by Jack Higgins
He reined in and wiped sweat from his brow with a large handkerchief. “I’m sure glad I found you, Colonel. Father Costello sent a message up to the house. Says there’s a woman called Cooney having a child in Drumore and she needs you bad.”
Joanna was already moving to her mount and Clay quickly lifted her into the saddle. As he turned to Pegeen, Joshua handed him his saddlebags. “Everything you need in there, Colonel,” he said. “You make tracks. I’ll never keep up with you on this horse.”
“You stay at the house,” Clay said. “If I need you, I’ll send a message.” Already Joanna was away, galloping across the moor, and he put spurs to Pegeen and thundered after her.
8
Clouds moved over the face of the sun and a great belt of shadow spilled darkness like a fast-spreading stain across the ground. As they entered the village, rain started to fall and ragged, barefooted children ran after their horses, hands outstretched for the odd coin. Clay tossed a handful of loose change to scatter them, and he and Joanna moved on past Cohan’s and reined in outside the Cooneys’ cottage.
As they dismounted, the door opened, and Father Costello emerged, relief on his face. “I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. “She’s having a hard time of it, poor soul.”
Joanna moved past him into the cottage as Clay started to unstrap his saddlebags. “Is her husband here?”
Father Costello shook his head. “He left for Galway yesterday and hasn’t returned yet. He was hoping to borrow money from a brother of his in trade. He’s a month behind with his rent and Sir George threatened to evict him if the arrears were not paid by Monday.”
Clay frowned. “That was three days ago.”
“Exactly!” the priest said. “I’m hoping Sir George is exercising a little Christian charity for once, knowing of the circumstances. He owes them some consideration. Michael Cooney was in his employ for nine years until Burke dismissed him for long absences due to bad health.”
“Charity is the last virtue I can imagine Sir George practicing,” Clay said.
The old priest sighed. “I must agree with you, but the world is full of surprises. However, I mustn’t keep you from your patient. I’m going up the street to the Flahertys’ to see to their son’s funeral arrangements. I’ll look in later, if I may.” He walked away, the skirts of his robe lifted against the mud and Clay went into the cottage.
The old crone still huddled by the turf fire, mumbling to herself and Joanna was in the act of lighting an oil lamp which stood upon the table. She nodded toward the bed without speaking and Clay put down his saddlebags and crossed the room.
Mrs. Cooney was only half-conscious, her face twisted with pain. He quickly loosened her clothing and examined her, his hands moving gently across the swollen belly. After a moment, he straightened and walked back to the table.
“Get me a cup of water,” he said to Joanna, and opened his bag. When she brought the water, he mixed an opiate and, returning to Mrs. Cooney, gently forced open her mouth. She coughed so that a trickle of moisture oozed from one corner, but after a while her head eased back against the pillow and she began to breathe deeply.
Clay moved back to the table with the empty cup, face grave. “Who’s been attending to her previously?”
Joanna nodded toward the woman by the fire. “Old Mrs. Byrne there is the village midwife. She’s tried everything, but the child refuses to come.”
“I’m not surprised,” Clay said. “It isn’t in the correct position for a natural delivery.”
“Why not?” she said.
He shrugged. “Many reasons. She’s probably been working too hard for one thing, but it’s immaterial now.” He started to take off his coat. “You’ll have to help me. Strip her quickly and get her onto the cleanest sheet you can find. We’ve no time for modesty.”
“Are you going to operate?” Joanna said. “What do they call it—a cesarean?”
He laughed grimly. “Not a chance—especially under these conditions. The mother always dies and the child usually does. It’s only a form of homicidal witchcraft.”
He rolled up his sleeves and poured whiskey over his hands. He dried them on a clean cloth as he watched Joanna and the old crone make the woman ready.
By now she was completely under the influence of the opiate, and after they had stripped her naked, she lay in the dim light of the oil lamp, breathing heavily. They drew up her knees and he made a further examination.
“What do you think?” Joanna said.
“It isn’t going to be quite as difficult as I first thought.”
He took a pair of forceps from his instrument bag and went and knelt on the end of the bed. It took him several patient minutes to secure the head of the child, but finally he gave a grunt of satisfaction and locked the two handles together.
At that moment, the door of the cottage burst open and someone entered the room. Clay glanced quickly over his shoulder. Peter Burke stood there with two of his Scotsmen and they were carrying shotguns.
Clay turned back to his task and said evenly, “Tell them to get out, Joanna.”
Joanna straightened up, her face white and angry, and Burke said, “No use, Miss Hamilton. We’ve got strict instructions from your uncle. The Cooneys must go. They’ve had their chance.”
“You wouldn’t treat a dog like this,” she exploded. “Do you expect the child to be delivered in the middle of the street or in Cohan’s bar parlor, perhaps?”
He shrugged. “The colonel can have time to deliver the child, but after that Mrs. Cooney must go. Someone will take her in, no doubt.”
Clay wiped sweat from his brow with one hand and said to Joanna, “Pass my bag, will you?”
She placed it on the end of the bed, and he smiled. “I think you’ll find a pistol in the bottom somewhere.”
Her hand emerged from the bag clutching the heavy Dragoon Colt, and the lamplight glinted on its brass frame. “All you do is thumb back the hammer and pull the trigger,” Clay said. “I’ll be happy to extract the bullet from Mr. Burke after I’ve finished here.”
Joanna moved past him, the Colt held in both hands, its barrel trained on the exact center of Burke’s waistcoat. “I’ll give you five seconds to get out of here,” she said coldly.
“I should do as she says if I were you, Burke,” Clay added. “That gun has a hair trigger.”
The two Scotsmen gave ground at once, but for a moment Burke hesitated, glaring at Joanna. She thumbed back the hammer, and as the deliberate metallic click echoed through the stillness, he turned with an oath and the door banged behind him.
Joanna moved quickly and bolted it and then she went back to the bed and replaced the Colt in the bag. “Hold her knees,” Clay said. “In spite of the opiate, she may feel some pain. Whatever happens, keep her still.”
He took a deep breath, made sure the handles of the forceps were securely locked, and pulled down. The child began to move. He straightened the forceps and then started to pull steadily upwards, and miraculously, the child was there on the sheet at the end of the bed.
Clay dropped the forceps and examined it carefully. Except for the slight and temporary indentations where the head had been gripped, it seemed healthy and unharmed, a fine boy, and he quickly double-knotted the cord and then severed it with a scalpel.
He lifted the child up and handed him across to the old crone as Joanna, with that inborn knowledge granted to all women, gently and expertly helped the mother and cleansed the blood from her body.
Clay stood watching her for a moment. “Obviously, this wasn’t your first time.”
Joanna looked up and shook her head. “I’m often called out to help. Will she be all right now?”
He nodded. “I think so. There’s always child-bed fever, but they seem to catch that much more readily in hospital than they do at a home confinement.”
“You certainly seemed to know what you were doing,” she said.
He grinned. “This wasn’t my first time, either.”
He was sweating and he lifted the whiskey bottle to his lips and took a long swallow. Then she was at his shoulder and crying, her arms about him, head against his chest. No words needed to be said.
He held her close, one hand gently stroking her hair, no particular feeling of joy sweeping through him, because he had known that this would happen from that first meeting—they had both known.
For a little while longer, he held her, and then he gently pushed her away, unbarred the door and stepped outside. Burke and his men were waiting for him, drawn up in a line ten yards distant from the cottage, their shotguns ready.
Several men were standing outside the pub, waiting to see what would happen, Cohan at the front of them in a soiled apron, and women hurried through the rain to chase children indoors out of harm’s way.
For a short while, no one spoke. The only sound was the quiet hiss of the rain as it splashed into the mud, and then Burke moved forward, his two men keeping pace with him.
He was obviously controlling himself with difficulty. “If you’ve finished your business in there, I’ll carry out my orders, Colonel.”
“Tell me something,” Clay said calmly. “How much do the Cooneys owe?”
A wary expression appeared at once on Burke’s face. “I can’t see how that concerns you.”
“But it does,” Clay said. “And more than you know. I intend to pay those arrears personally to Sir George this afternoon.”
Burke shook his head stubbornly. “That’s nothing to do with me. I have my orders and I intend to carry them out.”
Clay took one quick pace forward, and hit him in the mouth so hard that he skinned his knuckles, and Burke, caught off balance, staggered backward into the mud.
The two Scotsmen dropped their shotguns and moved in on Clay and he backed against the wall. His opponents, with their hard, brutal features, would obviously draw a thin line between a beating and a killing. From the look of them, once they got him down, they would finish the job with their heavy boots.
As Burke rose to his feet and moved in behind them, help came from an unexpected quarter. A shotgun echoed flatly through the rain, and they all turned to see Kevin Rogan sitting his horse a few feet away.
One of the Scotsmen made a move toward his weapon, and Kevin said, “I’ve another barrel here.” There was a hard smile on his face. “There’s nothing I like better than a good fight, but the odds are a little long at three to one.”
“You needn’t have butted in, Rogan,” Burke told him. “I’d no intention of allowing my men to spoil my pleasure.” He motioned them away quickly and turned to face Clay. “I’ll be happy to accommodate you, Colonel,” he said, and started to take off his coat.
He stripped well, great muscles rippling under his shirt and he looked completely sure of himself as he came forward. Clay had last fought with his fists as a boy of fifteen. Now, by some strange quirk of memory, the scene came back to him vividly. A wharf at Natchez on a hot July afternoon, casks booming hollowly as men unloaded a riverboat, and the circle of unfriendly faces as his opponent moved in on him.
He had lost that fight, lost it badly, which was a poor omen. He launched himself forward and Burke took a pace backward, handed him off with a stiff right arm and whipped his left across savagely.
Clay lay in the mud for a moment, his head singing from the force of the blow. Somewhere there was a cry, and as he started to get to his feet, Joanna appeared beside him. “He’ll kill you, Clay,” she said desperately. “He blinded a tinker in a prizefight at Galway Fair three months ago.”
Clay pushed her away and moved forward again. Burke’s teeth gleamed as he smiled. “You don’t look too good, Colonel,” he said. “But there’s more to come—much more.”
He feinted with his right, drawing Clay’s guard, and delivered a powerful blow to his stomach. As Clay started to heel over, Burke hit him again, high on the right cheek, splitting the flesh to the bone and sending him backward into the mud.
Somewhere a woman screamed, and a child started to cry, but otherwise there was silence as the village waited for the end. Through the mist, a small inner voice kept telling him what a fool he had been. So Burke was heavier by thirty pounds and an expert with his fists? There were other ways. In life, as in war, it was the quick, the unexpected that won the day. Without it, a man had to eat dirt.
Clay stayed down until his head cleared a little, watching Burke’s boots cautiously as the other waited. When he moved, he came up from the ground and launched himself forward. He ducked under Burke’s arm, twisted a shoulder inwards and sent him over his hip in a cross-buttock that drove the wind from the man’s body.
It was then that Burke made his mistake. Half-stunned and shocked though he was by that terrible throw, he tried to get up at once. As he rose to one knee, Clay moved in fast and delivered two fierce blows to the man’s unprotected face with all his force. Burke’s head snapped back and he rolled over and lay still.
A ragged cheer echoed through the rain, and as Clay turned, the villagers swarmed around him, hands thumping him in the back, admiring grins on every side.
Clay was winded and sick and he couldn’t remember clearly what it was all about. One thing was certain. He had been lucky—incredibly lucky. Burke’s fists were lethal weapons. He had not been defeated by superior skill, but by the twin elements of surprise and one deadly wrestling trick taught to a young boy by an old Indian fighter many years before.
The crowd parted and Kevin Rogan appeared, grinning hugely. “My father will curse the day he missed this, Colonel.” Clay sagged a little and the big man slipped an arm about his shoulder, concern on his face. “Easy now, you’d best sit down for a while.”
They went into the cottage and Joanna pulled a chair forward. As Clay slumped into it, Kevin poured a generous measure of whiskey into a cup. “Drink this, Colonel,” he said. “There are few men who can say they’ve been in a fit state to do the same after fighting with Peter Burke.”
Joanna’s face was white and anxious. “Your face,” she said in horror. “The flesh is split to the bone. I thought he was going to kill you.”
“He very nearly did,” Clay assured her. He got to his feet and Kevin helped him on with his coat.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Joanna said.
Clay nodded. “I’ll go back to Claremont and get into a hot tub. I’ll survive.”
“I’ll ride with him, Miss Hamilton,” Kevin said. “I’m going home anyway.”
She smiled gratefully. “I’d feel easier in my mind.” She smiled up at Clay and smoothed his lapels in a small, intimate gesture. “I’ll stay with Mrs. Cooney for a while. I don’t think there will be any more trouble. I’ll try to see you later on.”
He nodded and went outside. Burke was sitting against the wall, groaning slightly, as one of his men slapped him in the face, and Clay mounted Pegeen and rode through the crowd followed by Kevin Rogan.
He was still suffering from the effects of those first few terrible blows, and when they were two or three hundred yards outside the village and screened by trees, he stopped and was violently sick.
After a moment, he looked up with a tired grin. “I feel much better for that.”
“All you need is a lie-down, Colonel,” Kevin assured him.
“Later perhaps,” Clay said. “But not now. I’ve got a call to make first. It’s time I told Sir George Hamilton exactly what I thought of him.”
“You might do better to sleep it off,” Kevin Rogan said warningly.
Clay shook his head. “No, I prefer to go when I’m in the mood. Besides, there’s the matter of the Cooneys’ rent to take care of. I intend to pay their arrears.”
“But it isn’t the money he’s after, Colonel,” Kevin Rogan said. “It’s their land and cottage he wants for some purpose of his own, otherwise he’d have allowed them to go on, month after month, binding themselves to him body and soul.”
“He’ll take the money if I have to ram it down his throat,” Clay s
aid grimly.
Kevin Rogan sighed. “I can see you’re set on it, Colonel. I wish I could come with you, but it’s essential I get home as soon as possible. I’ve important business on tonight.”
Clay leaned across and shook hands with him. “You’ve helped me enough for one day. Tell your father I’ll drop by tomorrow morning to have a look at that thigh of his.” He turned Pegeen off the road and up through the trees before the other could reply.
Once on top of the moor, he broke into a gallop and the wind began to revive him. He skirted the village and entered the grounds of Drumore House through a gap in the wall near the stables and cantered round to the front.
The old butler who opened the door was too well-trained to show any surprise at the condition of Clay’s face. He asked him to wait a moment and disappeared. After a little while, he returned and led the way along the passage to the conservatory. This time, however, he opened a door on the right and showed Clay into a small comfortably furnished study. “Sir George will be with you in a little while, Colonel,” he said. “May I get you a drink?”
Clay shook his head and the butler withdrew. Clay sat down in a wing-backed chair by the door and closed his eyes. The door had been left slightly ajar and he became aware of voices. Steps approached, and as they stopped outside, the butler said, “Now mind your manners when Sir George speaks to you, my man.”
Clay turned his head and peered through the crack. A small, rat-faced man in a shabby tweed suit stood humbly, hat in hands, as the butler opened the door into the conservatory for him. As they disappeared inside, Clay leaned back, a frown on his face. Somewhere, he had seen the man before. He had a memory for faces and this was one not easily forgotten—and then he remembered. That first night in Cohan’s Bar. The little man had been one of those listening to Dennis boast of the holdup on the Galway Road.
There was something strange here, surely. Clay peered out through the crack again in time to see the butler return on his own and disappear in the direction of the buttery. For a moment, Clay hesitated, and then he stepped across the passage and gently opened the opposite door.
