by Ralph Peters
Swift as a cat, a figure shot across the foredeck, leaping into the water after Kildare.
Twas Jimmy Molloy.
The last of the Irish gave us a look-over, dropped their rifles, and fled after their fellows.
“I know you!” Sheriff Underwood cried. “I know every damned one of you.”
“John,” I shouted. “That’s Molloy in the water. My man. Help him. Please.”
For Underwood was stronger, and strength was needed now. Along with a good reach.
“Meeks is shot,” the sheriff called to me as he dashed for the edge of the canal. “But he’ll keep.”
Douglass ran to aid the sheriff, peeling off his cloak. Poor Morris stood stiff in amazement, shotgun still in his hands, while John Brent calmed the mules.
I limped over to the priest.
He lay behind the crumpled mule, as still as the beast was aquiver. I bent to move him to a more fitting spot. Thinking he was dead.
But he was not.
He opened up his eyes—just long enough to read my face—then they fell shut again.
“I damn you still,” he said, and died.
The devil’s own streak of lightning found the lock’s machinery. Twas a great bolt and blast, blinding and deafening. I knew not what it was at first, for it turned me around and sat me on my hindquarters in the mud.
By the light of it, I glimpsed a figure up on the rim of the gorge. Standing where our horses had been tethered.
I did not imagine her, I tell you. I saw her plain, even to the red hair darkened by the wet of the storm. She had gathered her shawl about her, drenched skirt pressed by the wind. I saw her white face and white hands.
I saw her.
And then twas dark again.
I scrambled up the bank. Clumsy without my cane. Grasping limbs, brush, the mud itself.
“Nellie,” I cried.
She had been right. I had killed Kildare. One way or the other.
“Nellie!”
When I reached the high fields, they were empty. And Nellie Kildare had vanished from the world.
MEEKS WAS SHOT IN THE LEG. I could not tell the quality of the wound for the filth of us, but the bone seemed unbroken. The deputy would likely live and prosper. One of the O’Haras would live, as well. Napper, the young one. But prosper he would not. His brother lay among discarded rifles, mouth open to the sleet as if it were whisky.
We did not find Kildare that night, but Molloy bobbed up spitting and the sheriff fished him out.
We crowded around my old acquaintance, who was wet through to freezing. His brogans had come off in his struggle with the waters of the lock, and his rag of a coat was gone with his Derby hat. Douglass offered his cloak, which Molloy, shamelessly, accepted.
“Begging your pardons, gents,” he said, “I’ll just be going into the fine, warm cabin o’ the barge for to be rid o’ me rags. Oh, I’m cold as a beggar and worse.”
I followed him. Queer, the things that strike you after a fight. The cabin smelled of kidneys fried in butter, Kildare’s last meal. Perhaps it was the Lord’s way of reminding me that, justice done or no, I had shot a man. It made me treasure Molloy’s gesture all the more.
I diverted my eyes from his increasing nakedness and spoke my piece:
“Molloy . . . I must say . . . I . . . Jimmy, that was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. When you are properly dressed again, I would like to shake your hand.”
Something made me look up. Perhaps I was too weary for propriety. And I saw the look of wonder on Molloy’s face.
“Sergeant Jones—I mean, May-jor Jones, begging your pardon—what the devil are ye on about now? And what brave deed are ye praising me for? For I’m mystified by yer ramblings and tabulations.”
“Why, your selflessness, Molloy. The raw courage of it. The Christian way you threw yourself into the water, risking certain death to save Kildare.”
He shook his head slowly. In astonishment.
“Are ye mad, then, Major Jones?” he asked me. “I wouldn’t have risked a splinter for Kildare. But didn’t the man have his pockets loaded down with gold, and lovely English gold at that, and don’t I hate the wasting o’ good money?” Bare as the first of our kind, he slumped down in a chair cut from a barrel. “Oh, it broke me heart to see the man go over.”
NELLIE DISAPPEARED INTO A CONTINENT AT WAR. I hope she found a little peace before the end, and that she was not harmed further by the hand of man. I never will forget her.
Nor did others discard her memory. There is strange, the way we are remembered. Twas long years later, in a time of peace, when I come up to visit the Falls of the Niagara with my Mary Myfanwy. We detoured to Penn Yan to visit my old friend John Underwood. He always kept a good table, and his wife was jolly. But that is not the matter of it.
Summer it was, and we had taken the buggy down to the lakeside to promenade with our ladies. Oh, slower we were, but fine men still, and of good heart. Well, there we were, strolling and watching the boats out on the water, when a grand fellow sauntered up, tipping his hat to the ladies. Underwood introduced him as the new sheriff. I looked hard at the fellow, for he seemed familiar to me, as if I might have known him as a boy. The face was Irish as cabbage at the end of the month, with a turned-up nose, but his speech was plain American.
Anyway, he invited us into a big, striped tent where a celebration was in progress. Underwood seemed to think the young sheriff a fine fellow, so we accepted. It was an Irish revel, got up by some charitable association. Times had changed, you understand, and the Irish were not entirely disreputable. Why, they even had tablecloths down. Nor was there the least scent of alcohol.
I remember that it was lovely and cool there in the shade, with the sides of the tent rolled up, and we indulged in a round of root beer, though it sometimes gives me wind. A handsome young fellow sang to a piano brought down from the town, fair weeping through their ballads full of loneliness, then turning the mood gay, but never saucy.
He closed with a mournful tune of local provenance—for the Irish make a song of all they touch—and the lyrics made me sit up proper. I still recall the refrain:
Soft as the lilacs,
With long, fiery hair,
Sweet, magical beauty,
Sad Nellie Kildare . . .
My Mary Myfanwy, who looked so lovely in her white summer dress, asked me why I was crying. I took her hand and told her I was a silly old man.
But I must tell you of my departure from Penn Yan. Not in those later years when life was golden, but in the midst of war.
Twas the lambkin end of March, when the brown earth ripens and a sniff of the air lifts your heart. The sun was out and shining. John Underwood come down to the station to see me off. Mr. Douglass had already departed, gone to New York City to pay a call upon Mrs. Stanton and to visit a German acquaintance. I had said my farewells to Mr. Morris, as well, who was off to the war. The regiment he had signed on to chaplain was leaving Elmira that very day. The good shepherd was proud as a field marshal in his regimentals, and I feared for the Rebels if they ever got within range of his sermonizing.
The sheriff stood there, grand and hale. We had worked well together, John and I, and we had saved most of the Irish from the gallows, though Napper O’Hara would hang and three more would see a prison. The traitors’ ring was broken, for the present, and the English would not have their excuse for a war on our account. Much haunted me—not least Nellie and the priest—but still I felt a sense of satisfaction. Perhaps I had not done badly by our fine country. For if I could not lead again in battle, I wished to do my little bit behind.
All with the Lord’s help, see.
I grazed my hand over the lovely walking stick John Underwood had given me as a parting gift. It was too fine to use, but his sort cannot be told such things. So I made a show of wielding it, although the rude cane carved by good Herr Kempf was more fitting to the likes of me.
“There is lovely,” I said to him, admiring the stick in th
e sunlight. “I would call you ‘friend,’ John, if I may?”
“Oh, for crying in a bucket. If we’re not friends after all we’ve been through, I—”
We heard the whistle of the train approaching.
I thrust out my hand. “You are a good man, John Underwood. May God bless you.”
We shook, and if the big fellow did not go soft around the eyes! He dropped my hand and gave his ear a tug. “John Brent would’ve come down to see you off. But folks have their ways about them around here . . .”
“He is a good man, too.”
Underwood nodded. “Don’t I know it?”
The train chugged down upon us.
“And Meeks is convalescing properly?” I asked.
With a squeal of wheels on rails, the locomotive slid past us. Halting on cushions of steam. The coal smoke made me think again of home.
“His Sarah’s driving him crazy. And then some. He’ll get up as soon as he can, trust me. Here, let me give you a hand with that crate.”
I let him help me, for the sewing machine was heavy. I had managed to persuade the shopkeeper to sell it even below the price he had posted as the “lowest ever,” and the “bargain of the century.” Leaving just enough of my husbanded pay for modest sustenance on the journey to my beloved—although she would need to spare me a dollar from the cup in the kitchen to get me back to Washington from Pottsville.
I had put on my good uniform for the occasion, and the conductor was respectful and did not hurry me. Still, I did not wish to keep others waiting, for that is inconsiderate. Underwood helped me up with my baggage.
We shook hands a last time, and he jumped—heavily—from the train step. Down on the platform, the conductor raised his wand to unleash the power of the locomotive. And then I heard a shout.
“Major Jones! Major Abel Jones! For the love of Pete, somebody find Major Abel Jones! Don’t let that there train go!”
“A moment, please, and my apologies, sir,” I said to the conductor as I stepped past him again. Underwood gave me a curious look. For a sheriff wants to know all that goes on.
It was a telegram from the President’s office. I gave the breathless messenger a nickel, though it spoiled my economic calculations. What was to be done? Virtue is temperate, not miserly.
I opened the message and read:
AJ. Report immediately to Major General Grant, Army of the
Tennessee. Present location southwest of Nashville. Authority to
commandeer railroad stock, vessels, or other transport. Waste
not a moment. Great danger. Trust no one. Go armed. JN.
HISTORY AND THANKS
THIS BOOK OWES MUCH TO THE GENEROSITY OF others. Don and Donna McIntire of Hammondsport, New York, were my guides and flawless hosts as I learned to love the land surrounding Keuka Lake. No country could ask for better citizens, and no guest for greater hospitality. Frances Dumas, the Yates County historian, gave time and expertise, answering questions I did not yet know I had. She is a credit to her office, deeply knowledgeable, ever helpful, and determined that the past shall not wither. At the Yates County Genealogical and Historical Society, Kevin Bates kindly made period newspapers and other references available to me, offering more than was asked. Matt Syrett, of the Hammondsport Public Library, surfaced volumes I would not have had the wit to seek. Marion Springer, assistant historian at the Steuben County Historical Society, responded generously when a blustering November wind carried me into her office. Each of these citizens clearly love their land, its people and their past. Where I have erred or “amended” history, the fault is mine, not theirs.
This novel is as accurate as I could make it, from patent medicines to battlefield details, but I have taken some liberties with history and believe the reader has a right to know. While figures such as Sheriff Underwood and Stafford Cleveland are loosely drawn from historical persons, the Reverend Mr. Morris and Father McCorkle are fictitious. I do not mind hanging great ears upon a sheriff, but will not hang imaginary sins upon men of the cloth. While the schism in the local Methodist Church indeed took place, and Penn Yan hosted two Spiritualist conventions in the late 1850s, Mr. Morris’s peculiarities are devised, not documented. As for the Catholic congregation of St. Michael’s, they enjoyed the services of an Italian priest through much of the period. Civil War–era Fenian invasions of Canada are the stuff of historical fact and tragic failure, but Kildare’s effort is early and invented.
Elsewhere, fact trumps fiction. The taverns of Bull Run and Manassas did stand at a crossroads on those high moors, and Yates County was divided into its own North and South, with violent confrontations. The Irish were troubled and troubling, for prejudices unthinkable to us were universal then. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Spiritualist beliefs and seances penetrated sober religious households by the tens of thousands, attracting many clerics with their promises. Those admirable souls struggling for women’s rights often found inspiration in the spirit world, as well. And there is something inexplicable in those hills above that crooked lake. Yates and Steuben Counties even today attract religious dissenters, with an Amish migration from Pennsylvania to the less spoiled glens of western New York. Stafford Cleveland, a splendid newspaperman, wrongly predicted war with England, but rightly foresaw the rise of the United States as a world power . . . there is much more, and I encourage the reader to discover it for herself or himself on a visit to the Finger Lakes, with their evocative beauty, history, hospitality and ever-better wines (Abel Jones was wrong about the victory of Temperance, although the movement left us more temperate as a nation, and should be thanked, not mocked).
A last debt that must be acknowledged is to Rudyard Kipling. Those who have read that decent man’s works will recognize the “quotations” from his masterful short story, “Without Benefit of Clergy,” in the past of Abel Jones. I cherish Kipling. Attacked as a creature of imperialism by those who know him only through a hand-me-down reputation, he wants a fair reconsideration. Kipling transcended the petty hatreds of his times, and loved the world through which he passed with a naivety and joy worthy of Abel Jones. In his stories, novels and poems, love and friendship broke forbidden barriers—his best work was defiant of the givens of the Victorian and Edwardian ages in which he wrote. Even today, not one of the remarkable writers produced by India or Pakistan since independence has matched Kipling’s portraits of old India, whether of the Grand Trunk Road in Kim, the commonplace dangers of a Northwest Frontier still wild today, or the unexpected love that crosses lines of color, religion and position. Nor has anyone written better of the common soldier. He was humane, true of heart, and less fallible than most. I wish only that those who dismiss him would read him first.
I hope this book will please the citizens of Yates and Steuben Counties. It is honorably meant. If I did not describe an Eden, I came as close as I could. For the highlands by their lake move me as they moved Abel Jones, and I found the people as worthy as he found them. God bless.
AUTHOR’S NOTE,
2012
I’M EXCITED ABOUT THE RE-PUBLICATION OF THE “BY Owen Parry” series of Civil War mysteries and am grateful to Stackpole Books for undertaking it. The novels featuring Abel Jones have attracted a cult of followers, and the most frequently asked questions I field as I travel and talk on other subjects are versions of “When’s the little Welshman coming back?” While I hope to add new books to the series in the future—after fulfilling other writing commitments—I’m glad Abel’s able to huff and puff and pontificate through these first six novels again. His character was always a joy to write.
Of the six books in the series (thus far), Shadows of Glory holds a special place in my heart. It’s the quietest of the novels, with the hush of a winter landscape and high notes best conveyed by the image of long red hair blowing madly in a snowstorm. Shadows has some of the richest—and darkest—vignettes in the series: Mysticism intertwines with sorrow. I believe the opening churchyard scene may be the best thing I have writte
n, and no character ever enchanted me as did poor Nellie Kildare. Many a reader has chosen a different novel as his or her favorite tale of Abel Jones, but this ghostly book haunts me still.
Of course, authors are notoriously poor judges of their own work.
But let that bide.
—Ralph Peters, aka Owen Parry, March 2, 2012
