by Paul Lynch
They sat and watched evening lay itself out against the sky, the far reaches of the empty world lit up by the silent burning sun. The snow-dusted clouds grew dark so that it looked like it would rain. By the caboose, a child rummaged about the leavens. The air grew cold and they went down to the hold where they lay on their bunks.
The Cutter called over to the bunk opposite.
Snodgrass.
What.
Will you tell me how long is it?
Naw.
Please I want to know.
Snodgrass held off for a moment and then he spoke. Sixty-one days.
The Cutter lit his pipe and smoked it and then passed it to Coyle and he toked on it and passed it back. They lay down on their backs wishing silently for the journey to pass.
HE AWOKE, HIS MIND alert and he found he couldn’t sleep. Most of the men were slumbered and a stillness about so that it seemed the sick and the dying had agreed upon a temporary kind of peace. He climbed out over the luggage sprawl and stepped quietly onto deck, the air silken and virtuous and it nestled against him. His nostrils widened and he breathed it in deeply. The dark clouds had rolled back to reveal the starry canvas, a jeweled rug that glittered with the selfsame stars he looked upon as a child, and he leaned upon the bulwark and gazed upon it.
Footsteps and a figure came towards him in the darkness. He saw it was a man and he put his hand into the air in welcome and he received no signal in return. No way of determining who it was in the dim light until the man was nearly on top of him and he saw then it was The Mute. A shiv in his hand and he cut the air in front of him with a swipe and then he lunged silently at Coyle. Skim of knife on flesh and searing ribs and Coyle back-pedaled away from him. The Mute lunged again and Coyle made a grab for the outstretched arm, caught it and the two men locked. Their muscles flexed and their arms shuddered, for a moment each man seeming not to breathe. And they wrestled wordless but for the exertion that rose out of each man guttural, their necks goitered and their nostrils snorting and the only other sound was the plashing of waves.
He rose a knee up into the groin of his attacker and he felt the man weaken and he squeezed the arm and bent it and the shiv fell to the deck and he looked his assailant in the eye but in the darkness there was nothing to see.
There was a thud and the two men fell backwards and Coyle lost his balance and went to the ground and when he looked up he saw the shape of another, The Mute taken by the throat and dragged abaft till the youngster was pitched over the edge of the ship. Coyle caught his breath and stood himself up with his hands on his knees panting. The Cutter. The Mute’s feet off the ground and the air in his throat sealed by The Cutter’s grasp.
Leave him, Coyle shouted.
The Cutter said nothing and grabbed a hold of The Mute by the belt with his other hand and yanked him up further over the edge. Coyle grabbed at the arm of The Cutter.
Donny I said.
This fucker.
It’s not worth seeing him kilt.
I’ve seen enough.
Leave him.
I said I’ve seen enough of him.
Terror in The Mute’s eyes and Coyle pulled again at the arm of The Cutter, his limbs hard as the bole of a tree, and then he let The Mute slide back to his feet. A sailor appeared and looked at The Mute on his hands and knees like a wheezing mutt and he stared at the two men and Coyle shrugged and walked away following the steps of The Cutter who had stormed ahead cursing darkly under his breath.
HE WATCHED THE LONELY sky give birth to life, a mote of dust that grew before his eyes into a fluttering living thing, a lone gull winging down from high. Black-tipped wing beat the air, bestrode the boat in glide and then it turned and plunged towards the sea. A day passed and more gulls came, swooped down to settle on the Murmod’s masts and from the deck they watched the birds and then forgot about them. The birds settled and squawked and swung off again into the serene vastness beating their wings as if they were beating themselves free of life and he watched them till they had become nothing again.
Another day he sighted a vessel through squinted eyes flashing under the sun and the same evening he saw a flotilla of fishing sloops, short sails like fins cutting the water.
The sharks were gone but the ship had more dead to give. The first mate sent below a young sailor to count the fevered, for he himself would no longer go among them, and the sailor emerged with shaken green eyes and he gave his report with a tremor in his voice and he went to the side of the ship and was sick. The mate went and spoke to the sail master. The old man shrugged amidst rub of rustbeard and said he was out of sail. A corpse was carried up from below, the body of a woman whose face in death was ballooned and grotesque, her limbs bloated, and about her body hovered her son. They saw he was the same black-haired boy from before who swung his fist at her and he stood now with his arm by his side slobbering red-faced like a child. He begged her for forgiveness and he asked her for her blessing and then he turned upon the women who had swooped upon the body to pick it free of its clothes. A woman wrestled a shoe off a foot and made off with the other while another tugged at the dead woman’s dress and the boy kicked at them until they stopped. They backed away and they called him a villain and a blackguard and a beater and told him he got what he deserved and the boy stared at them in gimlet-eyed fury, stood vigilant as her body was sheathed in sackcloth by the sail master and when her body was committed he stood uncomforted and howling.
THE MUTE FELT their gaze all the time, went nowhere now for everywhere the eyes watching. Saw them staring at him as he squatted over the bucket, knew they were watching him while he tried to sleep. He stayed put by his bed, did not visit the deck nor bother with daylight or the cooking of his food though nobody ever saw him eating anything at all cold or otherwise though some said they saw him drink. He sat on his cot with his knees under his chin or he lay on his back and they watched him go through again his brother’s things. A mottled brown suitcase with squeaking clasps housed the dead man’s clothing, a suit and trousers, a shirt, a hat, a pair of boots with the soles laughing and other items he spread out on the bed. He laid out an old newspaper and he held his brother’s clay pipe in his mouth without lighting it and fixed his hair with a comb.
COYLE SAT PLAYING twenty-five with the others. Snodgrass cutting and dealing while sucking on his teeth and The Cutter distracted, eyeing up the cot of The Mute. Snodgrass turned over the top card. Hearts for trumps boys. Noble coughed and they picked up the cards silent and narrowed their eyes and played with quick fingers. The ship creaked and Snodgrass yelped. Twenty-five, he said. Coyle took the cards and cut them again and dealt.
The Cutter picked up his hand. You know what I’m thinking?
Coyle spoke without looking up from his cards. I know what you’re thinking. You’re figuring him for a man but he’s still just a boy.
Aye. A boy who tried to kill ye.
That kid’s wild so he is, said Noble. Like one of them horses gallivanting about that’s got it funny in the head.
They whipped the cards around quick. Snodgrass played the jack of diamonds and beamed. That’s me won again boys.
Coyle leaned back. He only grazed me that’s all. And he ain’t going to be doing nothing now anyhow.
I’ll bet.
Lay off him will ye. We’re nearly got to America and he already got what was coming to him, said Coyle.
No he ain’t, said The Cutter.
You know what I mean.
The Cutter put down his cards and scrunched his fists. Noble you donny quit spittin that tobacco near my head and I’m going to mash it into your face.
A FAINT SHIMMERING SEEN through squinting eyes. The western rim of the world sprinkled with dust.
Land. Huppidy hah.
His breath grew heavy and he stood there for hours watching the new world rise imperceptibly out of the sea, a density solid forming, the ocean behind an infinity breached. He paid no heed to the people who gathered around him, and the many that came
from below to watch, convalescents who were carried and put ragged standing onto the deck and leaning onto others for support. They sucked on the warm wind and stood in their awkwardness with their skin ashen and their eyes like pinholes while others began to sing and pray.
The ship nosed up the estuary, sailed past an island that humped out of the gulf white-flecked with gannets and gulls on the ridges of its back. The land a vague gray and closing slowly around them and the ocean a tapering stretch of blue behind. Low cloud pillowed with rain and it rolled in over the coast towards them and then they went below, the downpour thickening throughout the night and it washed the decks but failed to wash away their excitement.
SNODGRASS LEANED OVER the men, chewing on the corner of his lip. The Mute’s gone, he said. The men leaned towards him. Noble puckered his lips and spat a wadge of tobacco onto the ground and he rolled up his sleeves. Gone where? he said.
Gone, said Snodgrass. Proper gone. No one’s seen him about.
They went over to look, the cot empty and his belongings on the floor, and others stood about talking. Coyle looked at The Cutter and the man shrugged and they asked the old man who slept nearby. Spit on his lips when he spoke. I ain’t seen him since I woke this morning. No sign of him. No sign of him at all. And no one’s seen him anywhere.
I’m putting me name on the brother’s suit if he donny come back, a man said behind them.
The first mate was sent for and another sailor came down, his face freckled and his jaw faintly whiskered, and he said the mate was busy and what is it that you want? The men told him about The Mute and the sailor looked at the bed and he shrugged and he turned and went away. The first mate came down and he grimaced at the smell and he looked at the bed and asked who had last seen him. No one could remember. He took out his notebook and wrote something down and then he went upstairs. He took two sailors and they began a search but found no sign of him and they decided he was lost.
The hold bustled with every kind of theory. The death of his brother is what done it for him, said one. Sure he was as good as dead anyhow, said another. What with him being mute, what kind of life is there for a man like that in Amerikay?
The twins fought with another man over the suitcase of clothes and Noble went over to the bunk and intervened. These’ll all be auctioned, he said, and he took the items off the men and put them on the bed and then he began the sale. The men elbowed each way to get to the front and the bidding began and Coyle saw one of the brothers walk away with the boots laced about his neck.
He went to his bed and found The Cutter on it smoking his pipe.
Tell me what you know.
What do I know about what?
The Mute. The mystery of. Speak.
I reckon there’s no mystery to it.
Do you reckon he leaped? said Snodgrass.
I reckon this man here knows otherwise, said Coyle.
The Cutter gave him a deep, hard look. Keep your reckoning to yourself for I had fuck all to do with it. I’d a been sorely tempted to do him in but I’m not that kind of man. He’s likely gone and repented and he did it on his own. Or someone else could have done the repenting for him. That I wouldna be surprised about. But I had nothing to do with it.
Coyle stared at The Cutter and The Cutter hard-stared him back. Fuck you, he said. Snodgrass looked at both men and then clapped his hands. How about a game of cards boys?
Part III
I NEVER KNOWED ANYBODY THAT HAD EYES LIKE HIM. The darkest shade of blue like just before night fallin. Sometimes I wake after seein him and I lie there tryin to hold on to the memory of his face. The only time I can see him clearly now is when I’m dreamin. Some nights it feels like I’m awake and I can see him sittin by the fire, his back to me, and I’d be talkin away to him but he never turns around and no matter how I look I canny see his face. And then you’d wake up and that terrible feelin would rush over you—the realization that he’s gone and that another night has passed in an empty bed and that he might not never come back and I know I’ll spend the whole day watching the fields.
The newborn is the spit of him so he is but you canny know when he gets older what way his face is going to go. I see flashes of him sometimes, a glance in the eye, an expression, and then he’s gone and other times he’s right in front of me, right in front of me so he is, and I pull the child close to me and hug the life out of him.
I’ll feel bad about what happened to my dying day so I will, for I could have done more to stop him. It were my fault he went away that time because I didn’t get up and stop him. And that mother of his was only too keen for trouble but then she was wild bitter so she was.
I knew in my bones Coll did something wrong that day but I never believed that he kilt him. You see I knew what Coll was like, the way he had a temper on him. It would rise up out of him like a burst of bad weather and he’d go black for hours and then he’d come out of it. But he was never violent. And I never minded it because there was a big softness to him that he couldna hide. He was wild soft for the child. Others would not be like that at all. His brother, god rest him, would nearly kick his way through the weans just to get past them, and him so friendly and all with the horses. But Coll would soon as see a child and want to play with them. I remember one time him runnin around the field with the child on his shoulders, bouncing her about and swinging her up into the air. And he had this wee trick with his finger to make it disappear and she’d be left in a fit of giggles. Anyhow, where am I now? I need to tell you about a wee woman called Bridie Butler.
THE MAN CALLED HIMSELF Duffy and loomed large in front of them, his legs parted and hands on hips intimating with a smiling nod of his head he would not let any of them pass. His eyes glowed dark and a cigar sat fat and fuming on his heavy lips. Men of Erin, he said. Come with me if you want to find work and I will make you your fortune.
They saw he was dressed in a suit knotted at the neck and wore a hat glossy and black. Listen up. The name’s Duffy and I’m an Ulsterman like yourselves done good so I am and I can tell you now you will have a hard time doing good on your own without the likes of me so listen.
His voice boomed over the bustle and clatter of the quays and the men gathered around with nervous glances. Coyle nodded to The Cutter and they stood and listened to what the man had to say, saw behind him the city serene, a long line of storied buildings facing across the waterway. Church spires poked the sky and they looked at the competition of signs, Crooks Sperm and Polar Oil, Kending Willard & Co. Auctioneers, Neafie & Company of Philadelphia, and they saw Snodgrass being met by his brother, the man looking the spit of him and the two of them hugging for a minute and then Snodgrass waved farewell.
Come with me and I will give you work, Duffy said. Some of you don’t know a soul here but now you know me. I will pay fifteen dollars a month to a man. That’s real American money. The days are hard but the hours are fair and you will have fine canvas tents to sleep in. Fifteen dollars is plenty to be living on I can assure you. You will work for me six days of the week and you will have the Sabbath to yourselves. Plenty of food and all the whiskey you can buy and sure what more could a man want? All you’ll be needing to bring are strong arms. Fit strong Irishmen aren’t you?
He rubbed his hands and grinned down at the men. He drank in their weakness, eye sockets hollowed and the flesh winnowed on their bones, and he saw too doubt in their eyes that wanted to be assuaged and he pulled at his moustache and put his hands back on his hips.
We are laying the ground for a new kind of engineering. A locomotive line. It’s the first of its kind in these parts. I have a contract to fill a valley upon which, when it is done, they will run a locomotive train on top. There is a hill nearby and you will be required to level it for this rail line and then move the land from the hill down into the valley to make the fill. I need the hardiest of the men among you. I will be straight and tell you that the work is tough but it is fine work for strong men such as yourselves. You men will be pioneers and you will bu
ild your fortune just like me. I am giving you your start. Those who want to come put up your hands and follow me. I have carts waiting to carry those of you who are coming. I don’t need you all mind. If you are bringing with you to America a wife and weans then I don’t need you as I can’t look after you all. But I wish the best of luck to you. I need single men. Fit and strong.
Some of the men in the crowd began to sidle forward with their families. Duffy watched them go and he eyed up those who remained.
This country is a tough place for men like you, not knowing a soul in the new world. You can go out there and fend for yerselves but there are all sorts who don’t like you, a good many who won’t see you as people at all, and what about those shysters and tricksters out there, men who will con you out of what little money you have. Just look at them there behind me waiting to talk to you. He turned as he spoke and reached towards a youth in a sable castor hat fast-talking a family and he yanked him good by the collar till the man came stumbling backwards. This one here, he said, up to no good, and he knocked the man’s hat clear with the back of his hand and booted him in the ass. The men laughed and the man hurried after his hat and Duffy looked at the men and smiled voluminously.
You know me boys. I am one of you too. I understand yez. Born and bred in Ulster so I was and I made my way out here as a young man. I’ll have you in my care and if you come with me we’ll make something of it. I have a house near Chester twenty miles outside the city where you can rest up a few days and we’ll begin the start of the week. Fair and honest work. Men of Erin what do you say?