The Hunter

“Don’t be codding yourself,” Johnny says. “Rushborough’s no fool. A fool wouldn’ta got where he is. He can afford to indulge himself, and this is what he fancies. The way another man might buy a racehorse, or go sailing his yacht around the world. It’s not about the cash—although he wouldn’t turn down a bit more of that. This fella’s mad on his Irish roots. He was reared on rebel songs and pints of porter. He’d get tears in his eyes talking about how the Brits tied James Connolly to a chair to shoot him. He’s after his heritage.”

“Plastic Paddy,” says Sonny McHugh, with tolerant scorn. Sonny is a large man, with a spray of dusty-looking curls and a spreading belly, but he has a small man’s quack of a voice; it sounds stupid coming out of him. “We’ve a cousin like that. In Boston. He came over for the summer, three or four years back, d’ye remember? The young fella with the big thick neck on him? He brought us a digital camera for a present, in case we hadn’t seen one before. Couldn’t believe we knew The Simpsons. Shoulda seen the look on the poor fucker when he saw our house.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your house,” Bobby says, perplexed. “You’ve the double glazing and all.”

“I know, yeah. He thought we’d be in a thatched cottage.”

“My land’s not a tourist attraction,” Senan says. He has his feet planted wide apart and his arms folded. “I’m not having some gobshite trampling all over it, frightening my ewes, just because his granny sang him ‘Galway Bay.’ ”

“He wouldn’t be trampling all over your land,” Johnny says. “Not to start with, anyway. He wants to start off panning in the river; easier than digging. If he finds gold in that river, even a small little biteen, he’ll be delighted to pay each and every one of ye a lovely chunk of cash for the opportunity of doing some digging on your land.”

That gets a brief, vivid silence. Con glances at Sonny. Bobby’s mouth is wide open.

“How much digging?” Senan asks.

“Samples, he’d want, first off. Just stick a wee tube down into the soil and see what it brings up. That’s all.”

“How much cash?” asks Sonny.

Johnny turns up his palms. “That’s up to yourselves, sure. Whatever you can negotiate with him. A grand each, easy. Maybe two, depending on what mood he’s in.”

“For the samples, only.”

“Ah, God, yeah. If he finds what he’s after, it’ll be a lot more than that.”

Trey has been so focused on her dad, she hadn’t thought about the fact that these men would be making money from his plan. The surge of helpless rage burns in her throat. Even if he knew about Brendan, Johnny would be grand with filling up Ardnakelty’s pockets, as long as he got what he wanted. Trey isn’t. As far as she’s concerned, all of Ardnakelty can fuck itself to eternity and beyond. She would rather pull out her own fingernails with pliers than do anyone here a favor.

“If there’s gold there…” says Con McHugh. He’s the youngest of the men, a big lad with rumpled dark hair and a handsome, open face. “My God, lads. Imagine that.”

“Ah, it’s there,” Johnny says, as easily as if he was talking about milk in the fridge. “My young one over there, she learned all about it in school. Didn’t you, sweetheart?”

It takes Trey a second to realize he means her. She forgot he knew she was there. “Yeah,” she says.

“What did Teacher say about it?”

All the men’s faces have turned towards Trey. She thinks about saying the teacher told them the gold was round the other side of the mountains, or that it was all dug up a thousand years back. Her dad would beat her afterwards, if he could catch her, but she doesn’t consider that worth factoring into her decision. Even if she said it, though, the men might not be swayed by what some teacher from Wicklow thought. Her dad is a good talker; he might still talk them round. And she would have wasted her chance.

“He said there’s gold at the bottom of the mountain,” she says. “And people usedta dig it up and make things out of it. Jewelry. It’s in the museums in Dublin now.”

“I saw a program about that on the telly,” says Con, leaning forward. “Brooches the size of your hand, and big twisty necklaces. Beautiful, so they were. The shine offa them.”

“You’d look only gorgeous in one of them,” Senan tells him.

“He wants them for Aileen,” Sonny says. “Great big lad like him fits in her pocket—”

“How’d you get out tonight, hah, Con?”

“She thinks he’s off getting her flowers.”

“He went out the back window.”

“She’s got one of them GPS trackers on him. She’ll be banging on the door any minute.”

“Get in behind the sofa there, Con, we’ll say we never saw you—”

They’re not just having the crack. Each of them, even Con reddening and telling the rest to fuck off, has one eye sliding to Johnny. They’re making time, to assess what they think of him and his story and his idea.

While they’re doing it, Trey’s dad gives her a tiny approving nod. She gives him a blank look back.