Shadow of Death

by William Kienzle

  He had brought two pairs of pajamas . . . and decided to wear them both to bed. Even so, he shivered under the covers. And in his head beat the inexorable rhythms from the pub below. He tried to recall how it had been when he had been a young lad going to sleep upstairs over the juke box in the Tamiami, with the Baker streetcar clanging and heavy trucks rumbling up and down Vernor. He had been able to sleep then; why not now?

  He tried very hard. But, even so, shortly after the 11:00 p.m. closing time, he could hear young Tom Murray alternately shouting and pleading into the microphone downstairs: “Time, now lads! Are you right there now, lads? It’s way past the time! Time, please! We gotta go now, lads! You, there, Paddy; are you right there, now? It’s way past time!”

  And on and on.

  Finally, Koesler did fall asleep. But before he did, he concluded that his ease in sleeping through the din of Vernor had been attributable to young ears.

  It made as much sense as anything.

  8.

  His eyes snapped open as if waking from a nightmare. Astonishment fought with drowsiness for dominance.

  The heavy bell sounded as if it were in his room. It almost was.

  Koesler looked at his watch. 6:30. The bell kept ringing. Although he had no hangover, he knew he was about to get a headache. He caught up with the clangs at five, and then continued to count. The bell tolled an incredible twenty-four times, his head reverberating at each ding and dong. He was willing to bet the parish mission would have a grand attendance for morning Mass. If nothing else, the entire village of Gurteen was either wide awake or deaf.

  Gradually, he tried to organize his thoughts.

  Thursday.

  Three days till his return to Dublin and the ecumenical service and the subsequent return to Detroit.

  Three days of relaxation.

  Last night, he had planned not to rise before nine. However, St. Patrick’s bell had proven to be modified rapture. The rapture was that he now had more of the day to enjoy. The modification was provided by that infernal noise. His ears were still ringing from the din.

  As he began to shiver his way out of bed—what made Gurteen so blasted cold!—the clanging put him in mind of an incident many years before, when he had been assigned to an inner-city parish.

  It was Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. The pastor had excused him from the vigil service scheduled to begin at 11:00 p.m. He was grateful. He was tired from hearing all the confessions, and wanted to turn in early. He read till nearly eleven.

  The ushers at this parish had been instructed to ring the church bell at the moment Mass began on Sundays and Holy days. No one had ever informed them that if Mass began at midnight—as it would in the Easter Vigil—they should not ring the bell. One would have assumed that to be common sense.

  However, one would have been wrong. At midnight that Saturday night, or Sunday morning, the vigil service ended and the first Mass of Easter began. And some usher laid on the bell.

  Koesler had awakened in much the same emotionally shattered state as he had this morning. And then the phone had begun to ring. The first caller had given Koesler the unexpected opportunity of using a minstrel joke he had almost forgotten.

  “Why is the bell ringing?”

  “Because someone is pulling on the rope.”

  “Oh.”

  She had seemed satisfied.

  Perhaps Gurteen lay in some geological fault. There must be some reason why it was so bone-numbingly cold in early May.

  By this time, Koesler had shaved and was looking with misgivings at the bathtub. No shower. And this had to be the coldest bathroom in Western civilization. He filled the tub with the hottest water he could tolerate, shed his two pairs of pajamas, and hopped into and under the water.

  The problem was that he had to lift parts of himself out of the water in order to wash. The hot water evaporating from his body simply made him colder. Now he understood why the bathroom was painted blue: It matched the color of any naked body trapped within its confines.

  Coffee and toast and aspirin in the pub’s ample kitchen got things off on a more equable footing. Tom Murray was not yet up and about. So Koesler leisurely and quietly pondered the day. He was getting an earlier start than he had originally intended. Why not, then, take a slightly longer trip?

  He consulted his map and traced the route that led south of Galway Bay to the Burren, to where, as well as to barren Connemara, the English had herded huge clusters of the Irish to survive if they could, but more likely to die.

  Koesler had long wished to see for himself this starcrossed region. And, since St. Patrick’s bell had gifted him with an unexpectedly elongated day, and since the sun was warming this into a more conventional spring morning, he decided to do it. Figuring the distance between Gurteen and the Burren, he concluded the trip would require no more than two-and-a-half hours. Which should bring him to the Burren before noon.

  Driving was simpler today. There was very little traffic, especially on these back roads. There was little need to shift gears except between third and fourth on the hills, and Koesler was beginning to get accustomed to driving on the left. He thought he might even have some initial difficulty making the switch back to the right when he returned to the States. Nevertheless, he hoped he would not get caught in any heavy or problematic traffic today. After only a couple of days of Irish-style driving, he did not feel all that comfortable with it.

  Still slightly ill-at-ease with his turned-about Escort, his mind wandered back to auto problems he had experienced in the distant past.

  He winced as he recalled the time he had hit a parked car—the stupidest thing, he thought, a driver could do. That he could remember it so clearly made it the more painful. There had been nothing wrong with the weather; it had been a bright, clear summer day. The culprit, he defensively rationalized, had been his breviary, which he had that morning placed on the passenger side of the front seat. The breviary was, as usual, packed with notes, phone messages, and clippings—his office away from home. As he made a left turn, the prayer book began to slide off the seat. Horrified to think of the mess of papers that would litter the floor if the breviary fell, he reached for it.

  When he was able to look up, the parked car was only a few feet away, too close to stop in time.

  Nobody had been injured, but the front of his car looked like a pug dog, while the rear of the other car resembled an accordion. And he had spent the next several weeks getting the mess straightened out.

  Ballyhaunis. A jog to Highway N83, a trunk road, better than the one that had led here from Gurteen.

  Then there was the time he had attended an evening movie, leaving his car parked on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn. When he came out of the movie house, his car was nowhere in sight. The Dearborn police, however, knew where it was. They took him to visit his car as it lay dormant in the fenced-in lot of a service station.

  This time it was his fate to be the victim of a driver who had run into a parked car. And this time it was the rear of his car that was accordion-pleated.

  The irony was that the lady who had driven her car into his had done so deliberately—in an attempt to commit suicide. She had done a very good job of wrecking both cars, but a very poor job of suicide. A few bandages had repaired her. His car had been laid up for months.

  Claregalway. He had to be careful now to leave N17 and move to N18.

  Koesler, by long-established habit, kept his head in constant if imperceptible movement. Years ago, he had read that such motion, in addition to providing a more panoramic view of the terrain, helped the driver’s concentration.

  He was reminded of Johnny Cash’s song about Ireland, “The Forty Shades of Green.” Koesler had not been keeping count, but there surely were more than a few verdant nuances to this land. And yet, considering the incredible number of violent deaths in Ireland’s history, and the amount of blood this ground had absorbed from the wars among the ancient kings to the battles with the Viking invaders to the seemingly
endless British occupation, it was somehow odd that the land had not turned red.

  Kilcolgan. It was time to turn down a secondary road that would lead along the circle of Galway Bay to the Burren.

  He was now approaching an area of Ireland about which he had heard a great deal, but had never seen, not even on a picture postcard.

  He had found it difficult to believe some of the descriptions he had heard. The Burren, after all, was a part of this lush, fertile island. And, of course, the Irish were known to exaggerate now and again.

  He came to the crest of the hill he’d been climbing for the past several miles. And there it was. There had been no exaggeration in its description. It was awesome.

  Layer after layer of limestone, stacked like shelves, going down one hill and rising in the next. He had never seen, much less imagined, anything like this. This, then, was the Burren.

  He would not describe the scene as desolate. No; a moonscape would be his idea of desolation. At least in the Burren there were tufts of grass growing between the limestone slabs. And he had heard that cattle could and did feed on this grass and, indeed, that they gave good milk.

  No water to drown a man. No tree to hang him from. And no earth to bury him in. So said one of Cromwell’s men. It was both an accurate delineation as well as an exact description of the fate Cromwell intended for the Irish. Koesler was beginning to understand why, to the Irish, compared with Cromwell, Hitler had many redeeming features.

  As he drove slowly down a hill, he tried to comprehend what it must have been like to be forced to try to eke out a bare existence from this land. To be forced to live here with the responsibility of nurturing a family. Again, it was a wonder there were any Irish left in Ireland, let alone on earth.

  It happened suddenly, without warning. The shock of the impact made it seem unreal. Something had slammed into his car from the rear. The jolt snapped his head backward, then forward, then back hard against the headrest. His car shot forward as he fought to regain control of it.

  In panic, he glanced for a fraction of a second in the rearview mirror. He saw a car, a large black sedan—he did not know what kind, perhaps a Mercury. He had not seen it before. He had been unaware of its presence. But it was behind him now. And it was bearing down on him again.

  There was no place for him to go, no place for him to move. The road was so narrow, there was barely room for two cars to pass each other. And on either side was the Burren.

  He tried to speed up. But his compact was no match for the larger vehicle.

  He was hit again. Harder. Again his car shot forward. Again he fought for control. As he wondered vaguely what in hell was going on, he could focus on nothing but trying to survive.

  It couldn’t be—but it was: gunshots! Three of them. My God, now they were shooting at him!

  He tried to swerve from one side of the road to the other in evasive action. It only made it more difficult to keep the car under control.

  Suddenly, he was conscious of something pulling alongside him. He could afford only a brief glance to his right. The black car had moved even with him.

  The crash was cataclysmic. The huge sedan hit his car alongside, knocking it from the road.

  With his vehicle now totally out of control, Koesler could do nothing but hang on as the small Escort bounced and careened from one limestone shelf to another.

  As it neared the bottom of the hillside, the car was virtually catapulted from a slab of limestone. Then, as if in slow motion, it nosed over. As Koesler saw the ground coming to meet him, his only thought was to wonder if, when next he opened his eyes, he would see his parents, departed friends, Jesus, or what . . .

  9.

  “What’s your name?”

  A pause.

  “Koesler. Robert Koesler.”

  “What do you do?”

  Another pause.

  “I’m a priest.”

  “That’s a good sign.”

  A lot of Koesler’s general education had come through the school of hard knocks. He’d been through this one before. Once, in the recovery room, he had just come to after an operation. A nurse’s head had appeared over the side of his bed. “What is your name?” she had asked. Recalling a comedy routine of Bill Dana’s, Koesler had replied, “My name José Jimenez.” The nurse walked away, saying to another nurse, “He doesn’t know who he is yet.”

  Koesler, too weak and groggy to summon her back, had been forced to lie there another half-hour until she returned to again check on his condition. Thus, he had learned the consequences of recovery room humor. He had resolved at the time never to try it again. And he had just kept that resolution.

  “Does it hurt here?” asked the man in the white coat.

  “No.”

  “Here?”

  “No.”

  “How about there?”

  “No.”

  “Would you sit up for us now, please, Father?”

  It wasn’t a recovery room. It was some sort of medical office. At least there were medical instruments all around. The white-coated man poking and prodding and asking if it hurt appeared to be a doctor. There was another man in the room. Koesler had met him, knew who he was, but could not recall his name. If he had thought the clanging bell of St. Patrick’s had given him a headache, he had not been prepared for this. This was Big Ben, the granddaddy of all headaches.

  “Remarkable . . . truly remarkable.” The doctor sucked in his breath sharply. “I’d almost say it was a bit of miraculous.”

  “That may be,” said the other man, “and the luck of the Irish rubbin’ off on him, as well as a nice solid buckled seat belt.”

  “Just the remote possibility of a very mild concussion,” said the doctor, “and of course the external abrasions, contusions, and hematomas.”

  “The goods are all right, only the package is damaged?” the other man asked.

  “Quite.”

  “What day is this?” Koesler decided to ask a few questions of his own.

  “Thursday,” said the doctor.

  Ah, yes. Koesler nodded. Thursday. But what week? What month? “What’s the date?”

  The doctor, who had seemed affable, appeared to grow concerned. “What date do you remember?”

  Koesler thought for some moments. “The eighth of May.”

  Satisfied, the doctor glanced at the other man, then nodded. “He’s all right.”

  Thank God. At least it was still the same day. “Where am I?”

  “Regional Hospital in Galway.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “Superintendent O’Reardon here,” the doctor indicated the other man, “had us send an ambulance for you.”

  That’s who he was. Koesler had met him in Inspector Koznicki’s hospital room. Superintendent O’Reardon must be spending a lot of time in hospital rooms lately.

  “Do you know what happened to you, Father?” asked O’Reardon.

  “The Burren . . . the car . . . out of control . . .” Koesler shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs. “But . . . how did you happen along?”

  “Oh, Inspector Koznicki asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  Koesler’s brow furrowed. “You mean you followed me all the way to Gurteen . . . and to the Burren?”

  “I did.”

  “But you’re the Superintendent. Why wouldn’t you just send one of your men?”

  “I felt I owed it to the Inspector. We didn’t do much of a job making him secure now, did we? I sort of did it as a penance.” It was said with a twinkle.

  “And you followed me all the way from Dublin? I didn’t see you.”

  “Well, now, that’s the idea, isn’t it? If I’m going to keep an eye on you, you shouldn’t see me doing it, should you now? Otherwise, I might just as well ride in your car with you and save the petrol. It’s a knack. But if I haven’t learned it after all these years I would be a sad excuse for a saint now, wouldn’t I?”

  Koesler thought about this. There really was something to the fee
ling that one was being followed. It had happened to Toussaint and Koznicki and now to him. At least from now on, if someone asked what it felt like to be followed, he would be able to tell them. Suddenly, another thought occurred.

  “Wait a minute: If you’ve been following me all this time, where were you when I was getting shot at?”

  O’Reardon shook his head. “It was I was doing the shooting. Even on the road at that speed, I put a bullet or two in their car. If I hadn’t been there, saints preserve us, after they forced you off the road, you can be sure they would have inspected their job and when they found you alive, they would have finished you off, there can be no doubt.

  “But don’t worry, we’ll get ’em. And we’ll get ’em soon.”

  “Well,” Koesler extended his hand, “thanks is a poor word. I owe my life to you.”

  “Think nothing of it, Father.” They shook hands. “But for the rest of the time you’re in the Republic, there’ll be a Garda nearby. I don’t expect any more shenanigans, but we can’t be too careful.” O’Reardon rose. “I’ll be leaving now, Father. Take care. And keep us in your good prayers.”

  Koesler turned to the doctor. “How about it? Can I—may I— leave now?”

  “Whoa now. Father. You seem to be all right internally. But especially in view of your head injury, we’ll be wanting to detain you at least overnight for observation. It’s the very least, you know. Then we’ll just see how you are tomorrow.”

  “O.K.” He wasn’t going to argue.

  “Here, let me help you, Father. Can you just step down from the examination table and sit in this wheelchair?”

  “I think so.”

  Koesler stood gingerly and felt pain in muscles he hadn’t known he had. “Oh, yes; I think a little rest might do me a lot of good.”

  The doctor was alert. “And we’ll give you something for that pain, too.”

  As Koesler took the couple of steps to the wheelchair, he caught sight of himself in a mirror. Then he knew the ugly reality of those euphemisms: abrasions, contusions, and hematomas. He looked as if he had been the big loser in a very tough fight.