, a wide, level shelf nestled against the valley’s north slope. With a commanding view of the basin, it was a perfect spot for a ranch house. Once built, he’d plant a windbreak of trees but leave the panorama open so he could rest on the veranda and enjoy the view after long days in the saddle. He imagined the cheerful sounds of birds and animals at the pond and the sight of lazy ponies grazing in the pasture below.

West behind the valley, the San Andres rose up in deep canyons with thick stands of pine trees and sheer rock falls. During the winter months, Kerney and Ignacio cut timber, snaked the logs to the valley, and built two sturdy corrals with strong gates. They hauled rock by the wagonload and built a saddle shed with a three-foot-high stone foundation finished with notched logs and topped off by a slanted wooden roof chinked with mud to keep out moisture and wind.

When the shed was finished, they dug a cistern at the back of it to catch rainwater. They hit bedrock four feet down and split it open by lighting fires against the granite and dousing the rock with cold water. Twenty feet wide and six feet deep, the cistern held a good amount of water.

As promised, Cal Doran put his money into the enterprise and showed up now and again to lend a hand. He was gone more often than not, working as an army scout hunting a band of Apaches led by a chief named Victorio. They were raiding from east to west, north to south, into Mexico and back again, stealing livestock and killing settlers and miners. The army skirmished with them time and again and claimed victory after each engagement, but Victorio and his people continued to avoid capture.