by Ann Moore
“Of course you can, Sullivan.” Evans regarded the boy. “No one doubts that. And you’d have just cause, as well.”
Nolan shook his head. “Not for Moira.” He grimaced. “For the Hanlons—Dirk Hanlon’s my mate—and for the others, as well.” He paused and looked down. “For the Missus and what he’s done to her. And to Mary Kate. If he’d hurt them, he’ll kill us all soon enough.”
“He hurt the child?” Morgan’s face went white with anger.
“Aye.” Nolan nodded. “He takes her out with him on evictions and oversees. She’s roped to him, you see, so no one’ll shoot him in the back.”
“Christ have mercy,” Abban said.
“Squire put her shoulder out yanking her off the ground, and even after the Missus set it, he forced her to go. Two days of that and she come down with fever.” Nolan smiled grimly. “He’s afraid of fever, he is. She’s left in her bed, though he ties a bundle of rags in a cloak to his back so folk’ll think he’s still got her with him.”
“Bastard.” Morgan put his hand on the butt of the gun stuck into his belt. “I’ll take care of this,” he said to Evans.
“And me,” Abban put in.
“Looks as if we all want a piece of this one,” Evans said grimly. “But it won’t be easy. He’s an Englishman—they’ll come after anyone they think is even remotely connected to us.”
“It must be an accident, then.” Morgan turned to Abban.
“Right,” Evans agreed. “An accident is the only way.” He took out a small flask, drank, and passed it around. “What are Squire Donnelly’s weaknesses? What do we know of his habits?”
“He’s a sure rider and a clean shot,” Abban said.
Morgan nodded. “He knows the trails and cutaways, and he uses a different route every time.”
“He’s known to beat up whores,” Irial put in. “As well as his own wife and daughter.”
Nolan’s eyes flashed. “And he’s a drunk.”
“Which makes him unpredictable,” Evans added. He paused, thinking. The men were silent, watching his face, controlling their own urgency. “All right, then,” he said at last. “Here’s what we’ll do …”
Grace spread two pieces of bread with bacon fat from the pan, then sprinkled each piece liberally with arsenic before folding them together. She did not reflect on her action as she did this, did not let the word “murder” come to mind.
Mary Kathleen lay upstairs in bed, her fever broken. She would be well soon and Brain would take her again out on the road. It would kill the child. Grace could not take her and run; there was nowhere to go and she would only be condemning them to a more agonizing death than this. There was money in the house; she’d seen Bram moving his coin sacks late one night, but when she checked his room, she couldn’t find it. After his death, she would take apart the house and leave this place. She wrapped the sandwich in a damp cloth, added a last piece of hard cheese, and put it in his saddlebag. Then she went upstairs so that he would not see her face before he left.
She watched out the window as Nolan tied the dummy to Bram’s back, then stepped aside as Bram swung up on Warrior. Her face remained calm as Nolan handed her husband the saddlebag, but she did not breathe until he called the dogs and galloped down the avenue out of sight.
“Good-bye,” she whispered, her open hand on the glass.
It was a beautiful day. Spectacular. Full of warm sunshine slanting through the trees, and the sounds of the birds and splashing water from the stream Bram followed through the east wood. He was going to make money today, but first he had to get rid of those squatters. No sense in giving them seed to plant, they’d only eat it. And anything he planted there would be dug up for the same reason. This particular group had always irritated him with their lack of initiative and their lazy, slovenly ways. No one ever wanted to work; how they scraped up their rent was a mystery to him. But now they were in arrears and he had other plans for the space they took up. The colonel had spoken to him of the English factory managers, many of them experienced farmers. If Bram provided land for them, the government would pay their rent and arrange for seed as part of a plan to put more food into circulation. They wouldn’t pay for Irish hands unless the labor was needed, but they would aid experienced British farmers. He was on his way now to meet the soldiers and he looked forward to a full day of evictions. It was an hour before the scheduled rendezvous, and a good time to eat something. He pulled up Warrior, dismounted, and settled himself with his saddlebag against a tree; so absorbed was he with his own thoughts, and so confident in his ability to outwit those stupid Irish militants, he didn’t notice the shadows flitting from tree to tree high up the rise on either side of him.
Morgan watched as Bram pulled out his bread and took a bite, then got up to fill his cup with water from the stream. Across the stream and up the other bank, Abban hid behind a pile of stones. Evans was further ahead where the stream crossed under the road, his carriage hidden just before the bridge. They had been waiting for Donnelly to dismount, worried that it would be another day when he did not. Once he had eaten, they were hoping he would close his eyes and sleep, but they were prepared to take him either way. He and Abban would come slowly down the bank and overpower him, knock him unconscious, and lead him on his own horse to Evans, who would then drive him up north to his favorite house of prostitution, where one of the Irish girls he’d beaten so badly was waiting to exact her revenge. He’d be given all the drink he wanted, then poisoned and left for the constabulary to find and report. Too much drink and heart failure in a whorehouse—it wouldn’t be the first time this kind of thing had happened.
Morgan cupped his hands around his mouth and sent out a cuckoo’s call, the signal to Abban that it was time to move in. There was no answer, but a moment later Abban sent back a different call. This wasn’t the plan. What was he doing? Morgan moved out for a better look, and then he saw what Abban must have seen. Donnelly was standing, swaying, his head in his hands, shaking as if trying to clear his vision. He watched, stunned, as the squire called the dogs, then tossed to them the bread he’d been eating. The first dog wolfed it down, then went to the water and began drinking frantically. It vomited and went into convulsions. Donnelly watched, too, then pulled out his gun and shot the dog. He stumbled to his horse and got on, urging it downstream. Morgan and Abban ran through the woods on either side of him, racing to keep up and out of sight at the same time. Suddenly, a figure jumped out from behind a boulder in the path of Donnelly’s horse, shouting, “Hyah! Hyah!” The horse reared, startled, and threw the Squire from the saddle. His head hit a rock and he lay still.
Morgan started down the bank. “No!” he yelled as the boy cautiously crept toward the fallen figure.
Nolan looked up into the woods at the sound of Morgan’s call just as Bram lifted the gun at his side and shot the boy in the chest.
Abban hollered from the other side, both men now sliding down the hills.
Bram stood slowly, swaying, blood soaking his collar, aiming the gun at one side and then the other. Morgan dove behind a boulder, Abban behind a tree. They waited, watching his frustration build.
“Come out, cowards!” He roared, firing off a shot. He grabbed Warrior’s saddle and hauled himself up. “It’ll take more than a boy to finish me!”
“How about a woman, then?” Moira stepped out into the stream and pointed the gun Nolan had stolen at Bram. She was dressed in her father’s ragged pants and shirt, her hair stuffed up under a cap.
He was confused for a moment, then laughed. “Why, it’s Moira! And is your mother behind you there in the wood? And old Jack?” He raised his gun. “Shall I shoot you like I shot your brother, Moira, or is it to be the revenge of the Sullivans this day?”
“Aye,” she said, deadly calm, and pulled the trigger.
Bram fell from his horse and landed facedown in the stream. Moira walked to where he lay and shot him in the back of the head. The wood was silent.
And then came the sound of sold
iers making their way down-stream, shouting to one another. Moira did not hesitate, but mounted Warrior and rode off fast toward the bridge.
Morgan and Abban locked eyes across the river, and started down the steep bank. Abban splashed across, picked up the limp body of the boy, and carried him to Morgan. Together, they climbed again to the top of the rise and set off on a trail unknown to the soldiers, Nolan’s blood soaking first one man’s shirt and then the shirt of the other. He moaned and cried out for his mother, but when they finally arrived at the camp in the bog, young Nolan was dead.
Twenty-two
“THEY’VE arrested him!” Ryan stood at the back door, his cap twisted in his hands. “They come for him right away this morning. Da says he’ll never survive the questioning.”
Grace pulled him into the kitchen. “Sean, you mean?”
Ryan nodded. “Conspiracy to murder.”
“No!” Grace sank down on a stool. “He didn’t do it,” she said, then looked up at Ryan.
Ryan sat down, too. “No, he says, but that he’d gladly die for the man that did.” He took her hand, something he’d never done. “What did they say, the guards, when they brought the Squire’s body home?”
Grace’s eyes filled with tears of guilt and confusion. “He’d been ambushed upstream near the old bridge, shot in the chest and head. He was facedown in the water and Warrior gone. They gave chase to two men in the woods, and a third on horseback, but lost them all on the trails.” She paused. “That could not have been our Sean running through the woods?”
“He says he was downstream fishing when the soldiers came through. They asked him a few questions, then rode on. Not long after, he heard gunfire and decided to get out of there.”
“They think he was a lookout.”
“And maybe he was.”
“You’re not saying that to anyone else, are you, Ryan O’Malley?” She looked intently at his face, then sighed. “We’ve got to be careful, is all I’m saying.”
Ryan glanced toward the door and his eye fell on Bram’s boots. “You’re not sorry he’s gone, are you?”
A thousand emotions collided in Grace’s heart, bringing fresh tears to her eyes. “He was my husband,” she said softly. “For better or worse.” She wiped her face with the hem of her apron. “But God could not have made a man so cruel. ’Twas the Devil claimed him for his own.”
“That’s what they’re saying up and down the valley.” Ryan squeezed the hand still in his own. “The news come quick and there’s many say God has released you from a bad bargain.”
“But is Sean’s life to be the price?” She shook her head.
“I’ve sent word up the Black Hill, but no one’s seen Morgan for days,” he said.
Grace stopped and stared at the wall. Suddenly, she knew. “It’s him they want. They know he’ll come after Sean.”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “We’ve got to warn him.” He stood and went to the door. “Where’s your Nolan? He’ll know the whereabouts sure as anyone.”
Grace shook her head. “Nolan has disappeared, and Moira. It’s just about done old Jack in, and Brigid’s gone sick with worry. Just sits near the fire and rocks the baby.”
“Moira wouldn’t go off without her son?”
“Thank God she did,” Grace answered truthfully. “I’ve got to have a baby boy in my arms when Bram’s brother arrives for the burial or things will be worse than they already are.”
“It’s his brother coming then, and not his father?”
“Aye. Lord Donnelly’s unwell, the letter says, though I think he’s afraid more than anything else.” She paused. “I know nothing of the brother—Edward, he’s called—though Bram despised him.”
“Dear Lord, what a mess.” He glanced again at the boots by the door.
Grace stood. “Don’t worry. I can do it. I’ll keep the baby as mine until he’s buried Bram and left us alone again, then I’ll return him to Brigid, sell what I can, and come home to all of you.”
“What about our Sean?”
Grace bit her lip. “Morgan won’t let him hang,” she said firmly. “And he won’t let himself get caught, either. We’ve got to have faith.”
“All right, then,” Ryan said, relieved. “I’ll tell Da what you’ve said and we’ll wait to hear. Are we to come to the burial?”
“Aye.” She nodded grimly. “There’s not to be a whisper of trouble, we’re a happy family in his brother’s eye. Starving,” she added. “But happy.”
She insisted Ryan take half the oats she had on hand, two fresh eggs from the chicken she kept locked up at night, and the pigs’ feet for boiling.
“Not much,” she apologized.
“You’ll hear no complaint from me.” He kissed her cheek and went out to the cart, leaving her alone in a house that was, for now, hers.
Twenty-three
THEY buried him in secret on a misty morning high on the hill above his home, his small body wrapped in a clean linen sheet, a ribbon with the green, white, and orange of Ireland pinned over his heart.
It was only men come to remember the life and mourn the death of the quiet, courageous boy. Only men, and a single woman, his mother, roused silently from her bed and brought to this place so that she might always know where her son would be. Her husband, weak and trembling with sickness, stood next to her, wrapped in his blanket, supported on either side by strong men whose eyes gave lie to their stoic stance.
Father Brown had come with no questions asked; he’d been up against the British interrogators before and his silence in the face of torture had earned the trust of the rebels. The smell of incense from the cantor he swung over the grave fought for recognition with the scent of pine. The air was damp. There was no wind, no breeze, no sound other than that of the priest’s soft voice.
“To the earth we return this body,” he intoned. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ might have mercy on his soul and greet him at the gates of Heaven with open arms. Amen.”
Brigid moaned and rocked, her hands together in a knot against her chest. Morgan put his arm around her shoulders.
“Will anyone speak?” Father Brown asked.
Abban stepped forward, cap in hand. “I will, Father.” He addressed the group. “I knew Nolan Jack Sullivan through the worst winter we’ve ever seen in Ireland, through the great hunger and terrible dying, through cruelty and disaster such as a child should never witness. And I have this to say about him: Never was there a boy so steady in unsteady times, constant in his devotion to his Maker and to the people he loved. Never was there a boy so very brave and true of heart.” He looked at Brigid. “He was a son to make a mother proud. And no better son could a father have. We were proud to call him one of our own.” He paused, then said, “Stand tall, now, men, and let’s send him off the way he deserves … Nolan Jack Sullivan, a true son of Ireland.”
And so they stood gallantly, these men, their clothes hanging loosely on gaunt frames. Each one carried in his heart the face of a child he’d loved and buried, and it was of these children, as well, that they sang; these children, they also mourned. Their voices broke with emotion, but as one man lost heart, another found new strength and took up the song.
His mother listened, tears streaming down her face; his father mouthed the words as best he could, his hand over his heart. And in this way, they sent young Nolan off to a land that better deserved him.
Lights flickered in cabin windows down in the valley and women coming out to see another day put their hands to their ears and listened for the echo of what was surely a song of going away. Their own children lay dying, most of them, on the cabin floors, and some wondered if this might be the end, at last—if God in His mercy might be sending a host of angels come down through the misty morning wood to take them all home where food would be plentiful and they’d never know want again.
When the singing stopped, they waited a while longer, straining their eyes against the shrouded hills. Then they sighed and went back in
doors to lie down on the floor with their children and wait.
Abban and Morgan stayed behind to fill in the grave and mark it with a cross bearing Nolan’s name. They did not pick up their spades until the Sullivans were out of sight and the last of the men had vanished into the trees.
“I’ll never get used to laying a child in the cold earth,” Abban said, tossing in a handful of dirt.
“Then you’re a lucky man.” Morgan rubbed his hands together to warm them. “It’s those become used to it I feel for most.”
They dug in earnest, working up a sweat. It was dangerous for them to be so close to Donnelly House with the soldiers in and out and the Squire’s brother due to arrive, but they hadn’t the heart to take him so far away from his mother now that she’d lost him forever. Their work was quick, but the sun was breaking through the mist when they’d finished.
“Will we tell Brigid about Moira?”
“No.” Morgan set down his spade. “’Twas an accident, her being shot like that. Wouldn’t do her folks good to know she was dead, as well. Better to let them think she run off and found a better life.”
“How’s Evans?”
“Arm’s shattered, but he’s coming out of it. Father Brown has him hid in the parish attic.”
“Does he remember any of it?” Abban wiped his dirty hands off on his pants.
“He recalls seeing the great black horse come flying upstream toward the bridge. He says he got out of the carriage to take him down, then realized it wasn’t Donnelly. Moira must’ve been in a panic what with the killing and the soldiers right behind her, and she just fired away. He didn’t even know ’twas a woman, just fired back in self-defense. Irial and old Tom come in the wagon and got them out of there just ahead of the soldiers, him unconscious and her dead. They took the body to the nuns and Evans to Father Brown.”
“Did they give her a Christian burial?”
“Aye. She rests in the rose garden with the other Catholic girls who, for one reason or another, couldn’t go home.”