Wolves of Eden

by Kevin McCarthy

  You could say my brother was by now recovered mostly from his bodily wounds & you would be right. He was once again tall & strong but he was a different man than he was before his wounding & things beneath the sheath of his skin were yet roiling & spoilt.

  So he could be a hard man to sit with but I did for he is my brother & like that calf I loved him dearly. From my berth on a milking stool I watched Tom nuss that beast’s head like a man would a beloved sheepdog & I tell you Sir that calf lowed like a fat child. You could hear in that noise a kind of joy they say that beasts cannot feel but them who listen close know they can. Them like Tom who was always such a fine man for the animals & is still to this day though not so fine a one for his fellow man betimes.

  In the shadows I sensed it more than seen the calf’s fat tongue curl round Tom’s fingers taking the salted sweat from my brother’s skin. After some time of this Tom turned & says to me, “Harris will not have this beast for his own So Help Me God.”

  The words were muddled & wet like the calf’s breath in the near empty socket of Tom’s shot through mouth but I could comprehend them & I did not like the journey my brother’s thoughts were after taking. He spoke to me in English as he did more & more as if it was easier on his broken tongue. Or maybe his thinking took a turn with the bullet that carved through his gob so English came to suit it better. I am only after wondering this now for I was too much of the moment to note it at the time.

  “I see no way around it Tom,” says I trying to peacify my brother. “Sure we are owed a fortnight’s wages & there is no gain in parting before we take them.” I spoke to Tom in the language of our home for there was more meaning in it for me then.

  But Tom went on in English. “We will take our wages tonight by God & be done with this place but he will not have this calf. It belongs to us. It was freely given as worth nothing 1/2 in the lye pit & shunned by his mother. I will kill Harris stone dead before he ever breathes over this calf.”

  I stood up from the milking stool & said to him, “Listen to yourself Tom & then listen to reason. There is no gain in killing a man over a weened calf.”

  Says he, “There is many I kilt for far less & so have you. Fine men some of them.”

  “That was the war Tom when Mr. President Lincoln himself deemed it fine & proper to do it May God Keep Him.” I too was speaking in English now.

  Tom was silent at this & I did not like his silence. In the guttering lamplight my brother’s busted visage was not visible to me but there is no cloaking in gloaming or fancy whiskers the hollows in my brother’s heart or in his head. I do oft think that minie ball left inside of Tom some of its leaden venom. It is better betimes he stays in the shadows because it can put the fear of God on a man to see this come out on his face.

  Says I, “Look brother. I will bring the crockery up & ask the man will he change his thinking on our calf & let us sell it as it was given to us freely like you say. If he will not then I will have our wages & we will be for the road.”

  In truth I had no mind to ask the farmer Harris again for the calf. It was done enough already & there is no finding sense in a man’s mind when greed sets in there like mortar. But I would take our wages & move us on because I did not trust my brother not to let his spleen get the better of him. It would be no good for that farmer & no good for us if it did.

  Still Tom stayed quiet with the calf nussing his palm. My brother’s other hand rested on the hilt of the D Bar Bowie he once took from the body of some poor dead Johnny Reb & then carried all through the war instead of swopping it as we mostly did with things we took from Sesesh prisoners or bodies. It is true I can think of nothing that knife will not carve or open but I wish Tom did not carry it at all anymore. It has too much death on it.

  Says I, “Did you hear what I said Tom?”

  Tom stroked & petted that calf for a long moment before he spoke. “That b_____ of a farmer is in luck I have you for a brother or he would by now have the life leaking out of him.”

  I could of cried I tell you.

  Instead I said to him, “They would hunt us down like dogs & hang us by our necks Tom. And what a sorry way to go up that would be after living through what we have lived.”

  “Lived? Go away with you Michael & your lived.”

  “You go away yourself Tom for we did not come all the way here to America to be strung up when we could of arranged that back home in Ireland handy enough.”

  I did want to say it was wrong to kill a man over a calf freely given or not. I did want to remind Tom what killing that poor Sullivan boy back at home meant for us once. (I will confess this to you Sir for it surely does not matter now. Tom struck down a dirty Sullivan brother with his stick on the road from Killorglin Fair. He did not mean to strike him dead it was only their faction agin ours them waiting for us in ambush. It could of easily been one of us dead & even Father Walsh when I confessed my part in it did give me absolution.)

  But still I wanted right then to ask Tom what killing a man ever won for us up to now but lonely exile & a hard labouring life here in America with one eye forever cast back over our shoulders on past sins? All this was brimmed up in me to say to my brother there in the dusking barn but I did not.

  I instead told him, “Look Tom I will walk over & see the man again about the calf & if he will not shift—​”

  Tom looked over at me & you would of not liked to see his face then it almost scared me his own brother.

  I made to continue. “If he will not shift his mind then we are for the road this evening & may Harris be f_____. But it is not murder trouble we need now Tom & you know it.”

  Tom said nothing back to me & I did leave him there in the dark with the calf.

  “It was the War made him so,” says I to myself (as I oft did) crossing the yard for to rinse our two chipped dishes at the well pump.

  But I wonder now does the War be excuse enough for Tom to froth up like he does? Sure I myself saw the Elephant. I myself laid down my share of poor Johnny Reb & like Tom was steeped in Sesesh blood & yet I do not think now to kill every man who crosses me. “Let it pass please God,” I said to myself mounting the steps to the farmhouse.

  WHEN YOU KIP IN a barn the lamplight from behind the window glass of a warm house does be like an insult. It makes you wonder how it comes to pass that you have no abode of your own when other lesser men do.

  I knocked on the farmer’s door & stood to wait. After some time the Harris boy opened it before turning back to the supper table without so much as a nod to me (fine fellow!) & I did enter & dry the plates with a kitchen rag & place them together but separate from the Harris family plates.

  “Speak your mind Michael,” says the farmer then with sweet pipe smoke leaking from the corners of his mouth. “Or leave us in peace. We all seen enough of each other today I think.”

  From force of habit I did remove my straw hat & hold it in 2 hands over my heart & I have no doubt my forehead glowed a shocking white against the sun cured hide of my face.

  “The calf Mr. Harris,” says I surprising myself for I did not intend to speak of it. “Only the brother & myself be wondering—​”

  Harris rapped his pipe down in a clay bowl on the table as if to knock it clean but more in the way of a magistrate striking sentence with his gavel.

  “I have told you & that brother of yours the calf no more belongs to you than does this house or farm or anything in it.”

  Harris had the stern & rosy fat face of more than one 1st Sergeant from my days in the Army. It was a fearsome face though neither father nor son saw a single ball fired in anger in the War the father paying (so it was said in Chillicoth) 300$ indulgence for men to go & fight in their place as was custom among men of means. My knuckles went white round the brim of my hat.

  He went on, “And tell that brother of yours that if he wants words with me over that calf to come see me himself & do not go sending the church mouse in his place to do the barn cat’s business.”

  Like you done in th
e War sending someone in your place! As I was thinking this I saw the son smile & anger flared in my heart under the straw hat that covered it. You 2 b______ would have less mockery in you if the barn cat came in here to see you I thought & at this I did recall some words my mother oft said when her boys gave backtalk to her May God Give Her Rest for we never did. In the Gaelic the words are Iss Minic A Vrish Bale Dinna A Hrone which in English means Many Is The Time A Man’s Mouth Broke His Nose as you do well know Sir. But there in that farmer’s kitchen my mind changed it of its own will & in my mind it went Many’s The Time A Man’s Mouth Cut His Throat.

  But I pushed this terrible thinking down under the fear & prostration for both of these come fair easier to me than the rage that runs as blood in my brother’s veins. I swallowed & summoned what courage I could because alongside the abject face of my God Given Nature was also a bold & stubborn aspect which in the War served me well & which will serve me well in life if I do ever leave this Valley with my guts still inside me & not spooled out in the buffalo grass or with my neck stretched by the rope you may wish to string round it Sir.

  Says I to the farmer, “Then we will be taking our owed wages Mr. Harris.”

  Well that stuffed goose of a son smiled rightly at this & Harris himself made to mock the way I speak repeating my words to me so that they rung not bold but sour & ignorant a bladdery brogue like the drunken Pat in a stage play.

  “Then we will be taking our owed wages,” the farmer Harris said looking to his son & though he did not wink his eye (the b______!) I strongly felt it was his wish & I thought to myself right then that I would not leave that house without the wages in my pocket because if I did then something rare & horrible would befall this mean-​fisted farmer & his fat soft son & I might do nothing against its coming.

  Harris went on in his own Ohio voice. “You & that brother of yours are contracted to this farm until the planting is done or have you forgot that?”

  Says then a voice in my head, “But if something rare & terrible did befall this f______ of a farmer & his whelp I could hardly be to blame for it could I?”

  For I will confess to you that in my mind I pictured myself stuffing that hat back upon my head & taking my leave to let Events Run Their Course as the Generals & Politicians say. Would it be wrong I did wonder to loose my brother on such men as these when the pair of us did in the War send from this world so many staunch & honest men only because they donned the grey of the Rebel Confederates & not the blue of the Union? For if it was fine & right with our Holy Father In Heaven to bayonet a man for an idea as wide & contested as setting free from chains black Africans you never met or keeping one rump of states from rending themselves off another well then surely our Holy Father would not cast angry eyes over the killing of men who would take food from your mouth or gold from your purse? Men like this yard cock farmer & his son?

  I gripped tighter the brim of that suffering straw hat as if to squeeze shut a door on such notions. No there would be no gutting these two fat blaggards however much they did deserve it for I knew that I had not the stomach for it & it would fall to my poor 1/2 cracked brother The Barn Cat to do it & there would be something shameful & wrong in this.

  Says I in a firm manner & to my own ears in English that sounded like the spake of a grown man, “Sir you said when we took on with you that we did be free to leave when we needed & would be paid what owed.” (Pride rared its head in me I am ashamed to say.) “And we are owed a fortnight’s wages for work done & wish to claim it please & we will clear off in the morning.”

  Perhaps the farmer noted something in my eyes because he did not mock me this time but looked away & stood up from the table setting his pipe down in the clay bowl. Was it shame perhaps or fear that made him turn his eyes away? Or did Harris see in his mind the wildness that might befall himself & his son should he shun the soft & more sensible church mouse & come to bargain with the Barn Cat for his sins? Again I blinked away such speculations & waited as Harris left the kitchen for another room to return some minutes later with 9 dollars in wages 4$ & 50¢ for each of us for a fortnight’s hard graft.

  Well I can tell you Sir as I did put out my hand for to take the money the Devil himself made a dance across my mind his hoof steps cutting loose ill reckonings & causing me to ponder that if the farmer has 9$ so easy to hand well surely he must have much more than that about the house. I said a small prayer to myself for to chase the Devil away & in hopes that Tom did not also wonder upon this fact.

  “Not in the morning. Tonight,” says the farmer meeting my eyes again for the first time since he came back with our wages. “And let me tell you this Greenhorn. You will find no work round Chillicoth once the other farming men hear what I have to say.”

  Says I back to him, “And what have you to say? That we did not tear blisters on our hands every day for you for an honest shilling earned?”

  It was then that Harris cut a quick look at the long piece hanging over the fireplace. It was an ancient thing I could see (knowing something more than most men about musketry) & a terror maybe to the fowl in the fields but not to the like of us. Sure Tom & myself would have time to brew coffee & pack a pipe in the age it would take the farmer to load that gun. I think Harris did know this too.

  “Just move it out,” says he looking away. “And don’t darken this land again or—​”

  “Or what?” says I for I was bold now with the wages in my pocket. I set the hat on my head right there in the kitchen & looked over to the son who had no grin on his gob now & would no more dare meet my eyes than his father.

  “Just go,” says Harris.

  “We will,” says I.

  And then to spite myself I did tip my hat. It was the habit of years of cap tipping to the Masters & Landlords back in Ireland & 4 years of Army ways being hard to shake off. At the time I was ashamed of myself for doing this because part of me believed the old ruse that in America no man is better than any other whether he was born the Queen of Sheba or in a low cottage in Timbuktoo. Of course I know now there is no truth in this.

  But my shame was fleeting for as I took my leave of the Harris house there came to be a lightness in my step the same lightness I felt once before when myself & Tom boarded the boat at Queenstown for a new life across the sea. It was the lightness of change I tell you the lightness of new things & of things terrible bypassed. It was a feeling like the fluttering in a man’s heart when the dice still rattle in the cup or when all the cards do still be in the dealer’s hand.

  WE TOOK TO THE ROAD that very evening walking until Chillicoth was behind us not far behind but enough so that a man might think he would never lay eyes upon it again & in the case of Tom & myself he would be right & Thank God for that.

  The light of morning was just beginning to pale the sky & there we were 2 brothers passing over a covered bridge of the kind as be common in Ohio. Our footfalls rung hollow on the bridge planking in the darkness under that roofed bridge & I did say to Tom, “Is your heart still sore about that calf brother?”

  Why I asked it I do not know for there are some things in the world we are better off not knowing. I tell you Sir I could feel Tom’s smile in the darkness & it was not a smile you would want to of seen at all.

  Says he, “Not as heartsore as that c___ of a farmer will be when he finds it.”

  It took a moment for me to understand Tom’s dread meaning & I stopped in the shelter of the bridge still some distance from the light outside.

  “Oh Tom how could you do something the like of that? How could you?”

  I spoke to him in Irish the way we did for matters of import or matters of the heart though I came to wonder betimes if my brother did still have one beating in his breast.

  “I will not be taken for a fool Michael,” says he. “Run off something rightfully mine because a man has a farm of land & money in his pocket. You asked me not to kill Harris & his boy you said it would be wrong—​”

  “Wrong!” I did cry at him. “Killing that calf
was wrong Tom! Christ Wept in Heaven you loved him like a pet.”

  Tom spat on the bridge boards & said to me, “We rared him up for slaughter Michael so give over your crying for him. I only done what was coming to him soon enough. You may blame that f_____ Harris for it coming now & not later.”

  He said this to me in English & some of his words were garbled & some I missed altogether but I took the main of his meaning & it was myself who was heartsore. Heartsore for that calf surely for I had helped rare him but more for my brother & what was become of him. I did of a sudden yearn to be out of the darkness of that covered bridge & into the light of the morning so badly I had to stop myself from running.

  Now that I am after writing all this I do reckon perhaps it was the War that was the cause of the wicked things to come. Tom was a different man after his wounding & the War made peacetime a trial for him but can this be excuse for all that I will tell you Sir? Betimes it is hard for me to think that Tom & myself share the same blood at all. I love him as he is my brother but I do also hate him May God Forgive Me for writing it.

  My heart did weep for that pitiful calf though I cannot imagine why for there has been so much killing since that day & there was so much before it. But it stays in my mind all the same & I go back to it. If Harris did not thieve back that calf we rared up—​

  Oh I cannot write another G__D___ word it is too cold in this Guardhouse cell & your terrible Jew will not feed the stove for to spite me.