The Last Ranch (13 page)

James nodded his approval.

The deal had been struck. Jasper beamed with pleasure.

As it was exactly what he'd intended to propose, Matt didn't say a word. Instead, he thought it wise to shut up and pour James and Jasper another cup of coffee.

***

B
y the end of the week it was clear to Matt that Patrick and Jasper had hit it off. Jasper's deference to elders was part of it, but mostly it was his easygoing nature and sly sense of humor that won Patrick over. As for Jasper, it was apparent that he held Patrick in the highest regard for his role in the legendary rescue of James Kaytennae and his sister during the wars with the White Eyes.

Patrick basked in the boy's respect and seemed rejuvenated by it. Matt noticed a lot more energy in the old boy when it came to doing his share of the chores. Additionally, he'd taken on the role of schooling Jasper in the finer points of ranching, and when it was his turn to cook, suppertime meals improved vastly.

Matt got to thinking that Patrick seemed to get along better with folks who weren't his blood kin. That sure had been true with little Ginny, Anna Lynn, and now with Jasper. He made that observation to Patrick one night after Jasper turned in.

From his seat on the living room couch, Patrick frowned and turned off the radio. “Why are you licking at old wounds?”

“That's not what I'm doing,” Matt replied as he scanned the bank statement that had come in the mail. “I'm glad to see you taking an interest in Jasper, that's all.”

“I know I weren't much of a pa to you, but I thought we had a truce about that.”

“We do,” Matt slipped the current bank statement into the top desk drawer and leaned back in his chair.

“Then what in the blazes are you saying?”

“Haul in your horns; I'm not looking to argue with you. Maybe it's just that you're less ornery in your dotage.” Matt smiled to signal he meant no offense.

“That's a hell of a thing to say to me,” Patrick replied in an injured voice. He'd turned seventy earlier in the year and with his bum leg, his old war wound, and his worn-down body, he wasn't enjoying getting older one damn bit.

Matt laughed. “I take it back. Are you game for riding along when I take Jasper on a tour of the ranch? There's a lot of backcountry for him to get familiar with. I figure we'll be three days in the saddle camping out.”

“Hell yes, I'm game,” Patrick said with gusto. “Just try to leave me behind and see what happens.”

Matt rose from his desk chair and stretched. “I wouldn't dare want to rile you. Get a good night's sleep. We leave after breakfast.”

***

T
hey left in the morning on horseback, heading south with Patrick in the lead and a pack animal carrying victuals and supplies trotting alongside Jasper.

Matt hung back with Jasper to point out some of the prominent ranch landmarks, the hidden canyons where live streams ran year-round, the pastures where the grass was scant and short in the spring, where deeded land gave way to leased land owned by the state, and the western boundary to the southern section of the Army Air Corps bombing range.

They skirted the desolate Alkali Flats and paralleled the state
road westward toward Rhodes Canyon before veering north into higher country in the direction of the 7-Bar-K line cabin, where they would spend the night.

Jasper asked a lot of good questions about the land, and Matt liked that. Tall, lanky, and smart, he had high cheekbones and a narrow nose reminiscent of his uncle's, and thick, almost perfectly straight eyelashes above dark, oval eyes that gave his face a serious cast and made him look older than his years. It was easy to forget he was only approaching sixteen.

They ate their noon meal of hardtack and beef jerky in their saddles, stopping only to give their ponies a good blow after hard climbs up rocky trails. At sunset, they arrived at the cabin pleasantly cloistered in an oval clearing. Built by Cal Doran while Patrick was fighting with the Rough Riders in Cuba, it had a stove; two cots; a small table with two chairs; a pantry stocked with emergency provisions; and a cord of split, seasoned, and stacked firewood convenient to the front door. A sturdy corral a few steps away enclosed a small hay shed with a barrel of oats. Fresh water flowed to a galvanized metal trough, gravity-fed by a pipe from a nearby stream. It was always agreeable in late spring and summer to leave the searing heat of the basin for the relative coolness of the cabin.

Matt set about fixing supper while Jasper and Patrick tended to the ponies. He cut up and sautéed potatoes, onions, and a small can of green chilies in bacon drippings; mixed in a large tin of corned-beef hash; added salt, pepper, and garlic salt; let it simmer for a time; and served it up. After supper, while Jasper did KP, Matt and Patrick wandered over to the corral and checked the ponies for any sores or bruises. To the west, through a gap in the mountains, clouds hovered above the distant Blank Range, burning bright orange in the sunset.

“From what I see, he makes a hand,” Patrick ventured. “At least he knows his way around the ponies.”

“I agree,” Matt allowed. “He'll do to help you run the spread.”

“You're fixing to go back to college, aren't you?”

Matt nodded. “As soon as I can.”

“You're the boss of this outfit, so do what you want.”

Matt ignored the dig and kept silent.

Patrick scanned the sky. “Storm coming our way late tomorrow,” he predicted.

“Best we get an early start so we can hunker down when it hits,” Matt suggested.

They turned back to the cabin in time to see Jasper spreading his bedroll under the low branches of a nearby juniper tree.

“We wore the boy out some, I reckon,” Matt said.

“He's no more worn-out than me,” Patrick said, yawning.

***

T
hroughout the following day, Patrick's prediction of a storm appeared sadly farfetched. The three riders traveled the vast high desert tableland of the Jornada under a starkly blue cloudless sky in sweltering heat. By the time they'd turned east to enter the soft foothill trail through Mockingbird Gap, Matt had completely given up on any chance of rain.

They plodded along, men and ponies alike weary and thirsty. To the south, Salinas Peak signaled the northerly thrust of the San Andres Mountains, home to the 7-Bar-K Ranch. North lay the Oscura Mountains overlooking the bombing range, where the military had thrown up the mysterious army post in the middle of nowhere.

Matt had planned to take Patrick and Jasper into the Oscuras
for a look-see at the military goings-on, but instead he veered toward a little-known spring in a half-forgotten slot canyon that cut into the westerly backside of the Little Burro Mountains.

Luckily, a trickle of live water from the springs filled a shallow pool in a polished stone crevice hidden by a leafy old desert willow. The narrow valley chute between the Little Burro and Mockingbird Mountains provided a clear nighttime view of the distant lights from the army encampment. Matt decided to make camp there so that Patrick and Jasper might have a glimpse, however remote, of what he'd seen.

After supper, clouds rolled in and hurried nighttime. Jasper made a small fire, more for enjoyment than for warmth. As the night deepened and the fire became a bed of glowing embers, the three men watched dozens of lights flickering and twinkling miles away at the old McDonald spread. Behind them deep, rolling thunder sounded the promise of rain but brought only a slight drizzle to the camp, barely enough to dampen their hats.

Matt recounted to Jasper how he and Patrick had been chased away by soldiers when they'd gone looking for stray cattle, and about the big explosion that had brought him willy-nilly out of a canyon in the Oscuras in time to see a huge crater where once a wooden tower had stood.

The drizzle continued. They turned in on bedrolls covered with their rain slicks, serenaded by distant thunder and an occasional bolt of lightning that danced across the sky. Long before morning the uneasiness of the ponies brought Matt out of a restless sleep. Low clouds hid the stars, but the promise of dawn eased the darkness.

Thinking Patrick and Jasper were still asleep, he sat up and quietly pulled on his boots, only to hear them moving about and shucking off their rain slicks. He was ten feet away from the
ponies when the earth trembled, the wind roared, and the sun seemed to fall from the dark sky, exploding into a brilliant whiteness that rose up to become a massive, roiling, ravenous cloud.

He stood blinded, convinced he was consigned to permanent darkness, never to see again. He didn't begin to breathe until his good eye—his only eye—began to register the image of an enormous mushroom-shaped cloud in the distance rising to the heavens.

Momentarily mesmerized by the spectacle, the three men quickly struck camp and silently rode away from the horrifying sight.

***

B
ack home, the event was reported on the radio as the explosion of a large munitions dump in a remote southern New Mexico desert that had caused no injuries and only negligible damage. That preposterous lie was laid bare mere days later when atomic bombs dropped by army flyboys destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war.

Chief Petty Officer Mary Ralston, age twenty-four, the only daughter and youngest child of Clyde and Shirley Ralston of Santa Fe County, New Mexico, approached the Quonset hut Personnel Office at the Treasure Island US Naval Station carrying her duffel bag and small suitcase. With mixed emotions she was about to leave the navy after four years on active duty.

In the summer of 1943, she'd arrived at the base in the San Francisco Bay as an apprentice seaman clerk-typist. She worked hard, used her brains, was tactful and diplomatic with her superior officers, and quickly mastered whatever tasks were assigned to her. As a result she rose steadily in rank and when the war ended she was a petty officer first class and secretary to Capt. Alexander Gilmore, the newly appointed base commander. She assumed that she'd be discharged when the navy ordered the immediate separation of all eligible enlisted personnel including most WAVES, but instead Captain Gilmore asked her to extend her tour of duty and promoted her to chief. With the promotion,
Mary Ralston became one of the youngest women in the navy to attain that rank.

She never regretted her decision to stay on. Her job helping run the naval station for her boss held much more appeal than the notion of returning to college. She'd enlisted after completing her sophomore year at the University of New Mexico, not knowing what to expect. It became an amazingly liberating adventure that did far more to help her outgrow her family and her past than college ever had.

Leaving home for college had put some distance between her and her parents—who ranched on the fringe of the Galisteo Basin outside Santa Fe—but not nearly enough to suit her. Clyde and Shirley were pious, pompous, and old-before-their-time churchgoing Baptists who'd been painfully unhappy with each other ever since Mary could remember. Whatever affection they possessed for their two children was reserved for Mary's older brother, Tom, a bully who could do no wrong. It didn't take her long to figure out that she was a mistake, not a blessing.

Her greatest measure of happiness came from the freedom the ranch provided. Twenty-four thousand acres gave her plenty of opportunities to escape her parents' constant dissatisfaction and her brother's relentless taunts and pestering. Until her teenage years, as long as she obeyed, did her chores, went to church every Sunday, and got good grades in school, Clyde and Shirley let her roam on her pony as much as she liked. She'd pack a lunch and leave her cares behind, loping her pony across rocky pasturelands, up low-lying mesas, and down wide, shallow arroyos until she knew every nook and cranny of the ranch. She'd be gone for hours and it didn't matter. Or she'd call from her best friend Patty's house, who lived on a neighboring ranch, to say she was
staying overnight. Most of the time, her parents didn't care if she was home or not.

That all changed when she started high school, stopped acting like a tomboy, and got interested in boys. Her parents reined her in hard, worried and suspicious that she might be hanging out with the wrong crowd and, as they put it, letting boys take advantage of her. They were so vexed by all the sinful trouble she could get into that she was obliged to participate in a special family Bible study hour after every Sunday dinner that made her want to scream. It didn't matter that she was an honor student, president of the Spanish Club, was liked and respected by teachers and friends, and had won an academic scholarship to the University of New Mexico. The fear that she might become pregnant and disgrace the family name dominated their minds.

One Saturday night near the end of her senior year, she stayed out way past her weekend curfew at a pre-graduation party thrown by Patty's parents. She made it back to the ranch road at two in the morning in a pickup truck driven by the Elkins brothers, walked four miles home, and crawled into bed thinking she hadn't been caught, only to be dragged almost naked into the kitchen by her father, who accused her of being nothing but a whore. She sat frozen in a kitchen chair, arms crossed to cover herself, shivering while he ranted, threatened to send her to their minister for counseling, and demanded to know who she was sleeping with, while her mother glared at her in unforgiving disgust for a sin she'd yet to commit. It was the worst day of her life.

Sent to bed, locked in her room, and ordered not to come out until called, Mary dressed quietly, snuck out through the window, and in the predawn light rode her pony to Patty's, thinking she'd run away forever, never to be found. She was huddled with Patty
in her bedroom when Clyde showed up red-faced and riled, yelling and yanking her into his truck. He drove her away, with Patty and her parents standing dumbstruck in the dust thrown up by the tires. Grounded, virtually imprisoned except for school and church, terrorized by a regime of silence, her worst day turned into her worst month.

One Monday afternoon at school, the last week before graduation, she fell apart and ran sobbing out of her Spanish class to the guidance counselor's office, where she babbled to Miss Scoville about her miserable family and her unhappy life. She was a good person, had done nothing wrong, had never gone all the way with a boy, but now she would, she would, she would, yes, she would.

Miss Scoville, who knew Mary to be a smart and well-mannered girl, said nothing for the longest time. When she finally spoke, her advice was direct and simple: trust who you are, get out and on your own as soon as you can, and don't look back. It was advice Mary never forgot. Only the prospect of college made that summer at home bearable.

At the university she used her part-time job at the college bookstore as an excuse to shorten her visits home. At the end of her freshman year, she took classes in the summer session that also cut into her time at the ranch, which made being with her parents slightly more endurable. Her relationship with Clyde and Shirley became an armed truce verging on open rebellion. She survived flare-ups by avoiding doing anything to rile them.

As the end of her sophomore year approached, she was told by her parents she couldn't take summer classes because of the cost. The idea of being under her parents' thumb at the ranch for three months distressed her so much she lost weight and couldn't sleep. And with her brother Tom now back home from his defense job in California with a deferment to help run the family ranch, it
would only be worse. Patty, who was also at the university, suggested she stay with her for the summer, but Mary knew her parents would never allow it. The time had come to take Miss Scoville's advice and move on. Two weeks before the semester ended she enlisted in the navy. Ordered to report for induction the day after final exams, she had Patty drive her to the ranch for a quick goodbye. Her mother feigned tears, her father sank into one of his famous pouting silences, and Tom flashed a frosty smile in her direction as she eagerly climbed into Patty's car for the getaway. She left knowing that she wanted very little to do with any of them ever again, suspecting they felt exactly the same way about her.

She turned to look back as they drove away and saw them frozen like wooden statues on the front porch, not waving, just watching. The thought struck her that they were strangers. Characters in some melodrama totally unrelated to her.

Over the next four years, she wrote home only once, after finishing basic training. A letter soon came from her father wishing her good luck in the navy and letting her know everyone at home was praying for her. A week later a copy of the King James version of the Bible arrived with a note from her mother encouraging her to study the Scriptures daily and attend church regularly. She gave the Bible to the base library. As she expected, her brother never wrote, but a year later she received a wedding invitation from his bride-to-be. She replied with a card of congratulations and never heard back.

As her time on active duty grew short, Mary gave serious thought to the navy as a career, but reached the conclusion that she wouldn't be happy remaining in the enlisted ranks. Only as an officer could she advance, but that required either a college degree or a nursing certificate. She wasn't keen about becoming a nurse, so finishing her degree seemed the best thing to do. After
that, if the navy still held her interest, she'd put in for a direct commission or consider reenlisting for Officer Candidate School.

Minutes away from becoming a civilian and eight weeks away from starting her junior year of college under the GI Bill in Las Cruces at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, Mary felt eagerly adrift. She didn't know if she'd like Las Cruces, had no idea where she would live when she got there, had yet to think seriously about selecting a major, and was unsure if she'd enjoy being a lowly college student again without any rank or prestige. All she knew for sure was that it was the start of another new adventure in her life. Once again it was time to never look back.

She finished signing the final paperwork and received her honorable discharge papers that included the citation for the Navy Commendation Ribbon, the Good Conduct Medal, two World War II service medals, and her Pistol Marksmanship Ribbon.

Lt. Mabel Salisbury, the personnel officer and Mary's good friend, attached a ruptured duck to her uniform lapel, gave her a warm hug, and walked her to the base commander's car, where the driver waited to take her to the city.

Mary kept smiling and held back tears as she gave Mabel one last hug and a kiss on the cheek. She slipped into the backseat suddenly feeling sad. Leaving the navy was much harder than she imagined it would be. As a teenager, she'd been overjoyed to leave home for college and later wildly excited to drop out of college for the navy. Why was this departure so wrenching?

Maybe it was because of the friends and colleagues she was leaving behind. Or the sad memory of those she'd lost in the war, especially one handsome sailor she'd fallen in love with. Or maybe it was all the fun she'd had exploring San Francisco and California with her navy girlfriends, most of them since leaving the
service married and starting families. Or those glorious good times with the soldiers and sailors she'd dated, drinking and dancing late into the night at the city hot spots. And surely some of it came from the satisfaction of doing an important job well enough to gain the recognition and appreciation of her superior officers. The Navy Commendation Ribbon for meritorious service was not an award given lightly, and she was proud to wear it.

She shook off the glum feeling and smiled as the driver entered the ramp to the Bay Bridge, headed for San Francisco. She needed to stop reliving the past and look to a bright future, even if she had no idea what it would bring.

At the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill, she checked into her room, tipped the bellhop, and left her canvas duffel bag and small suitcase untouched on the bed. After a quick look out the window at the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill and Alcatraz Island in the bay, she freshened up in the lovely bathroom she had all to herself with its inviting claw-foot tub. She promised herself a long soak later.

In the lobby she debated taking a taxi to shop for clothes at the Emporium Department Store on Market Street, but instead decided a walk down Powell Street to enjoy the lively city atmosphere would do her good. The mild, sunny afternoon raised her spirits. She enjoyed the glances her uniform attracted from an occasional passerby. With the war over these last two years, women in uniform were once again a rarity.

The noise and bustle of the city felt liberating and she quickened her pace to keep up with the people flowing around her. The squeaking brakes and the clanging bells of passing cable cars added a festive rhythm to the day. Right at that moment she had half a mind to forget New Mexico and stay in San Francisco instead. It was an expensive city, but it had breathtaking views, lovely
old neighborhoods, a good university, a great nightlife, and it was teeming with young people—many of them veterans like her. With her secretarial skills, she could surely find part-time work to supplement her GI Bill while she continued her studies.

She crossed busy Market Street to the Emporium. She'd discovered the vast department store on her first weekend liberty from Treasure Island and always poked her nose inside whenever she was in the city, sometimes just to have lunch at the mezzanine café with her girlfriends. With its arched two-story Greek revival entrance bordered by tall pilasters, the soaring, welcoming rotunda, the grand staircase, and the acres of merchandise, it was far beyond anything that existed in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. Sometimes she'd wander the aisles of clothing racks for hours and leave empty-handed. More often she'd come away with an appealing blouse or a stylish dress to wear on dates.

Frugal with money, with each promotion Mary had saved most of her pay increases, and now she intended to spend some of it. She started in ladies' fashions, trying on and buying an assortment of skirts, dresses, tops, and slacks before moving on to the shoe department, where she picked out several pairs that went nicely with her new wardrobe. In the lingerie department she bought three new pairs of nylons, and mostly practical underpants and bras but couldn't resist purchasing several lacy sets to wear when she got dressed up to go out. She finished in the leather-goods section, impulsively adding a shoulder purse that went perfectly with her luggage.

A taxi took her and her pile of bags and boxes back to the Mark Hopkins, where she generously tipped the smiling cabdriver who unloaded everything, as well as the eager bellhop who carted it all to her room. She hurried out of her uniform, tossed it over the bed railing, and spent the next hour in front of the mirror
trying on her new outfits. It was cocktail hour when she finished. She paused in front of the mirror before leaving for the hotel's famous Top of the Mark bar and lounge that provided a panoramic view of the city.

She was pleased with her new look. The pleated, tan skirt cinched at the waist by a wide brown belt went nicely with the white, high-collar blouse and the dressy brown pumps. The skirt ended just below her knees, showing just the right amount of leg, and the belt gave an appealing accent to her hips and tiny waist. At the door, she smiled at the huge pile of clothing, boxes, and shopping bags that littered the bed. It certainly didn't look like former chief petty officer Mary Ralston's spit-and-polish billet on Treasure Island.