by Tom Murphy
The horse came down on all fours, but not for long. Skittish, like certain women, Brooks thought, as the graceful animal stamped his feet in the blood-soaked earth. There was still no sense of time passing. He might have watched Neddy for seconds or for half an hour.
This is silly. I’ll just go ask him what he’s looking for. Maybe I can help him. Hell, we’re all in this together.
Brooks stood up then, clutching his rifle lightly in one hand, and loped across the field toward Neddy. Neddy was looking every way but in the direction he’d come from, which was also the direction Brooks was coming from.
He didn’t see Brooks.
He didn’t see the mortar round that blew him into a thousand unfindable fragments.
Brooks froze. He couldn’t move, not a foot, not a muscle. His eyes stared at the spot where Neddy had been, where Neddy’s big black horse had been.
There was nothing. No corpse, no horse, only a little crater. Brooks stood transfixed, forcing himself with all the will left in him not to acknowledge in his mind what his eyes had seen. It couldn’t be. It was a dream, then, seeing Neddy. Neddy wasn’t there, nor the horse, either. If Neddy wasn’t here, then he can’t be dead. Of course not. He’s probably back there right this minute with Little Mac, laughing. Neddy laughing. Of course. You could imagine the strangest things in battle, everyone said so. Everyone.
There was an odd, wet noise nearby, on top of the roaring, a sort of plopping noise. Brooks found his head could move after all. Slowly, drifting down an ocean of time, he turned to his right and looked down. A horse’s foreleg had fallen to earth, the foreleg of a big black horse. Severed neatly above the knee. It had landed hoof-down in the fresh-plowed earth, the hoof firmly planted, waiting for its owner.
Brooks Chaffee was already screaming when the rebel bullet shattered his kneecap.
Lily looked at her brother and tried to hide her concern. He was too young, surely, to have such a bloated face, and eyes so red, and with little pouches forming under them. All the signs of constant carousing were making themselves evident on the handsome face of Fergus Malone, and Lily’s worry was all the deeper for her certainty that there was not one blessed thing in the world she could do to stop it. Turning Fergy loose on San Francisco with more than two million dollars hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped. Oh, for sure he was filled with plans, but they were mad schemes for the main part, and it was just like the old days: Fergy lacked follow-through. All of his great charm and energy and enthusiasm were right up front, right on the surface. He had no staying power, and he never had.
It was a characteristic that doomed him to a never-ending series of disappointments, and he had a loser’s ingrained ability to place the blame on someone else, every time.
Still, he was her brother, and she was glad to see him.
But Lily was less than glad at the news he brought. “If it’s in headlines, Fergy, I don’t want to see them. Can’t they leave a body alone, even for a minute?”
“Not,” he said, laughing, “when ’tis such a famous and beautiful one as belongs to Lily Cigar. Anyhow, my dear, you’re a heroine, that’s for sure.”
“Go on with you. They’ll be saying I was entertaining the creature.”
“Ten thousand dollars blood money, that’s quite a sum, Lil, even for one rich as you.”
“I gave it to poor Mary Baker, not that it’ll bring Stephen back to her, God bless him.”
“I’m proud of you, Lil, and so’s the whole town. The whole state of California, for that matter, is fair to bursting with gratitude. Tiberio Velasquez was the most wanted villain since Murietta got his.”
“I don’t really want anyone’s thanks, all the same, Fergy. All I want is a bit of peace and quiet.”
“Not a night goes by at the Fleur de Lis but they’re askin’ for you.”
“I’m a simple farm lady now, and well you know it.”
“You’re a myth, Lil, and killing Velasquez crowns it well and truly, and myths don’t die, not in this town. If ever there was a town that loves a legend, ’tis San Francisco, USA.”
“You seem so proud of it. Do you think I liked whoring? I counted every minute.”
“And every dollar.”
“Damned right I did, and look what it’s got me. A fair chance at a new life. I’m only twenty-five Fergy, there’s still time, or anyway I hope so.”
He grinned then, and when Fergy grinned like that, Lily would have given him anything she owned or could borrow. Here was the Fergy of old, the Fergy who ran off to sea, Fergy whose dreams were bigger and brighter than anyone else’s dreams. “A coach and seven footmen, you’ll have, Lil, just you wait.” And how many lifetimes ago had that been? She smiled, wondering.
Fergy bent and kissed her. “Ah,” he said, beaming, “Lily, my Lily, whatever would become of your poor devil of a brother if he didn’t have this beautiful guardian angel lookin’ after him betimes?”
“It’s only fair, Fergy dear, that your guardian angel would be a whore.”
“I’ve got a plan, Lil. A real plan!”
She looked up, alarmed. The only thing more dangerous than an idle Fergy was a Fergy under the influence of pipe dreams.
“And what,” she asked softly, “might that be?”
“Hawaii!”
“What about Hawaii?”
“Well, there it is, Lil, and for the taking. Rich, rich land, and lots of it, and gold, maybe, in the hills, and nothing but a few fuzzy-wuzzies. Ours for the asking, Lil.”
“Get on with you, Fergus Malone. You? My city-loving brother who never even comes out to San Rafael except when I’m half-murdered by bandits? What would the likes of you be doing in Hawaii?”
“Breadfruits and pineapples drop into your hands for the asking. A fair paradise it is.”
“Fergy, when will you learn that nothing on this good earth simply falls into your hand? It takes planning, and hard work, and plenty of cash, believe me.”
“We could get rich, Lil.”
“We are rich—or on the way there. If we watch ourselves, Fergy, if we don’t throw it away on wild schemes.”
Lily looked away from her brother and out the bedroom window. She could see her own good green hills rolling away to the sea. As always, the mere sight of them made her feel good, for they were real, and here, and hers. But the real and the here had little appeal for Fergy. For him the unknown ever held magic, and the promise that lay over the far horizon was the sweetest promise. Lily felt the old fear again, rising in her, the fear of being left behind. When she spoke again, she spoke softly.
“Tell me more.”
“Sugar. There’s big money in sugar, Lil.”
“Sure there is. And in wheat, and in carrots, and sheep and cows too. And gold and oil and big fisheries. There’s even money in trees and grass, Fergy. But the gold won’t come leaping out of the hills, and running a sugar refinery must be hard, demanding work. Do you know anything about it? If you hate my farm here, Fergy, what makes you think you’d like it in Hawaii?”
“I didn’t say that…that I’d be a farmer.”
“How are you going to feed your sugar mill?”
“We’d hire farmers.”
“But you’ve told me it’s all jungle and fuzzy-wuzzies. Are they farmers?”
“We’d get farmers. Bring them in.”
“Dear brother. I can’t get farmers enough right here on the mainland. How in God’s name do you imagine you’ll persuade them to go way out there? ’Tis a far, far distance, Fergy.”
“You always find fault, Lil, it’s like a curse with you.”
“It is known as being realistic. Fergy, you know I love you. You’re all I have, besides Kate. But I’ve worked too hard, and counted too many pennies, to finance wild schemes. Of course there’s money in sugar, for them as know how to refine it. But I don’t think it’s the sugar you want, Fergy. I think you have feet that are permanently itchy, that you simply want to be off again, somewhere, anywhere.”
Fergy stood up then, and his ruddy face went pale. “Someday,” he said in a low, dull voice, “someone will believe in me.”
Then he turned from her and walked out, and closed the door behind him.
Lily closed her eyes. Oh Fergy! If you knew how I have tried and tried to believe in you. Then she opened her eyes and got out of bed and walked to the window.
Lily looked out over the ranch, across the fields to the hills and the sea. Her eyes misted over, and the long-ago words came floating back to her across time and a continent: “Save your tears, child, for one day you may truly need them.” She heard Fergy’s hoofbeats receding as he galloped down the driveway. But her eyes came clear again, and her hills were still there, and her fields, and she felt the future all around her.
35
Brooks kept his eyes shut against the horrors that might confront him if he dared to open them. This was a child’s trick, and it didn’t really work, because the horrors were with him day and night no matter what he did with his damned eyes, night folding into day and day into night in a grim and funereal procession. And still he could see Neddy on that horse. He could hear the roaring; the roaring had never left his ears, nor the echoes of screams, men screaming, and horses, and the thunder, and his own voice screaming.
Now other, softer voices intruded gently on his dark hell. Brooks could feel the clean sheets. There were three voices, not his battle-screaming voices but quiet tones, tones of concern. Doctors they must be, and talking about him. Let them talk, then. It wouldn’t bring back Neddy.
“How long has he been thus?”
A new voice, that, an old man’s voice, impatient. Brooks was imposing on the gentleman’s time. Pity.
“Going onto two months, and that’s counting a week after the battle. He spent some time in field hospitals, then they brought him to us.”
“And he never speaks?”
“Only when the fever took him, when we nearly had to amputate. He kept saying one thing, over and over again. ‘It was one of ours, Neddy…it was one of ours!’ It’s a mystery, Doctor. This war does terrible things to our lads.”
“And we don’t know who he is, or this Neddy?”
“There were no papers on him. There is, I am afraid, a great deal of looting, and it isn’t always the rebels doing it.”
“No wedding ring, or locket…a pocket watch?”.
“Nothing. Stripped clean. He was very lucky to live at all. Hours away from gangrene, by the look of it.”
“You’ve done good work with his knee, at least.”
“We saved the leg. It’ll be stiff, always. But he must get up, try walking, exercise the limbs, or I fear we may lose it to atrophy.”
“Quite right. And him so young. Fine-looking specimen he was.”
“It’s a pity. He may be beyond help. And he’s far from the only case of the kind. We have dozens, and so does every base hospital.”
“And Honest Abe calls Antietam a victory.”
Their voices drifted away. So they’ve written me off, have they? Brooks clenched his fists under the crisp linen sheets. Overhearing the doctors brought some of the anger back, replacing the dull pain, the moral numbness, the refusal to think or even move. It was one of ours! And so it had been, horror on top of horror. That mortar round had come right from the heights by Upper Bridge. Right from Little Mac’s own artillery. And they didn’t know that. Hell, they didn’t even know who he was. If they don’t know who I am, then they don’t know about Neddy. Brooks thought of his parents. Six weeks. He and Neddy must both be listed as missing in action. Which everyone would translate as dead. Now, for the first time, he thought of Neddy more in sorrow than in outrage. How very terrible it must be for his parents, sitting up there in Washington Square, waiting, thinking both of their boys dead. And Caroline! Of course, she must think the same. And here he had lain, monster of selfishness, licking his wounds, too horror-struck by Ned’s death and his own reactions to it to think of how anyone else must feel.
Brooks sat up then, and opened his eyes, and saw both the hospital ward in Baltimore and what he must do to get out of it, quickly. No papers. They’d even taken his wedding ring! How could he prove he was who he was? They’d believe him, because he’d make them believe him. When his voice came, it was a hoarse croaking, the sound of a carrion bird.
“Doctor! Doctor!”
He smiled as the sound of their footsteps reached him, hastening down the long hallway.
Lily looked at her daughter and tried to master the worst fear she’d known since that day two months ago when Tiberio Velasquez came calling. It was now or never. How could Kate, at six, hate her? Easily, all too easily! They were in the kitchen of the big house, slicing apples for a pie. Malone Produce apples, at that, and fine ones. The old man had a few apple trees, pears, too, and Fred was planting more, just as soon as spring came. How carefully I’ve watched the child, these six years, and how little I know her.
“Katy Katharine, I think you are old enough to know a great secret. What do you say to that?”
Kate’s eyes sparkled, dancing with green fires. “Sure I am. Tell me, please.”
Now or never. “Well, once upon a time…”
“Is this a story, or a secret?”
“Both. Now, hush, or you’ll have to wait before I tell it. Once upon a time, before you were born, a young girl sailed all the way from New York to San Francisco, just to have the most beautiful little baby in all the world. This girl was very sad, because the baby’s father was dead. But she was also glad, Katy, because she knew the baby would be wonderful.”
“How did she know that?”
“She knew. Sometimes you just know these things. But there was trouble brewing. The clipper ship ran into a great storm and almost sank. They had to put into a wild tropical place in South America to get it all fixed, and there the girl—the mother of this baby—got very ill. With fever. She almost died.”
“Did she say her prayers?”
“Oh, indeed she did, and very often. Well, the angels didn’t want her to die, because they, too, knew that this beautiful baby was going to be born. At last the big ship got to San Francisco. The baby was born…and guess what her name was?”
“Hortense.”
Kate had been given Lily’s old rag doll to play with, and was enamored of the name.
“Guess again.”
“Is this the secret?”
Lily put her arm around the child and squeezed her tight. Kate squirmed.
“It is. That baby was named Katharine. Katharine Malone.”
Kate’s eyes widened. She looked at Lily very thoughtfully. “It’s me.”
“It is you. And the baby’s mother…”
“Is you!”
“That’s the secret, Katy. For a long time, I had to work in the city. But now, now that we’re all together out here on the ranch, now I’d like you to come and live here, with me, in the big house, and be my own little girl, just as I always…prayed…you would. Do you think you’d like that?”
The girl turned, and blushed pink. She twisted the corners of her apron nervously with both chubby little hands. Her eyes found the floor. Finally she spoke, almost in a whisper. “Is this true, Lily?”
“It is very true, my darling, you know I would never lie to you.”
“Then Bill and Mary aren’t my brother and sister?”
“No, darling, but they will always be your friends, you’ll always have them close by, you can see them anytime you want, they can come here, you can go there.”
“It is true.” Kate said this to herself, testing the words, as though she were learning a new language.
“I’ve wanted to tell you for some time, Kate, wanted you here with me.” Lily couldn’t tell how the news was affecting the child. She wondered what more there was to say, or to do. “Come, then, Katie-Kate, and I will show you another secret.”
Lily took her daughter’s hand and led her out of the kitchen and down the great hall to the stairway. Up they went in
silence, suspense building in both of them, in Kate for a glimpse of the secret, in Lily for fear of how the child might react to two astonishing developments all at one time.
Down the upstairs hall they went, past Lily’s room to a closed door of heavily carved dark wood. Lily took the handle and turned to the child.
“And here,” she said, trying for lightness in her tone, “is the rest of the secret.”
Then Lily swung the big door open.
Kate gasped.
For three months Lily had been secretly furnishing her daughter’s nursery. It was a spacious room made to seem more spacious by being painted entirely in white, the moldings and trim in palest pink edged with leaf green. There was a white four-poster bed with a curving canopy of white lace, a white silk coverlet embroidered with pink flowers and green leaves. Tall white bookshelves held some books, but more dolls, toys, and stuffed animals. There was a Kate-sized white desk with its own small lamp in flower-sprigged white porcelain. Hortense occupied a place of honor on the bed, flanked by Kate’s two other favorite dolls, smuggled from the Baker house in a basket of eggs this very afternoon.
Kate walked slowly into the room. She might have been walking into a dream. Lily smiled, for it was a dream, her own dream cherished all these years. Kate moved with the natural delicacy of some forest animal, a baby deer maybe, who can roam the woodland without ever bending a leaf. The little girl would put out her hand to touch something, then quickly withdraw it, as though by touching a thing she might cause the dream to disappear.
“These are your things now, Kate darling. ’Tis perfectly proper you should touch them.”
“This is my room?”
“All yours, and everything in it.”
Including your mother’s heart and soul, now and forever, at whatever the cost.
“Open the closet, Katie.”
The closet held all of Kate’s old clothes and many new ones. The room was finer than the clothes in the closet; this was still a working ranch after all, and yet Lily could see that to Kate, so well used to living simply with the Bakers, sharing a small back room with young Mary Baker, it must be like a fairy tale. Good, well it should, that was exactly what Lily had hoped for.
