Backlands Read Online Free Page B

here it is, wrapped inside this issue of
Sunset
magazine with a drawing to go with it of a young gal on horseback twirling a lasso by my friend Maynard Dixon that I swear looks just like you.
    My New Mexico friends—thugs, gunmen, and outlaws that they are—tell me you’ve been sickly and I am grieved to hear of it. I hope “Emma Makes a Hand” lifts your spirits. I’ll surely always remember that trail drive on the Tularosa when you showed me and all those other boys what a heck of a fine hand you were.
    I’ve also been told that you’ve got a son named Matt who likes to read, so I’m sending along a copy of my book,
West Is West
, that I inscribed to him. Tell him to read everything.
    Yours truly,
    Gene Rhodes
    She thumbed through the magazine to the story and read the opening paragraph:
    Thomas Wheeler Van Eaton, known to all on the basin as Van, drew rein in front of the Double K ranch house and gazed at the prettiest gal he’d seen in a long, long time. Freshly beautiful she was; sparkling and fair, hair curly, eyes bewilderingly blue, slight as a desert willow. He had heard of Emma Kerney, her frank and friendly manner, her warmth and sweetness, but seeing her under a cloudless sky, with a soft wind at his back and the sun touching Rainbow Ridge, rendered him speechless.
    She thought back to the day Gene had showed up at the ranch with a badly swollen eye and puffy lips after a fistfight in a mining camp, asking for a place to hide out in case the law came after him. Over supper he told her he had written a short story about her that had been turned down by a magazine editor. He promised to send her a copy if it ever got published.
    Not long after, he moved back east to live with his wife and her family. Over time he became a highly popular writer of Western books and one of the best-loved cowboy storytellers of the Old West. Tall tales still circulated on the Tularosa about Gene’s connections to infamous New Mexico outlaws and cattle thieves of the territorial years. To many folks, that made him an intriguing character with a somewhat shady background, which only served to build his reputation as a writer who truly knew the ways of cowboys and desperadoes.
    To Emma, Gene was a good man who kept his word, stood by his friends, was more honorable than most of his trail-riding companions, and had always been a gentleman with the ladies. She’d read all his books and many of his short stories, often wondering what had happened to the yarn he’d written about her. Finally, here it was in her hands for everyone in the country to read. Good memories of living on the Double K flooded her mind and brought happy tears to her eyes.
    She closed the magazine and put it with the book and letter. What a day it had been! For months she’d felt her life slipping away, and now it was back, vibrant and exciting. She was beginning to wonder if it was possible for a body to heal itself, for a heart to mend on its own. Nothing seemed impossible.
    The back door slammed shut.
    â€œWhat is that surprise you promised to tell me?” Matt asked as he stomped snow off his boots and hung up his coat.
    â€œCome in here and I’ll tell you a story,” Emma replied.

2
    T he days following the arrival of “Emma Makes a Hand” were the most exciting in Matthew Kerney’s young life. The
Sunset
magazine story about his ma had sold out all over town, as had a second batch of copies sent down by train from Albuquerque. Mr. Duncan at the drugstore said folks were clamoring for more and the magazine was sold out in El Paso as well. At the library on Water Street, run by the Women’s Improvement Association, five dog-eared copies of the magazine were available for people to read, but you had to sign up and read it right there on the spot when your time came. The lady at the desk told Matt the waiting list ran to the end of the month, with folks who didn’t normally come