kept the going slow but the land was even on the shoulders, and when I had to I went up on one and plowed through the underbrush. I wasn't the first, as crushed bushes ahead showed. They were starting to pop up and send out shoots. I recognized elderberries, just like the bushes we had at home in our backyard, behind the garage. My mother loved the purplish black fruit that hung in clusters, since it attracted songbirds. Most of these berries were gone now, eaten or dropped to the ground, leaving their long, narrow leaves and reddish network of stems to brush against the jeep.
The path opened to a clearing and I parked on a flat rise, where long slabs of gray granite rose from the ground like giant steps. At the top sat Grady's cottage, the whitewashed stonework solid under the thatched roof. A single small window faced me, next to a door painted bright red. There was no sign of him or his pony, so I got out, stretching my legs in the warmth of the sun. The land sloped down behind his house, a rocky grade descending to a low, flat expanse of green and brown grasses, interspersed with standing water, soggy paths, deep trenches, and piles of sodden peat. A cart path led to a long shed, set just below the rear of the cottage. The sides were alternating slats of rough-cut wood, letting the wind through to dry the harvested peat, which was stacked higher than my head. It all smelled faintly of cut grass, rotting vegetables, and thick mud.
'If a man has water and peat on his land, 'tis all he needs for the hard times,' Grady said. He'd come up so quietly, I hadn't noticed he was standing right behind me. 'Let me unhitch Dora and then we'll sit.'
We left Dora with fresh hay and an apple Grady produced from his pocket. He sat on a wooden bench by his front door and removed his rubber boots, thick with drying mud. He set them under the bench and sighed deeply, leaning back to rest against the rough stone, letting the early morning sun wash his brow.
'It's a hard job, the peat,' he said. 'But there's nothing like the death of a young man to make an old man glad of his pains.'
'My father once told me the saddest sight he ever saw was the dawn the day after his brother was killed.' I was surprised I had said that. It had come out without a thought, something my dad had mentioned once when we'd gotten up early to go fishing. I'd been fourteen, maybe fifteen. I still remembered that dawn, Cohasset Harbor at our backs and the red-streaked horizon to the east, my dad and Uncle Dan sharing a thermos of coffee with their pal Nuno Chagas. Nuno was a Portugee lobsterman who had smuggled rum and whiskey during Prohibition. He'd had some dealings with Dad and Uncle Dan that had resulted in cases of unmarked bottles down cellar and a more open friendship after repeal in 1933.
The light dawning over the far Atlantic horizon had turned from dark reds and blues to gold reflected off the chop. At my age then, the talk and actions of men like Nuno, Dad, and Uncle Dan were strange territory. Little was ever said but they all moved with certainty around each other, as if they knew each other's thoughts. I remember wishing I could be like them, confident in their silence and ready for whatever the day offered. I wanted strong arms like theirs too, and all those things that seemed to be forever beyond my body and mind.
Uncle Dan had taken a pint bottle from his coat and poured whiskey into their coffees. Nuno drank his, one hand on the wheel, eyes watching the water ahead. Dad and Uncle Dan touched their cups in a toast, nodded, and drank. Dad looked at me as if he'd forgotten I was there, and maybe he had.
'The night Frank was killed,' he said, then stopped. I froze, waiting for him to speak again. I knew Uncle Frank, the oldest of the three brothers, had been killed in France during the war, but no one spoke about it. I can still hear the thrum of the motor, the sound of the bow hitting each wave, the thump, thump, thump as we moved through the water. If I breathe deep enough, I can smell the whiskey and coffee mingling with the salt air.
'The night Frank was killed,' he said again, 'it was raining. Hard. It was cold, and the clouds were so low the flares would get lost in them, and then burst into brightness when they came down. We brought him in from patrol and laid him out in a communications trench. We sat with him in the rain, the mud a foot thick all around us. Finally, the rain stopped and a breeze kicked up, sending those clouds back to Germany. When dawn came, it was beautiful, just like this. It was then I cried. What kind of joke was that, to follow death in the rain with golden sunlight?'
The next thing I knew, Uncle Dan had put a chipped mug in my hand, poured in a little coffee, followed by even less whiskey, and said, 'To Frank.' They clinked their mugs against mine, and I had the sense to drink and not make a face, being unused to both coffee and liquor. I hadn't understood what Dad was trying to say but that didn't matter. I was happy simply standing at their elbows, feeling the currents of emotion that ran beneath the surface, flowing along with them like a cod following its school, not understanding why, knowing it must.
'In the last war?' Grady asked, drawing me back to the present. It might have been the second time he said it.
'Yes. The last war for the English, as they'd say.'
'The death of a brother is a terrible thing. I would not go against a word your father uttered. He had every right. But I tell you now, Billy Boyle, you look at that gorgeous sun drenching our green fields. That is for the living, it is. If each dawn were for the dead of the night before, it would be darkness forever. Now come inside and we'll have strong tea.'
Grady's cottage was low ceilinged, the thick wooden beams dark with age. The floor was flat stones laid over dirt, and a peat fire burned low on an open hearth. A kettle hung over the fire, and other pots and a skillet stood to the side. Against the rear wall, a hand pump on a wooden counter was positioned over a bucket. Water to drink, peat to burn. Besides whiskey, what more does an Irishman need?
As Grady busied himself with the fire and the kettle, I sat in a worn but comfortable armchair near the hearth. The chair opposite looked like Grady's: It was leather, cracked and dry, with indentations in the seat and back that marked it as the owner's favorite. A wooden table, a bed at the far end of the room, some shelves, and a chest of drawers completed the interior.
Two pictures hung on the wall. One was religious, showing the way of the cross on the Via Dolorosa, where I had walked with Diana not too long ago. It looked like a print from a magazine, framed under glass, faded with time. Jesus with the crown of thorns, his head bloody, his body sagging under the weight of the cross. Next to it was a still life of a dead rabbit laid out alongside a copper pot, flecks of blood around its mouth under wide, dull eyes. I didn't know much about art but I knew these weren't to my taste.
'Here you go, just the thing, it is,' Grady said as he pulled over a stool and set down a tray. I was surprised to see real china and a sugar bowl. 'Ah, you expected a dirty mug, I can tell by the look in your eyes!'
'No, it's only-I didn't expect anything so nice-for me, I mean,' I said, trying not to say anything stupid, and failing.
'Don't you worry now. These came from my mother, a wedding gift. I had sisters but they all died. Some before they were grown, the rest taken by the influenza. I never wed a wife myself, not that any offered themselves up,' he said, pointedly not looking at his hands. 'And I don't have much in the way of company, so it's a rare treat to use this. Take all the sugar you want, boy. It's rationed, sure, but the border isn't far, and enough makes its way here that we don't go without.'
'Things always find a way, don't they?'
'What do you mean?'
'When we had Prohibition, people made their own beer, and plenty of liquor made it in from everywhere. You couldn't stop it.'
'Ah, well, that was a silly thing to try, keeping folks from their drink, don't you think?'
'Well, as my dad said, we don't explain the laws, we just enforce them.'
'Your father is a policeman too, like you?'
'Not like me. He's more cop than I'll ever be, a homicide detective. His brother, my uncle Dan, he's on the force too.'
'All those Boyles on the police force in Boston? What a safe town it must be,' he said, chuckling and blowing on his tea. 'So tell me, what would your father or your uncle say about poor Pete being killed like that?'
'They always said when a murder seemed to make no sense, it had to be about love or money.'
'Who loved Pete Brennan on this island, or in the whole world, for that matter?'
'He kept to himself,' I said. 'He didn't want to get close to anybody, he'd lost all his friends once. Pig was the closest thing he had to a friend.'
'Aye. He rubbed that pig's belly 'til it shone, he did!' Grady laughed, then sighed, the small, sad sound you make as grief overwhelms a fond memory.
'So it was money. And I know who was getting ready to pay Pete off. Question is, who else knew?'
'Jenkins, you mean?' Grady said, a sly eye on me.
'How do you know?'
