Deadman's Fury (The Deadman Series Book 2) Read online

  Iris and Matthew had been married for almost five years and her body still trembled with desire at his slightest touch. He had just taken a bath and shaved for the special trip into town and she rubbed her cheek against his.

  “You smell delicious, husband. Is this the cologne I bought you?”

  Matthew smiled. “I was worried that I smelled like a fancy boy in a parlor house but this stuff is okay. I can bear it if you can.”

  Iris had purchased it from the barbershop in town. The owner claimed it was the newest men’s fragrance out of Paris but she didn’t know, or care, about French fashion. She only knew that she loved the cologne’s earthy smell of bergamot and musk and had made the purchase on the spot.

  Now, she wanted to eat her beautiful, young husband alive but she sighed and stepped back from his reach. “We must be going soon and I really do need to get dressed,” she said.

  Matthew grinned and let her go, unmolested. “May I have a rain check, Mrs. Wilcox?”

  Iris laughed. “You can count on it, Mr. Wilcox.”

  Then the silence was shattered by the jubilant shouts of her youngest son, Chance. “Mama! Mama! Look what Papa found!”

  Her chubby five-year-old had run into the kitchen and plunked a tin cup on the table. He stared up at her with excitement shining in his beautiful green eyes. His hair, as always, stood up in strawberry-blonde cowlicks and his nose was black with mud.

  Grabbing a washcloth, Iris bent over and scrubbed the dirt off her son’s nose. Then she peeked into the cup that was teeming with polliwogs and exclaimed, “Ooooh, they’re lovely! Now you must put them back in the pond and get ready for school.”

  “Oh, Mama. I don’t wanna go to school!” he cried.

  Matthew said, “Maybe not, but you will go anyway. Don’t you want to grow up smart like your brother and sister?”

  Besides his parents, the two people in the world Chance loved and admired above all were his older siblings. Frowning thoughtfully, his shoulders slumped. “Okay, I’ll go,” he grumbled.

  Matthew was almost ready to leave; he wore his suit pants and dress boots. The only thing he needed to put on was his shirt and tie. Iris, on the other hand, wasn’t ready at all and she needed to hurry if they were to be on time for the train’s arrival.

  “Mattie, will you help Chance clean up a little and make sure he makes it to class?” she pleaded.

  “Of course,” he answered. “You better hurry, though. You have a date to keep…two dates, actually,” he added, winking.

  Iris hurried away to get dressed and Matthew washed his son’s face with a soapy cloth. Then, checking for mud stains on the boy’s clothes, he shrugged and led Chance out the back door and about two-hundred feet to the little one-room schoolhouse he had had built for the farm kids in the area.

  Abby was already there, and she smiled as her stepfather and little brother stepped inside. Three other children were also in attendance and Chance ran to meet them, hollering, “Look what Papa let me bring for Show and Tell!”

  Matthew could see more children approaching from the south end of the ranch and he moved close to his stepdaughter. “We’ll be back soon…no later than three-o-clock, I think. Will you be okay by yourself?”

  The girl frowned for a second, then grinned and said, “Of course, Papa! I want Cousin Amelia to be proud of me when she comes.”

  Matthew started to say, “Of course she’ll be proud…” but Abby had walked away and was placing schoolbooks on the desks.

  ~

  Two hours later, Matthew, Iris, Samuel, Lenny Michaels, and an old wolf named Bandit arrived at the train station in a buckboard. Iris stared at the tiny, gold watch-necklace Matthew had bought her last year for Christmas and said, “I can hardly believe we made it on time!”

  “Oh ye of little faith.” Matthew laughed, to which Iris arched an eyebrow.

  “You really shouldn’t mock the pastor, Matthew. I have a hard enough time convincing the children to attend church on Sundays without you making fun of the sermons.”

  Matthew nodded, but turned away with a grin. Gesturing to his stepson he said, “Samuel, since the train hasn’t arrived yet, why don’t you head over to the confectioner’s shop?” Handing a few coins over, he added, “Pick up a pound of buttercreams…no, a pound and a half. You and Lenny can share the half pound. We’ll make the pound a welcome gift to your cousin.”

  Samuel, a tall and gangly youth with a gap-toothed grin and light brown eyes and hair, smiled broadly and said, “Yes, sir!” Turning to the ranch foreman, he said, “Come on, Mr. Michaels, before Ma says no!”

  Iris smiled and said, “Go ahead, but don’t tarry. The train should be here any minute.” She watched fondly as her oldest son scampered off down the road and her hired man limped after him. Then she turned to her husband and looped her arm through his.

  “You are a kind and generous man, Matthew. Thank you.”

  Sheriff Wilcox gazed down at his wife’s face and thanked his lucky stars. Iris wore a spotless white blouse and a new skirt - a yellow concoction with tiny black and red bouquets scattered on the background like wildflowers in an autumn pasture. Her red hair was plaited down her back and she wore a straw boater-style hat. At thirty-four years old, Iris could still pass for a young girl.

  Bandit whined and leaned his weight against Matthew’s legs. His beloved wolf had grown old and sometimes suffered the effects of arthritis or too much heat. Leading Iris and Bandit up onto the boardwalk of the train station, Matthew said, “Looks like the train is running late again. We might as well sit in the shade while we wait.”

  Knowing that her husband worried over his pet, she gladly sat on one of the benches and rubbed Bandit’s ears as he sat down with a groan between the two humans he loved. She also worried about the old wolf and dreaded the day when they might find him curled up under his favorite tamarack tree, dead.

  Twenty minutes had passed when Sam and Lenny returned. Surprisingly, her son had not eaten all the chocolates and offered what remained in the bag to his parents. They made small talk for a little while and then Matthew rose and said, “I’ll go in and see what the delay is.”

  Stepping inside the depot, he saw Trevor Maddock shake his head. “I don’t know why the train is late, Sheriff. Until we get that telegraph we were promised during the last election, I can’t find out unless someone goes down the street and sees for themself.”

  Maddock had been a sourpuss for as long as Matthew could remember and age had not mellowed his flavor one bit. He cleared his throat and said, “Would you like me to head down to the telegraph office?”

  Maddock glared. “No! Train is only a half hour behind. And I heard the wood chute in Ellensburg has been acting up lately. More broken promises…”

  Matthew tipped his hat and backed out the door. It was true that state funding was sporadic and some of the bigger oaths sworn by the rail companies were nothing more than a ploy to buy land on the cheap for their trains. Still, things did happen. Wood for the fuel needed to raise steam sometimes came up missing or the wood-chutes malfunctioned. Sometimes, especially during the heat of summer, wells ran dry which caused a shortage of water for the trains to function properly.

  He sent Samuel to the mercantile to fetch a book and some victuals for lunch, and then settled by Iris’s side to wait. And wait…for another hour and a half. Finally, they heard a distant whistle and saw the smoke rising out of a train about a mile to the east.

  They all stood up in preparation for the train’s arrival, but then Matthew saw his deputy and best friend Roy Smithers trotting quickly down Main Street toward them. Staring up into Roy’s face, Matthew didn’t like what he saw.

  Excusing himself, he stepped off the boardwalk and approached the deputy who clutched a yellow piece of paper in his hand. Roy’s long, bony face and mild blue eyes were set in a familiar expression—a look Matthew knew all too well, although he had not seen it for many years.

  “What’s wrong, Roy?” he asked as his deputy
slid down off his horse.

  Roy looked down at his boots for a moment and then he handed the telegraph to the sheriff. “Looks like someone nabbed your niece, boss.”

  Chapter 3

  The Donnelly’s

  In the year of our Lord 1848, twins—Patrick and Margaret—were born unto Sean and Moira O’Donnell in a small hamlet just outside of Kilkenny, Ireland. Their first years of life were blessed with love and plenty. Then the great potato blight devastated the green island, bringing both low-and high-born to their knees in starvation and desperation.

  At first, Sean O’ Donnell thought that he and his family would weather the storm. He was not a potato farmer—he didn’t even care for spuds—but a fisherman by trade and had been successful in his endeavors with two small but sturdy boats and a busy stall in the market square just a stone’s throw away from the great St. Canice Cathedral.

  What he did not count on were the long-term effects of the diseased crops and the toll it would take on his friends and neighbors. His best customers had no money because they had nothing of value to sell. This meant they could not afford to supplement their meager food stores with fresh fish.

  Day after day, Sean’s boats brought fresh salmon, haddock and trout to the docks, only to have the seafood spoil and rot on the oilskin-covered tables in Moira’s stall. One by one, the other stalls at the market closed; the tinsmith, the flower-seller, the apothecary and the baker left and never came back until the only stall left open was Patrick’s fishery.

  He dismissed the crew of his largest boat and put it into dry-dock. Then, he let the men that piloted his other boat go. After that, Sean and his son took the smaller vessel and fished the river Rone for trout or river salmon. He knew those fish would bring no profit. At this point, he fished simply because it was the only thing he could think of to do.

  Whatever bounty he brought in from the river at night he now gave to the starving people…his friends and neighbors who wandered about the market with hollow, terror-stricken eyes. For months, Sean and his family helped ease the pang of hunger from their fellow citizen’s bellies until one night he caught sight of his young wife bent over her table, scrubbing oil, scales and fish guts off the surface with harsh lye soap.

  Moira was a pretty cailin, almost as tall as he was, with rich black hair and bright blue eyes. She had always been a little stout but now Sean saw that she had become a shadow of herself. Her skin hung off her bones and her eyes were ringed in shadow. Wearing her shawl although the evening was warm, he watched as she shivered with chill.

  “Wife, what ails ye?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, Sean. Just purely tired is all,” she answered.

  He called to his children who were floating bits of wood on a nearby stream like boats. Then he told his wife to sit for a spell while he finished cleaning. A few minutes later, the small family trooped home in the lavender dusk. They ate crab and salt-bread, although Moira only picked at her food and stared into the flames of their stone fireplace with listless eyes.

  The next day, she could not get out of bed…a week and a half later, she died of cholera. Sean knew that he had to get what remained of his family out of Ireland before they all perished so he telegraphed his older sister, offering his two boats and his house to her and her husband for half their value.

  His sister Lizzy had married a gowl tool by the name of Joseph Licket. They lived in northern England and ran a successful grocer’s store in Yorkshire. When the Irish famine first struck, Lizzy sent letters of sympathy and offers of help but as the conditions in Ireland worsened her letters grew more distant and the tone of those missives most chilly.

  Apparently, Licket was a great supporter of the devil Charles Trevelyan, a British dignitary who pronounced the Irish lazy, incompetent and victims of their own foolhardy actions. Up until recently, Britain had tried to help their ailing neighbors to the west with shipments of food, maize seed and medicines but Trevelyan had important friends in Parliament. And relief from Britain meant more taxes from its citizens.

  As the Irish famine wore on, more and more English citizens were feeling the pinch of charity in their pocketbooks and the resentment that inevitably follows throwing “good money after bad.” Now, relief was no longer forthcoming. Instead, the British set up workhouses for starving Irish families who could barely stand upright much less work for the meager rations offered in return for backbreaking labor.

  Apparently, Lizzy’s husband felt the pinch more than most although he lived in a fancy house and his waistline grew more corpulent by the year. Two whole weeks passed before a telegram finally arrived, informing Sean that the Lickets would purchase the property but only if the price was again reduced by half.

  Desperate to escape the fate of millions of his fellow countrymen, Sean swallowed his rage and accepted his brother-in-law’s offer. The money finally arrived, along with three men who would sail his boats across the channel to Northern England. After giving the Englishman ten pounds, Sean begged passage on the larger of the boats and—with his children—left his homeland forever.

  They booked sail on a steamer from London to New York and the passage was horrible. Although there were calm days when the ocean seemed to be made of glass and porpoises leapt from the waves like children at play, most of the voyage was beset with one squall after another.

  If Sean had received the money from his property that he’d asked for, he and his children might have been able to afford second-class accommodations: their own cabin, fresh water, fruit and the same food the captain ate every day. Instead, he and his family rode steerage and were treated no better than the animals penned in the back of the hull. The flux had walked aboard the boat in London and, within days of leaving harbor, the straw that littered the floor of the ship was sour with diarrhea and vomit.

  They finally arrived in North America just as winter embraced the northeastern coastline in its icy arms. A harried customs agent at Ellis Island promptly changed Sean’s last name to Donnelly. Affronted, Sean wanted to argue that he was proud to carry his Da’s name but a strange, frightening tickle had developed in his lungs, a heavy itch that no amount of coughing could ease.

  He had heard many stories of people turned away from North America by these same agents at the first sign of sickness and Sean could ill afford to fail now. Passage to this country had depleted most of his purse but he still had enough left to start anew if he was careful. So he swallowed his pride and herded his children ahead of him, down the gangplank, and into the city of New York.

  ~

  Two years passed and, at first, Sean thought that his “American Dream” might come true. Luckily, within minutes of arriving in America, Sean heard the Gaelic being spoken around the corner of a dilapidated warehouse that stunk of creosote and fish.

  Approaching cautiously, Sean saw two men arguing loudly by a pile of nets on the boardwalk in front of the building. “I’ll not have ye coming in late fer work, Donovan, ye hear me?” The older of the two men hollered.

  Indeed, it looked like the younger man was in his cups because he gave as good as he got. “And I’ll not have ye pushing me around, ye old sot!” He hiccupped, grinning.

  “Alrighty then,” the older man exclaimed. “Off wit ye! You are fired!” Then another man who had been lingering by the building’s big sliding doors came rushing up behind the young drunk, seized him by the back of his shirt and the seat of his pants, and heaved him off the pier into the water below.

  A chorus of hoarse shouts filled the air as the men who worked in the warehouse saw what happened and cheered. Seizing the moment, Sean stepped up to the older man, extended his hand and begged for a job.

  “Fresh off the boat, are ye?” the man, whose name was Danny O’Malley, asked.

  Sean nodded and then stated his credentials, his birthplace, and the names of his two children. O’Malley studied the man’s wind-burned face and the calluses on his palms, all of which bespoke a lifetime of experience on the sea.

&nbs
p; Remembering his own humble beginning in this wild and formidable country, O’Malley’s heart went out to the young family. “Okay then. You start tomorrow at 6:00 am, sharp. Use the rest of this day to find accommodations. I recommend Mrs. Pratt’s Boarding House. She tolerates the Irish and keeps a clean larder. Remember! 6:00 am, sharp!”

  Sean led his children away and up the street to the boarding house, trying to ignore the heaviness in his lungs and the persistent tickle that tormented the back of his throat.

  ~

  A year and a half later, Sean knew that he was seriously ill. It became harder and harder to get out of bed every morning and he knew that he wasn’t doing as well at the fish house as O’Malley demanded. Strangely, the old man remained as kind as ever and moved Sean into the accounting office rather than out on the processing floor.

  Patrick and Maggie did what they could to help. They were tall for their age and looked much older than their seven years so Patrick helped one of his friends—a young tough named Quinn Sully—either hawk newspapers or deliver them to the businesses and homes in the area.

  Maggie sometimes helped Mrs. Pratt with laundry and stitch work. She also emptied the boarding house’s many chamber pots for $2 a month off the rent. Life went on and, some days, Sean fooled himself into thinking that everything would be all right.

  He had put off his own care for too long, however. One day, after a particularly fierce bout of coughing nearly brought him to his knees, Mr. O’Malley entered the accounting office, dismissed Sean’s fellow clerk, and closed the door.

  He sat down on one of the wooden chairs and pulled his cap off his bald head with a sigh. “I hate to, boyo, but I have to let you go.”

  Sean had barely gotten himself under control and, when he heard his boss’s words, he burst into another coughing fit. Wiping tears from his eyes, he sat down, trembling, on the other chair.

  “I want to thank ye, sir, for all you done fer me and mine,” he whispered.