A Study in Sin

by August Wainwright

“I read in a book that everything is made up of everything else. We are made of the same water that dinosaurs drank. It said we are all made of the same stuff stars are made of. I like to think she’s a cloud or a blade of grass or a hundred other things, and that she just doesn’t know because she’s asleep. That’s way better than thinking that she’s watching down on us, waiting until we die. I like her much better as clouds and grass.”

  In his head, Jim was screaming for Claire to shut up. He was trying to convince himself that she was just being a stupid child, but deep inside, he knew she was right. How many days had he wondered what happened to Fiona? How many hours had he wasted cursing unknown deities he believed he didn’t believe in?

  “Read your book,” was all he said, squeezing her small hand.

  Claire leaned over and kissed her father on the cheek, then picked up the book and dove back into the story of Atticus and Scout and Boo and Tom Robinson, like her musings on life and death had been nothing more than the brief rambling thoughts of an eight year old girl.

  Jim sat with her a while longer as flashes of his wife raced through his mind.

  In his younger years, he believed the only thing to learn from life was how to shoot before someone got the drop on you. But even after his wife was taken from him, he learned how to smile again. He learned to ease his mind. He learned to love the land that was his. And now he was learning so much more from Claire.

  He rested in the cool spring grass with his far-too-wise eight year old next to him and, for the first time in almost ten years, he allowed himself to hope.

  Chapter 2

  Fall, 1995

  For ten years, Jim Ryan dedicated all his effort and attention toward two things: his daughter and his farm. With his strong will and in his able hands, both flourished.

  Where once he had only a few sheep, he now kept a massive flock that littered the green hillsides on the western part of the property. In the beginning, he had only a single goat; Claire had named him Allen. They treated him more like the family pet than anything else. Now he had fifteen. The largest transformation was in his once small apple orchard that sat behind the house. Over the course of ten years, his orchard had grown twenty fold and Ryan’s apples were talked about in town as the best in the county.

  The one way in which Jim Ryan attracted unwanted attention was his refusal to even entertain the idea of finding a new mother for Claire. He saw his daughter as a capable young girl, free to be and do whatever she liked. In allowing her that freedom, Claire taught Jim more than he could ever teach her. Others didn’t see it that way. They saw a little girl who was raised like a boy, relegated to rough and difficult jobs that should have been done by a farmhand, not a farmer’s daughter. But Jim cared little for the opinions of others, choosing instead to live a life of solitude with the only person he ever needed.

  And he had his reasons to adhere to seclusion.

  So he went on, ignoring the questions about his daughter and turning away the advances of the women in town. He focused all his attention on his farm. In 1989, he tore up the old decrepit barn and rebuilt one in its place that was the most beautiful picturesque red barn anyone had ever seen. It took him weeks but he did all the work himself. Every board was cut and every nail was hammered with his own two hands. Occasionally, Claire would ask to help and Jim would find ways she could pitch in. He would have her measure pieces of wood and hold extra nails in a tool belt that she kept pulling up so it didn’t end up around her ankles. She would stand there, hour after hour, day after day, waiting for a command and a chance to do whatever her father asked.

  Claire never lost the happy, content personality she adopted early in her childhood. No task was too difficult, no weather too harsh, that she wouldn’t at least try. That was all Jim ever asked of her – to try. Fortunately, when Claire tried something, she almost always succeeded. There were very few things that caused Claire trouble, but her curiosity towards life was the one that gave her the most problems. Like the time they went into town and she was run out of the market for insisting that the other apple growers were obviously doing something wrong.

  “Maybe you don’t prune the trees right,” she said, as Jim walked up.

  “Maybe your father should teach you some manners,” said Gert Thompson. Jim scooped Claire up before she said anything else, the nasty scowls of Mrs. Thompson watching as the two left.

  Claire quickly became a skilled side-hand around the farm, preferring the sweat and dirt of a hard day’s work to the chore of trying to make friends her age, something she never did well. She was responsible for the goats, and Jim never failed to notice that the goats were much more manageable than the sheep he tended to. And, although she had few friends, she always had a soft touch with children younger than her. Around her fourteenth birthday, she started to spend more and more of her time at the library, and when Jim would come back at the end of the day to pick her up, she was always huddled around a small table reading a book to a group of kids, their curious minds locked onto her as she told them the day’s story.

  As she aged, Claire grew tall and lean, and her hair went from a muddy brown to a light brownish-blonde that glimmered and shined when the sun beat down on her. It didn’t take long for boys and men alike to start noticing her. When the two went into town to gather supplies, it only took a few minutes for her to attract a small crowd of boys that thought they were men. Somehow, the group always went unnoticed by the two Ryans. Claire was too preoccupied with her wandering thoughts and Jim was too blind to see his daughter growing into a woman.

  It tends to happen that way for fathers. They are protective of their little girls to a disturbing level, but the proximity keeps them from seeing what others can’t miss. The changes happen gradually; one day a girl’s feet are a trap waiting to toss them face first onto the gravel, the next they’ve found a graceful stride that turns heads as they walk. A tight pony-tail is traded in for light, flowing curls; too big jeans and scuffed up knees turn into too short shorts and tank tops that show off bronzed shoulders. And then, like a foul ball to the face, it smacks the father between the eyes and they wonder how they ever could have been so oblivious to the changes that happened right in front of them.

  For Jim Ryan it was even worse because he was completely blind to the subtleties of women. Jim thought of his wife as a beautiful woman but his memories, as is so often true, changed the reality to fit the need. Although she was a good looking woman, it was more the way he felt about her than her looks that stoked the flames of his passion. Before Jim met his wife, his co-workers would poke and prod at him because they had never seen him with a woman. The most gorgeous woman in the country could have walked up to him asking for directions and Jim would have sent her on her way, hoping he told her the right route. Any man in his position would have pulled the car around in seconds, offering to drive her wherever she needed. Jim wouldn’t have paid much attention to her looks. He more than likely wouldn’t have given Helen of Troy a second glance. When it came to women, he was just wired different than most.

  And because of it, he was completely unprepared for the suitor that came calling after his daughter.

  Claire Ryan had a talent for music. She could sit atop a barstool on a lit stage, with nothing more than her voice and an acoustic guitar, and bring a room full of people to an instantaneous halt. On her seventeenth birthday, she started singing once a week at a small club in town. In less than four months, everyone knew when she was playing and the manager had to start turning people away. One night a week became two, then three.

  A few months after she turned eighteen, she was standing alone on stage singing a heartbreaking rendition of a Pogues’ classic.

  A young dark-haired outdoorsman had just gotten back from a three-day guided fishing tour, when he walked through the doors of McNamara’s and into the crowd of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Much like a chance encounter between two strangers had changed Jim Ryan’s life two decades before, this young man’s life wo
uld never be the same.

  Nobody ever expects that the simple act of walking through a door can come to define who you are as a person, but that’s exactly what happened to Aiden Clery that night. People like to think that they have control over their lives; it’s easier to think that way, more comforting. And most of the time, it’s probably true. It’s rarely one of the countless conscious decisions you make over the course of a week or a month or a year, but the one inadvertent action you don’t think twice about, that has the longest lasting impact.

  When Aiden Clery walked through front door, instead of taking the more direct route to the bar, he turned left to make his way through the crowd of people. This simple deviation would take him right past the small corner stage where Claire Ryan was strumming her guitar. Had he taken the more direct route, he more than likely would have made his way to the bar, ordered and finished a pint, and left without ever noticing Claire. But that’s not what happened and, just as Claire began to softly sing the chorus to the song, a group of three drunken friends parted and Aiden walked into Claire’s view. He looked up at her and she looked down from her stool at him, and two lives were changed in an instance.

  If Aiden Clery was anything, he was passionate to a fault. He was once guiding a group on a deer stalking trip and promised they would meet up with the largest red buck they had ever seen. The trip was scheduled for three days; the Americans left after five without ever finding the prized red they were promised. Aiden brought them back to the resort where they were staying, but immediately returned and stayed out in the November cold for another eight days before he found the buck he was looking for. In his pursuit, he got close enough that he could hear the deer swallow as it chewed, but he never took a shot. He left ten pounds lighter with only the smile on his face as a souvenir.

  Aiden went after what he wanted with a feverish level of dedication and when he saw Claire, he knew he had to have her. He waited at the bar for her to finish singing and walked straight up to her, insisting he had never laid eyes on anything as beautiful as her and that she had to sit with him before leaving for the night. The two spent the rest of the evening talking over a basket of chips that was never touched, until the manager told them both to go home.

  The very next afternoon, Aiden drove to the Ryan’s farm and met Jim to let him know what his intentions were with Claire.

  “I know it may seem ridiculous now, but I plan to become more than just friends with your daughter, and I hope to show you I’m a very respectable partner for her,” Aiden said.

  “I would say that’s Claire’s choice more than mine,” Jim said, caught off guard, trying to decide between an equal amount of shock and fatherly anger.

  But over the next few months, Aiden delivered on all of his intentions. He and Claire became quick friends; then more than friends. When she started blushing at his jokes and waiting by the phone for him to call, the behavior was lost on neither Aiden nor Jim.

  Soon the two were inseparable. Despite the jolt to Jim’s otherwise predictable life, the addition of a third person to their inner-circle proved to be something he didn’t mind. In fact, he became quite fond of the young outdoorsman. Aiden knew a great deal about fishing and hunting, and how to read the weather and the land. On many occasions, he would show up to the farm early in the morning, unannounced, and go to work, as if it was something he had been doing for years.

  So the months passed, and Jim enjoyed the company while Aiden enjoyed a place to come back to.

  Not long after, Aiden decided to ask Claire to marry him. Like any self-respecting man, he first approached the father.

  “I think it would be best if you two waited a while longer,” Jim said when Aiden brought the subject to his attention.

  “I know Claire better than she knows herself. And she can say the same for me. What is more time going to do?”

  “To be frank, son, nobody will ever be good enough for Claire.”

  “In that, we agree one hundred percent,” Aiden said. “But I will love and protect your daughter until my last breath, regardless of how long we wait.”

  Jim sighed. “Yes,” he said, “I’m sure you will.”

  The two talked until they came to the subject that will always cause the biggest tension between a father and a son-in-law.

  “My biggest concern is that you can support Claire financially,” Jim said. “She’s focused on her singing right now, and that’s where her focus needs to stay. Claire’s made for greatness, but it’s going to take her a while to figure out how to be great, and in the meantime, singing won’t pay the bills.”

  “No, it won’t,” Aiden said. He paused before continuing. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to give Claire what she wants. My uncle works on a commercial fishing boat; mackerel mostly. I’ve already talked it over with him and he said I could join up later this year, spend a few seasons out with them to save some money. With the extra money, Claire and I can buy a little place and I can run a real guide operation. Hunting, fishing, anything someone wants, I’ll provide. And you know nobody knows this land better than me. I’m already the best guide in Ireland, I just need the money to make it official.”

  When Aiden spoke, he reminded Jim of a young boy in Dublin, twenty years before, who sat around late at night making plans of his own. Like Aiden, that boy never would have been deterred. Jim knew there was no reason to argue. Aiden wasn’t leaving the room until he got the answer he wanted. Even if Jim decided to put his foot down, as soon as Claire found out that he’d said no, she would let him have it with a force that rivaled the strongest of the Irish winds. All he could ever hope to do was delay the inevitable.

  He took a drink of tea and looked across the table at Aiden.

  “Congratulations,” he said, “I wish you both nothing but happiness together.”

  Aiden smiled and thanked him before running out to the barn to ask Claire to marry him. He gathered himself as he went to her. The thought crossed his mind that he should plan some grand romantic gesture, but why wait to start the rest of your life, he thought. There’s all the time in the world for romance.

  Aiden dropped to one knee in the grass, just outside of the apple orchard. Claire cried. She said yes. He gave her a small gold ring that he had had inscribed with the letters ‘CC’. They hugged, then they kissed.

  The two spent the rest of the cool gray afternoon walking through the orchard, and sharing the hillsides with the sheep and goats. Aiden told her about the plan to start his own guide company, which she loved. Then he told her about going away for a few months on his uncle’s boat to make the money they needed to start their lives together; she loved that idea a lot less. They walked, hand in hand, and made their plans.

  When they circled back around to the front of the house, Jim was sitting on the porch. Aiden thanked him again, and told both Ryans that he had to go. He had been hired to take two Americans on a week-long trip and he needed to go get everything ready for when they arrived later in the afternoon.

  Claire walked to the truck, holding his hand, and the two spent a few more minutes as a newly engaged couple. Aiden promised that he would return from the trip as soon as humanly possible.

  He started the truck and drove away, unable to look back, afraid the last year of his life had been nothing more than a mirage. He didn’t want to take the chance of disturbing the happiness he had stumbled upon.

  Dust from the old work truck rose into the cool air behind him as Aiden disappeared up the drive. If he had looked in the rearview mirror, he would have seen an ecstatic young woman running into the arms of her father who had been watching from the front porch.

  But, unfortunately, what he wouldn’t have seen was that Jim wasn’t the only person watching. Tucked behind a group of trees high up on the hill overlooking the small two-story home was a pair of thin eyes that watched through a set of binoculars. The eyes watched from the same spot they had watched for the past two days. This specific set of eyes belonged to a man who had also looked on wit
h great interest as an elated young girl ran to her father. Only, he was far more interested in the father than the daughter. From his hiding spot up on the hill, the man’s eyes shined like Claire’s golden hair as a thought burst to life inside of him: how much would someone be willing to pay for the whereabouts of the infamous Jimmy Rhino?

  Chapter 3

  Jimmy Rhino, 1977

  “I’m sorry Jimmy, but the Colonel just isn’t going to go for that,” Daugherty said, “We shouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

  Daugherty was the Colonel’s right hand man, an advisor of sorts. The guys had taken to calling him The Dog, never to his face of course, because he was incredibly loyal to his master. It also probably had something to do with the fact that when the Colonel let him roam, Daugherty could be one ruthless and vicious man to cross. The guys under his direct watch would tell stories about Daugherty’s infamous backhand. Never had a slap from a man hurt as much as the one that Daugherty could deliver. He used it as a training tool of sorts; say something stupid, you’d get a backhand. Step out of line, backhand. Bring him the wrong lunch order, backhand. And occasionally, he’d backhand a young guy that hadn’t done anything wrong, a smile on his face as he’d say:

  “Now you know what it feels like. Remember that when you’re about to have an opinion of your own.”

  But Jimmy Ryan had bailed Daugherty out of two rather precarious positions in the past, both of which would have left Daugherty either behind bars or cozily wrapped in the warm embrace of a few feet of dense Irish soil. So he treated Jimmy more like a brother than the muscle that he was.

  “Just get me the meeting,” Jimmy said.

  “I’ll mention it to him, but I’m telling you, this is a bad idea. If you want my advice, let it go.”

  “Come get me when he’ll see me.”

  It was near the end of his shift as Jimmy was checking over his ledger, looking at the list of lowlife dirt bags he’d have to track down tomorrow, when Daugherty came walking across the room towards him.