Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

by Keith Ross Leckie

  Though Jim loved all his boys he knew his first-born, Will, remained his favourite. Now seven years old, a strong, hard-working red-headed lad with a teasing sense of humour, Will had become a good, natural leader for the others. They had saved money to have a special boot made for him in London for his club foot and now the limp was much less noticeable.

  Will and his next-youngest brother, James, were up in the open door of the loft winching up bundles of hay from the wagon to store in the top of the barn. It would dry well under the good roof for winter feed. James enjoyed a joke and his father could hear his laughter at something Will had said. Pat, who never stopped talking, and the silent, brooding Tom were fighting over a long-handled shovel Jim had been using to dig post holes for a new pigpen.

  “Give it to me. I had it first. Leave it alone. Don’t! Daaaaa! He bit me!”

  It was true; Tom had sunk his teeth into Pat’s hand, breaking the skin.

  “Tom! No biting. And give Pat the shovel.”

  Pat pulled the shovel away from him. Tom tried to kick him, screeched and threw dirt at him as Pat walked away. Tom would need a little guidance, Jim realized.

  Over in the shadow of the porch Jim observed John, the wise one, “the bookworm,” already wearing his own specs, his nose buried in a school book, off in his own world. Jim mused on the mystery of how, though each child had come from the same seed, they all developed their own distinct characters.

  Johannah stood high in her boots in the centre of the small corral Jim had built beside the barn, holding the lead on the two-year-old mare she was training. Jim watched her as she snapped a long whip at the horse’s heels. The mare cantered in a circle with five-year-old Michael in the saddle. The boy had curly dark hair and an angelic face and he rode well, posting easily, and Jim could see Johannah found pleasure in the boy’s fearlessness and natural skills, even at this young age. Johannah kept the lead very loose to allow Michael control.

  Here was the best thing in Jim’s life, this woman, and no question. It all began and ended with her. What she was doing with a man like him, he never quite understood, but he thanked God and didn’t question it too deeply. Sure it was one of God’s mysteries. She was smiling now and when she did, it seemed to him like the heavens opening up.

  “That’s it. Good, Michael. Very good. Jim! Have a look at Michael.”

  All the boys stopped their activities for a moment and they watched Michael, who rode with a serious formality, reins held thus, posting smoothly with the horse, angle of the body just so, horse and boy moving as one.

  “Nice job, Mikey!” Will led his brothers in applause for Michael’s skills and the fourth-born of the Donnelly boys was clearly proud of himself.

  “We’ll have you riding in the Royal Winter Fair,” his father called out to him, thinking how much like his mother the boy rode. Johannah brought the mare to a stop, lifted Michael off and gave him a hug, then lowered him to the ground and followed him out of the corral toward his father.

  “And the beast’s limp is gone. Your liniment with the linseed worked well, hah?” Jim complimented her.

  “Yes, it did. Swelling’s gone. We should make up a batch and bottle it, sell it in town or at the fair. That’s the ticket,” she said enthusiastically. “Let’s bottle some for the fair.”

  Johannah’s voice trailed off as she looked over to the road. Jim followed her gaze to see that two men and a boy had arrived on horseback. They stayed out at the road for a moment. The Donnellys’ black dog, Butch, began to bark a challenge at them and Jim called him back. Jim recognized Constable Fitzhenry, but didn’t know the other man, who was pointing in a sweeping gesture and talking excitedly to Fitzhenry. The three rode in to the roundabout in front of the house and dismounted.

  Their hearts beating a little faster, Jim and Johannah walked over together to see what the strangers wanted. The boys all watched in silence. Fitzhenry addressed them and spoke the words that had haunted their worst dreams for almost seven years.

  “Hello, Jim. Mrs. Donnelly. This man is Pat Farrell. He claims he owns this land.”

  They both stared at Farrell. Johannah turned to Jim and saw his face was as pale as a winter moon. He responded, his voice quiet, intense.

  “That’s a lie. We’ve been here seven years. We’ve done the clearing. This land is mine now. It’s the law.”

  Farrell held up documents in his hand, his eyes a little wild. “This land is mine.”

  Johannah went forward to take the pages. At first, Farrell resisted.

  “Let her see,” the constable directed him, and Farrell reluctantly passed the documents to Johannah. She began to look them over.

  “There’s my registration and there’s your claim file. You’ve been here exactly six years, ten months. The squatter law don’t apply ’til seven years. So now you gotta clear out…squatter.”

  Jim stared at Farrell, clearly too furious to speak. He was a hair away from violence. Fitzhenry seemed to sense this and stood purposefully between them.

  “Well, we can’t settle this today. You’ll have to go to court, Jim.”

  “Fine by me,” said Farrell. “The law’s on my side. I’m claiming my land, Donnelly. And you’re getting out.”

  Johannah was thinking, Fitzhenry or not, if a gun or an axe were close by Jim’s hand, that fool Farrell would be in peril. The rhyme even made her smile for a moment, mirth in the midst of calamity. Then the darker thought came, strong and irresistible: I told you, I told you. If we had a mortgage, at least we’d have a deed. But she buried this thought for now. That fool Farrell was rambling on, oblivious to the peril at hand.

  “You’re nothing but a squatter. And from what I hear, a Blackleg.”

  From whom would he have heard the label “Blackleg”? Johannah wondered who his local agents were. And now she was sure Fitzhenry’s presence was the only thing keeping Jim from Farrell’s throat.

  The constable stepped in. “Come on, now. Let’s go, Farrell. Jim, you’ll get your date notice of the assizes in London. They’ll sort it out.”

  Farrell was talking to his son. “You see, Billy boy? I told you the land was beautiful. We’ll build a bigger barn and clear another twenty acres.”

  Farrell’s young son looked at Jim’s face and said quietly to his father, “Let’s go, Da.”

  Farrell, his sensible son and Fitzhenry mounted up, turned and rode away, back down the Roman Line toward town. Jim and Johannah stood there watching them depart, letting it all sink in. Jim’s face was now beet red.

  “He will never take my land.”

  Johannah bit her tongue ’til it bled.

  First Justice

  In the court of assizes in London, Province of Canada, the magistrate named McLeod hammered his worn gavel to re-establish order in the traditionally unruly courtroom. Big Constable Fitzhenry was there both to give evidence and provide security along with other officers. All Johannah could do was watch as Jim and Pat Farrell angrily faced each other. The courts being a great source of entertainment, friends of both men had come to see what would happen. The Donnellys had the Keefe brothers and the O’Connors and two Kennedys. Johannah was surprised to see John Carroll in the courtroom. And why was he seated with Farrell’s supporters? But then, maybe she was not so surprised. It made sense to her now.

  Taking the stand, Farrell stated his case as crudely as he had at the farm. Jim was so full of emotion, he couldn’t speak in response and Johannah had to come forward as his proxy.

  “My Lord, Mr. Farrell waited years until we had cleared much of the good land. He had his spies watching as we increased the worth of the property several times over. Now, days before the property becomes legally ours, he makes his claim.”

  As the unruly audience responded loudly for both parties, weary Judge McLeod hit the gavel again.

  “Silence or I will empty the courtroom. Mr. Farrell? When di
d you become aware of Mr. Donnelly squatting on the land?”

  “I had no idea Mr. Donnelly was squatting until my friend John Carroll”—Carroll nodded to the judge—“wrote to me explaining the situation only weeks ago and up I comes to sort it out immediately.”

  Johannah had to interrupt. “Mr. Carroll knew we were there six years ago!”

  Fitzhenry again stayed between Jim and Farrell. Farrell pointed a finger at Jim. “The law’s on my side and I knows the law!”

  “Quiet!” McLeod shut him down, his patience gone. “My judgment is this: of the hundred acres, fifty will go to Jim Donnelly and fifty to Pat Farrell, including equal portions of the cleared land as determined by a court surveyor and equal frontage on the Roman Line. Donnelly keeps the existing house and buildings. Deeds will be issued to both. Now accept this fair ruling and find peace between yourselves.”

  Johannah was so deeply relieved her eyes teared up. They had secured fifty acres and the buildings. No one could question their ownership. But Jim was furious and Fitzhenry kept his place between the two men and their supporters. Jim leaned around Fitzhenry toward Farrell.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “You stinking squatter.”

  Fitzhenry raised his arm to hold back Farrell, who wanted to go for Jim.

  The judge was done. “Clear the courtroom!”

  Muttering about the crazed bunch of Irishmen inhabiting his courtroom, Judge McLeod left the dais and slammed the office door behind him. Fitzhenry and the clerks encouraged the people to vacate the room

  Johannah put her arms around Jim. “We won, Jimmy! We have the house and barn and fifty acres and no one can ever take it away from us. We’ll have a deed!”

  Jim glared at the departing Farrell.

  “He stole my land.”

  * * *

  Jim drove the wagon back up the Roman Line in brooding silence and Johannah remained quiet at his side. The buckboard was only a few weeks old, with springs and new steel wheel bearings that made for a comfortable ride and a new tawny gelding they had bought to pull it. They rode past the pleasant green fields of their neighbours on a warm summer’s day, but Jim could not enjoy the trip for the dark cloud that enveloped him. He knew that logically Johannah was right. All told, with fifty acres free and clear, they had done pretty well as squatters in seven years, but he was not thinking logically. All he could see was the fifty acres he had lost, the acreage he had cleared, the field where Vinnie’s blood had been spilled. It wasn’t right. It took him back to the emotions of Magee’s injustices on the Cavendish estate, to when his father had killed the ponies and then himself. To when they threw his people off the land so cows could graze. Cows could eat while Irish children starved.

  Amid his anger and recriminations Jim realized that, just like him, Johannah had been waiting and worrying unspoken those seven years, and thinking they were almost safe when that man showed up. Jim had failed her and himself—it was the Donnelly curse—and no words, logical or placating, could make it better.

  * * *

  So, in the spring of ’58, the Donnellys hoped Farrell would build his house off over the hill and behind the trees as a sane man would do, but no. Pat Farrell made the decision to build his house on his fifty acres as close as possible to their property line, so painfully close to the Donnellys’ own house it seemed you could almost touch his building by leaning out their downstairs window. Perhaps there was logic in this, for if one house was set on fire, it was likely the other would burn too, providing mutual protection against arson.

  Farrell hired a team of men to first quickly build a fence on the lot line and then to put up the framing in the new fashion of house building. Then Farrell worked slow and alone with his young boy, Billy, boarding it in, pounding away at all hours, every day. It was like water torture, each a hammer blow to Jim’s head, announcing the theft of his fifty acres. Jim, and sometimes some of the boys, would stand out there at the lot line and glare at Farrell, who didn’t seem to mind the attention at all. Johannah had no doubt the trouble would escalate sooner or later, like watching a nasty rainstorm coming at them and not much anyone could do about it.

  Farrell had just installed a brand-new window in the house facing the Donnellys, and it was like a red flag to a bull. When the inevitable smash occurred, both Johannah and Farrell ran outside of their houses to see Jim and a couple of his boys standing close to the property line. Jim looked up at the sky, smiled at Farrell and held out a flat palm. “Hail,” was what he said.

  “You bastard, Donnelly. You’ll pay for it.”

  That night Johannah spoke sternly to Jim in private. “This is childish and I’m surprised at you.”

  “It’s not my fault.”

  “What kind of example are you setting for the boys?”

  “They are learning to stand up for their rights.”

  “The right to harass your neighbour? Jim, we have to make peace. Do you hear me?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  The next week Farrell was digging out stumps for his truck patch. Keefe had offered his oxen, but Farrell had decided on dynamite, “the lazy man’s choice” as Jim declared. The noisy blasts started at six a.m. and permeated their day at regular intervals. After two days of this, putting everyone on edge, Johannah heard a gunshot just outside the house. Jim was standing with his rifle and there was a bullet hole in a tree over Farrell’s head. Will, James and Tom were with him, all quite amused. Jim pointed to the tree and explained to Farrell, “Crows.”

  “I’m going to get the law on you, Donnelly.”

  “No law against hunting crows.”

  * * *

  That evening they were eating dinner at the big table out in the summer kitchen where it was cooler. Jim was talking to his sons as he tucked into his chicken dinner.

  “I’ll never forget the look on his face. He thought for sure I was about to finish him off.”

  The brothers looked from their father to their mother, aware of the latter’s disapproval, smiling at each other like guilty schoolboys.

  “Can’t he take a joke?” Will asked.

  “You were just playing with him,” Michael offered.

  “No law against scaring off crows,” James repeated, giggling.

  “Eat your dinner,” Johannah told them all.

  Will made the sound of a rifle firing and they all laughed.

  Johannah’s anger got the best of her. “All right! I’ve had enough of this, Jim! You made me a promise there would be no more of this over here. No more feuding. The fight with Farrell has got to stop! Now!”

  Jim looked slightly embarrassed for a moment but then he answered with a broader conviction: “It’ll stop when Farrell gives me my land back.”

  Johannah threw down her knife and fork, breaking her dinner plate, the gravy flowing onto the oilcloth. They were all listening now.

  “You’ve got your land, Jim. It’s plenty and you’ll not get any more. You leave this thing with Farrell alone, now! Or you’re the biggest fool God ever breathed life into.”

  Just then there was a dynamite explosion much bigger and closer than the others. The plates and glasses on the table rattled. Jim stood up, threw down his napkin and went out into the backyard. They all followed. Outside they found a stump very close to the property line had been blasted into pieces and the roof of the Donnelly chicken coop just on their side of the lot line had been blown off. A dozen chickens were flying and running in panic. Farrell was standing on his property, a smile on his face.

  “Stumps,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

  Jim made as if he would go after him. “You’ll pay for that, Farrell.” But Johannah grabbed his arm.

  “Just stop this! Both of you.” She gave equal attention to Farrell. “You’re behaving like children. An embarrassment to your own! You have to stop.”

  Johannah turned
away and went back in the house, slamming the door behind her. Chastised for a moment, Jim and Farrell then glared at each other as the Donnelly boys began to scramble around the yard, rounding up the liberated chickens.

  * * *

  After the dynamiting of the chicken coop and Johannah’s condemnation, there were a few days of peace. But then, Farrell’s drinking water from his well turned bad. He and the boy went fishing with a bailing hook in the depths of the well and caught a rotted cow’s head some days old. Farrell came to the Donnelly door with the ripe evidence, his poor son beside him throwing up on their flower bed. It was Johannah who opened the door and Farrell called out past her.

  “Donnelly! Donnelly, you son of a bitch. I’m going to kill you.”

  Jim was lying low in the summer kitchen after this, his latest harassment of Farrell. Johannah answered for him.

  “You can’t be uttering threats like that on our doorstep, Mr. Farrell, unless you want to be prosecuted.”

  Farrell left soon after and a couple of hours later, a weary Constable Fitzhenry stood on the property line with Jim and Farrell, each on his side. Farrell’s son was beside his father looking worried. Will and Johannah stood with Jim. Farrell pulled from a sack the rotted cow’s head, still on the hook and rope for display, as if this fully explained the entire circumstance. The rest of them took a step back to breathe.

  “It’s from the cow he butchered last week. See the spot on her ear. That’s his cow. I want him charged with poisoning and vandalism and attempted murder!”