Pay the Devil (v5) (3 page)

A young boy of fifteen or sixteen was standing beside him and he said excitedly, “Show them the watch, Dennis. Show them the watch.”

“In good time, Marteen,” Dennis said. He emptied his glass and placed it ostentatiously down on the bar. Someone immediately filled it and Dennis slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out Clay’s hunter.

He held it up by the chain so that it sparkled in the lamplight, and an excited murmur went up from his audience. “Would you look at the elegance of it,” someone said.

Clay moved forward slowly and stood at the edge of the group. The first person to see him was Marteen and his blue eyes widened in astonishment. Men started to turn and Clay pushed his way through them until he faced Dennis. “My watch, I think,” he said calmly.

There was a sudden silence. For several moments, Dennis stared stupidly at Clay, and then he seemed to recover his poise. “And what the hell would ye be meaning by that?”

Clay gazed slowly around the room. The faces were hard and unfriendly; some stupid, others with a glimmering of intelligence. Then he noticed the man who leaned negligently against the wall at the far end of the bar. He was tall and powerful, great shoulders swelling beneath his frieze coat.

His hair was the same color as Dennis’s, but there the resemblance ended. There was nothing weak in this man’s face, only strength and intelligence. He picked up his glass and sipped a little whiskey and there was a smile on his lips. He gazed into Clay’s eyes and it was as if they knew each other.

Clay turned back to Dennis and said patiently, “The money isn’t important, but the watch was my father’s.”

No one moved. Dennis scowled suddenly, as if realizing his reputation was at stake, and thrust the watch back into his pocket. He picked up his shotgun, which was leaning against the bar, and rammed the barrel into Clay’s chest. “I’ll give ye five seconds to get out, me bucko,” he said. “Five seconds and no more.”

Clay gazed steadily into that weak, reckless face, then turned abruptly and walked to the door. As he reached it, Dennis said, “Would ye look now? He’s messed his breeches for the second time this day.” For a moment Clay hesitated, and then as laughter swelled behind him, he opened the door and passed outside.

He pushed Joshua roughly out of the way and dragged a carpetbag out onto the coach step and opened it. He was not angry and yet his hands shook slightly and there was a familiar, hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“What is it, Colonel?” Joshua demanded in alarm.

Clay ignored him. He found what he wanted at the bottom of the bag, his Dragoon Colt, the gun which had been his sidearm ever since his escape from the Illinois State Penitentiary with General Morgan in ’63.

He hefted the weapon expertly in his right hand and then walked quickly to the pub door and opened it again. Laughter swelled to the ceiling as Dennis further embellished his story, and for the moment, Clay was again unobserved.

A stone whiskey bottle stood on the bar near Dennis’s elbow some twelve feet away. It was not a difficult shot. Clay levelled his weapon and pulled the trigger. The bottle exploded into pieces like a bomb, showering the men with whiskey and scattering them across the room.

Dennis’s face had turned sickly-yellow in the lamplight and his eyes were round and staring. His tongue flickered across dry lips as he frantically looked for assistance. No one moved and there was fear on every face, except for the tall man who still leaned against the wall at the end of the bar, but now his smile had gone and he held his right hand inside his coat.

Clay’s face was a smooth mask, inscrutable and yet in some way terrible. He moved forward and touched Dennis gently under the chin with the cold barrel of the Colt. “My watch!” he said tonelessly.

The youth’s face seemed to crumple into pieces and he produced the watch and purse and placed them on the bar top with shaking hands. “God save us, sir, but it was only a joke,” he said. “No harm was intended. No harm at all.”

For a moment longer, Clay gazed fixedly at him, and somewhere a voice said in a half-whisper, “Would ye look at the Devil’s face on him.”

Sweat stood on Dennis’s brow in great drops and there was utter fear in his eyes. Then Clay turned away, slipping the Colt into his pocket. The youth lurched to a nearby chair and collapsed into it, covering his face with his hands.

The publican, a large red-faced man, faced Clay across the bar and wiped his hands nervously on his soiled apron. “What’s your pleasure, sir?” he asked.

“Presumably you deliver liquor to local residents?” Clay said.

“I do indeed, sir,” the publican assured him. “I supply Sir George Hamilton himself.” He produced a dirty piece of paper and moistened a stub of pencil with his tongue. “What would ye like, sir?”

Clay pocketed his watch and purse and gave his order in a calm, flat voice, as if nothing had happened. “And I’ll take a bottle of brandy with me,” he added.

The publican pushed the bottle across and Clay picked it up and started to move away. “By what name, sir, and where shall I deliver it?” the publican demanded.

For the first time, a smile appeared on Clay’s face. “I was forgetting. Claremont House—Colonel Clay Fitzgerald.”

He turned away as an excited buzz of conversation broke out and, opening the door, went outside.

Joshua was standing by the open door of the coach and an expression of relief appeared on his face. “I was watching through the window, Colonel,” he said. “Next to your father, you’re the most cold-blooded man I ever did meet.”

Clay handed him the brandy and pushed him back into the coach. “I’ve got my watch back, which is more than I anticipated. All I want now is a meal and a fire. Whatever else we find at Claremont House, I hope we’ll be able to supply those things between us.”

As he moved to step up to the driver’s seat, the door opened behind him and closed again. Clay turned slowly, his hand sliding into his pocket. The tall man was facing him and he held up a hand and smiled. “No trouble, Colonel. I only came to thank you for not killing my brother.”

Clay took a quick step forward and brushed back the man’s unbuttoned coat, revealing the butt of a pistol sticking out of his waistband. “I noticed where you had your hand,” he said wryly.

The other nodded. “Sure, and I saw that you’d noticed.”

Clay shrugged. “He was in no danger. I’m not in the habit of killing boys. A whipping would be more in his line.”

“When his father hears of this day’s work, he’ll get that and perhaps more,” the big man said. He held out his hand and Clay took it.

“Kevin Rogan, Colonel. I knew your uncle well.”

Clay’s eyes widened in surprise. “Would you be kin to Shaun Rogan—Big Shaun, as I believe they call him?”

Kevin Rogan smiled. “My father—why do you ask?”

“I met a friend of his in New York,” Clay told him. “A man called O’Hara—James O’Hara. He gave me a package for him. If Dennis had stolen it, I wonder what your father would have said to that.”

A strange smile appeared on Rogan’s face. “You’ll be doubly welcome if you visit us with news of James O’Hara, Colonel. There’s a track starts at the back of Claremont House. Follow it three miles over the moor and you’ll come to Hidden Valley. Rogan soil, every foot of it bought and paid for.”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Clay said. “Tell your father to look for me.”

He pulled himself up into the driver’s seat and slapped the weary horse lightly with the reins. It started to move forward into the gathering dusk. As they turned past the tiny church at the end of the street, he glanced over his shoulder. Kevin Rogan waved at him and then opened the door and went back inside.

2

The house loomed unexpectedly out of the night, a dark mass beyond a low wall, and Clay turned the coach in between stone pillars from which the iron gates had long since disappeared.

The drive circled the house and ended in a large, walled courtyard where Clay brought the coach to a halt. It was then that he received his first surprise. Light showed through the mullioned windows, reaching out into the rain and shining upon the wet flagstones.

He jumped down to the ground and Joshua climbed out of the coach and joined him. “What do you make of it, Colonel?”

Clay shook his head. “I couldn’t say, but we can soon find out.”

The door opened to his touch and he entered into what was obviously the kitchen. Beams supported the low ceiling and logs blazed in the great stone fireplace, casting shadows across the room. Clay went and warmed his hands, a slight frown on his face.

Joshua busied himself with lighting an oil lamp, one of two which stood upon the table. As it filled the room with soft light, he gave a sudden exclamation. “Look at this, Colonel.”

Clay moved across to the table, as Joshua removed a white linen cloth revealing a loaf of bread, eggs, a side of ham and a pitcher of milk. A small sheet of blue notepaper carried the words WELCOME TO CLAREMONT in neat, angular handwriting.

Clay studied the message for a moment. “No name,” Joshua said, stating the obvious. “Now wouldn’t you call that a strange thing?”

Clay raised the sheet of notepaper to his nostrils and inhaled the fragrance of lavender. His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I thought it looked like a woman’s writing.”

“But who is she?” Joshua demanded.

Clay shrugged. “A Good Samaritan. She’ll declare herself in her own good time.”

Joshua lit the other lamp and illuminated the entire room. There were pictures on the wall, a carpet before the fireplace and comfortable chairs. There was an atmosphere of peace over everything, as if the man who lived here had been happy.

“One thing’s for sure,” Joshua said. “That man Burke didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Clay nodded. “I don’t think my uncle’s last days can have been too unpleasant.”

He took one of the lamps and crossed to a door in the far corner. It opened directly onto a flight of wooden stairs and he went up them quickly, Joshua at his heels carrying the other lamp. He opened the first door he came to and went in.

The room was small, but comfortably furnished as a bedroom, with a carpet on the floor. The mahogany wardrobe was empty and so were the drawers in the tallboy, but the blankets on the bed had recently been aired and the sheets and pillows were clean and white.

For no reason that he could put his finger on, he knew that this had been his uncle’s room, and for a moment he stood in silence by the window, staring out into the night, trying to form in his mind a picture of the man he had never seen.

There was a slight cough, and he turned to find Joshua standing in the doorway. “I’ve checked the other rooms, Colonel. There are five, all told. The room next door is furnished with a bed made up and ready for use. The others are empty.”

“Then that takes care of both of us,” Clay said. “Anything else along the corridor?”

Joshua shook his head. “Just a blank wall at the end.”

Clay led the way back downstairs. “I should say these were once the servants’ quarters. Presumably they were the only rooms fit for use after the fire.”

He crossed the kitchen to a door on the other side and tried to open it. It refused to budge and then he noticed the large key in the lock. He turned it quickly and the door opened without any further trouble. He was standing in a stone-flagged corridor that smelt cold and damp. Somewhere he could hear rain falling and he moved along the corridor, the lamp held out in front of him.

He mounted a short flight of stone steps and opened the door at the head of them. Immediately, he felt rain on his face and hastily placed one hand protectively over the open end of the lamp.

He was standing in what had obviously been the entrance hall of the house. A great stairway lifted into the darkness on his right and before him lay the scattered, dangerous mass of debris that had once been the roof and upper storey.

For a moment, the irony of the situation struck him. That seven hundred years of his family’s turbulent history should come to this and that he, the last of his name and born in an alien land, should stand among the ruins of a great house. A sudden gust of wind caused his lamp to flicker wildly and he turned back down the steps, closing the door behind him.

As he went back into the kitchen, Joshua came in from the courtyard, a bag in each hand. He placed them carefully on the floor and straightened. “I think you ought to have a look in the stables, Colonel,” he said. “You’ll find something mighty interesting there.”

Clay followed him out into the courtyard. The stables lay on the other side, its great doors standing open to the night, and he saw that Joshua had taken the coach and horse into shelter. A lantern hung from a nail and Joshua lifted it down. “Over here, Colonel.”

There was a soft whinny from the darkness, and when Joshua raised the lantern, Clay saw a horse standing in one of the stalls. It was a beautiful animal, a black mare with a coat like satin. A thrill of conscious pleasure went through him as he gently ran his hand across its hindquarters.

“Another gift from our Good Samaritan?” Joshua said.

Clay smiled. “She can make this kind of gift any time she wants. That’s one of the finest bits of horseflesh I’ve ever seen.”

“Things get more surprising round here minute by minute,” Joshua said.

He replaced the lantern on its nail and started to unhitch the coach horse. Clay moved forward quickly. “I’ll see to that,” he said. “You get a meal started.”

“As you say, Colonel.” Joshua pulled two more pieces of baggage out of the coach and walked across the courtyard to the house.

Clay took off his coat and unhitched the coach horse. He found an old blanket and gave the weary animal a rubdown. Afterwards, he led it into one of the stalls and gave it some of the oats and hay with which the black mare had been plentifully supplied.

The rain seemed to be slackening a little and he stood in the entrance and gazed out into the courtyard, breathing deeply, savoring the freshness. He was tired and his stomach craved food, but there was still something to be done. He pulled the leather travelling trunk out of the coach, hoisted it onto his broad shoulders and trudged across the courtyard through the rain.

He took the trunk straight up to his room.

When he went downstairs again, a smell of cooking filled his nostrils. Joshua was bending over the fire, an iron frying pan in one hand.

“Smells good, whatever it is,” Clay said.

The man smiled cheerfully. “Ham and eggs and fried bread, Colonel. I’ll see what I can rustle up tomorrow when I’ve got the hang of the stove.”

“We’ve dined on worse, and often,” Clay said.

The bottle of brandy he had got at Cohan’s was standing on the table, which Joshua had made ready for the meal. Clay poured a generous measure into one of the cups and carried it to the fire.

He subsided into a chair with a groan of pleasure, booted legs outstretched. “Best part of the day, Colonel,” Joshua grinned. “That’s what you always used to say on campaign.”

Clay swallowed some of the brandy. An expression of astonishment appeared on his face and he laughed and drank some more. “Something wrong, Colonel?” Joshua asked.

Clay shook his head. “Things grow even more mysterious, that’s all. This is some of the finest French brandy I’ve ever tasted. Now where would a broken-down little country publican like Cohan get such stuff?”

“I wouldn’t know, Colonel,” Joshua said, as he ladled hot food onto two plates. “But one thing’s for sure. Ireland is no fit place for a gentleman.”

“And Georgia is, I suppose?” Clay grinned as he took his place at the table. “I don’t think the Irish would appreciate your sentiments. In fact if the crowd in that pub was a fair sample of the locals, I’d keep your observations to yourself if I were you. They reminded me strongly of Hood’s Texans.”

Joshua shuddered and sat down in the opposite chair. “Nobody on earth could resemble Hood’s Texans, Colonel, unless the Devil went to work in two places at the same time.”

They ate in silence, each concentrating on the heaped plate in front of him. After a while, Clay sat back with a sigh and reached for the brandy bottle. “Joshua, I always did say that where food is concerned, you’re a miracle worker.”

Joshua took the praise as his just reward. “True, Colonel, only it was your father who said it first. That’s why he hung on to me when everything else had to go in those bad years before the war, after your mother died. He always said he’d have been lost without me.”

“And so would I,” Clay assured him.

Joshua didn’t appear to consider the statement needed any contradiction, and busied himself with clearing the table as Clay went back to his seat by the fire and relaxed.

He sipped his brandy and stared into the flames, more tired than he had been in a long time. Gradually, his eyes closed and his head nodded forward. He took a deep breath, forced himself to his feet and yawned. “It’s been a long day. I think I’ll have an early night. There’ll be a lot to do tomorrow.”

“I’ll bring your coffee at seven,” Joshua told him, and Clay nodded, picked up one of the lamps and opened the door to the staircase.

It was cold in the bedroom. He placed the lamp on the small table beside the bed and opened the window. The rain had stopped and the darkness was perfumed, as a small wind lifted from the trees beyond the courtyard. He breathed deeply, inhaling the fragrance of the wet earth. Then the tiredness hit him again and he had barely sufficient strength to strip the clothes from his body and climb into bed. He blew out the lamp and the darkness moved in at once to welcome him.

Clay was not aware of coming awake, only of the fact that he was lying there and that moonlight drifted in through the window with opaque, white fingers.

For a little while he lay staring up at the ceiling, wondering what had caused him to awaken, and surprised to find that he no longer felt tired.

He reached to the small table beside his bed and picked up the gold hunter. It was almost two o’clock, which meant that he had slept for no more than five hours. As he watched, the moonlight faded. He threw back the bedclothes and padded across the floor to the window.

It was a night to thank God for, the whole earth fresh after the rain. He stood there, his skin crawling with excitement, a small, restless wind touching his naked flesh. It was a quiet night, the only sound a dog barking several fields away. Then the bank of cloud rolled away from the moon and the countryside was bathed in a hard, white light. The sky was incredibly beautiful, with stars strung away to the horizon where the hills lifted uneasily to meet them.

At that moment, he became aware of another sound, a hollow drumming that was somehow familiar. As he leaned out of the window, a rider, etched against the sky, appeared from the trees beyond the courtyard and galloped along the rim of the valley where the moors began.

As he watched, the rider reined in his mount sharply so that it reared up on its hind legs. For a brief moment, the horse and rider were like a statue, completely immobile. Clay stared up toward them and suddenly, for no reason he could analyze, knew he was being watched. As he drew back quickly, a gay mocking laugh drifted down toward him and the horse snorted and leapt forward, as if the spurs had been applied, and disappeared over the rim of the valley.

Clay dressed hurriedly, his brain clear and cool. There had been too many mysteries already at Claremont; this was one he intended to solve. He went downstairs silently, boots in one hand, and paused in the kitchen to put them on. A moment later, he was crossing the courtyard to the stables.

He opened the door, allowing the moonlight to stream inside, and as he moved toward the black mare through the darkness, she whinnied softly as if she had been expecting him. He found a saddle and bridle hanging by the stall. They were of English make and lighter than he was used to, but he quickly led the animal out of her stall and saddled her.

As he tightened the girth, there was the scrape of a shoe behind him and he turned quickly. Joshua was standing there, reproach large upon his face. “Damn your eyes for an old night owl,” Clay told him.

Joshua sighed. “What you do nights is your own affair, Colonel, but going by what’s happened already, you’d be doing me a favor if you took this.” He held out a belt from which was suspended the Dragoon Colt in its black leather holster.

Clay took it from him and buckled it about his waist. “Anything for peace. I swear you’re more fussy than an old woman.” He swung up into the saddle. “Now go back to bed—that’s an order.” He clicked his tongue and the mare moved out of the stable door and across the courtyard before Joshua could reply.

When he reached the rim of the valley, he paused and looked about him. The dog still barked hollowly in the distance, the sound somehow bringing back to him so many hot summer nights in Georgia, when, as a boy, he was unable to sleep and had longed to do just this.

He urged the mare into a canter, and as they came out onto a stretch of springy turf, broke into a gallop. It was an exhilarating experience as he crouched low over her neck, the wind cold on his face. They must have covered a good mile when he started to rein in and halted beside a clump of trees.

He leaned down and gently rubbed the mare’s ears. “You beauty!” he said softly. “You little beauty!” And the mare tossed her head and rolled her eyes as if understanding what he said and liking it.

A horse whinnied from somewhere nearby, and as the mare replied, he hastily turned into the trees and dismounted. Several horsemen appeared over a small rise no more than twenty or thirty yards away. They paused and he heard one of them say quite clearly, “It was a horse, I tell you, and not far from here.”