A Million Tears (56 page)

‘Sorry, son. Perhaps I could have saved you a few of those cuts but Clive was adamant they would not be killing you so easily. It was he who shot the one through the head. He’s got some sort of hollowed ammunition that blows anything apart. David and I shot the other one. And that’s the story. Now all we’ve got to do is get you home to your mother. She’s probably out of her mind with worry. We need a telegraph office as soon as possible.’

There was a pause and then Dad said, ‘Son, I’m sorry about Bill and the others. It must have been a hell of a thing to go through.’

Sion nodded slowly. About the only part of Sion that wasn’t cut was his face. His arms, hands, chest and back had been sliced. The cuts were not very deep nor long but there were so many of them he had lost a lot of blood. When we moved Sion complained that they were beginning to itch like mad. A good sign according to Clive. He accompanied us back to O’Toole’s Ferry but left us there before we crossed.

‘With three hundred dollars gold I rich man,’ he said. ‘I go live with my wives and have plenty kids. No more have to work.’

‘Just make sure no robbing white man comes and steals it from you,’ Dad warned with a grin.

We sent a telegram from Sioux City and arrived back in St Louis on the 22 October. There were tears from Mam when we got off the train and a wooden smile from Sion. He left it to me and Dad to tell her what had happened. He had been okay while we were in the outback and even in the hotel in Sioux City. But now the nightmares started and he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming, or yelling Bill’s name and sometimes Paddy’s or Steve’s. It was Mam who helped him the most. She understood that he should not keep it all bottled up. It was only when he woke in the nights that he would open up and then she would sit with him for as long as he wanted, talking. Afterwards he would go back to sleep and then get up at all times of the day. He spent a lot of time with the horse he had escaped on which we had found further along the river bank after we found Sion. He would talk to that horse for hours.

One day Mam told me to get rid of the horse before Sion came down. I sold it to a farmer I met in town and returned to the house worried how Sion would react. Mam and he were in the middle of a yelling match in which she screamed as loud as he did. Finally he accepted that the horse had to go. After that his nightmares became less and less frequent until they all but disappeared.

One thing Dad had insisted upon, no mention was to be made of the others being tortured. When their families came, Sion had a story to tell of how their sons had died killing some of the gang. It was no consolation to Steve’s parents but it seemed to help Paddy’s a little. They wanted to know how Sion had survived and their boys had not. Sion just shrugged and said it was luck. With Dad’s assurances that the boys had received a Christian burial they returned home. Once that ordeal was over there was more chance for Sion to recover, but for all that he stayed changed. He had a restlessness about him which Dad and Sonny began channelling into the business.

I was also working for Dad now, giving legal advice when he wanted it, though I suspected he had already spoken to John Driscole. Dad was more and more involved with matters of state and was having to leave the business to Sonny. Sion began to work all sorts of crazy hours, reading old files, pouring over figures and making financial calculations. One day he rode out of town leaving a note to say he would be back in a week. In fact he was away ten days. When he returned he brought completed plans to expand into three other towns simultaneously. Realising work was the best therapy for him, Dad gave his approval provided Sion and I entered into the partnership using the money we still had from our inheritance from Uncle James. Sonny was given a ten percent stake and we had fifteen percent each, leaving control with Dad. As soon as the partnership was formalised Sion was off again. It was that spring when I became thoroughly discontented. The year was 1904.

***

I couldn’t settle down and I couldn’t get enthusiastic about work. I knew that both my family and Gunhild’s were waiting for me to make an honest woman of her but I didn’t want to. It was not that I did not love her, because I did, madly. It was not that we had any rows or anything like that, in fact, far from it. Oh, we used to argue about religion and a bit of politics but really we were as happy together as any two people could be. I just had to get away and do my own thing for a while. That was all there was to it. Since I could remember, I had worked hard to pass exams and get on. I had done all the right things, now I wanted to do what I wanted to do.

It was only fair that I told Gunhild first. It was a Saturday when I went over to her parent’s house for dinner. Usually, I stayed the night, because it was such a long ride home, sharing a room with one of her brothers. After dinner, as we often did, we went for a walk along the lane. It was cold on that last day of March and she had a shawl around her shoulders.

‘Gunhild, I er, I want to tell you something.’ ‘And what might that be? Let me guess. It can only be one of two things. The first is to ask me to marry you, the second is that you’re going away for a while. And if it was the former, knowing you, you would have taken me to Joseph’s, and dined me royally and then proposed. Therefore, I suppose you want to tell me that you’re going away.’

I put my arms around her shoulders and drew her to me. ‘It won’t be for long. Six months at the most. I just need to go and do something before I settle down.’

She nodded. The moon shone down on her upturned face and I could see the tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. I kissed her gently and then more passionately. After a few moments she broke away, took my hand and led me back to the barn. We made love. It was a while afterwards she said in a matter of fact voice: ‘I think you’d better go now. When are you leaving?’

‘Soon. I’m taking a boat to New Orleans. After that I don’t know where I’ll go. South America perhaps.’

We stood close together and she suddenly clutched me tightly. After a few seconds she pushed me away from her and ran to the house. I stood there like an idiot, not knowing what to do. When the door closed behind her I got my horse and started home.

Telling Mam and Dad was just as bad.

‘Dave,’ said Dad, ‘with all my work in Government I have less and less time to devote to the business. With the expansion you’re needed here more than ever. Sion is young and headstrong. You’re needed to keep him on the straight and narrow. And with your training and knowledge you’ll be invaluable.’

I shook my head obstinately.

‘Please, Dave, reconsider,’ said Mam. ‘What about Gunhild? What about all the education you’ve had? All the . . .’ she trailed off.

‘Look, Mam don’t tell me about the sacrifices you and Dad made in Wales. We know, we remember and we’re grateful. But that doesn’t leave us in your debt for life does it? Or does it? Is that what you think?’ I asked more harshly than I intended.

‘Of course it doesn’t,’ said Dad, equally harshly, ‘and nobody has ever suggested it. You’ve both been brought up to be your own men without any obligation to us.’

‘Christ, Dad, anybody would think I was going forever or something. All I want is to go and do what I want to do, as I keep saying, for six months or so. Is that so unreasonable?’ When they hesitated I continued. ‘I remember Wales vividly. I remember what it was like and I know how far you’ve brought us from those days. But did you do it so that Sion and I would have to be slaves to work and money? Or was it in part because it would give us a freedom of choice? Please, it’s important to me to go away for a while.’

‘Yes and do what? Tell me that,’ Mam said in a more reasonable voice.

‘Anything that isn’t academic. Anything that doesn’t involve books and the law and writing and clients. Just anything I feel like, okay?’ I said more belligerently than I intended.

‘What will you do about money? I thought you put every penny into the business,’ Dad said.

‘I put in all I had left from Uncle James’ legacy. The same as Sion, in fact. But I’ve been working long enough and I’ve saved some of what I’ve earned. Altogether I have just over a thousand dollars. More than enough to live on, in fact live very well. Which is why I’m taking tomorrow’s ferry for New Orleans.’

That night I pulled out my old atlas. Battered and torn I remembered the many hours I’d spent in Llanbeddas day dreaming about America and travelling the world. I thought of Sian and wondered what she would be like if she were alive today. One day I’d go back.

There was no more argument and they all came to see me off the next day. Gunhild didn’t appear and when the hooter sounded and we cast off I had a heavy heart, standing alone at the rail, waving goodbye. It was irrational because I did not intend being away for very long.

I had a few drinks in the saloon followed by a tough steak which I helped down with a bottle of red, vinegary wine, supposedly all the way from France. After a few more large brandies, more than a little drunk, I went to find my cabin.

It was one deck down, decorated with a floral wallpaper, and had room for a single bed, a wardrobe and behind a curtain, a tub. The tub was filled and emptied by an old and wizened black man, who said his name was Moses. He told me he looked after a dozen cabins on the deck and his duties included cleaning, making the beds, putting away clothes, seeing to the bath, shining shoes, pressing clothes and a few more jobs I did not quite catch. I was sitting on the edge of the bed and when I leaned back was almost instantly asleep. I guess another of his jobs was to remove boots.

I felt more than a bit lonely to start with. The Mississippi is a big, wide and muddy river, and also a busy one. There were always boats and barges moving up and down, though they kept clear of the deep draught, paddle-wheel boats which sailed like Queen Dowagers along the deeper water channels, imperiously clearing the smaller fry away from their path. It took two weeks to get to New Orleans where I walked disconsolately down the gangplank and on to the wharf. There was so much happening, so much excitement in the air, that I optimistically went to look for a quiet hotel not too far from the waterfront.

I found a place, a kind of poor carpetbagger’s hotel, as I described it in a letter to Gunhild. It had two floors with six bedrooms, a communal bathroom at one end and served food which was renowned for its mediocrity. After two dinners there I had learned my lesson, and from then on I went to different taverns and inns around the town, mostly down by the water front. I was advised by the hotel owner that I was going to a rough area. I told him I would rather take my chances with the unknown of the waterfront, than risk the certainty of food poisoning. After that he never spoke to me except coldly to say good-day when he gave me my room key. He was right of course. Some of the places were not suitable for me to enter and it might have been bravado that made me visit them. Looking back I think it was more akin to stupidity. Smooth talk and a generous buying of drinks usually calmed any potential antagonists. Some of the stories those men had to tell were incredible. Most of them were seamen sailing to Africa, Britain, or the Far East. From one week to the next nobody knew who was going to be in any bar. They came and they went, and the ones who replaced them were like the ones who had gone and so the same people seemed to stay forever.

The truth was that apart from sitting in those foulsmelling, smoke filled rooms for an evening and often staying there until the dawn I did nothing. In spite of missing Gunhild I was not tempted by the painted prostitutes who solicited me for my trade and they soon learned to leave me alone. I had been there for two months when, very drunk one night, I made up my mind to take a ship to Africa, working my passage and returning six months later. The next day I changed my mind when I learned more about how much I would be paid and the sort of conditions I would have to live and work under. It scared me silly.

I was in one particular den called the ‘Gut to Throaters’ when I met Jake Kirkpatrick. He was a big, scrawny man with huge hands like shovels and a lopsided grin. He looked as though he found the human race an object of derision. Only when I met him he was not smiling. What happened was that I, minding my own business as usual, got to the bar and ordered a dark rum and a beer. The Gut to Throaters was a long, low room in the basement of a whore house. One wall was taken up with a bar running the whole length with three sweat stained men behind trying to cure the thirst of half a hundred or so seamen. If there was any decor it could not be seen through the smoke and gloom of the hanging lamps. Tables, chairs and men packed the place, with about a dozen women, who from the frequency with which they were going through the back door were doing a brisk trade. It fascinated me the time they took. So far the quickest had been a young lad who was out and back in three and a half minutes. From his smirk when he returned he had not been disappointed, though I did wonder what she had done in such a short time. I never did find out.

I was minding my own business and looking the place over, sipping my drinks, one in each hand, when this drunken oaf knocked into me and sent the glasses flying to the floor.

‘Careful,’ I yelled over the din, putting a steadying hand out to him. I had lost many a drink that way and I expected to lose a lot more. It was the price paid for being in such a dump.

The man turned to face me. He was about six inches taller, broad and had a huge fat gut hanging over his belt like a roll of whale’s blubber. ‘Whar yer say?’ he scowled at me.

‘Nothing,’ I yelled back. ‘Let me get you a drink,’ I offered. I could see that he was spoiling for a fight. I turned and yelled for a barman. It was inevitable that I would meet a man who could not be bought off with a drink, or turned easily from his purpose, which, in this case, was to murder me, or at least cripple me. So it was not totally unexpected when he caught hold of my shoulder and swung me around. His arm was back and his fist clenched to knock me into next week, which he would have done if he had connected. Not only did I duck but as the momentum of his swing brought him staggering closer I hit him with all my strength in his fat belly. I could not believe it. I had spent years playing football, was still pretty fit and I knew I had muscle when I needed it. My fist sank in like it was dough and he hardly blinked. Perhaps he had taken on so much alcohol he was immune to pain. I only knew I suddenly wished one of two things. The first that I was somewhere else, or the second that I too, was immune.