Last Confession of Rick O'Shea

by Clyde Barker

  The first thing to attend to were his bonds. It is amazing how even quite intelligent and experienced men will sometimes tie a fellow’s hands behind his back and think that they have thus rendered him entirely helpless. In fact, any reasonably lithe and agile person can easily slip the bound hands over his buttocks and then, by drawing up his knees to his chest, slide them also over his feet. With the bonds now on the wrists in front of him it is a poor fish who is unable to work a few knots loose with his teeth. It takes time, but it is not overly difficult to accomplish.

  Within twenty minutes Rick O’Shea had his hands free and was thus at liberty to turn his attention to escaping from the little outbuilding in which he was confined. The two small windows were not barred, but O’Shea doubted that he would have been able to wriggle his way through the tiny squares. They were barely twelve inches wide and high up on the wall; their only purpose being to let in a little light. The door was stout and looked as though it would resist any amount of kicking; not that he really wanted to be kicking up a shindy and advertising his attempts to bust out. There remained but one option.

  On more than one occasion in the past O’Shea had found himself being held in little lock-ups, one of which had been even smaller than this. Not all little towns ran to a proper jail built into the back of the sheriff’s office; sometimes drunks and other minor lawbreakers were shoved into a tiny outbuilding like this for a couple of days.

  It was during one such spell of temporary incarceration that Rick O’Shea had discovered an interesting fact: that however strong windows and doors might be, most buildings had one weak spot; this was the roof.

  When you stick a roof on anywhere, whether it be a house, barn, shed or privy, you are more concerned with making sure that the wind does not blow it off than you are likely to worry about some fool pushing at it from within. Who would ever do such a thing? The roof of the little place where O’Shea was being held was barely seven feet from the ground. He swept a harness and some tools from a heavy table, then hopped up on to it, almost banging his head on the roof beam in the process. Then he bent down and pressed his back against the beam and began pushing upwards.

  Almost at once he felt movement, but then he immediately stopped. There had been a screeching of nails as they protested at being wrenched free. Before making his move O’Shea would have to be sure that there was nobody in the vicinity who would be alarmed by the sight and sound of a roof rising into the air. He got down from the table and dragged it over to one of the tiny windows.

  It was almost completely dark now and from the window O’Shea was able to get some sense of the shed’s surroundings. The compound in which the shed stood covered an area of an acre or so. This was enclosed by an adobe wall too high to be climbed without assistance. In the centre of the compound stood an imposing house that looked more like a New Orleans townhouse than anything else that Rick O’Shea had ever seen. Its appearance here, near to the modest little village of single-storey dwellings was, to O’Shea’s mind, more than a little incongruous. Plainly, Valentin Yanez was riding high on the hog and wasn’t ashamed to let everybody know it.

  In addition to the house there looked to be a half-dozen other, smaller buildings: stables and sheds by the look of them. There was nobody about as far as O’Shea could see. Judging from the lights and sound of laughter and loud voices from the house Yanez and his boys were making merry. This was all to the good.

  It was unlikely that anybody would be worrying their heads about him until the morning. As far as they were concerned he was safely tucked away in here, where he could do no harm. This was good, because it meant that there need be no great rush to do anything. O’Shea stood and examined the table critically, then hopped up again to look at the wall surrounding Yanez’s lair.

  The table stood about three feet high and the wall outside was no more than eight feet high. Why, it should be child’s play if, once out of the shed, he was able to push this table up to the wall, jump up and scramble over it. Then he suddenly recollected with a shock that he had no way of getting the table to the wall, on account of what but the door was locked. The resolution to this puzzle, when it came, was simplicity itself.

  The window at the front showed pretty much the whole of Yanez’s little realm. It might be worth, thought O’Shea, looking to see what was to be seen out back. He hauled the table over to the other window, climbed up and was delighted to find that the rear wall of the shed in which he was presently confined was no more than three feet from the wall around the compound. Why, there was nothing to stop him leaving this minute!

  There would without doubt be some kind of pursuit when it was found that he had gone; for one thing, that fool Jackson had told him altogether too much about his crooked affairs to be able to risk O’Shea getting back to Pecos County. Well then, it wouldn’t be the first time that Rick O’Shea had played the part of quarry in a hunt and here he still was, large as life and twice as natural. He’d do well enough.

  There seemed to be no reason to delay his departure. O’Shea, after having one last look out the front to check that the coast was clear, moved the table to the back of the shed, climbed up and applied his strength to the roof there, pushing upwards with all his might. There was less noise this time, perhaps because some of the nails had already been loosened, and he found that the roof was prised loose of the top of the walls in no time.

  He shifted it sideways, leaving it propped on top of the little building at a strange angle, then scrambled through the gap until he was perched on the rear wall, where the roof had lately been resting. Then he leaped towards the high adobe wall behind and was able to lower himself from there to the ground outside without any great difficulty.

  He then set off at a brisk pace for the foothills of the mountains that loomed above the village of Chuchuverical.

  By O’Shea’s calculations he need not fear any attempt at pursuit before dawn. His reasoning was that the men he had heard in the big house sounded to him to have been in the early stages of intoxication. It was ten to one against their bothering about him that night. The chances were that they would not even notice that the roof of the shed was a bit skew-wiff. Even if they did, would they think it profitable to come haring out into the darkness to try and track him down? It would be madness; they’d surely wait until first light. All this having been considered, he slowed down a little as he gained the hills and prepared to pace himself in his efforts to reach the mountains by sunrise.

  So occupied was Rick O’Shea with his plans and so self-satisfied was he with his cleverness in having freed himself from the coils of what could have been a very nasty situation, that he wasn’t paying all that much heed to his present surroundings. Which was why it wasn’t until he was right on top of him, that he all but stumbled in the darkness over a young man who was lying on the ground and sighting down a rifle. This person, when once he knew that O’Shea was aware of his presence, pulled out a pistol, stood up slowly and said:

  ‘You come a step closer and I’ll shoot you down like a dog.’

  This was such an unlooked-for development that O’Shea was for a moment at a loss to know how to proceed. He played for time.

  ‘Whoa there,’ he said, ‘there’s no need for that at all.’ As he spoke, his mind was working hard as could be, trying to work out the play. Was this some sentry set here by Yanez to guard his stronghold? Or was he just some bandit who happened to be in the area? Then, cursing himself for being such a slow-witted dullard, O’Shea thought to himself that the most curious circumstance of all was that this young fellow was speaking not Spanish but English.

  O’Shea stood stock still, for when somebody’s drawing down on you with a pistol the last thing you wish to do is make some terrible mistake that can never be set right in this world. He tried to reduce tension a notch or two. ‘You ain’t a Mexican, surely?’ he said. ‘What’re you up to here?’

  ‘Never you mind what I’m up to,’ said the boy with great firmness. ‘I might ask you the self-
same question, if it comes to that. You come up here seeking me?’

  ‘Seeking you? I’m not after seeking anything, other than to be away from this place. I’ve no quarrel with you that I know of. Will you let me pass?’

  The youth said nothing for a spell, then asked:

  ‘You come from down yonder?’

  The more he heard the boy speak the more O’Shea began to think that there was something not quite right about him. When he figured what it was, despite his perilous predicament Rick O’Shea laughed out loud.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ asked the youth fiercely. ‘Don’t think as you can push me around.’

  ‘You’re no boy,’ said O’Shea. ‘What in the name of all that’s wonderful is a young girl doing up here with a rifle and pistol?’

  ‘I ain’t so young as all that. I’m nineteen.’

  ‘Mother of God! You say you’re nineteen? Don’t tell me you’re after being Emily Covenay’s sister?’

  ‘Well, and what of it? You best don’t forget I still got the drop on you. You ain’t even carrying. You needn’t think I’d hesitate to shoot, neither.’

  ‘I believe you well enough, but it’ll not be needful, d’ye see? Why, we’re on the same side entirely.’

  The young woman, for now that he had heard the confirmation from her lips, he could see at once that this was the case, said:

  ‘The same side? I don’t rightly understand you. What side you talking about?’

  ‘Why, getting your sister out of here and back home with you and your pa. What else?’ It looked to O’Shea as if the young person was inclined to argue the point and make difficulties. He went on:

  ‘I just escaped from where your sister’s being held, but I mean to go back for her. But for now I’d feel better if we could move further from Yanez’s place. I’ll walk ahead of you if it’ll make you fell safer, but for the love of God let’s be moving higher up this slope.’

  The woman gave the matter some thought, then said:

  ‘Are you a lawman?’

  ‘Not a bit of it.’

  ‘You’re Irish, I know that much.’

  ‘Sure and what of it?’

  ‘Nothing. My pa’s Irish as well.’

  ‘Very interesting, but can we just be making tracks now?’

  The woman picked up a heavy-looking pack and put the pistol back in a holster which she had rigged under her arm. Then she picked up the rifle.

  ‘You’re not a Mexican bandit,’ she said, ‘I know that much. Maybe I can trust you.’

  The two of them set off up the scree-covered slope, which led towards the mountains. O’Shea found that he was making heavy weather of the climb, but the young woman seemingly took it in her stride. It had been quite dark earlier, but now the clouds slid away revealing a gibbous moon, which shed its pale and meagre light upon the scene. Now that he could see her, which he did by stealing surreptitious glances at intervals, it was obvious that this was a young woman who had simply hacked off her long hair and donned a man’s clothes. Her hair was ragged and unkempt and O’Shea guessed that she had simply chopped it off with the kitchen scissors.

  He noticed that the rifle she was toting under her arm was of a strange design.

  ‘That’s a mighty odd-looking weapon you have there. You know how to use it?’

  ‘I can shoot better than you, most likely.’

  The further they went the steeper was the slope and the looser and more heavy-going was the scree. The good thing was that they were now out of sight of Yanez’s little fort; tracking anybody through this grit and dust would be an arduous task, assuming that those chasing him didn’t have a pack of bloodhounds at their disposal. The young woman didn’t seem even to be breaking sweat, but O’Shea was beginning to gasp with the effort. At last he stopped dead in his tracks.

  ‘Would you be halting for minute or two, missy?’ he pleaded.

  The woman whirled round like a cat. ‘I’ll thank you not to call me “miss”,’ she said. ‘Strikes me that you’re out of condition that a little stroll like this should leave you panting like an old horse, ready for the knacker’s yard.’

  O’Shea stared at her, unable to decide whether he was angry or amused.

  ‘And haven’t you got a mouth on you, then,’ she said. ‘If you’re not the law, what’s your interest in rescuing my sister?’

  ‘It’s a penance,’ O’Shea replied, not seeing the need to conceal the fact from this forthright young woman. Besides which, it would at least show her that he was to be trusted. After all, the Covenays were Catholics too and she would likely understand such a thing. ‘The priest back in San Angelo, Father Flaherty is it? He set me off on this little trip.’

  The girl looked at him dubiously.

  ‘Didn’t Father Flaherty tell me that he’d been praying hard and that the Lord would provide?’ she said. ‘Mind, I should have thought He might have done better than a man who can’t walk up a hill without getting winded, but I guess it can’t be helped.’

  ‘Well then, would you like me to go back to my home and leave you waiting for the Lord to send you an archangel with a burning sword or something of the sort?’ asked O’Shea, irritated. ‘If, that is, you’re not after being satisfied with what’s on offer.’

  ‘I guess you’ll have to do. Tell me what you know of this business.’

  As briefly as possible Rick O’Shea outlined the steps in his pilgrimage up until that moment. The woman mulled over what he said, then dismissed his trials and tribulation by casually observing:

  ‘You don’t seem to have accomplished a single thing. It’s a good job I came myself. So Sheriff Jackson’s a rogue, is he? That’s news, at any rate.’

  ‘I suppose you’d have done better, would you?’ O’Shea said, stung by her attitude.

  ‘I couldn’t have done worse,’ she replied. ‘Let’s carry on up to that pine wood there.’

  Fuming inwardly yet at the same time conceding that she had a point, O’Shea continued up the slope alongside the woman. He couldn’t yet make up his mind whether bumping into this young person was a tremendous stroke of good fortune or a damned nuisance.

  Chapter 5

  Neither O’Shea nor the woman felt inclined to sleep: it was only the evening. Once he had given her a somewhat fuller account of his adventures she apparently realized that they would both need to be on the alert, for it was impossible to say when Yanez and the sheriff would be coming to find their escaped prisoner. When he had finished detailing the sequence of events that had brought him to this point, O’Shea asked tentatively what the story was behind the young woman’s presence on the hill overlooking Chuchuverical.

  ‘The truth is,’ she told him, ‘I didn’t trust to anybody else to find my sister and bring her safely home. Sheriff Jackson don’t exactly inspire one with confidence, even without knowing he’s crooked. So I got some of the men on our place – the hands and such, you understand, to ask around. They heard a rumour that a man called Yanez was behind it. I’d never so much as heard the name until that moment.

  ‘Then I went to Father Flaherty and told him I was going to go off searching for Emily. I let him think that he was talking me out of the idea and I picked up some more clues from him, though he didn’t tell me all he knew, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Tell me you didn’t travel all the way here on your own?’ said O’Shea, aghast.

  ‘Well then, I did. All the way to Archangel, where I paid some scamp to point out across the river where Yanez had his base; then I took the ferry across the river and here I am.’

  ‘Why, it’s sheer madness! What was your father thinking of, letting it happen?’

  ‘You tend to your own affairs and leave me to look after my own,’ she said tartly. ‘I can take care of myself well enough.’

  ‘At least you’ll allow that it’d be crazy for us to work separately. We’d be tripping over each other and like as not end up shooting each other by accident.’

  Neither then nor later did Rick O’Shea man
age to elicit from the woman precisely what her plans had been for recovering her sister safely. From all that he was able to collect, she had come up to the hills above Chuchuverical and, apart from peering down at the place through the telescope on her rifle, had little idea what to do next to achieve her object.

  The gun that she was toting was of a curious design; one that O’Shea had never encountered.

  ‘Would you be minding if I had a look-see at that musket of yours?’ he said, ‘I never seen the like.’

  Jemima Covenay handed the rifle to O’Shea. He hefted it in his hands.

  ‘My, but that weighs more than I’d be wanting to carry round with me,’ he said. ‘And what’s this little tube on the top supposed to do?’

  ‘It’s a telescope sight. This is a Whitworth. My pa carried it all through the war; he was a sharpshooter. They called these here “widowmakers”, on account of men with one o’ these hardly ever missed their mark.’

  ‘You a tolerable good shot with it? Looks a right ungainly piece of ordnance for a girl to be using.’

  ‘I been firing this since I was ten. My pa, he was never to have a son, so I took that part. Used to go hunting with him from when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. My ma, God rest her, she weren’t none too happy, but Pa’s a man who’ll have his own way. I can kill anything as moves with this, up to a thousand yards.’

  ‘Can ye, now? You ever kill a man?’

  ‘Not yet, but before God, I see the man that took our Emily away and I’ll pull the trigger on him and not think twice on it.’

  O’Shea looked at the girl in frank admiration.

  ‘By God,’ he said, ‘I believe you! But before anything of that sort, we’ve to be finding where that sister o’ yourn is stowed. Happen there’ll be time for vengeance afterwards.’

  Jemima Covenay looked at O’Shea with an air of contempt.