Redemption Falls

by Joseph O'Connor

  H for my home.

  I for in.

  J for a jig with my

  K is for kin.

  L is for lovers,

  As M is for mine.

  But N is for never:

  A long, long time.

  No sin to kill a murderer. Matter of fact, you should. He spins up the chamber, places the barrel in his mouth. He is not sure if this feeling is temptation.

  His sister on a mountaintop in the wrench of a hurricane. Gripping onto sedge-grass for an anchor. A crowblack tornado advancing behind her; its cargo of snapped-off treetops.

  He awakens to a commotion unfolding in the lane. Drags himself to the lattice of the crawlspace.

  A buggy has rattled up. The bay is panting. Its coat is shabby. The mailboy drops his bag. It spills – he chases its contents. His name is Orson Rawls. He is the undertaker’s son. The dogs gawp like gargoyles. Now people are shouting. They are trying to lift a Chinese woman from the boards of the buggy; she is moaning, sweeping her arms, as though swimming through pain, and a man who must be her husband is wild-eyed, tottering. ‘The midwife!’ shouts a woman. ‘You must take her there immediately. There is no time to lose.Her laboring begins .’ They do as she orders. Someone produces a wolf-skin. The party hurries away toward the town.

  What is strange to the killer – well, all of it is strange – the Navajo blanket, the Chinaman in his pigtails, the mailboy’s letters fluttering off like thoughts – but the color of the girl giving the orders is what strikes him. She must surely be a servant. But she is dressed so finely. And everyone listens, obeys her commands. Her cloak is the green of a mallard duck’s neck; its hood hemmed with jewels and fur. There is a belt around her hips: black alligator, also jeweled. She is so beautiful that he cannot stop looking at her.

  I did not bring you in the world for you to quit it by starving. That cannot be permitted. Promise me.

  He rests the eye of the pistol in the crotch of a rotting lattice, squints at her down its barrel. One squeeze of the trigger, she would go like all the rest. The tiniest movement of a knuckle. That’s how it come – the boy has seen it often. A marriage of geometry and time. Marker moved on a map and ten thousand die, and the map won’t remember they ever existed.

  Brandy in Scotia’s a tuppence a quart, boys.

  The ale in New Brunswick a penny a glass.

  She turns on the road, in such a way that he cannot see her face. Her body beneath the cloak is shaped like a guitar. The wind blows the folds of her cloak. She is holding the buggy-whip parallel to the ground. Two ells in parallel, he remembers. A dagger in her belt. Diamonds on her wrists. She looks like a card from some long forgotten tarot. She appears to be staring at the mountains or the lake. Her shoulders tremble. Perhaps she is weeping. The cook hurries from the house and speaks to her.

  In her body is a soundbox, Eliza once told him. Daddy go to Momma and he touch the strings with love, and here come a little tune afterwhile. Music of a baby grow slow in the darkness. When it ready to get played, sing on out. And ever last one of us got our own tune inside him. If you stay real quiet, you can hear it.Listen.

  They stand for a while on the white rutted road, where the black teeth of stones are grinning. The boy cannot hear what the women are saying. But is obvious, somehow – the way they are standing, perhaps, with a distance separating them, not the proximity of intimates – that the mulatta girl is mistress, employer of the cook. Or perhaps a superior servant.

  They enter the house. He hears their footsteps above him, the mumble of a muffled discussion. The cook is saying something about an urgent letter having come; she placed it in the study upstairs. There is nothing to eat. The stores are all empty. Should she draw the lady a bath? No, he has not been seen –

  Now the General is shouting, a woman shouting back. The sound of a man and woman quarreling is one the boy has heard many times. But it has never gotten easy to hear.

  ‘I was visiting a sick family in St Hubert when the storm came on. I have told you already. Do not question me like a judge.’

  ‘I shall question as I please when my so-called wife remains absent from my house a fortnight without permission. Nice material for every wagging tongue in the Territory. Not that Lady Majesty would care about such trifles.’

  ‘Did you wish me to be killed on the highway? Have you seen the road?’

  ‘To the shit with your road.Your duty was to be here. Is Christmas not to be kept in a Christian house?’

  ‘I told you: I tried. The mountain was not passable.’

  ‘May one ask where you quartered? Or is that another imposition?’

  ‘Where do you imagine? I took a room at the livery stable. I assume you would not want me to sleep in a ditch?’

  ‘Your place is with your husband. How many times need you be reminded? Must you insist on flaunting your contempt for me at every opportunity? Is your disobedience so important, has it grown such a religion with you now, that it precedes even the common proprieties?’

  ‘You deliver me lectures – ’

  ‘ – I do not deliver lectures – ’

  ‘You deliver me lectures on common propriety, when I am spoken to like a scullion-maid who requires your admonishment. I shall not accept it of you, sir, whatever your damned name. Are you listening, sir? I am not one of your men.’

  ‘Do not damn at me, Lucia, I warn you plainly.’

  ‘You shall warn me of nothing. I am not afraid of bullies.’

  ‘Dare you turn your back while I am speaking? Come here, I said!’

  ‘Nobody, sir, is listening any more!No one is interested. The audience has gone. You may pose and strut till you are black to the gills but the gallery is empty. It has been empty for years.’

  ‘Get out of my sight, Lucia.’

  ‘Get out of mine.’

  ‘You whore.I said get out !’

  The killer hears a door slam above him in the log-house. Something heavy is flung. A glass is smashed. There follows a silence, which continues a long time. He squats in the crawlspace, too petrified to move.

  P, Q, R: Proud Queen of the Rose.

  S, T, U: her Slaves To Use.

  V and its double: Victoria’s Wing.

  X, Y, and Z – we don’t stand for a thing.

  If he moves at all – if even his pupils dilate – it might start them off again.

  CHAPTER 10

  THEN FARE THEE WELL, DECEIVING LOVE

  The letter awaiting Lucia on her return to Redemption Falls

  Tidings of an engagement – A borrowed book returned

  The importance of the triangle in mapmaking

  14 Water Street,

  Brooklyn,

  x 1265

  Mrs. General O’Keeffe:

  I write to convey news which may be of passing interest – I am going to be married in the Spring – My fiancée is a second cousin of mine: Emily Gould – I do not think you know her – She is an exceptional person.

  Miss Gould + I have been friends since childhood in Boston – Like you, she nursed in the War – Her father + two of her brothers died of starvation at Andersonville Prison, so that unlike some who pontificate on the horrors of war, she knows what it is to suffer loss – We plan on sailing for England immediately we marry – What with various painful occurrences of recent years, we both of us want for a clean beginning – (I have resigned my commission, not wishing to squander further time on frustrating + unbeneficial encumbrances) + an opportunity has presented to go out to India with Captain Melville of the Trigonometric Survey – So that this is a letter of goodbye.

  I am grateful for your charity to me on previous occasions, most especially while I was recuperating at the hospital + in the subsequent period – For your tolerant sympathy I owe you a debt, which I trust that this MS discharges – I now see that I was a difficult patient, rather slow-witted + susceptible, given to misunderstandings which you must have found unsophisticatedly dreary – If I acted foolishly or presumptuously, which we of the l
ower orders do from time to time, I trust that a person of your widely famed saintliness will be capable of forgiving a bothersome invalid, secure in the certainty that he shall never inconvenience you again.

  You will find inclosed herewith a volume of Donne’s sonnets + sermons, which you were bountiful enough to loan me a number of years ago – I meant to send it back but it was mislaid for a time – I cannot now remember why.

  Incidentally, + in conclusion, for I have no wish to detain you further: you inquired of me, once, for the secret of mapmaking, + I recall that I was unable to furnish you with a succinct précis. One has since learnt from bitter experience that the matter is straightforward. It is – quite simply – understanding the triangle; knowing where one stands in it + when one is defeated by it.

  There is of course no need to answer this letter – You will be busy, I know, with your latest charity case.

  Good Morrow, as Donne has it. Et cetera, Et cetera,

  A. M. Winterton, Capt.

  U.S. Corps of Cartographers

  Governor’s Residence

  Robert Emmet Street

  Redemption Falls

  The Mountain Territory

  January 7th, 1866

  Captain Winterton:

  Accept my congratulations on your forthcoming marriage, which I pray shall be happy, as you deserve.

  Should ever you with your wife have reason to be in this Territory you would be welcome guests of my husband and I.

  Good-bye and good luck in your new life overseas. I hope that you will cover India with triangles if that is your wish.

  Respectfully,

  Lucia-Cruz McLelland-O’Keeffe (Mrs)

  PART III

  THE HIGH PLACE OF STONES

  It was Pete Vandorn shot him. Big Dutchboy. Good aim. Seen the shot struck him here – couple inches north the heart. Blows him halfway cross the street and he hits the dirt backways. And that’s when I seen the frightenist sight of my life. Cause I’ll be damned to Hell if he duddn get up. Aint no mistakin it. That’s what I’m tellin you. Stands up from a chest-shot. Rides away.

  Joseph Peterson, miner From his account of the attempted killing of the desperado Johnny Thunders, following bank robbery in Durrusville County, Good Friday,1866 . Interview by Professor J.D. McLelland, February1897, New Derry, Great Smokecloud Mountains

  CHAPTER 11

  THE RIVER WILD AS HEART’S DESIRE AND NEITHER CAN I SWIM

  Further remembrances from Elizabeth Longstreet

  The difficulty of entering the Mountain Territory at the time

  of our narrative – & sundry other matters

  …An I come up to the Territory first time sixtyfour. Was a scrub on a steamboat out of St Louis…No it wadn too many steamers yet that time…Dangerous plyin, the Missouri that time. Cause the river all choke-up with trees and all kind. ‘Big Muddy’ they call the river. Water like a tarpit. Missouri tougher plyin than the Missippi iny how. Got the whirlpools an cataracts, and rapids ever bend. It maelstrom and sandbank an the most of it perilous shallow. It virgin river then. They didn got the charts. An the Spokane was wilful up that run a the country. They comin down ever now and again and rampagin the steamships. Seen a Frenchman got killed with a arrow through his gullet. Nother time a English boy – he was a wheelwright’s prentice – he got capture by raiders when he go ashore. And the Captain got to leave him behind.

  Went up and down the Muddy out of St Louis fowhile. Four, five time. Six. I forget. But then I got a eye sickness; got this glaucoma see. Turn my left eye blind. Call glaucoma…Commence to workin for the General…by Redemption Falls. And his wife come on out in the summer of sixtyfive. Cause I could cook some and fix house. And they done me all right. Wouldn say saintly but they fair-mind I guess…Mess of slanders been spoke of that man an his wife. To me they aint been spoken of fair.

  Yes I knowed of what happen. The rebel-boy and such. Even heared songs on that story down the years. But peoples all give out that story of the boy wrong. Wiseman sweep the dirt on they-own side of the street. Cause paper gwine take any word a pen put…And it dont mean its truth…or half of it even…Can write your name is Billy, no paper answer you it John…Dependin on all who wrote it…And it aint true the General an his wife didn have no love. Cause why she come west if it was?…Man treated you bad, youd stay home with you people…Wadn easy, comin west for no woman that time…In especial not a lady…No, sir.

  CHAPTER 12

  COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY LOVEor WHY LUCIA CAME INTO THE TERRITORY

  The Governor writes to Lucia near the end of the Civil War

  The making of a photograph – The Bad Lands and their ghosts

  A poor fallen woman whose name is not recorded – Indians

  Cherrybrandy – Signor Verdi in the wilderness

  Governor’s Residence,

  2nd Street: 11 lots east of the creek,

  near the mileposts.

  Redemption Falls,

  Mountain Territory

  April 15th, 1865

  Dearest Light,mio specchio ,†

  I wrote you seven weeks ago but am as yet unanswered. Has any of my letters made a way to you successfully? I think that I wrote four times since arrival out here. A stagecoach was attacked by renegade Cheyenne downriver from Fort Ballantyne the other week. There was a report of stolen mailbags, but nobody seems to know how many.

  Are you still at New York or have you gone down to the villa for Easter?Cara mia : write me an answer the moment you receive this. I am becoming anxious. Is everything quite right with you? I had a dream in which you were running on the decks of an icebreaker: it disturbed me greatly. Tell me you are not unwell.

  How is it at the hospital? You are not tiring yourself out again I hope. Johnny Colohane, one of my deputies, received a letter from his wife (lucky devil) last month and she mentioned you in it. She had seen you making a photograph in the hospital gardens; a patient, a Captain with very terrible burns, was your assistant. It is kind of you to give such an unfortunate man an interest. My love is so compassionate always.

  Well then: there is little to say,mio doppio ,† except that I miss you solrely [sic] & wish I had you here to talk to. It is almost midnight now, but quite damnably hot. Some thirtsy [sic] fellow, I think a prairie-dog, is scraping like buggery in the enclosure below my casement – as though his paws could unearth a wellspring. Poor tufted wretch, he looks almost human. If you were here, you would brave the swelter to assist his excavations. But I shall do no such thing, I am afraid. Tonight he shall burrow alone.

  This climate is fiercer than the blaze of Tennessee, indeed remorselessly wearying, & taking the devil’s own time to attune to. No one seems to know whether or not it is typical. Some of the Natives say it is; others say not; for of course they only say what they think we want to hear and for the rest remain silent, inscrutable. Indians are remarkably similar to Cavan men in that aspect (and in others); but my love does not know what a Cavan man is, I suppose, and nor, I imagine, does she need to. Stomach annoys demonically. I expect it is the water. And one is finding it difficult to sleep. I suppose that after four years of nights in a tent, it is troublesome to adapt to a bed unpopulated by weevils. I start awake in the darkness and wonder where I am; and then, I wonder where are you.

  They say the War will be over by the end of the year. We hear little reliable: this means the rumor-flies thrive. At least once or twice a week the rebels have surrendered; then the White House is burnt & Lincoln hanged in shackles††; or the British have recognized the Confederacy & are fortifying Richmond; or the French have come in on our side & are shelling Nashville – all of this reported with the adamant certitude of those whose ignorance is perfect. As for me, I awaken in the morning & look out of the window. If a scaffold is not being erected by slave-catchers in the yard, I assume the United States still exist.

  I wish that I had a picture of you. Have you changed your hair?La femme de Calhoun wrote him that it was chopped short and straight (‘like a boy�
�s’). Gods, tell me you have not committed this self-desecration! Can it be nearly two years since last I saw you? Did you cut it for the hospital? I suppose that you did. Is it truth that a nurse must be a repellent old haggis? If so, how can the Holy Sisters admit my angel to their realm?†Write your lonely disciple immediately – an epistle of two pages at least, do you hear. I want to hear every last thing that you have been doing. And send me a vandalized curl.

  Had a nightmare the other night of my own stupidity and malice. I mean our quarrel at Tennessee that Christmas you came out. Wasteful, sorry fool of a husband you have, to poison our farewell in such a way. The harsh words I used, the spitefulness of what I said: they did not deserve your forgiveness. Many such stupidities come back to me lately, whilst events of last week I forget or misremember. This morning I could not dredge up my mother’s maiden name for some minutes. Any further back than she, and soon everyone’s name is enfogged. One pictures one’s ancients wraithed in rewarding glory but actually it is only forgetfulness. How I wish I had not gone, had rather ordered away the soldiers & returned with you to New York as you wished.††You ask for so little & I have given less, always. Your father is right to loathe me. Half the time I loathe myself.

  This house, this Territory, is an Australia without you. I curse myself for my obstinacy, this venomous streak of pig-headedness; it has done so much harm to us; I see that now. I have not been the husband I promised, nor the one you deserve. I have wasted so much; it quite nauseates one to think on it. Can you permit me another chance to amend? I mean to deserve you, Lucia.