Chapter Thirty-Five
The horror of it was unspeakable. Moira, her youngest boy, Joseph, and two farmhands lay sprawled in the rough grass. They
were dead. A single glance told Rynn that, but she bent and checked each one. No pulse, no respiration, the bloodied bodies
only faintly warm. Shot to death. Murdered.
The darkness mercifully veiled the worst details of their wounds.
There was nothing she could do for them. Owen knelt beside Moira’s body, his head bent, his hands splayed on his thighs.
Rynn went to him, put a hand on his shoulder. She could feel how hard he was breathing—great shuddering gasps.
“Owen,” she said.
His head came up. He didn’t say a word. Instead, his arms went around her and he pulled her close and pressed his face into
her waist. He was still breathing with those deep, harsh inhales.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him, silently offering what comfort she could. She could feel the weight
of his head pressing against her, the strength of his arms in the tightness of his grip. The depth of his pain.
His shoulders shook. Bending over him, cradling him as she would a bereft child, she held him close, while her heart broke
for him.
The farmhand reached them. He was agitated, weeping, his words emerging in bursts.
“It was a carload of them. Four, altogether. They came roaring up and kicked down the door without so much as a knock. Then they came back out with Mr. James in handcuffs, and Mrs. Clary flying after them, screaming that he was just a boy and to let him go. Then Mr. Joseph come running out with a rifle to try to stop them and they turned their guns on him and Mrs. Clary cried out, ‘No, stop, he’s only fourteen!’ It didn’t make no difference.
They shot Mr. Joseph, just like that. Mrs. Clary started screaming and went for them and they shot her, too, and Murphy and Doyle, who was just standing there because there wasn’t nothing they could do, shot all of them one after the other, so quick you couldn’t even take in what was happening until it was done.
Mr. James was screaming and they hit him, and then they drove off and took Mr. James with them.
I was in the barn, Major, feeding the horse, and I heard the noise and came out and I couldn’t get to them to do anything.
By the time I got over here it was done. ”
Holding Owen protectively close, wishing with every cell in her body that she could turn back time, or in some way shield
him from this evil that no one could stop because it was already done, she felt him shudder. He tensed, the muscles bunching
in his shoulders. The cadence of his breathing changed, steadied. Then he let her go and stood up, his arms hanging loosely
at his sides, his posture that of a boxer who’d gone ten rounds but was still poised to fight.
“The Tans took James, you say?” His voice was flat. His focus was on the farmhand.
“They did. And that’s not all. Mr. Tim came right after, him and some of his friends.
Out looking for Mr. Alfie, they’d been, and when he saw what had been done, Mr. Tim snatched up the rifle that was laying right there by Mr. Joseph.
He was crying and cursing and yelling to his friends that he was going to go rescue Mr. James and kill the bastards—begging your pardon, missus—that did this and then he jumped back in his car, his friends with him, and they all went off after Mr. James and the Tans. ”
“What?” Owen shot out the question like a bullet.
“That’s what Mr. Tim did. He was crazed with grief. There was no stopping him.”
“Damned stupid—” Owen took a breath. “How long ago? And which way did they go?”
“No more than ten minutes, I’d say. And Mr. Tim and the Tans, they all went off that way.” He pointed.
“All right.” To all outward appearances, Owen had himself under control again. “Qualls, I want you to carry Mrs. Clary and
Mr. Joseph and the others into the house, then take the horse and ride to the village and fetch Father Doherty back here to
them. Tell him to do what needs to be done and that I’ll be in touch.”
He was already running toward the car as he finished. Rynn ran after him.
“I’ll do that, Major. I’ll take care of them,” Qualls called.
“What are you doing?” Rynn gasped out as she caught up with Owen.
“I’m going after them. I’d leave you here, but I think you’re safer with me.”
“Of course I’m going with you.”
Just ahead, Alfie had the car door open and, having levered himself into a sitting position, was leaning out of it. Unable
to use his wounded leg, he was nevertheless trying to sling himself out.
“Mam? Is that Mam? Has something happened to Mam?”
“Get back in the car,” Owen barked at him, sprinting around to the boot, which he opened. To Rynn, who’d followed him, he
added, “You, too.”
He pulled his rifle from the boot, slammed down the lid.
Rynn ran to Alfie, who was still trying to get out of the car.
Bundling him back inside, she closed the door on him.
She just managed to get into the front seat as Owen slid his rifle onto the floor and jumped behind the wheel.
Slamming the car, which was still running, into gear, he shot back out onto the road.
“Did something happen to Mam?” Alfie was so frightened his voice squeaked.
Rynn’s throat tightened. How do you tell a child he’d lost his mother?
“She’s dead.” Owen’s voice was grim. “As is Joseph. Shot by the Tans, the both of them. They’ve taken James and we’re going
to get him. “
The savage bluntness of it took Rynn’s breath.
“It’s my fault. It’s my fault, isn’t it? I got them killed! Mam! Mam!” Alfie’s wail pierced Rynn’s heart.
“It’s not your fault. If fault there is, it belongs to me. I never should have left a passel of idiot boys out here where
they could find trouble when I knew there was trouble for them to find.”
The very flatness of Owen’s tone lacerated her heart even more.
“It’s neither of your faults.” Rynn glared at Owen, then slewed around to glare at Alfie. “Neither of yours, do you hear me?
It’s solely the fault of the Tans who shot them, so don’t be putting that blame on yourselves.”
There was no reply to that. Alfie subsided back against the seat with only the occasional muffled sob to be heard from him.
Granite-faced, Owen too was silent, concentrating on the road as he drove like a man possessed.
Hands on either side of her, Rynn held on to the edge of the seat for dear life as the car rattled and bounced.
Even lit as it was by moonlight, the narrow, rutted road with its high, grassy banks on either side and hairpin turns that limited visibility to the section immediately ahead offered little in the way of forgiveness.
If a car came from the opposite direction, or there was some obstruction in the road like, say, a broken-down wagon or a wayward flock of sheep, there would be little time to react.
A collision under those conditions was almost a given.
“Where are they? We should have caught them by now.” It was the first thing Owen had said in a quarter-hour. His hands gripped
the wheel like he meant to break it. He whipped around the latest sharp curve and cursed under his breath as another dark,
empty section of road unspooled before them. The windows had started to fog up, so Owen rolled his window partway down to
clear them. Smelling of peat fires and wet sheep and grass, the cold air blowing in served a dual purpose since it also kept
Rynn wide-awake.
They were up in the hills now, with rolling fields and the occasional farmhouse and sheep, always sheep. The moon, a pale
ghost of itself, was nearing the western horizon, indicating that dawn wasn’t far away. The road had seen a few branches trailing
off from it, but Owen had driven straight on with the surety of a man who had a destination in mind.
“Could they have turned off somewhere?” Rynn asked. She’d been silent, too, until now. The atmosphere in the car was so heavy,
so fraught with pain and tension, that any attempt at conversation would have felt profane.
“It’s possible, but I think I have a fair idea of where they’re going. If they’ve taken James, it’s most likely to interrogate
him. They have a secret prison up near Lough Gill where they do such things. We’re close now, though, and we’ve not caught
so much as a glimpse of either the Tans’ car or Tim’s.”
“Tim’s out here?” Alfie spoke up from the back seat. His voice was thick and raw.
“He’s gone after James, too. What we’re trying to do is get there first,” Owen said.
“Does he know about . . . Mam?”
The tiniest wobble before he named his mother broke Rynn’s heart all over again.
“He does,” Owen said.
“And—and James?”
“He does,” Owen said again. Paradoxically, his uncompromising tone revealed to her how much he was hurting.
Rynn’s eyes stung. She wanted to weep for the pair of them, for all of them. But now was not the time. Now was the time to
be strong.
The road branched again just ahead, with the main part continuing on the path they were on and another, even narrower, lane
climbing up a steep hill. Rynn was surprised when Owen turned up the hill.
“I want to get a look at the lay of the land,” he said in response to what must have been her questioning expression. The
lane was rough and rutted, with a tumbledown stone fence on one side and a steep slope on the other. “If we’re high enough,
we might be able to see them on the road.”
Without slowing down at all as far as Rynn could tell, the Vauxhall bumped and jolted through the darkness until it was speeding
along a plateau that afforded views in every direction. The lane itself was a disappointment. It didn’t rejoin the road it
had left but curled back around on itself at the end of the plateau to connect with another rural path.
“There’s a car,” Alfie cried.
Rynn saw it, too. A big car, a saloon of some type, its headlamps cutting through the night as it raced along on the road
below. It was well ahead of them, and Owen accelerated as though to catch up. Then she sucked in air as she saw, some distance
behind it, a smaller car, running without lights. Knowing what she knew, it was clear it was Tim giving chase.
“Owen,” she said.
“I see it.” His voice was grim.
The big car below rounded one of those hairpin bends with which the road was rife, putting it out of view of the smaller one following.
Then, to Rynn’s astonishment, it did an immediate about-face, turning back the way it had come in a sliding U-turn and stopping in the middle of the road as the Tans inside leaped out. Shouldering rifles, they dropped into a crouch beside the car.
Ambush. As they came around the bend, Tim and his friends would be sitting ducks.
“Fuck,” Owen yelped, and slammed on the brakes.
Thrown forward without warning, Rynn barely managed to catch herself before she hit the windshield. Even as she was slung
back into her seat, she saw that Owen, standing on the brake, had snatched his pistol from its holster and was aiming it out
the window, his eyes narrowed, his face a study in concentration. Before she had time to do more than blink at him in surprise
he fired, the sound a single sharp crack that was loud as an explosion in the close confines of the car.
To her horror Tim’s car seemed to jump up in the air before careering off the road and overturning in a field.
“What are you doing? That’s Tim you’re shooting at,” Alfie screamed, surging forward in the back seat. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“The side of the bloody angels.” The ferocity with which he said it made Rynn’s blood run cold. Having wrenched the parking brake, Owen jumped out, snatched
up his rifle and started firing in an entirely different direction.
Four sharp cracks: that was all it took. Rynn watched in shock as the Tans were mowed down.
“Stay put, the two of you,” Owen ordered over his shoulder, and ran down the slope toward the Tans. Moments later, he reached
the big saloon. The sound of two more shots being fired made Rynn wince. Apparently, two Tans had been still alive.
“There’s Tim.” Alfie sounded relieved. Looking toward Tim’s car, Rynn saw that two, no, three boys had emerged from it and were standing up. From that distance they were small dark figures cloaked in night, but Rynn was just able to tell that one of them held a rifle.
Tim, she was almost sure.
Then she looked back toward Owen. He was moving around behind the saloon. A smaller, stockier figure now leaned against its
side.
James.
She slid over into the driver’s seat and shut the door. Then she eased off the parking brake, put the car in gear and drove
down the grassy hill.