Flight of the Earls (18 page)

They turned a bend in the road and heard voices of mischief and saw a large gathering of men around a rusted barrel with wild flames ascending. Each of the scowlers were dressed alike in brick and beige plaid jackets with tall chestnut hats, many sporting mustaches. As they spotted the travelers approaching, the men nodded to one another and rose from their places, picked up irons, brickbats, and bottles and tossed in their hands what appeared to be stones.

“Keep steady,” Mack said to the boys. Clare sat up.

“Shouldn't we turn around?” Muriel said.

“Just lads at play,” Mack replied. “They'll mean us no harm.”

The train of sojourners moved to the far side of the road with the adults positioning themselves between their children and the strangers, all the while trying to remain calm and unaffected as if not to stoke the tension further.

It was eerily quiet and Clare's entire body clenched as they drew closer to the men, who seemed to be feasting on the angst of their prey. One of the men stepped forward, a bearish fellow with black, bushy sideburns that nearly met at his square chin.

“Greetings, my good Hibernian friends.” He took off his hat and bowed theatrically. “With the spirit of Christmas running through us, we'll offer you free passage through our property this evening.”

His men responded with curses and jeers.

The leader held up his hand and they silenced. “We merely request . . . in a small gesture of your gratitude, that you leave the women behind.”

Cheers erupted followed with heckles and gyrations.

The immigrants lowered their heads, flowing by as far along the opposite side of the road as possible, and a few hastened their steps.

“Where are you goin' so fast?” the man hollered. “That's it. Run, you grubby Micks. Here's your presents a day early.”

Clare's body was jostled as Seamus wheeled the cart forward as they all were being pelted with objects. She heard bottles shattering against walls and the thud and screams when hurled items met their mark. The fleeing broke out to full panic as some of the immigrants slipped in the snow and others bent down to lift and carry the fallen away.

“Take her, Muriel,” Seamus shouted, relinquishing the handles of the cart.

Clare looked back to see her brother joining several of the men who remained to confront their assailants. She lifted herself out of the cart.

“Seamus!” she screamed just as a bottle struck Pierce in the face and he collapsed to the ground. Two of the Irish lifted him and they all retreated back to the women and the children, being bombarded with objects as they ran.

One of those projectiles landed in a snowbank beside Clare, and a small boy scurried to pull it out. It was a potato.

“You just leave that there,” said the boy's mother.

Clare unwrapped her scarf, filled it with snow, and placed it on Pierce's forehead, putting her arms around him.

“Keep moving!” Mack shouted, and they all hurried together, even Clare on foot, for a full block before sensing the danger was behind them.

“Welcome to the city of New York.” Seamus eyed the damage.

“Don't worry yourself,” Mack said. “Ireland is not far ahead. We're closing in on the Five Points.”

As they traveled down the final streets leading to their destination, the weather lifted and just as suddenly the whole populace of this slouching neighborhood seemed to spill out from listing tenement buildings, seedy taverns, storefronts, and brooding alleys. Hordes of pigs and mean-spirited dogs comingled with street merchants, peddlers, and pickpockets.

The children of the community were dressed in rags and were unkempt and unsupervised. They played cheerfully in front of the increasing glut of brothels, which lined either side of the road. Prostitutes would take a break from enticing customers to pick up a stray ball or to fling a mound of snow.

The streets themselves became more deeply rutted and were mostly a mushy heap of soot, excrement, and rubbish with dingy blotches of brown blending with the white of snow.

Everything appeared more and more run-down. The buildings sagged with age and disrepair, windows and shutters hung by wires, broken doors flapped in the wind, and in many cases were merely frayed rags pulled across the door frame.

The travelers rounded a turn and then opened into a great clearing, a huge square with five traffic-laden streets emptying into a dissonance of poverty, vice, and flamboyance. It was a place that must have been ever more bustling at night than day.

“Welcome to our new home,” Mack said loudly. “This here is the center of the Five Points.”

They were too battered, too tired, and too underwhelmed by what they were witnessing to celebrate, but they did all pause to take in this milestone of their bitter journey.

If it was Ireland, then it was an Ireland Clare had never imagined, and perhaps never hoped to see.

Soon, the group who traveled from the docks, following warm embraces and tears, scattered to their own destinations and only the five of them remained. Clare, who had abandoned the cart and had been braving it on foot, was wearying and relieved when Mack led them to a three-story building. But it was rundown and bore an air of putrescence.

“Are you sure this is it?” Muriel asked with disappointment.

“I'm afraid so.” Mack ascended the stairs to a shabby door just as a teenage boy came out and eyeballed them.

Clare couldn't hear the conversation, but soon the boy waved for them to follow him to the side of the building.

There he came upon a wooden hatch, with many footprints leading to and from it in the snow. He lifted it and a dim light revealed stairs leading down.

“There?” Mack said incredulously, as if suspecting some sort of chicanery.

The boy nodded.

Mack set his pack on the ground and turned to the others. “Wait here.”

He descended cautiously, and within a few moments there was laughter and shouts of greeting heard below. Shortly, a man smoking a pipe stuck his head up and flashed his hands for them to enter.

“Come out of the cold, dear friends. We're so thrilled you made it safely. And just in time for Christmas, you are.”

Muriel went first, and as she began to lift Mack's bag, the man took it from her and offered an arm in escort.

Pierce, Seamus, and Clare exchanged wary glances before reluctantly following behind. Clare had traveled as far as she could this night, and there was no spirit left in her to protest if she had wanted.

As she stepped down, the musty stench of mildew, urine, and smoke overcame her, and Clare feared she was the victim of another nightmare, fingers of death drawing her back down the steerage hull of the
Sea Mist
.

But there also was a most-welcomed warmth inside, and she spotted a crude stove at the other end of what appeared to be a dirt cave beneath the house. To avoid rubbing their heads on the ceiling, they had to crouch as they walked.

Spread throughout and covering most of the dirt floor were a couple dozen straw mattresses, many with sleeping occupants. There wasn't much room for their feet to navigate between the bodies lying around them, but just as the moth to the flame, they wove their way in the direction of the rustic furnace.

In the dim light, the faces that peered up as they passed were ghostly, bearing expressions of pain and poverty.

As Clare proceeded, the world about her began to spin and a wave of nausea and light-headedness came upon her. In her fragile condition, the activities and emotions of the day engulfed Clare with weariness.

Seamus assisted her in finding a patch of earth where she could lay down on her worn blanket. Here among strangers in the damp cellar of this foreign land, she heard troubling whispers just out of range of hearing.

Then Clare succumbed to the darkness.

Chapter 19

The Five Points

Clare was uncertain how many days had passed.

She woke many times to the dampness, darkness, and groans of the others in the basement. Realizing where she was, Clare would cry herself back to sleep and dream of better days when she could feel her bare feet traipsing in the green grass of Branlow.

She wished she could sleep herself back into the arms of her family. Return to the farm. Clare regretted ever complaining about a single day she endured back home.

She had been well tended. Sometimes by Muriel, other times by Seamus, and even Pierce was there to give her sips of water, spoon her warm soup, and encourage her to walk around, even if only for a few steps each day.

But this morning, she sat up and discovered herself alone.

There was a thin line of light seeping through a crack in the wall, directly in line with her eyes, and strangely, it called to her. For the first time in a while, she felt renewed.

Clare had a sudden impulse to rise above the filth of this cave. She tightened her hat, brushed off her grimy clothes, and made her way out of the muggy grave.

As she climbed the staircase, her heart began to pound. A breeze whistled through the seams of the hatch. Pushing up against it, the door made a creaking sound and fanned open to a wall of cool, crisp air and a burst of light.

The snow she remembered was gone, and in its place was a bright sun and clear sky. Yet her bare feet couldn't avoid the muddy pools, so she lifted her dress to keep the hem from soiling any more than it already had.

At the front of the building, Clare stepped out of the mud onto a cobblestone road and reveled in the abundance of life. A couple of children, engaged in a game of chase, nearly ran her over.

One of them, a small brunette girl, stopped long enough to say, “Sorry, miss,” before she continued her pursuit with even more vigor and laughter.

Just a ways ahead at an intersection, two boys were hawking competing newspapers in loud and squeaky voices. Horses pulled carts and carriages and men pushed handbarrows, some filled with rags or rubbish, and others with fruit, breads, and vegetables.

Clare realized for the first moment in quite some time that she was famished.

Across the street, the musical chants of a young girl sounded from behind a street stall filled with green, husky produce. She had smooth, coal black skin, and Clare was struck by her beauty and ebullience.

“Hot corn. Sweet corn. Sweet, sweet corn.”

Clare was captivated by the thought of eating and rubbed her aching stomach. She hadn't realized she was staring down at the girl until the young lady's gaze locked with hers.

Clare turned away in embarrassment. How low had things come to be for her? When she glanced up again, the girl with teeth glistening against the ebony of her face was grinning at her. She held up an ear of corn and waved for Clare to come.

Clare just shook her head, her cheeks warming.

The girl abandoned her cart and bounced across the street with the corn, dodging a carriage on the way.

“This is for you, pretty lady,” the girl said upon arrival. “Abigail's corn taste so good, the juices they slide down your chin.”

“I'm so sorry,” Clare said. “I don't have a single coin.”

“Don't trouble yourself, miss. Abigail knows you needs to eats something.”

A tuft of air brought the smell of the corn to Clare's nose, and she couldn't even feign resistance. She took it from the girl's hands.

“This is so kind of you,” Clare said, eager to take a bite. “Thank you . . . Abigail.”

“I needs be getting back. The thieves probably done robbed me bare.” She turned and fluttered back to her stand, singing as she skipped. “Hot corn. Sweet corn. Sweet, sweet corn.”

Clare bit into the bright, yellow cob and the sweet fluid burst into her mouth. She couldn't imagine anything tasting better. She gnawed away at the cob, biting through every kernel and then a second time, pulling whatever fragments of the corn remained until the cob was stripped of any hint of gold.

“News, ma'am?”

Clare turned to see a boy with ruddy cheeks peering up with a paper extended out to her.

“Just a penny,” he said in a voice bridging between boy and man.

“No thank you, dear.”

“Just a penny. Everyone has a penny.”

“No. Not everyone.”

“But this is worth a penny, ma'am. War news. The Mexicans are putting up a fight and Polk is calling for reinforcements. It says so right here. Word is the president is recruiting right here in New York. City corruption. A fire on Baxter Street. It's all right here. Just a penny.”

“Had I a penny, it would certainly be yours.”

“Suit yerself.” With a tip of his hat, he scampered down the street, his voice fading as he got farther away. “War news! Right from the front lines.”

Clare looked over to Abigail and was pleased to see she was serving paying customers. Glancing back toward the newsboy, she saw coming down the walkway a most welcome sight. Seamus and Pierce. And when they saw her, they started to run, holding their hats.

“Clare! What are you doing up?”