Three Wishes for Jamie

by Charles O'Neal

At night, when the supper things were cleared away, there was music and dancing. The children were taught the ancient group dances and songs, so they would be prepared to take a part in the celebrations. Those who had yet to be confirmed studied their catechisms.

  Tavish had endeared himself to everyone. The children called him the shanachie, or storyteller, and begged him not to leave them when they reached Atlanta. Jamie had exchanged no word with Maeve since that morning by the stream. He flung himself into the work of the camp, more to keep occupied than to impress Shiel Harrigan with his potentialities as a son-in-law. Tavish nodded his approval as Jamie sweated at loading and unloading the wagons; fed, watered, brushed, and curried the animals until their coats shone.

  On their last night out from Atlanta, Tavish took Jamie aside. “Tonight I will speak for you,” he said solemnly.

  Jamie shook his head in acute misery. “’Twill be of no use, Owen Roe Tavish. She’ll have none of me.”

  “Whisha … where’s all your proud confidence now, lad? Are you giving up without a fight?” the old man scolded. “No man that Owen Roe Tavish speaks for is beaten until the last word has been spoken.”

  “It’s in my bones,” Jamie said. “She’ll have none of me.”

  The boy’s despondency was so real that Tavish set himself to cheer the lad up. “And why not?” he demanded. “She may be the likeliest girl that ever shook a foot on short grass, but does that mean you’re not her match? You that was the darling among the colleens at home. Sure many a red cheek grew redder when you walked into the chapel of a Sunday morning. Not have you? Why, she’s that lucky we’ll consider the match—and I’ll tell Shiel Harrigan as much.”

  The Speaker’s exuberance won a wan smile from Jamie. “Bless you, Owen Tavish, for what you’re trying to do. Sure you’re a man who can lie finer than the truth.”

  “Watch for a signal when I’ve spoken to her father. You have my hand on it, the girl will be promised you before the fire is banked for the night.” With that the old man stalked away, muttering with determination.

  In spite of his doubts, Jamie’s hopes rose. Maeve promised to him? And why not? Hadn’t he Queen Una’s word for it? He set about his evening chores with a lighter heart than he had had for days, grateful that powers more than human were helping to shape his destiny.

  He watched Tavish and Harrigan stroll away from the camp after supper and fear and hope tied at “tug-o’-war” inside him. The two men were gone a long while. The women and children had retired when Harrigan returned—alone. He went directly to his tent without speaking to anyone.

  Minutes passed and Tavish did not appear. Finally Jamie went to look for him. He found the old man at the horse corral stroking the velvet nose of a colt. Standing beside him, Jamie towered almost a head taller than the little Speaker. Tavish seemed shrunken, and the spirit had gone out of him. Even before he spoke, Jamie knew “what the answer was going to be.

  “I’ve gone and lost her for you, Jamie,” the old man said.

  James heard the words as if from far off, and his own voice answering: “I dreamed too high, Cousin Tavish.”

  “I won’t have you be thinking that,” the old man protested. “Harrigan had nought to say of you but good. ’Tis only—well, the girl is promised to another. They’re to be wed in Atlanta.”

  The words came with the finality of final judgment. Why hadn’t Tavish added: “And may the just God have mercy on your soul”? Jamie thought. They were supposed to say something like that when a sentence of doom was pronounced on a man. Far back in his brain he heard a small, clear voice: “From this moment you are a dead man, Jamie McRuin,” it said. “Others you may fool but not yourself. Sure you’ll walk and talk and breathe the air—and take to the drink, maybe. You’ll smash your great fists into men’s faces and feel their blood on your knuckles, but you’ll be dead for all that. You’ve been killed inside, Jamie, and from now on you’re a walking corpse.”

  It was true. Maeve was lost to him. The sweetness locked inside him which had needed the chemistry of her touch to draw it forth, now turned bitter as gall. A terrible rage seized Jamie. He wanted to hurt someone … something; but mostly himself. An outward pain might ease his inner suffering.

  Tavish’s hand was on his shoulder but Jamie shook it off. “I’ve no need for your pity, Cousin Tavish,” he said. “Save it for the man she’s going to marry … when he meets up with these.” Jamie shook his fists level with the Speaker’s eyes. “The beating I’ll give him will serve as a wedding present.” He turned and staggered into the woods like a drunken man. Tavish watched him go until the darkness swallowed him.

  “Jamie … Jamie … don’t you know that beating with your fists will never mend the ache of love?” the old man said softly.

  It was hours later when Jamie walked slowly into the clearing where the tents were pitched. His clothes were torn and stained with blood from his cut and battered hands. He looked as if he had been in a terrible fight. Silently but without stealth, he moved toward Maeve’s tent. The sharp-eared dogs started up, then growled sleepily and lay back down.

  Before Harrigan’s tent Jamie hesitated, but only for a moment. Some instinct seemed to guide him to where Maeve lay sleeping. At the spot he sank to his knees and pressed his face against the tent wall, as if in silent prayer. There he remained like a suppliant at the altar, giving no thought to his personal danger, or of the recklessness of his act. Had Maeve’s father or any man in the camp discovered him, they would have felt justified in shooting him.

  “Maeve,” he whispered the name no louder than breath. “It is I, Jamie … come to beg your forgiveness and say good-by. I wouldn’t cause you a minute’s unhappiness, even by loving you, could I but help myself. O my darling—my treasure—my hands are that broken and bleeding from bashing the trees in the wood. Every tree seemed to wear the face of the man you’re going to marry.…”

  Inside the tent there was a slight rustle. The flap of the tent swished back softly and Maeve appeared in her nightgown. Without speaking she came to Jamie’s side and took his arm, drawing him gently to his feet.

  “Come away,” she said kindly. “Is it in your mind to destroy us all?”

  She led him to a bench near the stoves and sat him down. A soft glow from the banked fire fell upon his wracked and tortured face.

  Maeve said nothing, but took a cloth and wet it in one of the wooden pails. Gently she bathed his torn hands and face as a mother would a child.

  “I should have spoken that day by the stream and told you I was to marry with Travis Bunn in Atlanta. It was cruel of me to keep silent.” Her voice was tender and wise and seemed filled with ineffable music.

  “Was it so plain then, that everyone could see my feelings for you?”

  “Women have an instinct about such things. I knew and yet I pretended not to know. Aunt Bid warned me … she even spoke to Father. I laughed at them … said it was foolishness. Now I’m sorry for you’ve hurt yourself.”

  “The scratches will mend.”

  “They’re on the outside. Things inside take longer.”

  “Maeve … if it were otherwise … if you were not promised to Travis Bunn …?” Jamie was not allowed to finish the question. Aunt Bid had slipped from the tent and now bore down upon them swiftly and silently, her stern face dark with anger in the dim light.

  “Would you shame your father in his own camp?” she hissed at Maeve. Keeping her voice low so as not to arouse the camp, she turned on Jamie, lashing him with her tongue.

  “Are you crazed, man? Destroy yourself if you’ve a mind, but don’t drag an innocent young girl down with you.”

  For some reason which he could not fathom, Jamie felt comforted. He gazed at Aunt Bid in her long, flowing flannel nightgown, her feet bare and her sparse gray locks twisted into curlers, and felt a perverse impulse to laugh. Instead he rose and bowed politely.

  “May God preserve you, ma’am,” he said. “Sure and you’re looking well.”

  Maev
e choked back a laugh and Bid turned on her fiercely. “It would serve you both right if I let your father find you here … and you in your nightgown.”

  “And isn’t that what you’re wearing?” Maeve said, with demure slyness.

  Aunt Bid was torn between righteous rage at such effrontery and confusion at finding herself in the presence of a man while clothed only in her nightgown.

  “There’s been nothing said or done here this night for which anyone has call to feel ashamed,” Jamie said loftily. “I did but beg Maeve’s forgiveness for loving her, and her promised to another. Can there be harm in that?”

  He raised his voice as he spoke, and in fright Aunt Bid gathered Maeve to her and began a hasty retreat.

  “The man is drunk or mad or both,” she exclaimed.

  Jamie followed them. “I said I loved her, but ’twas no secret. You knew it … her father knew it … and she knew it. Now let the world know it: I love Maeve. There … it’s been said, and the words are still warm with the breath of me. When I’m walking the streets of the world sad and tormented, she will know that I am rich inside for having loved her.”

  Jamie’s voice had risen to a small shout as Maeve and her aunt vanished into the tent. He stood for a moment, arrogant as a conquering rooster. A flood of exhilaration swept over him. There was no explanation for the sudden change; it came like a summer storm, with thunder and swift lightning, to cleanse him of the vapors of despondency.

  Tavish hurried from the corral to his side. “Have you been drinking, man? Sure I heard you proclaiming great words in my sleep. Come to bed before you wake the camp.”

  Jamie clapped his arm affectionately about the old man. “Cousin Tavish,” he announced, “you’re embracing a happy man.”

  “Sure now I know you’re drunk … or crazed. Come to bed.”

  “Aye … drunk I am,” said Jamie, “but not on whiskey. I’m drunk on the wonder of the world.”

  The horse traders made their Atlanta camp just off the Chattanooga Turnpike in a pleasant stand of longleaf pine. The location had served them many times before, and the tents, stoves, and elaborate camping paraphernalia carried in the wagons were soon in place. When the work was done, a welter of bathing, shaving, hair cutting, and shining of boots followed. The girls gathered at one end of the camp after their baths, where mothers combed, brushed, and braided hair until the children winced and cried out in pain.

  The boys were herded together at the other end by Brave Dan Devlin, who was handy with a set of mail-order clippers. Brave Dan wasted no time on this ritual of the annual or semiannual haircut. He clapped a saucepan on the head of each squirming child, using its metal edges as a general outline to follow, and clipped off all exposed hair as if he were shearing sheep. The results were mildly spectacular, since the same saucepan served, without regard to the size of head being shorn.

  Jamie took over Maeve’s task of fetching water for bathing and shaving. It kept him busy the entire morning. “I hauled enough water this day to wash a regiment of Hottentots,” he told Tavish. “There’s scarce enough left in the stream to bathe a canary.”

  In midafternoon Father Kerrigan, the parish priest, drove into the camp. He was a small, round-faced clergyman with shrewd, merry eyes. At his appearance the brattle of camp activity died down. The children crowded eagerly but respectfully around him and the older men and women pushed forward to shake his hand.

  The priest’s memory for names and faces was remarkable. He remembered the names of men, women, and children, as if these nomadic members of his flock were regular attendants at chapel, instead of merely annual visitors.

  The children squealed with delight when he produced small presents of candy and licorice. When the greetings were over, Shiel Harrigan and the men of the camp took him aside to discuss details of the week’s activities. Jamie and Tavish were not included in these plans and stayed politely apart.

  Maeve had not been among the group that greeted the priest. She and Aunt Bid had been busy putting the finishing touches on her wedding dress. Bid, with her mouth crammed full of pins, pulled and pleated and tucked, all the while keeping up a steady chatter of reproof for Maeve’s conduct of the night before.

  “An upstart … a nobody, not fit to latch your shoes, and there you were ready to lick his boots,” she mumbled.

  Maeve surveyed herself unconcernedly in the bureau mirror. “He had hurt himself in the woods. All I did was wash his hands and face. ’Twas the least I could do after letting him think I had not been spoken for.”

  “All you did was risk your happiness in this world and your immortal soul in the next,” the old lady snorted. “What was it to you that the omadhaun had gone about smashing trees with his fists.”

  “Did any man ever love you so much that the pain of it drove him to beat his poor knuckles to the bone?” Maeve asked.

  “A regiment,” lied Bid, “but I was too smart to be fooled by their sleuthering. Mark what I say. Lovers’ oaths are writ in running water. Besides, in two days’ time you are marrying with Travis Bunn, a good man and steady. It’s not proper that a young girl on the eve of her wedding let her mind go wandering off in a long, sweet spring.”

  Maeve was moved to contrition. She turned and put her cheek against the older woman’s. “Forgive me, Auntie Bid. It was thoughtless of me to be so willful. My father has given his word, and I will marry with Travis Bunn on the day set. Now then get on with the fitting.”

  Shiel Harrigan entered the tent and stood watching. “Father Kerrigan is here,” he said. “He wants to see you.”

  “Should I go like this?” Maeve asked.

  “And why not? He’ll see you like that on the last day of the rituals,” said Harrigan. “Run along now, and don’t keep the priest waiting.”

  He watched her go fondly. “I wish her mother could have seen her in that dress.”

  “I for one will be glad to see her out of it,” said Bid. “That wanderer from the old country has quite turned her head.”

  “Jamie McRuin?” Harrigan shrugged. “Blather … Maeve has always been a deep one. Water under the ground … with more wisdom in that little head than in yours and mine put together.”

  Bid grunted. “Nonetheless I’ll be glad when Travis Bunn has taken the responsibility for her off our hands,” she said.

  Maeve made her way through the crowd about the priest and knelt for his blessing. Father Kerrigan made the sign of the cross and then extended his hand. “You’ll be a married woman in two more days, Maeve Harrigan. At high noon the day after next. Is that agreeable with you?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Travis Bunn is a good man … and you’re a fine girl, Maeve. But remember one thing: An Irishman is only as good as the wife he gets.”

  Maeve flushed but said nothing. From the corner of her eye she saw Jamie standing at the edge of the trees. Even at a distance the dark scratches on his hands and face were visible. The memory of his absurd solemnity, bowing to Aunt Bid and saying, “God preserve you, ma’am … you’re looking well,” came back to her and she smothered an impulse to laugh again.

  Father Kerrigan caught the flicker of her smile and misunderstand it. “Mind you, there’s to be none of this ‘Jumping the Budget,’ or any of your pagan fandangoes before the wedding,” he said smiling. “What happens afterward … well, if St. Patrick could put up with your pantheistic didos, I guess I can stand it.”

  While one of the men was watering his horse and turning the buggy around, the priest went swiftly from tent to tent and blessed each one. Shiel Harrigan was also busy. He circulated among the men and when he shook Father Kerrigan’s hand, a sizable wad of bills was pressed into the priest’s. “’Tis small, Father, but there’ll be more when the others come.”

  “You’ve never been backward about sharing your profits with the Church,” the priest replied. “And speaking as an individual and not a priest, keep an eye out for a younger horse for me. Old Brian Boru, here, is almost as old as his namesake. He�
�ll be departing for—horse Heaven’ any day now.”

  Shiel Harrigan promised to shop around and, with a farewell wave of his hand, Father Kerrigan drove away. On the main road to Atlanta, he gently clucked the old horse into a trot and held him to the pace with persistent urging. He had another stop to make and no desire for night to overtake him on the road.

  VI

  The Proddy farm, which was Father Kerrigan’s next stop, could hardly be called a farm. It was forty acres of gullied red clay hills, stumps, and Jimson weed, but Jesse Proddy clung to it with the tenacity of a boll weevil clinging to cotton. The land had been stripped bare and now was worn by wind and rain. Jesse Proddy, with only one mule and a deep aversion to staying at any one job longer than twenty minutes, seldom had more than a few acres under cultivation. How he and his family managed to survive was a riddle to the countryside.

  The Proddy house, or shack, was a three-room affair perched precariously upon wooden stilts that gave early indications of succumbing any day and pitching house and inhabitants down the hill toward the Chattanooga Turnpike. The farm buildings consisted of a barn, a tool shed, and chicken house, the boards of which, along with the house, had weathered to a uniform, field mouse gray. The shallow well had been dug conveniently near the barn and pigpen, so that seepage from those pools of filth could make its typhoid-bearing way directly into the farm’s water supply.

  The Proddys were Father Kerrigan’s principal problem. The joke of it, if such things could be considered as jokes, was that the Proddys were not Catholic. In fact, whenever Jesse Proddy spotted the priest’s black buggy coming up the hill, he quickly herded as many of his six children as could be found away from the house and into a patch of jack pines that marked the lower edge of his property.

  “That fiend o’ Rome in his black suit is jest so much black smallpox to me,” he would say to anyone who would listen.

  Father Kerrigan had first heard about the Proddys a year before. One afternoon a young woman had called at the priest’s house and asked him to deliver five dollars to Hester Proddy, Jesse’s wife. Upon questioning the girl, the priest learned she was the Proddys’ oldest daughter, Bernice. The girl had left home three years before when she was fifteen and had been supporting herself one way and another ever since.