Authors: Gene Hackman

Wake of the Perdido Star (2 page)

BOOK: Wake of the Perdido Star

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Nor was the family's financial status improving. As talented an artisan as his father was, the diminishing opportunities for fine gun makers was not helped by his outbursts; it seemed life was becoming harder all the time.

A chilled breeze promised an early snow as Jack rounded the next corner. He felt resentment take hold as various signs indicated he was near home: Slocum Dry Goods, Slocum Chandlery, Slocum Livery. He picked up his pace, kicking at rocks and dirt clods in his
path. The family lived in two small rooms behind his father's workshop, which they rented from Slocum. Most craftsmen would have owned their homes and shops after working so many years, but the O'Reillys seemed never to settle more than five years in any one place. Jack tried to shake away the gloom. He broke into a trot to catch up to his father, and they arrived home almost simultaneously.

The O'Reilly family sat huddled in hard-backed chairs around a dying fire after their sparse meal of boiled potatoes and turnips which they had scarcely touched. Ethan stared intently into the weakening flames. Jack's mother, Pilar, hummed softly.

“Ethan, mi hito, there is no need to despair. Things, they will improve.” Pilar's dark features wrinkled in concern. “They show only their ignorances by keeping us from their church.”

“They haven't actually said we can't attend, Mother,” Jack offered. “But you're right, their purpose is clear.” Jack wanted to help in some way. “Father, maybe if we traveled to New Haven on a Sunday there would be a Catholic church to attend andâ”

“Jackson, don't speak of things you know nothing of.”

Jack fell silent, feeling as he often did that his father was treating him like a child.

“We must not let this trouble split our family . . . we must not.” Pilar's voice was breaking, but filled with resolve.

The group sat engulfed in thought when Ethan rose and slammed his chair on the wood floor. “Damn them!” He stopped as a light from outside refracted across the ceiling. Someone was approaching. Ethan peered out the window.

Pilar jumped to her feet. “Ethan, let Jackson answer the door. You're not of a condition to let the neighbors see.” His father nodded to his son and reached above the fireplace for his rifle; overreacting, Jack thought. A shout came from the street.

“Jack O'Reilly! Come out here!”

Jack knew the voice. It was Billy Slocum, the middle son of their landlord. The young O'Reilly threw open the door; he saw two figures in the street, their breaths forming clouds in the cool night air. Billy waved the lantern.

“Pa sent David and me down here to give you this note.” He tossed a small crumpled envelope at Jack's feet and giggled. Unamused, Jack eyed the bit of parchment.

The smaller of the two taunted, “I could tell you what was in the letter but that would spoil the fun of your big-mouthed pa's look when he reads it to you and your funny-looking ma.”

Jack thought about charging into the pair with his fists but decided it would only make things worse.

“Why didn't your father come himself, Billy? Was he too busy in the barn, diddling the sheep?” Jack stooped and retrieved the note, slowly straightening the crinkled edges. The Slocum boys continued to shout, but Jack just stood his ground, smiling at them.

Billy backpedaled down the road. “Read the note. You may be living in some other town!” David grabbed a rock from the street; his aim at Jack was on target but Jack stepped easily to one side.

“Who was that?” Ethan emerged at the end of the exchange.

“The Slocum boys.” Jack handed his father the note. Ethan snatched it and walked inside.

The elder O'Reilly stood by the dim light of the fire, reading aloud:

Mr. Ethan O'Reilly, I regret to inform you of the urgent need I have of your rental property number 38 Hamden Town Road. As you are on a month to month arrangement, by all rights I could ask you to leave by October first, but as this is only two weeks away, I shall generously grant you until the first day of November, 1805, to abandon said property. Regards, Peter Slocum.

Ethan spun to face Jack. “What in the hell have you done now? You've gotten us evicted by bullying those boys. Now their father
is taking it out on your mother and me. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Jack stood in the middle of the room, stunned. “Pa, Iâ”

“Don't you âPa' me, damn you,” Ethan stepped threateningly closer. “I want an answer.”

Pilar came between them, facing her husband. “You must look to yourself on this.” She placed her hand firmly on her husband's arm. “This is not Jackson's doing. My love, you often say âthe truth will set you free,' but you forget, most people fear the truth and crucify its prophets.” Her tone was pleading and intense. At times such as these, his mother's strength and intelligence took him off guard, as it did her husband.

Jack watched his father's anger thaw under her gaze. “I . . . I'm sorry, Jackson. I'm very sorry.”

Jack watched his father slump into a chair and cradle his head in his hands. When he finally sat up, he said, “It would appear now that we are without funds, prospects . . . without a home, again.”

Although Ethan was the finest gunsmith for miles, his skill was not appreciated, was not even in demand; instead, he found himself relegated to fabricating barn door hinges and wagon hardware, and repairing common muskets far inferior to the custom firearms for which he was known. A perfectionist, he found it increasingly difficult to compete with the influx of Eli Whitney's mass-produced weapons that satisfied military demand for shoulder arms. Ethan specialized in the Kentucky rifle, valuable only on the frontier; other smiths, from Pennsylvania, were closer to the wilderness and took most of that business.

But Jack knew his father's feeling of dejection came from more than that. He saw the land of the free and equal fast building its own class system.

“There is always the land in Cuba,” Jack's mother offered in a quiet voice. Ethan turned away, grimacing; but Pilar approached him, her voice full of hope and pride. “It is waiting for us, Ethan. It is not America, and it also has its problems, but we would be,
how is it they say? . . . gentry. I love that land . . . and Jackson would grow to love it, too; after all, it is his birthright. The count assured us in his letter many months ago that in another few years the sugarcane will grow well and provide an income. And remember that in the last Easter greeting from my childhood friend, Dolores, she told me how well the surrounding farms in Matanzas had been doing.”

Pilar then said with a determination Jack had not heard before, “Our son has learned his Spanish well. We will be accepted in Cuba. I want to see the finca again.”

It was always a mystery to Jack why his mother had been taken away from her homeland. She never talked about what happened between her parents, saying only that “God forgives all.” But she had adored her father, who never wanted her to go to England with her mother. Pilar's eyes would shine at his memory, and she would often say, “Jackson, in your grandfather, kindness met strength.” Though Jack never met him, he had become proud of this man of strength and kindness whom his mother cherished, and who had ensured that the finca would become her inheritance, even though he himself had failed as a farmer, landowner, and husband. The land was officially hers upon his death five years earlier, but it was still in no condition to provide a living for his daughter and her family. Pilar allowed her father's friend and neighbor, Count de Silva, to recultivate the barren fields for a share of the profits, but Jack knew his mother never gave up hope that one day they would manage the land themselves.

Jack thought more about the land called Cuba. His mother had told him stories of her happy childhood there, sometimes in English, more often in her native tongueâof hot days filled with endless play in the fields, running from morning until dusk with friends from the other farms.

Jack watched his father pace the floor in the small sitting room, half-listening to his mother, obviously buried deep in thought. “I
know nothing of farming, and I'm of an age where I'm too old to learn,” he finally said, although he spoke without conviction. The prospect of owning land, being for once part of the “privileged” rather than the “struggling” class, must have a powerful appeal for him, Jack thought. A proud man, Ethan had once been a young firebrand in Ireland and, with great hopes for the new American republic, had fought as a soldier in the Continental Army. But he was tired now; his disappointments and setbacks in the new land had confused him. He wanted it so badly to be what Paine and Jefferson promised, but he seemed to realize, when he was calm, that he wished for too much.

Jack watched his father intently; his faraway look of resignation eventually seemed to be replaced with what might be hope. Land. Land could mean everything to a man who had none. Ethan was a fine gunsmith, but Jack questioned for the first time that perhaps his father's spirit was too strong for his flesh. A radical change to a new land would be difficult for him, but maybe not as hard as continuing life in America.

After a long hard look around the meager room at their few possessions, a look that seemed to last an eternity, Ethan said in a voice so faint even Jack could barely hear, “All right. We'll gather our wares and travel to this so-called paradise so sweetly rich in sugar.”

Jack felt as if he had been dipped in tar. He was lethargic, unable to help his parents in any meaningful way. The farewell words to his schoolmates had seemed false. He found himself staring at the ground, pawing at the dirt; part of him resented his father for deciding to go and part of him was strangely attracted to it.

Yet here they were, three humble souls with their earthly belongings piled high on a creaking wagon, slipping thieflike into the night.

“Jackson, did you say good-bye to your friends?”

Jack, sitting on the tailgate, was silent as he watched the disappearing lamps from the town while his father drove the team along a rutted track.

“Jackson? I know you hear me.”

His mother sat resolute on the hard wagon seat.

“Your son has suddenly developed ear problems,” Ethan said.

“Please, Ethan. Leave him be,” she answered quickly. “He's feeling bad. And please don't speak of him as my son. He is our son, mi hito.”

Jack eased himself quietly off the wagon and stood staring at the few lights still visible in the distance. His father's voice ruffled the evening air. He knew he could slip into the night and return to the familiarity of Hamden, or stay and become part of something new, foreboding, and in some odd way, exciting. He stood alone on the road. A nighthawk swooped past, heading east toward the rising moon.

“Jackson, please come now.”

Without taking his eyes from the bird of prey, Jack smiled to himself and said quietly, “Yes, mother. I'm ready. I'm coming.”