The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller (19 page)

“Can you make them for me?”

“Sure and you don’t need me.” Mary scowled. “There’s a store in Limerick that sells them.” She folded her arms across her chest, her eyes narrow, disapproving.

I waited. She knew I couldn’t go to Limerick. Not now.

After a moment, I saw her chest rise and she let out a heavy breath. “I’ll go tomorrow.” 

I thanked her, but she waved her hand, the discussion done.

“You haven’t been to Abbeyfeale.” It was a statement not a question.

I shook my head. “Nay. I’ll be going soon, but I’ll need the vestments first.”

She nodded, already aware that I hadn’t gone. She studied me in silence, her eyes searching for something.

“Have you found what you’re after?” she asked. The disapproval was gone, or mostly; her eyes were curious.

Have you found what you’re after?
I didn’t know how to answer.

“It’ll do you no good, all this trouble you’re stirring up.” It was a reproach, but at the same time it wasn’t. No clipped words, no commanding tone, just a statement. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”

“Aye, Mary.” I sighed. “But I have to try.”

She nodded as if she had known my answer all along. “Come back tomorrow, in the evening,” she said as she turned away.

I studied her back for a moment. Something was wrong.

“And Tim?” I asked.

She reached for the table. Her shoulders began to shake, and I realized what a fool I had been thinking the only troubles in the world were my own.

“He’s gone,” she said softly, still facing away.

“Billy?” I asked.

When she turned back, her cheeks were wet. She nodded.

“Aye. He left last night.”

She buried her face in her hands, a sob escaping. I stepped forward, taking my wife’s sister in my arms. She heaved, great shudders wracking her body as her tears spilled on my shoulder.

“I’ll find him.” I said softly.

“No!” Mary pushed away, striking my chest with her hands. “You’ll only get yourself killed!” I grabbed her wrists gently and leaned forward. I wrapped my arms around her once more.

“I’ll find him,” I said again. “And I’ll bring him back.”

She sobbed again and I suddenly saw her for what she was. Not as the older sister who had raised my wife, not as the head of the Irish Women’s League
,
not as the woman with iron in her spine. She was a mother, worried over her child that had fled. 

She pushed away, gently this time. “I know,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I know.”

___

Tim was fifteen, already a man, and yet he wasn’t. Sure he would fight when given the order. But he had no fight in him. It had been different for me. The knowledge that our cause was just, the dream that burned from within, these are the things that made me a soldier, as they had the men I fought with. Knowing there was something greater for this godforsaken country of ours, whose soil was forever below our nails and in our blood, we had been willing to die for Ireland. No such fire burned inside Tim. His fight would come from fear alone, but the uncertainty within his heart would kill him in the end. The battlefield was littered with the bodies of men who had no conviction, men who—deafened and frozen by the bombs that tossed up great clods of dirt and panicked by the bullets that chipped away at the stones they hid behind—had hesitated for a brief moment, glancing down at the rifle in their hands, and wondering what had put them there, with death marching closer and the screams growing louder, and for what?  

Tim would never survive. I had to find him before it was too late. I wondered if one of my old comrades—one of the men from my brigade who, like Mick, no longer had any loyalty to Billy—could tell me where he was.

Padraig was a boot maker, or was before the war. I had known him as a child, when he had gone by the name Patrick. Along with adopting the Irish form of his name—something he had done when he joined the Volunteers—he insisted that he was a boot maker, not a cobbler.
I don’t cobble
, I
remember him insisting once, holding up a pair of boots, pointing to the stitching, explaining the unique pattern he crafted into every shoe he made.
A shoe like that,
he said with no small amount of pride as he spun the half-finished form for me,
is a shoe that will last.

Padraig had been wounded a month after I left—this I had learned from Liam—and now walked with a wooden leg. Although he and Billy had been friends at one time I wasn’t certain they were anymore. Both Liam and Mick had hinted that something had come between them, something related to the raid where Padraig had been shot. Padraig wouldn’t be fighting anymore, not with the leg, but something told me that he still might be able to help me find my nephew.

I hoped I would find him in his shop or, if not, that his father would know where he was.

After visiting Margaret’s grave and saying a prayer for my daughter, I set out for Ballygowan where I spent the night in the castle. With candles and a blanket from Mary and the bit of food she had given me, I was comfortable, or as comfortable as I could be. Still, sleep eluded me, and the little I finally got hadn’t been peaceful at all. My dreams had been filled with scenes and the sounds of the war: the Crossly Tenders full of soldiers, the explosions and the fire, the cracks of the rifles, and then the screams of men who had been wounded—Irish or British, it sounded the same. I saw the faces of the men I had killed, both those I had intended to and those I hadn’t. They floated past, looking as they had when they had died, some with their eyes wide, surprised at the bullet that had found them, others their faces contorted in pain, their eyes squeezed shut as if to hide from the death that had finally come. And then there were those with their mouths open, their screams silent but filling my head as the flames consumed them.

Tired and haunted, I set out at first light.

___

Padraig lived in Kilteely, nine miles from Ballygowan and five miles from Lough Gur, or at least he had when I’d last known him. Gray clouds filled the sky, but thankfully it wasn’t raining. Other than a few men in the fields, I saw no one on my journey. The roads were dry and two and a half hours later, I found myself outside Padraig’s shop.

I heard the rhythmic tap of the hammer, and I peeked through the window. Padraig was sitting on a stool, an awl in hand. The leather that would become a shoe was stretched over the wooden
last.
I watched as Padraig slipped the awl through, then first pushed then pulled the needles, drawing the thread tight. When he finished, he tapped the hammer along the seam, spinning the
last
as he did. Thankfully, there was no one else in the shop.

I glanced in both directions and, seeing no one on the street, I slipped inside, careful to make no sounds. The smell of leather and oil was strong as was the smell of peat from the stove in the corner.

“It’s a fine boot you make, Padraig,” I said softly.

He spun on his stool, wide-eyed.

“Frank Kelleher!”

I felt a moment of pride, having surprised him—the IRA had taught me well. My skills hadn’t left me, on the run as I had been for the last year. But Padraig had settled back into a boot maker’s life, his days as a soldier and the skills that Billy had taught us soon forgotten.

“Is it yourself, Frank?” Padraig smiled and shook his head. “Jesus, it’s good to see you!”

He dropped his hammer on the bench, slid off the stool and hobbled over, an awkward gait with one leg dragging behind him, never quite able to catch up. I sensed he meant me no harm, and I stepped forward to meet him.

“Ah, Jesus,” he said as he threw his arms around me, “I was afraid they’d killed you.”

There was a noise outside, and I felt him stiffen. He let me go and pushed past me, moving faster than I thought possible with his leg.

“They still might,” he said over his shoulder, “if you’re not careful.” He bolted the door then closed the shutters on the window. He came back, slower now, and I could see the pain on his face.

Seeing my reaction, he forced a smile. “Ah now, Frank. There’s many worse off than me.” He pulled another stool over. “Here. Come,” he said, patting the seat. “Sit with me.”

I did.

We talked, sharing our journeys over the last year. He told me how he had been wounded, the Crossley Tender, the military vehicle favored by British soldiers, coming on them by surprise. When the machine gun roared, they were defenseless. With no bombs and no machine gun of their own—theirs was hidden in the weapons dump, the ammunition exhausted weeks prior—there was nothing they could do but duck below the wall and pray.

Padraig had told Billy and the men to make their escape, to slide along behind the wall until they were clear. He told them he would stay and provide cover fire.

“They began crawling off, Billy and the others, while I slid the other way, hoping for an opportunity to take a shot.” He shook his head slowly, his eyes suddenly far off, back on that lonely rain-soaked road. “I don’t know how I was hit, behind the wall like that. Glanced off the stones, the bullets must’ve, but I was hit twice in the leg.” He tapped below his knee, the sound of knuckles on wood. He was silent for a moment, his face becoming dark. “He left me like that, Billy did.” He shook his head and I could see the pain in his eyes, pain that came from the memory and not from the wounds to the flesh.

But as quickly as the darkness had come, it was gone. He waved the memory away and smiled again.

“Ah now, Frank. You didn’t come all this way to hear about my troubles.”

I smiled back and answered his questions, most of them anyway. I spoke mostly of America but little of what I had done since I returned. He had been Billy’s friend long before he had been mine and, despite his story, I was wary.

“America’s grand, sure, but with the war over, I had to come back.”

“What are you on about, Frank?” he asked as he shook his head. “It’s a fine time you’ve picked, coming home now and another war certain.”

“Aye, I know.”

He smiled again, but the question lingered in his eyes.
Why had I come back?
I had come back for Kathleen and our child, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. The real question was: w
hy had I stayed?
I wasn’t sure how to answer, how much to tell him.

“What happened that night?” he asked softly. There was no malice in the question, no judgment, just curiosity.

I took a breath and told him about the raid on Argyll Manor, how I had been outside when the British, who must have been hiding somewhere inside, had opened fire. I told him that with Dan, Tom, and Sean all wounded, I had no choice but to hit the plunger.

“They knew we were there, the British did,” I said. “There was an informant alright, but it wasn’t me.”

He nodded slowly. “I know.”

I stared back, not certain I heard him right.

“Sure, I thought it was you at first. We all did.” He waved the thought away, as if it never mattered. “Do you remember the lookout?”

“The lookout?” I asked, confused. “That was the problem, we didn’t have any.” As soon as I said it, I realized I was wrong. An hour before the raid, we had been hiding in the heather, waiting for the scout, a boy of sixteen named Rory Conklin. He finally came, and while Sean, Tom, and I provided cover, Dan went out to meet him. The road was clear, he told Dan. The British patrol that had been sighted an hour earlier were now miles away.

“Rory?” I asked, not believing my own question. He seemed a good lad, I thought, and would make a fine soldier one day.

Padraig nodded. “I went to see Billy the next night. I had heard what had happened, and I was sure he was going to ask me to do the job.” He sighed as his eyes drifted off again.

Do the job.
He was to be the one who would put the bullet in my head.

“Rory was there,” Padraig continued. “He was crying, and Billy was shaking him, hitting him. ‘
You don’t know what you’ve done
,’ Billy said over and over.” Padraig’s eyes found mine again. “Rory disappeared that night. Put on a boat to Canada, I heard later.”

“Rory was the informant?” I asked as my mind tried to put together the pieces. “Billy knew?”

“Aye. Billy knew.”

“And he still tried to kill me?”

Padraig nodded slowly. The color had drained from his face. “I wish I had done something. I told him it was wrong, that he’d already lost three men and here he was sacrificing another and an innocent one at that.” Staring at the ground now, he shook his head, not meeting my eyes. When he looked up I could see the tears. “I didn’t think he would do it, Frank. I swear on my mother’s grave, I didn’t.” He shook his head again. “By the time I heard about it, you had already escaped and Liam had been captured.”

He sighed, his breath loud in the silence between us.

“Something had changed in him,” he continued after a moment, his eyes far away again. “I never trusted him after that. And then when I was shot…” His voice trailed off.

“Why did he let Rory go?” I asked, confused. “Why did he blame me?”