Conleth Ferris tossed a cigarette end to the yard. He coughed, then swallowed the phlegm, imagined the inside of his throat like a dirty drainpipe. Across the south field he watched a tail of smoke curl towards the sky and cursed it. He imagined Patrick Harlow, sitting by the flames, boots off, wife humming at the table. While Conleth’s boots gnawed at his heels every step of the day, Harlow sat in the cab of Claas Xerion 5000 tractor, complete with on board cameras. Conleth was convinced that he could hear its murmur from miles away, taunting tremors sent through his arthritic knees.
Nobody could remember what started the rivalry between the families, but just like barn owls and field mice or grassland and creeping thistle, the Ferrises and the Harlows didn’t get along. When a fire wiped out the Ferris livestock, Harlow senior bought hundreds of acres from Conleth’s desperate father, leaving a sad slice of land and not leasing anything back. A greater mockery than just finishing him off. Conleth looked to the sheds and their rusting roofs. His old tractor stood cooling down having been coaxed back to life that evening. A piebald cat crossed the yard, and Conleth met its eyes, before it slinked around the corner of the cattle shed. Two crows arced overhead as if giving the land one final survey before nightfall, then squawked a warning to all life below.
The kitchen had hardly changed since he was a boy. Brown lino peeled away from skirting boards, a table and chairs by the window, two armchairs in front of a stove, the smell of his father’s Silk Cuts lingering in the threadbare fabric. Yellowed copies of Ireland’s Own piled in the corner. Waxy tubes of flycatchers hung from the ceiling, bluebottles dotted along their lengths, moth wings peeling off like dead skin. He eyed the bowl in the corner, now months since Shep died. A fourteen-year-old, half blind Border collie that followed Conleth like a debt collector. One morning, Conleth was watching Shep struggle to keep pace in the tractor’s rearview mirror and saw the tragedy coming but couldn’t stop in time. He climbed down and checked beneath the blades of the harvester. He left whatever remained of Shep to the land and the birds, whatever swallowed him first.
He watched the peat smolder away to nothing, shotgun across his thighs. The barrels two tunnels of darkness, the stock polished and engraved with his father’s initials. He once felt his lips tighten around the cool metal, heard the sound of it touching his teeth. He closed the stove and put the gun back on the shelf.
From his bedroom, he recognised the familiar shapes of night. The silver-black boulders of cattle in Harlow’s field. Harlow had let them out to feed already, as if he had some greater understanding of the seasons. The twisted branches and squat outbuildings spread across the land. The moon a bullet hole, the stars shrapnel. In bed, his breath matched the wind that blew long and slow, rattling distant gates. He woke to a sound like the buckling of oak, the wind howling like a banshee. From the window, he saw drains overflowing, the yard covered by running water, visibility blurred by storms of rain. He cursed the inaccuracy of the forecast, pulled on his trousers and woolen jumper then raced down the stairs. He took a wax jacket from inside the door, stuffed his feet into his boots and grabbed his torch.
He stepped into the elements, exposed as a scarecrow as he crossed his yard. The poor visibility no match for his experience. He could find his way with his eyes closed. His cattle were spooked and huddled, their breath a fog above them, something safe in their pungent heat while rain hammered on the metallic roof. He looked out at the water flowing downhill. The shed felt like a refuge of sorts and he could imagine the piebald cat crouched between bales, ears shut to the wildness outside. He carried tools to the shed, dragged what machinery he could to a safer resting point. He counted the chickens in their coop and tested the fences with a firm shake. All he could do to protect his meager property was done and he imagined the remnant of warmth in his bed as he headed for the house.
When he switched off the torch, he saw a beam of light from the distant road, aiming for the sky like a plea to the heavens. ‘Good Jesus,’ he muttered, pulling his collar tight and jogging to the tractor. The engine coughed to life. He turned out of his yard, wind and rain straining to pull him from his seat. He crossed the field, felt the surrender of the drowned earth beneath the wheels and hurried to the road, now almost a river. As he neared the bridge, he saw that it had collapsed into the torrent, taking Patrick Harlow’s new tractor with it. The machine was on its back wheels, the front tires clinging to the surface so that it reared from the chasm like some wild beast. He climbed from his cab, taking a length of rope, and went to the edge of the bridge. He made out Patrick Harlow’s shape, straining to keep his face above the water, one hand reaching for the sky, the other clinging to the fender. Conleth watched on, unseen. He saw fear in Harlow’s face and it brought to mind his father’s body laid out in the coffin, dead in near poverty. Harlow’s head went under. Conleth counted the seconds until he resurfaced. He watched him disappear and resurface, looking closer to death each time he came up. The damned fool.
Conleth shouted, cutting through the weather, and saw recognition in Harlow’s eyes. He tossed the rope and when Harlow gripped it, he went back to his tractor and tied a knot around the grill. As he reversed, he felt the tractor protest like a scared horse before realising its strength and he moved slowly, watching through the rain-soaked windscreen as Patrick Harlow came slowly over the edge of the bank. Harlow’s Claas let out a final groan then surrendered to the current. ‘Come on,’ Conleth roared from his cab as Harlow staggered and climbed in, weighed down by his clothes and terror.
They rode in silence, shoulder to shoulder, away from the bridge. Conleth turned through his gate, rattled over the cattle grid, then crashed through the hedgerow into Harlow’s field. They climbed down and wildly herded the terrified cattle through the gate, across the yard to shelter. They joined Harlow’s sons and wife, loading bales into a lorry, the strain as the bales pressed on ribcages and made arms burn with effort. Conleth followed the younger son and two collies to the next field, rounding sheep from every sheltered corner, their yellowed eyes wild with confusion, the stench of their soaked wool heavy on the air.
By morning, the rain had stopped. They stood breathless, in water close to their knees. Sharon Harlow summoned them from the doorway and Conleth watched Harlow wade across the yard, shoulders slumped from exhaustion. She called to Conleth and Harlow stopped with his back to him, head bowed. Conleth watched the rise and fall of Harlow’s shoulders but Harlow didn’t turn. Conleth climbed into his cab and started the engine. He crossed the drowned fields and guided the tractor through the hedgerow. From his cab he surveyed the devastation. The saturated crops, the community’s livelihood drowned overnight. He imagined the disorganised response that would come from the city, men in suits and hard hats getting their picture taken and promising action. He climbed the hill to home, which stood untroubled. The cattle lowed in the shed and he called out to them.
He kicked off his boots and stripped from his clothes. Studied his wrinkled fingers, flexing them back to life. He went to bed, dreams troubled by a feeling of motion as if all in the county had become part of some ruined tide. When he woke, he dressed and started a fire, sat and felt the satisfying ache of his living body. He heard a whimper outside and ignored it. It persisted. He wondered what animal had survived the onslaught and found its way to his house. He shuffled across the kitchen, limbs not yet defrosted and opened the door. At his feet was a small black cage with a dog bowl on top. He bent and lifted it while his back moaned dissent. He looked through the cage, into the deep black eyes looking back. He studied the scar of white fur running between them, saw the ears twitch, the pink tongue flicker past small pearls of teeth.
‘Come on,’ he said to the Border collie pup, ‘there’s a fire inside.’ He looked across the south field, where a tail of smoke curled towards the sky.
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(Photo: Nick Palmer/flickr.com/ CC-BY ND 2.0)
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