Destiny - The Callahans #1

Book One

Original Copyright in 1996 by Gordon Ryan

as the Spirit of Union series

Copyright 2011 Gordon Ryan

Published by Gordon Ryan at Smashwords

This book is available in print at

Gordon Ryan Amazon Home Page

Discover Other Novels By Gordon Ryan

www.gordonryan.com

Pug Connor Novels

State of Rebellion

Uncivil Liberties

To Faithfully Execute (Jun 2011)

The Callahans Series

Destiny - Callahans #1

Conflict - Callahans #2

Reunion - Callahans #3

The Callahans Trilogy I

Prelude - Callahans #4

Reprisal (Oct 2011)

Heritage (Mar 2012)

Earlier Novels

Threads of Honor

Dangerous Legacy

Upon the Isles of the Sea

A Question of Consequence

The Leashes of Dogwood Hollow

Authors Note:

Since original publication in 1996-1999 in
hardback, under the series title,
Spirit of Union
, this
historical romance / family saga has achieved measurable success,
reaching the Best Seller list in its regional market. Multiple
readers in the USA and the UK (Amazon Reviews) have commented on
the way the series weaves a spiritual thread throughout the story
without overtly becoming a “Christian” novel. Most have found it
compelling, yet not intrusive to the primary story of a family who
face life each day, seeking to find the strength to endure the
hardship and to enjoy the rewards of life.

Released again in 2011 under a new title, in
e-book format,
The Callahans
is the story of a young
larrikin from Ireland and a young woman from Norway at the turn of
the twentieth century. Over nearly seventy years, the family they
create faces a world that is often at war, or in economic peril.
Each volume speaks of individual family members who are at times
confused by their choices and are alternately happy or sad,
achieving success and failure as they try to make the most of their
circumstances.

In other words,
The Callahans
depicts
the common problems that everyday people face as they traverse
life. Through the facility of fiction, Tom, Katrina, and their
children are able to live with a few more financial resources then
are generally available to most people, but what would an adventure
romance be if it were not larger than life? They find, however,
that money is not the source of happiness
.

The Callahans
also presents the
chronicle of a religious conflict that for many years separates two
people who are deeply in love, with a differing faith, yet a
commitment to each other. They confront these challenges in the
hope that their God will be pleased with their effort.

The story is not designed to proselyte or
convert anyone to religion in general, or to a specific
denomination, yet it does attempt to demonstrate that a faith which
contains a value system of consideration for others is necessary to
withstand the trials of humanity.

Hopefully, you will not be offended by the
religious sub-plot and come to love Thomas, Katrina, and their
children as much as I did while creating the story. If you so
desire, I would be pleased to hear from you concerning your
thoughts about one of my literary “children.”

Gordon Ryan

Christchurch, New Zealand

April, 2011

[email protected]

Cork, Ireland
April, 1895

It took Tom Callahan nearly a week to walk
the hundred miles from Tipperary to Cork. Traveling mostly at
night, to avoid any chance meeting with a curious constable, he
arrived foot sore and hungry at his destination on the southern tip
of Ireland. After a night’s rest, he walked another twenty miles to
the port community of Queenstown, south of Cork where ocean liners
took their passengers to a world beyond Ireland. Once there, he had
saved the expense of renting a room by rigging a makeshift shelter
out of the crates of sea freight stacked on the wharf.

The morning after his arrival, the two stack
Antioch
arrived and moored nearby, and, having decided upon
his course of action during his walk through Ireland, Tom booked
passage on the steamer. Then for two days, he slept on the docks
and kept to himself while waiting for the ship to sail. It was
April, 1895, and he was anxious for a variety of reasons to leave
Ireland behind him.

The young Irishman spent part of those days
amusing himself by watching the comings and goings of a very
pretty, blonde young woman. From his hiding place on the wharf, he
had been able to observe her without being seen. What he saw
intrigued him. She was in the company of an older man and woman,
whom Tom took to be her parents, two young girls, probably her
sisters, and a young man who Tom guessed was an older brother. They
were all apparently going to be passengers on the same vessel as
Tom, and he had watched with interest as the young woman and her
family busied themselves on and off the ship.

One morning, after a half hour or so of
activity on the ship, the family had walked down the gangway and
past Tom’s hiding place. They crossed the wharf and went into one
of the streets that led to the waterfront in Queenstown. Tom had
only been close enough to overhear a snatch of their conversation,
but he had enjoyed listening to the young woman’s laughter and
watching the graceful way she made her way up and down the
gangplank and around the wharf.

Tom was intrigued. They were clearly not
Irish or even English. He guessed they were speaking a Scandinavian
language. Tom knew the young woman could speak English, though,
because he had heard her asking directions of the ship’s First
Officer. Whatever language she spoke, it had been pleasant to
observe her and entertaining to imagine somehow being able to meet
her once they were on board the ship and under way. The idea of
sharing the sea voyage with a pretty lass made the prospects of
spending nearly two weeks on the water less daunting.

There was no doubt that Tom took a certain
pleasure in observing a pretty face and a shapely figure. At
nineteen years of age, he had already wooed his share of Irish
“Colleens,” but there was something about this young lady that
piqued his interest in an unusual way. While he was watching her,
the sunlight broke through the overcast Irish skies and the light
glinted off her blonde hair. She was tall—taller than most Irish
girls—and had the figure and the carriage of a mature young woman,
but her girlish laughter and the playful way she behaved with her
little sisters made Tom wonder if she might not be younger than she
appeared. No matter, he decided. She was certainly pretty enough to
merit his attention and might provide some diversion during the
voyage.

It did occur to him that meeting her might be
something of a problem. It was obvious that her family was wealthy.
She and her mother wore full-length, high-necked dresses and
tailored, dark wool coats. Tom noticed, too, that the ship’s
captain behaved deferentially toward the young woman’s
stern-looking, well-dressed father. Considering the steerage rules
that had been explained to him when he purchased his ticket, Tom
thought it might prove difficult to arrange a meeting. His passage
provided only limited access to the upper decks of the ship, but it
pleased him to think of making the attempt.

The morning of the day the
Antioch
was
to sail, Tom had a brief encounter that made him even more
determined to meet the pretty, blonde woman. There was a good deal
of noise and activity on the wharf as the sailors and dock hands
made final preparations to embark. Hoping to buy something to eat
before the ship got under way, and shivering from the cold, Tom
stepped out onto the dock from his dank sleeping place and nearly
bumped into her. She was with her brother.

It was an overcast, chilly morning, and her
face was flushed. She had plaited her thick blonde hair into a
single, heavy braid. She wore no hat, but the two ringlets that
curled down in front of her ears framed her fresh, young face in a
way that struck Tom as very becoming. The thing that held his
interest, though, was her eyes. They were a deep green color and
even though she was momentarily startled by Tom’s sudden appearance
in front of her, she smiled prettily and held his gaze for a moment
before glancing away. The young woman’s brother greeted Tom with a
nod and taking his sister by the arm, steered her around the crates
and cargo toward the gangplank. Tom had not responded to the
greeting except to instinctively scrape his cap from his head and
stare at her as she passed. Now, as she and her brother walked away
from him, he stood gazing after them. Those eyes and that face had
been something to see, no matter how young she was. The challenge
of finding a way to meet her, Tom decided, would make an
interesting diversion on his first sea voyage.

Later that day, the gangplank would be hauled
in, the giant ropes loosed, the ship’s massive horn would sound,
and under an umbrella of noisy gulls, the
Antioch
would be
under way. Tom had never been on board a ship, though he had seen
many of them depart Ireland. This time, however, he would not watch
it sail out through the breakwater nor observe the plume of smoke
from the double stacks disappear over the horizon. Instead,
standing at the railing on separate decks, Thomas Matthew Callahan,
born October 5, 1875, in County Tipperary, Ireland, and Katrina
Hansen, born June 15, 1878, in Horten, Norway, whom Tom had not yet
had the pleasure of meeting, would be bound for America.

The short voyage across the North Sea from
Christiania, (the former name of Norway’s capital city until the
name was changed in 1925 to Oslo) to Aberdeen followed by the long
train ride through Scotland and England to Liverpool and the
half-day sail from Liverpool to Cork, had been particularly tiring
to Mrs. Hansen. But the ocean voyage across the Atlantic would
begin tomorrow, and so Katrina had convinced her mother and sisters
to take one last opportunity to walk about the village.

There wasn’t much of interest to see in Cork.
The seaport looked and smelled like the harbor in Christiania.
Gulls screeched overhead, and the buildings as well as the seamen,
who were moving about on the quay, seemed equally salt-encrusted.
Katrina couldn’t, of course, remember it, but the port resembled,
too, the one in Horten, the village located about eighty miles down
the fjord from Christiania, where she had been born. Indeed, most
harbors were alike—some bigger, some smaller.

In the mid 1890s, the activity on the
waterfront in most Norwegian cities was much diminished from the
bustling days of whaling. In those more spirited times, ships would
line the quay and hordes of people were always greeting or saying
good-bye to family as the men of coastal villages put out to sea in
pursuit of the great whales. By the late nineteenth century,
however, the heyday of whaling had long passed. The discovery of
oil in Pennsylvania in 1859 had caused a sharp decline in the
industry. As the population of whales also declined, there was an
international reduction in the chase, the sea hunt became harder,
and voyages took seamen away from home for years at a time.

As the whaling industry wound down, Lars
Hansen had struggled to keep a ship’s chandlery business in
operation in Horton, a business his father had started following
the loss of his leg at sea. Realizing, in light of the declining
ship’s traffic, that it was a losing battle, Lars had moved the
family to Christiania and converted his shop-keeping and
woodworking skills to furniture making—household necessities that
he felt people would always need regardless of the changing
economy. The Oslo enterprise had succeeded far beyond his
expectations.