They were six squeezed around the table, elbows bumping as they ate. The windows were fogged with steam, the air thick with the odor of damp wool and fried onions. Daniel drifted in the warmth, his thoughts on the blank sheet of copper waiting in his studio. The edge of a knife ringing against a water glass brought him back to his sister’s kitchen.
“My thanks to you, Mort and Michael, for coming out on such a night,” Fiana said, raising her glass in a toast. Not to think of it, their small nods said in silent reply.
“You know the rumors about the mine this Eire-Evergreen Metals are building in the village, but no one seems to know what the truth is or what’s to be done. Mort and I have been digging around, and it’s time to let you”—she glanced at Daniel, one eyebrow raised—“know what we’ve found. We’ve got to have a plan, so.”
Daniel was aware of the rumors circulating in the pubs and back gardens of southwest Cork since late last summer, but he hadn’t paid them much mind. The rumors had coalesced into few solid facts.
“It’s going to be tough, them coming in and promising jobs,” said Michael Leahy, stabbing at a ball of potato and dragging it through the butter that pooled on his plate. Michael ran sheep on fields that drifted up boggy, wind-cracked Slieve Miskish. “There’s not a soul in the whole of Beara who would deny we need the shot in the arm this mine would give. Not just the mining jobs but construction work on housing for the miners and their families, teachers for the schools, more traffic in the shops and restaurants. We’d seem like fools getting in the way of the economy. But is this what we want for our children’s future?” The farmer pointed his fork at Liam and Catriona before cramming the potato into his mouth.
Liam hunched over his plate, fork grasped like a shovel, and he seemed to hardly chew his food before swallowing and going for more. Catriona’s eyes had slipped down to the mobile phone hidden in her lap.
“We know what we’re up against, and we can prepare for that. We’ll know their arguments in support of the mine better than they do.” Mort MacGeoghegan pushed his plate away. At seventy-five, the retired University College Cork professor of geology knew every layer of history the stones and sediment of the Beara Peninsula could tell. He’d been born just down the road and had spent all his life in West Cork, except for his PhD years at Cambridge University and fieldwork in the Pacific Northwest. He’d made the drive from Clonakilty to Cork for forty years. When his wife, Birdie, died two years ago, he’d finally retired and returned to his birthplace at the tip of this forlorn peninsula that thrust like an accusing finger into the North Atlantic. He was the closest Daniel had to a father figure, a man whose quiet confidence Daniel had been surprised—after all these years of building walls—to admit he sought.
“We must counter those arguments with a solid case of our own,” Mort continued. “We’ve got to get across that restarting the copper mine industry would mean an end to Beara. Our protected corner of the world as we know it would cease to exist.”
“Is that enough?” Fiana said, her hands raised and spread as if to show the emptiness of their argument. “Is saving the fragile ecosystem of Beara enough for families who are behind on their mortgages or can’t pay their kids’ tuition? Is it enough for Conor MacCarthy’s pub that is about to shutter its doors or Emily O’Sullivan’s dress shop that’s gone since October or Fern Drummond’s gallery?”
Fiana glanced at her brother. “We picked up the last of Daniel’s pieces from the Niedan Gallery in Castletownbere two weeks ago. So few sold. Even the tourists—especially the tourists—aren’t buying these days.” She squeezed her hands around her glass. “I’m in full agreement with you, of course, but we can’t come off like a pack of squirrely environmentalists or—forgive me, Mort—egghead professors. We have to give people a cause to rally behind.”
Those unsold pieces from the Niedan Gallery sat wrapped in his studio, income delayed, but Daniel had grown used to the slow pace of sales. He’d begun his prison sentence when the country was as high on easy money as he’d been on drink and coke. Five years later, he’d emerged, diminished but clean, into an Ireland stupefied by failure, depressed, her eyes glazed over with shock. The high times had vaporized.
But here, deep in southwest Cork, the prosperity had made only a superficial flush on the tidy villages; the economic tide still ebbed and flowed with the fishermen and farmers. It was one of the reasons he’d returned, despite his shame. It was the only part of Ireland he still recognized.
“Did you have something in mind then, Fiana?” Michael asked.
“I do indeed.” This time she held Daniel’s gaze, as if trying to impart some meaningful message. He had no idea where she was headed with this, but Daniel knew his sister: She had a plan, and it involved him.
She pushed back from the table and picked up the cream-colored platter that had held the season’s first tender asparagus and a ceramic bowl with two chunks of roasted carrots huddled together at the bottom. Michael considered his nearly empty plate with eyebrows raised in alarm. Daniel elbowed the dish of boiled potatoes toward the farmer, and Michael added a few morsels to his plate, winking his thanks. He’d watched Michael poking around his bowl of lentil stew earlier, looking for morsels of lamb or beef, until Daniel took pity and mouthed, “Vegetarian.” Michael hid his dismay with a mouthful of soda bread, and Daniel swallowed back a smile. At least there were the potatoes, swimming in butter and salt.
On her way back from the kitchen, Fiana plucked a manila folder from the breakfront cabinet that held a jumble of schoolbooks, catalogs, and seed packets. “Gentlemen, and lady.” She laid a hand on Catriona’s head, and her daughter glanced up with rounded eyes. “I present to you the savior of Beara: our own Red-billed Chough.” She dropped the folder on the table and returned to her chair, drawing the edges of her cardigan around her. The buzz of a muted phone sounded before anyone could respond.
“Cat, what have I told you about a phone at the table?” Fiana narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “Get started on the dishes. You’re dismissed. You, too, lad. Homework. Now.” Liam huffed his irritation, but he obeyed, flicking his sister’s hair as he slumped past. Her face pink with embarrassment, Catriona palmed her phone in one hand and picked up her dinner plate with the other, mumbling her apologies. She returned to collect the rest of the dishes in silence, and Daniel caught her eye and winked.
His sister had opened the thick folder and pushed it to the center of the table. On top sat a large photograph of a jet-black bird with a long, crimson-red bill and scaly red feet that ended in pointed black claws. It was difficult to tell the bird’s size from the photograph, but Daniel knew. He knew the chough like he knew the shape and feel of his hands. He’d held several at the Durrell Wildlife Park on Jersey, that island of rolling plains and rugged cliffs in the Channel between England and France.
Beara’s elusive population of Red-billed Choughs clung to coastal cliffs or flitted in pairs through wet fields, low to the clumps of black, turned earth where they scavenged for loose grains, worms, larvae. At Durrell, Daniel had been able to study the bird in captive rehabilitation. He’d seen how a creature could be brought back from extinction. He’d learned how to represent what coming back from nothingness might feel like, how quickly freedom could be lost and what it cost to be granted a second chance. He would have scoffed had anyone said he’d found a spirit animal in this slight, strange crow, and he’d never spoken of his affinity for the chough; he let his art express what would have made him cringe to say in words. Barely a pound, the bird was the span of his forearm. Up close, the blue-green sheen of the bird’s plumage made him think of the way copper aged under the stress of rain and cold.
Michael picked up the photograph. “The little chough. Used to see these everywhere as a boy on Dingle. Not as many here, but endangered? That’s news to me.” He dropped the photo onto the table and looked up to Fiana, but she was riffling through the stack of papers.
Daniel spoke up. “The Red-billed Chough has held its own in most places, but it’s on the Amber List in Ireland. Means it’s vulnerable, and if we don’t maintain local habitats, we’ll lose it, like they did in Jersey.” He traced the bird’s image with a forefinger, imagining its shape worked out of metal. “Beara’s got just the right mix of grazed land and protected sea cliffs where the choughs thrive,” he continued. “But it wouldn’t take much to tip the balance. They’re what’s known as an indicator species. Their health can indicate the health of the ecosystem they inhabit—”
“What does the chough have to do with the mine?” Michael interrupted.
Fiana extracted a laminated sheet from the pile and held it out. Michael accepted it and dropped the reading glasses perched on his head to the bridge of his nose. A moment’s glance, then he slapped his knee. “Damn. I’ll be goddamned. Forgive me,” he said to Fiana, who waved away his curse.
“The chough’s breeding ground overlooks the shoreline where Eire-Evergreen Metals have proposed to begin drilling,” she said. “One of Ireland’s remaining healthy habitats of the Red-billed Chough would be destroyed if that mine is allowed to open. This little crow”—she tapped the photograph on which Daniel’s fingertips still rested—“will be the symbol of our fight against Eire-Evergreen Metals. He stands for all that is pure and unprotected on the Beara Peninsula.” Circles of pink bloomed high on her cheekbones.
“If the chough is in such danger, how is the mining company able to begin exploration?” Michael asked.
Fiana and Mort exchanged glances, and she nodded for him to go ahead. “This is just an educated guess, but here’s our theory,” Mort said. “The whole of the Beara Peninsula is designated a Special Protection Area, meaning that no one can disturb the natural habitats of any species on public or private land without permission from the government. Part of any commercial development must be the Environmental Impact Statement, filed before development can begin, but not necessarily in the exploration process. My guess is Eire-Evergreen are in the thick of it now, figuring out how to get through the gauntlet of Ireland and European Union environmental regulations. But with the promise of jobs for the community and tax revenue for the state … ” He trailed off, allowing them to form their own conclusions.
“On behalf of this bird and our community, Michael’s question is one we have to ask and ask loudly,” Fiana said. “We—”
“We should have started before now,” said Mort, “but it won’t take long to round up supporters and form some sort of coalition. I can name every anti-mine family from here to Bantry.” He plucked the photograph from underneath Daniel’s hand in his excitement. “If I take this to the environmental studies and Celtic studies departments at the University, we can enlist students to build us a website, maybe get the kids in the Environmental Society to organize protests. It’d be a great research project for some young gun—somebody can quickly get us up to speed with the SPA requirements and file for the public notice documents at the Ministry.”
“I’m going to put on some tea. Coffee for you, Michael?” Fiana stepped toward the kitchen, then hesitated and turned back. “There’s more, actually,” she said. “I just heard from Paula at O’Sullivan’s Estate Agents. The McGuire place was just purchased by James MacKenna.”
Mort was nodding as though he understood, but Michael and Daniel shrugged in tandem. “I’d heard it sold, but who is James MacKenna?” Daniel asked.
“Director of operations of Eire-Evergreen Metals,” Mort answered. “He’s an Aussie, but his family claims deep ties to the region, so it looks like they’ve used their gold-lined pockets to become Irish again.”
A to-do list began to spill down one sheet of paper and a list of names on another—local supporters and those deep-pocketed transplants from the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands who visited Beara on holiday and fell in love with its wild beauty, buying or building second homes on this jagged slice of mountain and bog.
Daniel drifted away. His love for the peninsula was profound and complicated, twisted into thoughts of family, shelter, commitment, and obligation. His stomach knotted at the thought of a copper mine ripping into the cliffs and tearing at the coastline, changing this remote and quiet place forever. But someone else would have to take up the fight. He had none left in him.
“I agree,” said Mort. Three smiling faces turned to him. “He would be brilliant.”
“What?” Daniel hadn’t heard a word they’d spoken for several minutes. His inner gaze had turned again to the sheet of copper waiting for him, his fingers twitching to feel the smooth, cool metal. “He who?”
“You, Danny,” Michael replied. “You’d be perfect.”
“For what?”
“The spokesperson for the Beara Chough Coalition,” Fiana said.
“The what? You’re joking.” He pushed away from the table. “I’m not about to be the spokesperson for anything.”
“Danny, listen. You are an example of what this land can do—heal and strengthen.” Fiana placed a hand on his arm, eyes shining with her impassioned plea. “You are Beara’s prodigal son, returned to rebuild his life in the shelter of his community. Your art represents us. Your story is our story.”
Daniel flung off her hand and stood so suddenly his chair toppled to the ground. Fiana gasped and Michael started back in surprise, but Mort’s blue eyes, bright against his trim white beard and hair, held Daniel’s glare with somber empathy.
“My story?” Daniel snorted in disgust. “Fiana, my story is that I killed a child and destroyed a family. You’ve lost your mind if you think I’d present my story to the public. Leave me out of this.”
He caught the tiny shake of Mort’s white head before he barreled out the back door.