The Last Ranch (24 page)

On the afternoon of August 6, 1957, Matt, Mary, Kevin, and Patrick were at the T or C cottage preparing to leave for the ranch after spending the previous day shopping for new school clothes for Kevin, taking Patrick to see the doctor, and buying supplies for the ranch. The telephone rang just as they were at the back door. Matt answered to find an agitated Charlie Hopkinson on the line. He'd just returned from a court appearance in Albuquerque, where a district judge, at the request of the army, had ordered US Marshals to evict John Prather, Charlie's client, from his ranch on the Tularosa.

“Seems like nothing can or will stop them,” Hopkinson added angrily. “Old John's ranch headquarters is but a mile and a half inside the government's boundary and they refused to budge an inch on the appeal to exempt it from condemnation. The judge had no choice but to rule for the government. But John isn't budging either; he vows to stay put. The marshals are going to be there in the morning with an eviction order. Word is that reporters from all over the country are coming to cover the standoff. I thought you'd want to know.”

“Much obliged,” Matt replied.

After apologizing for being abrupt as he had other folks to alert, Hopkinson hung up. Patrick nearly had a fit when Matt told him what had happened. Like Patrick, John was one of the last of the old-timers on the basin—a man who'd come to the Tularosa from Texas as a young child with his family in 1883, not long after Patrick's father had arrived.

“It's indecent,” he sputtered, too upset to think of a better word. “It ain't right. I'm going over there to stand by him when the marshals show up.”

“Is that wise?” Mary asked, concerned Patrick's agitation might kill him. He was eighty-two and had high blood pressure.

Patrick's face turned bright red. “Don't try to mollycoddle me. I'm going over to John Prather's and that's all there is to it. He'd do the same for us.”

“Do what you think is best,” Mary said, giving Matt a questioning look.

“Patrick's right,” Matt said grimly. “Now that the army has won against Prather, I guarantee they'll come after us next. It's time to start digging in our heels.”

The thought of losing the 7-Bar-K made Mary heartsick. “Kevin and I will stay here.”

“No, Kevin goes with us,” Matt countered. “I want him to learn firsthand that right and wrong isn't always about what the law or some judge says it is.”

“That's the truth of it,” Patrick snapped in agreement.

“He's a child.” Mary looked at the two Kerney men and protectively wrapped her arm around Kevin's shoulder. “He could get hurt.”

“This is a battle of wills, not a shooting war,” Matt said. “You head on home to the ranch.”

“I'll be fine, Mom,” Kevin piped up, excitement flashing in his eyes. “I want to go.”

Mary looked at the three Kerney men, all eager to join the fray. Although she'd never met John Prather, she'd read about him in the newspapers. Last year, after a judge in Albuquerque had ruled against him in condemnation proceedings, he'd become something of a local hero when he told reporters he wasn't about to move and anyone who tried to force him off his ranch risked life and limb.

The story made headlines across the country and several national papers ran profiles about him, detailing how for more than half a century he'd built his spread on remote rangeland south of the Sacramentos, scooping out tanks to catch rainwater, sinking a thousand-foot well, building fences, roads, and a house made of rock, and running cows on eight sections of deeded land and twenty thousand acres of leased government land.

All along, while other ranchers had caved in to the army's demands and sold or been forced out, only Prather on the south end of the Tularosa and Matt and Al on the north had stood pat. Since the day she'd married Matt and moved to the 7-Bar-K she'd known the ranch one day might get swallowed up by the army, but it hadn't preyed on her mind. The grueling six-year drought had been at the forefront of the family's concern.

“I'm going with you,” she said firmly, unwilling to be so easily brushed aside.

Matt frowned and then smiled. “I wouldn't dare try to stop you. We'd better get going. It's a far piece and time's a-wasting.”

“Throw some bedrolls in the back of the truck,” Mary ordered. “I'll pack some clothes, make some snacks, and fill the canteens with water.”

Within ten minutes, the four Kerneys were squeezed tightly in
the cab of Matt's truck, with Kevin on Mary's lap, two rifles in the rear window gun rack, and bedrolls, clothes, and a small cooler filled with water and snacks in the truck bed, rolling south above the speed limit on their way to the Prather Ranch.

***

C
lose to the desert grasslands of Otero Mesa, nudged next to the southern tip of the Sacramentos, the Prather Ranch sat hard against the Fort Bliss McGregor Range bordering the White Sands Proving Ground. At dusk, after an afternoon of hard driving under the furnace of an August sun with only a quick stop for a meal at a small diner in the ramshackle village of Organ at the foot of the San Augustin Pass, the Kerneys arrived, hot, sweaty, and achy. Pickup trucks haphazardly parked in front of the solidly built rock ranch house announced that folks had already begun to gather. Several vehicles with Texas plates had press placards on the dashboards.

John Prather met them at the front door with a smile, a handshake, and a friendly howdy. A soft-spoken man, he was lean and deeply tanned. He wore thick eyeglasses and a sweat-stained cowboy hat pulled down low to the tip of his large ears, and appeared unperturbed by his predicament.

“You've come a far piece,” he said as he gave a nod of greeting to Mary and Kevin.

“We've got to stand together,” Patrick announced. “You and me are the last of the old-timers.”

“We're almost extinct, I reckon,” Prather chuckled.

“Not yet.”

“Not yet by a long shot.” Prather pointed at a tight-knit group of four sunburned men in white dress shirts and wrinkled pleated
pants smoking cigarettes at the corner of the house. “Those newspaper boys over there will want to ask you questions and take your pictures. Shoo them off if it's a bother. They've already posed me holding my rifle. I think they'd be happy if I shot a US Marshal or two when they show up to evict me come morning.”

“Will you?” Mary asked.

“I don't want to, that's for certain. Come on inside. There's coffee and grub if you're hungry. There's folks here you know that'll be glad to see you. More are coming around sunup. Things should stay quiet until then.”

Before Prather could usher them inside, the press boys descended, several with cameras, all with notebooks in hand. Mary wanted no part of it. Dragging Kevin along she wound her way through a dozen people in the living room, saying hello to those she knew, and went to the kitchen to see if anything needed doing. Several ladies she didn't know were chatting at a table stacked with clean plates, glassware, and utensils. Two more were at the kitchen washbasin drying dishes. On the cookstove pots of beans and chili simmered. She chatted with the women for a short while, turned to look for Kevin, and found him gone. Outside, one of the newspapermen with a camera was snapping photographs of Kevin sitting against the side of the house clutching Matt's rifle. A camera flashbulb popped just before Mary yanked the rifle out of Kevin's hand and pulled him to his feet.

The reporter smiled at Mary's hostile look, told her it was a great human-interest photo, and gave her his card in case she wanted to write and have him send her a copy as a keepsake.

She tore the card up, put the rifle back in the truck, and looked Kevin square in the eyes. “Did you take your dad's rifle without asking his permission?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Kevin admitted, staring down at his boots. “The man said it would be okay.”

“Do you think it's smart to do what strangers ask?”

“No, ma'am, I guess not.”

“What have you learned?”

“Don't act dumb,” Kevin proposed, almost as a question.

“That's right.” She tapped a finger against his temple. “Always use your noggin.”

“Yes, ma'am, I will.”

Mary gave him a reassuring smile and a quick hug. “Okay, you, get in the back of the truck, pull off your boots, climb into your bedroll, and go to sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a big day.”

The men gathered at the corral, listening for news on a car radio and talking well into the night. Mary fell asleep on the truck bench seat. In the morning at first light, she woke up to the blaring sound of a car horn. She'd been covered with a blanket and her head rested on a pillow of clean clothes from the small suitcase she'd packed in T or C. Only someone as sweet as Matt would have thought to tuck her in like that.

Out the rear window she saw him asleep in the bed of the truck, snuggled next to Kevin. Patrick was nowhere to be seen. Down the dusty ranch road came a small caravan of vehicles, mostly pickup trucks. Reinforcements had arrived.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and went to help in the kitchen. Best to get folks fed before the marshals appeared and the showdown started.

There were more than twenty people at John Prather's ranch when three deputy US Marshals showed up later in the morning. They caught up with John just as he and a few of the visiting menfolk had returned from working his cattle in a nearby pasture.

“We're here to evict you, John Prather,” Deputy US Marshal Dave Flack announced as Prather dismounted his pony. “I've got a court order from a judge.” Uncomfortable with his assignment, Flack waved the paper in his hand above his head as though it were a shining beacon of jurisdictional might. He nervously eyed the folks clustered in front of the ranch house. Several of the men were toting rifles. Two others packed pistols on their hips. There were five women and a young kid no more than seven or eight standing next to an old-timer clutching a rifle in both hands. Four city slickers—most likely newsmen—hovered nearby.

Prather turned his pony loose, adjusted his thick eyeglasses, peered at Flack and his two sidekicks, pulled his sheath knife, and waved it at the deputies. “The hell with your piece of paper. Come and get me.”

Flack put his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. “No need for that.” His two partners followed suit.

“Are you gonna shoot me for being on my own property?” John Prather asked.

“Let's just stay calm,” Flack replied, decidedly unsettled. “The judge says you've got to go.”

Leg weary, Prather hunkered down on his haunches. “I'm not moving an inch.” He deliberately pointed his knife at each of the lawmen, one, two, three. “You get off my ranch. You're trespassing.”

“You know we've got to do this, Mr. Prather,” Flack countered, trying not to plead. Evicting the old man from the place he'd built up from scratch for over a half century was a miserable thing to do.

Prather spit in the dirt. “Show some smarts, young fella, and git off my land before I forget my manners.”

“I can't do that.”

“Then let me get my long gun from the house and we'll settle matters here and now,” Prather proposed.

“I can't do that either.” A good twenty-five feet separated Flack from John Prather. He took two steps closer and heard the sound of rifle rounds chambered in long guns.

“Don't come any nearer,” Prather warned as he rose up from his crouch.

“I can wing him from here,” a voice called out from the front of the house. Flashbulbs popped and camera shutters clicked.

Flack swung his attention to the old-timer standing next to the young boy. The man held a bead on him with a rifle. Reporters scribbled notes.

“What's your name, Marshal?” one of the reporters called out. “Who are those officers with you?”

“No gunplay!” Flack ordered his two companions, who were about to clear leather. The deputies froze.

“Lower the rifle, Pat,” John Prather said. “We aren't killing anyone just yet.”

“I've shot better men,” Patrick Kerney growled. “And it would give me great pleasure.”

From the look on the old man's face, Flack didn't doubt it.

“Lower the gun,” Prather repeated evenly.

Grumbling, the old man did as he was told. One of the women, the prettiest of the bunch, rushed up to him, gave him a dirty look, and yanked the young boy into the house. Chagrined, the old man glanced away.

Flack smiled in relief and paused to regain his composure. “Let's start over, John.”

Prather looked skyward. It was getting on to eleven o'clock and the sun was blazing hot. “Go right ahead and start,” he said genially.

“I'd rather not arrest you.” Flack pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his sweaty face. “Come to town with me, cash the check the government sent you, and live a comfortable life.”

“What happens to my livestock? Who's gonna water my garden and orchard? What if thieves come and steal everything I own? Are you gonna protect my spread while I'm gone to town living comfortable like you put it?”

Flack shook his head. “You're acting muleheaded about this.”

Prather smiled broadly. “Mules are some of my favorite critters, so I appreciate the compliment. But you're the one being disagreeable and foolhardy. Can't you tell when a man is standing his ground? I told the judge I wasn't moving, so either come after me with your leg irons and figure to get sliced doing it, or get gone.”

He waved his knife again for emphasis.

“We have a job to do,” Flack replied, realizing he was near the divide that separated seeking sympathy from outright begging.

“Find another line of work,” Prather suggested, punctuating the comment with a snort and a spit.

“It's either us or the army.”

“Go on and get those army boys,” Prather challenged.

“Woo-hoo!” yelled one of the younger men in the crowd, a tough-looking cowboy. “You tell them, Uncle John. Bring on the army!”

Flack took a deep breath. “Let's just cool down,” he said, facing the cowboy, his voice cracking from the dryness. He longed for a swig from the water jug on the backseat of his government vehicle.

The cowboy shot a nasty look in reply but stayed quiet.

Flack switched his attention back to Prather. “How about you ask your friends to look after the ranch until we can get things settled in town?”

“No need for any of that malarkey.” Prather nodded at the dust cloud on the ranch road. “Company's coming. Otherwise I'd offer you a cup of coffee and send you on your way. If it's the army, maybe we'll be able to settle things right now.”

Dave Flack looked at the crowd in front of Prather's rock house. They were as restless as a bunch of schoolkids waiting for playground bullies to start fighting. He prayed it was the army. Instead a small squad of reporters and cameramen arrived, piled out of three cars, and surrounded John Prather, filming and firing questions at him all at once. There was a television news reporter from Los Angeles and another one from Albuquerque. A newspaperman from Chicago and a radio newscaster from Washington, DC, had flown in to cover the story.

Deputy US Marshal Dave Flack turned to his two fellow officers and ordered a retreat, but before they could get to their vehicle, a reporter from the original group that had been watching since the moment they'd arrived waylaid them.

“What are you going to do now, Deputy?” Jack Flynn from the El Paso
Sun Times
asked Flack. Flynn had been dogging the Prather case since the beginning and had become a real pain in the ass.

“No comment,” Flack replied.

“So my headline will read, ‘Rancher Stands Off Three US Marshals.'”

“Write anything you want,” Flack grumbled, trying unsuccessfully to step around the man. “Just don't forget to mention that nobody got hurt.”

“John Prather stands to lose everything he's worked for these last fifty years. That's pretty harmful, wouldn't you say?”

“You know what I mean.”

“So why didn't you arrest him?” Flynn demanded.

“And start a riot?” Flack shot back.

Flynn smiled and shook his head. “That would have been newsworthy.”

“You're an asshole, Flynn.”

Flynn's smile broadened. “Have you nothing else to add, Deputy?”

Flack pushed past Flynn, ordered his men into the vehicle, got behind the wheel, and drove away.

“What do we do now, Dave?” Deputy US Marshal Mike Saiz asked from the backseat. He was a rookie with less than a year on the job.

“Hand me the water jug,” Flack replied.

Jug in hand, Flack took a long swig. “To answer your question,
we're gonna kick this puppy up the chain of command and wait to get our butts chewed.”

There was a long silence.

“That's okay by me,” Deputy US Marshal Trinidad Romero said from the passenger seat. “I didn't sign on to this job ten years ago to kick an old man off his land, no matter what the courts decide.”

“Amen,” Dave Flack replied. “But try to keep that opinion to yourself.”

In the village of Orogrande on the road to El Paso, Flack called his boss, Richard Bradford, the US Marshal for the state of New Mexico, and reported his failure to serve the writ and remove John Prather from his ranch.

“Just as well,” Bradford replied wearily. “This has turned into a three-ring circus. Newspapers and TV stations from all over the country have been calling my office. Let the army take the heat. They're on their way from Fort Bliss as we speak. Go back to the Prather ranch and keep an eye on things, but take no action, understood?”

“You got it, boss,” Flack said, relief flooding his voice. He hung up and turned to Mike and Trinidad. “We're in the clear with Bradford. I'm hungry, let's get something to eat.”

***

O
nce a thriving mining community, Orogrande had fallen on hard times. Aside from a train depot, a roadside café, a few occupied houses in need of repair, and several dilapidated buildings, the village had almost ceased to exist. Flack figured the day would come when the only thing left would be a road sign at a lonely desert railroad crossing.

The three deputies were at a table next to the café's front
window, sipping coffee and waiting for their meals to arrive when three military jeeps filled with soldiers roared by, heading toward the Prather Ranch. A stream of civilian cars followed closely behind.

Probably more reporters, Flack guessed. He got to his feet and threw greenbacks on the table to cover the cost of the food. “Let's go,” he ordered.

“We haven't eaten yet,” Mike Saiz complained.

“It won't kill you to skip a meal, and this is a show I don't want to miss,” Flack replied.

On the straight, lightly traveled highway, with Flack driving at high speed in the government sedan, it took only a few minutes to catch up to the convoy. Off the pavement on the ranch road, the deputies ate dust all the way to the ranch house, where they discovered all the reporters clustered outside on the shady side of the house with everyone else forted up inside.

The army officers consisted of a light colonel, a major, two captains, and two lieutenants. Along with their three enlisted drivers, they formed a picket line behind their jeeps, while the newly arrived reporters spread out and got busy filming, snapping photographs, and taking notes.

Dave Flack approached the officer in charge, a light colonel with blood in his eye wearing starched fatigues and spit-shined boots, now covered with a film of dust.

During WWII as a dogface, Flack had fought from Italy to Normandy and had little love for spit-and-polish officers. He looked the colonel up and down, flashed his badge, and said, “Don't do anything stupid, Colonel. There are at least twenty people inside that house, armed and ready to fight.”

The officer arched an eyebrow. “Now, how would you know that, Deputy? You just got here.”

“No, I just got
back
here from Orogrande,” Flack replied. “And I can tell you for a fact that John Prather, his kinfolk, and his friends aren't about to lay down their weapons and invite you inside.”

“Wasn't it your job to evict him?” the colonel asked, eyeing the very sturdy-looking rock house. Against light weapons it was a formidable defensive structure.

“It was,” Flack admitted. “But I didn't have enough manpower for a siege. Neither do you, from the looks of it, unless you plan to bring up some tanks and artillery pieces with reinforcements.”

“I'll be the judge of what's necessary here,” the colonel replied.

Flack shrugged. “Suit yourself, but if you start a war, I'll arrest you and your men.”

The colonel sneered. “You don't have jurisdiction over the United States Army.”

“Try me,” Flack replied, silently cursing at himself for jumping feetfirst into a brouhaha he'd been told by his boss to avoid.

The colonel looked Flack over and decided he wasn't bluffing. “What do you suggest?”

“Ask John Prather to parley with you and then decide what to do.” From what Flack had seen of the old man, he doubted a showdown with the army would faze him.

The colonel nodded a curt agreement and, using a handheld transistorized megaphone—a newly invented technological gizmo favored by the military and law enforcement—he called for John Prather to step outside the house.

Several minutes passed before the door opened and Prather appeared with a long gun in hand.

“John Prather, I'm Colonel Reinhart. I'm here to resolve this peaceably.”

“Well, Colonel, you can go straight to Hades. I will kill the first
man that steps through the door into my home. I'm staying here dead or alive.”

“Surely you don't mean that,” Reinhart replied.

“Get off my ranch,” Prather snapped. He stepped back inside and slammed the door just as the barrels of several rifles appeared in open windows.

“Shit!” Colonel Reinhart said under his breath.

“He doesn't parley very nicely, does he?” Flack noted, biting back additional sarcasm.

Reinhart looked around at the reporters eagerly awaiting the action and at his men patiently awaiting their orders. He glared at Flack. “Arrest Prather,” he ordered through clenched teeth.

“No can do,” Dave Flack replied with a winning smile. “It's your ball game now, Colonel. But watch out. You could wind up with egg on your face if you force a showdown.”

In a huff, Reinhart turned his back on Flack and had a hurried confab with his subordinates. After some back-and-forth hushed conversation, they climbed into their jeeps and left. As soon as they were out of sight, Flack told all the newsmen to leave pronto or be arrested.

“You can't do that,” Jack Flynn blustered.

“This is technically federal land until a judge says different, and you're trespassing,” Flack retorted.

“You'd arrest all of us?” Flynn scoffed.

“Yep, starting with you,” Flack said. He raised his voice to be heard over the grumblings. “You fellas got your story, so now get going.”