Cry of the Hunter (11 page)

When he awoke he was stiff and cramped. Anne Murray’s head was pillowed on his shoulder and he gently pushed her over into her own seat. The clock on the dash-board showed the time as a quarter-to-four. He started up the engine and backed the car into the road without waking the other two.

The rain had almost stopped and he felt curiously refreshed and alert. The road began to lift before him and the engine took on a deeper note as it started to pull strongly on the hills. Gradually a faint light suffused the sky in the east. Within half an hour he could see quite clearly the bulk of the mountains rising before him.

The rain stopped and he opened the side window and drove with the wind fanning his cheek. Overhead a flight of wildfowl called to him as they lifted over the grey bald faces of the hills. The car moved on through a quiet glen and the skies slowly cleared as the sun showed through.

At about five-thirty he turned the car into a narrow, badly surfaced road that was little better than a track. There was no signpost pointing its destination. About ten minutes later the car lifted over a sudden rise and there below was a small, silent valley. Fallon braked and lit a cigarette. In the midst of a clump of old beech trees an ancient, grey-stone farmhouse was rooted into the ground. He released the handbrake and the car rolled down the steep hill into the valley. As he watched, a tall, gaunt woman stepped from a door and stood holding a bucket, one hand shading her eyes as she looked towards the descending car. Relief flooded through him. It was Hannah Costello. There was a slight groan beside him and Anne slowly awakened. She opened her eyes and stared sleepily about her. ‘Where are we?’ she said.

Fallon grinned. ‘We’re here,’ he said as he turned the car off the track into the farmyard and cut the engine.

CHAPTER NINE

T
HE
wind rushed through the beech trees plucking most of the remaining leaves from the branches and lifting them high over the roof top. Fallon stood at the kitchen window and looked across the valley to the heather covered hillside. His eyes lifted to where the mountain tops touched the sky and a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He felt completely relaxed and at peace. There was a sound behind him and he turned round. Hannah Costello carne into the room. ‘A nice girl yon,’ she said simply.

He nodded. ‘What have you done with her?’

‘I’ve put her in my bed,’ Hannah said. ‘The poor young creature’s all in.’

He moved across to the table. ‘She’s not used to the life.’

‘And how would she be and her a decent young woman?’ Hannah said fiercely as she broke eggs into a frying pan.

Murphy came in, his face shining and his hair tousled and damp. ‘What a place, Mr. Fallon,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Peace and quiet – and the air. I’ve never tasted anything like it.’

Hannah Costello lifted the eggs on to two plates and put them on the table. ‘There, get that inside you,’ she said. ‘There’s plenty of bread and jam, if you’re still hungry afterwards.’

Murphy eagerly started eating. He swallowed the first mouthful and said gaily, ‘Marvellous! You’ve got the touch all right, Mrs. Costello.’

She snorted. ‘None of your blarney here. You’ll pay for it whether you like it or not.’ She picked up two buckets and turned a forbidding look on Fallon. ‘I’ll be in the cow byre. I want to see you when you’ve finished your breakfast.’

When she had gone Murphy grimaced. ‘What a woman, Mr. Fallon. Never the soft word from that one.’

Fallon smiled. ‘You’ll soon find out that she is soft,’ he said. ‘Oh, she’ll charge us for everything we have, but she’ll do anything she can to help. She’s a good woman. I wonder what happened to those two sons of hers.’

Murphy grinned. ‘The appetite this place gives you she probably couldn’t afford to feed them any longer.’

Fallon smiled, swallowed a cup of tea, and went out into the bright morning. Two or three white clouds scudded across a blue sky and the warmth of the sun touched his face. He sauntered across to the cow byre and went in. His nose wrinkled with delight at the old, familiar smell of animals and straw. He chuckled and said, ‘There’s nothing quite like the smell of a cow byre.’

Hannah Costello was sitting on a stool milking. She smiled over her shoulder and said, ‘You know what they say – once a farm boy always a farm boy.’

He moved across and leaned on the stall beside her. ‘There’s something in that,’ he said. ‘Country pleasures are the only ones.’

She laughed grimly. ‘Aye, on a day like this with white clouds and a blue sky but come up here in January. You’d soon change your mind.’

He laughed lightly. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ He watched her for a moment and then said, ‘What’s happened to the boys?’

Her shoulders dipped rhythmically as her hands worked. She stood up and moved to the next cow. ‘James is dead,’ she said. Her voice was quite flat and unemotional.

‘What happened?’ Fallon said in surprise.

She sighed. ‘He got tired of the farm. Fancied going adventuring. He joined the Ulster Rifles. He was killed somewhere in Korea. I never could remember the name of the place.’

‘There was another, wasn’t there?’ Fallon said. ‘A younger one?’

She nodded. ‘You mean Charlie – he’s still here. He’s eighteen now.’

Fallon frowned in puzzlement. ‘Where is he? He must have been out early.’

She finished milking the cow and sat back on the stool. ‘He didn’t come home last night,’ she said. ‘He does that often. Spends the night on the hillside watching the stars or some such foolishness.’ She stood up and said briskly, ‘He took bad with the meningitis when he was thirteen. His wits are clean gone.’ Fallon couldn’t think of anything to say. She gazed at him quizzically. ‘You aren’t by any chance feeling sorry for me are you?’

He smiled and reached for the milk pail. ‘Well almost,’ he said.

She slapped his hand. ‘Put that damned pail down. I’m not decrepit yet.’ She leaned against the stall. ‘Now give me a cigarette and tell me what you’ve been up to. I haven’t seen a paper in a week.’

He told her everything from the very beginning – from the night O’Hara and Doolan had arrived at his cottage. When he had finished there was a long silence. After a while he shifted uncomfortably and said, ‘What do you think?’

She grunted scornfully. ‘I think you’re the biggest bloody fool in the world,’ she said. ‘That’s what I think.’ She shook her head. ‘The one thing I can’t forgive is the way you’ve involved that poor girl. You’ve ruined her.’

He nodded his head several times and kicked viciously at the side of the stall. ‘I know. I know. But there was a sort of inevitability about that. And anyway,’ he added defensively, ‘she’s absolutely in the clear as long as Rogan keeps his mouth shut. The trouble is, I think he’ll spill his guts if the police get their hands on him.’

She picked up the pail and he followed her from the byre. ‘I know Rogan,’ she said. ‘He stayed here last year. He’s a bad one. The worst I’ve ever come across.’

Fallon sighed. ‘I don’t know where they found him. He’s a fine example of the Irish patriot, I must say.’

She laughed coldly. ‘The Organization has to take what it can get these days and that’s the truth of it. They aren’t getting the educated idealists like they used to. They have to recruit from the scum who’d have ended up on the wrong side of the law anyway.’

‘It was different in the old days,’ he said wistfully.

She turned on him, suddenly stormy. ‘Of course it was,’ she said. ‘But times have changed. You’re an anachronism. You’re out of date – old fashioned.’ She shook her head sorrowfully. ‘You should never have come back.’

He took a deep breath and managed a smile. ‘I’m beginning to realize that.’ For a moment he stood silently, kicking at the ground with the toe of his shoe and then he said, ‘I think I’ll go for a walk. If young Murphy tries to follow me head him off will you? I’d like to be on my own.’ She nodded sombrely and he turned on heel and cut across the yard and out of the gate.

At the back of the farmhouse there was a small glen slanting back into the hills and he plunged into it, scrambling over a jumbled mass of great boulders and stones.

The glen lifted a little and the boulders gave way to thick heather and springy moss. A small stream rattled over white stones and he stood listening to it for a while and then a cloud drifted across the face of the sun and a shadow fell across that place. The sound of the stream faded into the background and there was only the silence. Fallon turned deadly cold and a thrill of elemental fear moved inside him. Here in this quiet glen he was face to face with the silence of eternity and he suddenly realized his own insignificance in the general scheme of things.

He stood as if turned to stone, hardly daring to breathe, and then the sound of the stream gradually came back to him and a small breeze rustled through the heather. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the beads of perspiration from his brow. When he sat down on the springy turf and put a cigarette in his mouth, his hands trembled slightly. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs and after a while he felt better. He stretched out on his back and narrowed his eyes against the brightness of the sky.

He began to think about Anne Murray. Hannah had been right, of course. Anything that had happened to the girl was entirely his fault. He should never have gone back to her house on that fatal night. When he considered things logically everything that had happened was his fault because everything could be traced back to Rogan and he was the one who had set Rogan free. He realized one thing very clearly. Anne Murray would have to go. The only trouble would be in persuading her that such a course was sensible. He sighed and closed his eyes and his sigh merged with the breeze and the soughing of the heather and the rattle of the water over the stones and he slept.

When he opened his eyes Anne Murray was sitting by his side gazing pensively into the stream, lost in some dream world of her own. He lay quietly watching her for a while and suddenly, with a sense of wonder, he realized that she was beautiful. He stirred and sat up. She turned quickly and a smile appeared on her face. She glowed as if a lamp had been turned on inside her. ‘How do you feel?’ she said.

He smiled gravely. ‘Not so bad. How long have you been here?’

She shrugged. ‘About half an hour. You haven’t been sleeping for very long. Hannah told me you’d come up this way. She said she thought you needed me.’

He nodded slowly. ‘I see. That was considerate of her.’

‘Don’t be bitter,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t suit you. She’s a good woman. I like her and what’s more, she likes you – very much.’

‘They always do,’ he said. ‘Even my mother thought I was the darlin’ boy.’ He took out his cigarettes and offered her one and she shook her head.

‘What’s got into you?’ she asked. ‘There’s a bitterness in you at the moment. That’s something I haven’t noticed before.’

He smiled apologetically. ‘Wormwood and gall. I’m not very proud of myself at the moment.’

‘I see.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Any particular reason?’

He shrugged. ‘Lots of reasons. Nearly everything that’s happened during the last few days is my fault.’

‘Rogan’s!’ she interrupted.

He shook his head. ‘Mine! After all, I was the one that set him free.’

She laughed in a peculiar way and shook her head. ‘And I thought you were intelligent.’

A tiny flicker of anger moved in him. ‘Don’t you think I am now?’

She shrugged and said warmly, ‘Then start thinking like an intelligent person. You’re blaming yourself for what Rogan’s done. All right – you set him free. I’ll grant you that, but where does anything begin? Do you know? I’m sure I don’t. What made Rogan what he was? What started him along his chosen path? Are you to blame for that?’ She shook her head and said slowly, ‘If it comes to that, what started
you
off in this game?’

He threw pebbles into the stream in an abstracted manner as he replied. ‘Something deep down in the depths of childhood. A bright dream. Banners and heroes and the old tales. Charles Stuart Parnell and Wolfe Tone.’ He sighed. ‘Most men grow out of things like that – I never did, that’s all.’

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s something more than that. Something that’s inherent in the Gael. A sort of agonized eternal struggle inside that moves him towards self-destruction.’

For a moment he remained sitting on the ground staring into the stream thinking about what she had said and then he jumped up and laughed gaily. ‘For God’s sake let’s forget about it all, for an hour or two at least.’ He reached out a hand and pulled her up. ‘Look around you at the hills and the sun and the heather. It’s a perfect day and it’s ours to do with as we please.’

The colour swept into her cheeks and she laughed and pushed back her hair, blown by the wind. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘What shall we do?’

‘Climb to the top of the mountain,’ he said. ‘We’ve just got time before dinner.’ He grabbed her hand and they started to scramble up the glen side.

It was not a very high mountain but when they came out on top of it she caught her breath and gave a deep sigh of contentment. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.’

Fallon gazed out over the mountainside and nodded. It
was
beautiful but not in the way that she was. He stood slightly behind her and watched her wistfully. The wind folded her skirt about her legs outlining the long clean sweep of her limbs and her golden hair sparkled in the sun. She fitted perfectly into the scene. A golden girl in a golden day and a terrible sadness swept over him because he knew that this day was a special gift from fate. A short breathing space before the darkness closed in finally.

He pulled himself together and let the wind blow his black thoughts away. Today was theirs and he was going to damn well enjoy every minute of it. He reached out and took her hand in his and cried, ‘Come on!’ and plunged down the mountainside.

Anne Murray was shrieking with delight as they rushed downwards, stumbling over the tussocks, never stopping until they were once more in the small glen by the stream. She collapsed against Fallon breathless and laughing. He held her lightly in his arms for a moment and then she looked over his shoulder and her eyes widened. He turned quickly. Standing knee-deep in the heather on the opposite side of the stream was a youth. He was tall and thin with long hair and bowed shoulders and there was a vacant expression on his face. He smiled and leapt across the stream with one agile bound and came towards them. He carried a canvas sleeping-bag under one arm and a dead rabbit swung from his other hand. Anne stepped back in alarm and Fallon tightened his arm about her shoulders. ‘Don’t be alarmed. This will be Hannah’s son – Charlie.’

The boy stood a few paces away from them and held up the dead rabbit. ‘I found it,’ he said. ‘A stoat had him but I chased him away.’ He looked at the rabbit and said sorrowfully, ‘He’s dead.’

Fallon smiled. ‘What are you going to do with him. Have him for dinner?’

An expression of indignation flashed across Charlie’s face. ‘I’m going to bury him. I always bury them.’

Anne moved nervously and Fallon whispered, ‘Don’t worry. He’s absolutely harmless.’ He raised his voice and said, ‘Did you have a good night?’

Charlie smiled and nodded. ‘I slept in the old shooting hut on the other side of the mountain and when the rain stopped I went outside. The stars were lovely – like diamonds sparkling in the sky – thousands of them.’ There was an expression of ecstasy on his face.

Fallon squeezed Anne’s hand reassuringly and said, ‘We’re going down to the farm now. Are you going to come with us?’

Charlie smiled eagerly. ‘I’d like that. I like it when we have people staying. We haven’t had anybody staying for a long time now.’

As they went down the glen towards the farm he walked beside them, sometimes running a little distance away to look at something, like a child. He talked constantly about the birds and the animals that lived on the hillside as if they were personal friends. ‘What happened to him?’ Anne whispered to Fallon at one point. He explained about the boy’s illness and compassion appeared on her face. ‘How terrible. I’ve come across one or two cases like it during my hospital work. It’s one of the most depressing things a doctor can handle. There’s so very little that can be done.’