Bold Sons of Erin

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)

  “Write.”

  He smirked, as men do when they are beaten but wish you to think they retain some superiority.

  He angered me, so I did a nasty thing. Quite on the spur of the moment. I began to build a great lie, which is unworthy of a Christian. It emerged, though, that the lie would continue to benefit me for years. This world of ours is not a simple place.

  “You did not ask me the name of the person Mrs. Boland is accused of murdering, Mr. Gowen.”

  He looked up at me, with the barest hint of suspicion on his brow. “General Stone, I assume.”

  “No, Mr. Gowen. That charge will come in due time, I believe. This warrant is for the murder of Kathleen Boland.”

  He was a strong, aggressive man. But he could not control the color of his face. It went from the pink of bluster to a pallor. In a slice shaved off a moment.

  “I see you have heard the name before,” I said.

  “Never in my life. Who is she? A mother? Sister?”

  “A sister. Whose choice of occupations was lamentable. She worked in a disorderly house. Where I am told many of our leading citizens traffic.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that. Listen here, I’m a respectable, married man.”

  “I made no suggestions regarding your own person, Mr. Gowen. Calm you down, now. But since you are elected our district attorney, you will have to learn all about these sorts of things.”

  “So, you want a warrant . . . written out for the murder of a whore? Instead of a general?”

  “I thought you were the one concerned with the law’s impartiality, Mr. Gowen? And with the plight of your loyal Irish voters?”

  “I think you’re making this up.” It was a foolish ploy for the fellow to try, but he wanted badly to regain the upper hand.

  I was having none of it. “You know better than that, Mr. Gowen. And it seems to me you are writing very slowly.”

  “I take it there is a body? Proof of some sort?”

  “Proof there will be in plenty,” I assured him, “and more than some will like. But there is another thing . . . about this Kathleen Boland. Strange it is that no one seems to know of her, although I am told she enjoyed a great popularity during her stay here in Pottsville. And doubly strange it is because Miss Boland kept a diary of those who consorted with her . . .”

  White as the polar snows the fellow went. I do not mean to suggest he engaged in such untoward commerce himself. I cannot say. And do not care. But he had knowledge of the sins of others.

  “ . . . and the diary happened to come into my possession.”

  “That filthy bitch!” he cried. He made to leap from his chair in his anger, but his generous breadth of hip and stomach tugged him back down, in full accordance with Mr. Newton’s law. “Dolly Walker’s going to be run out of town over—”

  “Ah, now that is interesting!” I observed. “You did not know of Kathleen Boland’s existence, and yet you know of her association with Mrs. Walker . . .”

  “You little bastard.” Wasn’t there raw hatred in his eyes? He was not a man who liked to be bested. And he would have his revenge, though it took him years. Even then, twas me who found him at the scene of his suicide later on, and not the other way round.

  Now, you will say: “That was a shabby trick, to lie about a dead girl and her doings, to say she kept a record when she did not. And bringing suspicion on Dolly Walker, too, of whom you have already shown a great jealousy.” But I will tell you: The legend of that diary book gave Mrs. Walker safety and credit of which she would never have dreamed. More than all her newfound wealth could have bought her. I will admit I had acted on selfish motives, without due circumspection. But it proved a stroke of fortune. We both were feared by powerful men thereafter, Mrs. Walker and myself, and had our way in little things and big. You will forgive me a supposition, but perhaps there is a form of natural justice: Those men would regret their sins of the flesh all their lives.

  Although there never was a diary kept, I persuaded Mrs. Walker to trust me in the matter, when I met with her to report Kathleen Boland’s fate. Dolly Walker thought me sly and canny, for she saw the matter more clearly than I did myself. “Serves the buggers right,” she said, “for caring nothing for our Kathleen, after the way they all used ’er.” In the years to come, I always knew if a gentleman from Mahantango Street or another fine address had visited Kathleen Boland by the way he showed me deference and took almost laughable care not to offend me.

  “What’s your price?” Mr. Gowen asked me.

  “For what?” I asked innocently. “Do you want to buy Mr. Evans’s collieries, too? It seems that every—”

  “Don’t you play the little Welsh fool with me. Don’t you dare!”

  “And what is it that you plan to do, Mr. Gowen? If I play the ‘little Welsh fool’?”

  “Just tell me your price for the diary. I’m certain there will be interested parties.” He attempted a smile. “Listen, Jones . . . for God’s sake . . . you’ve been catapulted into the ranks of wealth and station in this town. You wouldn’t risk destroying some of the leading men of Pottsville, would you? What would be the point of it? The leading citizens of your own home town?”

  “Then you know for a fact that some of those leading men appear inside the diary book?” I asked him.

  Oh, he was fair raging. When he grew angry, Mr. Gowen’s powers of reason failed him. It was a worthwhile lesson to me. But other men would hang because of his temper. John Kehoe among them. That was long after the events of which I speak, of course.

  “Just tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to calm yourself, Mr. Gowen, and to write out the warrant I have asked for.”

  “What do you want for the diary? Let’s not waste any more time.”

  “The diary,” I assured him, “is not for sale. I suspect the book may never see the light of day. It may be as if its pages never existed. After all, it would not be my decision alone, would it? To reveal its contents?”

  “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

  “The diary is safely on its way to Washington. Where other eyes will review its contents. Discreetly. I know they will take pains to keep it safe. Unless they should find an urgent need in some unfortunate circumstance . . .”

  “That’s blackmail!”

  “No, Mr. Gowen. It is only blackmail if I ask you for something. And I ask for nothing. Excepting the warrant, which don’t figure. Would you like to write it now?”

  I INTENDED TO RETURN TO HECKSCHERSVILLE before we lost the daylight. I had instructed Mr. Downs to change out his mules, rest a bit, and meet me at my door at eleven o’clock. I was stabbed and weary and dirty as a Hindoo, but I had endured many a march without sleep or food or even a draught of water. I thought I might have just a scrub and a shave, then go back to my duties. I did not plan to visit my own, dear darling at her dressmaking establishment, for I had no time to spare even for her, though I meant to leave her a note. Oh, I was ready to solve all the crimes in the world, emboldened by my triumph over Gowen.

  I had not reckoned with the failings of age. At thirty-four, I was not the robust young fusilier I once had been.

  I took me home and splashed myself up from a bucket in the yard. Twas bracing in the cold, and I thought it would keep me going. I only went up to our bedroom to shave in the warm and say my morning prayers.

  I merely lay down on the bed for a single moment, never intending to sleep. In my Indian days, a five-minute rest was as good to me as a night of heavy slumber.

  When I awoke, heavy as guilt itself, the light had shifted to leave the room in shadow. Twas almost evening, rushing toward night.

  I leapt from the bed. And I heard a familiar voice. A voice that had not yet been heard within my home.

  I snapped up my braces and went for the stairs. But I found myself pausing to listen, although each moment was lost to my endeavors.

  Twas Jimmy Molloy. He was sitting down in my parlor, telling stories. His audience
at that time of day had to be young John and Fanny, for my Mary would still be working in her shop. I did not have to see or go downstairs. I knew each gesture Jimmy Molloy would employ. For he was born to tell his stories, as the Irish tend to be. In India, the garrison children loved him, though the officers’ wives viewed his lowliness with disdain. He would even tell his stories to the native brats. They understood not a word, but he made them laugh with glee before he finished.

  Now he was telling John and Fanny a tale from our shared past, from one of those two times he saved my life. He imitated the colonel’s voice remarkably, then got the worried tones of our captain, too. Then he mimicked me. Exaggerating, of course. I do not believe I ever sounded that full of myself.

  Yet, for all his talk of swords and severed heads and forlorn hopes, there was a goodness in his telling, a kindness that nearly brought a tear to my eye. For in his story, he was not the rescuer. I was. I carried him to safety, though the truth was that Molloy had carried me. He made me out a hero to those children. And what man would not delight in a child’s adulation?

  I heard enough, then took me down the stairs.

  “Well, now, Jimmy, that is not how I remember the business,” I began. But I was forced to pause against the banister. For the children both looked up at me, John without his usual dread—although he could not have understood the story—and Fanny with more than her customary affection. “I recall that you were the hero of that day,” I resumed.

  “Me?” he exclaimed, with all his Irish drama. “Now, when was I ever a hero, Sergeant Jones . . . I mean, Abel? If it weren’t for ye and your valiant carryings-on, I would have been skewered by Billy Afridi and eaten up for his breakfast!” He turned to the children again, for one last moment. “Ah, but it’s terrible, dreadful tales I could tell ye both, of the great meandering heroics of himself, no less than your father. Do ye know, the fellow was six inches taller then?”

  “He’s not really my father,” Fanny whispered. Mary had saddened her heart more than a bit.

  “Well, that’s not what his nibs has been after telling me,” Jimmy said to her. “When your da there come back with ye under his wing, all adopted and grafted onto his family tree, he says to me thereafter, he does, ‘Jimmy, I plucked up the fairest flower in Scotland, and in merry, old England besides. And do ye know, she’s agreed to be me very own daughter forever, for that one’s a merciful lass with a golden heart . . .’ ”

  He made Fanny cry. She rose and fair leapt up the stairs to meet me. From two stairs down, she clutched me about the waist and could not bring herself to speak a word.

  “There, there, Fan,” I told her, petting that lovely thickness of hair she had, “he has only told you what is true, and I am the lucky one, see. My Mary and me, we are the lucky ones . . .”

  Then I remembered myself. “Good Lord, Jimmy. You should have awakened me . . . somebody should . . . I called for a wagon . . .”

  “Oh, he’s out there picking winners, for all the world to see, and he’s waiting most obedient all the day. Are ye off to fetching up murderers, then? Can I come?”

  “And how would you know what I—”

  “Well, there’s a warrant lying here for all the world to read at their pleasure, an’t there?”

  “That is a government document, Jimmy, and—”

  “Oh, leave off, would ye? I’m here to tell you I’ve found your Danny Boland, and the least ye could do was to let me ride along with ye on your campaigning.”

  “Jimmy, you are ever a welcome sight to see. But this matter has to do with your Irish brethren. They might mark you as a traitor, seeing you by me.”

  “Oh, if that’s all what’s nagging after ye, I’ve a fearful confession to make. I’ve had it up to me ears with being Irish. I’m think o’ declaring meself a Turk. Or maybe a Spaniard. Or, God forbid, a Welshman. For there’s a limit to how many crosses a man can bear in the name of Erin.”

  Fanny had loosened her hold a bit, alarmed by our conversation. Happily, John was oblivious.

  “Now, Fan,” I said to her, “I must go about my business for one more night. You are to tell Mrs. Jones that I am safe. And there is no need to mention the bandage about my hand, which is no matter. Tell her I am safe and that I love her, and that I will be back in the morning. And that everything is fine.”

  She tugged me down to whisper in my ear. Her tears had slowed, but had not stopped entirely.

  “I was afeared,” she told me. “I heard ye’d gone rich and thought I’d be a low baggage to ye. I did na know—”

  “And who would sing to me of an evening, then? You’re no more a baggage than the Queen of England. Now gather up John, for I think he wishes a feeding.”

  She did as she had been told—she always did—and disappeared into the kitchen. In a moment, I heard her filling the stove with coal, while John complained of the world.

  “I’ll get my coat,” I told Jimmy.

  “Ye’ll let me come with ye, then?”

  I am afraid I smiled at him indulgently. Although I really had meant to be severe.

  “I cannot imagine a better friend beside me,” I told him.

  SEVENTEEN

  CLOAKED AGAINST THE COLD, WE SAT IN THE BACK OF the wagon and put our heads together. For I had things to share with Jimmy about our destination that would not do for the ears of Mr. Downs. Perched on his bench and deprived of our whispered secrets, the teamster urged his mules along and complained.

  “Man can risk his life, and he’s still treated like dirt, like he can’t be trusted no ways,” our driver told the stars above our heads. “Just treat him like he’s dirt and he can’t be trusted.” He repeated those phrases over and over, like one of those Catholic women saying her beads.

  I believe he steered the wagon into ruts and holes on purpose. My spine might as well have been riding a heathen oxcart.

  “Jaysus, Mary and Joseph,” Jimmy said to me, “ye mean to tell me he’s got a girl’s corpse in his bed, when for all his sins he mought as well have him a live one?”

  I waved my bandage to warn him to lower his voice. “I believe he loved her, Jimmy. Beyond reason.”

  “Oh, there’s reason enough to keep an eye on priests, I can tell ye that, for when I was an innocent altar boy in Dublin, a great, hairy—”

  “Now tell me about Daniel Boland,” I insisted. For painfully slow though our journey might be, the miles were slipping behind us. Minersville lay to the back of us now, with but a cold hour to go.

  “Oh, he’s hale and hearty, that one, Private Boland. They’ve signed him up for the Irish Brigade, all right. The 69th New York, and they’re a rum lot, if ever I saw one coming. Firemen and such, and not a man to be trusted from amongst them. Though they must put a fright in the Rebels, for they put a great fear into me. Oh, Abel,” he lamented, “there’s days I come round to believing that me fellow Irishmen should not be trusted with firearms or liquor. At least not with both at once. If ye’d seen the wicked disorder of their camp . . .”

  “So Boland has found refuge with General Meagher? One Irish revolutionary protecting a fellow Irish revolutionary’s son? There is sense in the thing.”

  “Well, I’m not sure how much protecting there is to the business,” Molloy said, “for there is a war going on, ye know, and they’ve jined him up to fight. And there’s no soldier anywhere, not on this earth, who has a greater talent for dying in droves and packs than an Irish volunteer.”

  “You were an excellent soldier, Jimmy. When you were sober, of course.”

  He gave me a poke. “And sometimes when I was not, if I could squeeze an honest word out of ye.”

  “You were a fine soldier, and I have known many fine Irish soldiers, although I must condemn their—”

  “Well, an’t that the sorrow o’ the doings? Don’t we make lovely soldiers, though? And handsome corpses, too. But I had proper leadership back when I wore the scarlet . . . proper leadership, starting with yourself. But that Irish Brigade is just what it says, I
rish from top to bottom. And I’ll tell ye the truth, ye would not like its bottom.”

  “I saw them at Antietam,” I told him. “They showed splendidly, you know. With Meagher of the Sword leading—”

  “‘Meagher of the Bottle’ would be more like it,” Jimmy told me. “For he’s fond o’ the broth, that one, and a terrible friend to shenanigans. For all his fine manners and speechifying, he’s more the wild chieftain than a general. If the Rebels don’t kill him, he’ll come to a sorry end.”

  The coal-haunted valley we traveled gathered the chill and kept it. We passed broken lines of shanties where bodies crowded for warmth. An empire of coughs those patches were, all coal dust and consumption. Webs of smoke rose moonward, as if to choke the stars. Twas a hard life in those days, and I will tell you: When suddenly you have come into a colliery and mine operation of your own, the bothered lungs and discouraged eyes become a part of your business. Perhaps I would not be a success as a man of property and capital, for now that I had been lifted up I felt a new pity for those who would stay below.

  I had become responsible for them, see. Nor do I mean to speak in Christian platitudes, with which we comfort ourselves while doing nothing. I could not see them through their walls, but those ill-fed families were real to me as they never had been before. I knew the mines well enough to know that men would lose lives or limbs to make me richer. Twas almost as if I could see their faces before me, the men who would live on legless and useless, begging a bit of tobacco from sons put to work too young to swing a pick. Our America is the land of opportunity, and there is true. But opportunity is fickle, and unfair.

  The wagon creaked, as if its joints had rheumatism. Jimmy wiped his nose on a rag from his pocket. My Colt prodded my hip beneath my greatcoat. And I thought, inevitably, of the Irish, unable to sort their hatred from their fears.

  “The Irish follow Meagher, wherever he leads,” I observed, returning to our discussion in a voice slowed by the cold. “Our Union is lucky to have him.”

  Twas odd to find myself defending Irish honor against an Irishman.