The Walking People

by Mary Beth Keane

  "How much are the salmon worth?" Greta asked Johanna some time after Lily left. Johanna was fixing the hem on one of Lily's skirts. After stowing the new fish in the places left vacant by the ones Lily had brought to town, they'd parted the curtains and opened the windows, letting in the flies and the gnats along with the fresh air. They never handled money when they delivered the fish in town; Lily took care of all of that separately.

  "Enough," Johanna said, rooting through Lily's box of thread to find the closest match.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Enough is what I mean. Enough to have to take them from the river in secret and sell them in secret, so what do you think? Enough to make Mr. Grady look like he was going to blow steam out of his ears."

  "But maybe he just doesn't like Pop."

  "Well, he doesn't like Pop, but don't you know the bailiff keeps a shotgun that Mr. Grady gave him? And on the nights when he doesn't come, Mr. Grady walks up and down the river himself with it?"

  "To shoot someone?"

  "Greta, it's time you copped on, don't you think?"

  "That's what I'm trying to do, Johanna. And Jack takes a shotgun too, doesn't he? And we know he's not going to shoot anyone."

  Johanna rolled her eyes.

  "You don't know either. Why don't you just say you don't know, instead of pretending all the time that you know everything."

  "I know that this is the way it is. Always has been. Always will be."

  "So, is going with the net the same as if Pop and the boys went over to Mr. Grady's house and busted in the door and took his money and whatever they could put their hands to and then went and sold his things in town?"

  Johanna pulled the needle through the fabric, pulled it up, up, up over her head as far as she could reach. Then she leaned forward as if she were giving it a kiss and snapped the thread with her teeth. She tied off the stitch, smoothed the edge of the skirt across her lap.

  "Well?" Greta asked.

  "I'm not talking to you," Johanna said.

  Since walking away from Mr. Grady in the yard, Lily had felt a tremor in her body that she couldn't manage to still. Her hands shook, her knees shook, her heart felt out of rhythm. Twice on the way to town she'd had to stop pedaling the bicycle so she could get a better grip on the handlebars. One of those times she'd been tempted to walk down to the ocean, unwrap the dead fish from their brown paper packaging, and throw them all into the Atlantic. She pedaled fast through the crossroads without even lifting her hand to her sons when they shouted hello. She'd been pleasant to the man, but in return he'd pointed his finger in her face and raised his voice. A man who does that to a woman, to a neighbor, to a person he knows full well he'll have to pass in the road for the rest of his life, doesn't care anymore, and this thought made Lily breathless. When she looked at him, she'd seen hate, and she also saw that his hate had been handed down to him alongside the river. His father had hated Big Tom's father, and his grandfather had hated Big Tom's grandfather, and while she was seeing all of this, she also pictured Johanna and Greta looking out the window at her to watch what she would do.

  That night, Lily waited until the house was asleep to tell Big Tom that Mr. Grady had been to visit and that he'd been more angry than she'd ever seen him. The girls had been buzzing around Big Tom all evening, looking at him, looking at Lily, asking with their expressions whether he knew. Lily ignored them. It was better to wait and get him alone, in private, in their bedroom. It was an off night, and when Big Tom said he planned on getting a big sleep, he meant it. He refused to open his eyes.

  "And?" he said.

  This, Lily thought, is the man I married. Ten pregnancies, five children mostly grown.

  "And he got Greta."

  At this Tom opened his eyes and turned toward Lily. "And?" he said.

  "Stop saying and. Greta was brilliant, no worries there, but he told me he knows all about the hotel and the B and B's. Private houses are bad enough, but he said the other business went over the line. And he said that when the county official came to pay him for what they take upstream, he was told the stock was low. He said it was like stealing money from his pocket."

  Big Tom grunted.

  "He's serious, Tom. He's had it."

  "Well, I've had it as well. Did he ever think of that?"

  Lily kicked off the covers and sat up. Tom saw things in black or white, always had, but there had to be a way to explain to him that feeling she had when Grady's face was in front of her. She'd grown up in Ballyroan just as Tom had. She knew it was no sin to take food from the river God gave them. Even before she and Tom married, her family took the fish the Cahills gave to them and were grateful to have it. But there was a difference between her and Tom; Lily was scared, and Tom didn't know what it meant to be afraid of anything. And the situation in Ballyroan wasn't the same as it had been when Lily and Tom were children and there were enough people around to protect and defend the Cahills. Lily had never missed having neighbors as much as she had that afternoon when Johanna first spotted Grady in the yard.

  "He's in the right, Tom," Lily said. "It's time to stop now, before this gets any worse. He'll do like the man in Clifden who started getting water bailiffs from the north or from some other part, paying their whole wage himself and giving rewards for what they can discover at night, and then where will you be? The system he has now is a fool's system, and he knows it. Someone from Conch will turn in Tom Cahill? After shaking your hand in town for the past forty years? It's a laugh, actually. And he's through."

  "I'm through as well."

  "Jesus, Tom—" Lily stopped, reversed, began again more calmly. "We could make up the loss somehow, couldn't we? What if we sold a piece of land? We hardly use that back-road field Gibbons sold you before they left, and it's hard to get to."

  Big Tom was quiet for so long that Lily began to feel a nugget of relief crack open in her chest and spread along her limbs.

  "Sell it to who?" Big Tom said finally.

  "Well, I don't know. We'd have to figure that out."

  "Lily, sometimes I wonder about you. Gibbons gave me that field for less than we make selling eggs in one month. Who would take it except for me? Useless, rocky land—it's a wonder the cows haven't starved. We need that river, do you understand? We need what that river brings in."

  "Well then," Lily said, "look at those Dennehy boys who went off to Germany to work in a pottery and how well they're doing. Or the boys could do half years in Manchester, back and forth. It's not the same as going to America, where we'd never see them again. You don't need all three of them here. They could take turns coming and going." Lily paused, let her eyes follow the slight crack in their bedroom ceiling where it ran from the top of the window to the door. She took a breath. "You're forgetting that it's his right. It's his river, his fish."

  "No, Lily. You're the one who's forgetting."

  The next afternoon, the loose gear on John Hogan's bicycle clanged like an alarm as he sped along the coast road, then turned down the Cahills' lane. Lily and Big Tom had headed off together earlier in the afternoon to settle up accounts, Lily hoping to mark an early end to the season, Tom seeing it only as a routine collection of payment and orders. John Hogan hopped off the bicycle before it came to a complete stop and took a few fast skips alongside before abandoning it to the dirt. Looking left and right, he rushed to the Cahills' door and pounded.

  Inside, sitting with legs crossed and facing each other on their bed, Greta and Johanna froze their game of fidchell. They pushed the small board under one pillow and swept the empty spools they used for players under the other pillow.

  He waited, pounded again. "It's John Hogan."

  "Will we answer?" Greta whispered. This was unexpected. Before leaving, Lily had told them to stay inside and if Mr. Grady came back, to ignore him and keep the doors locked tight. No one said anything about the bailiff.

  Johanna put her finger over her lips and shook her head. Like the night months before, when they went spying on the tin
ker camp, Greta fought the urge to pee.

  Outside, the bailiff gave up and circled around to the back of the house. He pounded on the back door, and the sound, that much closer than the front door, made Greta jump and clap her hand over her mouth.

  "Will he bust through the door?" Greta asked. Johanna shook her head more vehemently than the first time and scowled, as if commanding Greta to stop asking questions.

  The pounding stopped. The girls heard footsteps crunching the gravel at the side of the house. John Hogan poked his head into the stable. He whistled into the hay shed, squinting in the shadowy darkness. There, he spotted the three boys, fast asleep and half buried in hay.

  "Lads!" he shouted, taking hold of Padraic's boot and giving it a shake. "Where's Big Tom?"

  The boys, groggy, stared at him for a moment and then sprang into action, Jack and Little Tom tumbling down from the highest mounds of hay and landing on their feet. No one answered the man.

  "Fair enough," John Hogan said. "But pass him this message. I've been let go. Grady's got two men from Roscommon coming to take positions along the river, starting tonight. Former guards, both of them. No ties to Conch or to Ballyroan, you understand? You tell your father from me. Tell him to think hard on it, and I'll say the same to the three of you as well."

  Big Tom and the boys stayed away from the river for two weeks. Big Tom was like a thunderstorm trapped inside the small cottage, stomping around in his heavy boots, his expression a dark cloud the rest of the family stayed away from. Lily restrained herself from pointing out that her prediction had come true, that the fool's system had been put to bed. In the evenings Big Tom stood at the gate and watched for the two strangers from Roscommon to pass his door. He never laid eyes on them, and after a few days he concluded that they must be getting lodging from Grady as well. This made him even more angry.

  The boys, on the other hand, were delighted. Instead of sleeping, they took their pipes to the shed and talked away the long daylight hours left after coming in from the fields. Twice they walked to the crossroads and caught the van to Oughterard, where the local parish hosted dances on Friday nights in the month of June. They stumbled home at two and three in the morning, complaining of the van's many stops but also keyed up over the girls they'd met, who'd danced with whom, who'd seen the culprit who spiked the punch, who'd witnessed the bloody fight that rolled into the cemetery. They clammed up when Greta came around, and more so when Johanna came, because she demanded details of the girls' outfits, hairstyles, the music that was played, the names of songs, the order of the songs, and so on. She begged to go with them next time, and they swore they'd never bring her.

  On the first of July, Big Tom decided enough was enough. The day was overcast, and the night would be the same. "There will be no moon tonight," he said to Lily at supper, and the boys exchanged looks. "It'll be black as tar out there, and I know the fields and the riverbank like I know the rooms of this house. So do the boys."

  "And so does Grady, and knows you'll be looking for a black night like this one," Lily said.

  "Grady knows this land as well as I do? My eye. I hear that river flowing all day and all night. The river on one side, the ocean on the other. East and west. And every rock that lies between."

  "And can Grady not hear the water from his place?" Lily asked. Big Tom glared at her. After dinner he went as he always did on river nights to lie down for a few hours.

  Also as always, he told one of the boys to wake him just before midnight. "We'll do it a little different tonight," he said before leaving the kitchen. "We don't need three on the net. If we have to, we'll take a smaller catch. Padraic, you take the second shotgun and go wide with Jack. Make sure you clean it, and clean it well. Little Tom is the strongest, and the two of us will handle the net."

  The boys nodded, taking the change in stride. Lily had gone quiet and was holding on to the arms of her chair. Greta looked at Johanna and saw that she'd noticed too. Lily stared blankly at her husband, then at her boys. Then her gaze ambled across the room and rested on Greta and Johanna. She jumped into action, standing so abruptly that her chair hopped backward. She rushed across the kitchen. "Out!" she shouted at the girls. "To bed!" She followed them into their room, and for the first time in years she helped them out of their clothes, yanked off their shoes. She plucked Greta's glasses from her face and pulled her sweater roughly over her head.

  "It's only gone half eight," Johanna protested. "It's still bright out."

  "You're hurting my ears!" Greta cried as Lily pulled and pulled, Greta's head caught in the head opening.

  "I'm sorry, love," Lily said. She tugged gently, and the sweater gave way. She tucked them in and had to lie half on top of Johanna to reach Greta for a kiss. After kisses she sat at the edge of their bed, and the girls pretended to fall asleep. With her eyes closed and Johanna's warm breath brushing against the back of her neck, Greta let out a long yawn.

  When all three heard Big Tom's snores come from the other side of the wall, Lily left them.

  At a quarter to twelve Little Tom opened the door to his parents' bedroom. When the light from the lantern didn't wake his father, he went and touched his shoulder. Lily was in the kitchen making tea.

  After dressing, Big Tom joined the boys in the kitchen. The curtains were pulled tight, and the room was lit by a single lamp, the wick lowered as far as it could go without the flame going out. If Lily had her way, they'd get ready in the dark, but no, Big Tom would never agree. Lily put a steaming mug in front of him, and he slurped it down. The two shotguns waited side by side at the back door. At midnight Big Tom fetched the net from its hiding place and told the boys to shake a leg. Lily stepped outside the back door and was relieved to find the sky as inky black as Tom had predicted. The night was warm, and the air was very still.

  "There'll be a big rain later," she said as they brushed by her. The boys kissed her cheek one by one.

  "Don't wait up," Jack said.

  "We'll be back in an hour," Padraic said.

  Jack walked about twenty feet ahead, Padraic twenty feet behind. As they disappeared into the darkened field, Lily watched Padraic look left, look right, pointing the shotgun in whichever direction he was facing. He'll make himself dizzy, she thought, and was tempted to call out to him. When she looked again, he was gone. She went back inside, blew out the lantern, and lit a single small candle. She placed the candle on the floor in the corner farthest from the window.

  At a quarter past, Lily heard the girls talking in their bed. At twelve-thirty she heard their bare feet slide along the worn wood planks of the hall floor. She listened to the kitchen door creak open, inch by inch.

  "Don't tell me you're both up."

  "Couldn't sleep," Johanna announced, pushing the door open all the way and flopping down in Big Tom's chair. Greta sat in front of the cold fireplace. She almost asked if they could build a fire, but then she remembered.

  At one A.M. Lily went to stand watch at the back door.

  At one-fifteen she walked out into the yard as far as the hay shed and peered out into the empty darkness. After a few minutes she pressed forward, walking past the stable to the wall that marked the boundary of their first field. She saw a light in the corner of her eye and turned to find the lantern she'd snuffed out an hour earlier bobbing toward her. When the girls reached her, she snatched the lantern away and gave them each a pinch. "I could kill you both," she said, but instead of extinguishing the flame, she put the lantern on the ground and pulled the girls close. She decided to give Big Tom and the boys another fifteen minutes, and if they weren't back, she was going to take that lantern and march straight down to the river. She'd yell for them if she had to. She'd have the girls yell too. Damn them to hell anyway. She'd call the gardai if she had to. She'd wake all of Conch.

  If they'd been caught, Greta reasoned, the gardai would have made a racket dragging them away. There would have been shouts. They'd have heard Mr. Grady's voice cut through the dense night air. Big Tom would ne
ver go silently; he would have cursed and sworn, and the boys would have done the same.

  "What in the world is keeping them?" Lily whispered.

  Then all three heard a pair of thunderous cracks, one call and one answer, and the night was split in two.

  Years later, Greta would still not know whether she actually remembered the second half of the night or if she'd merely visualized what she'd been told. The picture she pieced together looked as if it belonged inside one of those toys she'd once seen in Norton's shop. While Lily was shopping, she'd picked up the toy, looked through a peephole, and seen what looked like fragments of a stained glass window, and when she turned the dial, all the colors and shapes collapsed and came together again, collapsed and came together, constantly turning into something else.

  The two blasts were soon followed by real thunder and rain so heavy it pressed down the nettles and the long grass. Big Tom was dead. That was the first thing that soaked in, though Greta would never be able to recall the moment she knew, if she'd still been standing out by the wall or if she'd made it back home with Johanna before realizing what had happened. Sometimes she remembered Lily telling her in the kitchen. Sometimes she remembered listening on the other side of the kitchen door as the boys recounted the story for Lily. Sometimes she was sure that no one ever told her; she simply knew.

  It was a funny thing, in a way, with all the shotguns that had been present that night—Jack's, Padraic's, and those of the two strangers—Big Tom had drowned in his own river. Grazed by a shot meant only to scare him, he stumbled and fell. The rush of the water carried him for about thirty feet, until his head became wedged between two rocks. Unaware that their father was in trouble, one of the boys—which one was a secret they decided not to tell—fired back at the strangers but missed, instead finding the chest of Mr. Grady, who was observing the capture of the poachers from a few yards away. In the spot where Big Tom died, the water was two feet deep.