Conor's Way

by Laura Lee Guhrke

"Jeremiah," Lila called to her son, "fill the sacks and load them onto Miss Olivia's wagon. Get her a barrel of molasses, too. And bring in that crate of her peaches."

  Jeremiah went to do as his mother asked, and Lila turned to Olivia. "Got some new dress patterns in. Care to have a look?"

  Olivia hesitated, tempted, but before she could reply, two men entered the store.

  "Mornin', ladies," Grady McCann and Oren Johnson said in unison, doffing their hats as they approached the counter.

  Olivia nodded to them. "Saw your boys out front. Looked like they were enjoyin' that saltwater taffy. Hope I don't find a piece of it stuck to my wagon seat when I go back out there."

  "Now, Olivia," Grady said, in a placating voice, "you know they was only havin' a bit of fun."

  "Hmm." Olivia picked up the Godey's Lady's Book and began flipping through it. "I'm not sure God takes kindly to taffy in the church pews, Grady, particularly when a mess of it ends up on the backside of Mrs. Tucker's dress." She shot him a wry glance, remembering how poor Lisbeth Tucker had tried in vain to stand up for the hymn two Sundays before. She added good-naturedly, "'Course, it did make the service more excitin'."

  The two men laughed. Everybody around Callersville knew that Reverend Allen wasn't the sort of preacher to put the fear of God in a body. He just put everybody to sleep.

  Olivia looked over at Oren. "How's Kate doing?"

  The man beamed at the mention of his wife's name. "She's fine. A bit hard for her with all this heat, but she's holding up all right."

  "Think this one's going to be a boy or a girl?"

  "Well, I'm kinda hoping for another son, Liv. I love my daughters, but I think sometimes Jimmy feels out­numbered."

  "What can I do for you boys?" Lila asked, diverting the men's attention.

  "Need a new pair of boots," Oren said.

  "Pound of eightpenny nails for me," Grady added.

  As Lila showed Oren the boots and measured out nails for Grady, Olivia studied the fall fashions in Godey's. The harvest dance would be coming up in September, and she wanted so badly to make Becky a pretty dress to wear. Things like that were important to a young girl.

  "That was some fight the other night, wasn't it, Oren?" Grady's voice intruded on her thoughts, and Olivia glanced up, curious.

  "I've never seen anything like it," Oren replied. "Couldn't believe the way that Irish feller did it." He swung a fist in the air enthusiastically. "All that dancin' around and then, slam! Knocked Elroy clean off his feet."

  Olivia froze at Oren's words, hugging the magazine to her chest, as the two men began to discuss the inci­dent. "What fight?" she asked.

  The two men stopped talking, glanced from her to each other, then down at the floor, looking suddenly uncomfortable.

  "It was a prizefight," Grady explained reluctantly, pointing to an announcement still tacked to the wall. "Circuit boxers. They travel from town to town, fight­ing the local champion, or challenging all comers. It depends." He saw her frown and toss down the maga­zine. "Now, it's nothin' to get riled about, Liv. It's just a bit of fun."

  "It's gambling, Grady, no getting around it." She looked at the notice from a few days before, at the names printed there plain as day, and felt a sudden unreasoning anger. She'd had almost no sleep the past four nights for tending that man, a man who'd cursed a blue streak in front of her girls, broken her great-grand- mother's china shepherdess, forced her to miss Sunday services, and thrown up on her; a man who hadn't given her so much as a thank-you. All that because he was a traveling prizefighter who made his sinful living off gambling and violence?

  Olivia turned on her heel and strode toward the door.

  Jeremiah came in carrying her crate of peaches. He took one look at her face, and hastily stepped out of her way.

  "Wagon's loaded, Miss Olivia."

  "Thank you, Jeremiah," she replied, through clenched teeth, as she marched past him and out of the store, con­templating a little violence of her own.

  Conor was so battered and weary that he longed for sleep, but the wee girl's words about his dreams made him tense and edgy. Three years of trying to forget, but he could not forget. Three years of running, but he couldn't run away from himself. Every time he thought he had, the dreams came back. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the present—the tantalizing smell of freshly baked bread that drifted through the open door and the feel of the soft mattress beneath him. He drifted back into a light sleep.

  A soft sound woke him instantly. He opened his eyes, and for the second time in as many days, he found himself the subject of a little girl's scrutiny. Not the impudent lass who liked to hear him curse. No, this one was even younger, with a round face, brown hair, and big blue eyes. She was looking at him over the top of the footboard like a solemn baby owl peering over the edge of the nest.

  Beside her, also staring at him over the footboard, was an enormous sheepdog, the biggest he'd ever seen.

  The dog looked him over, then uttered a low, unfriendly growl, his opinion of Conor obvious. Well, it was an English sheepdog, after all. Conor wondered what the animal would do if he growled back. Probably jump over the footboard and take a piece out of him. Deciding he'd been injured enough, Conor turned his attention back to the child.

  "Well, now," he murmured, his voice soft, as if he might startle her away. "Who might you be?"

  Her eyes got even wider, but she didn't answer.

  "Miranda, where are you?"

  The voice caused the child to glance over her shoul­der, and Conor heard footsteps approaching. He fol­lowed the child's gaze to the door as yet another girl appeared, this one a blonde of about fourteen.

  How many daughters did Olivia Maitland have? he wondered, as he watched the older girl enter the room. He was starting to lose count.

  She stopped just inside the doorway and glanced at him, meeting his eyes for only a moment before she looked away and noticed the wee girl at the foot of the bed. "Miranda, you know you're not supposed to come in here," she chided in a whisper. "Mama said so."

  The little girl hung her head, caught in the act. "Sorry, Becky," she whispered back. "He was asleep."

  The older girl crossed the room and took Miranda by the hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Branigan," she murmured. "She didn't mean to wake you."

  "It's all right," he answered, unable to remember the last time anybody had cared about disturbing his sleep. The girl started to turn away, but his voice stopped her. "Becky, is it?" When she nodded, he went on, "I don't suppose you might have any tay about? Real tay, I'm meanin', not that foul green stuff your mother's been tryin' to give me."

  A tentative smile lifted the corners of her mouth. "We get it whenever we're sick, too. Awful, isn't it?"

  "Terrible. Would you be able to make me a cup of real tay? I've a powerful thirst."

  "I'd be happy to." She paused then added shyly, "Are you hungry? I'll bring you some soup."

  "An angel of mercy, you are indeed," he said, smiling at her. "Thank you, love."

  She blushed at that. "I'll b . . . bring it quick as I can," she stammered, and hastily retreated, pulling little Miranda with her. "C'mon, Chester."

  The dog hesitated, looking from him to the girl and back again. He uttered another growl as if telling Conor he'd better behave himself, then he followed the girls out of the room. That dog definitely did not like him. But then, he'd always heard dogs were excellent judges of character. Perhaps there was a lesson in that.

  The two girls and the beast had scarcely departed before he heard a door slam in the distance and more footsteps coming down the hall toward his room. He watched as Olivia Maitland stepped through the door­way. She marched to the bed, placed hands on hips, and frowned down at him, her brown eyes no longer soft. "You're a prizefighter," she said, with such loathing she might as well have accused him of being the devil himself.

  "I am indeed." She looked so appalled, so full of self- righteous indignation, he couldn't help tweaking her tail a wee bit. "Damn good at
it, I am. You should come and watch me sometime."

  "I suppose men place bets on you, gambling away their hard-earned money, don't they?"

  "Of course they do, God bless 'em."

  Her full lips pressed into a disapproving line, and she turned away. "Did the Lord give men no sense at all?" she muttered under her breath, and began to pace. "Up four nights running, tending a man who makes his living with his fists. A man who curses in front of my girls. Sinful."

  He didn't think now was the time to point out he hadn't exactly cursed in front of her daughters, and he certainly hadn't done it on purpose.

  She glanced up at the ceiling. "I won't have him here. I won't."

  He watched her resume her pacing back and forth across the rug, muttering to herself, and he wondered if perhaps she were touched in the head.

  "Prizefighting," she repeated, still pacing. "And gam­bling."

  He could have added several other sins to the list, but he didn't want her to have apoplexy. Instead, he remained silent.

  She stopped wearing out the rug and turned to glare at him. "Is that how you got all those scars?"

  His eyes narrowed. "Of course. I always get scars like this when I'm punched in the gut."

  The sarcasm wasn't lost on her. "How then?"

  Damn her questions and her curiosity. He lifted his head and glared right back at her, all the defiance of a lifetime in that look. "Prison."

  Stunned, she stared at him, horror dawning in her eyes. "Prison?" she whispered. "I don't understand. What did you do?"

  "Does it matter?" He flung back the sheet, uncover­ing his chest. "I got exactly what I deserved."

  Her face went white. She swallowed hard and low­ered her head, murmuring something softly under her breath. It sounded like a prayer.

  "Don't pray for me, Mrs. Maitland," he said harshly. "There's no one listening."

  4

  FUATHAIM

  County Derry, Ireland, 1846

  Men with crowbars were in the yard. Conor was eleven years old, old enough to know what that meant. The housewreckers had come. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, the two precious trout he'd poached out of the landlord's stream that morning clutched in his hands. He watched, sick with fear.

  His mother stood before the hated man on horse­back, and Conor could hear her anguished pleas. But the landlord's agent looked down at her with an impas­sive face and did not seem to hear. He signaled to the men behind him, who started forward, armed with their crowbars and ready to do their job.

  Pleading had failed, so the keening began.

  His mother started the lament with a piercing shriek that set everyone shivering, even the housewreckers, who'd seen it all before and had come prepared to face it yet again. Moira Branigan was the finest keener from Ballymagorry to Ballygorman, and everybody knew it. Just the week before, her wails of grief had accompa­nied her own beloved husband to the hereafter, wails so loud people all along the River Foyle knew that Liam Branigan had died.

  The housewreckers stopped and looked away, sud­denly hesitant, for they were Irish, too. They'd lost their own homes in this same way, their own wives and daughters had keened, and even the desperate need for a job was not enough to make them go forward.

  Conor shivered as well, watching his mother. Though feverish with the typhus that had already killed her husband, she tore at her clothes and wailed with all the strength of her grief and despair. Behind her, hud­dled together in bewildered fright, his sisters echoed their mother with mournful cries of their own.

  But even this wild symphony evoked no compassion from the landlord's agent. He barked an order to the men, and once again they began moving toward the cottage.

  She fell to her knees before the agent's horse, arms upraised in supplication, invoking every office of the Saviour, asking for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, calling on every pleading of the saints, using all her remaining strength for prayers, reproaches, and pleas for mercy. The housewreckers walked past her.

  Conor heard another cry, this one of outrage, and suddenly his brother appeared out of nowhere. Michael raced across the yard to the doorway of the cottage and blocked the entrance, feet apart, fists clenched. Michael was fifteen and the man of the house now; he was ready to fight.

  Conor wanted to fight, too, but he was scared. He knew he ought to be brave, like Michael, but he wasn't, and the thought made him hot with shame. He stood alone, hidden behind a tree and clutching the string of fish, hating the housewreckers, hating himself even more for being helpless and afraid.

  The housewreckers dragged Michael away from the door, rewarding his defiance with a blow that sent the lad sprawling into the dirt beside his kneeling mother. Two men entered the house. Michael tried to rise and follow, but Moira stopped him. She wrapped her arms around her raging son and keened even louder.

  In less than a quarter of an hour, the housewreckers demolished what had been his family's home for gener­ations. Using ropes, crowbars, and brute force, they pulled the cabin apart like a walnut shell and reduced it to a pile of stone, timber, and thatch. Because of Michael's brief rebellion, the agent had it set afire, but the fire destroyed little. Most of the furniture and cloth­ing had already been sold to buy food. Conor stared at the blazing fire, and his fear hardened into fury.

  An open carriage passed by, slowing for a moment to watch this roadside scene, and Conor recognized Lord Eversleigh, the new landlord, and his companion, Reverend Booth. Recently arrived from London, titled and wealthy, Eversleigh had purchased the land by auc­tion and had been welcomed by the people of Dunnamanagh one month before in the desperate hope that he would be their saviour, when it seemed even God had abandoned them to the famine. One week later, the evictions had begun.

  Conor tore his gaze from the rich Englishman in the carriage to stare at the burning pile of rubble that had been his home. When he looked back at the road again, the carriage was in motion, driving on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  The hard, hot anger suddenly burst within him, shat­tering like glass into shards of bitterness and hatred. He dropped the fish he was forbidden by law to catch and ran after the carriage. Beyond reason, he had no coher­ent thought, no goal, no plan. All he had now was fuathaim. Hate.

  He caught up with the carriage as it slowed for a bend in the road and he ran beside it, using sheer deter­mination to keep pace as it rolled past bare meadows, meadows dotted with piles of blackened stone where other cottages had once stood, where families like his had once lived and other children like him had once played—meadows that were empty now.

  "We'll give you no money," Eversleigh called to him with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if Conor were nothing more than a troublesome fly.

  "Not a farthing," Booth added from his place beside the viscount.

  Conor said nothing, he asked for nothing. He simply refused to be ignored. He continued to run beside the carriage, matching its speed, keeping pace with the rich Englishmen it carried.

  They passed St. Brendan's, where two dogs fought in the weed-choked churchyard over the carcass of another. When they turned onto Dunnamanagh Road, Conor knew he'd run at least two miles. But he did not stop. He did not slow down. He cast a sideways glance at the carriage, and he knew he had the landlord's attention. Eversleigh was watching him in silent fasci­nation.

  Without warning, a cramp seized Conor's empty belly, and he stumbled. His strides faltered, his pace slowed. With a cry of rage and despair, he watched the carriage move ahead, but he would not concede defeat. Regaining his balance, he pushed himself harder, until he was once again parallel with the coach. Not giving in was the only thing that mattered.

  "By God, is the child mad?" Eversleigh shouted to his companion. "What demons possess these Irish?"

  "They're all mad, sir," Booth replied.

  Over and over, they told him he would get no alms from them. Conor ignored them. He stared straight ahead and continued to run. Sweat ran down his face and soaked t
he swallowtail coat he wore—the only gar­ment he owned. With every stride, the sharp pebbles in the road cut his bare feet until they bled. His heart pounded as if it would burst right through his chest. He could hear his own desperate rasping breaths, he felt the ache in his side, and he thought sure he was going to run until he dropped dead. But, by the Holy Mother, if he died, he'd do it on his feet, not begging on his knees or cowering in fear behind a tree. Not now, not ever again.

  Finally, Eversleigh could stand it no longer.

  "Stop the coach!" he cried, tapping the driver's shoulder with his gold-tipped walking stick.

  Slowly the carriage rolled to a stop, and Conor stopped with it. He doubled over, shaking, his hands on his thighs to keep from falling, and stared down at the red smears on his feet. He drew in great gasps of air, unable to get enough to fill his lungs. He licked his lips, tasting the salty tang of sweat. After a moment, he forced himself to straighten. Lifting his head proudly, he met the eyes of the man who had just destroyed his home and made his mother a beggar.

  Eversleigh was the first to look away, unable to hold his gaze, and Conor knew the sweet taste of triumph. He'd beaten them. He'd won.

  The landlord turned to his companion. "I suppose I ought to give the boy something."

  The reverend shook his head and frowned in disap­proval. "My lord, you're much too generous. He'll make bad use of it, I'm afraid."

  "Yes, I know," Eversleigh answered, reaching for his money purse. "But well earned in this case. He was entertaining to watch." He stretched one arm out of the carriage, holding a coin toward Conor, who made no move to accept it. "Take it, boy," he urged, leaning closer.

  "Don't touch him, sir!" Booth cried sharply. "Infested with all manner of vermin, he is."

  Eversleigh dropped the coin and snatched his arm back in horror, realizing the child had lice.

  Conor lifted his gaze from the coin in the dust and once again met the landlord's eyes. In their depths, he saw a combination of revulsion and pity. Slowly, he bent and retrieved the coin, intending only to spit on it before he tossed it back in the man's face.