by Paul Lynch
They passed workers bent in fields who stood to watch them passing, some of them shielding the sun from their eyes and some of them waving at the gunmen. Two of them came to a fence and a member of the gun party went down to talk to them.
A different road around noon and they recognized the looming shape of the valley. They followed the track towards the site where the cut was teeming and the men went to the shanty with the horsemen behind them and they stopped at the water station to get a drink. The bearded man left the group and nosed about on his horse looking for the foreman and he stopped and watched as two men carried the body of a choleric man from the mouth of a tent, the dead man’s head bloated and loose off his shoulder, and the horseman blessed himself and he reversed his animal with dread, turned with a sharp pull of the reins and went back to the others pointing. He told the men what he saw and their minds went wild with the thought of disease and they put their sleeves to their mouths to protect them from the air and they turned their horses one-handed and fled.
THE TRACK BOBBED UP and then the land leaned down to reveal clusters of green. Thick trees knotting the horizon in darker myrtle and nearby ran a small brook. Faller rode ahead in rigid right-angle with a survey map in hand while Macken was silent and slanting. They went to the stream and dismounted, the water bubbling into their bottles and they drank it rusty red. They led the horses back onto the track and Faller stopped and stood still. Wait, he said. He looked at the sky and studied the land from where they had traveled and then he lit his pipe. Blue smoke coiled as he sucked on the stem and then he turned and remounted. The horses trotted on towards a hillock and they came to a cleft of rock bucked like two front teeth and they rode slowly downwards. Clear blue sky ahead of them and from the east a roiling of gray and Faller began to slow down till he was alongside Macken.
We’re being followed, he said.
He spoke without turning but Macken stirred as if he had just been kicked and he leaned around to look, squinted single-eyed at the haze of green and turned around again.
I don’t see nobody.
Faller sucked on his pipe and rubbed slowly his moustache. They’re keeping distance. That alone makes it more interesting.
How’d you figure?
I wonder now who they are.
Faller nudged the chestnut mare ahead of Macken in an easy four-beat gait and Macken followed with his head craning over his shoulder.
It’d be better if you would not let them know we know, Faller said.
What do you reckon they’re going to do?
Faller did not bother to answer. Macken held the reins in his left hand and he checked the gun in his belt with the right and he looked to the butt of the rifle diagonal on the horse in its scabbard.
The land rolled in patches of umber and it lay uneven around them, fields of leaning wheat and tobacco greening, and Faller took out the map again and examined it and pointed. Town this way. The mouth of a valley loomed and widened and they ambled up a hill gently, trees a medley of green under a cobalt sky smeared white. They rode through woodland, the trees thickening in conspiracy and bird call rattling and Faller slowed the horse till it seemed he wanted to travel at no speed at all and Macken grew agitated behind him. The forest cleared and a farmhouse sat among an apron of fields. They met an old man along the edge of a field, his clothes a patchwork of seasoned mendings, and he watched them with gimlet eyes as they approached. He nodded and they nodded in return and Macken stopped just as he was past him and asked if he knew where the railway digs were to be found. Take yer pick, the man said. A belt of gray stubble on his face and he wagged a scrawny finger wide. There’s digs all about these townships over there.
Faller motioned for Macken to go on and when he reached him he stared at him. Why are you telling others our business?
I was just wondering.
Keep our business to ourselves till I figure out who is following.
They rode slow again till Macken complained they’d be quicker walking on foot and Faller said nothing and then he said their followers didn’t want to be drawn out. They took a horse-beaten track and it led them to the shape of a village and on the outskirts they found a lumber tavern. They stopped at the lean-to and dismounted and tied their horses and they went inside where they were met by a gray-haired woman in gingham. She stood to them sideways and took them to a room at Faller’s instruction that watched out onto the street and when the woman turned to leave he saw a goiter in her throat like a fist.
Faller took his gun and put it on his lap and he sat on a chair at the open window. Macken went downstairs and he asked for food and had it sent up. They sat slurping their beef stew in bowls with their eyes watching. The lace curtain danced ghostly in the breeze. After some time two young men on horses ambled through and Macken stiffened straight. That them do you reckon?
Faller shook his head. You’ll know.
THE MEN RETURNED to the dig and the others gave a round of applause and they bent smiling to receive it. I’m docking yous boys a morning’s pay, Duffy said and they were expecting more but that was all of it. They took to work like before and a brief shower of rain fell and it cooled their working bodies. It moistened the open ground and he smelt the raw earth. He watched a raven swoop down low over them, a yelp like a sob from its beak, and the way it glided on the warm air. And then it swooped down into the valley where ten men had taken ill. Their bodies were spent from the violence of voiding, lying as they did in their own excrement and vomit, and they were dehydrated from their efforts and calling for water. Doyle had brought back with him four Sisters of Charity, feetless scuttling apparitions shrouded in black with cornets white-winged who took to minding the men, worked without word between them as they went to the water station and began to wash some of the sick men and they were watched by the others who fought feelings of both horror and comfort.
Coyle rammed the pick into the earth and turned to The Cutter.
I’m going off so I am.
Whereabouts?
He looked across the valley where the horizon met distant green. Dunno yet. Far. Gonna try going back. You know how it is.
When are you going?
Soon as I can get paid next.
Would you not go as it is?
I can’t. I left the last of it in that hotel room.
The Cutter looked at him.
No point going nowhere with no money, said Coyle. I won’t get nowhere.
I’d give you mine only I ain’t nothing left neither.
Donny worry about it.
Need a hand?
Naw. Just to keep an eye out just in case. What I need to do I need to do on me own.
THEY WATCHED THE ROAD till nightfall but the men they figured on following never came. Gray dawn and they rose quick-eyed from their beds. They washed their faces and belted their guns and they took coffee from the gray-haired woman who padded barefoot about with sleepy eyes and stood awkward and sideways when she served them. Macken went to the lean-to and fed the horses and Faller stood from the table and walked out onto the street. The flaxen glow of lamplight from three windows and the moon malingered in the slate morning sky pressing a fingernail upon it. From across the street he watched a yellow dog shuffle towards him. The mongrel looked up at him and sniffed at the stranger’s boots and when Macken came around with the horse the dog nosed over to them beating the air with its tail.
They rode silent down the single street that led out of the village. The air was cool and they tightened their coats about their necks and the yellow dog began to follow and then turned its attention to the smell of something else and followed the trail curious. The village fell behind them. Large white pines that filtered the light rose to meet the riders and Faller consulted his map and they took a left turn and followed a horse trail away from the sun.
They passed a wooden cabin where a snub-nosed boy sat on a step eating an apple and he stared at the two strangers and the men did not stare back and they rode on towards a yellow hillock hunchi
ng out of the earth. They took the lean of it with the sun lighting their backs and they came to a valley and rode through it. A redstart warbled and winged overhead and settled on a tree. It fanned its tail and flashed its amber plumage and then it shook its wings away. They reached the far side of the valley where trees stood thin and it was there that Macken heard not the sound of the gun being fired or if he did he heard it only as something indistinct, an approaching murmur as the bullet that came from behind him traveled through the neck cord of his spine and came to rest in the other horse’s cheek.
Macken slumped over silently in his saddle, tendrils of neck flesh ribboning his shirt as the sound of the shot smacked the air and Faller’s horse collapsed upon itself throwing its rider to the ground. The sharpness of sudden pain in his ankle as Faller heard a second gunshot and he went down onto his face, crawled forward into the warm redoubt of the horse. He studied the slope of the valley until he saw the shape indistinct of a shooter on the hill. Macken’s black gelding was still standing but had panicked and was dragging its dead rider about, the man dangling from the saddle and Faller saw his face which gazed blankly upside-down at the sky and he turned and took hold of a rock and lobbed it over the fallen horse. Two bullets shot a skim of dust into the air and he drew his gun and returned two shots for cover. He jumped to his feet and ran to Macken’s horse, unsaddled the body which fell dully to the ground and he mounted the animal and heeled it with his spurs into a gallop and fled.
FALLER BECAME AT ONE with the beast. He rode with gritted teeth and his neck down low and his knees tucked tight till he could ride the horse no faster. Whirling dervishes of dust were hoofed up by the horse signing against the land the trajectory of his exit and he fled in the direction he had been traveling, to his left a clustered shade of bigtooth aspen and he veered hard into its grasp. The horse fluid and powerful beneath him and the ground was gnarled and dry. Currents white-hot of pain in the horse’s every thundering jolt and he felt the wound wet against his boot and kicked the animal with his other leg.
The woodland cleared and beneath him he saw a dell and he rode down into the depression. Slats of sunlight through the trees and he crossed to where the ground began to rise. He continued upwards through snarling scrub, the horse panting as he nosed it at a canter and when he reached near the peak he pulled to a halt. He dismounted and tied the horse to a branch and he bent to examine the wound. The boot clinging wet to his leg and the fabric above it stewed with blood. He took the bowie knife from his belt and he sat on a rock and he took off the boot and cut at the trousers. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and he mopped the blood and then he examined the injury. The back of his calf sported a dark hole weeping, the bullet having tunneled abreast the bone to exit on the other side where the flesh hung ornate like the petals of an exotic flower.
He stood up and went to the horse and took a water bottle from Macken’s saddlebag and he unscrewed the cap and slugged a long drink. Whiskey. He clenched his teeth and streamed the alcohol onto both sides of the wounded leg keeping watch on the valley below. He shucked out of his jacket and took off his waistcoat and shirt till he stood in his vest and he cut the sleeve off the shirt with the knife. He folded it and rolled it and tied it around his ankle tight and he stood up. Birds conversing in the trees and the panting lungs of the horse pneumatic and he sniffed the air deep through his nose. He surveyed the valley. A slab of shadow across the lower parts of it and then golden light where the sun warmed the trees. He saw movement and squinted his eyes and threading through the foliage he saw the blur of three men following.
He sleeved the remaining arm of the shirt and put on his waistcoat and jacket and he went to Macken’s horse and pulled the breechloader from the scabbard. He checked the rifle and saw it was unloaded and he put it back in its housing. He untied the horse from the tree and guided it further up the hill to a spot twenty yards east where a rock flattened out like the infant born of some ancient butte and he tied the horse and took the breechloader and sat on the edge of the rock. He took the trigger guard and twisted it away from him and he had in his hand a ball which he put into the barrel. He poured powder behind it and closed the breech and scooped the remaining powder into the pan. He took notice of the wind and lay down on the rock and positioned his body with his elbow. He licked his finger and put it into the air and slowly closed an eye. The men were traveling below at speed and he tracked the gun sizing up the trajectory of the first rider through the trees and he waited till his breath settled and he waited for a clearing and he fired. A bird startled beneath him and flustered into the air while below the men sliced three ways but the front man he saw was still riding. Pain pulsing in Faller’s leg and he chomped down on his teeth.
HE RODE SWIFT THROUGHOUT the day ignoring his hunger and he kept the pace steady despite the needs of the horse he could sense was tiring beneath him. He drove the animal head-high through fields that snapped with breaking corn, across columned waves of tobacco crop that parted like the sea bright green and he made sure to leave a track he would then double back on and skirt another way. He kept as far as he could from habitation, the land hushed but for the windings of the wind and the steady thunder of the horse’s hoofs. He traveled under cover of towering red cedar that stood indifferent to his enterprise and stopped on a rocky bluff and took watch upon the terrain till a half-hour passed and then an hour and he decided he had lost them and he readied to leave when he saw they were still coming.
Evening loitered then draped itself upon the sky. He met a river roaring wide and allowed the horse to drink. The water turbid and thrashing and he knew it was treacherous and he rode upstream till he met a spot less urgent where he reckoned upon a crossing. He tied his hat around his neck and everything else to the horse and the creature balked when he nosed it towards the river. The bank dived and the horse plunged neck-deep into the spangled rush, its teeth bared to the sky, and he felt the water gang upon his legs, slowly worked the horse towards the bank. It beckoned from some thirty feet and they were near halfway across when the horse faltered then fell down some invisible gully and its head was sucked underwater. He lost his grip and slipped, broke the fulvous surface of the water and went under and came back up out of it to find the horse rolling sideways, the animal pitching deeper, and he spat frigid water out of his mouth and sucked a deep breath and went down into the dim drink. Impossible to see so he felt about and put his hand on the horse’s back leg that was moving and he came back up, the water white-headed rushing towards him and his head stinging and he took another breath, went under again, found the other back leg and it was moving thickly and then the horse half kicked him, a dull blow to the side of his chest and the wind went out of him and he rose to take air again, gulped it in and then back under, breasted the water around the flank of the flailing horse, put a hand on its front leg, the limb adrift and useless and he figured it was broken and he came to the surface raw from the cold, the dark shape of the horse disappearing and he turned to swim for the bank, and before he reached it he trod water to look behind him and he saw the animal come up to the surface one last time, its eyes a black piercing and lips curled over its gums mute screaming.
DOWN THE VALLEY the sun began to slide sending the dark duplicates of shadows to work alongside them, shapes that swung and hurled, contorting like ragged trees and blooming like the product of an eerie spring, an army it made of them but useless upon the land. He swung the pick and in his periphery he saw the back of Doyle and he dropped his tool and went after him, the man walking with his fists balled down the back of the scree dragging his foot behind. He called out and caught up with him and tapped the man on the shoulder and Doyle turned around with the demeanor of a man who was bothered. Coyle wiped the dust from his face with his sleeve and made a streak of dirt over his eyes and Doyle looked at him impatiently.
I’m leaving so I am, said Coyle.
So.
I need paying.
Doyle shrugged. I don’t know nothing about pa
ying nobody.
He turned around and began to walk away and Coyle stepped after him and stopped him.
Well I need paying so I do for the past few days.
Doyle eyed him cold. I ain’t got no orders and I ain’t got nothing to give you.
The blacksmith appeared behind Doyle and interrupted their conversation with a question of his own and Doyle turned to him and sighed and began pointing. Coyle watched them talk, looked at the dimming rim of the valley and the distance beyond and he saw the blacksmith nodding slowly with forge hammer in hand. The man turned with huge shoulders and Doyle made his leave till Coyle called out after him again.
Where’s Duffy so I can speak to him?
He’ll be back later.
As the evening completed the shadows of the men merged with the earth. They went below into the valley and Coyle went in search of Duffy but he was not to be found. They cooked their food over the firepits and they drank whiskey and they watched the nuns and gave them hungry looks and took weary to their tents, each man burdened now with the weight of fear as the sickness had increased all around them. Twenty men sick and seven of their number buried, no wooden caskets for the dead nor any solemn sermon as no man wanted to get involved and the blacksmith was left to do the digging. They lay in the beds, the fires outside a dying dance on the canvas of their tents, and they listened to the occasional spit of wood as the fire fell into dust.