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forms. There were gray-clad legs poking from beneath the blue, a hand
clutching a jacket hood over the head for protection from the cold mist. The
pale blond head of a youth appeared suddenly from beneath the blue hood. Eyes
of pale fawn-gold looked directly at John in the pine copse.
Should I run? John wondered. He did not know what held him here. The youth
in the stern of that boat obviously had seen him, but the youth said nothing.
The boat slithered into the deep stretch of reeds at the shore. The green
mound at the bow lifted, becoming a hatless man, long and shaggy blond hair, a
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narrow, almost effeminate face with pug nose and a sharp chin, a face
dominated by light brown eyes. The brown eyes, when they focused on John,
were like a physical impact. John stood frozen in his position within the
pines. Not taking his attention from John, the man lifted a green cap into
sight and pulled it over his hair. He then brought up a worn green packsack,
which he slipped over his left shoulder by a single strap.
The oarsman had stood up and lifted an oar from its lock, using this as a pole
to push against the bottom and thrust the boat through the reeds. The man in
the bow said something over his shoulder to the oarsman, but the words were
obscured by the noisy passage through the reeds. The boat rasped to a halt,
on bottom almost half a length from the boggy turf that formed a strip between
the pines and the reeds. At a motion from the man in the bow, the youth in
the stern stood and stepped over the side, wading and pulling the boat to the
turf shingle.
Now, the oarsman turned. John confronted a cadaverous face pale under a black
felt hat. Wisps of black hair touched by gray poked from beneath the hat.
The eyes were electric blue above a ship's prow of a nose, a thin, almost
lipless mouth and a stabbing thrust of chin with only the faintest of clefts
above a reversed collar.
A priest! John thought, and he remembered the man with the knife at the
clothing hut.
The priest steadied himself against a thwart, looked at John and asked: "And
who might you be?"
The priest's tone was sane, but so had been the manner of the cowled, monkish
figure at the clothing hut.
"My name's John O'Donnell," John said.
The man in the bow nodded as though this conveyed important information. The
priest merely pursed his thin lips. He said: "You've the sound of a Yank."
John let this pass.
The youth waded to the bow and gave the boat an ineffectual tug.
"Leave be, boy," the priest said.
"Who are you people?" John asked.
The priest glanced at his companion in the boat. "This is Joseph Herity, a
wanderer like myself. The boy there . . . I don't know if he has a name.
He'll not speak. The ones who gave him to me said he had vowed to remain
silent until he rejoined his mother."
Once more, the priest looked at John. "As for myself, I'm Father Michael
Flannery of the Maynooth Fathers."
Herity said: "Take off your hat, Father Michael, and show him the proof."
"Be still," Father Flannery said. He sounded frightened.
"Do it!" Herity ordered.
Slowly, the priest removed his hat, exposing the partly healed scar of an
encircled cross on his forehead.
"Some blame the Church for our troubles," Herity said. "They brand the
ministers they allow to live -- cross in a circle for the Catholics and a
plain cross for the Prods. To tell 'em apart, you understand?"
"These are savage times," Father Flannery said. "But our Savior suffered
worse." He replaced his hat, lifted a bulky blue knapsack from the bottom of
the boat and stepped out into the reeds. Taking the boy's hand, he waded
ashore, sloshed through the boggy ground and stopped the two of them only a
few paces from John.
Without turning, the priest asked: "Will you be coming with us, Mister
Herity?"
"And why shouldn't I be along with you?" Herity asked. "Such fine company."
He stepped out of the boat, splashed through the boggy ground and strode past
the priest and boy. Stopping directly in front of John within the pine
shadows, Herity studied John from shoes to headtop. Focusing at last on
John's eyes, he asked:
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"What would a Yank be doing here?"
"I came to help," John said.
"You've a cure for the plague, then?" Herity asked.
"No, but I'm a molecular biologist. There must be somewhere in Ireland where
I can use my talents to help."
"That'll be the Lab at Killaloe," Herity said.
"Is that far away?" John asked.
"You're a long ways from the Lab now," Herity said.
Father Flannery came up beside Herity. "Have done, Mister Herity! This man
has exiled himself here out of goodness. Have you no appreciation for that?"
"Appreciation, he asks!" Herity chuckled.
John thought it was not a pleasant sound. This Herity had all the look and
sound of a devious, dangerous man.
The priest turned almost away from John. Pointing a black-sleeved arm
northward along the lake, one bony hand with all the fingers together in the
old Irish fashion, he said: "The Lab is off there quite a ways, Mister
O'Donnell."
"Why don't we tramp a ways with him to show our good hearts and our
appreciation?" Herity asked. "Sure and he needs our help or he'll go astray."
Herity shook his head mournfully. "We should be certain he's not under a
faery spell."
Father Flannery glanced into the pines, then up to the road bordering the lake
beyond the trees, back to the lake.
"It's higher powers than ourselves ordering things now," Herity said, a mock
seriousness in his voice. "You said it yourself, Father Michael, last night
when we found the curragh." He looked at the boat. "Perhaps it's a faery
curragh brought here to help us to the Yank."
John heard the McCarthy grandfather's accent in Herity, but there was an
undercurrent of spitefulness in it.
"Don't trouble yourselves," John said. "I'll find my own way."
"Ahhh, but it's dangerous, a man alone out there," Herity said. "Four
together is safer. What say, Father Michael? Shouldn't we be Christian
gentlemen and see this fine Yank safely to the Lab?"
"He should know it'll be no easy journey," Father Michael said. "Months
likely. All of it on foot, or I miss my guess."
"But sure, Father, and the man who made time made plenty of it. We can be
Sweeneys together, tramping over the land, seeing the sorry sights of our poor
Ireland. Ohh, and the Yank needs friendly native guides now."
John sensed an argument between the two men, an undercurrent of vindictive
humor in Herity. The boy stood head down through it all, apparently not
caring.
When Father Michael did not respond, Herity said: "Well, then, I'll guide the
Yank myself, the good priest not being up to his Christian duty." Herity
turned slightly left toward the trace of trail that led out of the trees and
up to the narrow road along the lake. "Let's be going along, Yank."
"The name is O'Donnell, John Garrech O'Donnell," John said.
With elaborate courtesy, Herity said: "Ahhh, now, I meant no offense, Mister
O'Donnell. Sure and O'Donnell is a grand name. I've known many an O'Donnell,
and some as would never slit me throat in the dark of a night. Yank, now,
that's just a way of speaking."
"Will y' have done, Mister Herity?" Father Michael asked.
"But I'm just explaining to Mister O'Donnell," Herity said. "We'd not want to
offend him, now would we?" He turned back to John. "We've some other Yanks,
so I'm told; some Frenchies and Canucks, a Brit or two, and even a Mexican
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