The horses kept screaming until Muck Muldoon came around to execute them with a single ball in the ear.
THE TIP was at the head of grade, a half mile up the line from the cutting. To make a tip the horse had to be hitched offside like a tow horse on a canal path, then run briskly until the front wheels hit the balks at the ends of the rails with enough momentum to tip the load.
Next in line, Fergus watched McCarty start his horse then run alongside, whipping at its flanks.
Just when it seemed the horse was going to run straight off the tip into midair, McCarty jerked a cord, pulling a pin that disconnected the horse and the truck. The horse turned away just before the wheels slammed the balks, and the load tipped violently, spewing down the embankment.
Fergus’s horse was wheezing, neck down, already exhausted from the heavy haul along the grade. Muldoon was watching them, hand on his hip, hat pulled low over his eyes.
Some men are like tools, or weapons. Minds stiff as leather.
Suffering attracts them.
Clutching the cord, Fergus cracked his horse with the halter, and the animal threw itself against the harness. The truck wheels groaned and creaked and started rolling.
He ran alongside, whipping with the halter strap. He could see the flimsy iron rails flexing under the truck wheels.
The tip was approaching too fast. He gave the cord a sharp tug but nothing happened. He jerked again, but the hitch pin was stuck. Then he stumbled, and as he fell the cord and halter were jerked from his hands. Sprawled on the gravel, he looked up in time to see the horse plunge over the tip then the truck smash the timber balks and plunge over after it.
Anger you taste, on your belly in railway gravel. Purely hating everything. Their bloody throats. You’d have murdered them all over again.
Poor Phoebe in her bed, whispering mercy.
The insides of your skull, so rotten and unkempt . . . death stored everywhere.
The cord had cut a stinging streak across his palm. He stood up slowly. A dozen horses and trucks were backed up along the grade. Tip boys waiting. sucking stubby clay pipes.
Picking up his hat, dusting it off, he walked to the edge of the tip and peered over.
Halfway down the embankment, his truck was upended, the wheels creaking as they spun. The black horse, half buried in the spill, was scratching weakly with his forelegs, trying to stand.
“I lose horses every day. I don’t give a fuck for horses.”
He turned and saw it was Muldoon.
“Go fetch another nag. Speed I want. Twenty tips a day.”
Muldoon stepped off the edge and started slipping and sliding down the steep face of the embankment.
Two tip boys with sledges were already spiking in fresh balks. The hammers made a sharp, clinking noise.
Dust had settled on the black horse, giving him the patina of something curious and permanent.
Reaching the wreckage, Muldoon took out his pistol and began loading.
Wild and alone is the way to live.
Cold and wind to burn the thoughts off you.
The black horse was pawing weakly. No sound worked its way up the slope. The ganger extended his pistol arm. There was a flash, a puff of white smoke, then the report of the shot, faint and insignificant.
Fergus turned away and started walking back along the grade, feeling weaker than ever. He caught up to McCarty who was walking alongside his horse, pulling a string of empty trucks.
“Don’t matter you lost a nag,” McCarty told him. “Mr. Murdoch don’t care. Horses are cheap. Some they only want to die. You can’t blame them.”
The image of the girl, Red Molly, slipped into his head.
Red hair, small hands, white neck.
In your hunger, a girl draws you like a fire does. You feel her heat. Feel her light licking your face.
* * *
HE WATCHED a blue gelding moving restlessly up and down the fence line, tossing his ugly head. The horse was deeply galled, but there was good action there. A bit of spring left in his haunches. The galling meant a cart horse, but he could have been a saddle horse in his younger days, even a hunter — he was tall and thick enough.
He showed more spirit than any of the other ghosts, flaring and whinnying, then trotting away when Fergus tried to approach.
“Ain’t going to harm you.” He followed the horse patiently, giving him room, holding out a fistful of hay.
Perhaps it was true, that any horse chosen for the tip was doomed. But at least the animals that were worked were fed a little oats, while the rest were left to starve in the barren pasture.
“Why have I come here?” he said to the horse.
No longer sure why. Only knowing you couldn’t go backward.
“I’m after wages. Want them gold clinkers, man — sovereigns. But I shall care for you regular, I promise. I’ll try to be favorable.”
The horse, gradually cornered, finally extended his neck, pulling his lips back and reaching for the hay Fergus held out. Knotting his fingers into the mane, Fergus started leading him to the stable. The galls stank of rotting fish.
The horse suddenly bit him on the arm.
“Ow!”
The horse ignored him, ambling peacefully now. The pain was shrill. Rubbing his arm, Fergus caught up and took another handful of the mane, wary this time.
“Don’t waste that gumption on me. Save it for yourself.”
He watered the horse, fed him a pan of oats, then got ointment from the farrier and rubbed it in the galls. As Fergus scraped mud from the thick legs, the horse suddenly lashed out with a kick that would have broken bone had it connected.
He couldn’t help admiring the animal’s spirit.
Anger gave you strength.
Disquiet kept you going.
* * *
RUNNING HIS first tip, the horse broke into a gallop. When Fergus jerked the cord the pin flew, the horse leapt clear, and the load spewed down the embankment in a tumult of dust.
The blue horse was a puller.
That first day on the works, Fergus saw horses break their legs and burst their lungs. When they collapsed, they were dragged off the line, stripped of harness, and left in ditches along the grade. He never saw one get back up on its feet, and Muldoon came by eventually and shot them all.
Names
AT THE END OF THE DAY, the timer’s bell rang. The tips unhitched their horses and walked them back along the grade to the stable, where they were unharnessed and fed a ration of oats. Fergus got the pot of ointment again and rubbed it into the stinking galls before turning the horse back out into the field. He walked through the camp with McCarty — navvies were streaming off the works. McCarty pointed out the broken windows of the unpainted church.
“A Welsh preacher tried to convert us, only we smashed him up. In Ireland people must give up their religion to get a taste of soup, but we don’t stand no soupers here.”
They saw Muldoon and the old navvy, Peadar, heading inside the beer shop.
“You can get a beefsteak, if you want, for half a crown,” McCarty said. “They take it from your wages. Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“Myself neither. I’m saving money to buy a good farm.”
Fires were burning, and the smoke hung low. Looking up, he could see the shanties clustered on the brown hillside above the camp.
“Did the Moll try to sell you tobacco?” McCarty asked.
“Yes.”
“Beware. She marks it high. And don’t play her at cards. The worst of it is, she don’t even keep the money she steals; Muck gets it out of her. The feed is good enough, though. At Muldoon’s we don’t do so badly, considering. I’m saving pretty well. Not like some. That is an ugly fellow you have.”
“Strong, though. He pulls.”
“For a while. None of them lasts.”
He wished he’d been able to give the horse better rations. The farrier was stingy with oats, and the hay they fed was cheap old silvery stuff.
<
br /> An elderly Welshman was hawking penny newspapers from a stack on a pony cart, and Fergus was impressed to see McCarty dig into his pocket and buy one.
“I take a paper sometimes, it’s improving,” the horse boy said proudly. “You find out you’re in the world. It’s not all mud and slaughter. Do you have the letters, yourself?”
“Not really.”
They started up the steep, muddy path to the shanties. Cold had stiffened the mud, and he thought of the horses standing all night in the bald, barren field.
“I’m going to pick up a nice farm,” McCarty was saying. “There’s leases going for nothing in my country, in Fermoy. I’ll have sheep and a proper house, not a cabin —”
“The hay is bad hay.”
McCarty glanced at him. “What’s that you say?”
“It’s all silver — there’s nothing to hay like that. May as well feed them straw.”
“He’s only a tip horse after all, Fergus. He won’t last long.”
MOLLY WAS kneeling at the fire, stirring the kettle, when they came in.
“Muldoon’s in the beer shop, I suppose?”
“Certainement,” McCarty replied. “That is Frenchy for, yes, Muldoon is in the beer.”
Removing their boots, they stood in front of the fire warming themselves.
“Will you read me some news, McCarty?” she said.
“Perhaps I will afterward — if the feed is good enough.”
“It’s too good for you.”
Fergus could smell the mutton seething but there would be no supper until Muldoon came home. McCarty sat down in Muldoon’s armchair. Lighting his pipe he began describing Fergus’s blue horse to Molly. “A buster, he is. Vicious. A beautiful killer —”
Fergus interrupted. “Not beautiful.”
There was something particular about the horse but it wasn’t beauty.
“God, he has a yellow eye, though. He is the devil of them all.”
“Why choose him if he’s a killer?” Molly asked.
“He’s strong, I suppose.”
“Do you know horses, then?”
“A little.”
“Muck says they are all broke-down.”
“Mostly they are. There’s a few good ones, I suppose.”
“I hate to see ’em. Makes me angry.”
“Why?”
“They’re all going to die. They know it, too.”
To extend the mind that way, feel pain outside yourself, is troubling. Thrilling.
It’s like a dare. It opens you.
Rolling up his sleeve, he displayed the half-moon bruise the horse’s teeth had left on his arm. “My fellow has a spirit, at least.”
“So, if they’re wicked, that’s a great thing, is it?”
“Well, it hurts. But at least you know you’re alive.”
“When Muck’s wicked, I ought to be grateful, I suppose?” Molly turned away and went into her sleeping room.
Fergus looked across at McCarty, who shrugged and puffed smoke. Fergus wondered if he had offended her — but she returned, carrying an envelope that she dropped in his lap.
“What is it?”
“What do you think it is? Your tobacco.”
“Thank you, miss.”
“It’s not a present! You’ll owe me on the Pay, understand?”
“That ain’t tobacco,” McCarty said, “it’s pig manure dried with bits of straw. She’s a pure vessel of greed.”
“Never mind him. My smoke’s a mile finer than what you’d get in the village or from Murdoch’s tommy shop.”
“How’s that? You buy from the Welsh, Moll, you know you do, and they sell you shit and shavings, since it’s only for wild navvies.”
“Well,” she said carelessly, “you may buy your fill anywhere you choose, boy.”
“The Welsh take cash money only,” McCarty told Fergus. “There’s no cash in camp between Pays, so if a fellow wants something there’s only Mr. Murdoch’s tommy shop, or greedy wenches like this one.”
“I ain’t selling tommy rot,” Molly sniffed. “I sell good gear.”
“Ah Molly, such a softhearted little piece. And how much straw did you cut in?”
“I feed you better than your mothers did! If you don’t like it here, then go away!”
“But will you and Muldoon give me back my sub?”
“Oh you dog! You’ve no right to snap at me, McCarty!” Molly said, then burst into tears.
“Don’t mind,” Fergus tried reassuring her. “I like your tobacco.”
“I do my best . . . I prefer a little straw in a mix . . . I smoke it myself,” she said between sobs. “I do . . . for flavor . . . it’s genteel.”
“Oh come, come, sit down, have a puff with us, don’t be such a baby.” McCarty tried to grab Molly’s wrist, but she jerked it away.
“I cherish you, Moll,” McCarty said. “Come sit between your friends and have a puff.”
“You’re not my friend, you always been against me! I don’t know what a friend is!”
“Have a puff with us, Moll. No hard lines.” McCarty grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto his knee, where she sat, sniffling. The horse boy brought out a handkerchief and Molly, seizing it, blew her nose violently.
“Don’t buy tobacco from the Welsh,” she told Fergus. “And don’t buy at the tommy shop. Mr. Murdoch makes more profit selling tommy rot than building the line.”
Snatching McCarty’s pipe from his mouth, she took a puff, letting smoke stream out between her small, even teeth. “You’re vicious,” she said to McCarty.
“Ah, Moll, I’ll make a song of you one day.”
She laughed. “Don’t sing it near Muldoon — he’ll cut your string.”
“If I’d had you in Ireland, Molly, I’d never have gone walking.”
“Oh, go fetch your old paper and give us a read.”
She stood up, and McCarty rose obediently and went to fetch his newspaper from the table.
“So proud of his letters! If you can read, McCarty, why do you want to go back to Ireland?”
“What shall I read first?”
“Read us a good hanging.” The girl sat down on the bench.
McCarty examined the paper.
“Once I went to Nottingham for a hanging,” she said.
“I have seen in Cork the men hanged,” said McCarty. “And two navvies, when we were building the line to Aberdeen. Killed a policeman with a spade.”
“Muck says a hanging is a lesson as good as you’d get in church. Only there was such a crowd we couldn’t see much, and a snapper lifted Muck’s best handkerchief.”
“No hangings that I can find today,” said McCarty. “Very sorry. Would you like to hear about the Mexican Question?”
“Read us the shipping.”
“What will you pay? A kiss?”
“Oh just go ahead and read it! You needn’t look so puffed! Anyone in America can read, even the babies.”
“Do you want to hear ’em or not?”
She stood up, crossed the floor, and bent to kiss McCarty on his cheek. “There. Now read ’em, if you please.”
He tried to grab her wrist but she returned to the bench, sitting down beside Fergus, and leaned forward to listen.
McCarty rustled the pages. “You’re wanting America, I suppose? It’s always America. How about New Zealand for a change? Or India? Always plenty of shipping for India.”
“No, America.”
McCarty sighed and examined the page, then slowly began to read.
“ ‘Brig Laconia, one hundred eighty tons, sailing March tenth thereabouts for Philadelphia. Captain Shelby, master. Neat and dry. Passengers apply to W. Tapscott and Co., Liverpool.’ Like the sound of her, Moll?”
“That’s not all. Read the others.”
“ ‘For New York, Fox, two hundred fifty tons, Black Star Line, Captain Coxom, master. To sail March twentieth. All foodstuffs provided —’”
“Weevils and cat’s meat,” said Molly. “But go on.”
“‘For Quebec, brig Na . . . Na —’”
“Naparima,” Molly said impatiently. “I knew a fellow went out on her last year.”
“ Naparima, yes. ‘One hundred seventy tons, sailing April seventh, Captain Shields. For Philadelphia, Malabar, two hundred fifty tons, sailing April seventh, Captain York. For New York, Centurion, Fidelia, and Carolina, sailing April first . . .’”
As McCarty droned down the shipping list, Fergus watched Molly lean forward, chin in her hand, listening.
The curious names of the ships had incantatory power. Nothing he could touch, but something he could feel. They had radiance.
“‘Ships of the largest class,’” McCarty read, “ ‘commanded by men of experience who will take every precaution to promote the health of the passengers. Miramishee, one hundred eighty tons, for Quebec, April fifteenth . . .’”
Molly’s mouth was open slightly, and Fergus understood she was dreaming of her passage to America. She was no older than him, was in no better position — worse, perhaps — but she was living on the taste of a dream.
What you lost weakened you, could kill you. What you wanted kept you going. What you wanted gave you strength.
Muck Muldoon
THE CUTTING GOUGED DEEPER and wider every day as the slopes were peeled back, tons of excavation filling the trucks. When it rained the mud was soft, and when it froze the mud was stiff. Horses struggled and floundered trying to pull trucks along the temporary grade. The sleepers had been poorly ballasted; sometimes a truck derailed and tipped over on its side, dragging the horse over with it.
Plodding up and down the line between the parallel rails, horses cut their legs on the wooden sleepers. If the nicks weren’t cleaned and salved, the horses went lame and Muck Muldoon shot them along the right-of-way or they died in the bald field overnight. Every morning when Fergus went out with a handful of hay to collect the blue, there were nags lying dead in the field.
“WHY NOT get out your pack and deal the Fergus a hand or two?” McCarty said to Molly one evening while they waited for Muck to come home. “She can teach you the ways of the world,” he told Fergus.
“What’s the use?” she said. “Muck takes it all. You know how it is.”
The Law of Dreams Page 19