Chapter Four #3
He forced those thoughts to the back of his mind.
No use dredging up the past now. He had a missing cousin to find.
The Randy Cock was the usual spot Judson’s wreckers could be found early in the morning, even after spending the night plying their trade along the coast. It was rare that a storm with heavy winds, like last night’s, had not sent at least one ship toward their shore.
Judson’s wreckers were always ready with lanterns strategically placed to lure unsuspecting ships toward the jagged rocks.
And when the survivors hailed the men they thought would save them, the wreckers would give a half-hearted attempt that more often than not sent those remaining alive to their Maker.
Maritime law decreed that with no survivors, the cargo was free for the taking.
Technically it belonged to the Crown…but the king wasn’t in Cornwall.
He opened the door to the tavern and heard low laughter. “Had him dead to rights,” a bull of a man boasted. “He couldn’t outrun a lead ball from my pistol.”
O’Malley’s blood ran cold—they were talking about Flaherty!
“I had my pistol cocked, ready to fire. He had nowhere to go.”
“What happened?” a deep voice demanded.
“The bloody bastard jumped off the cliff!”
O’Malley saw red. The man had shot his cousin in the back! He recognized the speaker—Selkirk, one of Judson’s wreckers! “Where is he?”
The man spun around and snorted. “The coward landed on the rocks and disappeared beneath the waves.”
O’Malley grabbed Selkirk by the front of his coat and lifted him off his feet. “You shot a man in the back and label him the coward?”
Judson’s man tried to break O’Malley’s hold on him, but couldn’t. “He ran! Cowards run when they are cornered.”
O’Malley deliberately kept the emotion out of his voice when he corrected the man, “The coward is the one who shoots a man in the back.”
The rumbling of agreement behind him should have soothed his anger, but instead it escalated. Rage tore through him. He fought against the urge to choke the life out of the man. “Where. Is. He?”
The wrecker challenged him with a look, and O’Malley wrapped a hand around Selkirk’s throat. The man’s eyes widened, as if he’d finally realized that O’Malley would increase the pressure until he crushed the man’s windpipe. He rasped, “The cliffs halfway between here and the tower.”
O’Malley’s fingers dug into the man’s throat, and for a heartbeat he wanted to end the man’s life—but he could not break his vow to the duke.
Every man in the duke’s private guard had vowed never to take a life unless it was absolutely necessary and would save the life of a member of the duke’s family.
He eased his hold on the wrecker and said, “Penwith.” Selkirk’s nod was all the confirmation he needed.
“If Flaherty’s dead, there is nowhere ye can run to where I won’t find ye and send ye to Hell!
” O’Malley knew the duke would hold him accountable for the wrecker’s death, but right now all that mattered was that the man understand that he would keep his word.
He flung the man away from him into an empty table.
Pleased to hear the sounds of wood splintering, he opened the tavern door.
“Ye’ll be reimbursed for the damages,” he called back.
The satisfaction that he had a lead on where he could find his cousin did nothing to alleviate the worry scraping his guts raw. It was time to have a serious talk with Flaherty about withholding information from him. “Ye’d better not be dead yet, ye bleeding bugger. I owe ye a beating!”
He mounted his horse and rode back the way he’d come.
As he crested the rise where the land leveled off, he saw the stone tower a distance ahead.
“We’d best start our search here, laddie.
” Dismounting, he took the reins and led the gelding over to a patch of grass.
“Don’t eat too much—ye’ll want to be saving room for the cup of oats waiting for ye at the stables. ”
His horse ignored him in favor of nipping mouthfuls of sweet grass.
Bracing himself for what he hoped he would not find, O’Malley stood, legs braced apart, scanning the shoreline in both directions.
The drop-off was gradually higher near the tower.
Praying he was right, he walked toward one of the paths that wound down to the beach.
Last night’s rain packed down the sandy soil—it made for easier going descending the steep path.
O’Malley took his time scanning his surroundings as he carefully made his way to the beach. Standing with the sea to his back, he studied the edge of the cliff for any sign of a disturbance. Finding none, he scanned another section. “Where the devil are ye, Flaherty?”
A kittiwake’s call had him turning toward the sound.
The little gull flew along the cliffs as a gannet dove into the water, impressive as it plunged, chasing its breakfast. A distance away, he spotted puffins in their nesting spots along the face of the cliffs.
The activity was a sign that if his cousin had been here within the last few hours, he was long gone.
Swallowing his growing unease, he started walking in the direction of the duke’s tower, looking for any signs of a disturbance along the base of the cliffs—though last night’s rain was heavy enough that it could have washed away the imprint of a body…or footsteps.
“I’m wasting time when I could be asking questions.” St. Ives’s residents were a curious bunch and would have stopped Flaherty to speak with him if he’d been in the village for more than half an hour.
O’Malley retraced his steps and headed south in the direction of the village for the second time that morning.
The gradual slope of the land had him hoping that if his cousin had fallen, he’d done so nearby.
Any one of his cousins could have survived the shorter drop.
But the longer O’Malley searched, the deeper his worry.
He had not found a single sign that anyone had walked along the base of the cliffs or fallen near the jagged rocks.
As another seabird flew overhead, the mournful cry reminded him—Selkirk said that Flaherty had dived off the cliff.
Would he have managed to right himself so he didn’t land face down?
Mayhap he hadn’t taken a dive as if he were going for a swim but had leapt off arms wide, legs spread, hoping to slow his descent.
O’Malley cursed. “Add in the rain and the wind, and he’d be fighting against the elements.” He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to imagine what that would have looked like, if he were standing here last night witnessing his cousin’s brave leap of faith.
“The wind would have fought him.” He frowned.
“Flaherty’s strong and would have managed to keep his arms and legs from flailing about.
” Opening his eyes, he glanced over his shoulder and noticed part of the cliff above jutted out over the beach.
He walked toward the spot. Standing below it, he looked up, judged how far his cousin would have managed to jump if he had a running start—which he should have if someone was shooting at his back.
O’Malley moved a few steps away from the cliff base, then a few steps more.
“Here. He would have landed more or less right here. Bloody hell! My vision is skewed because of the height difference.” Keeping an eye on the spot he’d designated as where Flaherty could have leapt from, he walked farther away, judging it far enough.
Then he stood staring at the cliff. In his mind’s eye, he visualized his cousin being shot in the back.
Flaherty would have had no choice but to run toward the sea, though the odds were that he’d land on the rocks below—if luck had been with him, he could have plunged into the sea.
His throat tight, his chest burning, O’Malley prayed, “Lord, ’tis O’Malley again.
I need yer help finding me knot-headed cousin—ye know, without me saying his name, that I mean Flaherty—before the men who tried to kill him get to him.
” The knot in his throat loosened and the burn in his chest eased, and he knew his prayer had been heard. “Thank ye, Lord.”
O’Malley retraced his steps and ascended the winding path to the cliff face.
He scanned the area for his horse and found the beast where he’d left him.
“Didn’t I warn ye about overeating, laddie?
” He took hold of the reins and gained the saddle.
“I’m thinking we should pay a call on Doonan to see if his daughter was at the Mermaid’s Glass last night.
She may know more than the Doyle sisters. ”
With the press of his muscular thighs, he urged his horse from a walk to a trot, following the road that would take them back to the village.
He wouldn’t rest until he found his cousin—the Flaherty brothers would expect no less, and would do the same if one of the O’Malleys or Garahans were missing.
Determination had him urging his mount to a fast trot. He would find Flaherty and give him hell for disappearing. Hopefully his cousin would be alive to hear the lecture he planned to give him!