Pete Hamill - Forever

Then he and Thunder were on the move again, the letter and the banknotes folded into Cormac’s shirt, the heavy coins in his pocket, the Dean and the earrings back in their satchel, the forest dark, a road below them to the left (the wheels of a coach making a far-off screeching sound), and he kept whispering to Thunder. “On to Galway, great heart. On to the town of white houses and Spanish women. On to the sea, Thunder. To the ships.” On horseback, he drowsed into a jagged sleep. Hours passed. Mary Morrigan took his hand and led him to the blank wall. His mother stood on the road to Belfast, dressed in a coat of many colors. His father laughed and shaped red iron.

He snapped awake to the barking of a dog. Once, twice. Far off. Perhaps miles away in the smothering fog. The barking stopped as quickly as it started. They were on a true road now, not a forest trail, in a thick yellow fog, all signs of the wider world erased. He could see the ground, with its gashed ruts and a few white-painted stones on the sides, and it was going to the west.

A hint of a breeze. The road rose. The fog lightened. Farmhouses emerged silently in the distance, and he could hear the lowing of unseen cows. Then again, suddenly, from somewhere behind them, much closer this time, the barking. Thunder stopped, turned his head. Cormac followed his glance.

And then, racing from the fog, came Bran.

He barked and yipped and ran in a mad circle around them until Cormac leaped down beside him and hugged him and growled to him, saying his name again and again, Bran, Bran, Bran, and rolled with him on the lumpy earth of the frozen road. Finally the dog was exhausted and flopped on his back while Cormac scraped the caked mud off his filthy belly with his finger-nails. Bran was thin. He was scratched from thorns and bramble. But he was delirious with joy. He ate greedily from the oats in Cormac’s palm while Thunder nuzzled them, breathing warm air upon them, until Cormac gave the horse some oats too.

Then, in the distance, coming fast but still unseen, they heard galloping hooves and squealing wheels. Cormac stood, leaped onto Thunder’s back, and unsheathed the sword. Thinking: It’s too late to turn and run. He angled Thunder so that his sword hand couldn’t be seen. He hoped, for a moment, that the hoof-beats and wheels belonged to the Earl of Warren. In his black coach. With his diamond tooth and emblazoned W. Thinking: Then I’ll have no need to reach Galway and sail to America. I’ll kill him here. On this Irish road. In this Irish fog.

But it was not the Earl of Warren. Visible, as if plowing through the fog, was a royal mail coach pulled by two bony horses. A teamster sat high on the seat. A bearded fat man was beside him, cradling a musket. They seemed startled to see Cormac, Thunder, and Bran (who was barking fiercely), but they were not afraid (for there were two of them and one had that musket). They slowed and stopped. The man with the musket raised it in an agitated way and then lowered it again. Cormac thought: He must recognize that if I were a highwayman, I would have to be a very strange one indeed. Even the great Dick Turpin, hero of schoolyard songs, did not bring a dog with him to rob mail coaches. Still, the two men peered anxiously about them, as if looking for possible accomplices.

“Is this the road to Galway City, sir?” Cormac said, trying his best to sound as innocent and needy as a lost boy.

“ ’Tis.”

“How far would it be now?”

“Dunno, in this fog. Maybe six hours?”

“Are the ships sailing? For America, I mean.”

“There’s one at dawn. If you hurry, you might make it, lad.” The driver abruptly whipped his team and they rolled on, taking no chances on Cormac’s apparent innocence. Cormac sheathed the sword and nudged Thunder toward Galway, with Bran moving beside them on the gullied road, the horse careful not to move quicker than the dog could run. They rode for miles, the fog relentless, but the world growing warmer. They came to a bridge over a small running stream and Bran darted down the bank and plunged in, twisting and shaking as he cleaned the dirt from his coat. They all took long drinks and then returned to the road, going up a steep incline. At the top of a ridge, they could smell the sea.

They couldn’t actually see the ocean, but its immense, full presence was somewhere before them. Cormac worried about the hour (for it remained dark), and the day, and whether the ship had already hauled its anchor and unfurled its sails. Hurry, Thunder. Hurry. The sky slowly brightened beyond the fog. Cormac took dried beef from the pouch and ripped a piece off with his teeth and tossed some bits to Bran, who leaped and took them before they hit the ground. Through the fog, he heard a breeze combing unseen trees, and they were climbing again on the empty road, and the breeze was louder, smelling now of salt and the dark Atlantic. The road twisted and climbed and then peaked, and suddenly the fog was gone and below them they could see the great wide bay and the city of Galway.

They paused and gazed down upon it, at red tile rooftops and a few steeples and the battlements of a castle and all the houses white as salt. Limestone houses. Mortar houses. Smoke rose from chimneys, and here the morning breeze was a wind, the smoke streaming horizontally, the fog blown south. Away off, Cormac could see the masts of ships.

“We’d best hurry,” he said, and Thunder set off, moving downhill on dirt roads and then into streets covered with mashed straw mixed with mud and then onto cobblestones. Bran was anxious now: in a strange place with strange odors and (Cormac was sure) detecting the odor of farewell. They found a main street whose name kept changing—from Williamsgate to Williams Street to High Middle Street—and he saw buildings bearing coats of arms, and morning shops beginning to open, and gargoyles grinning from the sides of one gloomy church. Three wagons moved slowly toward them, the first drover yawning. The wagons were empty, their dawn business already done.

“The ship for America?” Cormac shouted. “Has it sailed?”

“Not yet. It’s the Fury you want. But if you’re needin’ her, you’d best hurry.”

He urged Thunder on with his knees, but the street traffic was thicker now: horses with riders, carts and wagons and a few coaches, and people hurrying from narrow lanes toward the shops.

More traffic blocked their way, carts, horses, wagons, and Thunder picked up Cormac’s anxiety (the Fury, we need the Fury, get to the Fury ) and tried to go around and was shouted at (fecking horse, big bloody horse, get back, fecker), and then a burly redhaired teamster tried to grab his reins and Thunder shook him off and another wagon came from a side lane and up that lane Cormac saw a flash of scarlet. Jesus. Brit soldiers. A toothless old man placed himself in front of Thunder.

“Ye feckin’ eejit, ye can’t go this way!”

“I’m going anyway,” Cormac shouted.

One wagon moved and there was a narrow space and Thunder plunged toward it and passed through and then began to gallop. Free of the jam, free to run. And he ran. It was two long blocks to the quays, and he ran the run of his life, hooves clattering on stone, Bran barking, women jumping to the side, and Thunder dodging carts and carriages and panicky horses, running for the water, for the ship, for America: and then they were out on the pier.

At the far end a three-masted ship was easing away from the pier. An English flag. Sails unfurling. Ropes cast off. The Fury .

“Run ,” Cormac screamed. “Run, Thunder, run, run, run.”

And Thunder kept running, his hooves hammering the timbers of the pier, running full out, head low, running for the Fury .