Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

by Keith Ross Leckie

  “WHERE ARE YOU, YOU COWARDS! CARROLLS! FLANAGANS! RYDERS! THOMPSONS! KENNEDYS! COME OUT HERE!”

  Patrick fired off a couple of pistol shots. Dogs barked.

  “COME OUT AND FIGHT LIKE MEN!”

  He let loose with one of his shotguns so everyone heard him and knew he was there, but no one came out.

  “Where is everyone?” Patrick asked the moon.

  The bars were closed and most citizens had gone to bed, and those he was looking for were by this time riding north on the Roman Line.

  The Peace Society

  I don’t know why my eyes opened that night but I woke up feeling a little trembly from crazy dreams I had about wild men on horses. Then I thought I heard horses. I was lying in the big bed beside Old Jim with moonlight coming in the little window above my head and the fire in the kitchen stove had burned low so I could see my breath. Tom were snoring in the small room. Old Jim were still beside me in dreamland. Then between Tom’s snores, I heard something outside. The wind? Patrick coming back? No, it were whispered voices and feet walking careful on crunchy snow.

  I raised myself up on my knees to the window and pulled the curtain aside and there they was! Thirty men or more, just like in my dream, their eerie bodies in the torchlight, armed men in wild costumes, spread out across the yard, coming for us with guns and clubs! In the weird moving light, I saw men in blackened faces and masks. Others adjusted their funny hats and wore women’s dresses or shawls over their heads.

  “Mr. Jim! There is men outside,” I said, but it only came out a whisper. I was frozen, looking out the frosted window, then suddenly a ghoul’s painted face was right there, his nose two inches from mine own looking in at me and we locked eyes like, and he was one of the Ryder boys and I prayed to Jesus and all his angels to forgive my past sins and deliver us all from these demons.

  I dropped the curtain, shook Old Jim’s arm and repeated, “Mr. Jim. There is men outside!”

  I shaked him hard to wake him up. Then I looked up through the open door into the kitchen and I seen Jim Carroll in his constable uniform coming in through the unlocked kitchen door. He lights a candle and holds it up to see who was where. The dog barked and growled. Jim Carroll kicked the dog aside and came to the doorway of the bedroom with his candle. He had this wild look and I wondered what he was doing with them crazy people outside.

  “Donnelly! I have a warrant for your arrest. And your wife too.”

  Old Jim was finally awake and sat up on the bed in his long johns. He threw the blanket over me and said to go back to sleep.

  “Carroll? What is this nonsense?”

  The fire was down and the air had cooled and I handed Old Jim his greatcoat I was using as a pillow. He put it on. I whispered, “There’s more outside. A whole bunch.”

  I’m not sure he understood this. Carroll started whistling a tune, a humorous tune like one you’d do a jig to. He had handcuffs in one hand and then he put down the candle, turned and went into the room where Tom were sleeping on the cot and I guess he was able to cuff his hands together in front while he were asleep. Tom woke up, groggy and angry and looked down at his hands.

  “What? Who’s…? Carroll!”

  He stared at the handcuffs on his wrists, then tried to break the chain.

  Johannah stood in the kitchen doorway. I could tell she were afraid but she kept easy and turned to Bridget who was awake and stood behind her, scared and whimpering. Johannah spoke to her in a low voice: “It’s all right, Brid. We have a guest. Build up the fire and put on the kettle.” Johannah lighted a lantern hanging from the ceiling and two candles for the kitchen table, then put on her apron over her nightdress. Bridget was staring at Carroll from the hallway door with wide eyes, then silently did what she was told, building up the fire in the stove and lighting two more candles.

  I remember I were sitting up in the bed and there was a moment that was very still and quiet and Jim Carroll smiled at Mr. Jim. Tom was standing in the kitchen doorway with his back to me and his hands in cuffs and Mr. Jim saw him like that.

  “He’s cuffed you, Tom.”

  “Yeah. He thinks he’s smart.”

  Mr. Jim turned to Carroll.

  “All right. Show me the warrant.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time for that. Right now there are chores to be done!” Carroll’s voice got this weird excitement in it.

  “NOW!”

  A dozen wild men in their costumes burst through the door into the kitchen with clubs and shovels, shouting and whooping. I seen Carroll swing his billy club and hit Mr. Jim across the head. Jim just stares at him, not believing what he’d done, and Carroll hit him again.

  Tom seed his father being hit and roared in a terrible rage. He jumped and knocked Carroll aside and fought back against three of them as they beat him with clubs, as he tried to protect his father. It were so crowded in the kitchen, and I could tell the men was half drunk, they had difficulty getting clear swings and Tom was a terror even with his hands cuffed, knocking a couple down and hurting them. The lantern in the kitchen were hanging on a line and it got hit and were swinging back and forth giving a real strange look to the room, the light shifting back and forth as I watched it all, making me dizzy.

  I remember cousin Bridget gave a terrible scream and ran upstairs to the attic. I figured it were a good idea. So I slid out of the bed, ran into the main room and followed her up the stairs. She managed to get through the door but then she slams and locks it behind her. I figure she thought I was one of them after her. I pounded a few times and called her name but I guess she were too far gone. From up on the open stairs I could see everything that were going on in the main room and the kitchen and I saw someone hit Johannah and knock her sideways but she was still on her feet with her arms up to protect her head. I saw the men face her in the kitchen with their clubs. They was scared of her, I could see, and no one wanted to strike her first.

  She shouts at them, “You cowards! You’re all damned to hell. I’ll see you there!”

  Finally Jim Carroll raised a club and brought it down on Johannah’s head. Johannah fell to her knees. Mr. Jim and Tom both pulled away from their attackers and tried to protect Johannah. Them vigilantes used their clubs under the swinging light.

  I tried again to open the upstairs door but I gave it up and scrambled down the stairs again, crossed the floor and went back into the bedroom. It was as if I were invisible, for no one seemed to lay eyes on me, in that if they did and properly thought to kill me as a witness, I were surely gone. There was one moment when Jim Carroll stared right at me but then his attention went back to the others and I slid under the bed again and hid behind a laundry basket. I looked out through the wide bedroom door to watch the horrors going on in the kitchen. Again the open door let me see clearly into the main room and the kitchen. There was wild shadows on the wall as the lantern swung back and forth to show the crazy made-up faces of the vigilantes, raining clubs down on their victims, who held up arms to protect themselves. And yet they was still alive! On their knees and all bloody, Jim and Tom trying to protect Johannah, fending off the blows. Jim was finally knocked down and unmoving. The dog barked and moaned, then cowered. Johannah went to Tom and I heard her shout.

  “TOM! GET OUT! GO AND GET WILL!”

  I heared this horrible howl come from Tom and he rose up through the clubbing, all bloody and big and knocking people back and he charged out the front door. Many of the men followed him outside. Kneeling on the floor, Johannah glares up at the few assailants left in the kitchen with her bloody face and clear green eyes.

  “Give me a moment to pray.”

  The vigilantes stepped back. It were a weird moment in among all the weird moments. Johannah looked over at her husband, bloodied and unconscious on the floor beside her, closed her eyes and her lips moved, saying prayers for a moment. Jim Carroll looked at the others, standing mute and frozen
. Then he said, “That’s enough! She’s had plenty of time.”

  Johannah opened her eyes and I heared her say, “God in heaven, I curse you all!”

  Carroll swung his club again and it hit Johannah’s head and she fell to the floor, silent.

  A floorboard creaked in the upstairs attic. Carroll looked at John Purtell.

  “Someone upstairs.”

  Purtell and two others ran past my bedroom door and headed up the staircase. They wasn’t looking for me at all in the bedroom and I was curious about Tom outside so’s I slid out from under the bed and edged up to the window again to see and there outside in the front yard was Tom surrounded by a circle of vigilantes. He had someways with his cuffed hands been able to pull a club from one of them and was swinging, knocking a couple of them down and holding them back for a moment, but then they all runs in and grabs the club and surrounds him. Still, he were on his feet. He screamed and howled, angry with the cuffs on. He turned to confront Tom Ryder, who held a pitchfork. Tom Ryder looked really scared but I seen him move forward hard and he drove the pitchfork deep into Tom’s chest. Tom Donnelly screamed and fell to his knees, holding onto the fork that went out the other side of him. I seen the prongs sticking out his back. It took him three tries but Ryder finally pulled the pitchfork out. Tom fell face down in the snow. I knew that were the end of him. I slid down under the bed again and closed my eyes for a moment, then I peeked out from behind the basket.

  In the kitchen, the vigilantes still stood over Johannah, on the floor all slippery with blood. Her open eyes stared up at them, her lips moving. Beside her, Old Jim gave out a moan. I couldn’t believe he were still alive. I seen Martin McLaughlin bring his club down and Jim’s moaning stopped.

  In the attic upstairs, I heard the work of other men. They was onto cousin Bridget, who was making desperate screams. The men in the kitchen stood still and looked upward, listening. Then the screams was muffled there for a while, she was gasping and crying. I wondered what they was doing, but I guess I knowed. The men in the kitchen all lowered their eyes and just stood there with their clubs hanging down. I was sure glad she hadn’t opened that door to me or I’da been up there with her.

  “Finish up, up there!” Carroll shouted to the attic. Then Bridget’s screams come again and I couldn’t stand it. There was a thud sound above and the noise suddenly stopped in the middle of her scream.

  About then four men dragged poor Tom’s big body inside, slipping on the pools of blood, one man falling, and dropped Tom beside his mother on the kitchen floor. I heard Tom moan and someone said, “Hit him. Break his skull open.” And that’s exactly what Mr. Ryder did with a spade he’d brought.

  John Purtell come down from upstairs.

  “That one’s done,” he says to Carroll.

  I could hear the two other men who had gone up was dragging Bridget’s body down the stairs. Her head must have been right back as I heard it banging against the wooden steps and Jim Carroll snarled at them.

  “Lift her up!”

  They did so and carried her body with more respect I guess, laying it down on the floor in the living room. From under the bed I could have touched her foot with a long broom handle, I was that close. Purtell walked into the kitchen and slipped on the bloody floor. He fell on his arse, putting both his hands in the pool of blood. I remember he stared at the blood on his hands and pants. The dog started barking again and a vigilante swung a club. I didn’t see the dog hit but it yelped and was quiet. Then Mr. Purtell had an axe and took a swing at the dog. For a moment everything were silent and still. From under that bed I could see the three bodies in the kitchen and Bridget in the main room with her dull eyes open and her terrible face looking at me and the men in the kitchen standing around wondering what to do.

  Then the boots of two men came into my bedroom and I figured they’d remembered me and come looking and this were my end. They stood with their boots two feet from my nose and I heard the splash on the bed above me and smelled the coal oil being poured. Then they step back and set the bed on fire above me! ’Twas all I could do to stop myself from making a run for it, but the coal oil didn’t seep through the bed and so I stayed quiet. Then they splashed the coal oil around the living room, on Bridget’s body, and lit that too. I couldn’t look. When I could hear the flames crackling above me, the vigilantes turned and hurried from the house, out the kitchen door, slipping on the bloody floor, catching each other as they stepped over the bodies. It might have been funny, some of them in their costumes and masks, slipping and falling, helping each other up, if it weren’t just one long scene from hell.

  Now the house were empty but for me and the dead. I was feeling the heat on my back as the flames grew on the bed above me, but I waited a bit more. The Peace Society men were still outside—I saw some through the open kitchen door—and if they seed me trying to leave the house, they would kill me, that much I knowed. I pushed the basket aside and got out from under the flaming bed. Through the kitchen door, I could see on the front yard the Peace Society members with their torches watching the flames go up the house, their faces looking in, horrified and fascinated. I were surrounded by the flames up the walls now and couldn’t wait much longer, trying to choose between staying in the fire and going that way or going out to their clubs and pitchforks. But then I looks again and the torches are gone! The men have left and none too soon for me.

  So’s I go past the flaming body of Bridget, trying not to look at that horror, and into the kitchen and stepped over the others. I seen something against the wall, a bloody ball that I seen was the dog’s head. Purtell had cut it off with the axe. But here’s the thing. Flames roaring all around me, I’m headed for the open door and I sees movement! Miss Johannah was still breathing! So was Mr. Jim! But both was so terribly wounded. Mr. Jim’s head was open and his smashed lips were moving with curses and Johannah’s lips moved in what I figured was prayer.

  “Miss Johannah!” I called and she moaned a little. “Come on, Miss Johannah! We got to get out!”

  I took her broken, bloody hand and tried to pull her toward the door but she screamed in pain. I couldn’t do it and the flames was burning us both now. I was coughing and choking with the smoke. The whole kitchen, walls and ceiling was burning around us.

  “COME ON!” I hollered at her. Weren’t much of me left. The roaring of the flames made me deaf, but I still tried to pull her to the door. There weren’t much purchase on the slippery floor and I couldn’t move her. Then I saw her looking up at me with her one good eye in her awful, battered face. She seemed calm to me, if you can believe it, and through her smashed lips she spoke the word.

  “Go.”

  “No, we can do it, Miss Johannah. Come on.”

  “Run,” she whispered, then she looks me in the eyes and her face said it was all right. My back was burning now and my hair singed, chunks of fire was falling from the ceiling and I knew I couldn’t do any more. Then I noticed something on the floor beside her. It was the little river stone, the piece of Ireland she kept in her apron that had fallen out, and for some reason I grabbed it, all sticky with her blood. I stuffed it in my pocket and her one good eye was watching me and whispered it were all right. I squeezed her hand one last time, her eye closed and I let go of her. Then I stepped over Tom and Mr. Jim and the body of the dog and I scrambled outside.

  I remember that feel of the cold air as I tumbled out of the flaming farmhouse face down into the blood-splattered snow, a cooling remedy to my singed body. I was barefoot and without a coat, but I were alive.

  I looked up the road and could see the gang of Peace Society men spread out riding away. They did not see me.

  I looked back and the house were now fully in flame and sparks had drifted over to the old Farrell place and started her going too. The Farrell house laid empty and rotting all these years and for a moment I thought it just seemed right that the two houses, representing all the troub
les for so many years, should go up in flames together. But I didn’t think on this at any great length. I ran to the ditch, then across the road and down fifty yards to the house where Patrick Whalen lived.

  * * *

  In the cruel inferno of the kitchen, with the flames descending, her body numb, Johannah’s dreams had instinctively gone back to the happiest times. She was riding Cuchulain along the ridge from where you could see the Ballyfinboy River meandering on its untroubled way down to the sea, with Lucy holding tight against her back, her mouth close to her ear, her voice humming “Irish Soldier Laddie.” And then they were passing through the enchanted woodlot, Lucy’s voice calling forth the nymphs and faeries, Cuchulain slowing down to walk along the long, cool willow-shaded path by the fishing stream, then Lucy’s voice in her ear urging speed across the hard pasture, clearing two sheep walls, practically free of gravity, and it felt as if they could ride on like this forever. And then Johannah found herself drifting up into consciousness. She pushed back the terrible pain, pushed it back and turned her head to look at Jim beside her. She found his hand beside hers, took it and squeezed his broken fingers. She was amazed when, very faintly, he returned the pressure. Then he opened the one good eye in his bloody battered head and she with her smashed mouth and vision swiftly closing in, managed to tell him, “Love you.”

  And with the last of his strength, his eye intently on her, he raised out his good hand, one bloody, broken finger, and tried to touch her nose.

  “Imagine that…”

  The roof of the house made a long, mournful groan and the flaming log joists above them consumed by the fire could hold no more and collapsed as a ball of flame falling on top of them, and that was their end.