Chapter 5

On the Road

Clare smiled in her sleep. There was a laughter to her dreams she rarely enjoyed while awake.

The warm body cuddled next to her gave her a sense of security. She had grown accustomed to sharing her bed in the loft with her siblings, which satisfied the practical need of surviving the frigid nights.

When she slowly opened her eyes, Clare experienced an odd sensation of motion just as her fingers felt the coarse hair of her sleep mate. She sat up with a start and heard the giddy cackles of Seamus and Pierce. Suddenly, the memory of hitching a ride on a swine wagon returned.

Seamus placed his face beside the snout of the pig lying beside her and puckered his lips. “Has the lady forgotten me morning kiss?”

Clare straightened her dress and brushed the straw from her hair, relieved to see the area she was sleeping in was relatively clean. “How long was I asleep? Where are we?”

Just then they hit a bump and the three of them, along with the six pigs who shared space in back of the cart, were hurled in the air.

The bounce was big enough to erase the smirk from Seamus’s face. “I’d say you slept through about twenty of those.”

“We’re about a half day out from Cork at this pace.” Pierce was sculpting a piece of wood with a pocketknife.

Clare replayed the last week in her mind. By the time all of the guests had left the wake that night, the three of them managed only a few hours of sleep before assembling at dawn in front of the Hanley farm, their bulging knapsacks in tote.

Many of the town’s families arose to escort them out with a farewell parade. Sleepy-headed children held the hands of their elder siblings, while mothers toted babies on their arms and hips as even the grayed citizenry hobbled along with the aid of walking sticks.

After a long and teary embrace, Caitlin stayed behind with Ma, who watched listlessly from a chair in front of the house as the clattering throng moved as one down the dirt road.

As they passed by rain-worn hovels along the way, more of Branlow’s residents joined the procession, and by the time they all arrived at Turner’s Crossing, there were nearly four score gathered to pay their respects. The final gifts of sweet cakes, seed loafs, soda crackers, potato bread, white scones, and sacks of potatoes were gratefully received, despite needing to be forced into their sacks.

After the last embraces and kisses on cheeks were shared, the three ventured away to the encouragement of shouts and prayers from those they were leaving behind. Clare only had the courage to look back once, and her eyes sought out Father Quinn, who raised a hand in farewell. They churned with a good pace and in near silence for the first few miles.

Now days later, thumping in the back of the cart, their emotional separation from their family and friends seemed distant. Since leaving, they sloshed in tumultuous rainfall, poached slumber in the fields of farmers, slunk by dark strangers, struggled to find warmth in chilling winds, and after several days of arduous travel, welcome indeed was the sight of the hog cart pulling up beside them.

Despite the unpleasant smell and the jolting ride, there was luxury in the knowledge they had a ride all the way to Cork.

Their ride on the wagon, though it paced slowly, was still much swifter than fellow migrants who lumbered on foot by the hundreds. There were the young and strong who had vibrancy to their steps. But many were entire families, whose progress was curtailed by the weakest among them: the sick or crippled, small children and aging grandparents. Many carried their life’s possessions on their shoulders or in handcarts so overfilled they were on the brink of toppling.

The nation was on the move.

“You’ll be happy to know, dear sister, we lightened your pack while you were sleeping.”

Clare didn’t know whether to feel grateful or violated. “You didn’t throw anything away, did you?”

“No, your precious books are split between your two mules here, although I’m sure we’ll assess some type of fee for our services.”

“So Clare,” Pierce grinned, “are you ready to share your little secret?”

Her hand went to her pendant and she stroked it. “I told you already, the keener asked me not to share.”

“But you never promised her you wouldn’t,” Pierce said. “It’s just the two of us.”

“The hogs can be trusted,” Seamus said. “They told me themselves.”

“There’s not much to entertain you, I’m afraid.” Clare decided the boys were as justified as she was to hear Madame O’Riley’s words. “She told me once in New York I was to give this pendant to some man named Patrick Feagles.”

They both looked at her as if to say: Is that all?

“I told you both there wasn’t much to it. Other than she said this Patrick Feagles would be most generous once it was returned.”

“Generous?” Seamus raised a brow. “Now that makes it more tempting. How big a town is New York, do we know?”

Just then, there was a neighing of horses, and the wagon slowed, and then angled to the side of the road before coming to a complete stop. In a few moments, a gray-stubbled face peered over the edge of the wagon at them.

Finn, the pig farmer, cleared his throat and spat before speaking, and when he did, Clare could see there wasn’t a tooth visible in his whole mouth.

“We’re losing our light soon,” the old man said. “Are you hungry at all?”

They exchanged looks of agreement.

He cleaned out his ear with his finger. “Me cousin and her husband. Friendly folks they are and she’s handy with a kettle. They live just a way off the main road.”

Without a genuine protest, they rolled again and passed through peasant farmland, speckled with houses more like rock shanties.

Clare leaned back and rested her arms on the walls of the wagon and observed Seamus’s exchanges with his boyhood friend. Her brother seemed relaxed and happy, something he usually only feigned within the shadows of his father.

The clopping of the horses brought Clare back to the day Ronan, who was just beginning to walk at the time, had his leg crushed by the family’s milk cow. The damage caused the bone to protrude from the skin above his ankle. When Breandan Collins arrived, he promptly assessed the injury to be beyond his talents.

“But sir,” Clare’s father said, as Ronan screamed in the background, “you’re the only healer in Branlow.”

“Aye, with horses and chickens, this is true.” Breandan stroked his beard as sweat beaded on his forehead. “But your child needs a doctor. I’ll take care of the boy’s pain, but you need to head to Roscommon proper and fetch someone properly trained.”

Her father blanched. The city was thirty miles outside of town, and it was raining in windy sheets.

“You can take my mare,” Breandan said. “She’s out front. Go on. Get going. The sooner we can get his leg set, the better chance your son will have of ever walking again.”

“Shall I go with you, Da?” Seamus looked up to his father with an expression of deep pleading. “I want to help Ronan.”

Clare would never forget the silent exchange. Her father had dismissed Seamus with a poisoned look of disgust, and then her brother’s confidence drained, his shoulders slumped, and his head went down.

Da jacketed himself and headed out into the tempestuous night and Ma hollered at him to hasten.

Less than thirty minutes later, their da returned sporting a bloody gash on his forehead and with his clothing soaked and covered in mud. He was too proud to admit that he had never ridden a horse before, and it was no night for learning.

With no other choice, the animal doctor labored through the crude surgery, managing to save the leg but leaving Ronan with a permanent hitch.

That night, when the downpour relented, Seamus had been taken out by his father and given the reed in the field. When her brother climbed into the straw mattress next to Clare, the pains on his back caused him to whimper in muffled groans.

“What did you do?” Clare whispered in his ear.

“Da said I looked at him with blame.” Then Seamus sobbed until he fell asleep.

A whistle from the pig farmer snapped Clare out of her musings, and up ahead she could see two figures approaching. She squinted and as the wagon drew them nearer, she made out a short, squat man escorting a woman who was taller than him by a good half foot. Suddenly the woman let out a shriek and hurried toward them in waddling fashion, waving as she came closer.

“Finn!”

“Whoa.” The old driver stopped the cart to a creaking halt and was only halfway out of his seat when the woman reached up and embraced him hard enough to cause Finn to stumble out of the wagon.

The woman spotted his passengers, all three of whom were now standing in the back of the wagon. “And what have you here?”

“These are me new companions,” Finn said, who was now standing beside her and brushing some of the dust from his clothing.

She looked up at them with an odd smile. Despite the leathery appearance of her skin and the large wart jutting out of her cheek, her face bore a gentle spirit.

“Welcome. Come down and greet us, won’t you? Not every day a lonely woman gets the pleasure of young visitors. Brings joy to me eyes, it does.” Then her face shifted to concern. “I’ve got some tidying to do.”

By this time, the short man accompanying her arrived. He wore faded black pants peppered with patches and a well-stained white shirt mostly hidden beneath an olive green vest. He had an unlit pipe in one hand and a brown hen struggling to free itself tucked under his other arm.

“Jack,” she barked as she limped over to him. “Hand her to me.”

He objected with a sharp gaze, but then released it to her with some reluctance. The woman grabbed the chicken and scurried down the road in a gait that looked as if it pained her.

Jack shrugged. “My wife fancies visitors,” he said in a way that indicated he did not.

Wanting to walk the aches out of their legs, Clare and the two boys followed behind Finn’s rattling wagon the remainder of the way to Jack’s house, which was as forlorn as its owner.

Clare was the last to enter the doorway of the weathered shanty, and before doing so, she paused to glance far down the road behind them. In the tapering of light, and amidst the humming of crickets and the flaps of the wind, Clare thought she discerned a voice.

It was whispering for her to return home.