by Paul Lynch
The sick tent was near full, men lying on their backs with their mouths open in supplication for water, and he met the freckled face of a nun. She looked at The Cutter and pointed quietly to a place near the door for him to lie down. The Cutter holding his belly and his eyes growing glassy and distant and the only word from his lips was for water and Coyle sat down to feed him.
FALLER SAT STILL ON A ROCK on the crest of a hill, took off his boots and watched a rim of sun halo the earth. He took off his hat and scratched his head and rubbed his face and put the hat back on. A small fire crackling beside him and he inhaled the smell of smoke as he fed the flames with twigs. Above the flames on a spit he rotated a rabbit, sleeved of skin and blistering and brown and spitting fat, and he drank from a water bottle and then he took out his pipe from his pocket. He opened his tobacco tin and it was empty but for dregs in the corner and he tossed them into the palm of his hand and funneled them into the pipe. He tamped it down and took a stick from the fire and held it to the pipe and sucked on it till it flamed and he smoked what was left of the tobacco before it burned out. When the rabbit was cooked he lifted the skewered meat and put it down on the grass and he cut strips off it with his knife and he lifted the meat to his lips and blew cold air on it and chewed hungrily.
He watched the fields rufous in the reddening sun and then an awakening green. He took out his map and traced with his finger the line of the projected railway as was inked out before him and he measured the gradient of the land and folded it away. He stood and kicked dirt upon the fire with his left leg and climbed upon his horse and nosed it down through the scrub.
THE MEN SAT ABOUT like they fell to where they were sitting. A thickening of heat swarmed from the ascending sun that scattered the cold shadows at their feet. Some of the men took to the ground and they lay there dozing, arms rising sluggish to swat away flies from their faces and others kept with their whiskey. Chalky leaned idle over the fire and stoked it with sticks and then he got up and sat away from the heat. He watched Coyle leave the sick tent and come over to sit beside him. Do you reckon they run off for fear?
Coyle turned his head. They didn’t tell the blacksmith if they did. He said they’re coming back.
Like fuck they are.
One of the men got up, a young man called Campbell who kept to himself beneath a ragged beard. Boys I ain’t hanging about, he said.
Some of the men turned their heads to look at him.
Is there anyone for going with me?
I’ll give it one more day, a man said beside him.
Me too, said another.
I’d go with you but I want to get paid.
Aye. Wait till Duffy shows and we get our money.
Money’s no good to ye when you’re dead.
The others said nothing and stared at the ground. The man said he was leaving and the rest of them could fuck themselves but an hour later Coyle saw he was still there. Coyle got up and went to the water station and saw it was getting low and he hitched two pails onto a pole and slung it across his back. The others watched him go to the river and no one offered to help and they watched the others up at the cut, their silence broken by the blacksmith’s cart creaking by with the feet of a dead man pointing downwards over the edge.
Who was it this time? Chalky said.
Campbell looked up. Dunno.
FALLER’S LEG WAS STINGING and he sensed the horse reluctant beneath him but he nudged it on towards the ant army of men. The earth opened up before him like a scalping, men burrowing through what was left of a tawny hill and dust everywhere about. He came to a shanty and saw a trough of rust water and he took the animal to it and tied and left it there. He stood watching the camp as the horse dipped its dark nose. A spread of tents and wooden tool huts and a small smoking forge. He watched a man come out of a tent and the man stopped and took him in with a long look and then turned and walked over. The man nodded a thin smile, sleeves rolled to his elbows and dirt up to the wrists and his face tooled with deep wrinkles. Morning, he said. Can I help you?
I’m looking for a man.
Aye?
Is this here dig run by an Irishman?
The man scratched his gray temples and looked at the ground. There’s some Irishmen here alright but the foreman is a fella called Jeffares and the last time I heard he was from Philly.
What do you do here?
I’m the supervisor.
I see. Do you know of any digs nearby run by Irishmen?
Well there’s one or two I heard about. Do you have a name?
Faller produced the map and unfolded it. Perhaps you could show me.
I cain’t be precise sure but I’ll show you thereabouts.
The supervisor took the map and he narrowed his eyes and he pointed to a few places. Know for definite there’s one fella there, cain’t remember his name though, he said. Know who you’re looking for and I might be able to help?
Faller took back the map and looked at it and then folded it and smiled. The man shrugged and turned and began to walk off and Faller called out. Do you mind if I look about? The supervisor loosed his arm into the air without turning around and called out be my guest.
He took appraisal of the dig, watched the men slam and slice the earth. He took in their faces, their complexions dark and their eyes unlooking and he saw that many of them were Chinese working free of the sun under wide-brimmed coolie hats. Nobody noticed him and if they did they paid no attention to him and he walked to where a sheet of rock lay exposed like they were unearthing the preserved remains of some remote fish upon a prehistoric seabed. He returned to his horse and mounted it and steered the animal around to the direction he had come from when he heard a voice calling out. He looked over his shoulder. It was the supervisor with his thumb in the air. Them digs are that way, the man said. Faller put his hand into the air and pointed the other way. Supplies, he said.
HE LOOKED DOWN at the big man incapacitated, his mouth agape and trying to talk and a rasp of air from his lips. Coyle leaned in straining to hear. He watched the mouth stumble over the shape of a word. A rush of air escaping. A whisper.
I canny hear you properly. You want some more water?
The Cutter wagged his finger and spoke again. The mouth puckered up, made the sound. Coyle frowned. You want me to move you?
The Cutter stared back with glassy eyes and he raised a hand and beckoned. Coyle put his ear to the twisted mouth but The Cutter said nothing and he looked about and called a nun who was attending to a man beside them. Her face plain as stone under her cornet and she sighed and came over and asked what did he want. He’s tryin to say something. I canny figure.
The nun looked at him. The Cutter beckoned with his finger and the nun leaned down and he whispered into her ear. She looked up. You have to lean into him, she said.
What’s he saying?
The nun stood up and frowned and she went back to the other man. Then she spoke the words quickly. He’s saying you’re to leave.
HE RODE PAST A MILL HOUSE four-storey and squat by a river and forded across a covered wooden bridge. The day dimmed beneath the wooden beams and the surge of the river rode with the amplified footfall of the horse. He sensed the animal was hungry and he nudged it till the trees dispersed and the road opened upon a village. Two graybeards watched over smoking pipes. Across the street a boy with hunched shoulders hurled horseshoes towards a spike in the ground. He passed a schoolhouse and two tall white-painted houses and made for a building made of dark wood with a tavern sign sloping over the door. He dismounted and called out across the street.
Boy.
The youngster turned and met the stranger with narrowed eyes all puzzled or worried or both.
Get this horse some feed and water.
He tied the horse to the post and walked into the bar. The place reeked of men unwashed and beer long stale and two men sat at a corner table. By the fire a dog slept with a chain around its neck. A man with wirebrush gray hair leaned rotund behind the counter
and he watched the stranger on his limp. Faller stood to the counter and placed his fists down upon it and nodded. Brandy and port, he said. The old man looked up at him and scratched his head. Got one, he said, but ain’t got the other, but let me just go and see.
He turned and bent and searched about and came up with a bottle covered in dust. He put a tumbler on the counter and filled the glass from two bottles and Faller lifted it and walked towards the fire. He took the poker and put it in the flames and waited and ignored the men who were watching the display and he took it out and rammed it red-hot into the drink. He slugged the contents and licked his lips and put the glass back down on the counter.
Another.
The barman poured. Old war wound mister?
Faller let his gaze linger on a row of dusty bottles behind the barman’s head and he watched the men behind him in the mirror now minding their own business. The barman shrugged to himself. Just askin.
Faller nodded towards the glass and smiled and the barman uncorked the bottles and filled it and he stood back from the man as if his presence now was an imposition. Faller returned to the fire and heated his drink and he went back to the counter. That’ll be all, he said. He reached towards his jacket and put his hand in his pocket and held it there. He rummaged around and searched another pocket and the barman watched him with interest and Faller stopped for a moment as if he were working through his thoughts and then smiled.
I believe I have a problem. I seem to have lost my wallet in the river.
The barman raised an eyebrow. The river?
I fell in during a crossing yesterday. Lost most of my things including my horse. Had to borrow a new one.
Well you should have thought of that before you came in here drinking my liquor. The barman paused and looked into the air as if a solution that would suit the both of them were to be found hanging there.
You staying about?
Not in this area.
Well you’re gonna have to pay.
Faller looked at him, noticed the man’s wide nose and the pink hairless face and he stood up. How about we leave it for now? It’s really only a few drinks.
The barman straightened up and scratched his chin. You can’t be leaving without paying.
Faller turned to leave and the barman called out. Hey Jonah. This stranger here says he ain’t gonna pay.
There was the screech of receding chairs and the sound of two men getting to their feet and the dog tapped its tail in excitement. Faller turned on his heel to meet the advancing gaze of two square six-footers, Jonah he guessed being the man older and gray who nodded to the barman. The other wore a boxer’s squat nose. They looked up at the stranger. Give the man his money, Jonah said. Faller watched their hands as he spoke, saw Jonah’s hands rest long and easy, the other’s slowly coiling into fists.
Men this is none of your business.
It is now, said the second man.
Faller smiled. You don’t want to make what’s my business yours.
The men looked at each other. Jonah spoke. You might be a big feller but you ain’t coming around here drinking for free the man’s liquor. As he spoke the second man stepped forward swiftly swinging low his fist aimed at the stranger’s stomach. Faller quickfooted a step back and in the same movement drew his gun and inverted it in his hand till he held it like a cudgel and he smashed the back of it down upon the man’s face. Nose cartilage cracked and blood began to jet and the dog lunged forward barking. The man went down hollering and holding his nose and Faller turned to Jonah and spun the gun in his hand till its nostrils were pointing towards the older man’s face. The man whitened and stepped back with his hands in the air staring at the weapon and the barman began to plead. I don’t want no payment. No payment. Just leave that’s all.
Faller turned and put the gun back in his belt and he reached over the counter for the brandy and took it with him.
SUNDOWN AND HE RODE towards the guesthouse with the song-pattern of cicadas entangling the air. He led the horse to the lean-to and took a few swigs from the bottle. The yellow dog followed, had watched them from the side of the road as if waiting for man and horse and it looked up at them aslant, stood wagging its tail and Faller walked past the dog’s investigating nose, climbed the porch steps and went inside.
A fire burning and a stranger sat slump-shouldered beside it, spooning beans from a bowl towards a mouth hid by a few days’ beard. Faller called the goitered woman and she appeared with sweat on her face and a basket of flitchings at her hip.
I want a wash in the bathhouse.
The woman nodded quickly. I’ll call you when the water’s heated.
Faller turned for the stairs and the woman leaned after him.
Your friend? she said.
What about him?
Will I be making supper for him too?
Not today.
Faller took the stairs with a limp and he closed the door to his room. He took a satchel belonging to Macken and nosed through the belongings. A shirt and a spoon, a spare tin of tobacco and at the bottom he found a pocket watch. He took the tin and put it in his pocket and he held the watch in his hand. It was encased in silver and on the back was an engraving, To William, Forever, Love Kitty. The time had stopped and the glass bore a crack and he wound it between finger and thumb. He looked at it and held it to his ear and shook it but the item remained broken. He threw it back in the satchel and pitched it towards the door. The bed creaked when he sat on it and he kicked off his boots and examined his calf again. The burned flesh was black and leaking and he bandaged it up fresh and he lay down on the bed and before he closed his eyes he took a swig of the brandy.
SOFT FOOTSTEPS IN THE HALL and he sat up sharp and then a knock on the door.
Mr. Faller? Water’s ready for you in the bathhouse.
He booted his feet and he took another slug and he opened the door and called to the woman who had made for the stairs. She stopped, stood shrouded in darkness, made an animal-like scuttling towards him. He gave her Macken’s belongings. He saw how in the dark she still held her goitered neck with shame. Have these burned, he said. She turned then and looked at him strange.
She showed him out back to the bathhouse. It stood corrugated in the dimmed evening under a tree beside a pigpen and she hung for him a lamp inside the door. The wooden tub was wide and the edges were worn and it was filled steaming with water. She closed the door and he took his pipe out of his pocket and he put his matches by the floor. He took off his clothes and he unwrapped the cloth from his leg. He filled the pipe with tobacco and he swung a leg over the tub and eased in his large frame before following with his injured leg. Blood like dark ink flowered the water. He eased back against the tub and then leaned forward again, his pipe hanging from the side of his mouth, and he twisted his body over the side of the bath and felt about for his matches.
You looking for a light mister?
The cocking of a gun and Faller flinched and he eyed his gun on a stool on top of his clothes out of reach. From a pillar of shadow stepped the shape of a man penumbral. Not much use to you over there, the man said.
Faller swung his body back around in the bath and he stared hard at the man and smiled. That depends, he said. Have you the courtesy of a light?
The man rattled a box of matches and tossed them to him in the tub and Faller caught them mid-air. Don’t get em wet, the man said. Ain’t nothing more annoying than wet matches.
Faller opened the box without taking his eyes off the man and he scored a match and held the flame to his pipe. He let the match burn out slowly against finger and thumb and put it back in the box, threw them back at the stranger. He leaned back putting his hands on the side of the tub.
And you are?
Who might I be? You go upsetting folk in Philadelphia and you’re sure to run into me.
Can I talk to the people who sent you?
You’re talking to me.
Faller stared at the man. You working with that other party?
The man stepped forward and Faller recognized him as the slob he saw by the fire slurping beans. He cursed himself under his breath as he saw the man was now clean-shaven, those slumping shoulders fixed straight and his gun trained right on him.
You had time for a shave, he said.
No point in being unprofessional.
I suppose now you want me to put on my clothes and travel back with you to Philadelphia?
That ain’t gonna be necessary, the man said.
Faller kept staring, sucked deep on his pipe, the smoke burling downwards to plume heat in his lungs, and he held it inside him in contemplation. He blew it back out, a steady stream thickening in the direction of the other man. Each devours the other, he said. That’s the way it is don’t you think?
I guess so.
He leaned down and put the smoking pipe on the slatted ground and he took a rag and a bar of yellow soap and he oiled the rag and took to washing. He ran the cloth lengthways down the reaches of his arms and he washed underneath his armpits and he scrubbed the slab of his great chest and then he oiled his face and rinsed it. When he was done he tucked his knees towards him and cleaned his legs and he reached forward and washed his feet. He folded the rag and put it on the ground and he leaned back in the bath.
I’ve come to notice that whatever calculations we make in life are destroyed by accidents or agencies beyond our control. Don’t you think that’s true?
The man didn’t answer.
You really do have to think about that. All this nonsense about destiny being our own. How parochial. Every man, every nation, thinks they have control over a world that throws them about like a high wind. I’ll tell you, there’s always an agency more powerful than your own. Think about that. The terrible beauty of it. How it lies there unseen waiting for you. Every fate, every life, every story swallowed by forces greater. Mine now a part of yours. Yours a part of someone or something else’s when the time comes. So on, ad infinitum. That’s all there is to it.