'Til Morning Light

by Ann Moore

  Though they were tagged “Covers,” most of the Irish in town settled their own quarter south of Market Street, near the industries and St. Patrick’s Church, avoiding contact with the English convicts from Australia, rowdies who made Sydney Town nothing more than a nest of arsonists, looters, and robbers. Sean stayed away from both areas, stayed away from their pubs and saloons, their restaurants, shops, brothels, and casinos. This was little hardship; there were literally hundreds of other places to go.

  With his remarkable memory, Sean had quickly become a creature of the evening, venturing out at dusk to begin another long night of gambling. He had a particular talent for card games, and poker was his favorite, though it was considered too slow and complicated a way to win or lose money by most of the forty-niners, who preferred craps or the French card games of vingt-et-un and lansquenet. The hands-down favorite, however—whether at the El Dorado, the Blue Wing Saloon, Aquila de Oro, the Verandah, the Parker House—was monte, a fast Mexican card game involving bets placed on whether one card would be matched from the deck before its partner. Bets ranged from fifty cents to five dollars a hand; however, Sean had witnessed occasions in private rooms where they ran as high as twenty thousand dollars, one of these placed and won by the city’s best professional gambler, Charles Cora. Cora was a fascinating man who’d been born in Italy, raised in the bordellos of New Orleans, and had married the beautiful Belle, proprietress of the city’s most lavish bordello. Cora was a man who never went out, and certainly never gambled, without a derringer at his side; Sean took note and bought a similar gun for himself, though he kept a much lower profile and hoped he’d never have to use it.

  Determined to maintain anonymity, Sean had taken the last name of Miner, his own private joke. He’d had no trouble finding lodging, though many boardinghouses reminded him of the terrible rooms in the Irish slum districts of New York City; even with deplorable conditions, rooms were not cheap. He had not wanted to establish residence in a hotel, where more attention would be given him, but boardinghouses were tricky—reputable landlords were loath to rent to a crippled Irishman, clearly not a miner, who did not appear to be gainfully employed and came home reeking of whiskey and cigar smoke in the wee hours of every morning.

  Sean had soon found that he was not interested in reputable landlords anyway; more desirable were those in Chinatown. There he’d come to a fine arrangement with Mister Hung Chang-Li, a discreet man from the Pearl River Delta region, seven thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean. The Hung brothers were still working a claim at Wood’s Creek in the Chinese diggings, but Chang-Li had used his initial earnings to establish a boardinghouse and a pawnshop—two lucrative propositions in these times, and jobs that did not break the back, as he was fond of saying. Sean enjoyed Chang-Li, whose English was good and whose conversation tended toward philosophical axiom; they often drank tea together from delicate little bowls in the afternoon before Sean went out.

  It was a house where men, mostly Chinese, came and went, but there was also a young woman of indeterminate age called Mei Ling. Chang-Li referred to Mei Ling as his slave, but when Sean pointed out that California had banned slavery when it became a state in 1850, Chang-Li allowed that in reality Mei Ling was more of an indentured servant, Chang-Li having assumed responsibility for the cost of her passage in return for seven years’ work. She had four years to go and did not appear to resent her status, which was that of lowest lackey in the house. She was very shy and somber, and so exotic to Sean’s eye that he found himself watching her as she went about her work, gazing upon her more than he should have. Chang-Li appeared to have no opinions about her other than the largely held view that servant slaves were lazy and underhanded; he often barked at her, setting her to yet another task, even if it was only to fill his sweet pipe and kneel beside him while he smoked it. He cursed her frequently and slapped at her as she passed, bemoaning the fact that he was burdened with the care of such an ox and musing upon the many ways in which she might be trying to poison him.

  Although their relationship made Sean uncomfortable, he did not interfere; he knew his days of passionate intervention were over and that, by turning his back on God, he was left with only the dispassionate observation of his own sinful nature, and that of others. It was a study worthy of his scholarship, and he undertook it with grim satisfaction.

  So this was his city now, and Chinatown his quarter, his home—a far cry from the Irish country lane into which he’d been born. He and Gracelin had spent their entire childhoods in and around that simple cabin, growing up with a stubborn, heartbroken father and an equally stubborn, though optimistic, grandmother. Their older brother, Ryan, had never seemed part of that childhood, and Sean could barely remember him, could bring forward only a hint of his features and the faint sound of his voice. Dead now, of course: Ryan, his wife, Aghna, their son, Thomsy—as dead as Sean’s father, mother, grandmother, sister, niece, best friend, every friend. Oppression, occupation, famine, typhus—the Ireland of his childhood was gone, replaced by a country full of the sick and the desperate, run by an enemy bent on eradicating their past, determined to deprive them of a future. He and Morgan and Grace had tried to change this path, had struggled for the freedom of their countrymen, but the struggle had been too great; all the good men were gone, one way or another. He’d been a good man once, sent to New York City to work for the cause; but instead he’d abandoned the very people he loved most, throwing them over for a new cause, the finest cause, or so he’d thought—this Kingdom in the Wilderness. Sean leaned forward and rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window, shut his eyes, and tried to forget. If only he had it to do over again, he told himself; if only he’d done it right the first time around.

  Outside, the light had faded and the lamps were being lit; it was the ghosting hour, when bad men relished their deeds of corruption, and good men sat haunted by deeds gone bad. Where was he in the mix? Sean wondered. He lifted his forehead from the glass and saw himself mirrored in the window: Neither good nor bad, he was merely inept—perhaps the worst kind of man for the damage they wreak in the lives of those who trust them.

  Down in the street below, the party had begun; already he could hear the shouts of camaraderie, of drinkers banding together, gamblers setting out, brawlers warming up, the odd whistle of a woman who steps out of the shadows for just a moment to let you decide. They were calling him, all of them, like revelers from Hell let out for the night. In the dark room, he located his clean, pressed linen shirt and put it on, then the vest and then the jacket, securing his money in the false pocket stitched into its hem. He checked to make sure his derringer was loaded and practiced his quick draw as a way of loosening up his hand. As he left the room, locking the door securely behind him, Sean pulled the fedora down low over eyes just sharp enough to put off the good men, just cold enough to earn an invitation from the bad. At the bottom of the landing, he patted his pockets—money, gun, opium, and whiskey; Sean O’Malley was ready for yet another night on the town.

  Seven

  The baby was still alive, her beautiful dark eyes locked onto Morgan’s face as he walked behind Aquash through the vast northern wilderness. Nearly three weeks had passed since they left the trappers’ settlement, and though Morgan was sure no one followed them, still they were watchful, hiding themselves at the first sound of voices on the trail. By the second week, Aquash’s wounds had healed and she’d recovered her strength so that they were able to travel for more of the daylight hours. Those hours were diminishing, however, and Morgan had begun to wonder what would happen to them if the Mi’kmaq camp was not found soon. Though the sun was still bright enough to warm them during the day, the nights were getting colder. And longer. He had a taste of winter each time it clouded over and rain fell, though their activity kept them from getting chilled.

  Aquash kept the baby tightly wrapped and secured on her back; they stopped every few hours so that she might nurse the infant and take in some nourishment herself. Morgan and Naco
ute used the time to hunt small game or, if they were by the river, to fish. There were still berries to be found, and nuts, but no eggs, fruits, or vegetables. Not here. Not in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.

  They’d stuck to the river as much as possible during the first week, pulling the canoes up at night, building a fire, making a camp warm enough for the infant, who slept most of the time. Nacoute, his demons buried along with Remy Martine back at the settlers’ camp, was more calm and peaceful than Morgan had ever seen; he was quite taken with his tiny sister and held things up in front of her face to entertain her—a leaf he twirled by the stem, two nuts he knocked together for the sound, eagle feathers picked up off the forest floor, which he tickled along her cheek. Aquash watched them and smiled; she, too, seemed more at peace, and Morgan realized that neither she nor her son had entertained the thought that they might not find their camp before winter. They might not find it at all.

  When the river became more treacherous and difficult to negotiate, they left their canoes hidden in underbrush and set out on foot, still following the direction of the river as much as possible. Morgan had begun to think that the Mi’kmaq had moved inland, perhaps to trap or trade, and that their winter camp was going to be difficult to locate. Aquash had not seen her people for eight or more years, by Morgan’s reckoning, and had no real idea of their pattern of movement anymore. It was early October now, the geese overhead flew south daily, and the forest creatures were busy squirreling away food for winter. Morgan had quietly decided that he would force them to stop and build a winter camp if they had not found Aquash’s people in the next week or so. They could not afford to wait for the first sign of snow; he knew from experience that those first snowflakes could quickly turn into a blizzard that raged for days, and they could not be caught out in the open if that happened. The forest was full of fallen trees and broken branches, and it was not too late to take deer or elk for the hide and meat; also, there were caves pocked into the mountainsides, and these could be made habitable if they could vent smoke from a fire out of the hole. If need be, they could survive the winter, but only if they stopped hoping for a miracle and began to prepare for the inevitable.

  Each night, Morgan told himself that they had reached the end of their search, that in the morning they would have to make a camp. But each morning, he could not bring himself to stop the party; he, too, hoped to find their people before winter came, and he hoped to see them settled in so that he might continue south to the States. And yet, they were everything to him, this little band of mother, son, and infant daughter. Theirs had become the tiniest of worlds, with its own rhythm of rise and eat, walk and eat, walk and walk and walk and eat, then sleep and rise again. Even though Morgan spoke only English and a few words of French, and Aquash spoke only Mi’kmaq and a few words of French, and Nacoute spoke not at all, they seemed to have little problem communicating. The silence of the forest, broken only by the movement of animals and the wind, suited all of them, all of them lost in their own thoughts. Often, an entire day would pass with only a word here and there, most of their communicating done through gestures, smiles, the language of the eyes. It suited Morgan. Sometimes he remembered the long, intense conversations with the lads of his youth and he wondered if he would ever be able to hold his own at an Irish table again.

  He looked past Aquash’s shoulder to Nacoute, who was leading them this morning, then his eyes fell back and met those of the baby. Marie was her name, and she seemed to know already that she was a child of two different worlds; she watched everything around her with the eyes of an old woman, and Morgan was besotted. It was Aquash who had chosen the infant’s name, but only after she had made Morgan understand that the name she wanted was that of his mother. She had laid her hand on Nacoute’s shoulder, then pointed to herself; then she laid her hand on Morgan’s shoulder and pointed up, as if to something above him. It took some repetition, but finally he had understood and said slowly, “Mary, Mary McDonagh.”

  “Mah-ree,” Aquash had repeated, then nodded and laid her hand on the baby’s head. “Mah-ree,” she said to the little girl, smiling into those watchful eyes.

  Now Marie peeked out of her bundled pack, her eyes widening when he smiled and waggled his fingers at her. She cooed and his heart was happy. He had forgotten how much he loved the promise of a little baby. He thought of his mother and all the babies she’d had, all girls save for himself, all little mothers in their own way. His favorite had been young Ellen, so full of life and his faithful companion as he went about the place doing the work that kept them all going. Poor Ellen, he thought now. Her body wracked by starvation and illness, she’d died in his arms on the road to the convent where their older sister was a nun. For two days he’d carried her lifeless body, unable to leave it by the side of the road where so many others lay, bringing it to Barbara, who buried Ellen in the convent cemetery by the garden. They had all died, all his sisters, except perhaps for Aislinn, who’d run off to London before the famine hit. He had hoped to contact Barbara secretly, hoped to find out where Grace might be, but that hope had been squashed the day immigrants from Cork City arrived with the news that there was no one left alive at Sisters of the Holy Rose, all the nuns dead of fever and no one left even to bury them.

  He had been ill his first year in Canada, ill to the point of madness, fevers burning his brain and leaving his body drained of all strength. The recovery had been slow, each week tormenting him with its passing. He could only vaguely remember being hauled out of his prison cell by those he thought were guards come to execute him at last. He hadn’t cared; he was so sick he knew he’d be dead soon anyway. But instead of killing him, they hid him in a wagon, then smuggled him on board a ship. There had been a priest with him—or a man dressed as a priest; he’d never really known—but within days this man, too, was dead and buried at sea. Somehow Morgan had survived, though there had been many days he begged God in a loud voice to end it now, to bring him home and let him rest, to release him from his misery. But God had other plans. Morgan landed in Grosse Isle and was immediately quarantined. Again he hovered between life and death, and again he begged God to let him go, but the answer was no. Two long years he’d spent there—first in the hospital, then in a kind of recovery house for indigent immigrants, and finally in his own small hole of a room with a debt to repay as long as a ship’s mast. In all that time, he’d told no one his real name; he was, after all, still on British soil, and while he certainly wanted to be released from this life, he didn’t want it at the hands of his enemies. As his strength returned, he accepted that he would live and set about repaying his debt. The job carting supplies from an immigrant town to the trappers’ camp downriver was ideal for him; it allowed for plenty of solitude, which he found he sorely needed, and it gave him freedom to explore the lay of the land. He had nearly paid off his debt and was about to set out for the States when he was caught in the storm that felled the tree that crushed his legs. Aquash and Nacoute had seen him through that horrific time, and though he’d often wondered why this had happened to him yet again, looking into the eyes of the little baby in her mother’s pack, he knew.

  “Because of you,” he whispered to her. Because you were coming, he said to himself, and the Lord has plans. I could not save the lives of my sisters, but He’s letting me do something about yours.

  Marie’s eyes widened again, and she cooed at him as if she’d heard. He’d given up the wondering of why a long time ago and found peace in knowing that he was simply where he was meant to be. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t continue south, wouldn’t continue trying to find out what had happened to Grace; only that he wouldn’t torment himself any longer about when that time would come.

  It was getting later in the day now, the afternoon air taking on that damp chill that comes right before darkness falls. Morgan called to Nacoute and motioned that they must stop for the night. Nacoute frowned but then, seeing the weariness on his mother’s face, nodded and put down his pack. Morgan lifted the b
aby’s pack off of Aquash’s back, then leaned it up against a tree, loosening the laces in order to lift Marie out and hand her to her mother. While Aquash fed the baby, Morgan and Nacoute laid the fire, which Morgan lit with his flint. He’d shot a duck in the morning, which Nacoute plucked, then handed to Morgan for gutting and spitting. By the time their camp was readied and darkness surrounded them, the duck was roasting, droplets of fat sizzling as they fell into the fire.

  Outside the ring of light, Morgan thought he saw a shadow moving in the trees. He glanced at Nacoute, who had seen the same thing, and both men stood, Morgan shouldering his rifle.

  “Come out and I won’t kill you,” Morgan said evenly, peering into the darkness.

  Beside him, Nacoute quietly unsheathed his knife.

  A very long minute passed, and then a man stepped out from behind a tree, hands raised, moving slowly into the light of their fire.

  “You are English!” The man nodded enthusiastically.

  “Irish,” Morgan corrected. “And you are …?”

  “French, of course.” The small man shrugged good-naturedly. “Père Leon, at your service.” He gave a small bow.

  Morgan eyed him carefully, taking in the warm winter garb of a trapper. “You’re a priest?”

  “A man of God, oui.” He sniffed the air. “A very hungry man of God, I would say.” He looked across the fire at Aquash and the baby, then up at Nacoute; when he spoke next, it was in their language, and they both looked surprised.