Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

by Keith Ross Leckie

  “Excuse me, everyone. I have a little story you’re all familiar with. Goes like this…

  A handsome young devil named James,

  got involved in some fisticuff games.

  While he was only defending,

  a man’s soul went ascending,

  So hanging became the courts’ aims.”

  Jim rubbed his beard and turned away, uncomfortable with the attention. He looked around at the others while Michael continued with his eyes on his father.

  So handsome was this fellow, Donnelly,

  they decided they couldn’t hang he.

  They sent him away,

  fifteen years and a day,

  then gave him back to his good family.

  Jim sat up and listened to the poem, warming to its good intentions.

  So now reunited are we.

  Strong and proud is the name Donnelly.

  All the girls we will kiss,

  not one party we’ll miss,

  now Da’s back from penitentiary!

  For the first time their father seemed pleased. He applauded and everyone joined in. Johannah put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him.

  Robert pointed at Tom. “Tom doesn’t kiss any girls. None’ll have him!”

  Everyone laughed, even Jim and Johannah. Tom grabbed Robert in what at first seemed a playful hold. Then Tom bent Robert’s arm behind his back. Robert yelled in pain and Michael warned him, “Easy, Tom. He was only joking.”

  “Let him go, Tom,” Will’s voice was serious.

  Robert said with a cry, “I was just kidding!”

  The maniacal look returned to Tom’s eye as he bent the arm higher. Again Robert yelled in pain. Will took hold of Tom’s arm and Michael grabbed him around the shoulders but Tom would not let go of Robert. The Whalens and Keefes watched, their eyes wide at Tom’s cruelty to his brother.

  “Let him go!” Will shouted in his ear.

  Johannah positioned herself in Tom’s sightline and looked into his eyes. “Stop it, Tom.”

  At Johannah’s word, Tom released Robert and stood back. With tears in his eyes, Robert inspected and rubbed his wounded arm and whimpered.

  “He almost broke it. I thought you were my friend.”

  “I’m…sorry,” Tom told Robert.

  “He didn’t mean to, Robbie,” Johannah told him. “Tom, you just go too far. We’ll put some ice on it. Johnny, bring some ice please. Come into the summer kitchen, Robbie.”

  As Johnny hurried to the ice house, Johannah led Robert into the summer kitchen to pump some cold water on his arm. Will studied Tom for a moment, then walked away to have a smoke.

  In the summer kitchen the cool pump water was easing the pain in Robert’s arm, but he was still upset.

  “I was just kidding. Why did he do that?”

  “He didn’t mean to hurt you. He doesn’t understand sometimes.”

  Johnny brought two blocks of ice and Johannah applied them to the elbow and shoulder. “Do you want to hold the stone?”

  Robert nodded his head and Johannah gave him the good luck stone from Ireland to hold in his good hand. Robert showed it to Johnny.

  “You see? Ma brought it all the way from Ireland. The green is for the green of Ireland where we come from and the bits of gold are for heaven and the bits of red are for the blood. Donnelly blood we all share.”

  Johnny listened closely even though he had heard it before. He smiled when Robert was done. “That’s real smart, Robert.” Robert turned the stone over and over in his hand.

  Tom went to sit on the ground beside his father’s chair. He put his head against his knee. Left alone, Jim put a hand on Tom’s head and began speaking very quietly to him.

  “You know, you’re right, Tommy. This world only sees power and strength. That gets you respect. But not against a brother. You will use that power against our enemies. You understand?”

  Tom looked up at him and nodded. “Yes, Da.”

  “Good boy. I can tell you’re the strong one.”

  Tom nodded again.

  * * *

  When all their friends and neighbours had left, the candles blown out and the house quiet, Johannah led Jim into their bedroom and presented the new four-poster bed she had bought in anticipation of his return. Jim felt the lace curtains on the window with his clumsy, broken fingers. He stumbled over a velvet footstool. He admired the bed.

  “Fit for a queen, Jo. Sad you were sleeping in it alone.”

  “Jenny sleeps with me on a cold night.”

  There was nothing in her life Johannah had ever wanted more than for things to be good between them now. She sat down and patted the mattress beside her.

  “Sit.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jim replied, but the joke was strained. Jim sat down beside her, rubbing his wrists, and she noticed the dark calluses from the shackles they had made him wear. He would not look her in the eye. Johannah reached out and began to massage his shoulders. He started at the unfamiliar touch and looked up at her with apprehension. She loosened his shirt and continued.

  “Your shoulders are like rocks.”

  “It’s a long time to go without a friendly touch.”

  As the shirt fell from one shoulder she found cruel, old lash marks that had cut the skin on his shoulders and she could see in the mirror that they ran down his back. They extended in layers, some old, some newer and some, red lipped, very recent. She touched the knife scar on his face, angry calloused skin still gaping between the careless stitches. She took and held his right hand, with the broken fingers in hers.

  “They hurt you.”

  Jim looked down at his feet. “I hope you will be patient with me. I won’t be easy for you. But I’m trying.”

  “We’ve got all the time in the world, Jim.”

  She gave him a warm smile then and he continued the first tentative steps on that long journey.

  “You’ve kept your looks.”

  “I guess your eyesight’s going,” she teased and they laughed together for the first time.

  “Maybe. Sure in reality you couldn’t look as good as you do to me now.”

  “That’s a lot of beard you got going on there, mister. You expect me to kiss that?”

  “You might get to like it.”

  “If I liked kissing porcupines.”

  “Oh. Never mind then.”

  Jim looked away and then suddenly turned back to give her an unexpected kiss.

  “So you still steal kisses, do you? Careful or you’ll wind up back in jail for theft.”

  Johannah kissed him back and they studied each other again.

  “I still love you.”

  Overcoming his reticence, Jim examined her face, extended a finger and touched the tip of her nose.

  “Imagine that.”

  And there through the beard and the hard years of separation emerged a little of her Jim, and Johannah wanted to tell him everything.

  “You should be proud of your boys. Will and John have smart heads for business. Michael knows horses inside out. He’s the best trader in the county. Pat has a good job in Exeter building wagons, Robert’s starting to read a little and I’m working with Tom to control his temper. And James Jr. is so excited to have you home, it’s all he talked about for months. And Jenny…is an angel as you can see.” She hesitated. “Jim…the past is done, right? John Carroll is dead. You’re not going after anybody?”

  “D’you think I’d ever risk this life with you again?”

  They faced each other and she looked into his eyes.

  “I believe you.” She kissed him then and began to unbutton his shirt with playful affection. Jim ran his rough hands down her body, his breathing quickening. Johannah’s too.

  “Can you stand an old man in your bed?”

  “Not an old man. Just Jim. Just you.” />
  “I don’t know what to do.”

  She gently pushed his fumbling hands aside and loosened his long underwear, caressing him, her fingers finding the wounds on his body. She tried to calm him, whispering that it was all right. He was back with her now and all was well.

  Johannah was not expecting tenderness but the desperate brutality of the sexual act with him shocked her. It reflected all the pent-up anger and frustration and violent punishment he had endured, and she took it from him, took this rage away, and would continue to do so until it was all out of him and he was healed.

  * * *

  Jim Donnelly sat at the kitchen table in the sleeping house with a glass of water from the kitchen pump, looking at his broken hands. The boy Johnny was sound asleep on his cot in the room off the kitchen. Sleep was something Jim had almost given up in the last few years, or it had given up on him. Kingston Penitentiary had been the hardest thing he had ever done. What remained of the spirited romantic he once had been was buried deep beneath so many layers of scar tissue he doubted it would ever again see the light of day. And maybe that was for the best in the long run. No room for that in this world. They had broken him, not just once but many times, both his body and his mind. And when after years of resistance he finally surrendered and he had been allowed some healing time, the damage was done. He had become a new man, one who could survive in the dungeons of Kingston and even make a liveable life there at the brutal expense of others. He had had people hurt. He had learned how to happily add to the misery of others to ease his own. He had acted and reacted for so long in a state of basic survival, to kill or be killed, to undo or be undone, to avenge each slight or insult with furious action, that in this sudden vacuum of freedom, he was so untethered it made him dizzy.

  Since he returned home, Jim had struggled greatly to stay calm in the presence of Johannah and his loving family. They had moved forward without him and done well. They didn’t need him anymore. It was a bitter realization. But then it was in the presence of his family he found that the thing that he believed had died, had not. Not completely. He now knew it was there deep beneath the scar tissue, he felt it like a sweet distant memory: the ability to love. It was still in him like a forgotten language or an atrophied muscle. It would be such a long journey to fully access it again, but it was not yet dead.

  There was, however, an old drive within him that he had come to embrace even more in his dark cell, more powerful and sweet than even love and more readily accessible, for sure. And that was his desire for revenge. It had kept him alive, alert. He was deeply disappointed that John Carroll was dead. But there were others who had betrayed him and put him away. And there would be new enemies. There always were. And Jim welcomed them and the opportunities they would give. He would take his time and have his satisfaction.

  Jim finished his water and was going to lie down again when he heard a gate bang out at the barn. Then a horse whinnied. He knew everyone was in the house. He stood up and called out.

  “Somebody’s in the barn!”

  Jim grabbed his boots by the door and put them on. Johnny O’Connor had woken up, was now sitting on his cot and groggily doing the same.

  Will was the first down the hallway. He picked up the club by the door, looked out the window and yelled to the others, “Intruders!” He and Jim and Johnny ran out into the yard together.

  Two horsemen coming from the barn, their faces covered, rode past them. Will went at one with the club but he was too far away and they were too fast. They headed off down the road toward town at a full gallop. Will, Johnny and Jim were joined a moment later in the yard by Michael and Tom, and then Johannah. She turned to the others.

  “Anyone see who it was?”

  “I think that last was a Flanagan mare,” Will told her.

  “They were Flanagans all right,” Michael confirmed.

  “What were they doing?”

  They all hurried for the barn, and now a sleepy Jenny followed. The stable gates were wide open and the paddock empty.

  “The Arabians are loose,” Will told his mother and father. “But they just scattered them. I can see two or three out there in the field.”

  Michael and Tom ran into the pasture to round them up. Will lit two lamps and they went into the barn to where they kept the elegant new stagecoach. Will walked around it, raising his lamp in the inspection, his expression of relief growing.

  “Doesn’t look like they touched it.”

  “Thank God,” Johannah said. “Just mischief, then.”

  “What were they up to?” Will wondered aloud.

  Michael and Tom came back into the barn with two of the horses on leads and put them in their stalls.

  “The other two are out there,” Michael reassured them. “Didn’t go far.”

  Will walked around the coach more slowly and the second time he stopped and noticed a little pile of sawdust on the floor beside a wheel.

  “What’s this?”

  They all watched him as he went down on one knee, took and felt the sawdust in his fingers.

  “There’s more,” Michael said as he pointed out other little piles of wood dust under the coach by each of the wheels. Will stood up and raised a protective hand toward the others.

  “Stand back.”

  He put his hands against the side of the big coach and gave it a lateral push. The whole thing shifted sideways away from him as all four wheels collapsed under its weight, down on the axles. The wooden spokes of all the wheels had been sawed through.

  “Whoa!” Michael yelled.

  “Those bastards!”

  “This won’t stop us,” Will said. “We’ll get the wheels replaced. We can use that old coach tomorrow on the London route. We have to put something on the road.”

  Johannah stepped up to Will and spoke quietly.

  “Maybe we should hold off on the London route tomorrow.”

  “This was just a prank, Ma. We can’t give up now. It’s normal competition. Free enterprise. We’ve got to stay in the game.”

  “Let’s give it a couple of days to cool off. I mean it, Will. We’ll do the Friday morning run to London when there’s more passengers.”

  “What do you think, Da?” He turned to Jim.

  “Whatever your mother thinks. She’s in charge.”

  “All right. Friday then.”

  Will and Johnny went out to help Michael catch the other two Arabians and Johannah came out to watch them in the moonlight. Michael was talking to one, coaxing the mare to come to him. The horses loved Michael. He gave the mare to Johnny to take inside while he went after the last one. As Johnny came inside the barn he heard Jim talking quietly, intently, to Tom, but he abruptly stopped when he saw him. Johnny wondered what they were discussing, but it was none of his business.

  The Flanagans

  Friday morning, I were up and helping Michael and Will get the old coach ready to head into town to beat the Flanagan diligence on the London line again. I’m only eleven but I’m a good hand and worked hard for the Donnellys, especially with Mr. Jim home and all. Jim, Johannah and Jenny come out to see them on their way. The boys was excited now at the prospect of a race, although I seen Johannah was quiet. I seen her put her hand in her apron pocket, as she often did, and touch the smooth river stone from Ireland for luck.

  Jenny said hello to me and it almost made me faint. She were so beautiful and even though she was almost a woman and I was just a kid, I felt weak and strange when she came near me with them blue eyes of hers.

  “Hey Johnny, you know why you shouldn’t tell a pig a secret?” she asked me and I shook my head. I had no idea. “Because they love to squeal.”

  She laughed at her own joke and I didn’t mind if she was teasing me a bit. She could tease me all the day long if she wanted to. I wished I were ten years older.

  So Mike was in the driver’s seat alongside
Will and ready to go.

  “Our coach might be slower, but the team’s better than anything the Flanagans have,” Will said.

  “Pass ’em on the Thamesford straightaway if you can, to pick up at the next stop,” Johannah told him. “People will be watching what we do. So make it an honest race and we’ll win the route.”

  Just then, Tom rode in from town alone, pulling up and dismounting. His gelding, the dark coat wet with sweat, drank pretty heavy at the trough.

  “Hey, Tommy. Have the Flanagans surrendered yet?” Will asked.

  Tom took a moment to catch his breath. “They’re ready for you.”

  “Good. A good old showdown.”

  “Everything all right?” Old Jim asked Tom, and Tom nodded to him, and I admit I wondered a bit what he meaned.

  “All right. It’s going to be a hot one. Let’s go!” Michael gave rein to the horses and the rig took off. The horses was eager and strong.

  “Make us proud,” Johannah shouted after them, her hand blocking her eyes from the sun, still low in the morning sky.

  So I seen ’em off that morning and woulda given anything to ride along with ’em, or in truth stay at the farm and get teased by Jenny, but I had to get to school or my da woulda given me a beating, and he weren’t coy on that score. In the long run, it mighta been worth it to have been there on that coach and seen what happened.

  * * *

  That morning Johannah was canning rhubarb in the kitchen, already perspiring although it was only May, and watching through the open window as Jenny worked her quarter horse in the corral, riding the little white mare with determination through a complex barrel course. She wore pants and a plaid shirt. The horse was agile and responsive and reminded Johannah of her Cuchulain back in Tipperary. Jenny turned and rode her through the barrels again just as a wagon pulled up outside. It was driven by a good-looking young man who regarded Jenny with interest for several moments. Johannah was elbow deep in the rhubarb so she just watched him back. There was writing on the side of his wagon, “CURRIE & SON—GODERICH,” and she remembered they were coming to repair the wheels of the new coach.