Conor's Way (32 page)

***

That night, Olivia was awakened by the sound
of shattering glass and loud barking from Chester. A terrified
shriek followed and she knew instantly it was Miranda. She flung
back the sheets and jumped out of bed as the sound of loud whooping
and shouting began outside the house. Chester's barks and Miranda's
screams grew louder. She raced out into the hall and nearly tripped
over the dog. At the same moment, all three girls came running out
of their rooms.

Miranda was the first to reach her.

"Mama! Mama!" The child flung herself at
Olivia, wrapping her arms around her mother's legs. "Somebody
b-broke my w-w-window!" she sobbed. "They threw a rock through my
w-window."

Olivia lifted her daughter into her arms.
"It's all right, honey," she said, hugging the child fiercely.
"It's all right."

"Mama?"

She felt Carrie's arm slide around her, and
she stroked the child's hair reassuringly. Outside, the shouting
continued, and they could hear the thud of stones hitting the
house. Chester, still barking, raced up and down the hall as if
unable to decide whether to stay close and protect them or go down
and tear the trespassers into pieces.

"Who are they, Mama?" Becky whispered.

Before she could answer, Conor's voice
shouted to her up the stairs.

"Olivia!"

With Miranda still in her arms and Chester
right behind her, she ran to the stairs and saw Conor coming up, a
lamp in his hand. "We're all right," she called down to him as he
came to a halt on the landing. "But they broke Miranda's
window."

"Keep them up there!" he ordered, and turned
to go back down.

"C'mon, girls." She hoisted Miranda higher on
her hip, grabbed Carrie's hand, and ran into Becky's room. Chester
followed them.

"I'm going to go help Mr. Conor," she told
her oldest daughter as she set Miranda down. "I want you to bolt
the door behind me. Then, I want all of you to get down on the
floor, and stay there until I come for you. And don't go near the
windows, understand?"

Becky nodded. "Yes, Mama."

Olivia started for the door.

"Mama?"

She turned at the sound of Miranda's
frightened voice and bent down to press her lips to the child's
cheek. "Everything's going to be fine, honey. I promise. Now you
all stay in here."

She closed the door behind her and ran to her
own room. She lit the lamp, then knelt down beside her bed and
grabbed the rifle, thankful she had followed Conor's advice and put
a second gun upstairs.

Through her open window, she could hear the
whooping and hollering of the men outside as they circled the
house. She could also hear the rhythm of hoof beats and knew they
were on horseback. She rose to her feet and yanked open the drawer
of her bedside table to grab a handful of shells, then sat down on
the edge of the bed to load the gun. She tried to hurry, but her
hands were shaking so badly that she fumbled awkwardly with the
cartridges, and it seemed to take forever.

The loud crack of a gunshot jerked her to her
feet. Praying that the shot had come from Conor's rifle, she shoved
the last shell into the magazine of her own gun, opened the French
doors that led out of her bedroom onto the upstairs veranda, and
stepped outside.

The moon came out from behind a cloud to
illuminate the darkness just as a trio of riders came around the
corner of the house. Too angry to think about what she was doing,
Olivia stepped to the edge of the veranda, braced herself against
the waist-high rail, and stared down the sight at the riders below.
She took a bead just above the head of the lead rider as he lifted
his arm and tossed a stone toward the house.

The sound of shattering glass told her they'd
broken another window, and Olivia pulled the trigger. The man's hat
flew off, and she smiled, thinking she was becoming a mighty fine
shot.

"Let's get outta here!" a man shouted, and
she'd have sworn on a stack of bibles it was Joshua Harlan's voice.
The riders turned toward the dense woods that bordered the house as
Olivia lifted her rifle again.

She cocked it and took aim, but the moon had
vanished behind a cloud, and the riders had already disappeared
from view amid the oaks and darkness. She lowered the gun and
slumped against the rail, drawing air into her lungs in rapid,
gasping breaths as she listened to the departing hoof-beats fade
into silence. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and she leaned down,
pressing her brow to the cool wrought-iron railing.

"Olivia?"

She straightened and whirled around with her
rifle raised. Conor stood in the arch of the open doors, a rifle in
his hands, his massive frame a dark silhouette against the
lamplight behind him. Breathing a sigh of relief, she lowered her
own rifle.

"Are you all right?" he asked, walking toward
her.

She nodded. "You?"

"Right as rain." He pulled the gun from her
hands and set it down, then reached out to touch her face, running
his thumb across her mouth. "You're bleeding."

His hand fell away, and she touched the tip
of her finger to her lower lip, realizing she must have bitten it
when she was firing the gun. "Ouch," she said, feeling the sting
for the first time.

He remembered the day she'd confessed her
fear of heights and how she couldn't even bring herself to walk out
on the upstairs veranda. "Olivia," he said gently, "do you know
where you're standing, love?"

She glanced over the railing behind her and
saw the ground far below. "Oh, Lord," she breathed, looking away.
She pressed her hand across her mouth and froze as if rooted to the
spot, squeezing her eyes shut. "I think I'm going to be sick," she
choked.

Conor set down his rifle and lifted her into
his arms, cradling her against him. "I've got you," he said against
her hair. "I've got you."

He carried her into her bedroom and set her
on the edge of the high bedstead, then stood in front of her. "Put
your head down between your knees," he ordered, "and take deep
breaths."

"Where are the girls?"

His hand curved around the back of her neck,
and he gently pulled her head toward her lap. "They're all right. A
wee bit shaken up, but they're all right. They're still in Becky's
room. I told them to stay there."

She pushed against his hand, trying to sit
up. "They must be scared to death. I'd better go see."

He kept her head down. "You stay right where
you are," he murmured, his fingers lightly caressing the back of
her neck.

He let his hand fall and started for the
door, but she straightened and reached out impulsively to grab his
hand. "Thank you," she whispered. "For being here."

He started to pull away, then stopped and
instead wrapped his large hand around her smaller one. He couldn't
help wondering if tonight's events had changed her mind about
selling her land, but he didn't ask.

Finally, he pulled his hand from hers. "Are
you sure you're all right?" When she nodded, he turned away. "I'll
go and get the girls."

When he brought the girls and Chester to her
room, Olivia held out her arms, and they ran to her. She gathered
the girls around her with kisses and hugs. "Are you girls okay?"
she asked, not reassured until she'd asked the question at least
half a dozen times.

Becky climbed up onto the bed beside her.
"Who were they, Mama?"

"What did they want?" Carrie asked.

Miranda tugged on Olivia's nightgown to get
her attention. "Why did they break my window?"

Olivia opened her arms, and Miranda climbed
up to sit on her lap. "Well," she answered, "there are some men who
want me to sell the farm because they want to build a railroad on
it. And I don't want to sell, because this is our home. So they're
trying to make us leave by throwing rocks and breaking our windows
and shouting at us." She looked over at Conor. "Mr. Conor and I
scared them, and they ran off, but they may come back."

Carrie stood up and patted her mother's
shoulder. "Don't worry, Mama," she said, and walked over to where
Conor stood in the doorway, an expression of adoration and absolute
trust on her pixie face as she looked up at him. She slipped her
hand into his and turned to smile at her mother. "Everything's
going to be just fine, you'll see. Mr. Conor won't let anything
happen to us."

Conor couldn't breathe. The room felt
suffocatingly hot, and he had to get away. "It's late," he managed.
"You'd best get some sleep."

He pulled his hand out of the child's, and
his chest tightened painfully. He turned on his heel and stepped
into the hall, closing the door behind him.

He started down the stairs, but on the
landing he stopped. He looked down into the darkness of the foyer
below, the darkness all around him. He didn't want anyone to rely
on him, need him, look at him with trust. He could never live up to
it. He didn't deserve it. Conor lowered his head into his hands
with a feeling of dread.

Lu
í
och
á
n

Lurgangreen, Ireland, 1867

The train was late.

Conor moved through the dense cover of
underbrush near the railroad tracks until he was at Adam McMahon's
side. "Donnelley's ready with the wagon," he said softly, crouching
low.

"Lovely," Adam responded. "So where's the
bloody train? It's freezing out here."

Conor cupped his hands and blew on his frozen
fingers as he glanced up at the sky, grateful for the moonless
January night. It would take a good two hours to remove the guns
from the false-bottomed hiding place of the train car, load them on
the wagon, and get them to Dooley's farm—longer if anything went
wrong. Christ, if the train didn't get here soon, they'd be
hauling a wagon-load of rifles across County Louth by the light of
day.

This was the tenth shipment, the tenth
midnight rendezvous. The transfers had been meticulously planned
in the tiny room above McGrath's, and what was even more
astonishing, those plans had been carried off nine times in two
years without a hitch. Conor hoped their luck would hold just a wee
bit longer.

Nine hundred of Sean's American rifles—God
bless the generosity of their kinsmen across the water for
providing them—were safely tucked away in various hiding places all
over Ireland. Only Conor, Sean, and Adam knew the exact locations
of all the weapons and the exact manner by which they ended up
there.

Conor knew the Council was planning something
big, perhaps the rising itself, but he had not yet been told what
it was. But Conor also knew that one thousand rifles did not make
a war, and he was afraid the Council was moving too fast. Training
camps had been set up so that Irish farm lads could be taught how
to use a weapon they'd never had the opportunity to touch before,
but shooting tins off a stone wall was a far cry from staring down
the muzzle of a British army rifle.

He'd tried to tell Sean it was too soon, but
only two weeks before, nine comrades had been arrested in Belfast,
causing Irish patriotic fervor to run high in Ulster—where
Fenianism was weakest—and the Council probably wanted to take
advantage of it before the incident became only another tragic song
and another lost dream. No word yet from O'Bourne on who had
informed, but Conor vowed he'd break the bastard's neck with his
bare hands when he found out.

Far down the line, Conor saw a flash of
light. Finally, he thought, moving closer to the tracks at the
signal from Dooley's lantern. Adam followed him. Still concealed
by the thick underbrush, the two men waited as the freight train
braked, pulling into the tiny wayside

station that was nothing more than a bench
and a wooden overhang.

Both men ran to the train as it inched to a
stop. Conor pulled a wrench out of his pocket, slipped between the
train wheels, and began undoing the bolts that fastened the panel
of the false bottom in place, as Adam walked to the front of the
train to have a word with the driver.

His scream of warning hit
the cold air like an icy wind. "
Luíochán
!"

Conor turned his head and saw two pairs of
polished British army boots hit the dirt beside him.

"
Luíochán
! Ambush, Conor! Run!" Adam
screamed again, this time in pain. "Oh, Christ!"

Conor tried to slide out from under the car
on the opposite side, but the cold steel of a pistol muzzle pressed
against the back of his head and froze him in place.

"Don't make a move, Paddy," a low voice
ordered. "Unless you want your brains splattered all over the
tracks."