The Irishman's Daughter Page 19

  “Some crazed, starving soul killed them so he could feed himself or his family, I would guess.”

  “We can’t stay here tonight,” she said. “How can we sleep in a house where people were murdered?” She shook so violently, her arms fluttered by her sides.

  “We can’t sleep outside in the cold and damp,” he said in a calm voice. “At least in the cottage we can light a fire and eat. We can bring the horses in too.” He encircled her in his arms to stop her shivering. “I’ll take the bodies into the bog and weigh them down so the animals won’t get them.”

  “I can help,” she said, although her heart wasn’t in it. How much of the gruesome work could she take?

  “No,” Rory said gently as he led her to the door. “Why don’t you build a fire and settle us in for the night?”

  Tears rose in her eyes. How had it come to this? The Kilbanes murdered. She wanted to run as far away as she could from this house, but they had no real choice but to stay.

  He kissed her on the cheek and stepped inside the cottage while she waited outside. “If I can find a pair of gloves I’m going to use them.”

  She gazed at the ponies as she fought to rid the image of the Kilbanes’ bodies from her mind. Life had slid into tragedy and nightmare. She’d never known anyone who had been murdered, let alone been near their bodies. Murder was something that happened in Dublin or London, not in County Mayo. Of course, there was plenty of fighting—men took to it like roosters in a yard—but never killing. It was unheard of. For the first time since Rory had shown her the blighted plants, she felt that Lear House might slip from her family’s grasp. Everything she loved was coming to an end, and there was little she could do about it. She walked to her pony and stroked his flank. The earthy smell of horse flesh comforted her while the mist pattered down on her cap. At the moment, the animal was all the company she had.

  His head bowed, Rory emerged from the cottage with gloves and then disappeared behind its walls.

  * * *

  Rory found the gloves next to the fire pit. He knew that Frankie had used them to dig in the bog, because they were spattered with peat. He put them on as he stared at the bodies, wondering who could have committed such a heinous act.

  He placed his shoes on a tussock near the back wall, rolled up his breeches past his ankles, and prepared himself for the unpleasant task of removing the bodies. What if their arms came off in his hands or their legs detached from their sockets because they were in such a state of decay? What if they were swarming with lice or maggots? He forced those unpleasant thoughts from his mind as he grappled with the unpleasant undertaking. There would be no “proper burial.” The bog would have to do.

  He lifted Frankie’s body underneath the arms and hoped for the best. The corpse rose from the ground. He looked away from the man’s bloated and gray face, which bore no resemblance to the host who had shared his home and hospitality. Dragging the body across the swampy ground into the shallow waters, and nearly retching from the stench, he found a rivulet that spilled into a wider, deeper pool.

  Leaving Frankie, he returned for Aideen. She was lighter, but the body had stiffened into a constricted position. He had to carry her in his arms to the swamp. He deposited the body near her husband’s and then went in search of rocks heavy enough to secure the two under the water. Finding them, he placed the rocks on the corpses and watched them sink beneath the flowing water. By the time he was finished, he was sweating from the gruesome work. He took off the gloves, washed his hands in the rivulet, and splashed the water on his face, hoping to rid the stench from his nostrils.

  The bodies undulated from the force of the swift shallow current. Aideen’s hair waved like a mermaid’s under the sea, exposing the white bone of her skull. The water was deep enough from spring rains to cover the bodies, and if the wet weather continued they would remain in their watery graves throughout the summer.

  If I were a priest I could do this right. He bowed his head, said a prayer for the dead and for the living, and asked for the forgiveness of all sins. He crossed himself and then returned to his shoes.

  Who would do this? Could it have been the Mollies? He knew that some tenants had been asked to pay “dues” to the group, in addition to the landlord’s rent, an impossible task when food and money were scarce. Men like Brian Walsh had been threatened, but the Kilbanes weren’t tenants and probably had no interaction with the Maguires. No, this was murder, plain and simple, for food and money.

  He returned to the front of the cottage, his head filled with unpleasant thoughts. Briana was standing next to the horses. She looked small, somehow delicate, drenched by the persistent mist. His heart ached for her, but a silent strength emanated from her focused gaze. She had chosen him, and he would keep her safe through the night in a home tainted by death.

  CHAPTER 11

  Briana searched the house looking for the Kilbanes’ guitar and flute. Frankie had played the flute and guitar while Aideen sang on the first evening Briana, Rory, and her father had stayed there on their trip together to Westport. The night had passed in a blur of food and song. The Kilbanes would never have given up their musical instruments willingly for anyone.

  She and Rory talked briefly about the murders after they ate, but the topic gave her the chills despite a roaring turf fire. Rory was certain the instruments had been taken to be sold. He had inspected the shed and found the Kilbanes’ livestock to be gone as well.

  That night, Briana kept one eye focused on the door as she catnapped her way through the hours in a corner opposite the fire. Every creak and pop rattled her nerves and set her stomach tumbling.

  Her husband had done everything to make their stay as comfortable as possible, including building a fire large enough to keep the cottage warm and lit throughout the night, propping a chair against the door to keep out unwanted animals and intruders, and sheltering the horses in the traveler’s room.

  When dawn’s tepid light seeped around the door frame, she fell into a deep sleep and dreamed of leering, emaciated faces.

  When Rory shook her awake, she felt hot from the fire, tired from not getting enough sleep, and irritable from the prospect of the impending journey. They heated the last of their mush and soda bread and ate it before saddling the horses. The sun was blocked by thick clouds, but the mist no longer fell.

  Briana said a prayer for the peaceful rest of the Kilbanes’ souls as the horses trotted away from the cottage. She hoped they wouldn’t have to spend a second night in it on their return to Lear House.

  * * *

  Several hours later, they were within sight of the purple-hued peak of Croagh Patrick. The road had become clogged with a mass of people who flowed toward Westport like fall leaves fallen into the Carrowbeg. As they had done at Lear House, families burrowed into the earth, but here the shelter was less substantial. Sod and wood were scarce, having already been depleted. Thin men, women, and children in ragged clothes scattered about the road. If not in the burrows, the families trudged toward the village with eyes cast toward the ground.

  From the mountains, from the hills, from the farms, they came to Westport looking for food and work. Those who could walk appeared to be half-dead, their emaciated legs barely able to support them. Their clothes were ragged and torn, the skin of legs, arms, and backs showing through ripped fabric. A few reached out for them as saviors on horseback—faces twisted by the excruciating pain of hunger. Those who were able rushed toward them, begging. They clawed at the ponies’ sides and pulled at the animals’ reins as if to devour the horses themselves.

  “Get away!” Rory lashed out with the straps, slapping some people across their hands. They groaned and staggered away, unable to gather the strength to stop the animals.

  Briana cringed at their destitution and her husband’s violent action, which seemed like a whip in a slave owner’s hands. “Must you be so rough?” she yelled.

  Rory turned on her, his cheeks red with rage after they had passed the crowd. “Rough? If I
don’t fight them off, we’ll be lucky to get to Westport. They’d eat the animals out from under us, if I didn’t stop them.” Fury flared from his eyes. “Do I need to remind you that we have twenty pounds in our pockets—a fortune by any man’s measure. I’m sure the Kilbanes were murdered for less.” He pointed down the road. “Do you want us to end up like that?”

  Briana craned her neck to see what he had spotted. The village buildings were coming into view through the hills. In the distance, Croagh Patrick’s peak stood obscured by drab striations of ash-colored clouds.

  He thrust out his hand again, and this time she saw.

  Bodies. Some blended in so well with the trees and earth that she had to look twice to spot them. Corpses. Scores of them strewn across the fields like bloated seeds.

  The bodies lay in crumpled heaps, while around them black and tan specks whirred in the underbrush. She strained to see, unable to trust her eyes. The men, women, and children who walked in silence behind them, or stood complacently in the ditches, also seemed unaware of the dogs that were devouring the corpses, snapping at the tattered clothes, ripping flesh from the bone, eating the dead to keep themselves from starving.

  She gasped and uttered a prayer, the horror too much to take in. “My God” was all she could say.

  “Rough? You don’t want me to be rough?” Rory’s voice sliced through her with its bitter edge. “Look what our English governors, our protectors, are allowing to happen. It’s good the wind is blowing off the sea or we wouldn’t be able to stomach the smell.”

  “Please, Rory,” she said as a nauseous despair filled her.

  He lifted from his horse, and his chest heaved in a monstrous moan as tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Briana sidled next to him. The immensity of the famine, the pressure of holding everything together, including fearing for the lives of his brother’s family, had caught up with him. He needed to mourn the deaths of their countrymen, not bottle up his rage. The word struck her like a hammer blow as she rode beside him. Rage had hastened his entry into the Mollies. Now it was driving her husband, and she feared that its savage power might consume him.

  The starving, standing in shadowed doorways, hunched by the side of the road, lying in ditches, quietly shuffling down the street, remained a constant presence as they entered the city.

  Dishes clattered in The Black Ram, the public house where Briana had been accosted by the sailor. A cluster of starving Irishmen, beggars seeking scraps of food, huddled near the door but did not venture in. Inside, English sailors sat comfortably smoking their pipes and eating breakfast, less raucous than they would be later in the day when liquor flowed freely.

  “Poor devils,” Rory said as they passed their countrymen. “Begging for food, looking for work, or maybe transport to the Continent. No English sea captain is going to hire a starving Irishman unless it’s for swabbing slops off the decks.”

  Traveling above the village, past the stately mansion that looked to the east, they made their way to the port seeking the Captains the landlord had mentioned.

  The Tristan, Captain James’s ship, was not in port, but another, the Cutter, a three-masted steamer with sails folded, rocked in the swells of Clew Bay. Briana remained on her horse as Rory dismounted and made his way down the dock. Two seamen attired in white pants and tunic shirts talked to him for a short time. When he returned, he smiled and patted her horse’s flank.

  “Our friend, the Master, seems to have everything worked out,” he said with gentle sarcasm. The breeze off the bay swept through his hair. “Miller is the Captain of the Cutter. He’s in his quarters, but I do expect he will see us. Even the crew knows who Sir Thomas Blakely is.”

  They sat for a time watching sailors offload sacks of meal from a smaller ship that had dropped anchor in the bay. Two dragoons, attired in their high boots and stiff capes, guarded the navy men. The job was routine, organized and leisurely, as if the famine didn’t exist. For all their nonchalance, the crew might as well have been in a port half a world away. Sailors hefted sacks across their shoulders; some hauled the goods in wooden carts to awaiting wagons. A few emaciated Irishmen hovered at the corners of the stone port buildings like dogs looking for a handout. Rory stuck his hand in his pocket and fingered the money given to them by Sir Thomas. Briana noted his nervous gesture, which led to her own anxiety about who might be watching them. Uneasy, her eyes snapped around the quay.

  After a half hour, a sailor invited them to board the Cutter. The ship was anchored far out from the shallows to avoid being grounded at low tide. They boarded a skiff manned by two men who rowed them, bouncing over the waves, to the Cutter. One of the sailors helped Briana climb the rope ladder before escorting her and Rory across the top deck to a small door that led to a flight of narrow stairs. “The Captain’s quarters are up top,” the man said. “He’s expecting you.”

  As he left, Briana looked out across the deck. The view was magnificent. On the eastern horizon, the village sat in the hills beyond the imposing stone buildings of the port. To the south, Croagh Patrick thrust its peak into the clouds. To the west, the bay swells gave way to the infinite stretch of turbid Atlantic waters.

  The staircase led to another dark, wooden door inset with a circular portal of wavy glass. It provided the only light in the enclosure. Rory knocked, and a gruff voice responded, “Enter.”

  Captain Miller sat behind a large mahogany desk, his back to a wide expanse of windows looking north across the bay. He was corpulent, much like a fighting dog, older and stouter than Captain James. He wore a buttoned-up waistcoat and breeches of white, his stern face lined with scars from a lifetime on the sea. However, his eyes twinkled with a hint of benevolence from under his white hair, as if he managed to hold two contrasting personalities. Briana had no doubt after meeting him that the Captain adhered to strict English discipline. He invited them to sit and then waited for them to speak. Rory looked to Briana to tell the story, apparently hoping that the officer would be more amenable to a woman’s charms.

  “Sir Thomas Blakely has asked us to come in the hopes—”

  He stopped her with a wave of his hands. “I know what you’ve come for, and I’m sure Sir Thomas is prepared to pay for it.”

  Briana nodded. “The better part of fifteen pounds.”

  The captain’s lip curled in a crafty smile. “I’ve known the man and his father before him. I’ve sailed with their textiles out of Liverpool for many years. Yes, I know how the family operates. They get their way.”

  “We’ve come to ask for—” Rory said in English.

  The Captain’s hand went up again. “You’ll be getting ten sacks of oats, ten sacks of meal, three generous ham hocks, and if I feel unselfish, two large wheels of cheese. That’s all fifteen pounds will buy these days.”

  Rory’s face turned crimson, and he clutched his chair.

  Briana feared that her husband might erupt in front of the Captain.

  “That will barely feed Sir Thomas’s guests for two weeks,” Rory said. “We’ll need twice that amount to get by for a month.” He slid forward in his chair, barely hiding his contempt for the officer. “Where is all the other meal going?”

  “It’s really none of your business, but as Mr. Charles Edward Trevelyan, the assistant secretary, has pointed out, the English government has but one obligation to the Irish—the purchase and distribution of Indian corn to be placed at various depots by the commissariat.” He paused, allowing his words to sink in. “Does that make sense to your provincial minds? Have I made myself clear?”

  “Quite,” Briana replied in a stuffy English accent. For once, she wished Lucinda were in her spot to spar with the Captain.

  “You can thank Sir Robert Peel for the purchase of the meal. Most of it is going to the supply center for the Killeries in Connemara County where it will eventually be distributed.”

  Rory took the currency out of his pocket and tossed it on the Captain’s desk. “I’ve heard enough. We’ll be on our way as soon
as we can be assured that the supplies will be shipped to Belmullet and then on to Carrowteige.”

  “You have my word,” the Captain ordered, and deposited the money in his desk. “It’s good you didn’t come with a wagon. The less those poor Irish blighters see, the better. It would be best for you not to be seen with supplies. Something unfortunate might befall you.” He tapped a pistol on his desk. “Good day to you.” He dismissed them with a wave of his hand, looked down at an entry book, and began writing.

  As they waited for the skiff to take them ashore, a sailor approached them carrying a satchel of oats and two hunks of cheese. Shortly, the ship’s first mate, carrying an object wrapped in black satin, appeared at their side.

  “With the compliments of the Captain,” the mate said, and handed it to Rory. “He says you might need this.” A note was pinned to the satin, which Briana read aloud: With good wishes to Sir Thomas Blakely, friends by blood, Captain Cedric Miller, HMS Cutter.

  “They must be related,” she said. “He’s being generous.”

  Rory scoffed. “This food won’t last through the summer, depending on English appetites. What will the landlord do then?”

  “I suppose he’ll buy more.”

  “Yes, as Lear House goes down, he and his guests will dine in splendor while Irish food leaves our shores.”

  One sailor took the oats and cheese and descended the rope ladder like a trained monkey. Briana was second, her shoes slamming against the ship’s hull as it rocked with the waves. The sailor clutched her legs as she neared the skiff and guided her to its bottom. Clutching the satin parcel, Rory was next, followed by the second sailor.

  The saltwater leapt in silvery bursts over the bow as they skimmed across the bay. Sitting on a plank seat, Rory opened the satiny folds of the object given to him by the first mate. “Hello, what’s this?” He whistled in amazement. “It’s a . . . pistol.”

  Briana peered at the burnished metal and the flame-patterned wood resting on the satin.