‘Surely there is a way to turn this to our advantage. There’s money to be made here,’ argued Sean.
Liam screwed up his eyes until they were tight and small. ‘And how, boy, do you think that can be achieved when a man is murdered? Do what I say, and do it quickly, for there’s only one penalty for this crime and they’ll have no hesitation in hanging you both by the neck until you’re dead.’
Chapter 7
The morning following Mr Macklin’s death, Brandon woke after a restless night and crawled over the top of his three sleeping younger brothers, placing his feet carefully so as not to disturb Maggie and his younger half-sister Sarah on the bedding next to them. In the main room was his stepmother, Cait, who had wrapped a shawl about her chemise. His father cradled Elsie, the youngest. There was water boiling over the fire, and the room was stuffy with the smells of smoke, yesterday’s boiled cabbage, of too many people and not enough washing of skin.
Maggie appeared a few minutes later, carrying Sarah on a hip. She drew up a chair and faced Brandon, sullen and accusing, as he splashed icy water on his face from a bucket. His father passed baby Elsie to Cait and, taking his trousers from where they were folded over the back of a chair, stepped into them.
Arranging herself near the hearth, Cait pulled at the chemise so that her breast fell out of its flimsy covering. She spat on her hand and rubbed at the nipple and then squeezed it, teasing the baby with a few spots of milk before Elsie took hold. The youngest boy, Dennis, crawled from where he slept and, with a whine, rushed to his mother, clinging to her knee and crying for milk too. He wore a dress, a cast-off from Maggie.
‘I think the boy should be in trousers, Cait,’ said his father. ‘He’s seven years of age, and no good to me outside in that.’
‘No. If he’s breeched too soon the fairy-folk might come for him. He’s the last of my boys so they’ll be watching careful, like. Waiting for the opportunity.’
Brandon sighed at this talk, a little too loudly. There were times when he saw far more sense in the Christian religion, where people lived and died without the need to dance around shadows.
‘You blow your hot air, Brandon O’Riain. But see if the worst doesn’t happen when you ignore the ways of the fairies,’ warned Cait.
His two other half-brothers, Marcus and Michael, entered the main room, arguing.
‘It’s too early for your bickering,’ chided their father. Brandon dried off using his shirt tail, pausing, as did his father, when a noise came from outside. It sounded like footsteps.
Liam gave his son a meaningful look. He’d sworn Maggie and Brandon to secrecy, so that not even Cait knew of the previous day’s disaster. Then he’d had words with Brandon, making him swear on all that was good and holy to never tell Maggie that Macklin was to be her intended. Although his father was convinced that she would blame herself for any sufferings that followed, Brandon doubted that he’d ever want Maggie to know that he’d married her off.
‘Someone’s coming,’ said Liam.
‘Who would come a-knocking at this hour? When we’ve not even had time to rub the crust from our eyes.’ Cait yawned.
The door flew open, the latch breaking under the strength of the kick. A young constable stepped into the cottage holding a pistol. He waved it vaguely about the stunned room. The baby’s suckling was the only noise and the constable glanced with disgust at Cait as she shoved aside her frocked son who’d latched on to her other nipple. Behind him, Sean was visible. He sat on a horse, his wrists bound, nose bloody, cowed but unbeaten.
‘Constable Swift. What’s this?’ asked Liam.
‘Sit down and don’t pretend ignorance, Liam O’Riain. Sean’s been caught with a bag of coin such that three generations of your lot would never see. He spends a lot of time with your son, doesn’t he?’ He waved the gun at Brandon, blond hair falling across his brow.
‘They’re cousins,’ answered Liam.
‘Ribbonmen, more likely. I’ll not see the start-up of you rebels again,’ said Constable Swift.
‘They’ve nothing to do with that lot, and it’s a long time since we’ve seen their like around here,’ said Liam, his voice steady.
‘I’ll be the judge of that. Brandon O’Riain, you’re to come quietly,’ ordered Swift.
‘Constable, you know us for honest people. My son’s a good boy.’ Liam pleaded his case with outstretched arms.
‘Then he’ll not mind coming into the village and explaining what he was doing with Sean yesterday afternoon,’ explained Swift.
‘Is it a crime to be out and about with his cousin?’ argued Liam.
‘It could be.’ Swift held up a silver fob and chain. ‘We found these in Sean’s pocket. A pretty piece for a poor man to have.’ He beckoned to Brandon.
Brandon’s heart began to race. He swallowed noisily, his mouth and throat suddenly dry.
‘Mr Tobias Macklin has been found dead not three mile from his house. His horse is missing, and this here watch belongs to him. You can see by the initials scratched into the back of it. I say you two killed your landlord, sold the horse and were saving the trinkets for later.’
‘I told you, I found it,’ protested Sean from outside.
Swift laughed and grabbed the front of Brandon’s shirt.
‘Leave him alone!’ Liam shouted. He leapt to his feet, only for the constable to strike him on the shoulder with the butt of the gun.
The children screamed and began to wail. Cait backed into a corner of the room, hugging the baby.
Brandon yelled out in anger, lowered his head and charged at the constable. He hit Swift’s midsection, pushing him across the room, where his body hit the wall with a thud.
The pistol flew from the constable’s grasp towards Maggie, who snatched it up. There was a sudden bang and a shriek as a bullet narrowly missed Brandon and hit the constable in the thigh. Swift groaned and slid to the floor.
Brandon turned in the direction the shot had come from and met Maggie’s stunned expression. She carefully placed the firearm on the ground and then edged away from it.
Outside, the horse had startled at the gunshot and Sean, having lost his balance, had fallen to the ground with a thud. He got to his feet with difficulty and, staggering inside the cottage, saw the wounded constable.
‘Let him bleed,’ he said.
Brandon helped his father to a chair and then, detaching the keys from the policeman’s belt, unlocked Sean’s cuffs.
‘What have you done, you stupid girl?!’ yelled Cait, the baby howling in her arms.
‘Leave her be, woman, or it’s you that will be on the striking end,’ Liam told his wife calmly.
Cait gave the baby to one of the children, who were huddled against a stone wall. Her expression traced a thoughtful line between anger and possible retaliation. ‘It’s your blood that’s in them, Liam. O’Riain blood. Tempters and traitors and troublemakers, the lot of them.’ She picked up the gun and sat it in the middle of the table. Then she backed away and folded her arms across her chest. ‘I never should have married you. We’ll be evicted before the day is out.’
Brandon crouched by Constable Swift, who was now slumped against the wall. Blood was pooling onto the ground from the gunshot to his thigh. ‘I’m sorry. It was an accident,’ he said.
‘You’ll hang for this,’ Swift muttered, clutching at his leg. He was only a few years older than Sean. His face was turning the colour of the ash that littered the hearth in the mornings.
‘None of us meant any trouble,’ said Brandon. The pooled blood was darkening as if it were being forced from the deepest recesses of the man’s body.
‘Get him out, lad,’ ordered Liam.
Brandon hooked his hands under Swift’s armpits and dragged him outside. Sean followed close behind. Behind them, a bloody trail seeped into the frosty ground.
‘He’ll die,’ Sean told Brandon, his satisfaction at this prospect clear. ‘Did you hear that?’ He leant over Swift so that their faces were inches apart
. ‘The blood will pump out of you just as fast as if you were pulling water.’
‘That’s far enough, lads. Leave him be and come here,’ Liam barked.
Sean snarled as he followed Brandon back inside the cottage. Maggie was on all fours near the blood-stained floor, digging up the packed earth with a trowel and throwing it on top of the wet floor. Brandon could see her hands were shaking.
‘Now what?’ yelled Cait, above the howls and tears of the younger children.
‘You must go,’ Liam said calmly to Brandon and Sean. He turned to meet Maggie’s dazed stare as well. ‘You must all go.’
‘We can’t. You’ll be blamed,’ argued Brandon. ‘The constable said someone saw Sean and me together. Word will get out.’
‘It always does,’ Cait added gloomily.
‘Better one than three. Come here, Maggie.’
Maggie rushed to her stepfather’s side, crumpled to the floor and rested her chin on his knee. ‘I’m so sorry, Father.’
‘I know, lass. It was an accident.’ He stroked her hair slowly. ‘You must go with Brandon and your cousin, girl. It’s for the best.’
‘No, Father, no!’ Maggie lifted her head. ‘I won’t do it! I won’t leave you! Who’s to know what I did? He’ll die, won’t he?’
Liam tried to offer a soothing smile. ‘You must leave, girl.’
Maggie flung her arms about her stepfather and began to weep. ‘But please, Father, no one needs to know what I did.’
‘Shush now, little Maggie. Everything will be all right. Brandon and Sean will see to that.’ Liam looked to his son and nephew, his face passive, calm, however Brandon noted the trembling at the corner of his father’s mouth. Although his heart refused to acknowledge what was happening, his head took control. In response, he found himself agreeing, although he wondered at the pact. Things were still too raw for him to comprehend what he’d just been entrusted with. He was only fourteen and the fear he felt at leaving home outweighed everything that had occurred since yesterday.
He realised with unwanted clarity that he’d been waiting for his father to speak again, hoping for guidance, for he knew Maggie was now his to safeguard, but his father appeared just as unsure as he was. With that knowledge Brandon understood that no one could help him. From now on, he would be the one making the decisions. The thought terrified him.
Liam gently shook Maggie off, rose and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.
‘You can never come back, lad.’ He directed his next words to Maggie and Sean too. ‘If you do, only death will be waiting. You must go far away and make a new life.’
Never. Brandon’s knees buckled at that single word. ‘But nobody knows what happened,’ he reasoned.
‘And you think they won’t guess in a heartbeat? Macklin’s death will be on everyone’s lips by noon and Constable Swift will have told others about why he was coming here this morning.’
Liam led him into the corner of the room. His father’s fingers pinched him to straightness and they hugged, Brandon feeling the bone structure that contained a strength he’d never noticed before.
‘Maggie will do better with you two,’ his father whispered. ‘She can’t stay here. They’d likely arrest her for her connection to Macklin, for he’s sure to have told someone of our bargain. Never tell her what part she played in this, Brandon. Never let Maggie know how I bartered her for a year’s grace. She will blame herself for this fine mess and hate me for the doing of it, and there is nothing worse than a child’s disappointment in a parent. This I do know.’
‘You’ve brung the devil on us, Brandon,’ Cait hissed. ‘Brung him on as if you opened the door and called him in.’
Brandon wanted to tell his stepmother that it was a pity that the devil hadn’t taken her instead. As the insults continued, he ruffled Dennis’s and Sarah’s hair, nodded at Marcus and Michael, then slowly took his coat from the peg on the wall and met his father’s eyes one last time. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, son.’ Liam nodded through the doorway to where Sean was rifling through the dying constable’s pockets. ‘Better fifty enemies outside the house than one within. Sean will not change. He cannot. There’s too much hate in him.’
‘Father . . .’ Brandon wanted to say that he loved him, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘Enough. There’s plenty to be said, but none that really needs saying. I know what’s in your heart. Now drag Swift around the back. I’ll tell your Uncle Fergal what’s happened and ask him to help me get rid of him.’ He beckoned to his stepdaughter. ‘It’s time to say goodbye, girl.’
Maggie cried and hugged her stepfather, and then walked to her mother, still sniffling.
‘Find a good husband,’ said Cait, her hip cocked sideways where the baby perched. ‘Not one with a ready-made family. And don’t be forgetting how hard I’ve worked over the years.’
‘Yes, Mamaí,’ said Maggie, solemnly kissing her on the cheek.
Brandon watched from the door as his stepsister said her goodbyes to her siblings. Maggie shuffled across the room and then launched herself at their father one more time, gripping him so tightly that Brandon was forced to prise her loose. She shrugged free of Brandon’s grasp and briefly held his gaze, and in that single look he saw the pain that came with their forced leaving, and he knew she blamed him squarely, despite Sean’s guilt.
Maggie was waiting outside the cottage with only a shawl when Brandon and Sean returned from hiding the dying constable. Her eyes were puffy and red, her back ramrod straight.
‘I hate you both,’ she said.
‘Hate us you can, Maggie,’ said Sean, ‘but I’m more than happy to have a fair shot on a foul night.’
‘I didn’t mean to shoot him,’ she replied tearfully.
‘But you did,’ replied Sean. ‘And now you’re just the same as us. A murderer.’
‘Sean, for pity’s sake, let her alone,’ said Brandon.
He looped an arm about Maggie’s waist and dragged her towards the hills. She struggled and complained, yet he managed to keep her moving away from the only home they’d known.
Although his own eyes stung and his chest ached, Brandon held tight to Maggie. They walked until the sky darkened and grew light once again, and the hills and valleys that appeared in front of them were as unknown as the new life to which they were heading.
Chapter 8
Richmond Valley, 1949
The night proved long and troubled. Stella lay awake recalling what Harry had told her – that Joe had disregarded his family in the pursuit of ambition and in the doing retraced the footsteps of a dishonourable ancestor, Brandon O’Riain. It was difficult to comprehend this tenuous family link. Harry and Joe’s father, Sean, had passed many years ago aged in his seventies, and she assumed that his cousin Brandon was also long dead. Yet he was still talked about. This man who had once been a shepherd in Ireland. She wondered if Brandon had fretted for the flock in his care as Joe had. If he too had cursed when the tally was short while counting the mob into the yards. If it pained him, as it did Joe, to see the grasses wither with cold or heat. If he was once as attuned to the sick and the maimed and the need to ensure that the flock was not pushed too hard when walking them, as Joe had been. Perhaps Brandon had also stayed awake at night when danger neared, readying to take on poachers, while thousands of sea miles away, in another century, his descendant armed himself against wild dogs in the fringe lands of Australia.
Stella opened her eyes to the grey smudge of dawn and wiggled a little in her niece’s bed. She could say nothing of these rambling nocturnal thoughts to Harry. He bore a grudge towards this simple sheepman of the past, and seemed keen to reduce Joe’s complex personality to a convenient comparison to a long-dead relative.
She dressed quickly and, leaving Ann to sleep, headed to the kitchen. Morning light filtered through the house and she stopped at one of the photographs hanging on the wall that she’d briefly glanced at the previous day. There was a grainy black
-and-white shot of two boys with their parents. She recognised a teenage Harry and assumed the baby in the dour-faced woman’s arms was Joe. Stella had never seen a picture of her husband as a child before and at the sight of this innocent baby she felt a stab of pain. She drew her eyes away. Next to mother and child was a stocky, slab-sided man who even with the tread of advancing years appeared more than capable of handling himself in a fight. The resemblance to Harry was remarkable. This was Sean, Stella was sure of it.
A chair scraped. Men started laughing. Stella glanced in the direction of the kitchen and, not quite ready for the onslaught of conversation, escaped out onto the veranda.
Watson was awake, his yellow crest rising as she approached. She was yet to be forgiven for taking him from his home and subjecting him to a jolting car ride, and she supposed that the table on which his cage was perched was also unsatisfactory.
‘Pretty boy,’ she said softly. He edged away from her in response. His nails curled around the perch and he stretched out his white wings so that the lemon meringue of his underside and tail feathers was visible. ‘I’ll try to find you a bigger cage,’ she promised, although at this early stage Stella was loath to ask for favours.
The back garden was a shady area filled with shrubs and native trees. Stella walked among the plants, stopping to turn on the sprinkler that watered the vegetable plot. Carrots and late potatoes filled the rows, as well as tomatoes. Stella sniffed at the vines, gently pressing the skins of the ripening fruit and then lifted her gaze to the house and its surrounds.
As she walked, she slowly got the feeling that someone was observing her, however there was no movement or sign of anyone, not from the house or garden nor from the land that stretched out beyond the fence to the distant mountains. She shook the thought free and continued exploring.
A tall cedar tree acted as a focal point at the bottom of the gently sloping lawn, and she walked towards it, surprised that the grounds were so extensive. The further she walked the more unkempt the garden became. It was quite overgrown in places. A straggly, fragrant hedge partially concealed the garden fence along one side. Stella tripped on something and found herself standing on a large tree stump that was cut close to the ground. She scraped the dirt off it, dragging her shoe across the concentric rings that marked each growing season, until the edges were revealed. Then she stepped out the diameter, whistling as she counted twenty feet. There were other stumps scattered around. Some were a good five feet in height, others had been hacked off closer to the ground, the axe marks still visible. All were enormous.
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