The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller (18 page)

Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t hear the dray until it was upon me, the clop of the horse’s hooves and the splash of wheels in the puddles causing me to jump. In a panic, I almost dropped the bicycle as I fumbled for my glasses, remembering that I had stuck them in my pocket before speaking with Sinéad. I slipped them on and, as the dray drew up next to me, I tugged at the brim of my cap, a friendly gesture but one that I hoped would hide my face. Suddenly the cart slowed and I caught a glimpse of two men inside.

“A soft old day it is!” One called down.

I didn’t recognize either of them, still I was wary. The one who spoke was older than me, the other my age. They looked to be a father and son and, although their smiles seemed friendly, I was wary but I did my best to not let it show. I nodded back.

“Aye. A day for a fire,” I replied. The weather in Ireland was miserable more often than not, but in our own peculiar way we spoke of it fondly.

“And it looks like you’ve had a bit of bad luck, have you?”

“Aye.” Sinéad might have had a pump but, given the way I had left her, I thought it best not to ask.

“Well, toss it on back. We’re headed to Limerick.”

Sensing they meant me no harm and not wanting to insult them, I accepted. A moment later, I was sitting next to the son as the father flicked the reins.

Their name was McGrath, I soon learned, and they were on their way from Kilmallock to Limerick City to pick up a new set of harrows for their farm. I introduced myself as Michael O’Sullivan, my long-dead friend from childhood.

“O’Sullivan?” Mr. McGrath asked. “From Limerick City?”

“Nay,” I shook my head. Did they know the O’Sullivan clan? Suddenly I wished I hadn’t accepted their offer. “My family’s from Offaly, but I live in America now.”

“Americay!” Mr. McGrath said, pronouncing it as my own father had. He stared off for a moment, dreams of another life—one he would never see himself, I was sure—filling his head. After a moment, the wistful smile vanished.

“Sure and more Irish will be joining you in Americay soon.” He shook his head. “The British are finally leaving, but now we’ll be fighting each other.”

I asked him what he had heard.

“O’Malley’s troops are marching on Limerick,” he continued.

I wasn’t surprised. O’Malley was Commander of Second Southern Division and was responsible for all IRA operations, not just in Limerick, but in County Kilkenny and County Tipperary too. He had been captured by the British, I had heard, while I was making my way to Cobh just over a year ago. Badly beaten and awaiting execution, somehow he had managed to escape. That he was now marching on Limerick wasn’t a surprise. Even when we were all fighting on the same side, he would never have permitted Brennan’s troops to occupy Limerick. Such was the tenuous pact that was the IRA.

The McGraths hoped to pick up their harrows and be well away from Limerick before the fighting started. Like Mick and many an Irishman, Mr. McGrath wanted nothing more than to tend his farm. He welcomed the truce and the Treaty, his own aspirations not going beyond the holding he toiled over daily in Kilmallock.

We crested a hill and, in the mist ahead, I could see the crossroads. The turn would take me to Ballygowan and the castle, and it was there I would say farewell to my new companions.

“Americay sounds grand,” Mr. McGrath said as the cart slowed. Suddenly, his eyes seemed far off. “But we’ve lost so many.”

It took me a moment to understand what he meant. So many had left Ireland over the last sixty, seventy years—all seeking a life better than what Ireland could give, most never to return.

“It’s a dangerous time for Ireland now,” he continued. “I wonder what will happen to us all.”

His words continued to ring in my ears as the McGraths drove off into the mist. The sound of horse’s hooves began to fade and soon they were swallowed up by the fog. I turned, cinched my coat up around my throat.
I wonder what will happen to us all.

___

Shaking Mr. McGrath’s words from my head, I focused on the night ahead. I hadn’t been looking forward to finding my way through the ruins in the dark and now, thanks to the lift from the McGraths, I wouldn’t have to. The castle was only a mile away. The wind gusted and I shivered. Ignoring the cold, I thought of the castle and hoped things were as Liam and I had left them years ago. My clothes were damp and, although the tunnels and chambers would be dry, or mostly anyway, it would be a cold night. To make matters worse, I hadn’t eaten since the day before. I could survive one more night without food but being cold on top of the hunger would make for a miserable night.

I caught a glimpse of the field beside me and suddenly stopped, staring out over the wall. Remembering something from when I was a lad, I studied the sloping hill covered in heather.
This might be the right spot
, I told myself,
or if not it’s close
. I leaned the bicycle against the wall then clambered over and made my way down the slope through the heather. Twenty minutes later I found what I was looking for: a low-lying marshy area, several long trenches stretching into the distance, grassy clumps piled to the side. The cut peat was stacked in heaps, most as tall as I was. I picked up a brick. Despite the rain, it was hard. This was last year’s crop, having spent a season drying in the wind and the sun. I was alone in the field and with no one around to stop me, I helped myself. Laden down with an armful of peat, I made my way back up the hill to the lane. It wouldn’t last all night, but it would be enough for several hours of sleep.

Back at the wall I was about to stack the peat on top and climb over when I heard the sound of a motorcar. I dropped the peat and slid to the ground, not wanting to be seen, especially not when I was in possession of someone else’s peat. Cautiously, I peered over the top of the wall. The growl of the engine grew and, a moment later, a motorcar suddenly appeared out of the fog. My face hidden by the heather, I watched as it approached. A sudden chill run up my spine. Billy was driving and Kevin, another from our old brigade, was with him. There was a third man, one I didn’t recognize, in the rumble seat in back. I ducked my head behind the wall, cursing my luck. Pulling the revolver from my pocket, I prayed I wouldn’t have to use it.

The sound grew louder, then the growl of the engine suddenly dropped and I heard the squeal of the brakes. Fighting the panic growing inside me, I crawled along the wall, hoping to put a few feet between myself and the spot where they might have seen me. It was then that I remembered the bicycle and, cursing, I frantically crawled farther until I heard their voices. I froze. Memories of IRA raids came flooding back and, with them, the fear I had always felt before a battle. I thought of jumping up and unloading my revolver on them. If I caught them by surprise, I would have the advantage. But if they had seen me, surely they would have their own guns out. I couldn’t make out the words and I realized they were farther away than I expected. But the little I did hear didn’t sound like the frantic shouts of men in battle. Cautiously, I peered over the wall only to see Kevin lifting the bicycle—Seamus’s bicycle—into the rumble seat in back. Their companion, the man I didn’t recognize, held it somewhat awkwardly as Kevin climbed back in. Then the engine growled and there was a high pitched grinding of gears. It wasn’t long before the sound of the motor and the car itself were both lost in the mist. In the eerie silence that followed, the only thing I heard was the soft rustle of the heather in the breeze and my own heart hammering in my chest.

___

It had taken some time to find the opening, hidden as it was in the grass and the weeds and the stones not where I remembered. Finally, settled safely in the chamber that Liam and I had explored a dozen years earlier, I got the fire going. I watched the smoke rise, twisting and turning then finally disappearing into hidden channels and gaps above my head. It took a while before I felt warm again. My stomach ached, but I did my best to ignore it. Was it only a coincidence, I wondered, that Billy was in Ballygowan? He should be with Ernie O’Malley’s troops, marching on Limerick. What business did he have out here? There was no evidence that he had discovered the tunnels; the stones that Liam and I had placed over the opening all those years ago had been difficult to find in the fading light, covered as they were with years of vegetation. It was clear that he hadn’t been here. But then what had he been up to?

Seeing Billy had left me shaken. The crooked nose that sat over the square jaw, the dark, hooded eyes—the eyes of a hunter—Billy’s face was stuck in my head. My mind tumbled over what he could have been up to, out here, so far from the battle that was looming in Limerick City.

I realized he thought the bicycle must have been abandoned, the rider having grown tired of pushing it. And Billy had commandeered it. By tomorrow it would be repaired and put into use by the IRA. The bicycle, though, was the least of my worries. From what Liam had told me, the brigade had maintained a level of military discipline with weekly drills and meetings and no company more so than the one Billy commanded. While most residents went about their daily business, happy now that the British were leaving, the IRA in Limerick had continued to operate as if war might resume at any moment. And when it did, it would start in Limerick. So what was Billy doing out here, miles from the city? Surely he hadn’t been out looking for abandoned bicycles.

Recruiting was the only reason I could fathom, or perhaps meeting with the advance party of troops coming to support the Limerick IRA. A coincidence that I had seen him, I told myself, nothing more. Still as I stared at the soft flames of the fire, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something more.

I heard the men long before I saw them. Crouched behind a stone wall, well back from the crossroads, I watched the column marching towards Limerick. They were making no attempts to conceal themselves and, although their march was casual—rifles held loosely by their sides—they had the look of experienced soldiers. They weren’t wearing the new Free State uniform. I studied them as they passed, looking for faces.

Fifteen minutes later, I was still crouched behind the wall as the column faded in the distance. I had recognized some two dozen faces, men I knew and some I had fought with. They were part of O’Malley’s forces, true Republicans, men who had no love for the Treaty—what some had taken to calling
Irregulars
—come to chase Brennan’s Free Staters from Limerick. Tense as I was, I couldn’t help feeling proud as they marched by. 

I waited another ten minutes, hidden behind the wall, all the while my ear strained for more troops. Finally I stood, climbed over, and continued on my way.

___

It was because of Billy that I found myself in church two hours later, long after the morning mass was over. Cautiously, I made my way toward the altar. My footsteps echoed off the stone floor, the sound loud in the silence of the church. Knowing what I was doing was a sin, one more to add to the many that I had committed over my life, I shook my head, trying but failing to chase the dark thoughts from my mind. Twenty years of hearing there was no salvation for the likes of me had left its mark.

I took a breath again, trying to forget Father Lonagan and his eyes that were more often filled with scorn than with compassion and his voice more often filled with reproach than with understanding. I tried not to think about the hand that was quick to mete out a punishment for sins that couldn’t be forgiven by mere penance alone. Shaking my head, I tried to focus on the task at hand. What I wanted was in the small sacristy in back.

“And what do you think you’re doing here?”

I jumped at the sound, the deep voice thundering off the walls. Spinning around, my hands held up ready to fight, I saw Father Lonagan hidden in the shadows in the back. He stepped into the light, his eyes dark, his steps slow but full of menace nonetheless. 

“I asked you what you’re doing here!” his voice boomed again as he came toward me.

Halfway down the aisle, he stopped. His face contorted, disbelief mixed with rage.

“Frank Kelleher,” he said, his voice now a low hiss. “The nerve you have to defile God’s house with your presence! Get out!” He pointed toward the door, his voice rising. “Get out of my church!”

He continued to yell until I took a step forward. Then suddenly he went quiet, something flashing in his eyes. The indignation was gone, replaced by something else.
Confusion?

I continued toward him, stopping only when I was five feet away. His eyes darted around, suddenly nervous. He wasn’t much taller than I was—four or five inches at most—although that wasn’t how I remembered him as a child.

“All God’s children, Father, is that it?” I asked, my own rage rising. “All created in his image, are we?” I stared at him a moment, but he said nothing, “Yet somehow we’re sinners all and because of that there’s no escaping our fate.” I paused, not bothering to hide my own fury. “Did I learn that correctly?” I took a step forward and he backed up. “And supposedly, according to the shite you’ve been preaching for God knows how long,” I said, jerking my thumb toward the man hanging on the cross behind me—the one I had been taught to avert my eyes from because I wasn’t worthy, “because of his sacrifice, all is forgiven.” I took another step. “But here’s the thing, Father,” I continued as he backed up against the pew, “there’s something I don’t understand. Despite all of that, for some reason you’ve never explained, lads such as me are denied that salvation. Despite the masses every Sunday and never missing a holy day even when the fever was raging, despite the thousands of rosaries I said in penance ever since I was a wee lad”—I jerked my thumb up at the cross—”you have the nerve to tell me that this is denied me?”

His eyes darted to the side, looking for an escape.

“And despite what you’ve done yourself, despite your own sins, you have the nerve to judge me?” He flinched. I shook my head and, in the silence that followed, I could see the panic in his eyes.

“The British only terrorized us for seven hundred years, Father,” I said, pointing my finger at him. “How long will the Catholic Church?”

He shrank backwards but there was nowhere to go.

“You useless shite,” I hissed then stomped out of the church, leaving him in stunned silence.

___

I walked with a vengeance, my hurried steps a poor attempt to ease my rage. If anyone was a traitor, it was Lonagan and the men like him, men who had created their own holy doctrine, keeping a nation locked in a cage of guilt and self-loathing. It would have been nice to think that the abuses of the church—by popes who loved power more than they did their own God, by
holy
men who sanctioned the slaughter of millions during the crusades, by popes and bishops who built their own private armies and willingly used them against their enemies and who had amassed fortunes by stealing and selling indulgences all while they committed the gravest of sins themselves—were a product of the middle ages, practices that had died out long ago. Many did, but the totalitarian, authoritarian rule of the Church—one that controlled people through guilt and kept them ignorant of the truth and ignorant of the Church’s own hypocrisy—continued, and nowhere more so than in Ireland. The church hadn’t changed; the sermons of forgiveness directed outward somehow falling on the deaf ears of the men who spoke the very words. Maybe it was too much to expect.

Had it not been for Father Lonagan, I would have found what I was after. He left me with little choice. I would be forced to dye my hair again and wear the glasses—pretending I was Desmond Condon—until I found some other disguise. I crossed the bridge, then left the road, the church disappearing behind me. I wasn’t sure where I was headed but, needing time to think, I followed the stream, hugging the bank that twisted and turned along with the water. The tall grass grabbed at my legs, the thick mud clinging to my boots, but I hardly noticed. It was a half hour later, my boots swollen and heavy with muck and my trousers wet, that I stopped by a wide area, a calm pool that I remembered swimming in with Liam years ago.

I picked up a handful of small stones and threw them one by one into the water. The ripples marched out in all directions, row after row. It wasn’t five months ago that I had visited a church and then it was in New York; the same church—Catholic—but it couldn’t have been more different. Still it brought back memories of all that I had left behind and I had no intentions of setting foot inside a church again. Not until today. And even then, it hadn’t been salvation I had been after.

I sighed as I tossed another stone into the stream. The encounter with Father Lonagan had left me tired, the anger gone now, replaced by a weariness. Try as I might, I couldn’t shake the image of Liam, his seven year-old face crestfallen and his eyes full of tears.

___

I was only seven myself at the time but I had already learned how to fear. As I stood outside the door, I looked down at my hands, at the marks on my palms that never seemed to go away. I could already feel the sting that was to come. My chin began to quiver but I fought it. I dropped my hands—it wouldn’t do to torture myself—and let out a sigh. This time, I promised myself, I wouldn’t cry.

I heard the sharp slap of the leather, the howl from inside. I pushed it out of my mind and thought of what I would do that afternoon. Another slap, the howl louder this time. Sunday and there were no chores to do, not until after supper. I would go fishing with Liam, perhaps. A slap and then sobs behind the closed door. It was idle thinking, something to distract me. Liam wouldn’t go with me. Not now. Still I tried to fool myself, thinking he would.

The door banged open, startling me. Liam stepped out, his shoulders hunched and his hands balled in fists, held protectively across his chest. Tears streamed down his face. His eyes avoided mine, only seeing the floor as he passed me. My chin began to quiver again.

“Kelleher!” the voice boomed from within.

I took another breath, wiped my own eyes and stepped inside.

Father Lonagan stood by the desk, the handle of the leather strap in one hand, the frayed ends I had come to fear in the other.

He stared at me for a moment, his eyes penetrating, seeing, I knew, what I couldn’t see myself.

“What did you see, Kelleher?” he demanded. His face was red, his eyes dark and menacing like the clouds outside.

“I don’t know, Father,” I stammered. “There was you and Liam…”

“And?” he demanded.

“And…,” I began, not sure if he wanted the truth, but somehow knowing it would be worse to lie. “I…you…” I shook my head, unsure what I had seen. I had come back to the church, the cast-iron pot dangling, a meal for the Father. I had stopped outside the office, confused by the noises within. I opened the door—even now I’m not sure why—and there was Liam and Father Lonagan. But where were their trousers?

I shook my head as I stared up through the tears at Father Lonagan. What had I seen?

“It was like the sheep, Father...”

“What did you say?” he thundered as he stepped toward me. The flash in his eyes told me I had made a mistake.

I stepped back as his hand came down, the leather slapping loudly against the desk.

“What did you say?”

I shook my head, my chin quivering again. The answer caught in my throat. “I don’t know, Father.”

“How dare you lie to me!” he bellowed.

The leather crashed into the desk, the ceramic figure smashing to the floor. I stared down at the pieces, at Mary, broken on the stone below.

“Now look what you’ve done!” he screamed.

The leather strap rose then flew down, the sharp slaps and the pain like fire raging in my hand, shooting up my arm. Choking my sobs, I watched it rise again. I remember the strain on his face, the sweat on his lip as he swung his arm high and brought it crashing down again. And then again. And again. I don’t know how many times, a dozen, likely more; I lost count.

“How can you tell such lies with Mary and Joseph looking down at you?” he screamed, the strap held high in the air again. “And Jesus, right up there,” he said, out of breath, pointing to the crucifix on the wall.

I was blubbering by now and he lowered the strap, taking deep breaths himself.

“It’s a sinner you are, Frank Kelleher,” he said, his voice softer now, the rage gone but his eyes full of disappointment. “It’s the devil, for sure, filling your head.” He shook his own sadly. “I don’t know how God will ever forgive you.” He grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking hard. “But you must beg for his mercy and maybe he’ll listen.” He knelt on the floor, pulling me down. “You must pray. Kneel and I’ll pray with you.”

We prayed, Father Lonagan said the words while I choked on my own tears. He begged God to spare my soul, claiming I didn’t understand what I had done. My mind spun and, by the time we had finished the Hail Marys, the Our Fathers, by the time we finished the Rosary, I wasn’t sure what I had seen anymore.

Confused and with the weight of eternal damnation crushing me, I left, his final words ringing in my ears.

“You must never repeat any of these lies,” he said, each word measured. “To anyone. Do you understand?”

I looked for Liam outside, but he was gone and it was just as well.

When I got home and my mother saw my hands, my wrists, my arms—bloodied and blistered now—she took her own strap to me, certain that my sin must have been grave. Thankfully it was to the back of my legs and not my hands.

Neither Liam nor I ever spoke of that day.

___

I threw one last stone in the water and watched one ripple after another march across the surface—such a small thing but the impact continued long after the stone disappeared into the darkness below.