by Paul Lynch
Donegal town, a road sign announces. The clatter and clamor of a town fair. This place redolent of better times, more than half full. Mouths, shouts, hands, coins, purses, the bleating and bellow of animals, high-to-the-heavens this dung smell. She hears more people here talking in Irish than English. She has not met a town as busy as this.
She says, it would make you hungry just to look at it.
Colly says, you must go among the mill.
What would I want to be doing among them?
To be stealing things from under their noses.
I will not.
You will.
A bagpiper catches her eyeing the coins at his feet. She pretends to be studying the ground. His knees are as wrinkled as his face and when the cheeks release his skin maps his skull. She goes to the stall of a tin-woman and handles a cup, sees a shapeless dull version of herself but drops it when the tin-woman rattles at her to clear off. A fruit dealer’s table is guarded by some man and a half who is tree-tall, his arms knotted and his eyes leaning out as she watches the last of autumn’s fruit she can taste just by looking. She knows she is hungry but not yet hungry enough to risk prison. Over there is a policeman watching and there is another. What they watch is the hungered drifting through the square like shades. They are marked out of the crowd by their winnowing. Their watchy eyes. Their watchy feet. The way they slow over the street—children, men, women—eyeing for scraps and refuse, dallying over an item, picking it up with their toes. Or those that sit by the building fronts, under awnings, upon steps, hardly reflected, it seems, by the windows. The way they hold perfectly still as if it were possible to disappear in plain sight, every part of them dead but for their alert eyes, eyes like wolves, she thinks, wolves concealed in human clothing wearing stringed masks of badly painted faces. Such wolves are waiting to seize the town with their teeth. Only they are not, she thinks. These people are sheep. They stand in plain sight and do nothing but beg.
Colly says, it’s better not to look pitiful, better to pass seen but unseen, better to look happy among them.
She practices holding a smile the perfect look of an angel. She whistles though she cannot find a tune. She is glad her father’s clothes are not in rags. The belling of the church tells her fifteen minutes has passed as she circles the square. All the time she has been eyeing a jute bag of horse apples left under the nose of a piebald. There is a way of getting it without being seen. She watches without watching, smiles without smiling. It is then she sees a strange man eyeing her from the bottom of the square. His stare is fixed, cuts through the people between them, races her heart into her ears. She watches with dread as his hand comes out of his pocket. The hand becomes a wave or perhaps a warning. He lets loose a shout and begins towards her. She stands rooted in bewilderment, does not notice how the bawling noise of the town has flattened into soundlessness, the way all points of light are suddenly upon the carriage of this man, an appalling presence coming towards her. Their eyes at full communion and her mind grasping for facts she cannot fathom, the who of this man and the what of his intent, if what is approaching is evil. It is then she knows it. This man is an agent of Boggs.
Colly shouts, run, you stupid bitch.
And now she can see it. Her rank stupidity as if she has lived blindfolded. As if you can leave things like breaking Boggs’s head behind you. As if you can just run away. She thinks of her knife but her hand cannot move for it and then the man is upon her.
The man calls out. Is it yourself?
His voice is high, unfettered. His tobacco smile all toothsome like a donkey. The hand held high is a greeting but her legs are soft and then he pinches her at the elbow, his breath reaching in warm, sour and whiskeyed.
I knew you were the son of Marcus by the look of you. And that blanket rolled and ready. You’d better come along, the others are waiting. I told them you’d be here a half hour ago. What has you so late?
Her mind is flung and it is Colly who answers. I couldn’t get any sleep. There was an owl hooting all night in the chimney.
Donkeyface man hoots a high laugh and frowns at the same time.
There flashes the memory of a story of the pooka, a young woman led astray by some dark visitor—a man wearing black clothing with a donkey’s pointy ears hidden beneath his hat. How the pooka man called to the woman’s house, the story went, in the late hours of evening, asked for help with his horses. And when the woman refused and did not invite him in, he stepped inside of his own accord and took her off for seven years to hell. She searches now for Donkeyface man’s ears but they are hidden under his hat. He is sallow, stooped at the shoulders, swelled with teeth. His frieze coat is only patched here and there. But his eyes are the devil’s red or perhaps he is soused.
She thinks, is this a trick? Am I being put under a spell?
Colly says, let’s make friends with this devil.
Donkeyface man frowns. What’s that yer saying?
The hand to her elbow is its own answer and master. She finds herself being marched alongside him, away from the square. He asks something about Marcus and her mouth grunts an answer.
Colly says, steal your hand in his pocket.
She is taken to a street choked with dark cattle. Donkeyface man pushing through the animals and in her mind she meets a vision of Boggs. Instead they meet some stringy young fellow who sits on a box with a priest’s crooked back. It is then she sees the blunderbuss on his lap, the sunlight caught in its brass.
So this is it, she thinks. She finds herself wishing it would happen quick.
Donkeyface man says, look, Mr. Soundpost, I found the hireling.
Soundpost fumbles the gun as he goes to stand up, almost drops it, his face reddening, and Donkeyface man winks at her, then turns upon Soundpost. Be careful, now, Mr. Soundpost, how you hold that gun.
What she sees is a mule laden with a sack of meal, a butter churn strapped to its side. A man-boy called Soundpost red in the face with a bucktooth. But for that he could almost be good looking, she thinks.
Soundpost says, tell me, Mr. Boyd, where might that Clackton fellow be? He grabs at a golden pocket watch on a chain and squints. Mercy, mercy. Where has the time got to?
Another lad appears from among the cattle. His face bursting with freckles, his hair a shock of red. She studies him a moment as if he were the child of Boggs. His face weathered beyond his years and yet this boy must be her own age. He eyes her up and down with a grin that pulls his eyes into preternatural wrinkle. You look nothing like your brother, he says. Then he winks and leans towards her in whisper. So you’ve met Embury Soundpost, have you?
She mutters something inaudible and watches Soundpost talk to himself. Mercy, mercy. We have wasted too much time as it is. Here, Wilson, get that mule ready.
She thinks, so it is he who is in charge, this Embury Soundpost fellow. These ribby black cattle are his. The others are here for his bidding.
She watches the way he sucks his lip over his bucktooth. Wonders what a well-to-do man is doing roughing it with animals. He is eighteen at most, as stringy as rope, but his stovepipe is new and not done in like most others. His hair cut square over his eyes like the toes of his boots.
Donkeyface man turns and bows. I will leave you gentlemen to your booley. She watches him walk up the street without turning around, ignoring Soundpost, who is still asking after Clackton.
She holds her breath and eyes the sack of meal again. Her mind grasping through dark to what might lie ahead, waiting for the moment when she steps into the fall and the inevitable upside down of it. She imagines the howling laughter of the pooka. Such is the way they play tricks on you.
Wilson leans in. I’ve not booleyed with cattle this far before. Have you?
She shakes her pipe out of her pocket. Drops her voice gruff as a dog. Says, I hope you boys brought plug because I’m all out. Soundpost stares at her and does not answer. She turns as if to see up the street but instead she is trying to hide a blush. She thinks, if he comes, whoe
ver I’m supposed to be, I’ll run off down that way or this. Her mind replaying the names of the others. Embury Soundpost. Wilson. Some Clackton fellow, who has not appeared yet. The Donkeyface man called Mr. Boyd, or maybe he is the pooka after all, gone back up the street looking for devilment.
She thinks, how have they mistaken me?
She turns and Soundpost is still sizing her up. He says, what kind of look is that you got going on for a hireling? You could pass for a hen in a gunnysack. I would hope we do not have to share the same haircutter.
She hears the words leap out her mouth before she has thought them. They are not her words and yet they sound from her voice.
Who died for that tombstone in your mouth?
Soundpost’s mouth hangs open but his voice has vanished. His lip snaps over his tooth. Wilson slaps her on the back. Ho! The quick mouth on you, Tim. Never mind him, Mr. Soundpost. They’re a strange lot, them cousins. His brother is the— look, there’s Clackton.
She waits for Soundpost to send her away but instead he turns and glares at this fellow called Clackton. He shouts, so, Mr. Clackton, you have been shirking on us. We have not the charity for any more time wasting as it is.
Her eyes seeing inwards to this new self, to what is held in a name.
Silently she speaks it, tongues the mouthfeel.
Did you hear that, Colly? My name is Tim.
The road becomes a wailing river of cattle bumping the ditches. Their grave and heavy footing amplifying with the sound of lowing until the sky is full of thunder and lament. They consume the high road outside the town and everything upon it, carriages and jarveys and work carts and a party of dragoons faceless in blood coats high upon their horses.
People stop to watch the booley pass as two dogs yap and circle. She learns they are Wilson’s dogs, two black collie sisters. Both are white-socked with blazing white faces. Soundpost heckling at the rear of the group with the blunderbuss loose on his shoulder. Wilson with his gentle whoas and whistles. He walks with a cudgel in his hand, wears on his back a satchel and a melodeon. Clackton in tweed up front, though she has not seen much of him. A man, it seems, of little talk, his combed-back hair oily and yellow-white. A rifle resting loose over his shoulder.
Keep your mouth shut and do the work, she thinks. You might even get coin for it.
Colly says, Wilson is the one to watch, he’s a natural with the animals—move your arms like him, shout at them like he does.
She puts her fingers in her mouth and tries Wilson’s whistle but no sound comes out. Still, she thinks, this is easy enough—just keep the cattle together and stop them from wandering. And yet in a blink the animals spook and wander. They are hardly out of the town when one cow leads three others into a winter oat field. She runs after them through the soft muslin rain with Soundpost’s high and charmless voice following after her.
Mercy! Mercy! Drive them back out!
She flails her arms but the cattle stare beyond her as if she were but a bird, some coal-colored thing flapping frantic wings. It is the collies who come to her rescue. They circle the rogue animals and then Wilson with his big hands is beside her. Into the air he slices a whistle. She watches the cattle march back out.
She thinks, that Wilson has the power of a spell over them. I will be found out now for sure.
Soundpost is staring at her. Mercy me. Patience! I thought you knew cattle.
After the rain the glittering treetops. A benign and shining winter as if the world is witnessed through glass. The flatlands fall away behind them and it is slow work walking these cattle up hilly roads, how the animals want to wander among firs or nibble at the moss. She watches Clackton, sees when he turns to give some instruction to Wilson that a scar cuts the side of his mouth. He is midsize, clean-shaven, easy-fisted. He makes Soundpost look like the man-boy he is. He shows no interest in talking to her. As he walks he sometimes takes a quick sup from a flask.
Colly wants to know why they are booleying these animals through wintered country when there’s so little grazing to be had. She has no nerve to ask them. In dusk it takes a good hour to find the booley hut hidden behind gorse on a hill. Soundpost chiding at Clackton. This is your fault for keeping us in the town so late.
The hut is sound enough, made of stone with a door that swings into the earth as it opens. The slope walled with stonework to enclose the cattle. The animals come to rest blank-eyed and haggard. Soundpost stares at her and puts his hands on his hips. Mercy! Patience! She looks about for something to do and Wilson points to the cow kept for milk and winks.
That’s your work, hireling.
She unties the bucket from the mule, watches the men step inside the booley hut and goes to work with her fingers. Wilson steps behind her. He sits on his haunches and fingers the grass, then leans in and speaks quietly. That Soundpost! He’s in some rush to take these beef half-breeds back to Newtown McFuck or wherever he comes from. Some of them are carrying calves. Wouldn’t wait until the spring. You’d think he was a great farmer the way he goes on, yet I heard he’s in training to be a solicitor. Got these beef for half nothing off some poor fella. He’s only an auld rich grabber.
She cannot remember ever eating so well. A tin cup of milk and mealcakes burned to a crispy black that sets Soundpost chiding at Clackton. Mercy! Mercy! It’s not peat you’re cooking, Mr. Clackton.
Clackton turns around, his features very still. Finally, he says, might I ask, Mr. Soundpost, how old you are in years?
I’m eighteen and three-quarters to the month.
Colly says, you’d think he’s an old galoot.
Clackton says, let me tell you, Mr. Soundpost. I’ve been cooking these mealcakes since before you suckled on that tight teat of your wet nurse.
She watches the mouth snap shut and then the suck of the upper lip. Wilson tries to sit on a snicker. Soundpost looks so helpless, she thinks, like a child roused to anger. He grabs the lamp and steps outside and throws the door closed, leaves them to the fire’s glow. They can hear him counting the cattle, stalling for a moment, starting up again. Clackton and Wilson trade laughing glances.
She nods towards the door, says, is he a strange one or what?
Clackton quits smiling and stares at her.
She sits tickled under her blanket against the booley hut wall, relishing the aftertaste of the mealcake. Even if they found out now, she whispers, even if the real Tim turned up, it would have been worth every moment.
Colly whispers, how would they ever find out? It was Donkeyface man who mistook you, they’re nothing but fools—that Wilson with his slap-red hands is only a gobdaw, you can tell him anything and he believes you—and that Clackton is a drunk, sipping on gin when he thinks nobody is looking, he nearly got us lost, so he did. Now, if I were in charge I would have drawn up maps and I would be taking account of the—
She cannot stop thinking of Embury Soundpost. A kind face but for that shame of a tooth. The strange way he has of looking at her. She is not used to being looked at.
She says, he’s a funny sort, that Soundpost.
Colly says, he’s lost in his head all the time with his notes and calculations, he doesn’t suspect a—
In the corner on the wooden bed Soundpost stops murmuring and looks up. Clackton and Wilson are asleep on the floor. For a moment she watches the outline of Soundpost, the lamp on the bed angled to illumine his notebook. How his shadow rides up the wall a dark and flickering other-self, his truer self, she thinks, the part he guards from others. She thinks of a story once heard of a man who lost his shadow to the devil, the trouble he had after it. She turns quick to see her own shadow snug to the wall. You lost your shadow a long time ago, she thinks. This shadow belongs to Tim.
She continues to study Soundpost in the half dark, his gaze fixed on his notebook. Recording, no doubt, every minute detail. Already he knows all his cattle to the hoof. When a cow wandered into the trees at near dark he was the first to know. Stood staring at the dusk squeezing his hands. She knows now
why they are armed. Soundpost with his blunderbuss, Clackton with a rifle, Wilson wielding a cudgel that would bring light to the dark of a man’s brains. How tense Soundpost got when Clackton almost steered them through a large village. How he made straight for Clackton. We had an agreement to stay out of them, to use the back roads. We don’t want to make a show. Clackton inscrutable, oiling his hand through his yellow-white hair, his eyes saying one thing but his mouth another. It’s impossible to get where we’re going without meeting places. The days of the Whiteboys hiding in the hedges are long over.
Right now, Clackton is not so much snoring as snarling. It is as if in dream he has shape-shifted into some beast and is trying to make good of it. Soundpost puts the room to dark. She can hear him make a long settling breath. He keeps turning to get comfortable. She tries to sleep but cannot, listens instead to the sound of the world after the rain, the trees slowly releasing their drops, how it sounds like a rain shower brought to a great slowing of itself. The slap of each rain bead as it falls onto the sleeping cattle and the stones and the earth, the ring of each bead unique. And if you listen hard enough you can almost tell the distance between each drop.
Colly whispers, that Clackton—there’s something of the dog about him, don’t you think, and Soundpost with all his calculations is like a cat.
She is silent a moment, then says, wasn’t it the dog that swallowed the cat?
She awakes to the din of men and scuffling animals. A vision of Sarah returning to the obliquity of dream like rainwater seeping through earth. Wilson outside shout-herding the cattle. Then Clackton’s face moons above her and she stares at the scar cornering his mouth, sorrow carved with a knife. Clackton grimaces and he grabs her wrist and slaps into her palm a mealcake so hot she struggles not to drop it. He says, eat up, young hireling, and get a move on.