Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

by Keith Ross Leckie

  “Da? Da!”

  Farrell’s son, Billy, who had been standing frozen, ran forward toward his father, but he was stopped by Pat Whalen and Martin Hogan. A moment later, Pat Farrell stopped breathing. John Carroll felt Farrell’s neck for a pulse and shook his head. The shocked men, including Father Connolly, stared at each other, then turned to Jim Donnelly. It was Father Connolly who spoke the word.

  “Murder.”

  The bloody tree branch dropped from Jim’s hand. The word was whispered again by McLaughlin and then spoken in bold accusation by John Carroll. Jim studied the disturbed faces of the men, then abruptly turned and walked quickly away, up the Roman Line toward home, with Will following close behind.

  * * *

  Johannah could see Jim and Will from the kitchen window walking home up the Line, still far off. Jim didn’t have his coat and he was limping and even from that distance Johannah could see there were dark stains on his face and clothing. The other boys were off on various endeavours, except for John, reading on the porch. She came out and stood beside him and her heart began to pound. As her husband came closer, she saw more clearly the blood, the torn shirt and the bruises already darkening his face. She went in to get clothes and soap and warm water from the stove kettle. As she returned outside, he was coming up on the porch, swaying a little, having difficulty with his eyes, saying nothing. Will looked at her but he too was silent. Young John Donnelly put away his book to watch and listen. Johannah sat Jim down and washed his wounds. Most were superficial, the blood congealed. A couple should have stitches. And there was terrible bruising on his cracked ribs and arms. She fashioned a bandage around his head.

  Johannah went about her repair work in silence. When he was ready, Jim would tell her what happened, and he soon did. It was as bad as she could have imagined.

  “I killed Farrell. They’ll be coming for me.”

  With these words, Johannah felt as if her mare had kicked her in the stomach. She felt as bad as on the day Farrell came to claim the land.

  “Truly? You killed him?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You’re a stupid man, Jim Donnelly.”

  “I can’t argue with you, Jo. ’Twas a stupid thing.”

  “Do you realize what you’ve done to us?”

  “Yes. I know,” he said quietly. “I’ve never been more sorry.”

  “It’s the end of us, Jim. Our dreams, our family together…”

  “I know it’s bad. But I need your forgiveness and I need your help. I love you.”

  “You’re such a fool.” Johannah gathered herself together. She knew she had to be smart and ready to help her husband. She had no choice. She needed a plan.

  Fugitive

  Within two hours of Farrell’s death, Chief Constable Fitzhenry and three other well-armed police from the borough rode up to the Donnelly farm. Fitzhenry dismounted. The other three remained on their impatient horses.

  Johannah came out onto the porch with her hands on her hips and waited for Fitzhenry to speak his piece.

  “Mrs. Donnelly. We’ve come for Jim. He’s killed Pat Farrell.”

  “I know. The idiot told me.”

  “Is he here?”

  “No. I threw him out. You’ll not see him here again.”

  Two hundred yards away, Jim was watching this encounter from the safety of a thick palisade of cedar trees.

  “Are you sure, Johannah?”

  “He told me about the killing. There’s no forgiveness for murder. I told him I didn’t want to see him again. The fool took his things and he’s gone.”

  Fitzhenry sighed quietly, not believing her.

  “Do you know where he’s gone, then?”

  Fitzhenry scanned the cover across the pasture at the tree line as he asked the question and for a moment, Jim ducked back in the bushes, thinking he had been spotted.

  “I don’t know, Fitzhenry, and I don’t care,” she said loudly, trying to get the constable’s attention back.

  “Will you tell us if he comes round again?”

  “Sure, but there won’t be much left of him if I see him here again.”

  “Then you won’t mind if we have a look around?”

  “Search ’til your little heart is content, Fitzhenry.”

  That night a dozen constables searched the barn, woods and fields for Jim but he knew the land well and could easily avoid them. He told Johannah later he spent much of the first evening watching them from the high branch of a big hemlock behind the barn.

  The next morning Johannah made her way to town. She was shunned by almost all she encountered. At the post office she saw for the first time the reward poster. It was a sketch of Jim, a good one, with the offer of four hundred dollars for information leading to his arrest. Mr. Porte told her he was sorry for her troubles. While Mr. Porte was helping another customer, Johannah pulled the poster from the wall and took it away with her.

  Johannah had a good chat with the boys that night.

  “You should all know…the killing of Pat Farrell was a terrible thing. Even though Mr. Farrell brought it on himself, there is no way it could be right. But your father is ours and we have to do whatever is necessary to help and protect him. He has to be in hiding but he will be around the farm from time to time. You can never tell anyone. We can take him food or leave it for him. We can get him letters and gifts, things to make him comfortable. The important thing is that he loves us all and we love him, too.”

  As Jim began his life as a fugitive, he and Johannah discussed their systems of signals and supply, which would be used under the watching eyes of Fitzhenry, who established a two-man sentry at the farm. Johannah instructed her boys to treat the constables with respect to put them at ease, and she herself made the constables dinner, believing that if Jim was spotted, a constable might think twice before shooting a man whose wife had filled his belly.

  If Johannah put two candles in the window at night, it would mean that the family had distracted the constables and Jim could come up to the barn or the out sheds or even the summer kitchen. Johannah and the boys would also find ways to leave small packages where he would find them.

  On the fifth night it poured rain and Johannah filled a big knapsack with dry socks, a shirt, a warm stew dinner and a bottle. She folded it all in an oilcloth and blanket and gave it to Will. Outside the farmhouse she brought tea to the two constables to gather them together and distract them as Will slid out a side window with the sack on his back. He could move quickly through the woods—his limp and hop did not prevent a speedy lope toward his father’s hideout. His mother instructed him to take a circuitous route and stop and listen from time to time to make sure he was not being followed. To be followed could lead to his father’s capture, which could mean his father’s life.

  Jim Donnelly sat beside a tiny fire with an oilskin over his head in a rocky enclosure beside a huge fallen tree. The fire had very little smoke. He was cold and wet and alone. Through the fine, cold rainfall, he heard the snap of a twig nearby in the darkness and cocked both hammers of the shotgun in his hands.

  “It’s me, Da!”

  Will stepped forward so his father could make him out. They did not speak but both listened, their senses now pricked for any presence of Jim’s enemies, who could have followed the boy here. When he was satisfied, Jim uncocked the shotgun and took the knapsack from Will. He kept the shotgun across his knees. He took out his sheath knife and began to quickly eat his first food of the day: bread and meat stew, still warm from his wife’s kitchen, apples and cider in a mason jar.

  “Ma sends her love and the boys are all right. Tom broke his finger and didn’t tell anybody. The constables were mean at first but now they’re more friendly.”

  Looking to Will, Jim gestured to the food. “You’ll eat with me?”

  Will nodded. Jim cut Will some bread and they ate toge
ther in silence by the light of the small fire. Jim felt the need to tell his son something meaningful about why he was here and how this had happened, but how could he explain his actions when he did not understand them himself? Will reached into his sack, unfolded the wanted poster and handed it to his father to examine.

  “Handsome devil. But only four hundred dollars?” Jim laughed and Will’s face relaxed and he could laugh himself.

  “You’re worth three times that much, Da.”

  “Thank you, my son. I like to think so.”

  Buoyed by this joke, they stared into the little fire and again ate in silence for a while.

  “Da?” The fire crackled and hissed. “What are you going to do?”

  “Not sure yet. Still sorting things out.”

  They both just stared into the fire, Will waiting patiently for his father to say something.

  “Your mother was right,” Jim said suddenly. “About fighting with Farrell. I was a fool.”

  Will kept his silence, but Jim knew he was taking it in.

  “She’s a smart girl, Will, your mother. Smarter than any of us. Listen when she tells you something.”

  “I will, Da. I do.”

  “Good.” They ate and looked into the fire some more.

  “I will admit it was all by my own hand this happened. No one’s fault. Only my own. But you should know, Will, about the curse. The Donnelly curse is back in full force. It is our burden and though we might make bad decisions and do wrong things, it plays its part as well. We can’t forget that.”

  “I won’t forget, Da.”

  Surrender

  Over the coming months, there were days passersby would see a woman working in the Donnelly fields, weeding or harvesting potatoes, and these neighbours would believe and report it was Johannah. Her dresses were tight on Jim but she let them out and he managed to get into them, complete with a frilly bonnet, and work the fields throughout the summer. No Donnelly boy ever smirked at their father’s masquerade, nor did one ever talk to anyone outside the family about Jim’s visits to the house and the barn.

  Fitzhenry began to hear of the muscular figure in a dress seen from time to time in the Donnelly fields, but each time he went to investigate, Johannah claimed it had been herself. Twice, in addition to the sentries spending irregular shifts at the house, Fitzhenry set out constables to wait in the bushes on the edge of the north field and once they even surrounded him, but with a fast horse waiting close by, Jim dropped implements and was mounted and gone before they could close the trap. And Johannah’s strategy of feeding the constables had worked, for on the two occasions shots were fired after him by the constables, they flew well over his head.

  It was the next spring, almost a year after Farrell’s demise, that Father Connolly came to visit Johannah. He had a new horse that pleased him, paid for by the parish, and which boosted his pride and confidence, if that were necessary or possible. Johannah served him tea, nervous at the questions he might ask, for she was eight months pregnant.

  “You told the constable you hadn’t seen your husband in a year.”

  The priest pointedly looked down at her ripe stomach, the new child clearly only a month or two away from delivery.

  “More or less.”

  “I assume the child is Jim’s and it is the lesser sin of lying you’re guilty of, Johannah.”

  “There was a visit or two,” Johannah admitted to the priest.

  Father Connolly watched, curious, out the window as young Billy Farrell batted rounders in the yard with the Donnelly boys.

  “And how has it been with the Farrell boy? Is he all right being here?”

  “I think so. He’s a lovely lad. It just felt like the right thing to do to take him in. He’s quite at home.”

  After his father’s death, young Billy Farrell lived in the house he and his father had built. Every afternoon, Johannah would prepare a full plate of food for Will to deliver to him. Johannah would see the boy looking through the fence at them like a lost cat and so one day she instructed Will to invite him to come and live with them if he wanted. On the eleventh day, the lad was waiting with a bag of clothes and belongings. He was welcomed into the house by all the Donnelly boys and given his own bed in the north bedroom with Michael, John and Tom.

  Father Connolly had considered the boy’s situation with mixed feelings, living in the house of his father’s killer. But after enquiries, no family of Pat Farrell had come forward to take him and the priest had to admit Billy seemed content with the Donnellys.

  Johannah waited quietly and Father Connolly finally persevered with the message he had come to deliver.

  “Johannah, you know in your heart Jim has to give himself up to God’s justice.”

  “It was self-defence.”

  “The truth will come out in court. But it won’t be resolved while he’s a fugitive. He can’t continue like this.”

  “I know,” Johannah told him, and she did.

  The winter had proved hardest for Jim. The Donnelly barn was bitterly cold but to sleep in his own bed was dangerous as Fitzhenry conducted frequent night inspections at their house. Jim would occasionally stay over at the homes of supportive neighbours, the Whalens and the Feehleys, but never more than a single night. One night, through inside information or plain luck, Fitzhenry made a midnight raid at James Keefe’s house when Jim was a guest. The fugitive had to hide face down in bed under the covers, hidden among three sleeping Keefe children, as the police searched the rooms around them and came up empty-handed.

  “I think in your heart you’re a good Catholic, Johannah. Let that be your guide in this. You’re the only one that can convince him. Tell him to give himself up. Tell him to have faith, come back to the Church and God will be just.”

  She was listening.

  * * *

  Johannah came to Jim in the barn late that night with a candle and stood waiting at their appointed time. Jim left his hiding place when he was convinced she was not followed. Fitzhenry’s men had gone home for the night. They embraced, then sat on a bench in the tack room with a small lantern for light, holding hands. It struck Jim in that thin light how Johannah had aged in the last year and how it was because of him. He had done this to her. She seemed rough and drawn from lack of sleep, a weariness that broke his heart, though it was plain to see her inner strength and beauty remained undiminished.

  “Father Connolly is supportive,” she said, getting down to business. “He promised that you’ll get a fair trial. He’s on our side. People think you’ll maybe only spend a couple of years in jail or even be found not guilty. Some even say that Pat Farrell was a troublemaker and land stealer. You ran a fine race, Jim,” she looked at him with pride and affection. “But you can’t go on like this. I can’t go on like this.”

  Jim knew this was true. He could not take another winter outside the house.

  “I was such a fool, Johannah.”

  “Yes, you were. But we’ll make it right.”

  He embraced her and they kissed and at her bidding, they moved to the soft hay and with great care around her prominent belly, they made love to seal their decision.

  It was late spring when Bob Whalen walked into the Lucan police station accompanied by Jim Donnelly, in the women’s clothing that he had worn to get there without being arrested. Chief Constable Fitzhenry saw him and laughed out loud.

  “Donnelly! You crazed bastard. The lady of the fields. You’re under arrest!”

  “I know this, Fitzhenry. That’s why I’m here. Just get on with it. And pay the man his money.”

  “What money?”

  “The reward for Whalen here. Four hundred dollars. He captured me.”

  Whalen and Jim had worked out the deal. Bob would keep two hundred dollars for his efforts and Jim would pocket the other two hundred to pay for a defence lawyer. They didn’t like the way Fitzhenry l
aughed out loud again.

  “Now wait a minute, Fitzhenry,” Bob said. “That’s the deal. Four hundred dollars reward.”

  Fitzhenry looked at Whalen, a short, ruddy-faced man.

  “Or what? You’re going to take him home again?” Any humour left Fitzhenry’s eyes. “There will be no reward, Bob. He gave himself up, sure as a pussy’s a cat. Now fuck off before I arrest you too, for contempt of court!”

  Fitzhenry took Jim Donnelly down the hall to the cells and that was that.

  * * *

  Johannah could not be present for the arrest of her husband, as it turned out. His last child, and a demanding one, decided to make an early debut. Dr. Davis had been called away to London so Michael Keefe’s wife, Anne, who was an old hand at the birthing of babies, came by, and Johannah had all she needed in her main bedroom. Will kept the six other boys occupied elsewhere and Johannah hoped she didn’t scare them all with her groans as she delivered their new sibling.

  “It’s a girl, Johannah! A goddamn girl!” Anne announced with the appropriate enthusiasm. “You did it.”

  “Thank Christ!” Johannah shouted, with a convert’s passion.

  Such pure joy filled Johannah to see this child, blessedly without a penis, who was already crying with hearty spirit as Anne wrapped her in a thick towel and gave her to Johannah to nurse. As she tenderly held her daughter, the tiny infant suddenly calmed and took easily to the breast. After a few moments, she opened her shining blue eyes and stared intently up at Johannah.

  “Hello, little one,” her mother whispered. “You’ve come into this world outnumbered by boys, but together we’ll be fine.”

  Anne had gone out to the barn to find Will and the boys and invite them in to see this wonder—a girl in their midst. They lined up under the direction of Anne and Will to have a look at the babe, now fed and sleeping in Johannah’s arms.

  “Keep your dirty paws off her,” were Anne’s initial instructions. “Just look.”