Page 37 of Whale Harbor

“I’m fine,” he said to Ivor. They trimmed and shod seven horses the first day, and another six the next. A few were skittish, ornery. One kept pulling and Mac thought he’d never get all four feet. After, his back was absolutely screaming. Ivor rigged up ice padding for them both, a system he invented. He’d gotten cheap secondhand chair cushions, emptied the stuffing, and filled the insides with sopping wet rags. Then he placed the cushions in his freezer. For long jobs and overnights he packed the frozen cushions in a cooler and for their ride home he removed them, wrapped each in a plastic garbage bag, tucked one at the small of his back and passed the other to Macdara. These were better than straight out of the freezer because when they’d softened a bit they could shape them to the curve of their spines.

Mac stared out the window as the landscape rolled by, as enormous and unvarnished as it had seemed to him the day he arrived. But was it his? What if he married one, an American, a Montanan like Jenny? Last time they spoke, Barry told him they were thinking of asking another guy to move in with them. That way they’d split rent by four instead of three and they’d all save a bit more money.

“Unless,” Barry said. “Would you think of coming, Mac?”

Ivor was telling him that he read in a farrier magazine that it might be helpful to install a crossbar at home, somewhere overhead to hang from and stretch out in the mornings. It looked like a simple mount, Ivor said, he would order two, if Mac wanted one, and Mac could pay him back. The cab of the van smelled of Ivor’s peanut butter sandwich.

“See what I mean?” Ivor said, when Mac didn’t answer. “Take now, for instance. You’re not paying any attention.”

“Sorry. I’m just tired.”

“You’re too young to be tired, my friend. Just wait until you’ve been doing this for forty years. Then you’ll know what tired is.”

JUST WHEN THE WEATHER WAS starting to warm up, Bill Cunningham had a heart attack. He was at the mechanic’s shop in Teaberry when he grimaced, went down on one knee. He was taken by ambulance all the way to Bozeman. After three weeks in the hospital he spent an additional month at a rehabilitation facility. When he finally returned to Larkspur, smaller and older, Jenny and PJ took the girls over to visit with him. It was July Fourth, 1968, and they took him a pie Jenny had lined with blueberries and raspberries to make an American flag. They had supper over there as a family, while Macdara, Simon, Martin, and Peter reheated leftovers from the night before. When the Lees got back, Jenny took the girls up to bed, and PJ asked Mac if he had a minute. Simon went outside to smoke a cigarette. Martin and Peter went down the hall to the bedroom.

“Listen,” PJ said, his large hands splayed on his knees. “Bill’s selling the ranch. I thought he might parcel it up and only sell parts but he’s selling everything except the mill. It’s signed and sealed.”

“Oh,” Macdara said.

“I’m to keep running the mill and there’s a place for Martin and Peter because they have experience now. Simon, we’ll have to let go. I can make a place for you at the mill, Mac, but you’d have to start as an apprentice like my brothers did. I know you have a nice thing going with Ivor and he’ll retire soon. If you want to take over his business, though, I think you should get certified. Take the tests and get on the books at the Farriers’ Association. You’re too young to think about it but eventually you’ll need health insurance, and some sort of pension. Anyway. Both houses got sold in the deal.” PJ looked around the room. “Bill can’t live on his own anymore so he’s going to move to a place for old people. He’ll hate it. Jenny and I have to either find a house or build one, I don’t know.”

“Got it,” Macdara said. “Of course.” He felt abruptly embarrassed that he’d stayed so long. Who was he to them but an old neighbor from home?

“I’m not kicking anyone out. Like I told the others, we have a month or two. I just want you to know so you can plan.”

“No bother. I’ve imposed on you long enough.”

“You never imposed, Macdara,” PJ said. “Not for one minute did you ever impose.”

Mac stood. He had details to figure out.

“Maybe you and Martin could get a place in town,” PJ said. “We’d see you plenty. Jenny loves cooking a big Sunday meal. That wouldn’t change. And Martin’s twenty-one now, he can’t live with his big brother forever.”

But Mac knew he would not be looking for a place in town. He knew he wouldn’t be driving over to their new house for a big Sunday meal. When he sat down not ten minutes earlier he had not known, but by the time he stood up again he knew: he was going to New York.

FEEDING

NEW YORK

THE 1970S, THE 1980S

EIGHT

It was closing time at Nino’s blacksmith shop on a hot July day in 1977, and Macdara couldn’t decide what to do about the cat. Even with the alley door propped open and every fan spinning it was too hot to work inside, so he dragged what equipment he could to the barely circulating air of the alley. But it was too hot out there too. He’d visited a few chimney straps around Hell’s Kitchen that morning before the day really set in, leaving the van at hydrants with the flashers on, but by eleven he was back in the shop, enclosed in Nino’s small office with the window AC unit turned high. He could have spent the afternoon sharpening tools, but with Nino out of town, he gave up after just a few. Instead, Mac lay down on the tiled floor and stared up at the water-stained ceiling.

“Is it quitting time yet?” he asked the cat.

He’d been in New York for nine years already but still hadn’t gotten used to the worst of the summers. It was the buildings being so close, maybe. So many people and so little room. Weather aside, the evening ahead was going to be a good one, and Mac felt an electric charge course through him. It was almost four o’clock and while he lay on the cool floor to stretch his back, he reviewed his plan for the next few hours step by step. Once he solved the problem of the cat and locked up, he’d walk north a few blocks to Dunleavy’s Pub on Tenth Avenue where he’d join his brothers in a quick toast to Sean, whose new baby was born at Roosevelt Hospital the night before. It was an old brag of Cathal’s that no Joyce had produced a girl baby in generations, but here was Sean now with two. After that Mac would head uptown to the Bronx where he’d shower off the sweat of the day and then pick up Lillie for their second date. Their first date, the previous Saturday, had been not disastrous, exactly, but it also hadn’t been good. He took her to Yonkers Raceway and to make things fun he’d put a bet on a horse named Okey Dokey. Did he try to seem casual about it? As if ten dollars was nothing to him? Possibly. He didn’t go to the track often but when he did he usually bet two dollars. She’d looked at him and though she was smiling he could see a question in her eyes. When Okey Dokey lost, he immediately put another ten on Lightning Strikes. When he lost that one, he said he should have waited a race or two between bets so he could get his luck back. Only a true gambler would say something like that.

“It was very close,” she said, but he was too embarrassed to be consoled. It would have been less pathetic if he’d held up two tens and lit them on fire. A woman as smart as Lillie would not sign on for a life with someone she believed was reckless, no way.

He bought her a beer and a hot dog but Mac could tell she’d taken a step back from him in her mind. They took their food to their seats to watch a few other races, until the date had gone on long enough for him to take her home. She said she hadn’t realized it was all harness racing in Yonkers. She expected races like home. I’m not a gambler, he wanted to say. It’s only that I like you, so I did a dumb thing. But how to say those things straight-out? He wanted to impress her by doing something different. She probably went on dates all the time. Where did those other fellas take her? To the pub? He certainly wasn’t going to do that, not her.

As they were eating, Lillie told him about the first time she bit into an American hot dog. She’d been in New York for just a few weeks and they looked like sausage rolls from home. So she bought one from a cart in Midtown one afternoon and after one bite she walked to the curb and spit it out, she was so surprised at how different it tasted. But by then he was too sullen to get a banter going.

“I like them,” he said, killing whatever flirtatiousness was left.

“I do too! I like them now. I only meant at first, because— Oh never mind.”