The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller (13 page)

“The British will be withdrawing soon,” Mary said.

“What will happen then?” I asked. I had just returned with an arm full of peat for the stove. I stacked the bricks on the floor.

“They’ll hand the barracks over to the IRA.”

“And the Tans?” I asked. “The Peelers?”

“Aye,” Mary responded. “They’ll be leaving too. Lynch is drawing up plans.”

Liam Lynch was the chief of staff of the IRA. His exploits were legend. During the war, he had led several successful raids, including the burning of the British Army barracks in Mallow and, later, the killing of thirteen British soldiers near Millstreet. But Lynch did not support the Treaty, or at least he hadn’t.
What had changed?
I wondered.

As if she had read my mind, Mary added, “He doesn’t want another war.”

“So he’s throwing his lot in with the Free State, is he?”

A darkness passed over Mary’s eyes. “It’s a dense one you are, Frank Kelleher,” she snapped. “He doesn’t want to see any more Irish killed.”

Before I could answer, we heard a commotion outside and Tim rushed in.

“Someone’s coming!” he gasped for breath. His face was red, and it was clear he’d been running.

I hurried to the door. In the distance, I could just make out the bicycle, far off down the lane, but headed our way. Mary hurried, wiping her hands on her apron, while I slipped out and made my way down to the cow-house. As I hid in the shadows, I realized this must have been exactly what Kathleen had done time and again for the past year.

Peeking out of the small window, my face hidden in the shadows, I saw Mary and Tim waiting in front of the cottage, the rider drawing closer. It was a lad, I could see, not much older than Tim, and he was dressed in a post office uniform. I felt a shiver and wondered for a moment if I had been recognized when I had stood in front of the post office several days before. If I had been, why had Billy waited? I glanced past the boy along the lane then back along the walls and to the fields on each side. I wouldn’t put it past Billy to create a diversion to draw my attention away while he and his men crept up on my flank.

The rider stopped and dismounted, leaning his bike against the wall. He nodded at Mary then retrieved an envelope from his sack. I couldn’t hear what was being said but, after a second, Mary turned to Tim, and he hurried into the cottage. Tim returned a moment later and handed the delivery boy a coin. He nodded again, tipped his hat, and climbed back on his bicycle. Mary and Tim stood watching as he disappeared up the lane.

Minutes later, I met them inside.

“It’s from Kathleen,” Mary said as she read the telegram. “She made it safely to Abbeyfeale.”

She handed it to me.

Arrived safely. All is well. Come soon.

That was it, nothing more. Sure and she sounded fine, but I read it again to be certain. Kathleen, I was relieved to see, had been careful with her words. As with most telegrams, it was vague enough that it wouldn’t draw any suspicion. The telegram had been addressed to Mary, not to me, and Kathleen hadn’t sent it herself; it had been sent by Mrs. Maloney, Mary’s friend in Abbeyfeale. I smiled, proud of Kathleen for being cautious and relieved that she had arrived safe.

___

I was torn as to what to do. My heart ached now that Kathleen was gone, and I tried to convince myself that I had done the right thing. She was safe with the Maloneys in Abbeyfeale, but I wondered again if my decision to remain here—to face the demons that continued to haunt me—had been wise. I had taken a risk going to Limerick, and before that to the Sheehys’. And the more chances I took, I knew that one day, soon, my luck would run out. Needing some air, I set out for a walk, unsure where my steps would take me.

I lost track of time. At some point it had begun to rain, but I hardly noticed, consumed as I was by my thoughts. In the back of my mind, I think I knew where I was headed. I told myself it wasn’t wise, that it was another risk that I shouldn’t be taking, but once the rain started and I was absorbed by the mist, I felt safe. I continued on to Patrick’s Well. Some two hours later I glanced up and saw the church. I made my way around the back, careful to avoid the rectory.

Minutes later, I found myself standing silently—the drops splattering off the wet gray stone of my father’s grave before splashing onto my trousers and my boots—trying the whole while to recite the prayers. When I couldn’t, not with conviction anyway, I stared down at my father’s grave and wondered what he would think of the life I had made. A young man, just thirty-six when he died, his hopes and dreams had been left for other men to follow. He had been a simple man, never wanting much. He was a poet and, like all poets, he had his own way of seeing the world. He found beauty where others couldn’t and often saw the good in people where others, my mother among them, saw something darker. But when he faced an injustice, my father was quick to right it, offended as he was by the audacity of it all.

His dreams he had passed to me, from the stories he told as we sat by the fire, late into the evening, under my mother’s reproachful eye.

“Why do you fill his head with such rubbish?” she had demanded one night, unaware that I was still awake.

“It’s our country, Margaret!” he said, the exasperation clear. “What’s been happening isn’t right.”

“And what exactly is it you and your friends intend to do about it, other than getting yourselves killed?” Her voice had risen and I realized years later that it wasn’t the first time they had argued about this. “It’s a waste of time is what it is!”

Although my eyes had been closed, I felt the sudden tenseness in my father’s arms.

“This isn’t how God intended us to live, Margaret. Slaves in our own land is what we are!”

“And it’s a fine lot of good you’ll do this family, off fighting for something you weren’t meant to have and while there’s work to be done.”

There was a shrillness to my mother’s voice, something I would forever associate with her. My father didn’t respond, not to her anyway, and I felt his arms relax. I can only imagine the change that had come over him, his eyes far away, dreaming again.

“Ahh, you useless shite!”

If he had heard her, he didn’t let on.

“One day, Frank,” he said softly, “we’ll put our differences aside and rise up and claim what’s ours. It’s our destiny.”

It was only when he was dying that I learned the truth. He was a Fenian, having taken the vow of the Brotherhood, joining a handful of men who had agreed, against all odds, to wage a war against British oppression. For years it was a secret war. That had all changed on Easter Monday in 1916. I liked to think that, had he not died, my father would have been in Dublin that day, gun in hand, and for a brief moment he would have tasted how close he had come.

The night he died will be forever etched in my mind. While my mother cried softly in the corner, he called me over, his voice barely above a whisper by then. He told me the stories again, starting at the beginning, knowing that it would be the last time. My mother, God bless her, granted a dying man his wish and said nothing. For my part, I listened. And when it seemed he couldn’t find enough air to fill his words, I held the water to his lips, but he waved it away. Then he reached for my hand.

“Frank!” he implored between gasps, “promise me, Frank!”

I had held his hand and stared at his sunken cheeks, at the once wavy dark hair that lay matted and limp against his head. I stared at his face, at the pain that had replaced the dreams that had once danced in his eyes. His body wasted, he hadn’t the strength to climb out of the bed, and it was there that death would find him minutes later.

But not before he had my answer.

“Aye, Da,” I said as the tears slid down my cheeks. “I promise.”

I felt better about my decision after the visit to the cemetery in Patrick’s Well and seeing my father’s grave.
When a thing is wrong
, I could hear him say,
you have to make it right
. My father, I thought, would be smiling, knowing that my decision to stay was the right one even if it meant greater risk to me. Renewed, I set out the following morning to see exactly what I was up against.

From my perch up on the hill, I watched Mick come out of the stable. His cap was perched as it always was, low on his head, his eyes barely visible below the brim. His tweed jacket was worn and threadbare, the years of labor in the fields having taken their toll. He led a horse—a sprightly one-year-old from the looks of it—to the small enclosure. It was surrounded by tall stone walls with a closed gate on one side. Mick led the horse to the center of the ring, the horse tugging at the reins the whole while. Muscles rippled below the flesh, betraying a power waiting to be unleashed. The horse snorted and threw his head from side to side. Mick held the reins firm and, although I couldn’t hear him from where I was, I could see his manner: soothing, gentle, whispering softly until the horse quieted. He stepped forward and the horse let him stroke his neck.

The horse snorted again, but this time it was a contented sound, and soon Mick was walking him through paces, circling the ring, starting and stopping again. They did this for a while, Mick speaking softly and the horse listening. After a few minutes, Mick led the horse to the gate, opened it, whispered something again, and let go of the reins. The horse cantered for a bit, the muscles rippling, ready to bolt. Instead he slowed and looked over his shoulder. Mick was standing in the gate, watching. The horse stopped and turned, regarded Mick for a bit, then trotted off. After a moment, he dropped his head and bolted, a carefree dash across the field. He could have easily jumped the outer wall but instead curved and raced along it. After a minute he slowed and turned with the wall then circled back to the field just outside the gate. He slowed to a walk and then stopped and regarded Mick again. After a moment he lowered his head and began grazing. Even from where I was I could see the smile on Mick’s face. Mick had a way with horses, a far more gentle touch than I could ever hope to have.

A serious man Mick was, but a dreamer nonetheless. He spent hours reading, the works of Yeats and Joyce certainly, but Greek tragedies too. He spoke Irish, rare enough at the time after years of British suppression, and he was active in the Gaelic League. Like my own father, Mick wrote poems too, and I remember sitting in a pub once, with the fire crackling and a pint in front of me, as he read from his own hand a beautiful poem that captured not only the pain and the suffering but the beauty and the hope that was Ireland. Mick also sang, in a tenor voice surprising for a man his size, beautiful ballads which, like his poems, were written by his own hand.

I waited up on the hill and eventually the horse trotted back through the gate, heading directly to the trough of water. Mick closed the gate behind him then stepped into the stable for a moment. Seizing the opportunity, I scrambled down from my perch and made my way over to the wall. Moments later, when Mick came out, he studied the horse, the same appraising look I had seen before.

“You’ve always had the gift, Mick,” I said softly and he turned slowly, not wanting to spook the horse I’m sure. The horse glanced up once, then, deciding I wasn’t a threat, stuck his nose back in the water.

“Frank Kelleher,” Mick said. I could see the surprise in his face and then something else. He nodded as if he had known all along.

“I heard you were back.”

I had expected that. He stepped toward the wall but I didn’t move, trusting my instincts.

“I had to come back. To make things right.”

He studied me for a moment, his eyes pensive. Then he held up his hands.

“What’s done is done. The war’s over, at least for me it is. We got what we wanted”—he shook his head—”or mostly for some, but far more than I ever expected we would.” He held my gaze. “It’s time to let go of the past.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that my instincts had been right. Mick had always been the peacemaker. Like he could with a wild horse, he had always been able to calm the waters, to ease the tension before tempers flared.

“Aye,” I said with a nod. “What’s done is done. But to know that what people think about me isn’t true? That’s a hard thing to live with.”

He studied me, his eyes pensive again, then he tilted his head, gesturing toward the gate. Without a word, he opened it and I followed him inside.

We sat in the cow-house, on two wooden stools used for milking. I took a deep breath. The familiar odors of hay and animals, of manure and dirt were soothing. Then I told him what had happened, how Dan and Sean and Tom had died. Mick, as expected, nodded now and again but said nothing, letting me tell the story in my own way, waiting for me to finish. When I did, we both sat silently for a while, the only noise the low moans of the cows and the snorts of the horse outside. Then Mick leaned forward, arms resting on his knees, and stared at the dirt between us for a moment. I wondered what he was thinking. Finally, he looked up and nodded again.

“I’ve known you for most of my life, Frank,” he began, looking me in the eye. “I never believed the stories. I told the boys—I told Billy—that it couldn’t be true, that you never would have done such a thing. But he wouldn’t hear of it and then you disappeared, gone to London we were told.” He sighed and stared off for a moment. “Maybe it was necessary, all of the killing of our own. Maybe it was the only way we could have won.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. Informants, real or imagined, were dealt with swiftly and brutally, the only way we knew to enforce loyalty, the only way we knew to prevent the British from learning what we were up to.

“Maybe it was the price we had to pay,” he continued, “but I often wonder how many good men died.”

He seemed far away for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. Then he sat back, stuck his hand in one pocket then the other, searching until he found what he was after. He pulled out his cigarettes, a pack of Woodbines. He offered me one but I shook my head. I watched as he lit one, the smoke drifting up to the ceiling.

“I heard you went to see the Sheehys,” he said.

“Aye, I did.” I shook my head but I could see that he already knew. “I think I only made things worse.”

He nodded. “And what do you intend to do now?”

I hesitated. “I’m going to see Dan’s wife. And the Murphys.”

He nodded again as if he had already known. “I suspect you won’t find them much different.”

“Aye. I know. But I have to go.”

He nodded again. “Billy knows you’re here,” he said, “and he’s not one to forget the past.”

“Aye. He’s not.”

He sucked on the cigarette. A moment later he let out a heavy breath, the smoke blowing past me. Mick was silent for a moment, lost in his own thoughts, lost in the smoke.

“They burnt his house down,” he said as if he had just remembered.

“Whose house?” I asked. “Billy’s?”

He nodded.

I shook my head. I hadn’t known that.

“After Argyle Manor, the British wanted revenge. They had Billy’s name and some others. They went to his house, and when his mother told them he wasn’t there, they forced her out and put their torches to it.”

I could picture it in my mind: Mrs. Ryan crying, the Black and Tans cursing and shouting, waving their guns and shoving her to the ground before pouring paraffin inside and throwing their torches in after. It was another reason Billy wanted to put a bullet in me. As if betraying the IRA and Dan, Sean, and Tom wasn’t enough, now I was also responsible for what the British had done to his mother.

Mick’s sigh interrupted my thoughts.

“I’m afraid that men like Billy will soon have us fighting each other,” he said. He took another puff. He seemed lost in thought again, and I waited a moment before I spoke.

“What will you do?” I asked.

He didn’t answer right away; instead he took another puff on the cigarette. A moment later, he let the smoke out with a long sigh.

“If it comes to that, I don’t know, Frank.” He spread his arms. “This is all I ever wanted,” he said, gesturing toward the cow-shed.

For Mick, it wasn’t just the cow-shed. It was everything that it represented, everything that it was connected to: our history, our culture, our identity. It was a simple life, but it was so much more, especially for a man like Mick who looked at things through a poet’s eyes.

He stared at me and his eyes narrowed. “But I know this,” he said as he shook his head. “I’ll have no part of Irish fighting Irish.”

If Mick had said any differently, I would have been surprised. He was right. We
had
achieved far more than most had expected. Still, I couldn’t help but think how close we were. How much more would it take to force the British out of Ulster, to achieve a true republic? But to do that, would I be willing to take up a gun against my fellow countrymen first? Would I fight the very government that I had fought so hard to help bring about? And if it came to that, how many more Irishmen would die?

“What about you?” Mick asked. “Will you stay?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. Living in America the last year, watching the turmoil and the conflict from afar, Ireland seemed a different place. There was no question in my mind that if the time came, I would take up my rifle again to fight the British. But betray my own people? That was something I didn’t think I could do.

“I don’t know, Mick.” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

He studied me for a moment, took another puff, dropped the cigarette to the floor, and crushed the stub below his boot. He shook his head, and I could see the resignation in his eyes.

“I’m afraid then that there are some dark days ahead for us,” he said. Then he reached out, his hand resting gently on my shoulder. He squeezed softly. “Mind yourself now, Frank.”

___

It was a strange country we lived in, a bog-land, an unforgiving terrain where the ground spit out rocks like it did the heather, like it did the grain. The clouds and the rain were constant, something we had grown accustomed to over the centuries, but it left a dampness that permeated everything: our cottages, our clothes, our bones, and our souls. Despite the rocks, the soil was rich, good for growing and good for grazing, and the hills held a green that was as constant as the rains. It’s hard to picture an Irishman and his land and see them as separate things. Married to the land we were, toiling and farming, seeking our daily sustenance from it, our past, our present, and our future all tied to it in a complex web. We took pride in it, seeing it as we did our own child. We rejoiced over it when the crop was plentiful, when the prices were high. And we wept over it when all it gave us for the hours and the days and the weeks and the months that we had spent devoted to it—coaxing it, loving it—was a mound of rotting potatoes.

We had given it the blood of our dying, so many having fallen over the years to defend it. We had given it the bones of our dead, my own daughter and my father joining countless others who had gone before them, all lying just below its green turf. We were the land, and the land was us. And even though it had been stolen from us centuries before, in our hearts it was still ours.

What would Mick do?
I wondered. So many had fled already, as generations had before them. For those that had found a plot, some farmland in Australia or Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, where they were able to start over, at one with the land again, life went on. But for those that had traded their identities for jobs—in the factories in New York or Boston or London—something was lost forever. Life for them would never be the same. That was why Mick would never leave, I thought. How could he? The land—Ireland—was in his blood, and he would no sooner cut off his arm or give up his child than he would give up his home.

How he would avoid the bloodshed that was certain to come, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure how I would either. Kathleen was safe in Abbeyfeale, for now. But with another war looming and with the possibility that Billy was actively searching for me, I wondered again why I hadn’t gone with her.

As I made my way back to Mary’s, Mick’s question continued to nag at me.
If it comes to this, to Irish fighting Irish, what will you do?

I didn’t have an answer for him because I didn’t have an answer for myself. I had returned for Kathleen and for my child but, with each day that passed, I realized I would have come back anyway. Sure I was drawn back to right the wrongs of the past. But it was more than that. As I walked down the sodden lane, the stone walls curving with the road and disappearing over the rise, the gray skies over the fields stretched beyond, I could
feel
the land. I could feel its presence, its struggles, our history, our culture. It was the same bond that held Mick. War or no war, Billy or no Billy, I wasn’t sure I could leave again.