The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller

by L. D Beyer

  ___

  If Liam was right, and I thought he was, the stones we had slid back some dozen years earlier likely hadn’t been touched since. We talked through the night, Liam, Seamus, and I, discussing the castle. Seamus had never seen it, having been warned away by the punishment that Liam and I had suffered. But, like Liam, he thought it might be safe for one night, maybe two, until we figured out what to do. He had said we, I noticed, finding comfort that both he and Liam would help me.

  Before I knew it, the sun was rising. Seamus and Liam wouldn’t hear of me leaving until after breakfast. As Tara slid a plate of boiled potatoes in front of me, Seamus looked up.

  “I’ll be speaking to Billy.”

  I shook my head. “It’ll do you no good,” I said, explaining that Billy was an enemy that he didn’t need.

  Seamus seemed ready to argue, but after Liam shook his head, he said no more. His frown told me he didn’t agree. Knowing Seamus, he was likely to ignore my request.

  After finishing my tea, I stood to leave. I thanked Tara for her hospitality then stepped outside with Liam and Seamus.

  “Would you send a telegram to Kathleen?” I asked Liam before I made my farewell. “Would you tell her I’m fine? Tell her I’ll be there soon?”

  Liam nodded. I hadn’t yet responded to the telegram Kathleen had sent, and she was sure to be worrying.

  Seamus had disappeared around the side of the cottage, and a moment later he returned, pushing a bicycle.

  “You’ll be taking this,” he said, nodding to the bicycle. I thanked him again but he waved his hand as if it didn’t matter. Then he stuck a small package, something heavy wrapped in butcher’s paper, in my hand.

  “Take this too,” he said, his brow furrowed. “You’ll be wanting the bicycle but you might be needing that.”

  I stared at him for a moment, his face that of a soldier’s once again. I unwrapped the package to find a German Luger and six bullets.

  “It still works,” he continued as he nodded toward the gun, “but I’ve no more ammunition than that.”

  Although grateful, as I stuffed the gun in my pocket, I had a bad feeling that I would soon be forced to use it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I wasn’t going to Ballygowan, not yet anyway, and not unless I had to. Despite what I had told Liam and Seamus, I had no intention of simply hiding until Billy lost interest in me. Certainly, if I had no other choice, I would take refuge in the tunnels and chambers. But in the meantime, I had things to do and, with Seamus’s Luger weighing heavy in my pocket, I set off. Being caught with a gun could only lead to trouble, and I was half tempted to hide it somewhere along the way.

  “Damn that Brennan!” Seamus’s words still rang in my ear. “It’s a traitor, he is!”

  Seamus had told me that troops from Cork and Tipperary—Anti-Treaty Republicans—were on their way to Limerick. Free State troops—more men from Brennan’s Clare Brigades—were likely on their way as well. I had no desire to run into either, and being caught with a gun would make me suspicious to both.

  I hadn’t told Liam or Seamus what I had in mind because they wouldn’t approve, certainly not Liam anyway. Disguised as Desmond Condon again, I set out for the Sheehys. It was over thirty miles from Seamus’s farm, but with Seamus’s bicycle, I reached the Sheehys’ cottage late in the afternoon. I settled myself in on the hillside and watched the farm below. The men were nowhere to be seen, off in the fields I suspected. But the women were busy. Angela fetched water from the well while Colleen shook out quilts, one by one, then carried them back to the house. Every now and then I saw Mrs. Sheehy in the doorway, issuing one instruction or another to the girls. The draught horse was grazing in front of the stables.

  A few hours later, several dark shapes appeared in the distance, coming up the hill behind the stable—Mr. Sheehy and the boys were returning for the day. As they drew closer, I could see that it had been a successful day. Barry carried a leather tie, two rabbits dangling on the end. Pete and Mr. Sheehy walked beside a second horse, the empty rock sled dragging behind. Seeing the rabbits made me hungry and, while the Sheehys prepared themselves for the evening, I sat back and ate the potatoes and bread that Tara had packed for me. It was my first meal since sunup.

  Soon I could see the soft flicker of yellow light from the lanterns in the widows, the smell of the grilled rabbits strong in the air. It grew dark as night settled in and the temperature dropped. Thankfully it wasn’t raining, but still I shivered as I kept an eye on the cottage.

  Sometime later, the door opened and Mr. Sheehy stepped out, silhouetted by the light from behind. He stood there for a moment and soon was joined by Pete and Barry. While Mr. Sheehy shuffled to the outhouse, Pete and Barry trudged over, one to the stable, the other to the cow-house, the night’s chores to do. Tall shadows raced back and forth from the lantern that swung by Barry’s side. A short while later, the door of the outhouse banged open and Mr. Sheehy joined his boys in their chores.

  It was some thirty minutes later when I saw them again. Pete closed the gate to the cow-house—the goats and the cow settled in for the night—while Mr. Sheehy and Barry stood in front of the stable. Pete joined them, and all three stood for a moment in the soft glow of the lantern. I couldn’t hear what was being said—not that it mattered—then Pete and Barry turned back to the cottage, the light chasing the shadows to and fro, until the shadows, like the two boys, disappeared inside.

  I saw a flash of light as Mr. Sheehy lit a cigarette. He stood there for some time, outside the barn, the glow of his cigarette flaring then dimming then flaring again. It wouldn’t do to speak to him now, not with Barry and Pete so close by. As if he too agreed, Mr. Sheehy tossed his cigarette to the side. A moment later, the door to the cottage banged shut behind him. I settled in to wait and it was several hours before the lights in the cottage finally went out.

  Cautiously, I made my way down, giving the cottage wide berth. Behind the stable, I stood still for a moment, listening to the sounds of the night. There was a rustle and a cackle from the fowl-house followed by low moans from the cow and the soft, high-pitched whinnies of the horses. The animals could sense I was near. Thankfully, the one sound I didn’t hear was the growl of the Sheehys’ collie. I hadn’t seen Fergus the last time I was here and I hadn’t see him today. He must have died, I suspected. That the Sheehys hadn’t another dog surprised me.

  I whispered softly and, after a moment, the animals quieted. The cattle door was closed but not locked and the cow and goats stirred again when I slipped inside. I calmed the animals one by one, letting them smell me then stroking their necks, all the while with the soothing sound of my voice in their ears. As for the horses and the hens, they were in their own sheds and there was little I could do but wait. My whispered words must have worked or, more likely, the cow finally decided a man as small as me couldn’t possibly be a threat. She regarded me for a moment then folded her legs below herself and lay down. Soon the cow-house was quiet and a moment later the hen-house and the stables went quiet as well. I found a corner, away from the stalls and settled down into the hay.

  I slept fitfully, my dreams leaving me anxious, and I woke well before dawn. Quietly, I slipped out of the barn and made my way back up the hill. In the chilly darkness, I settled in to wait. It wasn’t long before I heard noises from the cottage. They were soon followed by the creak of the door, loud in the stillness of the morning. Three shadows slipped outside. They stood quietly for a moment, stretching and a yawning, chasing the sleep away. Then each went off in different directions, Barry and Pete to tend the animals and Angela to the well. In the windows of the cottage, I saw the flicker of light as, one by one, the lanterns were lit. Soon I could smell the peat from the fire again.

  The day’s work began early, as it always did on a farm. The cow was milked, buckets of water were fetched from the well, the animals watered and fed. The few eggs were collected from the roost, and soon I could smell the breakfast on the stove mixed with the sw
eet odors of burning peat. My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, the potatoes and bread that Tara had given me long gone now.

  At first light, Barry stepped outside again, Caroline by his side. A sack draped over each of their shoulders, they set out down the lane. The school was eleven miles away, and they wouldn’t return until afternoon. Pete came next, letting the cow and the goats out before disappearing inside; cleaning the stalls I was sure. As daylight grew, he stepped outside and then began loading straw from the hayricks into the handcart to replace the straw in the stalls. Mr. Sheehy had joined him by the time he finished and together they brought a load of peat to the house for the fire.

  I shifted my position, trying to ease legs stiff from sitting. Moments later, Pete led the horse to the cart, and I hoped my long wait would soon be over. After hitching the horse, Pete and his father talked quietly before Pete climbed up. With a gentle flick of the reins, he drove the cart out onto the lane. Although I was a fair distance from the road, I lay flat, hidden by the heather as he passed by.

  Mrs. Sheehy and Angela were doing the laundry, a steaming bucket of water set on the bench outside. Mr. Sheehy said a few words to them then stepped into the barn. Minutes later he appeared again, two draught horses in tow. I watched as he led them around the barn, across the field, soon disappearing over the hill. As I left my perch, careful to avoid being seen by the women, I had a feeling I knew where Mr. Sheehy was headed.

  I found him again, some thirty minutes later, struggling to hold the plough steady, as the horses pulled the heavy blade through the stubble of last year’s crop. Newly furrowed ground, rich and black in the winter light, trailed behind. Hidden behind the stalks, I watched for a while, waiting for him to take a rest as I knew he eventually would. Finally, he let the reins go slack and the horses stopped and, after a moment, began nibbling at the dried stubble at their feet. Mr. Sheehy took off his cap, wiped his sleeve across his brow, then knelt and picked up a handful of soil—inspecting it, I knew, for any clue as to what the ground would yield come harvest time.

  Pushing that thought from my mind—I hadn’t come here to discuss farming—I crept forward. Desmond’s glasses were stuffed in my pocket, but there was nothing I could do about my hair. I tugged my cap low, hoping it covered most of my head and that Mr. Sheehy wouldn’t notice the little black that stuck out.

  I walked up behind him, as quiet as I could, stopping about ten feet away. He was on his knees, still inspecting the soil. Suddenly he stiffened, then his head spun around. There was a brief moment of alarm in his eyes before they darkened. He jumped up, something I hadn’t expected from a man his age. His fists were balled at his sides. His eyes flicked back and forth and there was another flash across his face as he suddenly realized he and I were alone. The horses behind him startled and lunged forward. Without Mr. Sheehy to hold it steady, the plough flipped over and dragged behind. After several paces the horses slowed then stopped but they continued to regard me warily. Mr. Sheehy ignored them, his eyes boring into mine. Lucky for me, he didn’t have the fork with him this time.

  I had my hands up, my palms out.

  “Sir,” I began, “it’s only a daft man who would come back.”

  “Then it’s a daft man you are, you little shite!”

  “Sir,” I pleaded, “I promise I’ll not waste your time or your patience. I only ask that you listen to me.”

  “And why should I?” he snarled. “You killed my son!”

  I let out a breath. “I did, sir, but he was dead already.”

  He flinched at my words, his eyes narrowing. He was confused, I could see.

  “I’m not a traitor, Mr. Sheehy,” I continued, not giving him a chance to respond. “I’m not an informant. It was only by luck that I was outside when the British burst in.”

  He stared at me, dazed it seemed by my words, but his body remained tense, ready to fight.

  “You know me, Mr. Sheehy. You have since I was a wee lad. Tom was my friend.”

  He flinched again. It was subtle, but I caught it. Still, he said nothing.

  “I’ve no reason to come back,” I continued, shaking my head. “Not now. Not with the threat of another war and not with Billy after me. But I had to, sir. I had to tell you what happened that night because the story you know isn’t true.”

  He let out a small sigh, and I saw the doubt creeping into his eyes.

  “Tom was a hero, Mr. Sheehy. He did his part for Ireland. He did, sir, just as Dan did and just as Sean did.” I paused and took a breath myself. “I did my part too, sir, and not a day goes by that I don’t wish it were me instead of them that had been killed.”

  A single tear ran down his cheek, and his shoulders sank as he slouched forward. He suddenly looked old and frail. It was then I noticed his hands: the fists he held before, the angry hands that wanted their revenge, were gone. Now they were what they had always been, the gnarled hands of a farmer. Yet they were more: they were old and tired, the hands of a man who had buried his son.

  He sank to the ground, worn out from the anger and the pain he had been carrying. I heard a small cry and watched as Mr. Sheehy, with his head in his hands, began to weep.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I wasn’t certain if Mr. Sheehy believed all of what I told him, but whatever anger he had in him was gone by the time I left. He asked a few questions, wanting to know more about that night, about how Tom had died. I told him what I knew, about hearing the shouts and the gunfire, about seeing Tom and Dan on the floor, one screaming, the other certainly dead. I told him that Sean had no escape, wounded as he was and trapped upstairs with little ammunition left. When I hit the plunger, I admitted, I had saved myself. But I had killed the Tans too, and I had prevented Tom and Sean from facing a worse fate in the hands of the British. They were dead one way or another. If I hadn’t done what I had, the British would have killed them all, if not that night, then after a rushed inquest—a mere formality, the outcome well known in advance. The firing squad would have been issued their orders before the inquest began.

  I left Mr. Sheehy in the field, overburdened by the weight of what I had told him. He hadn’t asked me where I was going, and I hadn’t told him. His son was gone and the emptiness he had been running from came rushing back, filling his head. It was a burden he would bear for the rest of his life.

  I thought of my own daughter, alive only a few days, and wondered what Mr. Sheehy would do. Would he get up from the field, find a bottle, and lose himself in the drink, growing numb with the whiskey until he could feel no more? Or would he lie awake at night, wondering for the ten thousandth time what he could have done to prevent what had happened that night? Or, as I had hoped, would he finally sleep, perhaps for the first time in a year, knowing that his son had died in battle, that Tom had died a hero and not at the hands of a traitor?

  I had no intention of going to see Dan’s wife when I left Mr. Sheehy. The Sheehys lived in Carrig, nineteen miles south of Mary’s. Sinéad Buckley lived in Charleville, in County Tipperary, farther south still. I soon found myself at the crossroads and, impulsively, I turned. Something compelled me, and I headed south toward Charleville, the Galtee Mountains that were visible on a summer day now lost in the mist. It was a quiet day, and as I pedaled down the lane, across a landscape dotted with whitewashed cottages, recently turned fields, and grazing cows, dark clouds began to roll in over the hills. Lost with my own thoughts, I hardly noticed. It was a chance I was taking, but I didn’t think it was foolhardy. Sure, now that he knew I was back, Billy would know that I was likely to visit Sinéad Buckley and the Murphys as well. But Billy would be in Limerick, preparing for the battle that was looming.

  Besides, I told myself, I had come back to Ireland to set things right, and I couldn’t leave until I did.

  ___

  I hadn’t seen Sinéad since the wedding. She and Dan were married in September 1920, three months before Argyll Manor. We all knew that we could be captured or killed anytime and, for Dan, i
f that was to be his fate, he wanted to be married when death finally found him. Such was the thinking of many a Volunteer, myself included. But Dan couldn’t have known that death would come for him so soon after his wedding day.

  It was a grand affair, the wedding was. After the service, as was custom, Dan and Sinéad walked together to the house, taking a different route this time than the one they had followed earlier to the church. People were lined along the lane and threw rice and gifts in front of them—pots and pans, a horseshoe—the things Sinéad would need to make a home.

  We positioned two companies of men, scouts and lookouts, on the roads leading to the church and to the quiet lane leading to the house. More men were in the fields surrounding both. Of course, we all had our guns with us, prepared as we always were for the British. But our luck held, and we didn’t need them that day.

  There were formalities, and one was the photograph. Liam and I poked fun as Dan and Sinéad sat, Billy and Carol standing behind. Sinéad wore lace, the very dress her own mother had worn, and Dan was in his uniform, a rifle held across his lap. Billy was wearing his uniform too, and carried a revolver on his hip. Carol, dressed in lace, could have been the bride herself, a longstanding practice to confuse the fairies, lest they steal the real bride away.

  The formalities done, we had a grand celebration, a break from the war. To the sounds of the fiddles and hornpipes, we danced as if we hadn’t a care in the world. There was plenty of food and honey mead and soon the dancing turned to song. We sang of love and courtship and of bonnets and roses. We sang of the girls that haunted our dreams and the ones that had broken our hearts. We sang of the rivers and the green hills that graced our land. As the night wore on, our songs turned to our struggles and the ballads became those of our fathers—songs that, like my own father’s stories, filled our souls with a longing and fortified our resolve to fight for what was ours. We sang songs of rebellion, of rising up and claiming our birthright; we sang of bold Fenian men bravely fighting to build an Irish nation once again.