the Iron Marshall (1979) Read Online Free Page B

Shanaghy said, "but don't come looking for me again." When they had gone, Shanaghy went into the blacksmith shop and pumped a bucketful of water from the well. He stripped to the waist and bathed his chest and shoulders, then dampened his hair and combed it out. "Well," McCarthy said dryly, "it seems you can fight a little, and it seems you must. They be upon you, lad."
    "Aye. I slipped them last night when they lay waiting at my house." Tom dried his hands. "I think I must take it to them a bit." "Be careful, lad. There's a mean man there, that Eben Childers. He's a hard one, and cold. And his boys ... You met the least of them in Bob. There's others ... worse."
    McCarthy watched Tom put on his shirt. "Lad, why don't you go west? There's a deal of land out there, and a chance for a young man." "Land? I'm no farmer, Mac."
    "Aye, that you aren't. But what are you, then? A shoulder-striker for Morrissey? A street thug? A bum? Look at yourself, lad, and look well. Just exactly what are you? A fine broth of a lad who is nothing ... Nothing, do y' hear me? And if you stay here hanging about with thugs, cardsharps and the like, you'll be nothing more until they pick you from the gutter some day." Shanaghy glared at him. "Have a care, old man." "Old man, is it? Well, I've grown old ... Will you ever? You'll end with a broken skull some night and they'll have you off to bury in potter's field. "What are you that any bum along the street is not? There's ten thousand like you in Five Points and they'll all die and come to nothing. You're young, and the land is wide. Why stay here where there's few chances? Why not go west? You could study law, study anything, make a man of yourself." "I'm not a man?" Tom doubled his arm. "Look at that. Eighteen inches of biceps.
    Who can say I'm not a man?"
    "Aye, you're strong, but what else are you? Have you got the brains God gave you? Or a head fit only for butting, like a billy goat? "If a man is to be something, if he is to be a man, he's got to be more than muscle. He's got to do something wi' himself. Get an honest trade, a bit of land, a house of your own, if it is only of sod. Here your friends pat you on the back and let you buy them drinks or whatever, but when you get old and fat and sloppy they'll drop you for others. Men like you are born to be used and tossed aside ... if you let it happen."
    "What are you? A priest? When did you start preaching, Mac?" "It's a bit of warning, that's all. You're a fine lad, so why become what you're becoming? There's a bigger, wider world than any slum, and a man only stays there because he hasn't the guts to get out. There's other people, other places, and you can make new friends, worthwhile friends." Shanaghy stared at McCarthy with disgust. He picked up his coat and slung it over his shoulder. "Thanks for keepin' them off me," he said, and walked away into the sunlight.
    He strode down the street, heading for Morrissey's nearest saloon ... the Gem. Talking to himself as he walked along, he growled angry retorts at the distant McCarthy, saying all the things he had not said. But suddenly they began to sound very hollow and empty.
    What was he, after all? He'd ridden a few races but he was too heavy for that now. He'd won a few fights in the ring, but he'd no desire to make a profession of that. He was at the beck and call of Morrissey and Lochlin, who were important men, in their way. But what was he, himself? He shook himself irritably. It was not a subject on which he cared to dwell.
    McCarthy ... well, what did he know? Who was he to talk? Yet even as Tom thought this, his good sense told him that McCarthy wasn't worried about anybody laying for him when he came home of a night, and he was sleeping sound. Nor was he beholden to anybody for the money he made. He did his job, he did it well, and he took his pay and went home. Now Shanaghy remembered that time all too well. He had stopped on a street corner, thinking about it. He was no farmer, he'd