The Year We Sailed the Sun Read online

  And meanwhile the trolley kept clattering east, closer and closer to the river, deeper and deeper into the Patch: past the dime museum on Twelfth Street and the billiards parlor across Eleventh, past the boys on the corner by the Ninth Street newsstand, smoking like always; past Mr. Patrizi, whistling away at his sidewalk stall, putting out the potatoes, as usual, as if this was a day like any other and we’d never been gone at all.

  Was it really only two months now? Had all the clocks in the world stopped ticking?

  Not long enough, anyhow, for us to forget our way to the bridge, though we couldn’t really see it yet, traveling backward. We hung tight to our roost in the rear of the car till we bumped beyond Broadway to Fourth Street, where the tracks turned, and then we hopped off and took ourselves straight ahead down Morgan to the riverfront, which hadn’t changed a bit, neither. There were the same grimy old warehouses between Second and First, by the River Arcade and Pawn Shop; the same grumpy old Doc Monaghan, scowling down from his throne in the ticket window with his beady little eyes; the same greasy old hash houses and bars in every alley, with scraps of ragtime tinkling out when the doors swung open—even on All Saints’, at nine in the morning—to let in the dockworkers who weren’t needed today and the steamboat crews, in between trips, while the stragglers from the night shift staggered by us on their way out, and a man in a top hat started singing—

  Oh! You beautiful doll,

  You great big beautiful doll . . .

  And all at once there was a long, piercing whistle, and the ground under our feet began to shake, and it felt as if the air was shaking too, and then a train was thundering by just ahead of us, on the tracks along the river.

  “Look there!” I shouted to Mary, running past her and pointing. A girl in a straw hat was peering out from one of the train windows—right straight into my eyes, as if she knew me. “That’ll be us, one of these days now.”

  “Not if you get yourself crushed to death,” said Mary, catching up as quick as she could—she waddled just a bit, in her mattress getup—and yanking me away.

  But I waved at the girl anyhow, and she waved back.

  And then I thought of another window, and another face looking out at me. A little round moonface with a crooked grin, crossing its eyes. And there it was again—that ache, like a bruise I couldn’t stop mashing.

  Ah, Betty. Ah, hell. . . .

  Was she home yet? I wondered. Was Sister Genevieve letting her help with the biscuits?

  But there wasn’t time to stop and think about it. The train was past us now, rattling north, and before our ears were done ringing with the roar of it, there was the ferry whistle shrilling at the landing on our left, and the Mississippi River dead ahead of us, shining so bright in the morning sun, it hurt to look at it. And the whole grand, gleaming span full of big boats with their smokestacks smoking and little boats bumping along in their wakes and great flat barges hauling all manner of who knew what; you could smell some of it better’n you could see it: peanuts, for sure—I wished I had some now—and apples and cigars coming in; and barrel of beer after barrel of beer, and shoes by the crate going out, and vast, glistening piles of coal, and long blackened logs from the creosote plant upriver, with that sharp burnt-tar smell that always gave me a peculiar feeling in my stomach; I never could remember why, but I couldn’t think about that, neither, because there it was—oh, there it was—looming over us on the right: the great Eads Bridge itself, rising out of the water like a river dragon in one of Gran’s stories, a monstrous big dragon with its stone legs planted in the riverbed, and a steamboat chugging under its middle, and another train clattering right through its belly—look there! You could see it plain as day through the steel ribs, while crowds of people and automobiles and horses and buggies and slat-sided wagons and even a couple of streetcars rode its back. And all of ’em acting as if there was nothing to it—the people, not the streetcars—though it gave me the willies to watch ’em, strolling along up there with their parasols or leaning out like fools over the walkway fences or posing together in clumps, while one of their friends took pictures or pointed to something far away. And wasn’t that the man in the top hat who’d sung about the doll? He stopped and tipped it to a kid riding past him on a bicycle—but how in the world did Mr. Top Hat ever get up there so fast? I bet he set all the records for the footrace, back in his school days. Or maybe I was wrong; maybe it was another man who looked just like him. You couldn’t see his face clearly from way down here.

  But where was Bill?

  Oh, where was Bill?

  I craned my neck to see if I could get a glimpse of him anywhere. He might be anywhere, was the thing; he might be coming from any direction. City Hospital was a good two or three miles, at least, but if he’d got away from there yesterday, he’d have crossed the bridge, like as not; the fellers generally went that way when they had to make a run for it. I’d tried to follow ’em there myself, a time or two, but Bill had always caught me and dragged me back. East St. Louis was too rough for girls, he’d said. Didn’t I have better sense? He’d skin me alive, he swore, if I tried it again. . . .

  “Do we just stand here waiting out in the open, then?” Mary asked. “For the whole world to see?”

  I broke off craning my neck. Well, of course she wouldn’t know; she couldn’t, could she? She’d never been to the meeting place. She was never one to tag after the boys. “No, no, this way,” I said, shaking my head and taking her by the hand now, pulling her after me to the bottom of Lucas Street, in the shadow of the bridge itself, to a door in a brick wall that jutted out from an old warehouse by the railroad tracks, on the near side of the dragon’s far right foot.

  “It’s locked,” said Mary, rattling the knob. “Are you in there, Bill? It’s us! It’s Mary and Julia!”

  “It’s still early,” I told her, when there was no answer. “He’ll be here any minute. He’ll have the key; he always—”

  But I didn’t get to finish telling her that he always carried it with him, because just then there was yet another ear-splitting whistle, and another train roaring past, even closer this time. So we held our hands over our ears to shut out the noise as best we could—it was easier for me, I suppose—and squeezed our eyes shut, too, to keep out the thick clouds of soot and sparks blowing back from the engine.

  And when we opened ’em again, once the last car had rattled away and the smoke had cleared and the earth was done trembling, Mickey Doyle was standing alone on the other side of the tracks, looking right at us.

  I don’t know how long we stood there staring back, not saying a word. All the sound in the world had got sucked right out of it, somehow. Not a sparrow cheeped. Not a church bell chimed. Not even an eyelash batted.

  And then my stomach growled.

  Mary blushed bright red. “For pity’s sake, Julia.”

  “What’s he doing here?” I muttered.

  But there was no use asking her what she couldn’t rightly know, when she was too busy being mortified to answer. No way to tell which was harder on her, my noisy belly or her mattress situation, but her cheeks were shining like a pair of Rome apples and the sweat was beading up all over her face now, and dripping into her eyes, until she had to stop and fish for her handkerchief in her outermost plaid pocket—I figured that was what she was doing, anyhow—but nothing was there, and God knows I hadn’t thought to bring one. So she wiped off the wet with the cuff of one of her sausage-sleeves, as daintily as she could manage, and the two of us just stood there waiting some more while Mickey Doyle came unfrozen too, finally, and stepped across the tracks to us.

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess you’re waiting for Bill, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Mary, though her mouth must not have been working any better than mine, because it came out more like “yase,” kind of strangled and foreign-sounding.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I came as quick as I could.”

  Shut up, shut up! I wanted to s
cream. Stop saying you’re sorry; who cares if you’re sorry?

  “You’re shivering,” he said. “We should go inside.” And he reached in his pocket and took out a key—

  Is that BILL’s key? I wanted to ask him. I’d have knocked him down for it right there, if I could have moved. If I hadn’t been well-nigh mute and rooted to the ground.

  “It’ll be a bit warmer out of the wind,” he said. And he put the key in the keyhole and opened the door, and put his hand on my shoulder to try and guide me in, but I jerked away as if he’d burned me with a red-hot coal because who needed him, anyway? I could walk through a door without his help, when it was all his fault in the first place. Where was he at the ballpark when the chips were down, when my brother was knocked out bleeding in a smashed car? And where was Bill now? Oh, where was Bill? Why was Mickey here and Bill wasn’t? Why couldn’t he be where he was supposed to be, for once in his life?

  But Mary only turned a shade or two redder and let Mickey show her inside without the least objection, as if they were just stepping into the Ritz for a cup of tea, or dancing a reel or two at the Waxie’s Dargle, though he’d have to be daft to be thinking she needed warming up, what with the sweat all but dripping off the tip of her nose. And what was the matter with her, anyhow? Hadn’t I told her that he was no better’n a chicken-livered traitor? Surely I’d explained it to her, hadn’t I?

  Well, if I had, she hadn’t been paying attention, because there it was on her face now: that look—the sucker look—the one half the girls in the Patch used to get any time Mickey Doyle flashed his dark eyes in their direction or favored ’em with a smile. Get ahold of yourself! I wanted to shout at her. Watch out for the con, for Pete’s sake!

  Though he wasn’t smiling now, was he? Oh dear God, why wasn’t he smiling? Bill was coming; he was still coming; he would be here any minute. It was early yet, remember?

  So I followed the two of ’em inside and we stood there blinking in the shadows, while feeble shafts of light sifted down from the gaps in the roof, a million miles over our heads. It wasn’t much warmer in here, after all, wind or no wind—it was only a meeting place, not a staying place—and dark as dungeons, to boot, though I’d have known it blindfolded just the same, from the moldering sawdust smell of it. They used to store lumber here, Bill had told me, back in the bridge-building days, and bricks, too, and mortar-making supplies—you could still see the gigantic tubs where they’d mixed it—and wheelbarrows and cans of whitewash and crusty old spades and picks and shovels and all manner of rusting junk. I’d never known where the key had come from in the first place, but before I could get my mouth open to ask Mickey how he happened to have it, there was a pounding on the door—

  “Bill!” I cried. And I swung around to run to it, but Mickey grabbed my wrist with one hand and put a finger to his lips with the other: Don’t move, don’t say a word, he was telling us, and I blushed that he’d had to remind me. Well, sure, I knew better. You couldn’t just throw a door open without checking first. It could be anyone, the police even, his own father after him. Or the Rats—oh Lord—it might be the Rats; Egan’s Saloon wasn’t but a few blocks over, and—

  “Hey, Mick! Are you in there?” a pipsqueak voice shouted. “It’s all right; it’s me—it’s Jimmy! Open the door, will you?”

  Ah, crikey. . . .

  “Jimmy who?” Mary whispered.

  “Come on, Mick, open up; I know you’re in there! I heard the whole thing down at the newsstand! Don’t worry, it ain’t a trap; they never even saw me!”

  Mickey sighed. “All right, all right, hold your horses, Jim. I’m coming.”

  And then he was opening the door again and Jimmy Brannigan was barreling in through it—hopping-busting-barreling—and talking a mile a minute, while Mickey pulled it shut behind him: “Thanks, Mick, I figgered you’d be here, once I heard about Bill. I knew you would. I knew you’d remember. Ain’t a one of ’em knows squat about this place, not even Mr. Thomas Egan himself. Ain’t that rich, Mick? That’s the genius of it, ain’t it? Here we are right under a dozen Rats’ noses, and they can’t smell a thing!”

  “Heard what about Bill?” Mary asked in that strangled voice—better than I could manage, sure, what with my heart stuck in my throat again—but still so low even I could hardly hear her, just an inch away. And anyhow Jimmy wasn’t listening to anybody but himself. He was still too busy spouting off:

  “But we can’t stay here, can we, Mick? We’ll have to go across the bridge now, won’t we? Back to the camp? You got spotted, that’s the trouble. That’s what the boys were sayin’ at the newsstand—they say you saw the whole thing; is it true, Mick? Last night in the Bad Lands, when the feller got shot—were you there? Was it Eddie who done it? I bet the boys two bits it was Eddie. It’s always Eddie, nine times outta ten. And now they’re all sayin’ you were there, Mick—the Rats, too—the whole world’s sayin’ it. They’ll be wanting to pin it on you next; I bet ’em a half-dollar on that one. We’ll have to get out of town for sure now, won’t we? I’m ready, you see? Just say the word; I got my kit all packed, see here, Mick? Whenever you say!”

  And I figured Mickey would say, “Ah, shut up, Jimmy.” Or kick him across the room. But he didn’t. He sighed again, and nodded, and took a look at the raggedy bundle Jimmy was holding up in front of him, and double-checked the knot that was keeping it all together. And then he handed it back to him and said, “Good man, Jim. That’s fine work, that is. You hold on to it now, for the time being, and when we’re ready to—”

  “Heard what?” said Mary, louder this time. I was numb again, half-paralyzed, but she was trembling all over. “Heard what about Bill?” she said for the third time, giving Jimmy’s arm a ferocious shake.

  And the look in her eyes must have scared the living daylights out of him, because he didn’t dare answer her himself. He turned to Mickey with his own eyes all wide and worried and said, “Ah, Mick, they don’t know? Didn’t you tell ’em yet?”

  “I was just about to,” said Mickey, “when you knocked on the door.”

  “Tell us what?” Mary said, turning to him now too.

  He just stood there for a second, looking at her square-on. And then he took a deep breath. “Bill’s not coming,” he said. “My dad—” He cleared his throat. “They’ve taken him to Boonville.”

  Mary gasped.

  My ears started roaring.

  “No they haven’t,” I said. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mickey. He shook his head. “It went all wrong—the whole plan. They put handcuffs on him. Houdini himself couldn’t have got him out of those things. And then my dad—I never figured—” He stopped a second time and cleared his throat again, as if the words had got jammed there.

  But I didn’t want to hear what his dad had done. It was too late; I was seeing red again, and now I was flying at him headfirst, like I did with the Rat Man that other time; I was butting my head into his chest and kicking with my boots and pounding with my fists. “You’re lying, you’re lying, where’s Bill, you big liar? He promised, he sent the sign, where’s my brother, you liar?”

  And he didn’t do a thing about it. He just stood there letting me pound him like a punching bag, while Mary tried to pull me away:

  “Stop it, Julia! Stop it! It’s not his fault—”

  “How do you know it’s not his fault?”

  “He’s our friend; that’s how I know. Let him tell us what happened, Julia!”

  But I kept swinging. And then another train was thundering past outside and the walls were shaking and the air was shaking and Jimmy Brannigan was trying to push his way between us, and I shoved him away and he bumped into Mary, so hard she staggered back and stumbled over an old broken box behind her. And Mickey shook me off then, like it was nothing, like swatting away a mosquito, and trapped both my arms with one of his and went to help Mary up with the other, dragging me with him. “Are you all right?” he shouted to her, over the god-awful din of the train, an
d she nodded, so I knew she was, but her cheeks were apple-red again, even worse than before.

  “Let go of me,” I growled. I’d have bit him if I could, but he had me clamped so tight I couldn’t swivel around to get a good chunk.

  And still he stood there holding on to me while I thrashed and kicked and Mary kept saying, “Stop it, Julia, stop it, stop it! Will you listen for once in your life? How can he tell us what happened if you don’t stop?”

  Chapter 20

  It wasn’t as if I had a choice. He was double my size, easy, with a grip like glue. The more I squirmed, the tighter he stuck. So I slowed down some, after a while. I quit kicking—at least for the time being—though my teeth were still gritted and my jaw was clenched.

  “Have you stopped?” Mary asked, when the racket from the train had died down.

  “If he’s stopped lying,” I muttered.

  “Mick ain’t lyin’!” said Jimmy.

  “It’s all right, Jim. She’s all right,” said Mickey, letting loose of me, finally—slowly, at first, then altogether. “I wish it was a lie. I wish I was making it all up.”

  I was shivering again. Mary put an arm around me. But it was Mickey’s face she was studying. “Bill’s gone, then,” she said quietly. “They’ve taken him to Boonville. You’re sure?”

  He nodded. “I saw ’em put him on the train. I followed ’em to the station after the hearing—”

  “There was a hearing?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. I got there quick as I could, soon as Jim brought me the message. . . .” Mickey stopped and fished in his pocket and brought out a folded-up letter, even limper-looking than ours had been, and handed it to Mary.

  We read it together:

  Tues Morning, Halloween

  Dear Mick,

  Father Dunne’s taking me over to City Hall at three, they just set my hearing, be ready I’ll make a brake when its over if they try to keep me. You be decoy again like at the ballpark, dont worry I wont hit any lampoles this time. Just get their attention so theyll chase you a while, I’ll run the other way and meet you across the river like we planned before, I got some ideres for after that but if anything goes wrong you have to look out for Mary and Julia. I told them come to the bridge in the morning, you have to stop them if I cant get there tell them stay with the nuns til I figure it out, I wont let them down.