The Law of Dreams (11 page)

He nodded.

As they crossed stripped fields, heading back to the bog, Luke began
telling her story.

“My mother sold me to a farmer when I was small.
I was a dairy girl, only last summer the farmer decided he would emigrate. I supposed
they would take me with them, but he gave me four shillings instead and turned me on the
road.”

“What was your name when you were a girl?”

“What does it matter?” She stopped walking and glared at
him.

“I didn't mean to sting you — I only wished to know your
name.”

“Luke! Luke is my name!”

“All right. I didn't mean to cut you, Luke. I'm
sorry.”

“All right then.” She smiled at him and they resumed
walking.

“What happened after they left you on the roads?”

“Oh, I aimed for Limerick. Where they had gone. I was thinking to
get a passage to America. No notion what it cost — six shillings was as much money
as I'd ever seen. As I was going along, I met a mob of little herds down off the
Galtee Mountains. All their black cattle were being sold up, shipped to England, and the
boys were thrown out on the roads like myself, only younger. They had no place to go,
and the potatoes everywhere was coming up black so there was nothing to steal. We moved
along the roads, keeping together, a band of us, me the eldest, though I was the
girl.”

She stopped again. “I tell you, Fergus, we were frightened of
strange country, the little fellows especially, grabbing hold my hands and not letting
go. You see 'em now, how bold they are, but not then. Some of them were born up in
the booleys. They always lived wild.”

“I was on the booley.”

“Were you? Some of them were sold up very young for herds, sold to
graziers. None of 'em knew a life beyond grass and sky, rain and cattle.

“Two or three of them caught the black fever and died along the
road. We kept asking people, ‘Is this road for Limerick?' We never seemed to
get there. We walked for days and never found a town.

“I'll tell you the truth, Fergus — we were frightened of
towns, that's why we didn't find it.” She touched his arm. Her hand
was clean from the river, small and white. She had left her hair loose. She was small.
Her body was like a whittled stick. Her face was white, clear, and fine. Gray bright
eyes. Full, pale lips and good teeth.

“But finally we did come into Limerick. I was
still a girl then. I was nice enough, and there were gentlemen that fancied me, spoke to
me on the street. At first I thought it was kindness I heard, but it wasn't.

“I did well, whoring in Limerick. Oh, I did nicely there. I
wasn't any soft one — no. They liked me small and rough. I had a gentleman
kept me, in a room above a beer shop. Wanted me all to himself. Guinea a week he paid
— that's a pound and a shilling. Once, looking down out my window, I saw a
whore being mauled in the street. Pair of wolfhounds snapping her to bits and
wouldn't mind any shouting. I seen her afterward, all ripped to pieces.”

Her voice was clear. Her skin glowed.

“No, no, Fergus, a town is wicked, I suppose. In Limerick sometimes,
I was so whirled I had trouble remembering my name. I'd never known a room before,
nor slept in a real bed. In Limerick my bed was better than mistress's at the farm
— white linen, soft pillows, rugs. My fellow, my gentleman, I would see him
regular. He would give me a shilling extra if I'd let him lick my feet, and I did,
and a few other things, and he always handed it over.”

“He paid a shilling to lick your feet?”

She nodded, grinning.

“I don't believe it.”

“You haven't been in the whirl, Fergus. Men will pay for just
about anything.” She started walking away.

He started after her. “I didn't mean any insult.”

“What you can or cannot believe, Fergus, don't change a thing.
Perhaps your head's too small for the world. You can't fit much
in.”

“I'm sorry.”

They walked in silence for a while, then — “Do you want to
hear it as it was?”

“Yes. If you please.”

“My gentleman would pay, and I would buy a ribbon or two, and Indian
meal for the boys. For I had all the rations I required, and they were living in a
stable in exchange for sweeping out the stalls, and begging and ranging for their food;
and what they call in my country
snow gathering
— stealing clothes off
hedges when they're set out to dry.

“One evening my gentleman did not come, and next
day a friend of his told me he had caught fever and was dead. There was wild fever in
Limerick. Country people were pouring in, crowding the quays, selling whatever they
could, buying passages for Liverpool, for Quebec. I wasn't able to turn a living
no more, there was so many girls for the trade. Then, one morning, in the stable, I came
upon Shamie, with his little Mary Cooley, sleeping in the hayloft. He had cut loose of
his regiment. Where he picked up the Mary I still don't know. Seeing that Brown
Bess gun of his gave me the notion for shaping the boys into a band of ribbonmen,
outlaws. Rebels.

“Because my gentleman always said there was plenty of food only it
isn't in the towns, the strong farmers have it. The farmers are holding it for
themselves and selling dear. Anyone could see the carts and wagons lined up on the quays
in Limerick, stuffed with food — butter, honey, bacon — and the cattle and
sheep, everything going onto the ships, sold away to England.

“Everyone who couldn't afford a passage was dying in Limerick
that week, so I made up my mind we should all leave the town and go outlawing and find
some of that food my old fellow was talking about. I organized the boys, and found
rations for the road, and Shamie come along with his little Mary, wearing a cloak over
his uniform, with one of the boys carrying his musket.

“Shamie hates the road. He don't have the outlaw heart. He is
a coward. You can't live on boiled nettles forever.” Stopping, she turned
and looked back in the direction of the farm. “The food is there, Fergus. I know
it is. You know it. Butter. Honey. A fletch of bacon. What right have they, those
farmers? Who gave them the land? Vengeance is due, Fergus. That's why you've
come among us.”

Vengeance? Fergus looked back at the mountain. Considered from a distance,
it seemed small enough. There was the sky he had lived under all his life. It was hard
to believe that the mountain had contained his life and the lives of everyone he had
known.

“Don't you think, after all they have done, Fergus, that they
deserve to pay?”

“They won't give up anything. They'll fight.”

“The Bog Boys would rather die in a fight than in a ditch,
Fergus.”

THE BOG BOYS SPENT
the next few days searching for birds' eggs and beating through the gorse, trying to flush another hare. To Fergus's surprise, Luke did not mention raiding the farm to any of the others, and Fergus did not raise the subject, grateful to let it lie, hoping Luke would forget it. He had found a wooden handle from a turf cutter's spade and was making a lister, a fish spear, honing the tip to a sharp point and notching teeth in the shaft.

While he worked on the lister, Luke gathered charlock and other herbs.

Shamie amused himself by placing shots very near the little boys beating the gorse, who screamed with laughter as the bullets snapped by them.

“He is a fool,” Fergus said angrily to Luke.

“Don't mind him. Shamie is careful.”

“He's wasting powder.”

“Practice is good for him.”

When Johnny Grace, one of the Bog Boys, flushed a hare, Shamie killed it on the run and they carried it back to camp in triumph, Johnny Grace walking at the head of the column with the dead hare on his back.

It was quickly peeled and cut up, the meat added to the stirabout. While the kettle simmered, Luke and Fergus sat puffing their pipes.

“It's time you had the oath,” Luke said suddenly. She looked around at the others. “What do you say, men? Shall we oath Fergus in?”

“No, no — not yet,” Shamie warned. “You watch that fellow, Luke — he's not one of us. Let him put some meat in the pot before you oath him.”

“No, it's time,” Luke decided. She stood up. “Give me your hand, Fergus.”

The small boys gathered around eagerly, as if the oath had a scent that tantalized them. Licking their fingers, they stared wide-eyed from Luke to Fergus.

“Repeat after me,” Luke began. “I swear to defend the queen —”

“I swear to defend the queen —”

“— and true religion lost at Reformation.”

“— and true religion lost at Reformation.”

“I am bound to rebellion for life and death.”

“I am bound to rebellion for life and death.”

“True blood for true blood, or the devil take my soul.”

“True blood for true blood, or the devil take my soul.”

“There you are,” said Luke. She kissed Fergus on the cheek, then Shamie. The small boys began kissing one another. Mary Cooley stood next to Shamie, holding his hand while sucking her thumb.

The deserter had watched the oathing with a sour expression. Now Luke took Shamie's hand and Fergus's and pressed them together. “There we are, boys, all brothers now.”

“Another mouth to eat what's ours,” Shamie said.

“Don't be grim, Shamie.”

While the scent of meat simmered from the kettle, Luke started telling the Bog Boys about the farm. “They will have hams as big as any of you — pink, with a reel of yellow fat. They will have turnips and apples in baskets. I like an apple with my meat. Mutton for spoileen. When was the last time any of you tasted spoileen?”

“Will there be butter?” Johnny Grace asked.

“There will be, yes, plenty.” Luke knelt, placing a turf on the fire and blowing at the coals. When the flames were singing, she stood up, facing them. “There's no use being outlaws if we never engage.”

Fergus had been hoping that she had forgotten about raiding Carmichaels', but now he saw the idea was on her like an animal, with a scent and a weight.

“Yellow meal?” Johnny asked.

“Yellow meal, sure. And oatmeal. A casket of tea —”

“Potatoes?” asked a small boy whom the others called Little Priest.

“Sure there will be potatoes. And a jar or two of herring — I love a herring with my spuds.”

“Is there a plan?” Johnny Grace asked. “I should relish any action, but I'd follow you to Hell for a plan, Luke.”

“Of course there's a plan. Fergus and I have worked it over, very military.”

No. It wasn't true, there wasn't any plan, not that he knew about.

To Luke, he realized, a wish was the same as a plan.

“Will some of us be killed?” Johnny Grace demanded. “Will we hang if they catch us? Will they transport us? It's not that I mind much being killed. Only if I was to go down without tasting no spoileen nor other stuffs first, it would seem cruel.”

“Hanging is cruel!” Shamie called out angrily.

They all looked up at the deserter sitting at the top of the trench, his legs dangling. He had laid the musket flat across his knees and was rubbing browning on the barrel. Mary Cooley was beside him.

“We all know you ain't the fellow for raiding, Shamie,” Johnny Grace said, grinning at the others.

“Watch what you say!”

“We're tired of withering out here on account of your old womanhood.”

“I'm the one with a price on his head! I'm the one they served twenty lashes!”

“The rest of us are keen,” said Johnny Grace. “You've killed two coneys in sixteen days and that doesn't make you a chief. If Luke and the Fergus have a plan, then I'm for it. You can stay here eating grass.”

“Quiet now, fellows!” said Luke. “Don't be tearing each other up.”

“We want food, don't you?” Johnny Grace said. “We want potatoes, don't you?”

“Potatoes! Potatoes! Potatoes!” the Bog Boys began screaming at the deserter.

“Potatoes and spoileen,” Johnny Grace said.

“
Potatoes and spoileen! Potatoes and spoileen
!” the Bog Boys howled. Johnny Grace grabbed the Little Priest by the hand and they began to dance, whirling and leaping about the fire. Others joined the frenzy and the dance gathered momentum, boys skipping around the fire, howling, and Fergus realized they were unable to stop. Something wild and hungry had been let loose. They'd dance until they were dead, unless he stopped it.

He broke into the circle, going for Johnny Grace, seizing him and throwing him down on the ground. The dance stopped as suddenly as it had started, and Fergus held Johnny down with a foot on his chest while he writhed and screamed.

Boys were collapsing around the fire, crawling on their hands and knees, panting and coughing like ruined horses.

“Boys, boys, this ain't no way to carry on!” Luke was near tears.

Fergus lifted his foot away, and the herd boy sat up, blubbing and snorting, chest heaving, rubbing his fists in his eyes.

“Why, if it goes on like this, men, it must be hopeless!” Luke told them. “You wouldn't see such wildness in any careful army.”

“Eight herd boys? There's no army here!” Shamie cried. “If it came to exchange, they'd howl and run like Frenchmen.”

Luke looked at the deserter. Her voice was calm. “Myself, I suppose I would as soon be shot, or hung, as die famished. But them with a price on their heads, why, I shall not hold it against them if they don't care to venture.”

Shamie rubbed his musket barrel furiously.

“As for me.” Luke pulled the soldier cap off her head and dropped it on the ground. Sliding two splinters of cow bone from her black hair, she shook it loose then ran her fingers through it. “You all remember I was born a girl. I shall die a girl if it comes to that. I'd rather die than live so mean as we have. Every fellow that feels the same, step forward now and give me his kiss.”