“We’ll give you $4,000 for all the Flanagan teams and coaches.”
James Flanagan was starting to look mean. “Where you going get that kind of money?”
“We’ll rob a bank.”
“Don’t be so foolish, woman. Take the offer.”
She stared him down.
“Donnelly Brothers Coachline is not for sale.”
* * *
Late that night, Will sat alone at Keefe’s tavern finishing a bottle of Gooderham and Worts special rye and feeling sorry for himself. Except when it came to Maggie, both of these activities were rare in his experience, but when is a better time than after losing one’s own true love? Even more so as he approached the bottom of the bottle. Keefe was sympathetic but he wanted to close up. It was about then that Will had the idea of bidding Maggie one final farewell. Wait, Will thought. I’ll give her a shivaree! It’s only customary.
So it was about two a.m. when Will started pulling apart forty feet of fence rails from Pat Carroll’s paddock, piling them below the honeymooners’ bedroom window. With a liberal dose of kerosene, he lit the pile on fire. Then he proceeded to ride around the bonfire, taking shots with his pistol at the stone chimney of the house from different angles. Later, he would vaguely recall singing “The Bear Went over the Mountain” at the top of his lungs. It took him little time to arouse the attention of the newlyweds inside, who opened their bedroom window.
“Donnelly! I’ll get the law!”
“And all that he could see, and all that he could see, was…the other side of the mountain…”
The bonfire roared through the pile of dry rails.
“Will! Don’t do this! Please go home!” Maggie called to him.
“The other side of the mountain…the other side of the mountain…”
“You’ll be up on charges! I’m warning you!” Carroll shouted from the open window.
“Was all that he could see…”
Will fired another shot at the chimney and had the satisfaction of seeing Carroll duck. This was just before he fell off his horse. Will had not fallen off a horse since he was seven and now here he was sitting in the dirt in front of the woman he loved. Yes he did, there was no denying it. The bonfire was burning down now. The good feeling from the rye suddenly left him and he was just dizzy and sick. He had lost everything else and now he’d lost all that was left of his dignity. He looked up and into the light of the burning fence posts and the flames, now in decline, did serve to trigger an epiphany: Maggie was now gone from him. It was enough. They both needed to get on with their separate lives. Just then he heard a hammer cock and saw that Pat Carroll stood over him in his nightshirt with a double-barrelled shotgun aimed at his head.
“I’ve been plenty patient! You’ve got three seconds to get off my land, Donnelly. ONE!”
Carroll cocked the second hammer.
“No, Pat!” Maggie called out from the doorway.
It occurred to Will what a stupid way this would be to go, but he had difficulty expressing himself. Or standing up for that matter.
“TWO!”
“Please, Will!”
“THREE!”
“Lower the gun, Paddy. I’ll take my boy home.”
Johannah’s horse came out of the darkness and stood in the firelight, Johannah looking down on them. She was unarmed but her presence caused Carroll to quickly lower his shotgun from the bead on Will’s head.
As Johannah looked on, Will stumbled unsteadily to his feet. He found and picked up his hat. He faced the newlyweds, bowed deeply and mustered enough clarity for a final farewell.
“I’m sorry…I wish you a good night…and a good life.”
Finding the trailing end of the reins, not trusting himself to mount successfully, holding onto the saddle horn to stay upright, Will led his horse away, walking unsteadily in the direction of the Roman Line, followed by his mother.
The Business
Shortly after the Thompson wedding, Johannah, Will and John acted on the decision to extend the routes of their Donnelly Brothers Coachline. The short-haul passenger and freight routes between Lucan and Clandeboye, Granton or Essex made them small change, but the plum of the stagecoach trade, the one the Flanagans claimed, serviced and controlled, was the Lucan to London run. They could operate two coaches, or “diligences” as they called them, all day back and forth for twenty-five cents a head each way to the stores and offices and factories of London. Once this service was regular and controlled, the houses they would build in Lucan could be rented at a higher rate. So this was the route the Donnellys were about to challenge.
Unknown to the Flanagans, the Donnellys had ordered a substantial, brand-new covered diligence quietly built for them in Goderich and painted with the name Donnelly Bros. Coachline, and an additional first-string team of four fine Arabians Michael had located and brought by train from Toronto. It cost them most of their savings. The rig could take nine passengers after driver and crew, and was finished inside with padded seats and glass windows. It was one grand stagecoach and the Donnellys were pleased with themselves.
“Imagine what Da will say!”
Michael would drive, of course. Will had done some driving for the Flanagans and could manage a rig with the best of them but Michael had the gift with horses—he could drive as well as he rode—and their motto would be “Comfort and Speed” to win the day and dominate the route. They had just as much right to it as the Flanagans.
Michael and Will had taken the rig out a couple of nights under darkness up the Roman Line to Saintsbury and across to Whalen’s Corners and back, where they wouldn’t be seen, urging the horses several times into a full gallop. They came back to report to Johannah the first night and by the candlelight on the kitchen table, with smiles breaking through their dusty faces, they told her the rig was very fine, well balanced and sturdy, and the four Arabians were a gift from God.
Michael, Will, John and Jenny had worked into the night on the decorations. The new Donnelly coach was festooned with the British colours of red, white and blue, streamers flying, pompoms on the harnesses and feathered headgear for the four horses. The majority of passengers bound for the banks and offices of London that Friday would be Protestant, Johannah had reasoned, with an uncompromised love of their queen. The British colours made for good business.
So on the day of the inaugural London run, the Donnellys were ready. Will rode with Michael, and Johannah kissed them goodbye.
“Make me proud of you. Remember, you’re representing the Donnelly name.”
They brought the new coach, all proud and sassy, down the Roman Line and onto Main Street. There were not too many folks around that morning but those that were stopped and stared. They passed through Lucan and made a left onto the Proof Line Road. Michael grinned at Will, the wind in his curls, happy in his work.
The strategy was to let the Flanagans pick up their passengers at the Central Hotel on Main Street and challenge them before they got to their second stop. The second passenger stop was a mile south of town with people coming in on the concession roads from the southern villages of Elginfield and Denfield to catch the coach to London. All they had to do was beat them there. Now just leaving town was the Flanagan coach up ahead in the distance, a worn-down, lumbering brig compared to their shiny new streamlined cutter.
Joe Flanagan was in the driver’s seat with his brother James beside him. They turned around to see the Donnellys approaching.
“What the hell is that?”
Joe urged their animals to greater effort. Michael slapped the reins himself for a little more velocity and moved over into the left lane, ready to overtake the Flanagans, and the race was on.
At the crossroads coach stop for the London destination, five passengers stood waiting for the coach: two businessmen in suits, two women with empty shopping sacks and a farmer in jeans. It was quiet, calm, the business
men checking pocket watches, others peering up the road, when suddenly they saw the two coaches appear over a slight rise, coming toward them in the distance, on the long straightaway leading to the stop. The coaches were almost abreast, a huge vortex of dust spiralling up behind them, hooves pounding, drivers hollering, running flat out, neck and neck at broken-bone speed.
The two teams of horses were at a proper gallop, though Will knew young Michael was not yet giving the Arabians full steam. Will was holding onto anything he could as they bucked and reeled over the old corduroy road. Ahead of them, the other users of the road had no rights, pedestrians, a donkey cart and a terrified penny-farthing bicyclist, who at first tried to outrun them and later headed wisely into the ditch, because nothing was going to stop this coach race.
As the coaches ran side by side down the Proof Line toward London, Michael and Will were having the time of their lives. Will called out across to the Flanagans, “Hey, Flanagan! You dragging an anchor?”
Joe Flanagan was throttling his horses with a long bullwhip. “This is our route, Donnelly!”
“Not for long!” Will laughed at him.
“You can go to hell!”
“You first!”
The stages were so close, Joe tried out his whip on Will and Michael. On the third application Will managed to grab the bullwhip in his gloved hand and there was a tug of war between the two coaches. Will pulled the whip from Joe and threw it away into the dust cloud behind them.
Inside the Flanagan coach, they could now hear the passengers shouting.
“Slow down! I want out! Let us out!”
As the two competing coaches approached the crossways, the passengers who stood waiting at the next stop were all watching the spectacle intently. They looked askance at each other, hands shading eyes, stepping out of the shadow of the crossroads chestnut tree to try and figure out the meaning of the imminent arrival of two coaches. Neck and neck now, the Flanagan passengers protested in the vain hope their driver might heed them.
“Stop! I want out! Help!”
Neither driver was about to give up. Veering wildly, Flanagan reined his coach hard into the side of the Donnellys’ with a crash of wood and steel.
“Hey! He’s wrecking the new rig!” Will told Michael, but his little brother had no intention of holding back.
After the first rough impact and withdrawal, Joe Flanagan turned his horses hard to the left and smashed into the Donnelly coach again, but the new rig had the weight and wider wheelbase to withstand it. This time the Flanagan coach bounced off and lost control, lurched sideways, and as the passengers screamed, it rolled over onto its side. Dragged by the excited horses, the coach slid along the right ditch for forty yards before coming to a stop in a cloud of dust and a wail of passenger fear and indignation.
Still upright, the Donnelly diligence continued down the Proof Line toward the passenger stop.
“Nice driving, Mike!” Will exclaimed as he grinned, gently elbowed his little brother and straightened his own clothes to greet their first passengers.
Mike pulled their empty coach to a squealing, horse-rearing, wheel-seizing, dust-enveloped stop in front of the amazed passengers waiting under the chestnut tree. Michael hopped down and dusted himself off. The new rig had sustained a few scratches but most of the coloured streamers and pom poms remained intact.
“Good morning to you all!” Michael greeted them and opened the door with a grand gesture. “It’s the new Donnelly Brothers Coachline at your service for London. All aboard.”
The passengers looked at each other nervously. No one moved to enter the coach. Michael smiled at all of them with his perfect teeth, giving them a moment to consider. From the driver’s seat Will was looking back down the line to observe the fate of the rival coach’s drivers and passengers. Joe and James Flanagan were standing on the road beside their overturned rig, dusty and hatless, but both in one piece. Will heard Joe call out to them on the gentle breeze.
“You sons of bitches!”
Will watched as their battered passengers, with no help from the Flanagans, slowly crawled up out of the coach door, one, two… a businessman and farm hand helped a middle-aged lady out of the door. An older man half-emerged behind her and shook a fist at the Donnellys. Will had considered going to assist but changed his mind.
“They’re fine,” Will concluded quietly. “Come on. Let’s get these folks loaded.”
Michael ran a hand through his hair and blew the dust from his nose with his red bandana and addressed their would-be clients again.
“So, ladies and gentlemen…the new Donnelly coach for London is now boarding! In you get!”
Again the men and women failed to move. They were looking down the road at the small gaggle of shaken Flanagan passengers, standing like a shipwrecked crew beside the overturned diligence.
“Look what you’ve done to the Flanagan coach,” the younger shopper told them.
“Oh, them,” Michael responded dismissively. “They’ve got a terrible safety record. Taking your life in your hands with the Flanagans. It’ll be the Donnellys from now on. All aboard!”
Michael betrayed some impatience when no one moved. He looked at his older brother and whispered, “What do we do now?”
Will turned to address the audience. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, for today only, we’re dropping the round-trip fare from fifty cents to twenty-five!”
The farmer bolted into the Donnelly coach and the other passengers followed. Michael and Will loaded their bags, took their money and helped them aboard. Michael gave the two women a wink and told one older shopper, “Shame on your husband for letting such a beauty travel alone.”
One passenger, a middle-aged businessman, hesitated before boarding, looking at Michael and Will. “I don’t know about this. I…I think I might wait and…”
“No time to dawdle.”
Michael took his arm firmly and encouraged him into the Donnelly coach. When all were aboard, Michael and Will climbed into the seat above and off they set for London.
Joe and James Flanagan stared at the new Donnelly coach setting off down the road with their stolen passengers, making promises to themselves.
The Homecoming
Johannah sat herself down on the creaky bench in front of the ancient mottled mirror to take a good long hard look. It was April 16, 1879, the day she had been waiting for. He had been released the day before and was coming home. A sigh escaped her. She arranged and rearranged her shoulder-length dark hair, a braid up, a braid down, two braids, no braids—she brushed it out again—a bun or piled up, with combs or without? She put on her spectacles for a better look—the bangs are all right, but should I have ringlets? They are in fashion this year. But what will Jim care about fashion? He would probably want her hair exactly as it was fifteen years ago, but she was no longer that woman. She took the spectacles off. Her daughter, Jenny, was sweeping the floor behind her. A few dust motes had risen, catching the sunlight through the window that faced the Roman Line going south into town. She gazed at the empty road for a moment, then went back to the untrustworthy mirror.
“Up or down?”
“Oh, down I think looks pretty, Ma.”
“Down shows the grey more.”
“Then up!”
“Then you see the wrinkles.”
“Stop worrying. He’s going to be so happy to get home. To see you after all this time. It’s so romantic!”
“Romantic? I guess,” she replied with a light laugh.
For fifteen years Johannah had fought to keep the farm running, the eight children fed and clothed, crops growing in the field and the household maintained. She had kept them all alive, hadn’t lost one. She could see now how it was all written in the lines on her face, every bad harvest, every schoolyard fight, every neighbour’s complaint, every childhood illness or broken arm, every lame horse, every tax c
ollector’s visit, the evidence there for all to see.
There had been no visits to the prison. A convicted murderer in Kingston Prison was not allowed visitors. She had written letters, at first almost every day, and at first he wrote back with short, terse communiqués he knew would be read by the prison authorities. After the first three years, these tapered off.
Johannah had dreamed of this day and yet her doubts and fears were swirling through her mind like a flock of angry crows. After all this waiting, still she yearned for just another day or two to be ready. How much will he have changed and will whoever he has become still love me, and will I still love him? Her thoughts flew round and round again until she felt dizzy.
They had all worked so hard on building and improving the place and deep within each of them, it was for him. Surely he will be impressed. The bedroom now had plaster and paint on the walls, a dressing table, a nice high-back chair and a new four-poster bed that Johannah had indulged in. Like the bed of her childhood in Ballymore, the posts almost scraping the ceiling.
Jenny finished sweeping and came over to look into the mirror with her mother. In its frame was the yellowed sketch of Jim from his wanted poster—he had never had a photograph made. Jenny laid her chin on her mother’s shoulder as they studied the sketch. The face was handsome, clean shaven, wreathed in curly hair like Michael’s and had a sad smile.
“Just bad luck for you he’s so ugly,” Jenny joked playfully.
“He was the most handsome man in the county.”
“But that croaky voice and the stutter…”
Johannah laughed. “His voice could charm milk from a chicken.”
“It’s strange for me not knowing what he looks like, having never really met him. Only the one picture. But I feel like I know him and I think I will. My own da! Tell me about the first time you met again.”
“We were kids together…”
“No, Ma, I mean afterwards. After you came back from England. The poaching in the grass.”
Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys Page 25