Red Sky in Morning (7 page)

The land leveled around him. Far off to his right he saw a speck of light fattening slowly in the darkness and he figured it for a person with a lantern. He stood and waited till it crossed far off in front of him. The light a blear fighting the dark expanse and he sat watching until the light disappeared, its bearer swallowed whole by an oblivion, and he set off again.

He found a track that rose towards a house and he walked up the verge and went around the back where he came upon the smell of cooped chickens. He found their rough nest under a low wooden roof and felt about for a door. Birds fluttered furiously when he crawled his way in but settled just as soon and he lay down on the straw amongst the droppings and the flies and the molted feathers and he felt warm.

N
OT YET MORNING
and he was up. The day uncalled by cockerel and he rummaged for eggs in the silver-purpled light, shucked their insides out silken and raw and he filled his pockets with whatever eggs were left and went outside and met the lopsided gaze of a dog. The animal looked at him with liking and he scratched its grayed ears and asked it how far away he was now from Buncrana and the dog looked at him and then answered to his hand with a wet stubbled lick. He began again his journey and the dog followed him for some time listening to his talk. I wonder what you’d do if you were in my place. I’ll bet you’d hang about wouldn’t ye, bite the problem till the end. A more noble creature you are.

The dog circled the air with its tail and began to nose the side of the road, found a trail and followed it.

I shoulda been born a dog.

He stayed away from the road, canny risk it, and he cut through fields and he avoided a short shower of rain under a tree. He met no eyes and no eyes fell upon him though only so much he could see and he walked till the land slumped bleakly in front of him and he came upon the moss. Scabbing of black amidst brown weave of heather and he trudged on, the blanket rolled in his hand, and he passed under the watch of a steep dun hill and again it began to rain. He tightened his hat, pulled tighter his oilskin and followed the cannelure of track that rounded the hill, the weathered groove meandering and pebbled with the droppings of sheep. The rain stopped and the land blushed in the veiling linger of mist. He saw stones fighting swamp and he spied sheep far off on a hill and he eyed all about for a house of some kind and by noon he found one solitary. He followed the path to it, dim smog from a chimney and a cart canting outside, and he went to the door and knocked. There came no answer and he knocked again and he opened the latch and went in. The smell of turf smoke steeped in the walls. No one about and he found the fire dozing under the keep of ashes. He went to it and poked it alive and he looked about for kindling. The fire snatched at the faggots and he put his hands over the heat for a while and just stood.

The second room housed a bed and on the dresser he saw a knife and he ran his finger over the dull rusting blade and he pocketed it. Lucifer matches too and he slurped old stew potted beside the fire after reheating it and then he sat in the chair and closed his eyes.

Dog bark. He awoke and sat up. Listened again and then he stood, the baying reaching from closer now, and he looked about. He took his blanket and went to the door and slivered it. No one about yet and he opened it wider and slipped outside and closed the door behind him. He took another look and saw the advance party, black dog drumming up the path from the hill.

T
HE SHEEP SCATTERED
from his flailing arms when he went after them. He chased after one and then another that nimbled around a rock and he fixed on one that was slower and went after it, his feet squelching in the black ooze and the animal veering about. He came up to it and grabbed hold of it and he wrested it by the neck and took it to the ground. It lay panting and unblinking and he pulled the knife from his pocket and put it to the animal’s throat, began to talk to it in whisperings, there she goes girl not so bad, as the flesh resisted the blunt advances of the knife and then yielded to it and the animal buckled and calmed. He stayed whispering to it like it was a lover as its blood soaked the sedge and drained into the wet earth, the sheep’s eyes glassing till finally unseeing he let it fall limp.

He took the knife and began to cut the fleece, scored it around the hoofs and rolled his knuckles between wool and flesh until he had the fleece tubed inverse to the neck. He took the front legs and broke them and then he cut them off and he twisted the head and cut at it until the tendons stretched like they were holding on to some kind of form of the life it once held and then it came free and he put the fleece on the ground and cut the head out of it. The carcass lay violet and still bore heat and he hacked at its midsection and cut the loin out of it and laid it on the grass. He bent to the remains, dragged it and he picked it up and slung it into sludge behind a bunch of heather and he bent and wiped his hands on the heather.

Sullen sky coming down to meet the land and he walked with the fleece around his neck and the meat in his hand and he found the makings of a cave, a rock inviolate against the wearing of the rains and a shelf leaning out to lid the place. He lit a fire that shook yellowing into the blue light and he fixed some sticks upon it. He cooked the meat and ate the charred flesh and finished the last egg and he took the fleece and climbed into the pelted tubing, lay against the shoulder of slanting stone and cursed the rain cunting down when it came.

T
HE CUTTER WAS CURLED
dozing under a sack when the cart groaned to a halt. He heard a voice low in exchange with his brother and then the cart sagged and sprung with new weight and squealed slowly back to life. He heeled the boards with his feet and groaned and lifted the sack to peer at the stranger, pangs of spangled light on his eyes, and he saw a man backturned and then he lay back under the sack.

He awoke some time later and lifted the bag off his face and sat up. The man was sitting sideways with his head wrapped in a blanket, his knees under his chin. The Cutter reached across for a brown bottle by his side and uncorked it with his teeth and drank. He watched the man and then drank some more and he watched the stranger again. He stretched out his leg and tapped the man’s elbow with his foot. The man did not stir and he kicked him again and the man whipped off the blanket and glared. The Cutter gave him a big smile then proffered the bottle. The man looked at him darkly then reached out and took a hold of it and he took a slug and his chest seized up and he spat out the contents. The man wiped his mouth to The Cutter’s wheezing laugh and handed the bottle back. The Cutter looked at the man’s face all bruised and scuffed and his eyes bloodshot and he giggled. You from Ballymagan?

The man shrugged. I donny know where that is.

The Cutter wheezed giddily. You were just in it. Where ye got on. What’s yer name?

Coyle.

Call me The Cutter. And this here’s Mr. Whiskey.

You’re up early, the pair of yez.

The Cutter sucked a long slug and his mouth made a pop leaving the bottle. The dog that bit the hole off ye, he said.

Coyle watched the man curl fetal, black feet poking out from under the sack, a bag and boots by his head. He eyed the landscape in the wan sun, the land dimpled and degged with sprouting color, their passing met by blank bovine stares from huddled herds and he stared idly back. They trundled through townlands indifferent to their passing though still he watched wary and low, the blanket shawled about his head. These settlements seemed thrown into being, haphazard upon the land with their white walls clad in smokedirt and peopled with pigs and the deadstone stares of old women in shawls.

The Cutter was still asleep when it began to rain, a drizzle tentative at first as if it were feeling its way about and then with certainty it began to thicken. The Cutter sat up and pulled the sack over his head and he motioned for Coyle to join him and Coyle took the blanket off his head and balled it and sidled alongside him under the sack.

You for Derry too? The Cutter asked.

Might be.

Make up your mind sir.

They watched the wagging road fall away from them and saw out the rain and when Coyle began to cough violently into his hand The Cutter said nothing but patted the man on the back and told him to swig good from the bottle.

The rolling of the rig put The Cutter into a doze and when he awoke later he saw that Coyle was gone. His brother’s voice wroth behind him and the world covered in fog. Across the back of Inishowen they had traveled and now they were alongside the Foyle. The sound of water muted on the lough and he sat himself alongside his brother and peered his eyes onto the disappearing road.

T
HE CUTTER SAW
the black door of the Derry quays tavern and pushed in. Skeletal hands on a mantel clock pointed to half past two and the place full to near-riot. The tavern was dank, a stretch of light weak from a window and one man working the bar to myriad calls for his attention. Tobacco smoke hung shiftless in the air as if it had nowhere to move, the air already laden with the sweat of bodies fresh and the odor of others long past still reeking and in the far corner a door fanned open and shut wafting stale piss. Drinkers were squeezed in lines down benches and their belongings and barrels were piled by the door.

The Cutter got himself a drink and pushed his way through the room with a cup of beer over his head till he came to the back. He saw the edge of a bench and a young man on the end and he saw there was room and he asked the man to push up. The man no more than a boy, wisp of beard and a face that was stingy and narrow as a horse, and he acted as if he did not hear him. The Cutter nudged him and smiled and asked him again to push up but the man supped from his cup and turned his head away from him. A draining smile on The Cutter’s lips and he asked the youngster again to move and when he got no response he turned and walked away and then he stopped. He turned and walked back and elbowed his weight onto the seat. Plenty of room, he said and the youngster tipped sideways first and then leaped up from the bench and pulled a knife. The Cutter leaned backwards with his arms out wide and the drinkers around them stood up. Hold on there horsey, he said. The kid cut the air in warning with the blade and was interrupted fast by another who took him by the collar and heaved him back onto the seat putting apologetic words in his ear. The man then turned and offered a hand to The Cutter who stood glowering at the youngster and who turned his attention to his beer pooled and dripping off the table. The man before him with the same face as the knifeman but thicker with age and bearded. Sam Tea’s the name and you’ve just met me brother. Apologies for the way he’s acting.

All he had to do was push up.

The man waved his hand as if to dismiss the incident and he put it to The Cutter to shake. The Cutter looked at the hand before him and took it reluctantly and nodded towards his empty cup. Sam prodded his brother and pointed to the empty drinks. In the palm of his hand he danced a few coins. Go on, he said. The youngster went scowling to the bar.

Sam turned to The Cutter and nodded towards his brother. He’s half soused so he is and he donny speak so I do the talking for the both of us.

The Cutter sat down. Looks to me like The Mute hears fine rightly.

He hears what he wants to hear.

The Mute arrived back and slapped three beers on the table and sat with his shoulder turned.

Are you for sailing? Sam asked.

The Cutter smiled. Was. Some fog out there.

Across the table a gray-bearded man groused dead-eyed about the weather and the delays it had caused and the cost of a night’s lodgings to another who sat half listening, his eyes watery, smiling dumbly over fat glistening lips.

T
HE FURL AND GRASP
of fog and then the road shortened before him. He followed till it met the Foyle and the road along the shore to Derry. Took him a while to realize he knew it. That one trip before with Jim. His brother’s laughter. That time they took a cart to Derry to flog a heap of spuds. A battered old horse they borrowed without asking. Must have been just fourteen. My poor brother. And he saw before him the rock of his jaw and the fierce living in his eyes.

The air damp and the sea sullen behind mist. A silence unearthly but for his own footsteps and when he heard the cart coming behind him it was nearly on top of him and he watched the driver well-dressed trundle past his greeting hand. The next one he stopped, heard it coming sooner—an old horse driven by an old man with no words to say but for a tilt of his sandstone head to get on up and Coyle did so and sat behind grateful. He wrapped himself in the blanket and when they neared the walled city the old man stopped and motioned with his head towards his turning and Coyle squeezed the man’s shoulder in thanks. He hopped over the side and watched the old man and the horse disappear into the mist like an apparition from his mind that ceased to be.

The start of the city marked by slack-shouldered buildings dim in the fog and he found the streets veiled and lifeless. Evening thickened and he buttoned his coat and adjusted his eyes to the gloom. He followed the road till he was on the quays and he saw the vague shape of the walls rising behind it, the fog lingering upon packet ships fixed lifeless to the docks, the water unheard and the ships silent but for the soughing of their beams. He neared a vessel and saw the figures of sailors smoking on deck, the strangled echoes of one of them laughing while beneath them shone candlelight from a lone berth window.

A redbrick warehouse rose like standing shadow and he saw figures ghosting the mist, people huddling over the flames of barrel fires that danced dimly about the water’s edge. He walked among them and saw they were ship passengers not yet departed, their faces looming white and ragged out of the fog, countenances long and few were the words from their mouths. He saw a shawled woman sitting on her belongings and a child on a breast that hung limp and another child sitting nearby and he saw that they were alone. Men sat in circles, idle and heaped with drunken faces and he heard them talking in flat voices or there was no talk at all and he saw children sitting tired as if the fog had sapped them of their vitality.