Bold Sons of Erin

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Bold Sons of Erin Page 13

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)


  “I take it you get on well with Mr. Donnelly?”

  “Donnelly’s all right. Keeps the Irish in line.”

  “Except when they march on troop trains and force the recruits out of the cars. Or when they threaten insurrection. Or when generals are murdered on the roads.”

  “Now, you listen to me,” he said, sitting back up and terminating our brief intimacy. Still, his voice was not as forceful as he wished it. “That’s all behind us. The draft’s in abeyance up here, and that’s the best thing for everybody. No need to make any more trouble.”

  “A general is dead. And a girl was murdered before him.”

  “Well, I don’t know a thing about any dead girl,” he said. “I told you that.” But something there was in his tone of a sudden—something small—that made me disbelieve him now. “As for your dead general, well, maybe he should’ve minded his own business, instead of aggravating the Irish with his recruitment nonsense.” He tried to look me in the eyes, but failed to maintain the glare he had intended. “Meddlers always get themselves into trouble, don’t think they don’t.”

  He sat back in his creaking chair, with the daylight rich behind him.

  “And . . . I suppose I am a meddler here, Mr. Oliver?”

  “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything. But you just tell me why this general matters so much? Doesn’t seem to be no shortage of them, judging by the papers.”

  “Because he was murdered. And because the law is the law.”

  He sniffed, almost laughed out loud, but did not trust himself to do so. “Well, now, you know that’s a no-good pot of beans. The law’s only the law when the law has a mind to be the law. At least in this county. And you and I both know it.”

  “Was Daniel Boland a violent man?”

  “Danny Boland? Not likely. Wasn’t even a drinking man. I told you. Always mooning over his wife, that’s what I always heard tell. Just a little fellow. Oh, not small like you are. But smaller than the typical fella. Liked to sing. But, then, they all do.”

  “And what exactly did Boland say when he made his confession of murder?”

  Mr. Oliver grew excited again. “What did he say? What do you mean? He said he killed that general, up on the hill, and that he did it all by himself.” His Adam’s apple pulsed back to life and he ran a palm over his baldness, where sweat shone despite the room’s chill. “And that’s all he said. Over and over. Couldn’t shut him up for the life of me. He just kept saying, ‘I killed him, I was the only one killed the general.’ Over and over. Until they took him away.”

  “Who took him away?”

  “Oh, Donnelly. And the boys. There’s a young fellow comes around now and then, coal-black beard. Not employed by the works. He just seems to pass through. They took him off. Claimed the boy didn’t know what he was saying, that he was raging with fever.”

  “So . . . they knew of the murder, then?”

  “Well, that’s neither here nor there. Boland was shouting it all down the street before he come busting in here. Just ran down the street hollering, ‘I killed him, I killed him!’” Mr. Oliver shook his head in wonder at the memory. “I swear to God, I’ve never seen a man so desperate to convince the world he’d committed a crime. A murder, at that.” He pondered the matter. “I suppose it’s all that Catholic business, all their nonsense about confessions and things like that. Maybe that’s what drove him to it.”

  “Well, I have only a few more questions, Mr. Oliver. Mary Boland, now. You said that she was a beautiful girl”—no sooner had I said it but I remembered it was the priest who had agreed with the word “beauty,” while the overseer deemed her a “pearl”—“but the Irish thought there was something queer about her. Do you have any—”

  The glass exploded inward an instant before I heard the shot. I threw myself to the floor, falling amid a thousand bits of glass. The ball had punched into the door behind me, splintering its panel.

  “Jesus,” Mr. Oliver cried, “what the hell?”

  Then he saw me on the floor and joined me there. A moment later, I was up, with my back against a side wall and my Colt out from under my frock coat.

  Fresh air rushed into the room. Most of the glass had shattered away, but all I could see were birch trees, dust and a muledriver with a dumbfounded look on his face.

  I heard shouts and clumsy commands given in German. Boots thumped over planks, rushing through the outer office.

  “Herr Major! Herr Major! Sind Sie wieder ermordet?”

  I opened the door, its upper portion a thing of splinters, and disappointed Sergeant Dietrich a second time with my good health and well-being.

  Fortunate I was, for the glass had not even struck my face, although I cut my palms a bit when I threw myself down to the floor. Mr. Oliver was not quite so fortunate, for the back of his neck and head were bleeding. He looked astonished, as if awakened to the Day of Judgement on a Tuesday.

  “Sergeant Dietrich,” I said, in my terse voice of command, “tell your men to come back from wherever you have sent them. They will not find the man who fired the shot. No need to make a fuss.” When he failed to jump to his duty, still marveling at my good health, I said, “Do what I tell you, man!”

  I turned me back to Mr. Oliver, tucking my pistol away. “Sit you down there, and let me look at the damage.”

  He took his chair obediently. I turned him so his wounds faced toward the light. Framed by the shattered window, I was unbothered. For there had been time enough to think things through, after my soldier’s alert at the sound of gunfire. The shot had been but a warning. You do not shoot to kill a man you cannot see properly. The window glass itself had been the target. Twas meant to make a fuss, and that was all.

  “Well, you may yet live to be a hundred,” I told Mr. Oliver, with his blood on my paws, mingling with my own. I drew a bit of glass from the fringe of hair ringing his scalp. The poor fellow cowered at the discomfort. “The head always bleeds more than is sensible,” I assured him. “There is no serious injury. Although you could do with a wash and a pair of plasters.”

  Twas then I realized that the fellow was weeping. He dropped his arms atop his desk, then buried his bloodied face in his gartered sleeves. Sobbing.

  “I don’t want any part of this,” he cried.

  NO SOONER HAD I STEPPED OUT onto the porch of the office than Mr. Donnelly himself appeared, dragging a boy by the ear and shaking an ancient musket.

  “Get along with you,” he told the boy, “you dirty, little bugger.”

  At the sight of me atop the steps, Donnelly smiled like all the sunshine in a Galway summer. He shoved the lad forward. Ragged and thatched with the reddest hair of Leitrim the boy was.

  “And there you are, Major Jones!” Donnelly called as he approached, “And your fine, lovely morning all spoilt! But it’s happy I am to see you’ve taken no great injuries from all the shooting and banging we’ve had amongst us.” Fair grinning he was, between grimaces at his prisoner. “I’ve told them, haven’t I told the great pack of them, a thousand times, if once, they’re not to go after their hunting near the colliery. And to stay out of the yards. Ah, but the young are hard-headed, and do not listen.”

  He shoved the boy toward me. “Speak your piece now, Master O’Neill, or the major’ll haul you off to the county clinker.”

  The boy was the very picture of repentance. He scraped and bowed as if to an English landlord.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” he told me, “for all your endangerments. I meant na harm, I didn’t, sir.”

  “No,” I told the lad, “I am certain you did not mean me harm.” And that was true, for I marked no powder traces upon the boy’s cheek, no stain of the sort left by muskets.

  I went down the steps, relying upon my cane no more than was necessary. For I do not wish mankind to think me unable. I smiled at the boy. And as I smiled, I stretched out my hand and grasped him by the right shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze.

  He did not wince. Yet, a boy his size, had he fire
d the great antique cannon that Mr. Donnelly dandled, would have had his shoulder bruised to a misery.

  That boy had no more fired the gun than I had.

  “Ah, but that’s princely good and understanding of you, Major,” Donnelly told me. Smiling that little smile of his, the cat that ate the canary. “And won’t he be in for a grand strappin’ when Johnnie O’Neill comes off his shift, for that window’s bound to come out of the father’s pay. And him with six at home, and another one coming, God bless us.” He glowered at the lad with that grand theatricality the Irish enjoy. “Oh, won’t you be sorry then, young Napper, you’ll get such a belt from your da. Now it’s off to the house with you, and tell your mither of all the troubles you’ve made us.”

  Released, the lad ran off like a hound at the horn.

  “May I see the musket, Mr. Donnelly?”

  He put on his little smile again, for he knew what I was about. Twas all a game, see, and he loved the sport of it. He handed me the weapon.

  It had not been fired, of course. The bullet had come from another gun, fired by another hand. Twas all a show fit for the stage.

  I played my role in it and sniffed the barrel. It smelled of ancient powder, not of any newly burned off, and I cocked the hammer back to find only rust in the mechanism.

  “Ah, Major Jones,” Donnelly said to me, as if we were sharing a joke in an Irish saloon, “tis an age of miracles, is it not?”

  “I’m certain his father will do the lad no great harm. When he comes off his shift,” I said, handing back the gun.

  “Oh, nothing from which a fine, young lad won’t recover. He’ll get what he deserves. Now, I’ll be taking meself back to the work for which I draw me wages, by your gracious leave.”

  “Just a moment,” I told him. “I do have a question for you, Mr. Donnelly.”

  He turned with that ready smile of his. “Sure, and I thought you had fired up your whole, great volley of questions yesterday evening.”

  “Did someone put Daniel Boland up to confessing to the murder of General Stone? The way someone put that boy up to claiming he fired the shot that broke Mr. Oliver’s window?”

  I saw at once, from the satisfied shape of his smile, that I was wrong again.

  “No,” he said. Just that. And then his smile dissolved into a hard-boy look I had not yet seen on him, an aspect fiercer than the worst of the night before. “But you’re after reminding me of a thing I wanted to tell to you meself. Tis only this: Danny Boland no more killed your general than Cromwell’s in Heaven with all the German Georges. Now, I’ve told you that nicely. And I’ve told you no man among us killed your general. If you wish to call me a liar, do it now and do it to my face.”

  I thought he was done, for twas clear he was seething to a heat beyond all words. I expected him to turn and strut away. But he had a last message for me.

  “And you’re wasting your time with that coward of a priest,” he said. “For he’s bound to be judged by a higher sort than you.”

  PERHAPS YOU DO NOT KNOW the Irish well. But I will tell you: They do not speak ill of their priests. They may chafe under the yoke of the church, and feel it is unjust in its judgements and penalties, but they would no more slight a priest than spit at God. As we rode up the hill from Heckschersville, I pondered that. And time enough I had. For turnpike they may have called it, but the way was a mire and a swamp left by the rain. The mules struggled.

  I found that only my left hand had cuts that asked minding, so I bound it in my handkerchief, an affectation upon which my dear wife insists. She seems to think the handkerchief the one and only test of true gentility. I keep one in my pocket, just to please her. That morning, I was glad to have it with me, for Mr. Downs, the teamster, attempted to supply me with his own rag, which had done veteran service.

  Our going was slow. Twice I had to dismount to lighten the wagon for the mules. Twas a nasty muck to walk through, that I will tell you. Mr. Downs rattled on about Irish assassins and shots fired in broad daylight. He was not afraid, but delighted. He was the sort, I think, who rushes to see a man run over by a runaway team or a locomotive. He had a mighty appetite for disaster, no less than all those journalist fellows do.

  And yet, I would not call our journey unpleasant. I had a muchness to think about, but my weary mind went wandering. Late birds sang, instead of continuing their journeys of desertion to the Confederacy. When we left the vale of anthracite behind for a stretch, the sky was as pure and blue as the pools of Heaven must be. Except for the muddy roadway, the whole world seemed washed clean.

  I recalled Mr. Donnelly’s voice as he spoke of the priest as a “coward,” and his insistence that young Boland had neither killed the general nor been put up to his confession. Mr. Oliver claimed the lad had been eager to confess. So where, then, was the sense in any of it? They knew by then I no longer believed their nonsense about cholera, but they would not offer the least hint things were otherwise. Twas clear as the day that Boland’s wife knew something worth the telling. She had not run off with the fairies, but what she knew worried the lot of them.

  The priest took up a great deal of my thoughts, with his bloody shirts and lies. And then there was that girl dead in the coffin, butchered months before, then stolen away to be replaced by a cat. No one seemed to care a whit about her, and all of them denied the least knowledge of her existence. Except for Mary Boland, who had tasted the corruption of death on my fingers and said, “I know her now, the filthy slut.” Perhaps grief over her husband’s disappearance had driven Mrs. Boland into madness. But I believed she was telling the truth when she spoke. She, at least, knew the girl who had slept in the coffin. And I believed they all did. At least, all of the Irish.

  They were as closed to me as the darkest secret cult of pagan India.

  Deep in my thoughts, in the piercing blue of the day, I hardly noticed the fork in the road where the general had been murdered.

  A horse shied under one of the soldiers riding ahead of us, and I realized where we were.

  A sudden chill come over me. I feared that old hag would come spooking out of nowhere. But we met a different spirit entirely, if another dark one.

  Black Jack Kehoe stepped out of the trees, with a hunting piece under his arm. He did not threaten or speak. He even tipped his cap as we rolled past. But his eyes were brazen and fixed upon mine own.

  I understood his appearance as a message. But, for the life of me, I could not see what that message meant. Oh, yes, it announced that he had fired the shot that knocked out Mr. Oliver’s window. But why identify himself with such a crime? It did not seem the way the Irish did things. They were all silence and secrets, tricks and sneaking. Why would Kehoe wish to draw my attention? It seemed to me that my interest was the last thing he should desire.

  I could not answer the riddle that day, for I had more facts than I could fit together. And facts joined wrongly make a greater lie. We did have a pleasant noontime meal in a drummer’s hotel in Minersville, where we interrupted our journey. The Dutchmen insisted on stopping, see. Though they are slow, they like their victuals regular. And truth be told, I had quite a hunger myself.

  Mr. Downs did not join us for our luncheon. Given his habits, I counted that a blessing. He watered his mules, then rallied himself in a tavern along the street.

  The hotel where we took our repast was run by a German woman, whom my Dutchmen seemed to know. Sometimes I think them more clannish than the Irish. But a proper Frau knows how to set a table, that I will tell you. Such folk are ever generous with their portions, though you will pay a fair price before you leave.

  I enjoyed a helping of pea soup, thick with chunks of ham and served all steaming. I will admit I took a second bowl. With brown bread fresh from the oven, spread with fat. When the world goes awry, a good meal never hurts.

  EIGHT

  MY WIFE DID NOT EMBRACE ME UPON MY RETURN. NOT even when we were alone in the back room of her shop, amid the piles of cloth and half-made garments, with the smell of a
mmonia rising from the pot the seamstresses used through the day. Now, my Mary Myfanwy is not one to fuss in front of others, but I did expect a squeeze behind the closed door.

  Instead she stood in a chin-up pout, as if I had said cruel things of her cooking. Which I never have done.

  “Worried I was,” she told me, proud as a princess. “And you off with the Irish in your foolishness. When they have already killed themselves a high general.”

  “Now, now,” I told my sulking beauty, “it was my duty, see. And nothing is come of it.”

  She glanced down at her waist, although our expectations were hardly evident. And my darling’s eyes come back up hot and fierce.

  “Duty? ‘Duty,’ he says! You listen to me, Abel Jones, and I will tell you what you shall hear. And do not make that face at me, for I am not a child who must be humored.” She put her hands on her hips, a sergeant dressing down a hapless guard. “ ‘Duty,’ is it? ‘Duty?’ With one child born, and another to come, God bless us!” She turned to an invisible audience, posing and declaiming. You might have thought she had Irish blood herself, although she does not. “And with an orphan taken in, no less, from the Lord knows where in the corners of Glasgow City!” She almost spit that last bit out, although her manners are those of a perfect lady. “ ‘Duty,’ the man says!”

  “Mary, dearest, I—”

  She plunged toward me as if wielding a bayonet. But a scolding finger was all the pride of her arsenal.

  “You will listen to me, Abel Jones, and I will tell you where your duty lies. I will tell you what is—”

  “Darling, the ladies in the shop, certain they are to—”

  She made a great, popping “pah” sound with her mouth. The effect upon me was startling, for Mary is, by habit, most demure. She did lower her voice a tone, though. For even in anger, my wife respects propriety.

  “Your duty is right here, Abel Jones! To your family! And I will not have any of your grand speeches.” Red in the face she was, although complected pale, as the best Welsh are. She folded her arms across her bosom and lifted her chin again. “I think the Irish are right, that is what I think. I think this war is a wicked bit of nonsense, and no good to anyone. Taking you away and—”

 

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