The Crow of Connemara (20 page)

With the crash of the pint glass on the floor and the shouting, the attention of everyone in Regan's went quickly away from the music to the fight. Niall threw a punch as Aiden struggled to get out of the booth and Maeve and Keara shouted something toward the two of them. One of the trio struck back, a fist landing directly on Niall's nose and knocking him backward. Colin had already stopped playing; Lucas' fiddle solo was severed in midbeat though John's bodhran and Bridget's mandolin staggered on for another bar or two. There was a surging of patrons all around the bar, and a duo of Regan's burly bouncers were already pushing their way toward the uproar. Colin thought he saw the flash of steel in one of the trio's hand, but Niall—with blood smeared across his face and drooling from his nostrils—shoved the man with both hands; the knife went flying from the attacker's hand and he went staggering backward toward the stage, his arms flailing. His feet hit the edge of the stage, and he continued falling, tripping over the edge of the stage and plowing into John on his stool: Colin, next to John, had to leap away holding his guitar to avoid it being smashed, and so he didn't see much of the next few moments as he scrambled away, as Bridget shouted and slid to the back of the stage clutching her mandolin and Lucas glared as if the fight were a direct insult to him.

As Colin tried to escape the chaos on the stage, as he tried to decide where to put his guitar, he also attempted to locate Maeve in the fray. He caught a glimpse of black hair moving toward the knot of combatants. Everything was confusion out in the pub. Colin would have sworn that he heard an animal's raw howl in the midst of the shouting.

“Stop!” Maeve's shout thundered above the noise. A flash erupted from the upraised hand, and three or four bodies went sliding away from Maeve, thrown by some invisible giant's hand as Colin tried to blink away the blinding afterimages. At the same time, the club bouncers hit the mob and starting pushing people away from each other. Colin saw Niall ready to swing at one of the men, and Maeve was there alongside him, grabbing his arm. Colin couldn't hear the word, but he could read it in her lips, her scowl, and the shaking of her head: “
Neh!”
Niall's hand dropped, then one of the bouncers grabbed his shirt from behind, propelling him toward the door.

“Yer out—and yeh bastards had better scatter fast, 'cuz we've called the gardai,” the bouncer shouted as the noise level began to drop and the floor started to clear. Aiden and Keara, with Keara supporting a bloody-faced Aiden, were following behind Niall. Maeve was still standing in a strangely clear space, her hair wild and disheveled, beer splashed over the front of her blouse, a bloody, long scratch on her arm. She looked back to Colin and spread her hands wide.
“I'm sorry,”
she mouthed. With that, she grabbed her red cloak from the booth, flung it around her shoulders, and followed after the others.

“All right,” Colin heard Lucas say, as if from a distance. “That's over, then. Let's pick up the tune at the fiddle solo. John, yeh okay? Get us going, if yeh would . . .”

As the bodhran began its insistent beat, Colin stared outward. “Colin!” Lucas barked. “Yeh with us or not?”

Colin started, hesitated. Maeve had left; he was certain that after this the Oileánach would be heading back to Inishcorr, Maeve with them.
I'm sorry
, she'd said. So was he. He adjusted his glasses, then grabbed the strap of his Gibson and brought it around. He nodded to Lucas, and began strumming the chords to the song.

He hit the strings viciously, as if they were responsible for ruining this night.

“Miss Gallagher, a moment, if yeh please.”

Maeve saw the garda Superintendent Dunn beckon to her. He was standing in the yellow pool of light from the streetlight across from Regan's, with the blue strobe of one of the garda cruisers providing a stormy second illumination. Two uniformed gardai were standing outside the cruiser, hands on truncheons, watching as Keara and Aiden attended to Niall, sitting on the curb. The trio of young men who'd started the ruckus, also ejected from Regan's, walked slowly away down Market Street, with glances and gestures back toward Maeve and the others, still shouting half-heard insults. From inside Regan's, Maeve heard the music start again, Colin's guitar loud in the mix. Maeve took a long, slow breath and went to Dunn.

“Superintendent,” she said as she approached. “Things must be slow in the district if they're calling yeh out at night for a little pub brawl and a few bloodied noses.”

He smiled—a long, slow amusement. His gaze drifted from Maeve to the cluster around Niall and back again. “We need to talk,” he said. “Yeh know how many of the people around here feel about yer people.”

“And how do yeh feel yerself, Superintendent? The same as that lot you just let walk away after attacking us, all unprovoked?”

Dunn glanced at the retreating trio. “They had a different story.”

“No doubt.”

“Would yeh rather I arrested them and had yeh come to court to testify?”

Maeve laughed at that, and Dunn gave a tight-lipped smile. “So,” he asked, “when can I expect yeh to vacate Inishcorr?”

“I thought I gave yeh that answer when we last spoke, Superintendent. We're not vacating a'tall.”

Dunn gave an audible sigh. In the light of the streetlamps and storefronts, his face looked tired. “Miss Gallagher, the fact is that I'm getting pressure from above that I ca'nah ignore much longer. I've stalled for months now, hoping that the issue of Inishcorr might get lost in the NPWS bureaucracy, but it hasn't—I suspect because of contact from the Ballemór council. They don't like yeh much, but then yeh already know that.” He nodded toward Niall and the others. “T'ings like this tend not to help yer cause.”

“'Twas nothin' we started,” Maeve said.

Dunn nodded. “Isn't it just? An' I believe yeh, though yeh just being here seems to start things—like yeh being on Inishcorr. I wanted to tell yeh; I ca'nah ignore the warrants yeh've been given much longer. I'll have to take action, and I do'nah want to do that.”

“Then do'nah,” Maeve told him. “We're not leaving, Superintendent. That's final.”

She saw his shoulders sag, and his face did the same with near-sadness. “I wish yeh'd change yer mind, Miss Gallagher. It's nah trouble I'm wanting, and I wish none of yeh any harm.”

“Neither do we,” she told him. “We just want to be left alone.”

“Unfortunately, that's nah going to be possible.” He heaved another sigh and inclined his head toward Niall. “D'yeh need that one to go to the clinic? I can have him taken there.”

Aiden and Keara had lifted Niall to his feet; he was shaking their hands away, almost angrily. Maeve shook her head. “Nah. 'Tis mostly his pride that's hurt, and we take care of our own.”

A nod. “I'll wish you a good night then, and safe travel back to yer island. I hope yeh think about what I said. When I come out there next—and I
will
be coming out very soon—I'd like to see the island empty.”

“Tell me when yer coming, and I'll make certain we have dinner waiting for yeh,” Maeve answered.

With that, the Superintendent gave a final exhalation and moved away from the streetlamp. One of the garda opened the passenger door of the cruiser for him. A few moments later, the cruiser turned off its light bar and pulled away from the curb. Dunn's face swiveled to watch Maeve and the others as the car passed them.

18

T
HERE WAS NO INTERNET CONNECTION at Mrs. Egan's B&B.
“I do'nah have interest in wasting me life in front of a computer screen, and neither should yeh,”
she'd said when Colin had inquired about that, back when he'd first arrived.
“Yeh should be out looking at the real Ireland all around yeh, not at pictures of God knows what from these Internets of yers. 'Tis the real world yeh should be paying' attention to, Mr. Doyle.”

The best wireless signal that Colin could tap into was the Ballemór library's network. It was Sunday and the library was closed, but in any case, the library staff frowned on people holding conversations inside the building. Colin had discovered a week earlier that if he sat on the stone bench just outside the southwest corner of the building, he could snag a strong enough signal and just enough bandwidth to use Skype. He took a seat on the bench, glancing up at the library as he did so—a raven was staring back down at him from the gutter well above him. He kicked up Skype, saw that Jennifer was logged in, and called her. After a few rings, his sister's face suddenly appeared in the screen window: brown hair touched with red highlights, cropped short and frothy; full lips on a wide mouth, adorned with a red that was a little too bright for Colin's taste; blue-green eyes that crinkled at the corners whenever she smiled—the “Doyle family eyes” that both of them shared with their father, though Tommy had his mother's dark, rounder eyes. “Hey,” she said. “How's my little brother?”

“He's fine at the moment, but getting hungry for dinner,” Colin answered. “It's late afternoon here. Look, here's Ballemór town center . . .” He swung the laptop around, letting the camera capture the scene. As he did so, the raven cawed and flew away above him.

“It's not raining,” he heard Jennifer say. “Thought you were supposed to be in Ireland.”

“Hah,” he answered. “Anyway, it rained earlier this morning, and I'm sure it'll rain tonight yet. Hopefully not before I get the laptop back to my place, though.” He settled the laptop on his knees again, adjusting the screen so that his face was centered in the camera view. Jennifer grinned back at him—he saw the kitchen of her apartment in the background and Finnigan, the orange-and-white cat, prowling along the edge of the counter. “So how's Aaron? You two set a date yet?”

“We're not there yet, but things have been good.” He saw a grin slide over her face. “I'm not ruling that out someday. And what about you? How's your ‘although' girl?”

Colin returned the grin. “Maeve? Still in the ‘although' stage, but there's hope.” After the debacle at Regan's the previous night, though, he wondered when he'd see her again.

“‘Maeve,' eh? What's her last name?”

“Umm . . .” Colin glanced away, as if the answer were written somewhere farther down the square. He seemed to remember her telling him, the first time they met, but he couldn't conjure up the name in his memory. “Uh, C-something or other, I think.”

“C-something or other,” Jen repeated. Her eyebrows climbed her forehead once more. She clasped her hands mockingly to her breast. “That's so touching, Colin. So romantic. I'm sure Mom would be happy to know that you really get to know someone first before you commit.”

“I haven't committed anything yet, I'll have you know. We're just . . . friends at the moment.”
But if that damned Niall hadn't ruined things last night . . .

“You're such good friends that you still don't remember her last name. I know
my
boyfriend's last name.” Jen took a long breath. Her image stuttered, and he thought he was going to lose the connection. “When's the last time you called Mom? She asked about you just last night.” Her static-laden face froze, then moved belatedly with the words.

It was Colin's turn to sigh now. He shook his head. “I haven't called her in a bit. I just haven't—”

The image settled once more. “Uh-uh. Don't say you haven't had time, Colin,” Jen interrupted. “We both know better. You're a musician; you don't have anything to do but practice during the day. You could take ten minutes out of your day to call her.”

“If it were just ten minutes, I might,” he answered. “But it would be thirty seconds of hellos followed by twenty minutes of lecture on how I'm wasting my life and should be back home doing something productive and useful, like helping Tommy.”

“Call her, Colin. She's your mother, she loves you, and she isn't going to be around forever. We both know that, now more than ever.” Jen's words struck him like a hammer blow. Colin remembered his father, remembered those last days with him and the funeral. When Jen spoke again, her voice trembled, and he knew she'd been affected in the same way. “Look, just do it.”

“You know, you can sound awfully like Mom sometimes. I pity your and Mr. Goldman's eventual children.”

Jennifer sniffed. “And
you
have Dad's idiotic stubbornness, and so I pity your and Ms. C-Something's offspring, too. Call Mom.”

Colin started to retort, then realized that someone was standing next to him. He glanced up to see Maeve. He wondered how long she'd been there. He grinned helplessly up at her. “Hey, Maeve! I was hoping I'd see you.”

“Yeh always have conversations with yer computer screen on the sidewalk?” she asked him.

“I'm talking to my sister,” he said. He shifted the laptop so that Maeve could see—and so that the camera saw Maeve. “Jennifer, this is Maeve.”

“Oh, hi!” he heard Jennifer say. “I'm Jennifer Doyle, Colin's sister. I didn't catch your last name...?”

“Gallagher. And it's good to meet you, even through a computer. Yeh have his eyes—or himself has yers.”

“Good to meet you, too, and I love your accent. Gallagher . . . That's a nice name. Starts with a ‘G,' doesn't it?” Jennifer laughed then. “I'm sorry, Maeve—you can make Colin explain why that's so funny. It was good meeting you: virtually, anyway. Colin's mentioned you a few times now. Be kind to my brother—he's a lovely, gentle, and talented person, even if he's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. He's somehow managed to keep his naiveté despite his age. Don't take advantage of that.”

“Jen—” Colin said warningly.

She laughed. “Okay, okay. I need to leave you two anyway; I have to be off for an appointment. Colin, don't forget what I said:
call her
.”

Colin turned the screen back to him. “I'm calling
you
at 6:00 in the morning next time. On a Saturday. Unless you'll be at temple then.”

Jennifer stuck out her tongue at Colin and laughed again. “Hey, someone has to help you with these things,” she said. “At least I have a name to give Mom when she asks. Maeve, I don't know what you see in him, but please be good to him; he's the only little brother I have and I love him dearly.” Her hand waved in front of the screen. “Call me soon,” she said, and the window collapsed as she cut the connection.

Colin closed the laptop.

“Starts with a G?” Maeve asked.

“It's a long story,” Colin answered; then, as Maeve continued to look at him: “It was a private joke, and it's not that funny anyway. Trust me.”

“Hmm.” Maeve didn't seem entirely convinced, but she shrugged as Colin packed up the laptop, slid it back into its case, and stood up. “I came looking for yeh,” she told him.

“And how did you know to come here?” he asked her.

She didn't answer. Instead, she nodded her head westward. “I wondered if yeh'd want to come out to Inishcorr and see the place, especially after everything fell apart for us last night. Yeh could stay overnight, since we wouldn't get there until late. That is, if yer not playing tonight, because I don't think that it'd be a good idea for me or the others to come back in Regan's any time soon.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But it's Sunday, so no, I'm not playing,” he told her. “And I'd love to see the island.”
And you
. He could feel the anticipatory stirring in the pit of his stomach again. “I'd have to cancel a practice and pack a couple things . . .”

“Ah. If it's too much trouble for yeh . . .”

“No, no,” Colin hurried to say. “It's no problem at all. I just have to get hold of Lucas and let him know I won't make practice, and if it's an overnight stay, I need to get a few things together.”

“G'wan,” she told him. “I've some shopping to do in town anyway. Meet me back here in two hours; the boat's moored up in the usual place on Beach Road, and yeh can help me carry the supplies. Bring yer guitar, too—yeh can play a few of those songs in the book, and do some singing for those who haven't heard yeh yet.” With that, she leaned forward toward him. The kiss lingered. He closed his eyes, losing himself in the moment, and only opening them again when he felt the warmth of her lips leave his. There was almost a sadness in her eyes when he saw them, regarding him steadily, then she blinked and the moment was gone. “Two hours,” she said, “or Niall will happily sail without yeh.”

“How
is
Niall?” Colin asked.

“Wait till yeh see his face. Looks like a horse stepped on it.” She shook her head into Colin's helpless smile, as if amused by it. “Two hours,” she repeated.

“I'll be here,” he told her.

Niall said nothing to him during the entire trip, though Colin noticed that both his eyes were slitted under purpling bruises, his nose was swollen, and his voice, when he called out orders to the crew of the Galway hooker, was distinctly nasal. As the
Grainne Ni Mhaille
docked at Inishcorr's small quay, Colin didn't even see Niall, who seemed to have entirely vanished.

Some of the islanders glanced at him as he and Maeve walked onto the pier to which they were moored. He had a backpack stuffed with clothing and toiletries, and a guitar—his Seagull rather than the more expensive Gibson—was slung over one arm in a gig bag.

His grandfather Rory's crystal was around his neck, though hidden under his sweater. Somehow, that felt right.

A seal stood on a rock near pilings crusted with black barnacles, the waves lapping against the rock and splashing the creature's smooth, glistening, blue-black fur. The seal snorted in their direction, its head swiveling as they walked past. The islanders, for their part, stared for a moment then nodded—mostly to Maeve, he noticed—before moving on about their business. He recognized Keara, the young woman who'd been with Maeve in Regan's. The others were all strangers. Keara came up to Maeve as they came to the end of the pier. She nodded to Colin, and handed Maeve a paper. Colin caught a glimpse of a gold-trimmed official-looking letterhead. Maeve scanned the paper, grunted, then crumpled it as she handed it back to Keara. “We ignore it,” she said to Keara. “There's still time.”