“The thing is,” Rushborough says, “the important thing is, you see, my grandmother didn’t just discover this by chance. The one thing that frightens me, the one thing that’s been giving me pause about this whole project, is the possibility that her directions are no good. That they’ve been passed down over so many generations, they got warped along the way, to the point where they’re not accurate enough to lead us to the right spots. But you see, when she and her friend Michael found this”—he points to the ring, cupped like a butterfly in Con’s big rough hand—“they weren’t digging at random. They picked the spot because her grandfather had told her his father said there was gold there.”
“And he was right,” Bobby says, starry-eyed.
“He was right,” Rushborough says, “and he didn’t even know it. That’s one of the marvelous aspects: her grandfather didn’t actually believe in the gold. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was a tall tale—something invented by some ancestor to impress a girl, or to distract a sick child. Even when my grandmother found this, he thought it was just a pretty pebble. But he passed the story on, all the same. Because, true or false, it belonged to our family, and he couldn’t let it disappear.”
Cal takes a glance at Johnny Reddy. Johnny hasn’t said a word to him all evening. Even his eyes have stayed carefully occupied, far from Cal. Now, he and Cal are the only people who aren’t gazing at the scrap of gold. While Cal is watching Johnny, Johnny is watching the other men. His face is as intent and consumed as theirs. If this ring is what Johnny was keeping up his sleeve, it’s having all the impact he could have hoped for.
“The gold is out there,” Rushborough says, gesturing at the dark window and the hot night outside, thrumming with insects and their hunters. “Our ancestors, yours and mine, they were digging it up thousands of years before we were born. Our grandparents were playing with it in those fields, just as they’d play with pretty pebbles. I want us to find it together.”
The men are still. Their land is changing from a thing they know inside out to a mystery, a message to them in a code that’s gone unsuspected all their lives. Out in the darkness, the paths they walk every day are humming and shimmering with signals.
Cal feels like he’s not in the room with them, or like he shouldn’t be. Whatever’s on his land, it’s not the same thing.
“I feel incredibly lucky,” Rushborough says quietly. “To be the one who, after all these generations, is in a position to salvage this story and turn it into a reality. It’s an honor. And I mean to live up to it.”
“And no one but this load of gobshites to give you a hand,” Senan says, after a moment of silence. “God help you.”
The alcove explodes with a roar of laughter, huge and uncontrolled. It goes on and on. There are tears rolling down Sonny’s face; Dessie is rocking back and forth, barely able to breathe. Johnny, laughing too, reaches over to clap Senan on the shoulder, and Senan doesn’t shrug him off.
“Oh, come on,” Rushborough protests, slipping his ring back onto his finger, but he’s laughing too. “I can’t imagine better company.”
“I can,” Sonny says. “Your woman Jennifer Aniston—”
“She’d be no good with a shovel,” Francie tells him.
“She wouldn’t need to be. She could just stand at the other end of the field, and I’d dig my way over to her like the fuckin’ clappers.”
“Here, you,” Bobby says, digging a finger into Senan’s solid arm, “you’re forever giving me shite about why aliens would want to come to the back-arse of Ireland. Does this answer that for you, does it?”
“Ah, whisht up, wouldja,” Senan says, but his mind isn’t on it. He’s watching Rushborough’s hand, the turn and pulse of light as he gestures.
“Aliens need gold now, do they?” Mart inquires, taking up Senan’s slack.
“They need something,” Bobby says. “Or otherwise why would they be here? I knew there hadta be something out there that they were after. I reckoned it was plutonium, maybe, but—”
“Fuckin’
“Your trouble is you don’t fuckin’ listen. I never said that. I only said they’re bound to need fuel, if they’re coming all this—”
“And they’re using gold for fuel now, is it? Or are they trading it for diesel on the intergalactic black market—”
Cal leaves them to it and goes back up to the bar. Mart joins him again, in case Cal should forget by whose favor he’s here tonight.
“Hey,” Cal says, motioning to Barty to make it two pints.
Mart leans on the bar and works a knee that’s stiff from sitting. He has an eye on the alcove, over Cal’s shoulder. “Didja ever hear the story of the three wells?” he asks.
“Well, well, well,” Cal says. He’s not in the right frame of mind to humor Mart.
“That’s the one,” Mart says. “Well, well, well.”
