Hard Country (59 page)

Emma blocked his way. “Don’t you dare pass us by.” She yanked Matt squarely in front of Patrick. “This is your son Matthew. Look at him. Speak to him.”

Patrick glared at her. He smelled of whiskey and looked a little wobbly.

“Talk to him, Pa,” CJ pleaded.

“Don’t you tell me what to do, boy,” Patrick snapped, refusing to look at the child.

Emma kneeled at Matt’s side. “This is your father, Matthew. Say hello to him.”

“Hi,” Matt said timidly, taking a step back into his mother’s arms.

Patrick glanced at Emma. Her jaw was set and her eyes bored into him. Finally, he looked at the boy, his face a hard mask.

“Howdy,” he grumbled as he sidestepped around Emma and the child, walked hurriedly down the street, and ducked into the nearby saloon.

Trembling with anger, Emma rose and marshaled a cheerful smile. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s rent a nice room and get ready for supper.”

CJ took Matt by the hand and followed Ma into the hotel. Never once had she said a bad word against Pa to him. She could be as tough as nails when he didn’t measure up, but she was always fair and he knew she loved him. With Pa it was different. He also pushed him hard, as he had a right to, but CJ rarely felt Pa cared a hoot or a holler about him or anybody else. And what he’d just done to Matt irked CJ a lot. It sure didn’t make CJ feel proud to be his son.

* * *

T
he following evening Ignacio’s body was laid out in an open casket in the hacienda courtyard, surrounded by lighted tapers that flickered in the early dusk. With the priest away from the village, the mass for the dead would have to wait. Old women in long black shawls prayed the rosary, while funeral hymns were sung by
alabados.

With the tolling of the church bell, the funeral procession began with some women in front, two of them carrying a richly embroidered banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Behind them, two musicians played violins, followed by the wagon bearing Ignacio’s body, his coffin covered in muslin with a small cross affixed to the lid. At the rear of the wagon were Teresa, her children and grandchildren, and other members of the family. Behind them came many of the Mexican villagers. Emma, CJ, and Matthew were among a very small group of
americano
merchants and townspeople at the end of the procession. Emma kept glancing back to see if Patrick had joined the procession, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Bonfires lit the way, each tended by a young boy. At the
campo santo,
the holy ground, part of the wooden grave fence with elaborate staves that surrounded the burial site of Ignacio’s parents had been removed and a fresh grave dug. At the head of the grave was a hand-carved cross with a sunburst of the Sacred Heart in the center. Little stars adorned the cross.

Solemn men carried the casket from the wagon and, using ropes, gently lowered it into the grave. Women laid roses all around. Surrounded by her children, Teresa knelt, placed the silver cross she wore the day they were married on the casket lid, and quietly began to cry.

Helped to her feet by her two oldest sons, she turned to find a sea of candles lighting the night for the way home. As she neared Emma, CJ, and Matthew, Teresa held out her hand.

“Come,” she said softly.

With CJ and Matthew at her side, Emma clasped Teresa’s hand and walked with her and the family back to the hacienda. Soon the bell ceased tolling and the musicians began playing their violins once more.

Hand in hand with Teresa, Emma felt a sense of loss, not only for the passing of Ignacio but for the closing of an era on the basin that soon would be forgotten.

65

I
n the spring of 1916, Patrick bought a string of horses that included a spirited bay with a natural single-footed gait that CJ took a shine to. Barely saddle broke, the pony settled into an even four-beat gait that was smooth as silk and fast. CJ had never ridden a faster horse. He named the bay Traveller and set about training him to be his next cow pony.

Pa didn’t like Traveller much because every morning when CJ went to ride him, the horse put on a private rodeo show, pitching and wheeling something fierce. Some days it took CJ a good five minutes to settle Traveller down.

“He’ll just rile up the others and spoil them,” Pa said. “We don’t need that.”

“He hasn’t yet,” CJ replied as he slid out of the saddle and rubbed Traveller’s snout.

“I know an outlaw when I see one,” Pa replied. “He tries to stay shut of the corral and shies whenever he sees a saddle rope. There’s nothing good about him except his gait.”

“He’s gonna be a great cow pony, maybe one of the best ever,” CJ countered. “I want him for my own.”

Patrick laughed. “That’s tomfoolery.”

“I mean it, Pa.”

Patrick slapped his gloves against his leg. “I never figured you to have poor horse sense, but if you want him, he’s yours. But work him on your own time, hear? If he starts spoiling the herd, he’s gone from the Double K. Savvy?”

“I savvy,” CJ replied as he swung back into the saddle. “Leave him to me and you’ll see what a good one he is.”

“I doubt it,” Patrick grumbled.

Over the next several months sometimes even CJ questioned his faith in Traveller. The pony played up to any mare in heat and got aggressive when CJ attempted to rein him in, sometimes kicking or rearing in protest. Once he went after another mare for no cause, knocking it down and sinking his teeth into its flank, ripping a large gash.

Pa called him plumb mean, but CJ wasn’t ready to give up on him. He took to riding him long and hard as often as he could in the hopes Traveller would settle down, and the strategy seemed to work. There was nothing more fun than to fly across a pasture on Traveller’s back when he was in a full, single-footed gallop.

He still pitched every time he was first mounted, but CJ sensed it becoming more of a ritual and less of a contest. CJ figured Traveller to be a one-man pony, and that suited him just fine.

On the long summer evenings, he worked Traveller with some yearling cows, and the pony proved to be tops. Quick of foot, smart, and unrelenting, Traveller could dodge and dart a cow out of a herd with ease, although at times CJ came halfway out of the saddle when the pony made an unexpected move.

Pa still didn’t like the horse, and the feeling seemed mutual. Traveller charged him anytime he came near, his neck arched high, teeth bared. One evening he came at Pa with his forelegs flailing and sent him scrambling over the corral fence.

“He’s a killer,” Pa said, glaring at the pony. “Mark my words. Unless you break him down, he’ll get to you.”

“He’ll be fine,” CJ said, patting Traveller’s neck to calm him.

“You need to listen to what I’m telling you,” Pa snapped.

“I do, most of the time,” CJ countered, “but this time I think you’re wrong.”

“We’ll see about that,” Pa replied. “Throw a rope on him and tie him to the stubbing post.”

“What in blazes for?” CJ asked. “He’s not wild and unbroken.”

“Just do it,” Pa ordered, “and put a bridle on him while I get my saddle.”

Pa had taken to sipping whiskey every evening after supper, and today was no exception. “Maybe you should wait until morning to ride him,” CJ suggested.

Pa stopped in midstride and glared at CJ. “I can do any damn thing I want on my ranch when I want. Do as you’re told and snub him to the damn post.”

CJ snubbed Traveller and waited for Pa’s return. He came out of the saddle shed with his gear, looking contrary and angry. He saddled Traveller roughly and threw a leg up.

“Turn him loose,” Pa ordered.

CJ hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t…”

“Do it!”

CJ released Traveller, and the pony arched his back, bounded three feet in the air, came down on his forelegs, and kicked. Before Pa could regain his seat, the pony spun and threw him smack into the stubbing post.

CJ grabbed the reins as Traveller reared up to stomp on Pa and pulled him away. He tied him to the corral fence and ran to check on Pa, who sat in the dirt holding his head.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Slowly Pa got to his feet. “Just a knock on my noggin. Unsaddle that outlaw and put him in the pasture while I tend to myself.”

CJ calmed Traveller, unsaddled him, and put him out to pasture. The pony paused outside the gate, lifted his head, tossed his mane, and looked at CJ. He whinnied once, a long, loud call, and trotted away with his tail straight out. It was a stallion’s victory celebration sure enough, and it made CJ smile.

He was in the saddle shed putting Pa’s tack away when he heard the report of a rifle. He dropped everything and darted outside. Pa stood at the corral cradling his long gun. In the pasture Traveller lay on his side, dead.

“No, dammit!” CJ shouted.

He flung himself against Pa and knocked him into the corral fence. Pa kept his balance and punched CJ in the mouth.

CJ slammed Pa into the fence again. “I quit you,” he yelled.

Pa balled his fist, hesitated, and pushed past him. “That suits me fine. Get that dead critter out of my pasture before you go,” he said flatly.

CJ spit blood. “Do it yourself.”

He left for town within the hour, with Pa standing on the porch watching him ride out. Nary a good-bye passed between them.

66

T
he year 1917 began with war fever spreading across the land. German U-boats were attacking unarmed merchant ships carrying food and supplies to Britain. While still calling for peace, President Wilson had cut off diplomatic ties with Germany and ordered merchant ships armed when Congress failed to give him the authority to do so. Newspaper editors were calling on the government to enter the war and the Brits were asking for an American expeditionary force to come to their aid in the French trenches, where thousands upon thousands had already died in battles that seemed to resolve nothing. Recruiting posters were up all over town, and many men were enlisting in the National Guard and the Regular Army.

Billy McFie, who’d just turned eighteen, had signed up with the Regular Army and was leaving in a week for basic training. Austin Feather would be seventeen in less than a month and had his pa’s consent to join the National Guard. Jealous of his friends, CJ had pleaded with his ma to let him join up when he turned seventeen, but she was having none of it.

“There’s to be a national draft,” she argued, “and you’ll be taken quickly enough if the war is still going on. Hopefully it will all be over by then. Stop pestering me about it.”

CJ had started classes at the New Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts campus a few miles outside of town. With one semester under his belt, he’d decided not to go to the ranch for spring works, but instead stay in town and finish his freshman year. But what he really wanted to do was go to war like his friends Austin and Billy and many of the older college men who’d already left for the service.

On Billy’s last night before reporting, the three friends sat under the bare branches of a big cottonwood along the Rio Grande and talked about the war.

“I’m hoping it don’t end until I get there,” Billy said.

“No chance of that,” Austin replied as he lit a cigarette and passed it around. “My pa says it will take years to defeat the Hun. Look how long it’s been going on so far.”

“If I could get by with lying about my age, I’d enlist,” CJ said. “But my ma has already told the recruiters to send me packing if I show up.”

Billy shook his head. “That’s a damn shame.”

“I sure would like it if the three of us could serve together,” Austin said.

“The Army Air Service,” CJ said wistfully.

“The cavalry,” Austin countered.

“In the trenches the cavalry will be on foot,” Billy said knowingly, having been told the same by his recruiter.

“Then the field artillery,” Austin said. “You can ride in the field artillery.”

“You’re both making me glum,” CJ said.

“Does anybody know you in El Paso?” Billy asked.

“I don’t think so,” CJ replied.

Billy handed him the cigarette. “Enlist down there. As big as you are, nobody will doubt your word about being eighteen.”

CJ laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Austin asked.

“I’ll do it,” CJ said.

“When?” Austin asked.

“Soon,” CJ replied, already scheming how to do it without Ma knowing what he was up to.

“How will we know you really did it?” Billy asked.

“I’ll write you both.”

“It’s a deal,” Austin said.

The three boys shook hands to seal it and smoked another cigarette.

* * *

C
ongress declared war on Germany the week before CJ’s classes recessed for spring break. He told Ma he was going to the ranch but instead used some of the top-hand wages he’d saved for a train ticket to El Paso, where he enlisted in the Texas National Guard using his mother’s maiden name. The recruiter was pleased to have another cowboy sign up and told him to forget about the Army Air Service.

“For now you’ll be assigned to the First Texas Cavalry,” he said. “You’ll train in San Antonio until the army brass and the government figure out what’s gonna happen next. Maybe you’ll get some field experience along the border, keeping an eye on the Mexicans.”

“Where on the border?”

“The Big Bend Country along the Rio Grande.”

Happy to have gotten himself enlisted and with the prospect of seeing a new slice of the country, CJ smiled. “When do I leave?”

“In two days, along with eight other recruits.”

Before he left, CJ wrote to Billy and Austin telling them he’d been sworn in and assigned to the First Texas Cavalry and was going to San Antonio. He sent a note to the college withdrawing from school and wrote to Pa, saying what he’d done without asking for his understanding or blessing. He stared at an empty sheet of paper for a long time before starting a letter to Ma.

Dear Mother,

I know how much you’ll dislike what I have to tell you, but I’ve joined up. Please don’t try to track me down, because you won’t be able to find me as I didn’t use my real name when I enlisted. I wrote to Pa and told him so you don’t have to. I doubt what I’ve done will bother him any, but I know you’ll be mad at me for lying to you and going against your wishes.