The Mountains Wild

by Sarah Stewart Taylor

  “And Long Island, probably.”

  “And Long Island.”

  “So what happened? We wouldn’t sell you any guns?”

  “No, you wouldn’t. Though you made up for it later.”

  “Northern Ireland?”

  He studied me for a minute. “You and Erin, you grew up around the bar, right?” I nodded. “Did your uncle have a bucket hanging on the wall? For the widows and orphans in the north?”

  I hadn’t thought about it in years, but suddenly I remembered it. It had disappeared at some point, but when I was little, it had been there. “Yeah. He did. Was that the IRA?”

  “In the late sixties, when the civil rights protests started in Northern Ireland, things got really violent. Once internment of IRA members started, people started raising money for the internees’ families and for the widows and orphans of hunger strikers. NORAID’s the big one most people know. But loyalist groups and the British government have always claimed that NORAID was actually fund-raising for the Provisional IRA.”

  “Were they?”

  “There was certainly some mission creep there. You have to remember that the Troubles started with the civil rights protests and the slaughter of protestors on Bloody Sunday. From there, different groups sort of used the struggle for their own purposes.”

  “That bucket. I never thought anything of it. But he took it down in the eighties when I was in high school.”

  “Yeah, the Provisional IRA leaders would go over and talk to the NORAID guys in New York. They’d do the rounds and rally the troops and raise some money. By the eighties, Reagan and Thatcher had such a romance going that the general American attitude toward Northern Ireland shifted. But there are bars in the Bronx and Boston that still pass the bucket.”

  “But Erin?” I was trying to think now, trying to remember. “She never said anything to you about being involved with anything like that?”

  “No,” he said. But there was something. His brown eyes narrowed and flashed. “I just thought of something, though. Not about that, but only…”

  “Only what?”

  He met my eyes. “She asked me once about mass rocks.”

  “What’s that?” My pint was gone. His was too.

  “During penal times, when the practice of Catholicism was prohibited by law, people would hold mass outdoors. There were rocks that were set up as altars. Sometimes caves were used. You can still find them sometimes, outside of Dublin, like.”

  “Did she want to go see one or something? Why was she asking you about it?”

  “I don’t know. She said she’d heard about them and did I know where any were? But it felt like she was just making conversation, not like she really wanted to see one, if you know what I mean. That’s funny. I just thought of it.”

  I didn’t know what to say. The pub was starting to clear out.

  “It’ll be last call soon,” Conor said. “I should get going. I have an early lecture.”

  “Oh yeah, of course.” We got our jackets on, spilled out onto the bright, wet street. It was barely raining. The air was so heavy I felt as though I could hold it in my hands.

  18

  1993

  We walked in silence for a little bit and then he said, “So, have they found anything? About Erin, I mean?” He was trying to sound casual, but his voice wavered, and he made a point of looking at the window of a shop we were passing. “Where do you think she is?”

  “I just don’t know. Erin and I used to be close when we were kids. But not anymore, really. I love her but I don’t know her anymore, if that makes sense. She’s done some crazy stuff the last couple years. She got a DUI, she dated this guy who was literally a criminal. She used to—I don’t know what she’d do.”

  He sighed and picked up his pace. “Where are you staying?”

  “Erin’s.”

  “Ah, I’m not far then. Do you go Pearse Street or by the quays?”

  “Pearse Street, I guess.”

  “I’ll see you home. Let’s go by the quays. All right with you?” He seemed happier now, more relaxed.

  I nodded. The air was moist with just a faint hint of the smoky smell. We wound around by D’Olier Street and then along the quays, the Liffey to our left, flowing to the sea.

  “What’s that smell?” I asked him.

  “Hmmm? Oh, the smoky sort of smell?”

  “I love it.”

  He looked down at me. “So do I. I think it’s peat fires somewhere.”

  “They let people burn peat in the city?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it’s fires out in the country, or…”

  “You don’t actually have any idea, do you?” I looked up at him. “You’re just making that up.”

  “Well, it must be peat, right? It smells like peat.” He stopped and put his hands out. “All right, all right. You’re right. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s Dublin to me, you know? When I first came, for college, I had a flat in Rathmines and when I opened the window I smelled it and it made me think of home.”

  “Aw. What a nice story.”

  “Feck off, you.” He gave me a little shove.

  The lights blurred a little. I bumped against his arm, hoping he’d take my hand, but he kept his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

  We were almost to the canal. There was a pub right on the river, a glossy red pub that said “O’Brien’s” on one side of the door and “The Ferryman” on the other. It was after last call, but people were still going in and coming out.

  “That’s a dockworker’s pub,” Conor tells me. “It’s good craic in there. You should walk over some time.”

  “Who’s the Ferryman?”

  “The . . Oh, there used to be ferries that ran on the Liffey. For the workers. They stopped running in the eighties. Have you not heard that song, ‘The Ferryman’? It goes like, ‘The little boats are gone on the breast of Anna Liffey, the ferryman is stranded on the quay, da, da, da. I love you today and I’ll love you tomorrow, something, something. Sure the Dublin docks is dying…’ Oh, Jaysus, I have a terrible voice, I know I do. I can’t remember any more.”

  I was laughing, hard now. “You really do have a terrible voice, you know.”

  “Well, what about you?” On the next block, we took a right and walked along the canal. I could see the Bolands Flour Mills sign up ahead, just past the canal bridge. We were almost to Erin’s flat.

  “I can sing a little.” I felt a small flush of triumph. I had a nice voice. Better than nice. I got it from my mother. She taught me a lot of Irish songs and I used to sing in college sometimes, when I’d had a few drinks, at a little Irish pub in South Bend.

  “So, give us a song, Maggie D’arcy.” He was still laughing. He thought it was going to be funny.

  Instead I stopped and closed my eyes. I wanted to impress him. I was hopelessly attracted to Conor Kearney and I wanted to impress him.

  At least I was honest with myself about this.

  It was a classic one my mom loved, that I finally learned phonetically once I had a little Irish.

  Trasna na dtonnta, dul siar,

  Slán leis an uaigneas is slán leis an gcian

  Geal é mo chroi, agus geal í an ghrian

  Geal a bheith ag filleadh go hÉrinn.

  I did the first chorus again and I ended on hÉrinn and something about the song, about saying her name, made tears come into my eyes and I turned away.

  But he took me by the shoulders and turned me back and looked down at me. “I learned that in primary school. That was fucking brilliant. You’ve a lovely voice. Do you speak Irish? You never said.”

  “Níl ach beagán. Agus tú féin?” Not but a little. And you yourself? Then I laughed and said, “You’d better answer in English. That’s about it.”

  He laughed too. “Not bad. Yeah, at school, you know. And we spoke Irish at home a bit. My mam was quite militant about us learning.”

  We were crossing over the canal.

  “How many
siblings do you have?” I asked. It suddenly seemed important to know.

  “Just five of us. That’d be a small family, in most people’s books, but my mam always had modern ideas about things. She’s a poet and she had grand ideas of fame and fortune. Of course, she was married to a sheep farmer in County Clare so the chances of that were pretty long, but they have a good life.” He hesitated, then said, “I’ve got three sisters and a brother—I’m the little one—and the sisters are all abroad, but doing well for themselves. One of them is a barrister in London, the other one is an art teacher in Denmark, married to a Danish guy, and my other sister’s in America—she’s a graphic designer in California.”

  “What about the brother?”

  “He’s a story for another day.”

  “Don’t your parents miss your sisters?”

  “Oh yeah, ’course they do, but it’s kind of what you do. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “Nope. Both Erin and I are only children, which is why we were so close. As kids, anyway.”

  He touched my arm and steered me around a pile of something dark on the sidewalk. I leaned into him. He didn’t lean away. Suddenly we were holding hands, rounding the Irishtown shops and starting down Ringsend Road. We’d be back to the house soon. I was still half drunk. The air was full of the smoky smell and the glow of the streetlights.

  “Do you miss it, where you grew up?” I asked him. He rubbed my hand with his thumb. “Dublin must be really different.”

  “Yeah, I miss it a lot,” he said. “But I don’t think I ever really thought I could stay there. When I think about going home for Christmas, the craic, my mam’s brown bread and roast and potatoes and going out in the morning to help my da with the sheep, watching telly with my sisters. I don’t know. I guess it’s family, though it’s the place, too. There’s this little hill just out the back of the farm and I used to go out there to think when I was a kid. Whenever I’m home, I always go out there to watch the sunset. That’s what I miss. Ah, I’m sad, amn’t I? Do you feel like that about your place?”

  “Yeah, well, the beach mostly. I grew up looking out at the harbor. The sunsets. The smell of it. The sound of the seagulls. Boats always moving on the water.”

  In the distance, a gull called, and we both laughed.

  “You sure you don’t want to devote your life to studying seagulls in Irish literature? There’s a lot of textual evidence.”

  “So much better than chickens,” I said.

  After a minute of silence, I asked him, “Did Erin ever tell you her mother was Irish?”

  “Yeah, I think maybe she mentioned it.”

  “Did she ever tell you she was looking for her?”

  “I don’t think so. Is that why she came over here?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I don’t really know why she came over here.”

  We were at the flat. We stopped and he looked down at me, then glanced away. His eyes were liquid light on the dark street.

  “Thanks for walking me home.”

  “Well, I should let you get inside,” he said. “And I have a lot of studying to do tomorrow. You know, chickens.”

  “I’ll see you?” I said, laughing.

  “Yeah. Stop by and have lunch. Or stop by and don’t have lunch. Our food’s not very good.”

  “Okay. I will. Thanks, Conor.”

  “No worries.” He hesitated again. I thought he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t. He just turned, stopped, turned again, and then he was off walking down the street, his shoulders hunched down in his leather jacket, and I was left standing there, listening to the gulls calling over the canal and out toward Sandymount and the sea.

  19

  SUNDAY, MAY 29,

  2016

  Whatever they found down in Wicklow has everyone excited. The news announcer doesn’t know what it is, but that doesn’t stop her from speculating. They’ve got shots of a cordoned-off area next to a narrow road, gardaí walking back and forth. I realize that Griz must have been standing not far from the spot when I called her.

  They have a “former law enforcement professional” with an English accent piling on the speculation. He straightens his tie and looks sympathetically into the camera. “In these kinds of cases, you would be looking for clothing, perhaps a piece of physical evidence. It is entirely possible that they have found a piece of clothing with enough blood on it to indicate that Miss Horrigan has indeed met a violent end. It is also possible that they have located a piece of evidence that may lead them to Miss Horrigan’s abductor.”

  The newscaster asks him why it would be kept confidential. “Well, if it is indeed a piece of evidence that could lead gardaí to the perpetrator, then they would want to keep that to themselves. It might be something that only the person who took Niamh would know about. It might be a way to test a confession. Or they may not want the person in question to know that they are on his trail.” The newscaster and the expert have an awkward little moment of silence where they both realize that their coverage means that the person in question definitely knows the police have found something.

  Then the newscaster hands it over to a reporter in Wicklow, saying, “Aiofe Callahan, tell us about some new information we’re just getting about the location of this search.”

  “Yes, Allison. The Gardaí hope that this development will help lead them to Niamh, who has now been missing for a week,” says the young reporter in a concerned voice. She’s standing close to the Wicklow Way trail marker. “We can report at this hour that the location where the item was found is very near to Drumkee and the former grave of Kevin Whelan, the Belfast teenager whose grave was identified by members of the Provisional IRA as part of the Good Friday peace agreement. As you know, Allison, Kevin was eighteen years old when he disappeared from his home in Armagh in 1981. There had been rumors in his community that he was an informant and his family assumed he’d been murdered. After the Good Friday Agreement, an IRA splinter group revealed the location of his grave, in a patch of boggy hillside in Drumkee, close to where Erin and now Niamh Horrigan were last seen. His remains were recovered and now the Gardaí wonder if there is any connection between Niamh’s disappearance and the dark history of this place.”

  I scramble for my laptop and search for “Kevin Whelan” and “Drumkee.” There are quite a few stories, mostly archived reports from the late ’90s. As part of the Good Friday Agreement, which mostly brought the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland to an end, paramilitary groups on both sides of the conflict had to agree to put their arms beyond use. While some arms were buried in concrete or destroyed, others were illegally buried in secret locations, Wikipedia tells me, in case the violence started up again. The stories refer to anonymous sources that say it’s widely believed that arms were brought over the border and buried in multiple locations in the Republic. The stories don’t say it directly, but the implication seems to be that there are some arms caches in the Wicklow Mountains, in Drumkee, among other locations.

  I call home to talk to Lilly but she doesn’t answer her cell phone, and when I call the landline Brian tells me that she’s gone out to Montauk for the day with her friend Cory’s family. “She doing okay?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, she’s doing great. How are things there?”

  I go to the window and look out at the street. It’s quiet, late on Sunday. I remember this about Ireland, how quiet Sundays can be in public spaces. I wonder suddenly what Conor Kearney is doing right now. “They’re no closer to finding Erin, and Roly has me completely sidelined,” I say. “I mean, I know he has to, but I’m just sitting in this hotel room. They found something today, something belonging to the girl who’s missing. Niamh. I could help them but I have no idea what it is and they won’t even tell me anything.” I’m unloading my frustration on him and I feel bad about it. “I’m sorry, Brian.”

  “No, it sounds awful.”

  “How’s Danny?”

  “Okay. You know. Lilly went over and took him some brown
ies she made last night. He’s just … waiting. The bar’s been busy, so that’s good.”

  “And … everything else is okay?”

  I don’t want to have to say it and blessedly he picks up on my meaning. “Yeah, yeah. Nothing strange. I’ve been setting the alarm. Don’t worry, Mags. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  I feel relief stream down toward my legs. “Okay. I’m going to go out and find some dinner.” I tell him to give Lilly a big hug and to tell her to call me when she can.

  * * *

  I’m heading out of my hotel room, my bag slung over my shoulder, my key in my hand, when a man waiting in the hallway surprises me, clearing his throat and smiling sympathetically when I jump and whirl around.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a fright. I just thought I could see if you were here.”

  It’s the reporter with the ponytail from the other day. In the dim hallway he seems freakishly large, his shoulders twice the width of me, his legs thick under his suit pants. His forehead is dotted with beads of moisture and I take in his sharp sweaty smell from two feet away. He’s older than I thought, closer to my age.

  “Stephen Hines?” he says. “We met the other day.”

  “How did you know where my room was?” I ask. I’m still holding my key in my hand and I point the sharp edge of it out.

  “I didn’t. I’ve been trying every floor.” He shrugs and smiles. “I got very lucky.”

  “It’s creepy,” I tell him. “Please don’t do it again.”

  He says, “Look, I’m sorry to bother you, but I just want to get your sense of the investigation. You’re not just a family member, you’re a highly skilled homicide detective, with apparent expertise in serial murder. What do you think about this find in Drumkee?”