Thrice Familiar

by Carolyn Haines

  “That devil knows how to live,” Mauve said, balancing a tray with one hand and petting the cat with the other. “I’ll bring your coffee.”

  Catherine glanced at her watch. She’d been too nervous to really enjoy the food. It was drawing close to eight. When would the call come?

  “You can’t rush it,” Patrick said, picking up her hand and kissing her palm. “They’ll call. Old Mick is of no value to them. What they want is the horse.”

  “What will we tell them—?”

  The telephone in the hallway shrilled. Catherine clutched her napkin and remained frozen at the table. Rising swiftly, Patrick went to the phone.

  “The Nelson residence.”

  “Patrick?” Old Mick’s voice sounded foggy, confused. “Is that you? Patrick, they have me, and they want the horse. No matter what they say, don’t tell them—”

  There was a break and a new voice came on the line.

  “The old man can’t take much more of what we’ve been giving him. If you want him back alive, you’d better hand over the horse.”

  Patrick studied the inflection in the man’s voice. No matter how hard he tried to sound tough, there was something else there, a core of educated pronunciation.

  “Perhaps you’d better speak to Miss Nelson.” Patrick signaled her to the phone.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Catherine said before the caller had a chance to say anything. She felt Patrick’s fingers squeeze her shoulder tightly.

  “Let them talk,” he whispered to her.

  “We don’t want to hurt him anymore,” the caller said. “It’s the horse. A fair exchange, I’d say.”

  “What can you hope to accomplish? Even if you have him he’d be valueless to you.”

  There was a pause. “The horse. We have to have him by tomorrow. If not, the old man suffers.”

  “We don’t have Limerick,” Catherine said. “You’re a little late on the thieving front. Someone has already taken him.”

  “Don’t play me for a fool!”

  “Check the barn! Check the hideout where Limerick was. Old Mick knew about it. Tell him to tell you. The horse is gone.”

  “This isn’t a game. We get the horse, or the old man will suffer.”

  Patrick took the phone from Catherine’s hand. “She’s telling the truth. Limerick’s been stolen. Check wherever you’d like.”

  “You’ve got him hidden until the race Saturday. You think you’re going to trick everyone.”

  “It’s a fact. Let Old Mick go, and we’ll forget about this. This is my warning to you. If that old man is hurt in any little way, I’ll hunt you down. You’ll suffer tenfold anything you do to him. That’s a promise.” Patrick returned the receiver to the cradle.

  “Did he believe you?” Catherine asked.

  “I can’t be certain.” It was a definite gamble, and Old Mick was the stakes. “Old Mick sounded good enough. A bit confused, as if they’d been giving him something to keep him calm. If that’s the worst of it, he’ll come out of this fine.” He didn’t mention the fact that the kidnappers might not want to leave the one witness who could identify them.

  But Catherine was no fool. “Old Mick knows who they are. They won’t forget that.”

  “If they don’t hurt him, then they have nothing to worry about. That man understood what I was saying. I gave him a way out where he can return Old Mick and go on about his business.” Patrick turned Catherine’s face to the light. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, blinking back tears. “I’m worried about Old Mick and Limerick. I feel so helpless.”

  “Was there anything about that voice that you recognized?”

  “He was trying to change his voice. He was trying to sound like he’d grown up on the streets, but he hadn’t. He was educated.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Patrick frowned. “I keep going back to Ridgeway with this.”

  “And to think, I invited him in here. I showed him Limerick.” Catherine shook her head and walked back into the dining room where Mauve had cleared the table and left coffee. “What a fool I’ve been.”

  “We’ve no proof that Ridgeway has Limerick or Old Mick,” Patrick reminded her. Light from the chandelier glittered on her bowed head. Her shoulders were slumped, her posture reflecting dejection.

  Unable to resist, Patrick moved behind her, circling her with his arms. “You did what you thought was right, Catherine. There was no malice. How do you think I feel about the horse? I stole him, and I lost him. My only excuse is that I did what I thought was right. If anything happens to him, or Old Mick, I’m to blame.”

  Catherine turned in his arms. “There’s no point in either of us blaming ourselves.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Oh, Patrick, if we could only go back to a month ago.”

  He kissed the top of her head, remembering the way she’d ignited in his arms at the racetrack. Gently he released her. “Drink your coffee and grab a jacket.”

  “To Clifden?” she asked.

  “To find the ghost of Cuchulain.”

  15

  Sitting in front of the fire in the Adams’ home, Patrick watched Catherine accept the cup of tea that Mrs. Adams offered. Before them, a fire flickered in the quiet house. The children were in bed asleep. The two women smiled at each other, a shy offer of friendship. Patrick was momentarily struck by the openness that Catherine exhibited. How had he ever thought her cold and arrogant?

  “It gave us a bit of a scare,” Ralph Adams said. “Tamara and me and the three children were walking home. There’d been a flat on the car and, of course, the spare was flat, too. The fog was thick, and it was chilly, but not too bitter for a walk. It seemed the quickest way to manage.”

  Patrick sipped his tea. “Where were you exactly?” he asked.

  “Not far from here. The sharp curve about a mile back. Right at the bend.”

  It was exactly the point where Patrick had nearly run over the old man. “And this was two nights ago?”

  “Exactly.” Ralph looked at his wife.

  “We’d been to visit my sister, Beatrice. It’s our regular Sunday outing,” Tamara said. “We’d stayed longer than we planned.” She shook her head. “I won’t be traveling that road at night again. I must have had ten years scared off my life.”

  “He came out of the mist?” Patrick said encouragingly.

  “There was the thunder of hooves,” Tamara said. She’d sat down on the edge of a chair and her eyes were sparkling as she recalled the event. “I gathered up the baby and held him in my arms. I couldn’t be certain what was happening. It was those hooves striking the ground. In the gray mist and all, the first thing I saw were the sparks flying on the pavement. I swear to you I thought old Lucifer himself was coming up the road, clanging his tail behind him.”

  “The children must have been terrified,” Catherine murmured.

  “No more than us,” Tamara said. “The horse was enormous, a big gray animal with nostrils flaring. The man astride was hidden in a black cloak, but he rode bareback. That much I remember. I thought, ‘How can he stay with that big animal without even a saddle?’”

  Patrick lowered his cup. Only Catherine saw the way his fingers clutched the delicate handle of the china. “And a bridle? Did he ride with a bridle?”

  Tamara furrowed her brow. “I can’t rightly say. He had reins, but it could have been a halter. I didn’t pay that much attention to what was in the horse’s mouth. I was more taken by the man. His shoulders were broad, his legs long and hugging the sides of that dancing horse.” She cast a glance at her own husband, a man of average height who’d begun to accumulate a stomach. “No harm in looking, Ralph, especially since it was a ghost.” She smiled at him, a smile full of affection.

  “He was a big man,” Ralph agreed. “It was dark, but even in the broad light of day, he could have passed for a god. And that voice.”

  “What about it?” Patrick felt his excitement grow.

  “The purest Irish I’ve ever heard. He spoke in Ga
elic, as if he’d never been taught another tongue.”

  Patrick felt as if he’d been slapped. He realized then how much he’d wanted the rider to be English, to be Kent Ridgeway. That way, at least, he’d find pleasure in dealing with Ridgeway on a one-to-one basis.

  “Who speaks Gaelic?” Catherine asked. “I know it’s taught in the schools, but does anyone really speak it?”

  “A few scholars, some young people who’re interested in preserving the language. Some of the older people.” Tamara skirted the obvious—the political groups who wanted Gaelic as the official language. She smiled at Patrick and continued talking.

  “I remember the story about Cuchulain’s birth. He was born at the same time as twin horses. The horses were given to him as gifts, and they’d been blessed by the ancient ones, the gods. One was black and the other gray. It was the gray that he rode into battle as a young man.” When she saw recognition of the tale in Patrick’s eyes, she turned to Catherine. “It was said that when Cuchulain was injured, his horse felled forty of the enemy with his hooves.”

  “And what happened to the horse?” Catherine’s pulse beat in the temple at her forehead.

  “He was killed in the battle, but he saved his master.”

  The fog had been building as Catherine drove Mauve’s compact up the Clifden road toward the Adams’ house. On the way down, her headlights couldn’t even penetrate the thick, swirling mass of moisture.

  “Bad night to be out,” Catherine said. She was trying to think of anything to say. Patrick was silent as a stone in the passenger’s seat. Tamara Adams had brought all of his worst fears to the forefront.

  “When you get to the curve, stop,” Patrick said.

  Catherine didn’t argue. There was nothing Patrick could see in the fog, but what would it hurt to stop and look?

  She concentrated on her driving as she eased along in the fog. Images danced in front of the lights, tempting her to apply her brakes too fast. They were only slivers of fog, shifting and dancing on the wind that blew from the Atlantic.

  At the curve, Catherine pulled far to the left and got out. The fog immediately touched her face, a moist greeting with a sinister promise in it. She felt beads of moisture spike her eyelashes, and she blinked them away.

  Patrick got out and from the pocket of his jacket withdrew a flashlight. He searched along the side of the road, looking for an imprint in the soft ground.

  Leaning against the fender of the car, Catherine watched, wisely saying nothing. What good would it do to find a hoof print? Would it prove it was Limerick? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, the outcome didn’t look good.

  “Patrick, why would someone want to stir up things now? I mean, Tamara said Cuchulain was trying to rouse them to fight for freedom. This isn’t the north.”

  “You don’t have to be born in Belfast to have a hope for Irish freedom,” Patrick said. His voice was tense. “It’s not a subject I’m fond of discussing. I know Mauve has told you about Colin and my sister, about how she sneaked out of the house and caught the train to Belfast to stop her older' brother from getting killed.” There was a pause before Patrick’s voice came out of the fog, slightly distorted by the moisture in the air.

  “She was only thirteen. She tracked him to the city, and then to the place where he was supposed to be. Only it was a trap. No one ever claimed the bomb that was hidden in the building, but it didn’t matter to us. What mattered was my sister died.”

  “Mauve told me,” Catherine said gently. Her hands splayed across the fender of the car. She wanted to go to him, to hold him and help ease the pain he still suffered. But now was not the time to offer solace to Patrick Shaw. The angry sound of his strides let her know that he needed action, not sympathy.

  “I would think they’d ask for money if they had Limerick. What I could scrape together would buy them a lot of things.”

  “What? Bombs? Guns? That’s great, so there can be more and more killing.”

  Catherine bit her lip. Patrick was an enigma. She didn’t know where or how he stood on the issue of independence, but it seemed he wanted peace for his country, and for himself.

  She was about to suggest that they get back in the car and return to Beltene. They could come back in the daylight when the fog had lifted. It was useless to try to track now.

  “Here it is!” Patrick’s light shone toward her out of the gray fog. “Come here, Catherine.”

  She walked toward the light, placing each foot carefully. There were loose rocks everywhere. She tried not to think of Limerick galloping through them in the darkness. One false step and he would break a leg. Then whoever had him would surely put him down. Horse nappers weren’t interested in getting vet care for an injured animal.

  As she approached the light, she felt Patrick’s hand on her elbow. He led her forward and then directed her to kneel. In the cone of light, there was a perfect print.

  “See that notch, a double nick on the left side. That’s Limerick. I made the shoe myself. I always mark the shoes, so that if we come across one in pasture, we’ll know who it belongs to. That’s Limerick’s, all right.”

  Catherine stood slowly. “So he was here.” She felt empty, drained of everything. “What now?”

  “Leave me here, Catherine. He was here two nights ago, he might come back.”

  “The rider might be armed.” Catherine felt Patrick’s desperation, but she wasn’t going to let him do anything stupid.

  “I won’t need a weapon.”

  “Spoken like a hero, but one that’s likely to be dead.” She shook her head, then realized he couldn’t see the gesture. “No way, Patrick. I’m not leaving you here. We’ll come back tomorrow. Bring a few men who can help you track. Maybe you can follow the prints. They go up into the bogs and the Twelve Bens. You know the mountains better than anyone, but it’s something we should do in the daytime.”

  “Listen.” Patrick’s hands came out of the fog and gripped her shoulders.

  “What?” The fog was like a thick blanket, muffling all sounds. Even the wind seemed to moan and hiss around her.

  “Listen,” Patrick said again, his hands tightening on her shoulders as he moved her toward the car. “Get inside,” he said. “Lock the door.”

  “What is it?” Catherine balked. Patrick was scaring her. She couldn’t hear anything, but there was something in the night. He sensed it if he didn’t hear it. Catherine had grown to develop great respect for Patrick’s senses.

  “It’s a horse, I think. Now get in the car and wait.”

  Catherine allowed him to push her toward the driver’s door. When he opened it, she folded into the seat and cleared the way for him to softly close the door.

  “Lock it,” he ordered.

  She did, and rolled down the window. In the distance, there was the sound of hooves on asphalt. The animal was large and moving fast. Catherine drew in her breath. Patrick disappeared into the fog as he stepped away from the car.

  “Patrick!” She called his name softly and cursed when he didn’t answer. He didn’t have a gun or even a tire tool. He was completely unarmed, and there was no telling what the horseman carried.

  Opening the door softly, she slipped out. She left it ajar to avoid making a noise. Taking off in the direction she thought Patrick had gone, she went after him.

  The pounding of the hooves grew louder, more intense. In the fog, they sounded like thunder, like rocks being hurled against the earth by an angry god. As she listened, Catherine knew the horse was traveling at ultimate speed. She took a deep breath and moved forward until she was at the edge of the road.

  Her eyes strained to find Patrick, but there was nothing but the swirling fog and the sounds of the hoof beats. They were on top of her, coming from all directions. In a moment of panic, Catherine realized she had no idea what direction they were coming from. They were pounding down on her, and she didn’t know which way held safety.

  Out of the fog, she saw the spark of metal striking asphalt. It was only ten yar
ds away. The horse was coming from the north. Before she could make a move, there was the sound of a curse as the rider hauled back and the horse reared. Looking up, Catherine saw nothing but a huge horse, hooves pawing the fog as they started to crash down on her head.

  The rider yelled something in a language Catherine could not understand. She knew it was Gaelic, but she’d never learned to speak it. He was nothing but a large shadow leaning over the side of the horse, his features hidden by a black cloak.

  “Limerick,” Catherine breathed, holding up her hands to ward off his hooves. It was indeed her stallion. The horse twisted in midair in a valiant effort to avoid her.

  The force that struck her side was like a wall. She was swept off her feet and pushed into the ditch. Her shoulder crashed against a sharp rock, and she cried out in pain. Then there was the sound of a horse’s scream and the rapid dance of hooves upon pavement.

  “Damn you,” a strange voice called out. “You’re a bloody fool, Patrick Shaw.” The hooves danced and the horse screamed again. “Gallop, you beast!” The rider commanded, and there was the sound of the horse fleeing down the road.

  “Patrick!” Catherine crawled to the road. She knew then that Patrick had seen her danger and had pushed her to safety—with no regard for his own life. “Patrick!”

  She found him at the side of the road. As she ran her hands over him, she found a pool of sticky blood beside his head.

  “Patrick.” She kept her voice calm. “It’s okay. I’ll get you to a doctor.” She felt his neck. His carotid artery pulsed at a funereal pace. “Shock,” Catherine said to herself. She had to get blankets and keep him from getting cold.

  Reluctant to leave him, she got up and went to the car. Even after she pulled on the headlights, she could barely make out his form on the side of the road, but at least she’d be able to check his wounds. From the back seat, she took a jacket and several articles of clothing that belonged to Mauve’s children. Rushing back to Patrick, she staunched the flow of blood from a gash in the side of his head.