The Last Ranch (18 page)

Matt put the tack away and turned back to Mary. “You've never said anything about your family.”

“I don't have much of one to talk about,” Mary replied.

“Were you an orphan?” Matt asked somberly.

“Not technically or legally,” Mary replied breezily, trying to organize her thoughts. “The best way I can put it is I have an older brother who's a selfish bully and parents who barely tolerated me from the day I was born. Sometimes, they couldn't even do that. They weren't happy with each other, and I think I was a big mistake they wished would just go away, which is exactly what I did when I got up the courage. I haven't seen any of them since the day I left for the navy.”

“That sounds miserable.”

“It's not something I like to talk about.”

With a soft rag, Matt cleaned the dust off the saddles and changed the subject. “How long did you serve in the navy?”

“Four years.” She told him she mustered out in '47 as a chief petty officer, and that except for recruit training, she'd been posted at the Treasure Island Naval Station in the San Francisco Bay. Then she paused, waiting for the typical snide comment combat vets usually made about toy soldiers who pulled easy stateside duty during the war.

“A c
hief
petty officer,” Matt said, visibly impressed. “You must have been some humdinger to make rank that fast.”

Blushing, she almost hugged him. “That's very nice of you to say. I was good at my job. I thought about staying in and making it a career.”

“I'm glad you didn't, otherwise we never would have met.”

“Well, we did and here I am,” Mary replied, reluctant to get caught up too quickly by his obvious interest in her. “Do you have a copy of the story written about your mother?”

Matt opened the Mexican cabinet and handed her a dog-eared magazine, already turned to a page titled “Emma Makes a Hand.”

She sat on the edge of the bunk with Matt beside her and started reading. From the opening sentence to the very end, the story engrossed and entranced her. How lucky Matt had been to have such a woman for his mother. It made her a bit jealous.

“Patrick used to say she was one of a kind,” Matt remarked. “She died too young.”

“I would have loved to have known her.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, stifling any further thoughts of Emma. Abruptly, he took the magazine from Mary's hand and put it away in the cabinet. “That's my reading copy for interested parties,” he explained. “Hidden away in my desk I've got a brand-spanking-new issue of the magazine I'm keeping for posterity, except to date there are no future generations of Kerneys on the horizon.”

Mary raised an eyebrow. “Really? What about the woman with the young daughter who touched Patrick's heart?”

“Now, that's not fair. I already told you about Beth, and that wasn't easy to do. But to be clear, that little girl wasn't my daughter, although I would have gladly adopted her.” He gave her an appraising look.

“What?” Mary asked.

“Most gals I know don't need to be prodded to talk about themselves.”

“Most guys don't either,” Mary countered. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Matt replied. “But I'll let you off the hook for now. What was the navy like?”

“At the time, it was exactly what I needed.” She stopped and angrily shook her head. “That sounds so selfish. The world went to war, millions died, and I got what I needed.”

“You contributed and served honorably,” Matt said. “That matters.”

“You're sweet to say that.”

Matt swiveled to face her straight-on. “You're not ready, are you?”

“Ready for what?”

Matt stood. “To trust me. Never mind, I understand. I'll walk you to the house.”

Mary grabbed his hand. “Sit down. I'm not very brave when it comes to talking about myself. I get tied up in a knot.”

Refusing to let go of her hand, Matt sat close to her and waited.

She drew a deep breath, smiled, and said, “Okay, here goes.”

They talked for hours. Mary told him about her love affair with Brian Sullivan, their plans to marry after the war, his family's
Montana sheep ranch, where she'd expected to live after their wedding, and how his death on Iwo Jima had shattered her.

Matt understood. He spoke about Anna Lynn, the woman who had stood by and cared for him during his slow recovery from his wound, and how in spite of his honorable intentions she steadfastly refused to be anything more than his lover and how slowly over time she distanced herself from him. He didn't mention the cause—her killing of Fred Tyler. Instead he described her daughter, Ginny, the sweetest little girl imaginable, and how he was weary of losing the people he loved, starting with his brother and his ma.

It made Mary yearn for a family to love. She shared painful memories of her father's rages, her mother's coldness, her brother's constant taunting and teasing that she was ugly and stupid, and her steadfast belief, until she met Brian, that she was unlovable. Just putting it into words exhausted her.

Matt described the nightmare memory of Patrick, drunk and yelling at Emma and CJ outside a hotel, denying he was Matt's father, scaring him half to death. He recounted Patrick's drunkenness and mean-spiritedness, and their fistfight on the college campus, in retrospect about nothing much at all, on the very day he met Beth.

They laughed that it was all too melodramatic and decided Matt was the lucky one to have at least one parent to love, twice lucky to have had an older brother to adore, although their bond was tragically cut short, and fortunate a third time to have made peace with Patrick, something Mary never expected to achieve with her parents.

Talked out, they walked to the veranda and said good night. Impulsively, Mary hugged him before hurrying inside. She slipped into her nightgown and, with moonlight cascading through the
window, lay awake in bed thinking. In college, she'd had unsatisfying sex several times with a college boy who'd been unsure and awkward. Certain her own unattractiveness was at fault, she hesitated before trying sex again with another student several years older who had aroused her with his lively mind, only to be disappointed by his desire to satisfy himself with no thought to her. It wasn't until she met Brian that lovemaking became a wonderful, shared pleasure that now was mostly a receding memory.

In Las Cruces, she'd been discreet, choosing carefully whom to sleep with. But those few men fell far short of what she knew was possible between lovers. She wondered if Matthew Kerney would be any different.

She'd diligently tried to contain her sexuality, or at the very least to mask it, but it was undeniable and unrelenting.

She decided she was being stupid. She'd wanted Matt to touch her, hold her—no, dammit, she wanted him inside her. Come what may—be it good, bad, or indifferent—she decided to give it another try. At the worst, it would only be another disappointment.

She threw off the blankets, dressed, made her way to the barn, tiptoed into the dark tack room, found her way to the bunk, and whispered, “Are you asleep?”

“Not even close,” Matt whispered back.

She undressed, slipped under the blanket, and reached for him as his arms enfolded her. They kissed softly, gently, their hands exploring, their legs entwined. She could sense his eagerness, feel her own quickening pulse. She guided her hand to his hard member, slowly caressing it as he turned on top of her. She spread her legs to receive him and gasped with pleasure as a wonderful erotic pulse vibrated inside her when he entered.

***

O
ver the weekend, they made love at every possible opportunity: in his truck, in the barn on bales of hay, late at night in the bedroom, during their horseback rides. On their return to Las Cruces, they even detoured to the village of Hot Springs on the Rio Grande and rented a motel room for several hours, leaving the bed a moist tangle of sheets.

Back in town, they saw each other every chance they could; usually at Mary's apartment, where Erma, if she was home, would stay discreetly in her bedroom unless Matt was invited for supper and to spend the night, or when they double-dated at the movies with Erma and one of her many beaus who constantly buzzed around her in hopes of winning her hand or gaining access to her bed—which was a rare but more likely possibility.

Matt spent most of the Christmas holidays in town with Mary, returning to the ranch alone for a few days while Mary frantically prepared lesson plans for her teaching job at the elementary school, which would start when classes resumed after the first of the year.

His hopes for the state livestock inspector position were dashed when the job went to the nephew of a powerful state senator who owned a big outfit in the Bootheel. Without the GI Bill to pay his living expenses, he was hard-pressed to stay in town without a job. Gus Merton had generously offered to advance Matt's name for a position at the college in the Ag Department's equine program, if he would only apply, but while he wanted nothing more than to be with Mary, he felt that he'd renege on his responsibilities at the 7-Bar-K if he did so.

They talked it over and decided Matt should go back to the ranch, take stock of what needed to be done to make the operation profitable, and come to town when he could. Once Mary had
settled in at her job, they'd switch back and forth between town and the ranch on the weekends.

Soon after returning to the ranch, Matt drove to the Rocking J to visit with Al Jennings about their cattle partnership. With the understanding that Matt would immediately pick up his share of the work managing the mingled herd, Al agreed to an equal split of profits based on the livestock tallies at shipment. They'd continue to use the pasturelands on both spreads to keep down overgrazing, and jointly maintain the fences, help with the calving, ramrod the spring and fall works, and do all the major maintenance at the windmills, dirt tanks, and live water sources. It was as close as they could come to combining the two ranches without legally merging.

At home, Matt was in a quandary about Jim and Millie. Their pay stretched the budget, but it was clear that Jim did most of the manual work and the place would be a mess without Millie. Patrick mostly puttered, took naps, showed up for meals, and in the evenings listened to his radio in the living room. Matt didn't fault him; any man with three-quarters of a century under his belt, who'd spent a lifetime working sunup to sundown and got stove up badly more than once while doing it, deserved his retirement.

To keep things as they were, he asked Patrick to contribute his entire veteran's pension to cover Jim and Millie's salary so they could stay on. He readily agreed.

“Hell yes, I'll do it,” he said as he picked up a livestock bulletin and headed for the bathroom. “Just keep me in victuals, feed me a good meal, let me sleep in my own bed, don't boss me around, and I'll be plumb happy.”

“I can't promise the last one,” Matt replied.

“Didn't think you would,” Patrick grumbled.

Every week, Matt made his first priority to honor his agreement with Al Jennings. Alternating between the Rocking J and the 7-Bar-K, the two men met regularly to divide up the chores. One weekday morning over coffee at the Rocking J, he learned from Al's wife, Brenda, that she was pregnant with their first child. They'd been trying unsuccessfully for years to have a baby.

Matt whooped in delight at the news.

“I never thought we'd do it,” Al said with a sly grin. “What with the doctor saying it wasn't likely gonna happen after all this time.”

He slapped Al on the back. “I knew you had it in you, old horse. Congratulations.” He pushed back from the kitchen table and gave Brenda a hug. “When are you due?”

“Six months,” Brenda replied, radiating happiness. “But my doctor says I'll need to spend the last three months in town off my feet. We'll rent a small place close by in Hot Springs. I have an old friend from school days who lives there. She'll look in on me from time to time and keep me company when she can.”

“That sounds perfect,” Matt said, knowing they would need more help than someone occasionally looking in on Brenda while she stayed in town. That meant Al would have to be away from the ranch more than usual. With his pa long dead and his mother recently passed away due to old age, when Brenda's time came someone would have to jump in and help manage the Rocking J. It meant giving up some weekends in town with Mary.

He looked at his chum, who appeared both thunderstruck and excited about the prospect of fatherhood, and said, “You're gonna want to be with Brenda as much as you can, so I'll look after things here when you need to be gone.”

With tear-filled eyes, Brenda kissed him on the cheek. “You're a one-in-a-million friend.”

Al squeezed Matt's shoulder. “We're obliged.”

“Enough of that,” Matt replied, reaching for his hat. “We've got feed cake and salt licks to put out before we throw the cattle over to the fresh pasture.”

The two friends set aside their impromptu celebration and got to work. It took them two full days to move the cattle due to some cantankerous mother cows protecting their premature calves, a difficult birth that resulted in the loss of a 7-Bar-K calf, and the discovery of a bloated Rocking J heifer dead from eating poison weed.

They parted company with the cattle scattered over the high pasture Patrick had bought years earlier from a sheepherder and later sold to Al's pa. With Maverick in the bed of the truck, Matt drove home unhappy over the loss of the calf. It not only hurt financially, it was also a damn shame. And although he accepted the fact that nature ultimately took its toll on all life, he fervently hoped Brenda's pregnancy wouldn't end in catastrophe. His friends deserved better.

***

A
t home after dinner, Matt put the kettle on the cookstove and took a hot soak in the bathtub before settling behind his desk to read the mail. All of the tension in his neck and shoulders that had soaked away in the tub came roaring back as he scanned a registered, typewritten letter from White Sands Proving Ground. It read: