by Carol Coffey
“I knew even before then. My father Isaiah knew it too. He fought Shank until he took his last breath. There was no way he was going to take his life and leave us motherless children to his mercy.”
Locklear breathed in the melodious sounds of the voice of Luke Fehr. The man did not have the harsh accent of Beth Stoll or the sharp tones of Samuel or Jacob. His voice was soft, quiet, gentle.
Another step crunched on the dry earth.
“What I don’t understand is why you nearly took that step, to kill yourself when your siblings depended on you. Why you didn’t go to the police for help?”
Locklear heard the man take a deep intake of breath and exhale. He could feel the breath leaving Luke Fehr’s lungs and knew the man was standing right behind him.
“There was no one I could trust. I had no what you English called leverage. Not until Maria gave me the journal. Then I had something that the Shanks wanted. I had some control. I had advantage. I could finally protect my family.”
“So you fought the battle alone, living out there in the woods, digging for something that did not exist.”
“I did not know that it did not exist. I believed the story handed down from one Fehr to another.”
“There are pieces of that story missing, pieces that I still don’t understand. Will you tell me now? Now that you are all safe.”
Luke Fehr exhaled. Locklear could feel his cool breath on the back of his neck. He turned slowly and saw the face of the man up close for the first time with the sun in his eyes. Luke Fehr was dressed in Mennonite clothing. Gone was the casual clothing, the brown boots and the cowboy hat. Dark black trousers and a white collarless shirt had replaced the jeans and check shirt. The plain clothes only served to accentuate the man’s unique looks, his chiselled jaw, the light brown hair flecked with gold, and the iridescent eyes.
Luke retold the story of how Grant, threatened with death by Eli, promised the insane Mennonite a treasure more valuable than the worthless box he had taken from him. Grant assured Eli that he would give him a bounty of pearls, diamonds and valuable gems that could offer a new life to the man that had been shunned from his family at the loss of the silver box. He convinced Eli that the treasure had been buried on the Fehr farm but that he was no longer sure of its exact position. Eli believed Grant and, desperate for the box to regain his father’s approval and the treasure of the jewels if his favour was not forthcoming, he forced the Fehr brothers to dig with Grant all day and into the night until the bounty was found.
“He was crazy,” Locklear offered.
“He had darkness of the heart,” Luke responded.
“But the Fehrs knew the real reason he wanted the treasure. Your ancestors knew it contained stolen treasure and that Eli was lying. Yet your ancestors remained quiet. They did not tell the community, the elders.”
“My ancestor had made a commitment and we had to honour it. We were now outsiders. We had no right to come to church, to worship, to dress in plain clothes. We were stripped of everything we knew. The elders would not have listened to my ancestors. Daniel hoped that when he found the box everything would go back to normal, everything would be OK, and we could be Mennonite again.”
“But the box was never here on the farm,” Locklear said.
“No.”
“And you knew this?”
“I felt it.”
“Why did you keep digging?”
“Because I had to keep hope. They came here. Shank’s son and his men. They told me I was running out of time to save what was left of my family.”
“Why did you not leave?”
“This is our home.”
Fehr followed the sergeant’s eyes along the old clapboard, along the roof and gutters which had been replaced by the community who came out of their fields to help the Fehrs. Men came carrying wood, saws, nails and set to work alongside the eldest Fehr wordlessly. Others repaired the barn door, chopped wood, painted, washed, scrubbed. Eric Stoll arrived with a cow in calf. The new pastor set the animal down in the barn and left without speaking but it was a start. It was an offering, a sign that there might now be peace between the two families. As the sun set on the farm at the end of the long day, more women arrived and set down food on tables carried by the men from nearby farms. When the work was done and the house finally ready to offer rest to the returning family, the community sat and ate with the Fehr orphans. Their fear of the wrath of Shank was gone.
Locklear turned to look once more at Luke Fehr.
“What will you do now?”
Luke Fehr looked to the heavens and took a deep breath from the cooling evening air. The sun had set behind the wood at the back of the Wysses’ farm and the trees appeared to glow in pinky misty rays.
“I will work this farm and Helena’s also. I will care for my siblings and live a good life. That’s all I ask. That’s all I need.”
“Where are they?”
Luke Fehr looked up at the window and signalled. The door opened and Esther Fehr, dressed in a plain grey dress and white lace bonnet walked out followed by Abigail. Last to exit was Andrew dressed in the same black suit and white shirt as his older brother. Locklear looked at the vulnerable boy and smiled at him. The marks on his neck had paled but would be a lifelong reminder of the pact that had raged for one hundred and fifty years and was now, hopefully, and finally, over.
Locklear put out his hand.
Luke took it. “Thank you,” he said.
Locklear did not speak. He waved and walked down to where his car waited to take him on the three-hour journey home.
As he neared Richmond, his mood lowered as the green fields and small farming villages gave way to the high-rise blocks and straight lines of planned suburbs of the city he called home. He crossed the river and drove by his precinct on the corner of Greyland and South Meadow. Locklear turned down South Meadow and passed the turn-off for Rosewood Avenue where he now knew Mendoza lived with her widowed mother and her son. At the end of South Meadow he took a sharp left into Dakota Avenue where his apartment building faced the city’s cemetery.
He collected his mail in the empty foyer of the quiet block, which consisted of three utility bills, and climbed the stairs to his apartment on the third floor. He opened the door and was met with stuffy smell of an airless space. Locklear glanced around the quiet apartment. On the windowsill over the kitchen sink he checked his cactus and was surprised by his disappointment that the plant was fine and did not need his immediate care. He sat down on his worn armchair in the lounge and listened to the clock ticking from the kitchen wall behind him. Locklear looked at his watch. It was barely after 11pm. He turned on the TV and waited for Kowalski to call.
The End
Also by Carol Coffey
Thirteen year old Christopher Munroe has lived his entire life in a nursing home owned and run by his parents in the mining town of Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia.
Christopher is not like other kids. By the time he was five he had lost his hearing to a degenerative condition and spends his days wandering the run-down home alone with only the dying and the ghosts of past residents to keep him company. When Christopher’s foot is severed in an accident, the blow to his parents leaves an atmosphere of loss and blame in the already unhappy house.
Cut off from other children, Christopher becomes obsessed with redemption for the residents at his mother’s nursing home and is convinced that uncovering their pasts will somehow free him from his own guilt.
When a mysterious young man arrives from Sydney to research the lives of aging migrants, he uncovers more about the people living there than he had ever imagined. More shocking than anything is the truth about the strange boy who, despite his silence, manipulates and controls life in the dismal surroundings.
Read The Penance Room Now
“When her dishevelled, eight-year-old nephew Luke comes knocking on her door in the middle of the night, Iris Fay knows her sister Hazel is in trouble again. This time, it is a house fire sta
rted by her drunken boyfriend Pete Doyle.
As Iris is drawn back into Hazel’s dysfunctional lifestyle, she is haunted by her own past and also by the childhood memories she has kept secret from her sister.
When Pete becomes an even greater threat to the family and her sons are placed in danger, Hazel realises she must turn her life around or else lose them. But then she stumbles on a pile of letters in her mother’s attic and their contents spiral her into an even darker place.
Meanwhile Iris, too, is confronted by her past when her former husband Mark suddenly comes back into her life, looking for answers.
Can the sisters face up to their memories and find the future they long for? Or will the secrets of their childhood continue to destroy them and those they hold dear?
Read Winter Flowers Now
Brendan Martin is an American-born loner raised in Ireland by his silent, embittered mother before escaping back to New York, where he lives and works each day in blissful isolation in the crowded city. Brendan spends his days happily labouring on building sites and his evenings drinking alone in bars and hooking up with a constant stream of one-night stands.
Following a second DUI, Brendan’s peaceful and predictable life ends abruptly and he is forced to go to live in the town of Dover, New Jersey, with his overbearing uncle. There he forms an unlikely friendship with his meek, downtrodden cousin Eileen.
Forced into completing his community service, he meets Jonathan Doe, an intriguing man living in a local homeless shelter whose amazing stories of a happy childhood in the Appalachian Mountains captivate him. Within weeks of his arrival in Dover, Brendan loses himself in the strange man’s incredible stories.
Fascinated by the fact that Jonathan Doe can no longer remember exactly where he is from, Brendan becomes obsessed with helping his new friend find his way back to the kind of home he himself has always dreamed of.
But is Jonathan’s past real or are his memories the product of a deeply troubled mind? The closer Brendan gets to the truth, the more he realises that all is not what it seems with Jonathan Doe.
The Incredible life of Jonathan Doe
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