Hard Country by Michael McGarrity

turned Kerney’s delight to dismay. “Do you know what happened to the boy?”
    The priest shook his head. “Sadly, no, but I have prayed for his safekeeping.”
    “Thank you, Padre.”
    “Go with God,” the priest said as he made the sign of the cross, “and may he grant that you find your son. I will pray for you both.”
    “ Gracias , Padre.”
    Outside, John Kerney mounted up in thick snow falling from a low cloud that almost clipped the treetops. The wind had stopped howling, and nary a breeze touched his face. He cast a wary eye skyward. The storm had settled over the prairie. The whole country was about to get downright swampy before it froze rock solid.
    He hadn’t been to Fort Union before but knew it was a ways south on the Santa Fe Trail, a good fifty miles or more. Two days’ travel certain in this weather, with cold camps at night and poor browse for his horse.
    He chewed on the idea of bedding down in Cimarron until the storm broke but decided to move on. Fort Union was the main hub along the Santa Fe Trail for goods and supplies traveling to all points of the compass. Thanks to the priest, he now knew Patrick was alive and not a slave to some savage Ute Indian or living in a Mexican sheepherder’s hut out on the prairie. Leastways, that was fact two months ago.
    Best to get back on the trail before he gave in to the dark suspicion that Patrick was so far gone from the territory that he would never find him, no matter where he traveled or how long he looked. Although he was closer than he’d ever been to finding his boy, he felt no better for it.
    He got his gear together, bought some provisions, including a small bag of oats for his horse, wrapped his blanket over his coat around his shoulders, and started out for Fort Union. The thick, wet snowfall dampened all sound except the slight creaking of his saddle leather and the soft fall of his horse’s hoofs. Ahead, he could see no more than ten feet through a curtain of snow now falling harder. He pulled his hat down to his ears and spurred his horse into a trot.
    It was loco to be traveling in this weather, and he knew it. He could freeze to death, get his scalp lifted by Indians, or be robbed and murdered by a road agent for his horse, gear, and the twenty dollars in his pocket before he got ten miles out of town. If that happened, Patrick would never know who his people were or where he came from. The thought didn’t sit well with Kerney, so he silently vowed to write everything in a letter to Patrick once he got to Fort Union. The boy might never get to read it, but at least the truth of things would’ve been told.
    The storm worsened into a whiteout, and a little more than ten miles along the trail, Kerney found refuge in the village of Ryado. Given shelter by a family who lived in an adobe house that had once belonged to Kit Carson, he sat over a home-cooked meal and told the rancher and his wife the whole story from beginning to end of why he came to be traveling in such a dreadful blizzard, starting with the birth of his son, the death of his wife, and the murder of his brother and young nephew.
    He’d never spoken of it before in detail to anyone, and telling it to strangers he might never see again made it easier. In the back of his mind he knew he was practicing out loud for the time when he would set it down on paper.
    He finished his tale, and with hot coffee in hand, Kerney and the rancher talked about the coming of the railroad up near Willow Springs, where he’d gone to look for Patrick earlier in the summer. A tunnel had been blasted and cut through the mountain pass, and soon tracks would be laid south toward Santa Fe. Both men predicted it would change their world, but other than turning the Santa Fe Trail into a forgotten wagon road, neither could say exactly how.
    In the morning the storm had passed and Kerney set out under a clear sky, bright sun, and a blanket of snow that nearly blinded him with reflected light. Underfoot