The Irish Bride (17 page)

Fascinated, Aidan leaned forward a
bit. “We heard he was a tyrant, banishing his tenants on those
coffin ships. Worse than Cromwell, it was said, and that he got
what he deserved when he was shot dead in his own
carriage.”

Flanagan shrugged
philosophically. “He was in a position I wouldn’t wish on the devil
himself. The estate was thirty thousand pounds in debt when it came
to him, and the rents were three years in arrears. Then the
potato
miadh
struck and the famine followed. He offered passage to Canada
to any tenant who would give up his wee patch of land. So my
brothers and I, we said all right. The major chartered two ships
and both of them lost a lot of passengers to typhus by the time we
reached Quebec. My brothers were among them. But I lived. Maybe I
wouldn’t have if Mahon hadn’t given me the chance to leave.” He
sounded glad to have gone.

“
Don’t ye miss
Ireland?”

The big man gave him a half-smile that
Aidan knew well; he’d seen it, at one time or another, on nearly
every Irish face he’d ever known. It reflected heart-sore regret
and the reality of life. “That I do, boyo, every one of my days,
just like I miss my sainted mam. But I know I’ll not see either of
them again in this life.”

Aidan was silent for a moment,
realizing that Colm Flanagan spoke for him as well, and for God
knew how many other Irishmen. He drained his ale.

“
So ye came to Philadelphia
and then New Orleans, and you’ve been here all these years?” Aidan
signaled the barkeep to bring two more pints.

“
Oh, Jaysus, no. I’ve been
to New York, Boston, Providence, Newport—all up and down the east
coast. I dug ditches, I worked on docks and in factories and on the
railroads. But the work—harder than anything at home, mind—was
never steady. And ye take your life in your hands in most cases.
The bosses aren’t too choosey about putting their workers in
dangerous jobs. There are always others eager to take a dead man’s
place. I’ve seen men worked to death, killed in accidents and by
sickness. I gave up on those cities and came down here, but I’ve
got a plan for something better. Something different altogether.”
He lifted the mug brought by the barkeep and nodded at Aidan.
“Thank you. In the name of Erin.”

Aidan lifted his mug as well. “Name of
Erin,” he intoned and took a long swallow of ale. “Is there no
solid work up North?”

“
Aye, lad, there’s work, but
the pay is bad, the hours longer than ye can imagine, and now we’ve
a new enemy in America.” Flanagan looked around the barroom, and
his voice dropped to a near whisper. “The
Know-Nothings.”

“
Eh? No what?”

“
It’s a political party.
They’re called Know-Nothings because they operate in secret against
immigrants, and most especially Catholics. Hate us, they surely do.
They got the name since when they’re asked about their evil doings,
they claim to know nothing. They’ve murdered Irishmen and destroyed
churches. Nobody stops them.”

Aidan stared at him.

“
Not what ye’d heard back
home, aye?” Flanagan’s chuckle was grim. “You probably got letters
from America, or knew someone who did, who said this is the land of
milk and honey, or maybe tea and whiskey. Food galore, enough to
make a man fat, gorgeous houses, and two-three sets of
clothes.”

It was Danny Leary’s letter almost to
the word, the one he’d told Farrell about the night before they
sailed. No, Flanagan’s account wasn’t what he’d heard. He could
only shake his head. “Are they starving in America too?”

“
No, no, all those things
are here—
miles
of
good crops, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep and
chickens—this
is
a
place of plenty. But Irishmen might only see it all going to
someone else. The poor souls get here, most of them can’t read or
write, some of them can speak only Irish, they don’t know how to do
anything but work the land. The priests and politicians here urge
them to settle on farms, but none can afford that. So they end up
sweeping floors in places like this—” He gestured around the
barroom. “Or turning their lungs black in the coal mines, or
digging canals. Sometimes they do work that plantation owners won’t
risk their slaves to do. Our women, if they’re lucky enough, and if
ye can call it luck, go to work in rich men’s homes as servants or
cooks. Otherwise they toil in the textile mills, breathing in lint,
and God keep them from burning to death if the places catch fire.
There’s nothing wrong with hard work, but a man ought to be paid
for what he does, and not have to risk his life in the doing. It’s
a disgrace, so it is.”

By this time, Aidan had begun to
regret that he’d met Colm Flanagan. He felt as if someone had
plunged a knife into his heart and twisted the haft. If what the
man said was true, his life and Farrell’s would be no better than
it had been in Ireland. It sounded as if no one was willing to
prevent the abominations he described, and because this was
America, it made the situation that much worse. Aidan wondered what
he was going to do, after he’d made Farrell all those grand
promises. Surely, given the man’s talent for yarn-spinning, he must
be exaggerating.

Flanagan must have seen the
disillusionment in Aidan’s face. “Aye, things aren’t what we
expected—life isn’t so rosy and the streets aren’t gold paved. But
there are opportunities.” He leaned close again, as if he were
about to reveal a treasured secret. “For myself, I’m going to try
my luck with a new enterprise I’ve learned of in the Oregon
Territory near the Pacific Ocean. A man with enough money to make
the trip and the grit to carve a life out of the wilderness could
prosper.”

He went on to tell Aidan the fantastic
story that a man could settle on one hundred sixty acres and claim
it as his own. All he had to do was build a house and work the
place for a couple of years. And if he had a wife, she could
acquire the same size parcel in her own name.

“
And no one there will tell
ye that you can’t work because you’re Irish or because you’re
Catholic or any of that blather. It’s wide open land, free for the
taking.”

“
Free?”
Aidan repeated. “Nothing is free in this life. Someone always
has their hand out to be paid.”

“
That’s the grand part of
this, lad. The American government is eager to expand the country
and settle the West. They passed an act to give away land through
the end of this year.” Flanagan drained his ale mug. “So if you’ve
a mind to go, you’d best get on with it.” He glanced at the wall
clock and grimaced. “Christ, I’ve got to get down to the docks and
see if I can pick up a job for a day or two.” He straightened away
from the bar and put out his hand to Aidan again. “It’s been a
pleasure, Aidan O’Rourke. Good luck to ye, and if you decide to go
to Oregon, maybe we’ll meet again.”

Aidan watched him leave, then paid his
bill. What Flanagan had told him about the Oregon Territory sounded
too good to be true. He intended to find out if it was.

* * *

“
You want to travel two
thousand miles west? Past the bounds of civilization and into the
domain of naked savages, God help us! You’ve been gone all day and
now ye come back here, smelling like the floor of a pub to tell me
this? And how will we be getting there, Mr. O’Rourke?”

Farrell stood with her hands
on her hips and faced him across the width of the rug in their
hotel room. She knew she probably sounded like a scold, but Aidan’s
news was so astonishing, so
alarming
, she couldn’t help herself.
Every scheme he had dreamed up beginning with that night in Clare’s
cottage was more crackbrained than the next. Their weeks at sea,
the misery, the discomfort, the danger that they had endured came
washing over her. Here they had just landed and he was talking
about going farther still. “And what happened to the plan of going
to New York or Boston or—or somewhere closer, if I may
ask?”

Patiently, Aidan went on to repeat the
story of his chance meeting with Colm Flanagan. “After that I nosed
around a bit—yes, in pubs—asking questions to confirm everything
he’d told me. Most of it was true, including the bad things. We
don’t want to go to a place where we’re treated like dirt again,
and kill ourselves working just to barely survive. There’s land out
west, miles and miles of it, that no one owns.” He scratched at an
insect bite on his jaw. This semi-tropical climate was like Eden to
the beasts. “And from what I could learn, people have been going to
Oregon in droves, following a path they call the Oregon Trail. It
might be hard at the beginning but we’d settle in soon enough.
We’ll grow acres of crops and work the land—it’ll be
heaven.”

“
But Holy Mother, it’s too
far away entirely!”

He held out his hands in an expression
of exasperation. “Too far away—from what, I ask ye? From New
Orleans? This town isn’t home to us. From New York, a place we’ve
never even seen and have no attachment to?”

His question forced her to admit her
true fear. She lowered her chin and stared at the worn pattern on
the rug. When she answered, her voice was as small as a girl’s.
“It’s too far away from Ireland.”

A moment of silence passed and she
looked up at him. She saw the echo of her regret in his eyes, that
they would never see their homeland again.

At last he replied, “Ah, little red
one, Ireland is always with us. Here”—he pointed to his temple—“and
here,” and he put his hand over his heart. It will never matter how
many miles we travel. So it’s settled, then. We’ll go to the Oregon
Territory.”

His pronouncement infuriated her. She
wasn’t asked if she wanted to go or how she felt about the
decision. He simply told her they were going. The very same kind of
decree had sent her across the Atlantic. Her brows met over the
bridge of her nose.

“
I didn’t want to come to
America in the first place, but ye kept telling me we’ll have a
better life, and I began to believe you. Well, we’re here now and
it still isn’t good enough for you. I’m sick of traveling. I just
want to light someplace, and I don’t see why we have to go all the
way to the
damned
Pacific Ocean to do it! What will be next? China? I won’t go,
I’m telling you. I won’t.”

He took a step back, as if she’d
slapped him. Her arms were rigid at her sides and her hands closed
into fists. The sudden silence in the room was broken only by the
raspy sound of their breathing. The vehemence of Farrell’s outburst
surprised even her. She was not a retiring creature, but neither
was she given to losing her temper.

She let her hands relax, but every
other muscle was locked with worry and anger. “Do you even care
about what I want? Can ye not understand how it feels to be ordered
about like a dog?” she asked, more quietly.

“
I do understand, and I
don’t mean to give you orders.” He came close again and she could
smell the scent of clean sweat, and the faintest whiff of wood
smoke and porter. “But I also remember what it feels like to
starve, and so do you. Think, girl, just think.” He gripped her
arms in his big hands, his face alight with the passion of a man
aching for freedom. “Wild game and fish without end, wide-open
land, never plowed once, they say, begging to be planted and
free for the taking
. The
O’Rourkes will finally own land again. Farrell, lass, how can we
not go?”

Her shoulders sagged under his touch
but she did not respond.

“
Will ye think on it, at
least?” he implored. His expression was so appealing, so full of
hope, she couldn’t refuse him outright. Liam had once told her that
Aidan’s chief failing was not his rebelliousness or his passion. It
was hope. Hope, Liam had said, and Aidan’s certainty that he could
make his dreams come true would bring him the most trouble and
break his heart. A man ought to accept his lot in life and make the
best of it, had been Liam’s opinion.

“
Aye, I’ll think on it,” she
replied glumly, and felt as if she were agreeing to think about
spending a year in gaol.

* * *

“
Farrell, will ye get up
and come to see Mrs. Kinealy, then? She’s askin’ for
you.”

It was her mother’s voice
Farrell heard, so clear and bright, not weak from hunger and
sickness. Although she couldn’t see her, Farrell knew she was a
young woman again, and she was but twelve years old
herself.

“
I’m coming, Mam,” she
called and ran to the front door of their cottage to see her mother
and greet the neighbor. Friendly Mrs. Kinealy, she was the poorest
of the poor, and everyone loved her. Through the open front door,
though, all Farrell could see was a gray dusk, as if the world had
taken its last breath. The trees were tall, leafless skeletons,
rattling their limbs in the cold wind like dry bones picked clean.
Everything was gray and white—all color had drained
away.

“
Farrell, are ye
coming?”

She hurried down the road,
past the empty cottages, past the destroyed, diseased potato
gardens, toward the sound of her mother’s voice, she but she
couldn’t see her. “Where are you, Mam?

“
Just here, lass, here with
Mrs. Kinealy. Come along, now, we’re waiting for you.”