The Law of Dreams (8 page)

Phoebe, Ohio, the mountain, a place to dream.

Stepping over the iron grillwork, he started away.

SNOW SCALPED THE HILLS
surrounding the town. Murty Larry
tried begging from a gentleman in a cloak, who ignored him, then from a couple of
drunken soldiers who laughed and threw him a button.

Fergus was stiff, shy, no good at begging — he couldn't speak
to strangers. One lady wearing spectacles shoved a tract in his hand then hurried on
while Murty Larry shouted, “Give me something I can eat, you old whore!”

Grabbing the tract from Fergus, Murty pitched it in the gutter.

“Never mind, Fergus, never mind — pleading is not the game,
not for us, it won't serve. People are too wicked here.”

“We ought to get out of this town.”

“Going where?”

He shrugged. “Back to the mountain.”

“Mountain? I ain't going for no fucking mountain, captain. No,
I am not. Starve like a crow on your old bonny mountain. Limerick, that's the
place — look here, look at this old creature.”

Peering through the gray curtain of snow falling, Fergus saw a beggar
woman sitting up ahead in the road.

“We'll get that shawl off her,” Murty Larry said.

“Her shawl?”

“Just watch me now.”

As they were walking by the old woman Murty Larry reached down, grabbed a
corner of the shawl, and tried pulling it off her.

“Thief ! Thief !” Screeching, the woman hung on.

“Let go, you old wretch, let me have it!” When Murty kicked
her in the side she let go of the shawl and Murty raced down the street, slipping and
sliding on the snow, waving it like a banner.

Fergus stared at the old woman on her hands and knees, muttering and
spitting, unable to stand up.

Feeling pity and not pity. A gauze-over-all feeling.

“Come on, come on!” Murty Larry screamed.

IN A
livery stable behind a beer shop, they warmed
themselves lying on horses' backs. “We shall go for Limerick. Find a wagon
man in Limerick. You'll learn the wheel trade, Fergus. Only we must have shoes for
the road.”

They swallowed handfuls of oats soaked in water, then Murty Larry slid off
his horse and started making slippers, tearing up the old woman's shawl, wrapping
the cloth around their feet.

Wearing the wrappings they quit the stable, Murty Larry insisting he knew
the way for Limerick. But after they had passed the beer shop twice, Fergus realized
Murty could not even lead the way out of Scariff. The cloth binding their feet was
already shredding and dissolving.

“This isn't going to work, man.”

“Limerick's the mighty town,” Murty insisted.
“Lots of roads going there.”

“I don't know why I'm following you — you
don't know the way.”

“Don't lose me, Fergus.” Murty Larry began to weep.
“I am getting awful fights in my head. Hurts so it's killing. My stomach
hurts too.”

Fever.

Start in one direction, keep going.

He started down a long street of wrecked cabins, resolved to follow it
wherever it went.

“This ain't the way for Limerick!” Murty Larry
protested. “This is the road for Hell.” He kept falling behind but Fergus
refused to slow down or turn around. In ten minutes they had reached the end of the
town. For as far as he
could see ahead the hedges along the road
were lined with men, women, and children sitting under the branches or lying in holes
and scrapes dug into the ground and covered with sticks and rags.

“Don't leave me, captain!” Murty Larry had stopped in
the road. He was swaying, clutching his belly. “This isn't the way out of
the world. I can't walk so hard, Fergus.”

A heavy dray, the type called a
land carriage
, was coming up
behind them, loaded with freight.

“It's a road,” Fergus said. “We can't stay
here or we'll be as bad off as the rest of them. We have to move along.”

“Do you know where she goes? Is it Limerick?”

“It's a road, man, we'll follow it and see.”

“This is worse . . . everything's worse . . . I want something
sweet again,” Murty moaned.

Four heavy gray horses were drawing the dray; he could hear the harness
jingling. Fergus pulled Murty out of the road and watched the big wagon rumble past,
loaded with stacks of newly built pine coffins and lids. The teamster was swaddled up
against the cold.

Murty Larry sank down on his knees and began coughing and vomiting bloody
dregs.

“Only don't leave me here, your honor,” he whispered.
“Only take me with you!”

Fergus looked at the dray disappearing down the road. “Come on
then.” Half carrying Murty, he struggled along the road after the dray.

The people under the hedges were already dying, rain was dissolving them,
they would all be finished soon.

“My head is knocking, Fergus, I can't think.”

The horses were plodding along steadily. Supporting Murty Larry, Fergus
struggled to catch up to the back of the dray, but they were losing ground.

“Put me down, captain, put me down. You're killing
me.”

Murty Larry's legs were soft and would no longer support him. Fergus
brought him to side of the road and let down gently on the frosty grass.

He stared after the dray, hearing the hubs squeaking and the harness
jingle as the horses moved away under the moon.

He looked down at Murty Larry flopping on the grass, barking, his face
dark. In a few hours the maroon fever sores would be blossoming on his chest. But he
wouldn't live that long, not in the cold.

He looked at the dray, moving away from them.

You had to stay alive; every instinct told you. Stay in your life as long
as you can. If only to see what would happen. Every breath told you to keep
breathing.

Kneeling, he rifled Murty's pockets until he found the
warden's coppers. Gripping them tight in his fist, he stood up and started running
after the dray.

After catching up, he didn't try to climb in at first, but kept a
few paces back, close enough to reach out and touch the tailboard with his
fingertips.

The teamster in the driving seat didn't know he was there. The
horses plodded on.

Light bled from the sky. Rain ceased and the sky blew clear. The road
hardened with frost. There was no other traffic. Fergus stared at his feet,
concentrating on the effort required to keep going. Finally when he knew he could walk
no farther, he dragged himself aboard and wriggled in between stacks of empty coffins.
He lay in a tight space, smelling pine pitch and glue and iron nails, and let the
horses' footsteps lull him to sleep.

WHEN HE AWOKE THE DRAY
was still moving and he had no
sense of how far they had traveled. The moon had arisen. Looking back, he could see a
patchwork of stone walls and fields falling away from either side of the road. The cold
was thorough and sour. He could hear the teamster snoring. The wheels banged and thumped
over the frozen road.

Suddenly a youthful voice called out, “Halt and stay! Halt and
stay!”

Peering out between the coffins, Fergus saw a young man walking alongside
the dray, holding up a pitchfork and addressing the teamster. “Lift your mitts, or
we shall drill you quick.”

Peering ahead, Fergus saw a soldier standing in the middle of the road,
aiming a musket at the teamster.

“Hoppers aboard, Luke!” the soldier cried, seeing Fergus and
shifting his aim.

“Don't shoot me, if you please,” the teamster begged.
“Swear before God, I haven't any money.”

Small boys were dropping over the walls, grabbing the bridles, pulling the
team to a halt.

“I'm a poor man, sir,” the teamster was saying,
“I've a dozen mouths to feed.”

“Shut your trap, we'll kill you all soon as blather.”
The soldier swung his aim back to the teamster. “Shall I shoot him now,
Luke?”

Luke, the leader, was dressed in layers of rags fused by weather. His
breeches were torn off below the knee, and a clay pipe was jabbed in his hatband.

Stepping up onto a spoke, Luke studied Fergus. “Stand up.”

He stood slowly, clenching the coppers in his fist.

Luke was small. Dark hair and a thin, white face.

Kill me. I wouldn't mind.

“What do you have there, in your hand?”

Fergus said nothing.

“What is it? Show me.”

He opened his fist, displaying the two coins.

“Here, give them over.” Luke reached out.

Instead, hating obedience, Fergus closed his fist and flung the coins hard
and high out over the frozen fields, where they fell without a sound.

The hungrier you were the stronger you hated it.

“What is it?” The soldier sounded panicked. “We'll
kill the fellow — what is it, Luke?”

Luke had turned to stare out over the fields. “Why'd you do
that?” he said softly.

“Didn't wish to give them over.”

“Tell this one he must give over his coat, Luke!” the young
soldier cried, roughly poking at the teamster, who had sunk into his greatcoat.
“Give it over, you beast, or I'll skin it off you.”

“Come along, mister,” Luke said, “you'd better
give Shamie what he wants.”

“And boots — I'll have them boots as well, you great fat
pig. I'll have them boots or skin you.”

The small boys had been boosting one another aboard the team. Suddenly a
horse bucked and snorted, jolting the dray.

“Easy there, men, easy.” Luke turned his attention back to the
teamster. “Come now, mister, you must skin yourself, or Shamie'll do it for
you.”

With a groan the teamster stood up and began unbuttoning his greatcoat. As
he handed it down, the straw that was padded inside for extra warmth fluttered down on
the road.

“Now with them boots,” the young soldier insisted.

The teamster sat down on his seat and began pulling off his boots while
the soldier pulled on the greatcoat over his red jacket and cross-straps.

“I'll freeze to death,” the teamster said, dropping the
boots on the road. “Sure you can't take everything, boys?”

“We'll have those,” said Luke, pointing at the
teamster's red stockings, “and your shirt, if you please.”

“And breeches!” said the young soldier. “And look smart
about it!”

“Boys, boys, you don't want the death of a poor man on your
conscience. I'm father to nine.”

“Give him your shirt and breeches, or he will shoot you in the
brains,” Luke said. “Shamie, pass that here.”

The young soldier had found a clay jar in the teamster's coat. He
handed it over to Luke, who plucked out the stopper with his teeth, took a swallow, and
coughed.

“How's that?” Shamie said eagerly. “Give it here,
if you please, Luke, a taste of old stormy would do me nice.”

Instead Luke offered Fergus the jar. “There you go, take a
bite.”

A horse screamed.

“Easy there, men, easy!” Luke cried. “Take your turns,
fair is fair.”

The children had nicked a vein on one of the horses —
houghing
— drawing blood, which they were licking.

The
poitin
tasted like smoke. Fergus coughed, spat, and thumped
his chest, then handed the jar back down to Luke, who passed it to Shamie.

“Are you going to shoot us?” Fergus asked Luke.

“Have anything else worth robbing?”

“I haven't.”

“Where have you come from?”

“The workhouse.”

“Shamie! Shamie!” Luke called. “This fellow is out of
the workhouse.”

Luke looked at Fergus thoughtfully. “We were told they serve out
rations — meat soup, three rounds a day. Is it true?”

“No. The soup had no meat. They have fever there.”

“Do they?” Luke sounded disappointed. “Ah well, I was
not believing there was any such place, anyhow. Meat soup — it was hard to
credit.”

“Alls I want,” Shamie said, “is meat.”

The teamster had pulled off his stockings and his linen shirt and was
dropping them on the road. Flesh swelled from his breast in two pouches as he stood
up and began unbuttoning his breeches. His belly was round and
white. Stepping out of the breeches with a sob, he dropped them on the road. Shamie
picked them up delicately on the tip of his muzzle.

“Leave him his drawers?” Shamie asked.

“Are you ribbonmen?” Fergus had heard of bands of ribbonmen,
tenants displaced, roaming the country and taking vengeance on farmers and
landlords.

“He must give them over,” Luke told Shamie, sounding weary.
“Ribbonmen? Perhaps.”

“I'll perish!” the teamster cried.

Shamie stepped up and pressed his muzzle against the teamster's
breast. “Shall I shoot you now, you pig? I could flay the bacon off you, you great
damned bastard. Get up, get up, and give us over what we want! Get up!”

The teamster peeled off his drawers and hung them on the muzzle, then sat
down on his driver's seat, hugging himself, shaking with cold.

“The hat,” said Luke quietly, “don't neglect the
hat, Shamie, it will serve you nicely.”

Jumping up on a spoke, Shamie lifted the teamster's beaver hat from
his head.

“Is he a soldier?” Fergus asked Luke.

“He was a soldier boy at one time, but no more — he's a
good clean deserter.” Luke was studying Fergus. “Where were you, before the
workhouse?”

“Ejected.”

“Your people, where are they?”

“Dead.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”