The bridge was a flimsy affair constructed of thin boards interwoven with hemp, and dangerous even in daylight. There were no guardrails, and the narrow, suspended platform swung wildly to and fro, with merely a single line passing shoulder high from one side of the gap to the other, to steady the wary passenger. Only the practiced and the intrepid could maneuver such a bridge in safety.
Jamie had crossed the bridge many times, but for Owen Roe Tavish the adventure was fraught with peril. A small, droll sign affixed beside the bridge caught his eye. “Those falling from the bridge,” he read the dubious assurance aloud, “have small risk of drowning, as they are usually killed outright by the fall.”
“Sure that does it,” he announced. “What man dares, I dare, but yon contraption was made for angels or monkeys, and since I’m neither, I’ll stay here and take my medicine. I’ll lay about me with the weight of my tongue, backed up with a stout ash stick, and before I’m done in, sure I’ll raise knobs on Shanahan heads that will outlast the memory of this day.”
Tavish’s talk was brave but when the Shanahans drew near, giving voice to threats and imprecations like hounds baying on a scent, his resolve melted. Making the sign of the cross and closing his eyes, he permitted Jamie to lead him over. Safe on the opposite bank, his courage returned. He answered the Shanahans ranged along the opposite side of the gap, threat for threat, and challenged them to cross.
“Are you that anxious to give us the wake, Randal Shanahan, that you’ll risk your precious tinker’s neck on this side of the bridge?” he taunted. “Come along then … the lot of you … one at a time. Me and Horatius, here, will keep the bridge; and a shirtful of sore bones the first Shanahan across will get that he’ll keep till his dying day.”
The Shanahans went into a council of war and determined to rush the bridge. They collected as many stout sticks as could be found; then armed with these weapons, they bunched close behind Randal and started across.
Tavish’s flow of stout words stopped. “Jamie lad, they do be coming across. What are we to do?”
“Let them come,” said Jamie. “Sure you’ve been inviting them.”
“The invitation was rhetorical, Jamie lad,” Tavish pleaded. “Do something. They be coming across fast as the Devil can drive them.”
Jamie waited until the brothers were well into the center of the bridge, then whipped out his knife and laid its sharp edge on the single-strand guide rope.
The Shanahans paused transfixed. With no hand rope to cling to they would all be toppled into the swift-flowing stream below. “Make another move to cross,” Jamie warned, “and I cut the rope. And don’t be trying to back up either. Sure I like you the way you are: midway between Hell and Heaven.”
The brothers remained frozen in terror. Above their heads hung the empty, spangled sky. Below them the river roared and gnashed at the perpendicular rocks lining the shore. Beneath their feet the frail hanging bridge danced and quivered. Eleven pairs of hands clung to the slender lifeline, while eleven pairs of eyes were fixed in desperation upon the shining blade of Jamie’s knife poised above the guide rope.
On the shore, Tavish danced with glee. “Go to it, Jamie,” he crowed, “give it a whack. Good riddance to the bad lot of them.”
Randal sought to reason with Jamie. “Couldn’t just one of us come across and talk it over?” he asked. “All we want is fair treatment. Sure there has been great misrepresentation in the marriage contract.”
Tavish stepped forward authoritatively. “If there’s to be further negotiations, lad, I’ll handle them.”
The now thoroughly cowed Shanahans quickly declared their willingness to abide by the original marriage contract. They even agreed to add an extra pig as compensation for all the trouble they had caused. This settled, the brothers began a hurried but careful retreat from the bridge. When they were back on the other side, Jamie put his knife away.
“Now stand in the shape of the Irish cross,” he called, “and swear by St. Kevin that you’ll do us no harm when we reach the other side of the gap.”
The brothers obeyed. They stood each in the shape of an Irish cross, with feet close together and arms outstretched, and swore as Jamie directed. But Fash Shanahan had not formed the sign of the cross. He hid behind Synne, one of the “black” brothers. Neither Jamie nor Tavish noticed that his arms were not outstretched and that he did not make the oath.
They were in the center of the bridge, moving carefully because Tavish was still frightened, when Fash stealthily drew his knife. He struck the thin guide rope a mighty blow, severing it with the one stroke. Jamie and the Speaker teetered helplessly on the bridge for a long moment, then plunged together into the dark and swirling waters of the gap. Neither of them uttered a sound.
The Shanahans stood in stunned wonderment as the two men were swept swiftly down toward the sea. Only a few of them had seen Fash strike the guilty blow. “Brother Fash acted with spirit and foresight,” said Randal promptly. “Had he waited until they reached this side of the gap … one of us might have broken his oath.”
But the five “laughing” Shanahans disapproved. They thought it was a dirty Irish trick and said so. Hot words were exchanged between the groups of brothers, and the words soon gave way to blows. While Jamie and Tavish floundered perilously in the deep, swift-flowing stream below, the brothers battled over the ethics of the situation above. When the issue had been fought to no decision, and that which passed for harmony among the Shanahans restored, Jamie and Tavish had disappeared. Overhead the stars remained. The deep rush of the river shook the earth and filled the night with tumultuous sound. But of Jamie and the silver-tongued Tavish there was not a trace.
Sobered and to a degree saddened by the double tragedy, the brothers started toward the McRuin cottage. On the way Randal recounted sadly to the neighbors thronging the hills how the guide rope on the bridge had snapped, spilling Jamie and Tavish into the dark waters and darker death. The tale was told and retold until the brothers came to believe it themselves, arriving finally at the cottage in a state of reasonably good conscience.
Death is a constant caller to the Irish. Old Dan and Kate and Dennis took the news better than Timothy Shanahan and Tirsa. Tirsa flew at her brothers, screaming that they had done her out of a husband. Old Timothy raised his heavy ashwood stick, threatening to open the skulls of each and any of his eleven sons who had laid violent hands upon Owen Roe Tavish or Jamie.
The Shanahan boys towered above their father, but the force of his anger made them humble. Meekly they swore by all the saints that the two men had fallen to their deaths from the bridge. “Not one of us laid so much as a little finger on them,” Randal said truthfully.
“That we’ll take oath on,” said Fash.
“Be you certain they’re dead? Why did you not wait and seek out the bodies?” demanded Old Timothy.
“The people of the district are searching the gap with torches, all the way to the cove,” Randal explained. “Having seen the accident, we hurried back with the news.”
“Aye, he’s gone,” said Old Dan. “He’s dreamed his last dream. ’Tis said Queen Una dwells beneath the water; maybe he’ll meet her there.”
The old man’s simple grief touched everyone in the room. Kate sobbed quietly, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. Dennis sat clenching and unclenching his fists, his dark brow furrowed. Tirsa had stopped crying and sat glowering at her brothers, her eyes filled with hate. Timothy Shanahan placed his hand upon Old Dan’s shoulder.
“I have lost one of my own sons,” he said solemnly, “and that portion Jamie would have had under the terms of the contract will still be his, just as if he had lived to marry Tirsa.” Kate, her grief in a measure assuaged, dried her eyes and began to lay out Jamie’s things in preparation for the wake.
IV
Jamie pulled the battered and half-drowned Tavish from the waters of the gap just before they both were swept out to sea. In his limbs was the weariness of death, and blood flowed down his fa
ce from a long cut over his eye. The two men rested awhile upon the rocks at the mouth of the gap, then, leaning upon each other for support, made their way slowly up the cliffs and toward the cottage. There was no bitterness in their hearts against the Shanahans. Gratitude for being alive had driven all other emotions out. Tavish moaned and mumbled as Jamie helped him along the rough and stony paths. The moon had gone down and inky blackness was settled over the hills. Occasionally in the distance a torch flashed, and voices hailed each other across the glens, but Jamie and the Speaker avoided any contact with the searchers. For all they knew, the Shanahans might still be on the prowl.
“Sure this is one night the witches brewed,” Tavish said between his groans. “Oh … them Shanahans. The ancients had a way to deal with the likes of them. A forest of trees … and the Shanahans chained and spread-eagled among them, a Shanahan to every two trees. Then the trees were cut to fall away from each other—and at the same time. Och—the result would be beautiful to contemplate.”
“Save your breath,” said Jamie wearily, “’twill make you easier to carry up the cliff.”
At the cottage Kate had made extensive preparations for the wake. With Timothy Shanahan paying the bills she could afford to spend more or less lavishly. Two borrowed coffins were set up on saw horses before the fireplace, grim proxies of the bodies which had not yet been recovered. Jamie’s personal belongings were placed neatly atop the pine box designed for his remains. On top of Owen Roe Tavish’s coffin was the Speaker’s tall hat, the only part of his apparel available for the occasion.
The news of the wake and its promised munificence had spread swiftly over the district. In a poor community such as this, a good wake was a welcome diversion. The thought that there would be plenty to eat and drink was enough to draw mourners who ordinarily would have given the two departed souls no more than a casual “God rest them.”
By the time Jamie and Tavish had limped into view of the farm, the cottage was crowded with people, with more and more arriving and pushing their way inside to be near the whiskey. The sound of voices raised in lament reached the two men as they crossed the pasture.
“Is it the water sloshing around inside my head, or do I hear the sound of keening?” Tavish mumbled weakly.
“’Tis likely we are both drowned and this is but a bad after-dreaming,” Jamie grunted.
“Och, no, lad. No dead man ever ached in the places I do,” Tavish replied.
The two men crossed behind the barn and crept up to the low, rear window. One glance into the murky interior revealed the situation. Mourners were packed about the empty coffins like herring. Tirsa was seated at the head of Jamie’s coffin, assuming the position of chief mourner, and Dennis sat beside her comfortingly. The women keened softly, and occasionally a man’s voice rose above the subdued murmur.
“Aye, he was a boy to warm the inner cockles of the heart,” said one.
“My arms are around you, Dan McRuin; aye, and around every member of his family this night,” said another.
“He goes uneaten by the tooth of time, in all the pink of his young manhood,” declared a third old man, who had walked miles in darkness to join the wake.
Outside, Owen Roe Tavish listened resentfully. “There’s no mention of me,” he whispered.
“They’ll get to you when the whiskey starts working,” Jamie assured him.
“That should be soon,” Tavish muttered, watching the fresh bottles supplied by the Shanahans pass from hand to hand. He licked his lips thirstily. “Maybe we should make our resurrection known.”
“Not yet,” said Jamie.
He was afraid to give words to a wonderful thought rising within him. Inside the house, Randal Shanahan sounded the praises of Owen Roe Tavish.
“He was a man of extrahuman powers,” Randal was saying. “Shifts and dodges were unknown to him. The country will not soon look upon his like again.”
Tavish purred agreement as more and more men, their hearts warmed by a mixture of liquor and sorrow, gave voice to extravagant praise. They recounted occasions when the magic of his tongue had drawn recalcitrant parents together when all seemed lost because the property settlement stood in the way of true love.
“Sure Cupid has lost a string to his bow,” a poetical little woman added to the chorus.
“He was one to stand against the sort of marriage too common in Ireland, where property and not true love is the consideration,” said another.
“Sure, now that should be me epitaph,” Tavish agreed modestly.
“Do you know,” said Jamie slyly, “a terrible thing has just been made known to me.”
“Shh, Jamie,” Tavish hushed him, “I can’t hear all the wonderful things they’re saying.”
“Come with me behind the byre; we’ve got to talk this thing over,” Jamie whispered.
Reluctantly the Speaker followed him. “I never dreamed Standish O’Gorman held me in such high repute,” he mused. “When I spoke for his daughter’s hand for Fergus McFey, he threatened to use his stick on me. Well, I suppose a man has to die to know rightfully how his neighbors value him.”
Behind the byre Jamie drew the Speaker to a spot where the sea-wind no longer licked at them with a tongue of ice. The old man’s clothes were sodden wet and his teeth chattered like dice in a box. “I’m ready to go in now,” he sighed. “The immortal part of me has had all the praise that is good for one man. The mortal part hankers for a steep drink of whiskey to take the chill out of me bones.”
Jamie shook his head. “Tavish,” he said, “We can’t go back. It’s too late.”
“What do you mean by that, Jamie McRuin?” Tavish bristled.
“Don’t you see, man, we could never live up to those wonderful things they’ve said about us in there? We’re immortal. If we come walking in now, every man and maid in that house will turn against us. My own father is reconciled to my death. Tirsa is ready at a minute’s notice to hold hands with my brother, Dennis, and he to take my place. The Shanahans all have guilty consciences, for which they have paid handsomely. If we appear now, everything turns to dust and ashes. My father would say, ‘Look at the great bowsie, for all his dreams, he hasn’t the wit to stay dead when it is best for all concerned.’ Every man in the place would be kicking himself for any compliments he might have paid us. The Shanahans will reach for their sticks. Sure ’twould be one fearful muddle and we would never live down the disgrace of it.” Jamie paused to observe the effect of his words.
Tavish checked his chattering teeth long enough to say, “Very well, Jamie, you stay dead. ’Tis more becoming the young to die heroically, anyway. I shall tell them all how you saved this miserable carcass at the expense of your sweet, young life. Such an epitaph you’ll have as will be sung from one end of Christian Ireland to the other. ’Twill be my masterwork. Words I have been saving up for my own funeral will go into it.”
“Very well,” said Jamie, “go on back in there. Feel the weight of their anger. You’ll soon see what it means to be a dead hero come to life. For every one of the good things they’ve said about you, ten bad ones will spring to their lips. How do you suppose Standish O’Gorman will feel about forgiving you when he sees you alive? Do you think he will forget that not a month ago you tricked him into doubling his daughter’s fortune by telling him Fergus McFey was getting money from America? And don’t forget the sticks of the Shanahans are aimed more at you than at me.”
Owen Roe Tavish was momentarily sobered. “A man must give serious thought on his immortality,” he admitted.
He limped slowly toward the cottage, with Jamie following close at his heels. “Are there any cases sadder in all the history of the red world,” the boy persisted, “than where the men were given up for lost, only to return and find they’d done better to stay dead?”
To prove his point, Jamie mentioned the case of Enoch Arden, and conjured up names of ancient Irish kings who had left their lands, and, after being reported dead, had returned home to misery and unhappiness. W
here fact and legend failed, he was not above inventing cases in which the resurrection of such men had proved grimly anticlimactic.
Inside the cottage, Old Dan, warmed and consoled by the plenty of good whiskey, and touched by the solicitude of friends and neighbors, had risen to make a speech.
“Two mounds of gentle earth are waiting for my son and cousin—Jamie and Owen Roe Tavish,” he cried, gesturing toward the empty coffins. “God be on the road with them this night, I say. You—my friends and neighbors—are here to bid them farewell, and with the tears washing down your faces.…”
There were cries of agreement and approbation from the mourners. Encouraged by the show of interest, Old Dan continued. “Och, Owen Tavish,” he apostrophized, “yours was a mouth that never uttered an injustice. There be those of us who feared your sharp tongue and superior learning, got when you were studying for the priesthood when you were but a lad.…”
A surprised murmur rose from the crowd inside the cottage. “’Tis God’s own truth,” continued Old Dan, “my cousin, Tavish, was a spoiled priest!”
His words were greeted with a shocked silence. Outside the window, Tavish clasped his hands to his head and moaned. “Och … the idiot … the omadhaun! Hold your tongue, Dan! I’m here … alive …!”
“Hush, man,” cried Jamie, clapping his hand over the Speaker’s mouth, “’tis too late! The words have fled … from mouth to ear! By tomorrow your secret will belong to every man and woman in the county.”
“I’m the ruined man this night—that I am,” the Speaker groaned. “Who now will trust their matchmaking to a spoiled priest?”
Inside the cottage, Old Dan droned on with confessional zeal. “My lips have been sealed all these many years with the dark secret of why you left the Jesuit school. Fell in love with Ireland’s pagan past, did my cousin; with Conchobor and Cuchulainn; with Balor of the evil eye, and Deirdre and the sons of Usnech; with great Queen Maeve and Finn of the Fenians, and Niall of the Nine Hostages … until the shadow of the whitethorn fell across the path to the cross … and he was lost for a while.…”
Three Wishes for Jamie Page 4