The Cedar Tree

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘But we’ve five acres, Father. Uncle Fergal says a man can do much with five acres.’

  ‘Not anymore.’ He rested his elbows on his knees and then dropped his hands between his legs.

  Brandon was sure he hadn’t heard correctly. It was true that the small amount of wheat they planted had come to nothing, but he’d helped fill the cart with the last potato and cabbage crop and while the harvest hadn’t been a great success, he’d thought his father pleased with the result. ‘Was it him that hit you, then?’

  ‘Macklin? No. It was your uncle.’

  Brandon started at this revelation. ‘Uncle Fergal? But why?’

  His father looked him square in the eye. ‘I’m marrying Maggie to Tobias Macklin.’

  Brandon blinked twice. ‘What? How can you? He’s an old man.’

  ‘With an eye for a pretty girl,’ said his father.

  ‘She’s a child,’ said Brandon.

  ‘She’s nearly thirteen. And clever. She’ll learn quickly, whether she wants to or not, and she’ll carry his children easily, just like her mother. He’ll forgive us this year’s rent if we agree.’

  ‘I can’t believe you would do such a thing,’ said Brandon, his voice rising. Maggie was only a year younger than him. They’d grown up together. Treated each other as brother and sister, though there was no shared blood between them. The thought of losing her made his heart pound.

  ‘Why? Why wouldn’t I? She’ll be well cared for. And we’ll have the chance at another crop. An opportunity to put extra food away for the winter. We’ve been in arrears for the last two years, Brandon. Nearly everything we’ve made has been used to pay off debt. To be fair to Macklin, there’s been plenty of times in the past when he could have thrown us out. But this time Lord Huntley has increased his rent and so in turn Macklin must increase ours. We need a year’s grace. Otherwise we’ll be evicted.’

  Brandon stood and kicked hard at the wall with the toe of his shoe, grimacing at the sudden pain.

  ‘The days of small tenant farmers like us are disappearing. The big landholders want to run more stock. That’s where the living is to be made. Not with the likes of us when we can’t afford to pay our dues and we’re sitting on valuable pasture. This is why Macklin wanting Maggie is a blessing. It’s given me more time.’

  ‘More time?’

  ‘I have other children to consider. Including you. Anyway, as far as Maggie is concerned, there is nothing for her here. No work, and the prospect of marriage is unlikely with the numbers of young men who have left. That leaves the church, a vocation that’s as far removed from Maggie as anything could be.’

  ‘You’re only willing to be rid of her because she’s not your daughter,’ Brandon said, raising his voice even more.

  ‘And you are as wrong as a person can be, son. I love Maggie as if she were my own. And it’s for that very reason that I have to consider what is best for her and for everyone else in this family. I know this is hard for you. Why, I remember when the two of you were wee things huddling by the fire holding hands. You’re like peas in a pod, despite the bickering that goes on between you, but I’m telling you, Brandon, I have made my decision and it’s for the best.’

  Brandon chewed on his father’s words. Hours earlier he’d spread his fingers across a ewe’s woolly stomach, feeling the bulge of life within. He’d grasped the legs of the lamb stuck in its mother and, with a gentle pull, watched as the newborn had fallen to earth. He felt his anger dwindle to confusion as his father rambled on. Liam was enthusiastic, he’d give him that. Keen to be rid of his stepdaughter. Caught up in a plan that he believed would benefit everyone. Especially himself. Brandon hated him at that moment. The way his eyes grew starry-bright, his hands waving about as he uttered things about Mr Macklin’s good nature that he could scarcely know. The way he almost smiled. Like one of Cait’s all-knowing pagan gods. Brandon turned towards home, ignoring his father’s calls. His own family had become like the potatoes and cabbages they plucked from the soil at harvest time – commodities for the rich to buy.

  Chapter 6

  Brandon found his cousin at Uncle Fergal’s cottage. Sean was wielding a hoe with savage strokes, the tilled earth flying up about his legs. His mutterings came out muffled and fast, as if he were layering prayers, one on top of the other, after a particularly lengthy confession.

  ‘You’ve heard,’ said Sean, not halting in his work.

  ‘That your father bashed mine? Yes.’

  Sean leant against the wooden handle. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I know. I’m pleased Uncle Fergal hit him.’

  Sean wiped at the sweat dripping from his nose and Brandon recalled the past winter; the two of them shivering over a shared bowl of cabbage in his uncle’s cottage. Sean never resented Brandon coming to his home on the nights his stepmother’s bad humour got the better of her, even though it meant less room and food for everyone.

  ‘I can’t believe it. That turnip-nosed cretin Macklin.’ Sean speared the hoe across the ground.

  Brandon looked at his cousin, who at seventeen seemed a full-grown man, and shook away forming tears.

  ‘If I’d been your father I’d have given Macklin a taste of my fist. What man barters tenancy for a young girl? And what happened to the bastard’s first wife? For all we know he could have worked her to death,’ Sean stated fiercely.

  ‘This is Maggie we’re talking about, damn it.’ Brandon kicked at the freshly dug earth, suddenly overwhelmed with anger at his helplessness. ‘Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!’ He kept on yelling until Sean took him by the arm and dragged him across the field.

  ‘Here take this.’ Sean sat a rock in Brandon’s palm. ‘Take aim and throw it.’

  ‘Why?’ Brandon asked, panting.

  ‘It’s better to let the anger out. It’ll make you feel happier,’ said Sean.

  Brandon gripped the stone and pelted it low and hard.

  ‘Doesn’t that feel good?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Sean.

  They moved together over the grassland as they had as boys, picking up rocks and tossing them into the air, frightening grouse and quail, their actions replacing the unspeakable truth that Maggie was to marry an old man against her will.

  ‘Does Maggie know yet?’ asked Sean.

  Brandon thought of his stepsister sitting on the stool, the tally stick on the coals. ‘I don’t think so.’

  They reached the stony spine of another cottier’s house abandoned during the famine and sat in the shade of the tumbledown wall. The sky was banded blue. Ribbons of colour grew dark and low in the south where, three miles away, Mr Macklin’s house was visible.

  ‘She won’t go quietly,’ said Sean. His deep-set eyes reflected his worry.

  Brandon gave a sad smile. ‘No, she won’t.’

  Sean started balancing rocks one on top of the other. ‘I’ll never forgive them.’

  ‘Who?’ Brandon felt tired now, all energy spent.

  ‘The English. And men like Macklin, who work for them. This is my country, as it’s yours. But a man can do nothing here. You write your business on the side of your cart in the old language and you’re fined. You snare a bird or a rabbit on Macklin’s land to feed a hungry child and they’ll put you in chains.’ Sean turned to him. ‘Do you know why my father punched yours? Because Macklin’s a Protestant.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Brandon. ‘But that doesn’t matter, compared to the marriage.’

  ‘Have you gone daft in the head? Of course it matters,’ said Sean loudly. ‘That’s the only thing that matters. He’ll try to make her forget her teachings. Fill her head with rubbish.’

  ‘That will never happen. Maggie’s not one to be told what to do,’ said Brandon.

  ‘That’s true enough, I suppose.’

  So engrossed had they been in their discussion they’d barely heard the horse’s hooves approaching. Suddenly, as if conjured out of their anger, Mr Macklin appeared before t
hem on a chestnut horse. Brandon got to his feet immediately while Sean slowly lifted his head, chose a large rock from the pile and rolled it between his palms.

  The horse whinnied and backed up. Mr Macklin, heavily built and thickly bearded, gave them a cursory glance as if they barely warranted acknowledgement. He scanned about and beyond them, taking stock of the countryside and then narrowed his vision back to the two young men. The mare arched her neck and, as he loosened the reins, the dark cloth of his suit showed clean white shirt cuffs.

  ‘And have my sheep learnt to fend for themselves, Brandon O’Riain?’

  ‘No, Mr Macklin.’ Brandon felt a tightness grip his stomach.

  The landlord turned his head one way and then the other. ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Brandon.

  Next to him, Sean cleared his throat and spat loudly on the ground.

  Mr Macklin’s forehead creased. ‘If a man does nothing with his time then you have to wonder at his value. Don’t you agree? A man’s prospects are important. Your stepsister would agree with me, I’m sure.’

  The landlord had meaty hands. Brandon was tortured with a vision of those same stout fingers roaming Maggie’s body.

  ‘She’s too young,’ he called, his legs bracing with anger.

  A whip hung from the saddle, coiled and waiting. He expected Mr Macklin to reach for it, but instead the man simply laughed. It was a strange sound, made all the more unusual because Brandon had never heard it before. He assumed Maggie was the cause for the change in Mr Macklin’s disposition. He looked to Sean for guidance. His cousin was throwing the rock up and down, catching it in the palm of his hand.

  ‘She is too young for marrying,’ Sean agreed.

  Mr Macklin’s expression remained unchanged. ‘It was a decision made between Liam O’Riain and myself and it has nothing to do with you. Either of you,’ he said pointedly.

  Sean slowly got to his feet. ‘And wasn’t it just to your advantage, bartering my cousin for a year’s rent? Taking a child instead of waiting for—’

  ‘Payment due,’ Macklin finished. ‘Or, should I say, overdue. You lot gripe like you’re owed a living, but you’re not. We all work for somebody, boy, and no man should be expected to carry a family for free. A farm that can’t pay its way is no good to anyone, least of all the family living on it. Consider that, young Brandon, while you sit and whine about your stepsister. Would you rather be evicted? This country is pockmarked by the pits of the dead. I’m doing you all a favour. Her as well. Or would you prefer that she spend her days with you sorry lot?’ He patted the horse’s neck.

  ‘Better with us than the likes of you.’ Sean took a step forward.

  ‘Sean, don’t,’ Brandon warned.

  Sean was quick to anger and thought nothing of ending an argument with his fists. But this was a battle that they had no chance of winning.

  ‘I’ll have her converted to the one true faith within a year of bedding her,’ said Macklin, with a sly smile.

  ‘Maggie will lie to your face while keeping her religion, and you won’t know the difference,’ yelled Sean.

  ‘You think that simple child will choose the supposed Vicar of Christ over the welfare of her family and that of her own? If she is that dull-witted, then perhaps I’ll have to beat the sense back into her. There’s nothing like a length of leather on a young filly for the teaching of obedience.’

  ‘You bastard,’ said Sean slowly.

  ‘I praised the Lord the famine came to Ireland,’ Mr Macklin snarled. ‘I only wish that it had killed more Catholics.’ He tugged on the reins and the mare responded immediately, turning and beginning to walk away.

  ‘Damn Protestant Irish!’ Sean yelled after him. He aimed the rock and threw it. The stone struck Macklin in the back of the head and he fell from the mare to land heavily on the ground. The horse, untroubled by her master’s fall, trotted off to stand a few feet away.

  ‘Saint Patrick, what have you done?’ whispered Brandon. He couldn’t move. Could barely speak.

  Sean hesitated and then slowly crept to Macklin’s side. He walked around the body and gave the man a kick, then another, before rolling him onto his back. One leg was twisted beneath the other. An arm flung sideways, as if in a final gesture. Sean squatted and then placed an ear to the man’s chest, held a finger near his mouth.

  ‘Gone,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Gone? You mean dead?’ Brandon walked quickly to Sean’s side. Together they stared at the landlord. ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘He is,’ said Sean. His eyes had glazed over, whether from fear or satisfaction, Brandon couldn’t tell.

  Brandon backed away. A terrible sickness was beginning to spread from the pit of his insides.

  Sean was now searching the man’s pockets. He retrieved a silver fob watch and matching chain, and swung the timepiece back and forth so that it swayed like a pendulum.

  ‘Put that back!’ Brandon shouted.

  ‘Why? He’ll not be needing it.’ Sean tucked the items in his pocket and then wiped his hands on his trousers as if the action would cleanse him of both deeds, murder and thievery in a single afternoon.

  For a long time, they stared at the body on the ground. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t witnessed death before. Open caskets. Wakes. The old, the young, the sick. But this was different. Sean had done this, and Brandon was a part of it.

  ‘If I was a girl I’d start wailing,’ commented Sean. ‘Him lying there, unwashed and unprepared to meet his maker. Well, a good cry would bring the evil spirits in and take his black soul to where it belongs.’

  ‘We should leave,’ said Brandon. If there were evil spirits about, he wasn’t staying to greet them.

  ‘What about the horse?’ asked Sean, rolling Macklin back onto his stomach.

  ‘What about the horse?’

  ‘It’s valuable.’ Sean caught the mare grazing nearby and led it back over to Brandon. ‘I’m keeping it.’

  ‘You can’t even ride,’ Brandon said.

  ‘Neither can you. I’ll hide the horse and then go and see Jamie Gallagher. Jamie’s a nationalist, like his father was. He’ll see us right,’ Sean replied.

  Brandon halted but then followed Sean, who had started to lead the mare away at a fast walk. Irish Republicans, a stolen horse and a murdered landlord. Brandon imagined what lay before them if their current course wasn’t altered and felt his stomach drop.

  ‘Just let the horse go free,’ he pleaded.

  ‘No. Not when I can sell it. We could use the money.’

  ‘Sean, please,’ said Brandon.

  ‘No. I’m not listening to you, Brandon O’Riain. Why should I? When we were cold and hungry last year you couldn’t even bring yourself to take one of those sheep that you guard with your life. One miserly sheep to feed us through winter.’ Sean increased his pace as the mare broke into a trot.

  ‘And if I’d been caught? What then?’ Brandon demanded.

  They reached the remains of another cottier’s house and Sean led the horse inside the roofless dwelling, wedging the reins in the stonework of the collapsed chimney.

  ‘Are you willing to wreck our family’s lives?’ Brandon asked.

  ‘It’d be better if we don’t tell a soul,’ said Sean. He seemed almost calm now. Excited, even.

  Brandon shook his head.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ said Sean. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

  Brandon’s home was less than a half mile away. It sat in a narrow cleft ringed by the rising and falling ground. He walked towards it determinedly, feeling the fear of what lay behind, until his walk became a run. Sean kept pace next to him.

  From within the cottage’s dim interior the outline of Brandon’s father appeared as he and Sean approached.

  ‘Whose horse was that?’ said Liam to the two boys. ‘Don’t stand there quiet like you’ve no idea what I’m speaking about. I saw you leading it into the Dohertys’ old place.’

  Maggie came to the door. ‘Wh
at have you done?’

  ‘Shush up,’ Liam told his stepdaughter. ‘Brandon, get yourself inside this instant. You as well, Sean.’

  Brandon and Sean sat at the table as ordered, while Maggie dropped the dense leaves of a quartered cabbage into a pot of water.

  Liam spread his hands on the scrubbed tabletop. ‘Tell me and be quick about it.’

  ‘We saw Macklin,’ began Brandon, his voice trembling. He didn’t know how to continue and he turned to his cousin.

  ‘There were words.’ Sean leant nonchalantly back in the chair. The timber creaked with the movement. ‘I threw a rock.’

  ‘It hit,’ said Brandon, scarcely able to believe what he was saying.

  ‘And?’ asked Liam.

  Brandon looked at Sean and then back at his father. The magnitude of what they’d done pierced his conscience, and he stuttered as he spoke. ‘Father, he’s dead.’

  The room was silent. Liam eyeballed his son and then Sean. ‘Macklin is dead. Is that what you’re telling me.’

  Brandon nodded. His mouth was dry.

  Liam dropped his head to his hands.

  Suddenly Maggie flung herself at Sean, hammering at his chest with her fists. ‘You stupid, stupid!’ Brandon captured his stepsister in his arms and held her back while she struggled.

  ‘Stop it, Maggie!’ Brandon told her.

  ‘What if someone finds out?’ said Maggie. She struggled free of Brandon and sat in a chair. Brandon kept a firm hand on her slight shoulder.

  His father appeared stunned. He lifted his head and rubbed at his brow and spoke uncertainly. ‘Then it will be bad. Very bad.’

  ‘They should run, Father. They must run. Otherwise we’ll all be caught up in this. We’ll be thrown out. Evicted.’ Maggie began to cry.

  ‘Shut up, girl, and let me think.’ Liam considered the three young people before him and then slammed his palm hard on the table. He turned to Brandon. ‘An accident. That’s how it will seem. Sean, as you threw that rock it’s you who will take the mare back tonight under cover of dark. Leave her close to where Macklin lies and pray to Saint Patrick that none of us are given blame.’