The Last Horseman (9 page)

There was no time to control the horse, no chance of measuring its stride to take the wall at the right distance. Everything depended on the horse. Without conscious thought he realized his body had found the perfect position for the forward momentum; and then the pounding hooves were quiet. No more grunting exertion, just a long, soaring silence broken only by his gasp of exhilaration and the rush of air against his face.

And then the bone-jarring thud as hooves hit the ground. The horse stumbled; Edward nearly fell sideways from the saddle, but his bound wrist gave him purchase on the coarse mane and he steadied himself. He had beaten Belmont across the other side. Three other riders laboured behind them. One fell at the wall. Two others cleared the gate. But the race was down to these two horses.

A straight half-mile lay ahead, then a long curving quarter-mile bend below the hills, and then only another half-mile to the tape. Belmont had unexpectedly made up ground by cutting across a corner, ignoring the track, and when he rejoined it he was ahead. The cavalryman sat less hunched than Edward, his torso easily moving with the horse. The half-mile was soon taken and Edward realized before they reached the curve of the hills that he had gained on Belmont, who seemed to have slowed. Had the man’s arrogance let him think his nearest rival couldn’t challenge him any longer?

Edward’s horse grunted, its nostrils flared with blood. Sweat glistened on its shoulder and chest, but its snorting breath was even and steady. They were closer. Belmont glanced back; Edward looked beyond him to the turn. He needed to be on the inside line. As he steered the horse Belmont nudged his horse the same way. He had read the ground and was taking control of the race. Edward had no choice: he couldn’t veer back. Urging the horse on he drew closer to Belmont, and was then level. An outstretched arm’s distance between them. Belmont smiled. Then shouted: ‘You did well, boy! Good sport. I had good sport!’

Before Edward grasped the meaning of the words Belmont lashed out with his whip, catching Edward across the neck and shoulder. His undershirt took the sting from the blow, but his neck felt as though it had been ripped with a sawtoothed blade. Belmont came closer, forcing Edward on to steeper, more uneven ground. The constant lash of his whip meant the boy had to raise his free arm from the reins to protect his face.

It was then that Belmont blinded Edward’s horse.

The horse whinnied in agony, the pain sending it surging out of control. It barrelled into undergrowth and trees, the low branches sweeping its rider out of the saddle. A fleeting moment of realization allowed Edward to unfurl his hand from the mane, and then he thumped into the earth as the horse tumbled over stone-laden ground.

The last thing he heard before the fall knocked the wind from his lungs and sent him into a dark sea was the sharp crack of his horse’s leg breaking.

*

Elsewhere, another boy fell. An instant of pain shot through his mind like a searing fire. The pool of blackness that swept away his soul closed rapidly and whatever breath there had been was gone long before the statutory hour of leaving his hooded body at the end of the creaking rope in the hang house.

The prison guards pushed the black-painted wooden steps up to the body and eased it down on to the waiting trolley. The prison doctor examined the corpse, removed the hood, and declared Daniel Fitzpatrick O’Hagan to be dead.

The clerk of the court who had beaten on Radcliffe’s door and raced out to the windswept countryside waited in the corridor outside the prison governor’s office. He heard the dull murmur of indistinct words from within the office.

Inside the room the governor handed a distraught Radcliffe the official document of execution.

‘The Home Secretary signed the order early this morning. Your appeal for clemency was dismissed. It was felt by Her Majesty’s Government that the Fenian attack on the barracks needed a forthright response. O’Hagan’s execution was carried out with immediate effect.’ The governor laid his fingertips on the desk blotter, and then brought them together, as if about to pray. ‘Had it not been for the attack... I believe your efforts on his behalf would have been rewarded.’

Radcliffe placed the document on the desk and turned away.

Pierce had waited as the riders crossed the line. When Belmont cantered effortlessly across the tape he saw that streaks of blood mingled with the mud on his splattered clothes. Welts were visible where his shirt fell back from his neck and chest. There was no doubt it had been a brutal race. He waited anxiously for any sign of Edward. When last seen he had been leading the race before the farmyard turn. As the stragglers rode in on exhausted horses Pierce’s anxiety increased.

He made his way among the latecomers asking for news of the boy. Most rode past him. A black man’s interest easily ignored. One rider was walking his horse in, and Pierce made the same appeal. The man pointed back along the valley. ‘There’s a horse down,’ he said.

Pierce began to run and then waved down a trap carrying two race officials heading in the same direction. One of the men recognized him and helped him clamber aboard the rig. Within ten minutes they were at the place where Edward’s horse had fallen. The boy was scratched, bruised and cut. His face was peppered with mud; tears had etched channels across his cheeks. He was trying to comfort the injured horse. Pierce called his name, unable to keep the concern from his voice. When Edward turned, his deep distress was apparent and made Pierce groan with compassion. The boy looked beyond Pierce for any sign of his father. Others had gathered around the stricken horse, each voicing their own opinion on what to do next. Despite his desire to reach out and hold the boy to him, he did not for fear of humiliating him further.

One of the race officials laid a pistol against the horse’s head.

The boy walked past Pierce without another glance; he flinched at the gunshot, but did not look back.

Edward allowed their new housekeeper, Mrs Lachlan, to dress the cuts on his arms and neck. The raised welt across his neck would discolour and then fade. The bruising would take its own time, and the stiffness in his muscles from the fall would pass quickly thanks to his youth and fitness. But the sullen ache that buried itself within him would take longer to heal. Radcliffe and Pierce had tried to choose their words carefully when Radcliffe returned home, but little was said for Edward refused to stay in the room long enough for a conversation to begin. Mrs Lachlan had admonished Radcliffe for allowing the boy to ride.

Radcliffe had explained to Pierce what had happened at the prison. Neither expressed their feelings other than to condemn the execution of a boy the same age as Edward. Later, when Pierce came downstairs, he told Radcliffe that Edward was in his room packing his suitcase. School vacation still had two weeks to run. Radcliffe acknowledged that the divide between father and son was widening, and his sense of helplessness accompanied him when he went up to Edward’s room. The boy was calm, almost matter-of-fact.

‘I thought I’d go back to school early... The dorm’s open... there’ll be other boys there. I’m sorry about your horse, Father. Captain Belmont blinded him.’ The boy folded the last of his clothes, his back still to his father. Radcliffe reached out and touched his shoulder, turning him.

‘Belmont is a war soldier. That’s what he lives for.’

Edward’s face couldn’t disguise his anguish. ‘I couldn’t do anything,’ he said quietly, head bowed.

The boy was almost as tall as Radcliffe himself. There was still some way to go before he had his father’s layered muscle from the years he had spent on horseback, but he was nearly a grown man and too big to embrace. More than anything else, at that moment, Radcliffe wanted to pull the boy to him.

‘I don’t care about the horse. I wasn’t there for you and for that I’m truly sorry.’

Edward met his father’s gaze. ‘I didn’t win anyway.’

‘That wasn’t the point.’

‘It was to me,’ said Edward, an edge to his voice.

‘You think I missed the race through choice? They hanged a boy not much older than you.’

Edward moved further away from his father. ‘He was a murderer.’

‘They hanged a boy!’

‘A killer!’ Edward shouted, his face flushed with anger. ‘I’m your son. Where do I fit in? Where?’

Radcliffe strode across the room and stopped Edward from packing. ‘For God’s sake! What am I supposed to do?’

Edward snatched his arm away from his father’s restraining hand. ‘Be my father!’

‘I have tried to be that and more. You can ask anything of me. Anything, and I’ll give it.’

‘I’ve already asked. I want to be as good as you and do things without having to beg for it.’

‘I want you to be better than me! And I want to protect you.’

Edward sensed his father’s vulnerability; and as in any father and son conflict the young knew how to cause the other pain.

‘Like you protected my brother? Protected him so well my mother died of grief!’

As if struck by a vicious blow Radcliffe recoiled. ‘Don’t... Edward... please.’

But his son had him on the defensive, his insistent words beating his father into a corner.

‘You let him do anything he wanted. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that why he died?’

Radcliffe tried to soothe the boy’s inflamed accusation. ‘I was in the water with him. I couldn’t save him. You think I don’t carry that every day of my life?’

‘I was a small boy. I barely remember him. I don’t want his death pulling my life down. I need to take my own risks. You were right, Father: they were hard men and I wasn’t tough enough for the race. Just as well you were not there after all,’ he said, his anger slipping into self-pity.

‘Don’t whine!’ Radcliffe ordered him. Better for the boy to be angry than feeble.

‘I thought I could do it!’ Edward shouted back, stung by his father’s seeming lack of understanding.

‘Grow up! Ben was right: I’ve treated you like a child for too long.’

‘Why? I didn’t ask you to.’

Radcliffe took a step towards him. The boy backed off, suddenly scared of his father’s physical presence. Radcliffe held himself in check.

‘Because I was scared for you! Scared I had let your mother down, scared I’d give you a free rein and lose you! Those horsemen were better, tougher, meaner. That’s life, and it’s unpleasant and it’s hard and there are moments when you think you can’t take the pain any more but you do. You learn from it and you grow up!’

There were too many feelings still buried too deeply. They fell silent, and then Edward pushed past his father.

Pierce heard the heavy footfalls on the stairs. Radcliffe called his son’s name but the front door slammed. Pierce looked through the sash window to the street where Edward climbed into a cab. The house had fallen silent except for the sibilant hiss of the gas lamps. The grey day was already darkening into winter’s night. Pierce took a pinch of tobacco from its pouch and with a slow, considered process he packed the pipe’s bowl, then he laid a taper’s flame across its crown. By the time he exhaled the first plume of blue smoke, the cab was turning the corner, out of sight. Edward was gone.

The New Year had begun badly with the burden of sorrow and misunderstanding, and the pain of a loved one running in anger without saying goodbye.

*

Within days of the race Colonel Baxter led his troops out of the barracks and down to the Kingstown quayside for their three-week voyage to Cape Town and the war that was claiming many young men. The staccato drums tapped out the rhythm of a battalion on the move. Formations of stamping infantry and their mounted officers were followed by Belmont and the dragoons. Locals lined the route, cheering and waving, bidding the garrison farewell, some wishing them good riddance. This was no colourful parade. The traditional bright uniforms of bygone wars had been replaced with khaki for both officers and men. Belmont and the dragoons wore slouch hats, their chests crossed with bandoliers, their carbines tucked into a saddle sleeve. As Pierce watched the men who had given him a beating an image came into his mind of other soldiers in another war, one in which he and Radcliffe had fought. A war where they hadn’t looked too different from Belmont’s men. Horse soldiers spoiling for a fight. Damned if he didn’t feel that pull of youthful adventure. His feelings subsided when he remembered the hardship of it all, and his knees reminded him of how stiff his joints had become on this interminably wet island.

‘You were born in a barn, were you, Mr Pierce?’ said Mrs Lachlan from the open doorway, looking down at Pierce who stood on the front steps.

He turned to the stern-faced housekeeper. ‘The British are taking a shellacking in South Africa and they can’t see why and we have friends going over there who deserve better. Goddammit, it doesn’t take a genius to see that they’re up against a robust enemy on sure-footed ponies who know the ground,’ Pierce said to her. ‘They need to fight a different kind of war.’

‘And if I had the foggiest idea what it was you was talking about I’d be able to give you an answer, not that I’m sure it was a question in the first place, mind. I’d like to close the front door and try and keep some heat in this draught-ridden place. Will you be taking your tea in the front parlour, or should I just chuck it down the sink and not bother myself to try and look after you and Mr Radcliffe?’

Pierce turned his back on the passing troops and yielded to the no-nonsense woman. ‘Mrs Lachlan, they need you out in South Africa, they surely do.’

‘I don’t know about that, I’ve enough on my plate in this place without goin’ off to win some Englishman’s war for him. That’s all you men think about. Killin’ one another!’

‘The parlour would be fine, thank you,’ Pierce told her as she ushered him inside the house.

‘Right. Then wipe your boots, and I’ve told you before, you may be an American gentleman of colour, not that I hold that against ya, God made us in all shapes and sizes and you can’t be blamed for being dabbed with the tar brush, but I’ll not have rough language that touches on blasphemy while I’m working here. I’ve mentioned it once and I don’t wish to mention it again.’