“What do you wish of him?” her high voice said.
“Is he all right?” Cait’s voice held a tenderness that opened a vein of jealousy in me.
There was a pause.
“He lives now in a happier world. His spirit longs to be free of this one. But it is not. He hopes that what he has done is right.”
What has he done? I wondered.
“His uncle . . . there is much . . .” She paused. “I think he does not want his uncle to take Caitlin.”
Cait’s hand stiffened.
“There is another . . . he hates and fears . . . who wants her.”
It was my turn to stiffen.
“Ask him why he was in our picture,” Cait said. “Did he mean to frighten me?”
The longest pause yet followed.
“It is not clear. He was . . . happy. . . .”
He hadn’t looked it, I thought.
“He departs now,” she said in more her usual speaking tone. “The effort has been beyond our imagining. He returns to the spirit world.”
“I’ve got to know,” I blurted. “Did he bring me here?”
The words reverberated in the small room.
“He’s gone,” said Clara Antonia.
The gas jets illuminated the room. Her opaque eyes fixed on me. “The answer to that question does not lie within you?”
“If so, I don’t know how to find it. Do you know the answer?”
She looked put off by my bluntness. “What comes to me,” she said, “is that he did not bring you here. Not in the sense that you mean.”
I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
“But,” she said, “I think it likely that he made it possible for you to come. If you so chose. As of course you did.”
Cait turned and stared at me.
“I believe making that choice possible to you,” Clara Antonia said, “is what Colm wonders whether it was right for him to have done.”
“Samuel, hold me.”
I put my arms around her. We stood in the darkened foyer of her boardinghouse. She clutched my shoulders and pulled herself tightly against me. I stroked her hair, tried to ease her trembling.
“I know that you love me,” she said. “I feel it from you.”
I said nothing, waiting.
“I don’t know if I can love again. Not the way I loved Colm. When he died, I felt he took all within me that had loved him so completely.”
It hurt to hear, but at the same time I felt a lessening of responsibility, a small relief.
“I think I understand,” I said. “It’s all right.”
She pressed her face into my neck for a moment and then tilted her head back. “You’re good to me, Samuel,” she whispered.
She leaned upward. I brought my mouth down on hers. She kissed me with an urgency I hadn’t felt before. Her arms wrapped around my neck. I wanted her. But first I wanted her to stop trembling.After a long moment she drew back. “Will you tell me where you have come from? When it is right to tell?”
“Yes,” I told her. “When it is right.”
“Aw, you fellers didn’t need to do this,” Gould said, blushing with pleasure. We could scarcely hear him over the cackling and clucking of twenty-two chickens. They were our present to him, one for each of his years.
“Here’s to Charlie Gobble-Gould!” proposed George, raising his beer stein.
We drank, then gave him three cheers. He wiped foam from his blond mustache and looked ridiculously happy. He said it was the best celebration he’d ever had.
“‘Happy birthday to you,’” I began singing. None of them had heard it before. What was with this era? To their credit, they did think it a catchy little tune.
The New Orleans Southerns came in to test us two days before the Haymakers would arrive. Attending to the Louisiana players was a relief for me. I was already jittery as the vanguard of the eastern sporting crowd began to trickle into Cincinnati. I imagined eyes on me, even in downtown streets. I didn’t tarry in the Gibson’s lobby now. And I carried my gun.
The Southerns, a solid amateur team, were the first Dixie organization ever to tour northward. They had won all six of their road games in Memphis, St. Louis, and Louisville. On the diamond we eyed each other curiously. The notion of salaried ball players evidently jarred their sensibilities. In thick accents almost incomprehensible to us, they asked about our contracts, pay, and practice schedule.
“So, y’all make a business of pleasure,” one drawled skeptically, doubtless thinking, How like Yankees.
From them we learned that the national game was relatively new to the South, introduced by returning soldiers and prisoners. But it already enjoyed huge popularity; everybody down there, they assured us, knew of the famous Red Stockings.
We played in choking ninety-eight-degree heat. Instead of spikes the Southerns wore light moccasins and consequently had trouble with their footing all afternoon. We kept them hopping, too, with wicked liners and daisy cutters.
The Dixie batters touched Brainard for only eleven hits and three runs. We pounded thirty hits and scored thirty-five runs. George and Sweasy homered. Andy produced the day’s defensive gem by snagging a drive down the left-field line, then turning and uncorking a powerful throw to double up a runner and earn a standing ovation.
“Anybody read about the Haymakers?” George said in the clubhouse.
“Saw they’re in Ohio,” said Allison. “They warmed the Mansfields real good.”
“Warmed Cleveland, too,” said Mac.
We were their next stop. I felt like Rome awaiting the barbarians.
The notices were side by side in the afternoon Gazette. One was headed:
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD
The members of the Cincinnati Circle are requested to attend a meeting at the Armory on Fifth Street on THIS (Tuesday) night at nine o’clock. Business of utmost importance from Headquarters and other important matters will be heard. All Fenians attend, by order of the Center.
The other was in bold type.
A LECTURE
MOZART HALL
Tuesday, August 24, 1869
Half Past Seven O’Clock
CAPT. F. J. O’DONOVAN
Subject: “American Citizens in
