Backlands (19 page)

Father Morales arched an eyebrow. “Surely you are more than just a housekeeper if you have given him a son.”

Evangelina blushed. “He has his needs.”

“You cook for him, take care of his house, raise his child, share his bed,” Morales enumerated. “You do all these wifely duties.”

“Yes.”

“And you do so without complaint?”

“I do not argue.”

“Yet what he provides is not enough to comfort you?”

“We live in isolation far from town, Father. Rarely does he allow me to visit my parents, my brothers and sisters, or my many relatives. We see few people at the ranch and have no friends. He drinks at night and goes to sleep without saying a word. I am so lonely.”

“How old is your son?” Father Morales asked.

“He will be four soon.”

“Were you a true Catholic, I would tell you to have more children to bring comfort to you and eventually help this man you live with, but you are not,” Morales said sternly. “I know that you were confirmed in the church, so you must remember your catechism. You must know that your marriage is not sanctified, not recognized in the eyes of the church. You might as well be a whore living with this man.”

Evangelina gasped, lowered her head, and sobbed into her hands.

“Your tears cannot erase the truth of what I say,” Morales said without a hint of sympathy. “Does this man beat you?”

Evangelina shook her head.

“Has he ever told you your child could not be raised in the faith?”

Evangelina shook her head again. She thought of telling Father Morales about the money that was to be paid to her through Matthew's trust, the money she never saw either before or after her marriage, the money Emma wanted her to earn to secure her own independence, but she knew it would make no difference to the priest.

“You have no reason to complain,” Morales concluded. “Although he is not Catholic, he gives you and your child food, shelter, and clothing and does not raise a hand against you. He asks only that you do what any man reasonably expects from a wife: to serve and support him. If you are lonely, pray to Jesus Christ to give you back your faith. Pray the rosary every day. Ask the Virgin Mary to guide you. Teach your young son the catechism and raise him in the true faith of our holy church. Confess your sins when you have the opportunity to do so.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Are you ready to confess now?”

“Yes, Father.”

In the confessional, completely broken, her hands trembling, her lips barely moving, her eyes blinded with tears, Evangelina crossed herself and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

***

M
atthew Kerney's Christmas vacation had been the best one ever since his ma had died. Usually, he'd be at the ranch counting the days until his return to town, but this year he was the guest of Wallace Claiborne Hale, staying at his grand house on the north side of Pioneer Park, a lovely square in the middle of the nicest neighborhood in town.

Many lovely houses faced the square, all of them decorated for the holidays. Wallace's house—he insisted Matt call him Wallace—had been built early in the century in what was called Tudor style. It had a steeply pitched roof, massive chimneys crowned by decorative chimney pots, a stucco exterior, and tall, narrow windows that ran in groups of three around the front and sides of the structure. False timbering around the upstairs windows gave the house a medieval look.

Wallace had furnished the inside of the spacious two-story home with large, comfortable, overstuffed chairs, soft couches, and feathery beds, all topped off with the touches of a confirmed bachelor. There were framed hand-colored wildlife prints on the walls of the living room, which contained both a floor-standing Victor Victrola record player and a radio.

In his study, a rack of expensive pipes and tins of fine tobacco sat on a sideboard. A wall-to-wall bookcase was filled with old and rare tomes, and a large oil painting of an elegant, regal-looking woman, Wallace's great-grandmother, hung in a gilded frame behind his desk. Nearby, a beautiful, ornate gun chest held his collection of prize shotguns.

A coal-fired furnace in the basement heated radiators in each room, and there was hot and cold running water in the kitchen and both bathrooms. A Frigidaire electric refrigerator kept perishable food fresh, and in a laundry room behind the kitchen there was an electric washing machine.

Matthew had never lived in such opulence. Each morning, Mrs. Teller, a widow who was Wallace's live-in housekeeper, would wake him with a gentle knock on his door and a cup of freshly brewed coffee served on a tray. After coffee, he'd meet Wallace for breakfast in the paneled dining room, where they would plot their day's agenda. Wallace had closed his law office for the holidays, and over the course of the last two weeks, they'd attended several holiday gatherings at the homes of Wallace's friends and legal associates and taken long drives in his new Chrysler touring car, which could go eighty miles an hour. They'd also been to the new Rio Grande Theater on Main Street to hear a traveling musical company play and sing popular songs of the year, including crooner Gene Austin's “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” and “Yes Sir, That's My Baby.”

On New Year's Eve, Wallace threw a dinner party and all the town bigwigs came with their wives, including the mayor, the county sheriff, two judges, the minister of Wallace's Methodist church, the district attorney, and the president of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, who invited Matt to apply for admission as soon as he finished high school. Already advanced a grade, Matt would graduate at the age of sixteen.

It was a sit-down dinner in Wallace's large dining room at a table decorated with daffodils, pussy willows, and asparagus ferns and set with fine bone china and sterling silver flatware. Mrs. Teller served shrimp cocktails, chicken soup with noodles, a crown roast of lamb, mashed potatoes, peas, butter rolls, and marmalade pudding for dessert. The wine and after-diner cordials flowed freely from Wallace's well-stocked liquor cabinet. Not a word about Prohibition was mentioned by the assembled guests. With their unanimous consent, Mrs. Teller served Matt his first cordial, a fine, sweet, Portuguese almond liqueur in a very small glass. He found it delicious.

On New Year's Day, Matt and Wallace returned to the Rio Grande Theater for the movie matinee and in a packed house watched
What Price Glory,
a new motion picture starring Victor McLaglen and Dolores del Rio. It was about two marines in France during the Great War vying for the attention of an innkeeper's daughter while fighting in the trenches. It was both funny and sad and made Matt think about his brother CJ. He still missed him very much.

They returned to Hale's home in the Chrysler in time to take Mrs. Teller to the train station and see her off on a weeklong visit to her daughter in California.

As the whistle blew and the train chugged out of the station, Wallace clasped a hand on Matt's shoulder and said, “Well, chum, it's just the two of us for the rest of your stay. Can you cook?”

“I can, if you like fried, well-done steak and beans,” Matt said with a laugh.

Wallace made a face as he got in the car. “I think we'll be dining out nightly for the week. When we get home, I want to go over your trust account with you. You're old enough to know the particulars, and I think you'll be pleased with what I have to say.”

“Tell me now,” Matt urged.

“Don't be impatient, lad,” Wallace lightheartedly chided.

At the house, Mrs. Teller had left them a light supper of cabbage rolls, cold cuts, potato salad with mayonnaise, and a fresh raisin cake. As they ate in the dining room, Wallace gave Matt the good news about his trust account.

“By all reasonable expectations,” he said, “you'll be a very well-off young man when you start college. I've an old college friend who works for an investment house on Wall Street, and I've been putting a portion of your assets into blue-chip stocks that he recommended.”

“How much?” Matt asked.

“Actually, not that much,” Wallace replied. “I've leveraged the stock by buying it on margin, as my friend recommended. That means putting up only ten percent of the stock's value at the time of purchase. You receive full dividends and can sell it for a hefty profit when the value goes up. I'm doing the same with my own stock portfolio.”

Wallace brought a new bottle of Portuguese liqueur to the table, uncorked it, and poured two small glasses. “With the money the trust will make over the next few years, you'll likely become the most eligible young bachelor in town.”

“If there's enough to pay for college, that would be fine with me,” Matt answered as he raised his glass.

“More than enough,” Wallace predicted. “I brought a case of this liqueur back on my last trip to the Continent, and this is the last bottle. Let's plan to finish it together before you return to your casita at the end of the week.”

“That's okay by me,” Matt replied.

They sipped their cordials in the living room, listening to phonograph records by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith that Wallace picked from his collection. He poured a second cordial and played new recordings by Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton, all music new to Matt's ears that he liked very much. He thought himself very sophisticated.

When the last record ended, Wallace plucked the empty glass from Matt's hand and ordered him off to bed. “We'll scheme up something to do tomorrow over breakfast,” he announced.

“I'll clean up the kitchen before I turn in,” Matt countered.

“Nonsense,” Wallace said. “No guest of mine does housework. Off you go.”

Matt nodded. “Thanks for a swell day. The whole vacation has been the berries.”

“It's not over yet, me lad,” Wallace replied in a bad Irish brogue.

He waved Matt off to bed and then tidied the kitchen and did the dishes as slowly as possible. All day long he'd been tortured by the idea of being alone with Matt. The boy was everything Wallace desired: handsome, smart, beautifully proportioned, on the cusp of a special kind of manhood. Not touching him except for a quick hug or a manly clasp of his shoulder had taken enormous willpower.

With the last plate put away, Wallace poured another liqueur, retreated to his study, and tried to occupy his mind with a book. Within minutes he put it aside. If he could sneak just one peak at Matt asleep, that would satisfy him.

He ran the idea through his mind. It was harmless enough, nothing more than a host checking on his young guest. Quietly, he climbed the stairs, paused at Matthew's bedroom door, took a deep breath, and silently turned the doorknob. He could hear Matthew's slow breathing in the darkened room. He crossed carefully to the foot of the bed, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Stretched out under crumpled blankets, his naked right leg exposed, Matthew was fast asleep.

Wallace told himself to back up and leave the room, but the sight was irresistible. He sat down ever so gently on the bed and slowly leaned back until he was side by side with Matthew. Holding his breath, he reached out and caressed Matthew's exposed leg up to his thigh.

“What are you doing?” Matt shouted in panic, pushing Wallace's hand away, sitting bolt upright.

Wallace scrambled off the bed. “Nothing,” he blustered. “Tucking you in; that's all. Please, go back to sleep. I'm sorry I disturbed you.”

“Get out!” Matt yelled. “Get out!”

Wallace's stomach tightened like a vise as he backed up to the door. “Yes, yes, I'm going. Don't be upset, Matthew.”

Matt stood, pushed Wallace out the door, and slammed it shut in his face. “Don't you come back in here,” he called.

“No, no, never,” Wallace said, sensing he'd just destroyed his world. “I'll see you in the morning. We'll talk then.”

“No, you won't,” Matt replied, his voice cracking with alarm and anger.

Shaking uncontrollably, Wallace went to his study and sat behind his desk with the door open, listening intently to the silence. In a few minutes, he heard Matthew's footstep on the stairs, and then the front door slammed shut. With his heart pounding, he went back up to Matthew's room and turned on the light. All the lovely presents he'd given Matthew for Christmas were in a jumbled heap on the bed.

Knowing that what had happened couldn't be undone, Wallace Claiborne Hale sank to the floor and buried his head in his hands.

M
att ran home through empty, dark streets. Once inside, he turned on every light and locked the front door. He lived alone, but Nestor and Guadalupe Lucero, hired by the trust to look after him during the school year, were close by, next door. Nestor took care of all the maintenance and repairs on the Griggs Avenue house and the rental properties, while Guadalupe cooked his meals, did the laundry and grocery shopping, and kept the place tidy. It was better than boarding with another family or having a live-in housekeeper. Matt got teased by kids at school for living like a swell, but he did his own chores and helped Nestor with anything that needed fixing around the house.

The notion that Wallace might follow him home spooked him. For a moment he considered waking the Luceros. Instead he got a baseball bat from his bedroom and put it by the front door. That made him feel safer.

An older couple, Nestor and Guadalupe had two grown sons with wives and children who lived nearby. Matt frequently got home from school to find Guadalupe babysitting some of her grandchildren or being kept company by her daughters-in-law. Matt didn't mind. He enjoyed having them around and they treated him like family, inviting him for a Sunday meal, taking him along on weekend picnics at the river when the weather was nice, and correcting his Spanish until he was fluent.

He'd gone rabbit hunting a bunch of times in the foothills of the Organ Mountains with Guadalupe and Nestor's two sons, Roberto and Felipe, and trekked with the entire clan into the San Andres to cut wood, returning after dark with wagonloads enough to last through the winter. The closeness and affection the Luceros had for one another reminded him of Tía Teresa and her family in Tularosa.

The neighborhood had changed a lot since his ma's death. Many of the Anglo families had moved away to newer, nicer houses on the other side of Main Street, where Wallace Claiborne Hale lived. The Griggs Avenue neighborhood was now an older, less desirable part of town, with mostly working-class Mexican families barely getting by. Some of the houses were a little run-down, but the residents did what they could to brighten their casitas with whitewash and vivid splashes of color on picket fences, window trim, porches, and doors. Matt joined in by painting the doors and window sashes on his house turquoise blue.

In the evenings when the weather was mild, folks gathered outside to visit back and forth, the men smoking and swapping stories in their front yards while the womenfolk gossiped on the house porches. A kids' baseball game in a vacant lot would last until dark, with some of the younger girls keeping score. Occasionally there was music and singing, and once in a while a scuffle or argument would break out, but mostly the neighborhood was friendly and peaceful. It was never boring, and Matt liked being part of it all.

The phone rang repeatedly over the next few hours, but he refused to answer it. He had nothing to say to Wallace, never wanted to see him again. For years Matt had secretly wished his pa was more like Wallace: smart, interesting, witty, sophisticated, and worldly. Not anymore.

He'd never thought twice about why Wallace was a bachelor, and as far as Matt knew, no one else did either. He squired attractive single women to the many social and cultural events in town, belonged to all the right clubs, and was considered quite the ladies' man. It was all a big fat lie.

Matt fretted over what Wallace had done until he finally fell asleep on the living room couch. At midmorning the telephone brought him out of a dream where he was lost somewhere in Las Cruces on a street he'd never seen, surrounded by towering buildings that filled the skyline in place of the Organ Mountains. He answered without thinking.

“Good morning, sport,” Wallace said cheerily.

“I don't want to talk to you.”

“Please let me explain,” Wallace pleaded. “I drank too much and had a silly notion to tuck you in; that's all. I didn't mean to startle you.”

“That's not what happened,” Matt snapped. The memory of Wallace's hand traveling up his leg made him shudder. “I don't believe you.”

“You must,” Wallace said pleadingly. “I was tipsy and silly. Forgive me.”

“Just let me be.”

Wallace sighed. “I've upset you. What can I do to make amends?”

“Nothing,” Matt snapped.

“There must be something,” Wallace urged.

“Nope. Just be glad my pa isn't here, or I'd tell him what happened.”

“There's no cause for you to do that,” Wallace implored.

“Leave me alone and I won't.”

“As you wish,” Wallace said, his voice filled with resignation. “I'm going to my office and won't be home until dark. I'll leave the back door open so you can come and get your things. You won't be bothered, I promise.”

“Maybe I'll do that,” Matt replied.

“Matthew.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry. I was a real sap. I raise my hand and swear on a Bible to never again drink while in your company. Does that reassure you?”

“It doesn't matter,” Matt replied. “I don't plan to come anywhere near you ever again.”

His hand shaking, Matt hung up. He suddenly felt trapped inside a house that was too quiet, too empty. He ran outside and knocked on Nestor's front door. Guadalupe answered, smiling at him, her round face a delight to see. He almost hugged her.

“Matthew, are you back so soon from staying with Señor Hale?” she asked, stepping aside to let him enter.

“I have lots of studying to do before school starts again,” he fibbed. The warm glow of the fireplace, the smell of green chili, and the sound of happy chatter coming from the kitchen made him feel safe and protected. “But I'm not here to ask you to come back to work early or to feed me, only to visit for a spell,” he added. “I can take care of myself for a few days.”

“
Bueno.
Everyone is in the kitchen. Come join us.”

***

W
allace Claiborne Hale tried hard to occupy his mind with work, but attacks of dread interrupted his concentration time and again. He stopped working on a breach-of-contract brief that required his full, undivided attention and kept busy organizing documents and placing them in the correct case files. Even so, the mind-numbing routine of putting his paperwork in order didn't erase the absolute panic that came upon him, making his hands shake and his pulse race.

Through his own stupidity, the career and reputation he'd carefully built since coming to Las Cruces were in danger of being destroyed. Up until now, he'd acted on his sexual preference for boys and young men only far away from Las Cruces, but he'd showered attention on Matthew over the past few years without a thought of hiding it. If Matthew decided to expose him, there would be no way to salvage things and escape being ostracized by the community. Matthew was too well liked and too highly regarded to be easily dismissed or ridiculed as a fabricator.

Although it was early evening, Wallace resisted the impulse to go home. He wanted to give Matthew as much time as possible to retrieve his belongings without being disturbed. Meticulous by nature, he began compulsively tidying his office. He arranged everything on top of his desk just so, lined up the books in his bookcases, squared up the row of file cabinets behind his desk, and adjusted his framed diplomas on the wall. Finally he sorted the pens in his desk drawer by size and then centered his chair exactly behind the desk. Satisfied that everything was as it should be, he turned off the lights and went outside to his car.

At home he found the Christmas presents he'd given Matthew on the living room floor, including a leather-bound copy of
The Life of Samuel Johnson
he'd bought in a London bookshop, a brown driving cap purchased at a Fifth Avenue department store, a stainless steel Hamilton wristwatch with
MK
engraved on the back, and two Levi's work shirts for wear at the ranch.

It was a clear message that all was not forgiven and never would be. Wallace picked everything up, stuffed it in the kitchen trash bin, and left. Realizing there was no chance of redemption, he got behind the wheel of the Chrysler and sped out of town. Up ahead on the gravel road, a new two-lane bridge with thick concrete pillars and railings crossed a narrows of the Rio Grande.

The bridge appeared in his headlights. Wallace floored the accelerator, pointed the car at the bridge bulwark, and at the very last instant before impact closed his eyes.