Hard Country by Michael McGarrity Page B

Hendricks answered.
    “Do you have word of Virgil Peters?”
    “You’ll find his gravesite in the post cemetery. He fell ill and died of a disorder of the blood soon after putting the lad in Dr. Lyon’s care.”
    Hendricks put on his great coat, adjusted his forage cap, buckled his saber belt, and picked up his gloves. “I have duties to attend to. When you’ve finished, leave your letter with the corporal.”
    Hendricks gestured toward his office door. “Now, if you please.” In the outer office he told the corporal to supply Kerney with paper, pen, and ink.
    “This man is writing to Dr. Lyon at the War Department. Rather than sending it by mail, I will include it in our official dispatches so that it can arrive there with all due speed.”
    “I’m obliged,” Kerney said.
    Hendricks nodded curtly and left without saying another word.
    He sat at the sergeant major’s desk and wrote the same story he told to the rancher in Ryado, adding to it as his memory served. It took hours to put it on paper, and his hand was stiff when he finally finished. He read it, decided it would have to do, and wrote a note to the doctor.
Dear Dr. Lyon,
I take up this pen to write you with thanks for your kindness to my son, Patrick. With this I send the story I put down on paper so that he might know how he came to have so much hardship. Please read it to him. I searched for Patrick over many months and I cannot give him over to you to be adopted. I will do my all to raise him right. Write care of Coghlan’s Store, Tularosa, New Mexico Territory, and I will come and fetch him.
I now close. Obliged and in your debt,
John Kerney
     
     
    He sealed and addressed the letter, left it with corporal and went outside, wondering if he’d just taken from Patrick the best chance the boy would have for a fortunate life.
    Across the way he could see a lot of activity in the wagon yard. Fort Union served as the main quartermaster depot for the territory, supplying all the other posts in New Mexico. Maybe he could find work. He stepped off briskly to find out.
    * * *
     
    A s he approached headquarters, Lieutenant Hendricks watched John Kerney cross the quadrangle in the direction of the quartermaster stores and wagon yard. He knew precisely where his dear friends William and Polly Lyon were staying while on leave of absence. He knew they couldn’t have children and he had seen how much that little boy had brightened their lives in such a short time, especially Polly’s. But William Lyon was a stickler about doing things right, and Hendricks knew he’d turn that child over to John Kerney no matter how many protests Polly made or tears she shed.
    Why should a worthless drifter with no prospects other than a dollar-a-day job be allowed to spoil their happiness and ruin a child’s opportunity to be brought up in a decent family?
    Inside headquarters, the company clerk handed Hendricks a packet of documents with the envelope containing John Kerney’s letter to Dr. Lyon at the War Department on top. He sent the corporal away to get the daily troop muster reports, went to his office, and burned Kerney’s letter in the woodstove before sealing the documents in the courier’s pouch.
    Hendricks had a good feeling about it. It was the Christian thing to do for all concerned.

9
     
    A t the wagon yard Kerney talked to a freighter named Joseph Cooney, who hired him as a driver for a quartermaster supply train leaving for Fort Marcy in Santa Fe under military escort. It was the first time in months he would have a job with more than five dollars left in his pocket, and that felt good. In fact, the whole damn day felt good.
    Kerney loaded and tied down the cargo, inspected the wagon to make sure the wheels and brakes were in order, and was about to hitch his team of mules when Cooney came up to him.
    Near Kerney’s age by his looks, he had a thick brogue, a nose that had been broken at least once, big hands, and long arms that hung down almost to his