He tipped Maeve’s chin upward with his forefinger. “You may be a married woman but you’re still a little girl to me. Come … out with it. What’s wrong? Is it Jamie?”
“Oh, no, Father,” Maeve said earnestly. “We’ve been wonderfully happy. There’s just one thing.…”
“Go on.”
“We’re not having a child this year.” Maeve felt the warm flush creeping into her cheeks. The subject was difficult to discuss, even with someone as genial and understanding as Father Kerrigan.
“And is that a reason to wear such a long face?” he chided her. “God sends babies … and in His own good time.”
“I know that, Father. It’s sinful to ask for something more when already we have so much … but Jamie has been bragging among the men about the wonderful son he was going to have. Now, a year has passed and there’s no child. He feels humiliated and ashamed.”
“So, Jamie McRuin, like most pigheaded Irishmen, has been clamoring for a son, has he?” Father Kerrigan said sternly. “Well, you tell him he can just bide his time. Or better yet, I’ll tell him.”
“No, Father, please don’t say anything,” Maeve pleaded, genuinely disturbed. “He’s hurt and bewildered—like a child that’s been promised something and the promise not kept. He was so sure, Father.…”
“You’ve been married but a year! ’Tis a little soon to start fretting,” the priest reminded Maeve. But inwardly he was disturbed. To a dreaming romanticist like Jamie, a child in the home was a necessity. It was an angel direct from Heaven; the deep and lasting proof of God’s favor.
“I’ll find a way to speak with him without mentioning our little talk,” he assured the girl.
Maeve thanked him and rose to go, but she was not entirely comforted. “Father,” she said hesitantly, “you don’t think Travis Bunn … the curse he put on us …?”
“Nonsense,” Father Kerrigan snapped. “I told you it was in God’s hands—not Travis Bunn’s—nor Satan’s neither!”
“We heard from other of the caravans that he had paid a spoiled priest to do the Reversed Journey, invoking the power of evil …” Maeve said in awed tones.
“Maeve McRuin,” the priest said sternly, “rid yourself of such thoughts. You’re a child of God and no witchcraft or owree magic can stand in the way of your bearing a son … if it be God’s will! Pray … and if it is His will, in time your prayers will be answered.”
The doubts that had gnawed at Maeve’s heart through the past months were dispelled. Father Kerrigan seemed so wise and sure. Around her he had thrown the protection of the saints, backed by the power and majesty of the Holy Church. Let Travis Bunn do his wicked worst. Mary and Her Son were on her side.
When the rumors had first reached Maeve of Bunn’s practices, she was stunned by the enormity of the man’s hate. Travis Bunn had loved her once—she knew that as women know such things. Was it possible that love’s unstable chemistry could be changed to hate, as light was changed to darkness by the mere snuffing out of a candle?
Jamie had laughed at the reports of Bunn’s traffic with the Devil. “Sure Old Nick will end up with a Monday haircutting if he does any business with Bunn,” he asserted.
But the fear had grown in Maeve until it became obsessive: Bunn’s curses were taking effect. Why else, then, was she not having a child? The idea haunted her, poisoning the perfection of her happiness. She couldn’t wait to get back to Atlanta and the consolation of her priest. Now Bunn and his owree had been exorcised by Father Kerrigan’s stern, sure judgment. Comforted, she went across the churchyard to light altar candles and pray for the peace of her own and Aunt Bid’s soul.
The Travelers had made their camp on the same site used the year before. Membership of the individual groups assembling changed only slightly from one season to another. Marriages brought new husbands from their own camps to that of their brides. Or, since the horse traders were possessed of lively Irish tempers and temperaments, it was not unusual for loyalties to shift and families to become uncongenial. Disagreements occurred that could not be amicably adjusted, and the “road” settled the dispute. The disputants packed their belongings and departed in opposite directions.
As a rule those of like blood and temperament stayed together in the same group. Leadership was never formal or final. There were no kings or chosen chieftains. Ability, wisdom, character, and courage found their own level without question or challenge. When those qualities were outstanding in any member of a group, he automatically drew his own following.
Because of their leader’s forthrightness, as well as shrewdness, the members of Shiel Harrigan’s group had remained much the same year after year. Under his leadership the traders had grown prosperous. From his father-in-law, Jamie learned the rudiments of buying and selling horses and mules. There was a fascination in trading animals. It was like gambling. Men swapped horses and mules as small boys swapped pocketknives. There was an inner excitement in backing your judgment against that of other men. As in gambling, luck played a part, but in the end knowledge and skill were the invariable winners.
The nomadic Travelers had developed horse trading into a pleasant and profitable profession. This ability to judge quality, plus a shrewd understanding of human nature, had made them top men in their field. In the wide range of their dealings certain tabus became established. They never competed with each other for customers or trespassed upon each other’s territory. No sale was pushed when a buyer appeared reluctant; nor was a trade urged when the trader seemed undecided. Salesmanship took a more dramatic form. When Shiel Harrigan led a string of horses and mules into a town’s square on a Saturday, the animals were plumed and polished as if they were competing for a prize. On a vacant lot rented for the occasions, the animals were ringed about the traders’ wagons in groups of ten or twelve, while Shiel Harrigan strolled among the interested farmers and townspeople, whip in hand, like a ringmaster.
“Which one shall it be, gentlemen?” he would call, punctuating his cries with sharp cracks of the long whip. “Take your pick or name your top price and I’ll pick one for you.”
No buyer who wanted to pay a hundred dollars for a mule was shown a hundred-and-fifty-dollar animal and urged that the higher-priced one was the better buy. What he asked for he got: the best animal available at his own price. As a result of this reputation for hard, fair dealing, whole communities came to rely upon the Travelers for supplying their working stock.
It was a healthy, happy life, and Jamie took to it with an eager and natural aptitude. Most Irishmen are born horsemen. To his native talent Jamie added his own guileless and engaging manner. He learned the technique of praising only those animals he had no intention of buying, pretending to ignore the horse or mule that made his teeth water. Before the year was out, he could judge the soundness of animals with the best of the traders, and won grudging praise from his father-in-law, plus a sizable share in the season’s profits.
“Sure something has been directing me on the road of my luck,” he told Maeve happily. “Look at the wonder of things that have happened: The love of my heart I’ve won. Travel I have, up and down the length and breadth of the land. And now money to buy with. Can you know what it means to have been without all your life, then suddenly to have plenty? Sure it’s like having the Curse of Four and Twenty Men removed.”
But Jamie’s enthusiasm showed signs of wavering in the late winter months. When the caravan turned southward, following the warm weather, he suddenly became aware that Maeve was not having the child he had boasted would come with the springtide. He felt cheated and bewildered and shamed before the other men.
To make matters worse, Me-Dennis O’Ryan’s daughter, Doreen, was expecting a baby. Doreen had married Tom Sherwood, from another camp, at the same time Jamie and Maeve were married. For the past three months her husband had been strutting about the camp crowing because his wife was having a baby while Maeve was not. Sherwood was a big, crude fellow who meant his joking good-naturedly enough, not suspec
ting how deeply the jibes galled Jamie. Now added to Maeve’s worries was the growing fear of a clash between her husband and Big Tom.
Maeve had stayed late in Atlanta, making the final arrangements for Aunt Bid’s funeral. There were the usual details to be taken care of, and such functions always fell to the women. By the time she returned to camp Doreen Sherwood was in labor.
The men and older boys had retreated to the corral, humbled and a little frightened in the presence of this thing called “birth.” Tom Sherwood had supplied a gallon of mountain whiskey for the occasion, and every time Doreen emitted a groan he took a hasty drink. As a result, Big Tom was well afloat.
Jamie sat with the circle of men but was not drinking. The talk was low voiced and desultory except for the expectant father, Big Tom. He was tearfully berating himself.
“Doreen will never forgive me … there’s a thought for sorrow. Oh … the pain; sure it’s killing her now. Oooooh … did you hear that? The moaning … hand me the jug, man. I’m a beast, that’s what I am. All men are beasts, to do this to their wives. God stiffen the lot of us. Poor little Doreen.…”
“Wait till she’s had as many as her mother,” Me-Dennis grunted wryly. “’Twill take no more effort than a loud sneeze.”
Big Tom was drunkenly shocked at his father-in-law’s callousness. He raised his right hand solemnly. “I swear … never again. Before God I swear it.”
Me-Dennis laughed. “Doreen’s gonna be just like her ma. May-Flo had nine kids in the first ten years we were married.”
Tavish had been sitting quietly, occasionally turning a thoughtful eye in Jamie’s direction. “There’s a sudden silence from up at the tents,” he said. “Maybe it’s all over, Tom. Why don’t you run up and see if the little one has arrived?”
“You think maybe.…” Tom stood up unsteadily, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll go see.” He lurched away, trying furtively to straighten his rumpled clothes.
“He’ll be used to it in a few more years,” Jaunting Jim Donner said slyly.
A ripple of laughter circled the ring of men. From the direction of the tents sounded a wild whoop of joy, and on the heels of it, Tom Sherwood came staggering back, his wide, plain face beaming.
“It’s here … it’s come … a boy; think of it … a boy!” he shouted excitedly. “Let’s all have a drink to my son.”
The men crowded good-naturedly around him, offering congratulations. Big Tom picked up the jug and sloshed the contents near his ear. “There’s plenty left. Who’ll be first?”
From the corner of his eye, Tavish saw Jamie turn and start away. “I will,” he called out quickly, reaching for the jug.
“Wait a minute,” Big Tom said belligerently. He, too, had seen Jamie leaving.
“I’ve got a better idea.” With quick strides he planted himself in front of Jamie, blocking his way. “Here,” he said with drunken menace, “I want Jamie McRuin to be the first to drink.”
Big Tom held out the jug, but Jamie made no move to take it. Instead his eyes began to glow with the cold, impersonal hatred of a panther. “Why Thomas boyo, sure I’d love to share with you a seldom drink,” he said softly, “but I’m thinking maybe the strain of being a father has worn you to a thread. Save the liquor for yourself.”
Big Tom’s face grew set and ugly. “No man refusing to drink with me will stay on his two feet longer than it takes me to knock him off them,” he said warningly. “Say out, will you drink or no?”
Jamie’s lips curled into a tantalizing smile, but his eyes were more menacing. “Sure the brave words of yourself have thrown me into a terrible flustration. Take the advice of a friendly man, Tom—don’t let your newborn son witness the wreck I’d make of you.”
Big Tom’s rage was strangling him. “Make a wreck of me? You? With one hand I’ll take you apart bone by bone … and I’ll make a solemn oath on it.”
The older men had hesitated to intervene, but now Tavish pushed his short body between the two younger, bigger men. “That’s enough now,” he said jovially. “Sure and the wind of your words has already blown the tails off the mules. Be a grown man, Jamie. Drink to the boy’s first born. The bairn has never harmed a hair of anyone’s head.”
“He’s that despairing because he hasn’t done as well himself, for all his boasting,” Big Tom said. “I say Jamie Mc-Ruin is not man enough to plow a proper furrow.”
Jamie’s face turned bluish gray in the shadow of the pines and his jaws locked in a rigid line. Tavish shoved Big Tom back. “What sort of drunk man’s talk is that, Tom Sherwood?” he said sternly.
The smile had not wavered on Jamie’s lips. “Never mind, Cousin Tavish,” he said softly. “I’ll drink with Tom. The fierceness of his talk has convinced me. Hand me the jug.”
With a swagger, Big Tom passed the jug to Jamie. Still smiling, Jamie lifted it to his lips and filled his mouth with the clear, burning liquor. He passed the jug to Tavish, then deliberately spat the whiskey into Tom Sherwood’s face.
“Sure I’ll say when I’ll drink … and to what I’ll drink … and where and who with,” he gritted savagely.
Big Tom, blinded by the liquor, struck wildly at the blurred, taunting face. Deliberately Jamie stepped in close, measured, and swung heavily. Sherwood went down, the back of his head striking a steel shackle on the wagon tongue. He lay still while Jamie stood over him, shaking with rage.
Tavish seized the boy’s arm and dragged him away. “That’s enough … he’s down, Jamie. Come with me, lad. We’ll walk it off,” he said soothingly.
Jamie’s tongue was thick and he could barely speak. “I could tear out his heart with my two hands and feed it to the dogs,” he said hoarsely. “Not a proper man? Did you hear what he said, ‘Cousin Tavish? Och, the villain … kill him slowly by inches, I could.” A dry sobbing shook his body.
“Shh,” Tavish said, gently. “’Twas only drunken talk. Don’t speak of it and don’t think of it. Just walk.”
They walked until the color had returned to Jamie’s face and the violent trembling that had shaken him like the ague had gone. Then they turned back toward the camp, following the road.
At the turnoff leading to the camp site, Jamie said good-by to Owen Roe Tavish. “I’m not ready to go back there yet,” he said. “I’ll walk on into Atlanta.”
He made no mention of Maeve and declined Tavish’s offer to accompany him. With his heavy shoes splaying the soft red dust into a rosy cloud, he strode away alone. Tavish watched until the first bend in the road swallowed the boy from sight.
“Jamie boy … Jamie boy, will you always be laying life on the anvil, and trying to beat it into shape with your fists?” he murmured aloud.
With a sigh, the old man turned and walked slowly along the narrow trail leading to the camp in the pines.
XV
A bedraggled cab rocked unevenly along the dark, cobblestoned street, drawing to a halt before a square, two-story house. The colored driver tapped his sleeping passenger on the leg with the butt of his whip to rouse him.
“Heah we is,” he said cheerfully.
“What … where?” Jamie asked, awakening and looking about stupidly.
The street was dark and empty, with few lights showing. Jamie gazed questioningly at the driver, striving to fit his blurred thoughts into some sort of logical pattern. Why had the driver brought him to this depressing spot? He had been drinking—all through the early part of the evening; but now he felt reasonably sober. He remembered getting into the cab, but falling asleep seemed to have blotted out whatever purpose was in his mind.
“That place I wuz to bring you to. There it is … right yonder,” the driver reminded him, pointing with his whip.
Jamie found himself looking at a house with a remote aura of past, unpainted, and gingerbread elegance. The shades were drawn at the windows, but thin edges of light were dimly visible around the curtains. Then he remembered. “What do I do?” he asked.
“Nothin’ … you don’ ha
ve to do nothin’,” the driver chuckled good-naturedly. “Jes’ ring the doorbell an’ from then on they does everything for you.”
Jamie climbed stiffly from the cab. His mouth was sour and his tongue felt thick and not yet under control. “How much do I owe you?” he asked, fishing in his pockets.
“I mostly gits a dollah for a trip like dis,” the colored man said hopefully.
Jamie handed him the money in silver. “I just ring the doorbell?” he repeated doubtfully.
“Dat’s right. Ring de doorbell and watch de activity begin.” The driver burst into a peal of deep, rich laughter. He saluted Jamie, and with the same motion urged his tired horse into a trot.
Standing on the curb, Jamie’s eyes automatically examined the animal pulling the cab. “What a sorry garraun he be driving,” he muttered irrelevantly. Vaguely Jamie wished he hadn’t launched himself upon this wild expedition. It must be very late. Maeve was probably in bed and sweetly asleep. “Still I’ve got to go through with it,” he told himself. “Not a man, am I? Sure now we’ll be seeing about that.”
He adjusted his wrinkled clothes and tried to smooth his rumpled hair; then he mounted the porch steps and twirled the doorbell. No sound of ringing came through the thick panels, but the door opened almost immediately and he was greeted by a trim colored girl wearing a maid’s uniform.
“Please come in, suh,” she said politely. Jamie was hatless and was led directly to the empty, dimly lit parlor.
“Madame Blanche will be right down,” the girl announced, as if that pat particular phrase was one used often on the premises.
When she had gone, Jamie stared about the large, high-ceilinged room, impressed by the rich paneling and the worn elegance of the red plush furniture. Paintings of flossy ladies, their white and ample bosoms veiled only by a frosty breath of chiffon, hung in gilt frames around the walls. It was Jamie’s first introduction to art and he found it awesome.
Madame Blanche swept into the room enveloped in an elaborate, off-the-shoulders gown of red silk. Its yards of heavy material presaged her approach with a gentle, rustling sound remindful of dry leaves in an autumn breeze. Her broad face was heavily rouged, and her dyed red hair was blown into great puffs that sat balanced on the top of her head like a coppery, wind-filled cloud. She flashed Jamie a broad smirk, the width of which could be measured by a scattered array of gold teeth spaced like milestones along the path of her smile.
Three Wishes for Jamie Page 13