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Category:
Historical Fiction
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN-10: 1449924182
Type: Fiction
Pages: 406
Copyright: September 2, 2010
ISBN-13: 9781449924188
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
For ten years, Finn has raised a fine flock of sheep and children, but his sister and her family are returning to the farm, lost cousins are on their way from America, and a war of reprisal is raging only miles away. Who can he and Claire trust, when behind every familiar door lurks a new threat?
Beneath the lower pasture, lying next to the Atlantic in Western County Mayo, lies an anceint secret entrusted to the O'Deirg family for thousands of years. Protecting their legacy from the eyes of the world is becoming harder than ever, now that the family is growing. With the Irish Civil War turning the new nation's families against themselves, the arrival of long-lost cousins from America seems to be less than a blessing. There are forces at work, trying to pull members of the family into the violence of reprisal. Every side thinks they are doing the right thing, but what is the result? How can Finn and Claire protect what they must and extend the hand of welcome, at the same time, to strangers? What does it really mean to be family?
Excerpt
“Da?” Called Paddy to his father, “do ye want me to run down the big ram again?”
Finn glanced down across the pasture towards the cliff, where the thorn bushes marked its edge, high above the sea. Sure enough, the ram had wandered near the same low, boggy spot and was sure to get into trouble if someone didn’t intervene.
“Go ahead, son,” Finn shouted back.
Finn was glad that Paddy had such keen eyes for the flock. While Paddy dashed across the dwindling distance to his target, Finn’s heart filled with pride as his eyes followed the boy’s fleet course. Paddy’s abilities with the flock gave Finn the luxury to take time like this for himself and his thoughts. Finn wondered if he’d been as much help to his own father as Paddy was to him.
Finn sat upon a large stone near his small peat fire under a high rock outcropping. Acrid smoke drifted upwards along the face of the outcropping to the top, where the wind blew it off sideways. He’d been enjoying an afternoon tea break. It was almost in the exact spot where years before, he had been careless about where he sat and that sinkhole had almost swallowed him whole. It still made him shudder. He’d make sure there’d be no more O’Deirgs or their sheep lost in farm sinkholes or bogs, or anything else, for that matter.
Paddy’s call had startled him away from the memory. Each time he relaxed here beneath the rock outcropping, he fell into thoughts about his father. Finn still missed him, but he carried an image in his heart, of his father and mother together again in whatever paradise awaited them all. He’d often felt his father’s spirit nearby to guide him, when he lost his way.
Despite all the upheaval of the discoveries and the tax troubles that had followed, his family’s life had surely become more secure despite his abiding concerns about the outside world intruding into the quiet of their lives, or worse… discovering their hidden secrets.
Today he’d found anxiety lurking in the stillness. Not quite fear. News still managed to find their doorstep. News of battles and death while the Great War raged, then after the Armistice, local rumors of insurrections, assassinations and political intrigues found their ears. The recent news from Dublin had not been good. It worried him.
Mostly, the news came weeks later, as it had after Easter 1916, but sometimes, it came quickly. Finn relished his fresh memory of the grand day, some months back when Mallory, the Postman had dashed up on the porch to announce that the Treaty forming the Republic was finally signed with England. He had actually embraced the man.
Now that the Brits were almost gone, Finn felt that no matter how full of violence and upheaval the rest of the world may still be, Ireland might be finally able to make her own way. That eased his mind considerably and he looked forward to sitting with his father-in-law again at one of the Inn’s many tables and discussing how the world outside was getting on.
Their regular, Two-week market trip was coming up soon and he looked forward as much to the forty mile trip as to the business that lay at its end. He was also more than just a bit anxious for the arrival home of his sister and her husband, Paddy’s namesake, along with their children. The Quinn’s new home still awaited a few finishing touches and a coat of whitewash. He’d need to work that into the schedule around the sheep, somehow.
Far below, Paddy drew up close to the shaggy lead ram, as the stubborn animal wandered nearer the edge of the boggy ground. As he watched, Finn wondered, as he had since childhood, what was so exciting to sheep about boggy mud, sinkholes or steep precipices? They seemed to always be drawn to danger, or to getting stuck, one after the other. He chuckled suddenly with the thought, just like people! Finn walked over to the edge of the downhill slope in time to see Paddy victoriously waving off the ram and turn him back uphill with whistles and shouts. Their sheep dog, occupied at the other end of the pasture, was keeping two wayward ewes from stumbling through the bushes and into the sea. It responded quickly to Paddy’s whistles.
The black and white dog streaked across the pasture, ears flapping behind like small wings, to lend its help in getting the ram away from the bog. It was a dark blur of speed, running in to push the ram further uphill and away from danger. Paddy and the dog were good at their work and Finn smiled broadly, watching the carefully staged rescue. This would be the last year he would have to accompany his son and keep the flock whole. Next year, they’d split the flock up as he had done with his father, years before.
His thoughts turned to the next few week’s intense work. At least they wouldn’t have McCormick the vet, coming up the lane almost daily. Lambing season each spring was always expensive and stressful B not just for the ewes. This time of year though, they had the wool to bring in and there was no job in all the jobs on the farm, half as exhausting as that. While he was eagerly awaiting his sister’s return, he wondered how they’d fit it all in. Then there was…
Finn turned his eyes to the padlocked door of the small, wooden shed next to him. It concealed the excavated gateway hidden in the outcropping. He found comfort in knowing that at least he and his own were not going to spend their strength on any pyre of vanity raging elsewhere or indeed, even in Dublin, if what he’d heard was true. Anger, disappointment, reprisal and loss.
He shook his head as his eyes followed the crevices back up to the top of the rock face behind him. Finn’s father’s oft-repeated advice came to mind: Live a simple life and stay out of the way of people in more of a hurry than yourself.
“Well at least I’ve tried”, Finn mused aloud.
He heard soft singing beginning to echo off the rocks, or was it the familiar rustle of ancient voices from beneath his feet? Claire’s unmistakable voice soon rose above the voices of the twins. They were coming to pay a visit. He heard his wife call, “Are there any shepherds about?”
He laughed and replied, “one up and one down! Paddy’s running down the lead ram, so we have the place to ourselves!”
The three vocalists rounded the edge of the outcropping and stepped out near the cart. A sturdy, grey donkey, grazing hobbled nearby, raised its fuzzy ears and approached slowly at the sound of their voices.
Sean announced “We’re here!” in a big, important voice. He ran up to give his father a hug around the legs. Meggie followed, gathering her father’s legs and her brother in her own little arms.
“What a happy knot of children you have there, Mr. O’Deirg!” said Claire. The sunlight struck her eyes and they flashed blue-green as a halo of light caught by her hair, framed her beaming face.
Finn tried to walk, but was so encumbered by tightly clinging small fry, he had to wait for his wife to cross over and greet him with a small kiss. “We thought we’d take a walk down to see how your day was ending and get a cart ride home!”.
He smiled and explained that it would only be a short wait until Paddy and the dog had brought the sheep up high enough to safely leave them for the coming evening. He reached around her waist and drew her in to him, the twins still hanging onto his knees. They stood together for a few moments, listening as the seabirds below began calling out the end of their own day.
The sweet smell of high tide came to them on the breeze, filling the air. A sudden shift of color, as the sun slid behind a small cloud, accompanied Paddy’s breathless and sweaty return. Paddy smiled broadly at his whole family gathered around watching the sun dip lower on it’s way into the sea for the night.
“They’re all up high and dry, Da!” He added “I think they’ll be fine for the night”.
Finn had told his son often enough, that sheep cluster tightly at night and rarely wander after dark, but the 10 year old always took the gathering-up at the end of the day with great seriousness.
Finn asked Paddy to bring up the donkey from where it had wandered off. As he watched his son go, a broad, gold band of light flashed across the lower pasture. It faded quickly as the sun sank behind another cloud.
Together, they harnessed the donkey and hitched it to the cart’s harness poles as everything around them and the sea itself began to glow golden again in the late afternoon light. In a few minutes, to the tune of the old sailor’s song (a favorite among the long generations of O’Deirgs) the cart brought the whole family home from the pasture.
While Finn and Paddy took the donkey and cart to the barn, Claire gathered the twins. She saw her journal lying upon the porch floor where she had left it. The work could wait until after the children were fed and down for the night. But it was just two weeks more, she reminded herself, before their Cork family came home to stay. Her work would need to be put aside for a while.
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