Torn Away

by James Heneghan

  Matthew passed the binoculars to Declan and pointed to a spot below them under the ridge. “Two blacktail does,” he whispered.

  Declan looked through the glasses. At first he could see nothing; everything was a pinky gray. Then something moved, the flick of an ear. The deer’s head came up from its feeding. It was looking around. A second deer raised its head above the salal. The two deer were very far away

  “We’re downwind,” whispered Matthew. “They haven’t seen us. Follow me.”

  They moved slowly, stalking the deer. Declan copied his uncle, walking softly for several paces, stopping to look and listen, then moving down toward the clearing. Soon they were less than a hundred yards from the deer. Declan could see them quite clearly without the binoculars. A third deer had joined the other two. Tall and stately with wide antlers, it held its head high, gazing around with large dark eyes while the other two browsed. Must be a buck, thought Declan, which meant the other two were does.

  Matthew bit his lip as he pushed the bolt of the rifle forward. It made a barely audible click. Declan saw the buck jerk his head toward them, eyes staring, ears alert, nose in the air. They waited silently. The buck moved slowly to a new position. Matthew passed the rifle to Declan. “The buck,” he whispered. “Aim just below the shoulder.”

  Declan felt a thrill. His uncle was trusting him to shoot this magnificent buck! He rested the well-worn stock on his hand, the polished wood running the whole length of the barrel. He pulled the butt into his shoulder and fingered the trigger. His heart pounded with excitement. He had to force himself to breathe slowly. Calm down, he told himself. As he sighted along the barrel, he could feel the blood tingling in his fingers.

  The buck was an easy target. Declan could see the full length of the animal’s powerful body and the fine head with its high antlers. The buck stepped forward slowly and gracefully on his long legs, head straight. Then it bent its head to browse. Declan had him in his sights at a spot just under the shoulder. His finger tightened on the trigger. Remember to squeeze, he told himself. Take your time. And then he saw—long legs—his sister, Mairead walking to school on her long legs, straight, with her shoulders held back, just under the shoulder, remember to squeeze, brown hair, white neck, birthday, she didn’t know she was to die that day, that morning, death was for ever, death was for keeps, deer about to die, not knowing, white sweater stained with blood, explosion, death, long legs. Declan took a deep breath. He was sweating. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger and the 303 bullet, faster than sound, would blow a hole in the deer heart and the helpless animal would never hear the sound of the shot.

  A blue jay gave its harsh cry.

  The buck’s head jerked up, ears twitching. He gave a snort. The two does bounded away in long graceful leaps.

  “Now!” said Matthew.

  But still Declan did not pull the trigger, and then it was too late. The buck leaped and was gone.

  He had waited too long. Declan stared at the place where it had been. He lowered the rifle and released the bolt.

  The sun came up over the top of the mountain and reached its bright fingers down the slope toward them. Declan could feel it warm on his neck. He handed the rifle to Matthew. “Sorry,” he said. “I should have got him.” He felt miserable. What had got into him? What would his uncle think of him now? He said, “I don’t know what came over me.”

  His uncle smiled.

  Declan stared at the unusual sight of a smiling Matthew. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought his uncle was happy.

  “Let’s go,” said Matthew. “We can try track him down the mountain.”

  They set off, moving down the slope after the buck, but though they stalked the deer trails and searched the deadfalls through their binoculars for over two hours, they did not catch another sight of deer.

  They ate and rested and listened to the chatter of squirrels and the songs of birds, and Declan turned his face to the sun and heaved a huge sigh of contentment.

  Matthew too, seemed contented. He lay back when he’d finished his sandwich and closed his eyes.

  After a while, Matthew, his eyes still closed, said, “One side is as bad as the other.”

  “Hmm?”

  “The war in the North. One side is as bad as the other.”

  Declan sat up with a jerk. “What are you talking about?”

  Matthew opened his eyes. “Declan, violence, killing, it solves nothing . . . “

  “Let’s get back,” said Declan.

  They got up and headed back along the edge of the mountain toward the truck. When they had been walking for an hour, they stopped for a rest. Declan’s legs were tired now and his body ached. They sat on a log and drank from their water bottles.

  Then suddenly, Matthew dropped his bottle and snatched the rifle from the log where he had leaned it. Declan’s heart lurched. Without pausing, his uncle pushed the rifle bolt home with a metallic rattle, pulled the rifle into his shoulder and raised the muzzle high over his head.

  Declan looked up. A cougar was crouching on the limb of a tree fifteen feet above their heads. Its thick tail twitched and its ears stood up high on its small head as it stared down at them.

  Matthew kept the rifle pointed at the cougar. “Freeze!” he grunted to Declan.

  Declan set his jaw. He eyed the honey-colored cat. It was as long as a man, with heavy, powerful hindquarters. “Shoot!” Declan hissed at his uncle. “Shoot!”

  Matthew held his fire.

  The cougar’s shoulders bunched. To Declan it looked as though the powerful animal was about to leap. He could not tear his eyes away from its pale green eyes. He yelled at the big cat and waved his arms. “Aaarrgh!” he growled. “Aaaarrrgh!”

  The cougar took one last look at them, then turned quickly away, leaping from the tree into the salal and out of sight.

  Matthew lowered his rifle. “That was dangerous, Declan. I said to freeze.”

  Declan said, “I scared him away. Why didn’t you shoot? We could have been killed! A wild animal like that!” His heart pounded.

  Matthew said nothing. He released the bolt of the rifle and picked up his water bottle. He pushed the bottle into Declan’s shoulder pack and set off along the trail.

  Declan followed. “Why didn’t you kill it?”

  “No need. Be different maybe if he’d been forced down by the snow and was starving. But there’s plenty of game about. I would have had to shoot if he’d jumped.”

  “He scared the life out of me! I thought he was going to jump.”

  “He wasn’t about to jump,” said Matthew.

  “How do you know?”

  “You can usually tell. His ears were up. He was just curious—never seen Irishmen before. When a cougar’s hunting, his ears lie back against the head.”

  “So you didn’t shoot him because of his ears.”

  “That’s right.”

  Declan looked sideways at his uncle. He sure was hard to figure out. Because he never rose to any of Declan’s taunts about being a traitor who ran away from Ireland, Declan had concluded his uncle was a coward. But now he wasn’t so sure: if he’d been in his uncle’s socks, pointing a loaded rifle at a cougar, he would have fired for certain. Matthew had stayed pretty cool.

  They continued along the trail. Declan felt weary.

  It took an hour. He could have cried out for joy when he finally saw Matthew’s old truck standing waiting for them. They climbed in.

  Matthew started the engine. “Want a mint?”

  Declan took one.

  They drove down the mountain in silence.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Tell me about Belfast,” said Ana.

  They were sitting out on the porch, wearing warm jackets. The month of the loon was a rainy one, cold and damp. Declan liked to sit and watch the different moods of the sea and the sky. Ana and Thomas sometimes sat with him.

  “Where I lived, all the Catholics have a picture of the Pope on the wall,” said Declan, “
like the one Matthew and Kate have.” He went on to describe the Falls Road area where many of the women painted the side-walks outside their homes orange and white and green, the colors of the Irish flag. The Protestants did the same on theirs, only they painted the Union Jack: red, white and blue. And the Protestants hung English flags out of their windows.

  The graffiti on the gable ends of the houses said things like: IRELAND FOR THE IRISH; KILL KILL KILL; BRITS OUT; BLOOD DEBTS REPAID IN BLOOD; and (painted by the Prods during the night) KILL THE POPE.

  Derelict houses, bricked-up windows, rusty corrugated tin, bleak streets, barricades of brick and barbed wire, the air hazy with the smoke from coal and turf fires, no grass or greenery, broken pavement and guttering, starving dogs roaming about. While Radio Ulster played constant Country and Western music, the smell of poverty clung to everything like cigarette smoke.

  “Declan, it sounds awful. Surely, the rest of Ireland is not like that?”

  “No. Ireland is beautiful. We live in one of the poorest parts of Northern Ireland.”

  “You must have hated it.”

  “Not really. We’re used to it. My ma worked in the shirt factory. We got by. But compared to the nicer parts of Belfast, the houses in my neighborhood are pretty awful.”

  There were rats. They left hard pellets on the kitchen counter. His ma took care of the baiting and setting of the traps, though the rats were usually cunning enough to avoid them. If the traps ever killed, then Declan did not know of it, for his ma was always the first up in the morning, and she never spoke of it.

  Afterwards, after the bomb, when he was alone in the house, he set a trap and awoke one night to the sound of thumping. He thought it was the Brits or the Prods breaking in. Heart racing, he pulled on his jeans and tiptoed down the stairs. The noise, a constant rhythmic sound of something being thumped against the counter tiles, was louder. When he saw what it was, he backed off. Then he slipped his hand into his ma’s oven mitt and gingerly picked up the trap and dropped it into the back yard toilet and waited until it had drowned. Then he threw it into the bin, trap and all.

  “I hate rats,” said Ana.

  “I hate them too,” said Declan, “but there’s worse things in Belfast than rats.”

  “I’m glad I live here,” said Ana.

  Declan did not reply, but he thought about the Belfast he had just described to Ana and then he thought about the day on the mountain hunting with Matthew. The eagles, the jays, the graceful deer, the quiet, pine-scented air.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Declan brushed back his hair. “How people in different parts of the world can lead such totally different lives.”

  Declan knew he wasn’t telling Ana the complete truth about his thoughts. What he’d said was true as far as it went, but also at the back of his mind was a blister of a thought, a nagging suggestion that his day in the woods with his uncle had been only a part of Matthew’s larger plan in his role as Chief Fixer. Matthew and Kate were trying to drag Declan into their world, and he refused to be dragged. Such tactics by his uncle and aunt only strengthened his resolve to return to his home; he would show them that Declan Doyle was made of much tougher stuff than they’d bargained for.

  One day after school, Declan and Ana got off the bus and, as they turned into the lane, Declan noticed Thomas run and hide in the cedar hedge.

  “Pretend we didn’t see him,” said Declan.

  They went in the back door of the house. “Where’s Thomas?” said Declan in a voice loud enough for Thomas to hear. They came back out into the yard. “Where’s Thomas?” said Declan again in a loud voice.

  “I hope we haven’t lost him!” cried Ana.

  “Oh no!” cried Declan, pretending to become quite upset. “Thomas! Thomas! Where are you? Come back to us, Thomas.”

  A muffled giggle came from under the hedge.

  “Did I hear something?” said Declan hopefully.

  “It was only the cry of a lonely bluejay in the branches of the Douglas fir,” said Ana, declaiming, storybook fashion.

  “No!” said Declan, enjoying himself, and following Ana’s tone. “It sounded to me like the tortured cry of a poor boy imprisoned in the deep deep earth.”

  “It was a bird, I tell you.”

  “You’re wrong, Ana. It’s poor Thomas trapped under the deep earth.” Declan made loud sniffing noises. “I can smell the orange he had for his lunch.”

  “The smell you smell is the cedar hedge, sharp like lemons,” said Ana in her storybook voice.

  “He’s here, I tell you!” shouted Declan. “And we’ve got to save him before it’s too late!”

  Louder giggles from the hedge.

  “I hear him! I hear him!” Declan bent down. “I see him, Ana! I see him! It’s Thomas! He’s trapped in the earth under the hedge. Help me free poor Thomas from his prison!”

  Thomas giggled and squirmed as they dragged him out. They stood him on his feet. Thomas screamed with laughter, pleased with himself for having fooled them for so long. “I trapped, Declan. I trapped . . . deep . . . deep.”

  Declan and Ana threw their arms around him. “What a fright you gave us, Thomas!” said Ana.

  “We thought we’d lost you!” cried Declan.

  That night as he lay in his bed, head turned to look out the window at the night sky, Declan remembered how happy he had felt when they were playing with Thomas, dragging him out from under the cedar hedge, and his mind fixed uncomfortably on the word dragging. The Fixers, Matthew and Kate, were intent on dragging Declan into their world. Ana and Thomas were a part of that world. He would miss Ana and Thomas, he realized.

  The realization was like a weight around his heart.

  Miss Ritter came down to the wind-battered porch one evening to watch a storm over the ocean, and when she saw them all gathered there, she said brightly, “How nice you could come.”

  Kate made room for her on the broken sofa. “Sit here, Miss Ritter, and I’ll bring you a cup of tea. There’s a pot made fresh only a minute ago.” She got up and went inside.

  “Good evening, Matthew,” said Miss Ritter. She looked about her, smiling. “Ana.” She nodded. “Thomas.” She nodded again. She came to Declan and frowned slightly.

  “Oh!” She appeared surprised. “I thought you emigrated to Australia, Walter!”

  “This is Declan,” said Ana.

  “Oh, how silly of me. But he looks so much like Walter when he . . . “

  Kate handed Miss Ritter her cup of tea.

  “Thank you, dear,” said Miss Ritter, taking the cup and saucer in her birdlike hands.

  Kate sat down beside her.

  “It’s so good of you all to come,” said Miss Ritter. “I get a little nervous sitting in-doors during a storm. It’s so much nicer when friends come to visit.” She kept darting glances at Declan. “I was born in this house . . . “ She looked at Declan expectantly. “ . . . lived here all my life,” she finished uncertainly.

  Declan nodded solemnly.

  “I never moved.” Miss Ritter stared at Declan, and when he said nothing, she nodded her head, took a sip of tea, and gazed out over the sea, a bright smile on her face.

  Matthew and Kate were talking quietly together; Declan couldn’t hear what they were saying. He looked over at Ana. She smiled at him and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “Relax. Poor old Miss Ritter is like this sometimes.”

  They watched in easy silence the sky diminish to darkness. The storm blew high, crashing breakers up onto the rocks, and the lightning flashed on the far horizon.

  The morning after the storm, they found a harbor seal pup on the beach.

  “It’s dead,” said Declan after examining it.

  “You can’t be sure,” said Ana. “It could be unconscious.”

  “Consh . . . “ said Thomas.

  They sat on the beach and watched the pup.

  “It shivered,” said Ana. “I saw its nose shiver. It’s alive.”

  “Leave it to
die,” said Declan. “It’s almost dead anyway.”

  “Matthew and Kate will fix it,” said Ana. “They fix animals all the time. They fixed a Canada goose that had something wrong with its wing, and a baby racoon we found at the bottom of Headley Cliff, and . . . “

  “Hmmph!” Declan kicked the sand. “The Fixers strike again!”

  Ana and Thomas climbed back up to the house and got Matthew to come down.

  Declan watched him squatting, examining the animal without touching it. “Its mother could be out searching for food. Best not to touch it.”

  “But what if it lost its mother in the storm?” said Ana.

  “Leave it be for an hour,” said Matthew. “If its ma isn’t back by then, well . . . “

  They returned to the house and watched through binoculars for an hour. The mother did not come. The seal did not move.

  They went back down to the beach with Matthew and stared at the pup.

  “It will die if we don’t do something,” said Ana.

  “Then leave it die in peace,” said Declan.

  “We could leave it to die, right enough,” said Matthew, nodding his head.

  Ana said, “No! We should try to save it!”

  Thomas became excited and started jumping about. “Save it!” he cried. “Save it!”

  Matthew nodded. “There’s always the chance it might live if we take it.” He looked at Declan.

  Declan shrugged and turned away. He wanted no part of it. Matthew would never make a Fixer out of him.

  “We could try,” said Matthew. He bent and rolled the pup onto his forearms, and clasping it to his chest, carried it up the cliff to the house.

  Chapter Nineteen

  For Declan the days were dissolving into one another, one following another, it seemed to him, seamlessly. Otter Harbour was a quiet, unhurried place, so to Declan the days seemed all the same.

  Early on Sunday morning, before anyone else was up, he decided to take a look in Matthew’s workshop to check on the seal pup which had now been there two days. The seal, motionless on a bed of straw in a big cardboard box near the heater, regarded him with a milky eye. Matthew should have let it die on the beach. The seal was too far gone: it was beyond Matthew’s ability to fix it. Declan couldn’t help a brief feeling of satisfaction. The Fixer would fail. The seal would die.