Novel 1979 - The Iron Marshall (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  “If a man would live he must be the best,” McCarthy said, one day. “There’s many a smith in New York City, and there’s more than two hundred thousand horses in the town, bye. Two hundred thousand! Did you think of that? Each horse will drop twenty-five or -six pounds of manure per day, and there’s a stable in near every block on Manhattan! Think of that! The day will come when they will not tolerate a stable or a kept horse in the city! You’ll see!”

  “But how will they get about?”

  “There’ll be a way. Steam cars…someway.”

  “But what of you, then?”

  “Ah, lad, there be three to four thousand on Manhattan who say they shoe horses, but there’s but a few to whom I’d trust a good horse.” He looked sharply at Shanaghy. “Your pa was a farrier? What happened to him?”

  “He went out to India with the soldiers. He was needed, they said. He turned up missing after an attack and is thought to be dead. Many were killed that time, and I am sure he was, too. With the hot weather and all, they don’t let bodies lie about waiting to be identified.”

  “Aye, ’tis the way of war. Many go and few return, and what happens to some of them you never know.” McCarthy glanced at him. “What is it you want for yourself? To be a waiter in a saloon? It isn’t much, lad. Better your father’s trade and to go west.”

  “West? Where is that?”

  “Ah, lad, there’s a wide land beyond us here! A far, beautiful land. They do be sayin’ there’s gold yonder, and silver, and all manner of things. Mostly there’s land free for the taking.”

  “And the savages.”

  “Aye. They be there, but there’s savages enough in the city, too.” He paused, hammer in hand. “It is a rough place where you be workin’, lad. There’s mostly women of no account, and among the men there’s thieves and worse. ’Tis no fit place for a lad.”

  “It is what I have, and Mr. Morrissey sees after me.”

  “Aye…when he’s of a mind to, and when he’s sober. I like old John, don’t you forget that, but he’s a rough ’un, battered his way up with two hard fists and his wits and now he walks among the swells. Some of them sneer at him behind his back, but it is behind his back. They are all afraid of him, and when election comes he can get out the votes. Why,” he added grimly, “it is said that even the dead come to life and vote when he speaks, and well enough it can be true, for I’ve seen the names of those dead these three years, and still voting!”

  Tom Shanaghy chuckled, shaking his head. “He’s the canny one!”

  McCarthy spat. “Aye, but a man’ll get nowhere if he’s dishonest. Chickens come home to roost, me bye. Ride a straight trail and y’ll get farther and feel better, and have no worry about what someday will be discovered.

  “Those who are dishonest will be dishonest with you, too, and when it suits them will turn on y’. Among such folks y’ trust no man…and, particularly, no woman.”

  Shanaghy shrugged. Who was McCarthy to talk? He ran a blacksmith shop he did not even own. Morrissey had a saloon, a restaurant, and who knew what else? People walked wide around him and spoke to him with respect.

  His mother, he reflected, had sounded just like McCarthy, but what did she know? She’d never been three miles from her own village until they went to the ship. A fine woman, a decent woman, but she did not know much about life.

  He was remembering all that as he made his camp. He took his blanket-roll back under the trees in the deepest shadow. He liked being close to the fire but was a little afraid of it, too. In New York they sometimes talked of the West and the Indians and he knew they were canny at hunting. He did not wish them to come upon him in the night.

  He unrolled the blankets and it was then he found the shotgun. It was in two pieces, needing merely to be put together, and there was a tube container evidently made to contain the two pieces of the shotgun. Now it was filled with shells. He put the shotgun together and loaded it.

  Lying on his back, hands clasped behind his head, Tom Shanaghy listened to the rustle of the leaves and watched the fire dying. Tonight, for the first time in a long while, his thoughts kept returning to Ireland.

  It had been good there. Hungry, those years after his father went away, but good years in a green and lovely land. At first his father had sent them a little, then came the news that he was missing in action.

  Almost twelve years now he had stayed in New York, and that, too, had been hard…from the very first. Nearly every day he had a fight, and the boys he met were tough and street-wise, as schooled in fighting as he, but they lacked his natural quickness and the strength developed from the blacksmith’s hammer and the hard work on the farm. He whipped them all.

  All but Pegan Rice. The larger, older boy had whipped him four times. But while he was getting whipped, Tom Shanaghy was learning. Pegan had a bad habit of dropping his left after punching with it, so one time they fought Tom took the left going in and swung with his right. The punch went over the left to Pegan’s chin, and the timing was right. Pegan went down hard. He got up, Tom feinted, Pegan threw the left and Tom slipped it and crossed his right to the chin again. After that he saw no more of Pegan Rice.

  Shanaghy became a runner for John Morrissey, taking the word to gamblers and gambling houses, to the women on the line and to the ward heelers who did his bidding.

  Yet two or three times each week he managed to work with McCarthy for an hour or two, sometimes the whole day. Despite the hard work, or perhaps because of it, he enjoyed himself. And he liked McCarthy. The old Irishman was a tough, no-nonsense sort of man, untouched by the corruption about him.

  When not with McCarthy, his haunts were the saloons and dives.

  Men such as Morrissey, who could swing the Irish vote, were important to Tammany Hall and, shrewdly, Morrissey had worked hard to make himself even more so. Admired for his fighting abilities, he was also a politician who found newcomers a place to live. He found them jobs, kept them out of trouble. His thugs and “shoulder-strikers,” as they were called, frightened opposition voters away from the polls, protected their own voters, and occasionally stuffed ballot-boxes or engaged in all manner of trickery and deceit.

  Basically, it was Morrissey’s personal popularity that usually carried the day for him.

  Shanaghy was thirteen years old when he glimpsed an old friend. He was coming up through the Five Points, walking the middle of the street as behooved one who knew the area, when he saw the Maid o’ Killarney…She was hitched to a butcher’s wagon.

  He walked to the curb and stopped. Appearing to pay no attention, he looked the horse over carefully. The same scar on the inside of the fetlock, identical markings. It had to be.

  The horse, left standing while a delivery was being made, suddenly took a step forward, stretching its nose to him. “Aye, Maid, you remember me, don’t you?” He patted her a little, and when the driver came bustling from the house he commmented, “Nice horse.”

  “Feisty,” the delivery man said testily, “too feisty.”

  Tom had glanced at the sign on the side of the wagon, then waved a hand and walked up the street. Once he was out of sight, he ran.

  Morrissey, Tom knew, had a meeting at his gambling house at No. 8 Barclay Street, and he should be there now.

  *

  TOM ENTERED THE gambling house and saw Morrissey seated at a table with several other men, a beer and a cigar clutched in his big hands. Tom hesitated, then walked to Morrissey and spoke up.

  “Sir? Mr. Morrissey?” Old Smoke did not like to be interrupted, and he turned sharply. When he saw the boy, some of the irritation left his eyes. “What is it, bye? What’s wrong?”

  “Sir, I must speak with you. Now, sir.”

  Astonished, Morrissey stared at him. In the year and a half since he had first seen Tom Shanaghy, the boy had never ventured to speak unless spoken to. He had kept out of the way, had done what he was told and kept his mouth shut.

  “What is it, then?”

  “Alone, sir. I must speak to y
ou alone.”

  Morrissey pushed back his chair. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, gentlemen?”

  Taking his beer in one hand and cigar in the other, he led the way to a secluded table. He sat down and gestured for Tom to sit opposite. “Now what is it, bye? I am a busy man, as you can see.”

  “Sir, I’ve just seen the Maid o’ Killarney!”

  “The who? Who or what is this Maid o’ Killarney?”

  “A horse, sir. A racehorse. She’s drawing a butcher’s wagon in the Five Points.”

  Morrissey put the cigar in his teeth. “A racehorse drawing a butcher’s wagon? She must be no good. Must have busted down.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. She looked fit…only not cared for, sir. I know the mare, sir. She was uncommonly fast, and even if she’s not in the best of shape she could still be bred, sir.”

  “All right, lad. Take your time and tell me about her…”

  How long ago was that? Tom Shanaghy, hands clasped behind his head, looked up at the rustling leaves. Ten years? A long time back, a very long time.

  Slowly and carefully he had explained to John Morrissey about the Maid. How he had been present when she was born, how he had ridden her as an exercise boy around the stables, and ridden her in her first race.

  “The Maid won,” he explained. “Then she won again. She won twice more with somebody else up, then the man who owned her got in debt over gambling. He lost her and she was sold to an American.”

  Morrissey dusted the ash from his cigar. “You’re sure of the horse?”

  “I am. It was my father fitted the first shoes to her. I played with her as a boy. I’d not make a mistake. And she remembered me.”

  “How old would she be?”

  “Five…a bit over.”

  Two days later Morrissey called him in. “Tom, me bye, how would you like to drive a butcher’s wagon?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “You’ve got a job, then. You’ll drive the wagon and you’ll check the horse. As I understand it the deliveries are over by noon. You’ll take the horse to Fenway’s after you’ve finished. Tomorrow is Saturday. Sunday morning take her out on the track and give her a light workout. Easy does it. See how she moves, if anything is wrong wi’ her.

  “Lochlin will be there, and he’s a fine horseman. He will be watching. No trying for speed now, for she’s been living poorly and will have to be taken careful. Above all, don’t y’ touch her with a currycomb or anything of the kind.

  “And not a word of this to anyone, y’ understand? Not a word!”

  Sunday morning the air had been cool with a touch of fog in the air. He led the Maid out to the track and Lochlin gave him a leg up.

  “Once around. Just see how she moves, lad. Maybe we have something and maybe we don’t.”

  When they turned into the track, the Maid remembered. Her head came up and she tugged at the bit. “Not now, baby. Take it easy…easy now!”

  She moved into a canter and went once around the track. Lochlin was waiting for them when he pulled up near the gate.

  “Moves well. Seems a little stiff, that’s all.”

  Tom took her around again, a little faster. She was eager and wanted to run and he had to restrain her.

  “How was she when you rode her?” Lochlin asked when they returned.

  “She’s a finisher, Mr. Lochlin. She likes to come from behind, and if she’s anything like she used to be she can really run.”

  For a week he drove another horse, much alike in outward appearance, with the butcher’s wagon. In the afternoons he worked out the Maid. She had a natural affinity for the track, loved running, and liked to win. What Morrissey had in mind he had no idea, except that he expected to make a lot of money.

  “Tom,” Morrissey said one day, “don’t come around to Barclay Street.” He lit a fresh cigar. “There’s a man who comes there to gamble. Quite the sharper he thinks himself, and he has a horse. He’s been doing a bit of bragging about that horse, and I’ve a friend wishes to take him down a bit.”

  It had been a week later that Tom was driving the Maid with the butcher’s wagon. He had a delivery that morning that took him to Barclay Street and he had stopped to get packages of meat from the wagon when he saw Morrissey. Several men were with him and he heard one of the men say, “What? Why, that Wade Hampton horse of mine could beat either of them! Either of them, I say!”

  Shanaghy heard the arrogance in the tone but did not look around, although he wished to.

  “Bob,” another voice said, “you’ve been doing a lot of talking about that Wade Hampton horse. We hear a lot but we don’t see any action. I think you’re just talking through your hat!”

  “Like hell, I am! He’s won his last six races, and he’ll win the next six. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, Sweeney, just find yourself a horse!”

  “Bah!” Sweeney was contemptuous. “I don’t own a horse, and you know it, but I think you’re full of hot air! Why, I’d bet that milk-wagon horse could beat yours!”

  “What?”

  The Maid, in blinders and a fly-net, stood waiting while Tom poured milk into a can, her head dropping as she snuffled at the dust along the curb.

  “Don’t be a fool, Sweeney!” another of the men protested. “That mare is all stove up. Anyway, an animal like that can’t run. All she can do is pull a wagon.”

  Lochlin emerged from the gambling house. “What’s that? What’s going on?”

  “Sweeney just offered to bet that milk-wagon horse could beat Bob Childers’ Wade Hampton. He wasn’t serious, of course, but—”

  “The hell I wasn’t!” Sweeney said angrily. “You damn right I’m serious! Bob carries on about that nag of his like it was the only horse in the world! Well, I think Bob’s full of hot air!”

  Lochlin shrugged. “You can’t be seriously suggesting that that old nag could outrun a racehorse? You’ve got to be crazy, but if you’re serious I’ll lay twenty to one that Wade Hampton can beat him.”

  “Twenty to one? I’ll take it!”

  Sweeney hesitated. “Well now…See here. I don’t know if—”

  “Going to welsh on it, Sweeney?” Bob Childers asked. “You said I was full of hot air, what about you?”

  “I’ll be damned if I am! I said I’d bet and I will. Twenty to one…And I’ve got a thousand dollars says the milk-horse wins!”

  “A thousand dollars?” Morrissey spoke for the first time. “That’s serious money, Sweeney.”

  “I’ve got it and I’ll bet it,” Sweeney said stubbornly. “Bob, you an’ Lochlin can put up or shut up.”

  “Think what you’re doing, Sweeney. Bob has a racehorse. That old milk-wagon horse is stiff and old. Hell, if she ever could run, she can’t any more. I’d say forget it.”

  “He made his bet,” Lochlin said, “and I’ve accepted. I will put up my money on one condition. That we run the race tomorrow.”

  Lochlin turned to Childers. “Bob,” he spoke softly, “this will be the easiest money we ever made. I knew Sweeney was a damn fool, but I didn’t realize how much of a damn fool he was! This will be a cinch. I’ll pick up a cool thousand for an investment of twenty thousand, and all in a matter of minutes.” He paused. “How much are you betting, Bob? You can take him for plenty because he’s too bullheaded to back out, and you know Sweeney…he’s got it to bet.”

  “I don’t know,” Childers frowned. “I’ve got to think about it.”

  “He’s good for plenty, Sweeney is, and he’s that much of a damn fool. You’ll never have a chance like this again. I would guess he’s good for twenty or thirty thousand, and I can come up with another twenty. If you can come up with sixty thousand we can win it all. It’s a cinch.”

  “It’s a lot of money,” Childers muttered.

  “Of course, but it will take you a year to clear that much…Hell, it would take three good years to clear that much in your saloon. If the man’s a fool, let’s get his money before somebody else does.”

>   “Where does Morrissey stand? Is he in with us?”

  Lochlin shrugged. “He’s not involved, so far. You can bet if he sees what we’ve got, he’ll be in for a piece, but John was never much of a gambler. He operates the places but he doesn’t gamble.”

  That was ten years ago or better! Shanaghy remembered the day of the race. He had been up on the Maid and they purposely tossed dust over her, and brought her on the track looking like the milk-wagon horse she’d been. But Shanaghy was nervous, for it was impossible to disguise the clean lines of her.

  Wade Hampton had started fast and well and was leading by three lengths when the horses rounded the back turn. Then Tom let the Maid go. Filled with joy at the chance, the horse began to run. When they came under the wire she was running easily and won by half a length.

  Morrissey had cautioned him. “Lad, if you look to be winning, don’t make it by too much, understand? We can use this horse again.”

  The Maid won, and Sweeney, Lochlin and Morrissey split sixty thousand dollars among them.

  Shanaghy told McCarthy about the race, and the old blacksmith straightened up from his work. “Aye, I heard of it, lad. And you were a part of that? You should be ashamed. It was a swindle. All of them should be ashamed. Ah, if their old mithers but knew of it!”

  “But Mr. Lochlin lost money, too!” Shanaghy protested.

  McCarthy spat. “If you believe that, you’re more innocent than I believed. Did you see any of Lochlin’s money? Did anybody?”

  “Gallagher was holding the bets. He said—”

  “Aye, Gallagher! One of the same lot! Believe me, lad, Lochlin was the come-on, he was the pusher. Lochlin talked a good bet but he was in it up to his ears. And as for Morrissey, he was the brains of the lot—and seemed to be out of it all so he’d not be suspected. Old Smoke is a shrewd man, lad, and don’t you forget it. Running for the state Senate, he is, and he’ll be elected, too. You fight shy of that lot, lad, or you’ll end in jail!”

  Morrissey had given him five hundred dollars for tipping them off to a good thing and riding the horse. It was more money, Shanaghy reflected, than his poor pa bad seen in his lifetime. With it, Shanaghy bought some new clothes and a better place to live. He put three hundred of it into a bank McCarthy suggested.