Gallagher coughed again. “The magistrate of the time decided to keep it secret.”
“Your great-grandfather?”
“Yes.”
Jim swallowed. The taste of dust on his teeth. “Were they guilty?”
The old man nodded.
“But there was no trial.” Jim shook his head, denying it. “No charges were ever laid.”
“It was done quietly. Sort of a gentlemen’s agreement until the authorities got to the bottom of it. The charges were later dismissed.” He brushed the dust from his hands. “Everyone knew these men were guilty but they kept mum. A story sprang up about a gang of escaped convicts, running loose over the countryside. Everyone went along with the lie.”
Jim backed away from it. “Then why the list? If there was no trial, no charges, why is there this list?”
“There was still an investigation. The guilty parties couldn’t hold their tongues and all were brought before the magistrate.” Gallagher sifted the pages in the folio. “These are all confessions. Judge Charlton Gallagher made each and every man dictate and sign. Then he put them all into this box and hid the damn thing away.”
Jim shook his head again, as if he could wish it all away. “Why? Why would he cover it up like this?”
“To keep the peace. There’s more than twenty names on that list. And those are just the men who committed the deed. Add to that everyone who knew what had happened, that’s half the town.” Gallagher slipped a page free from the pile and held it up. “Here. You need to see this.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“Read it,” Gallagher scolded him. “The name at the bottom.”
Jim took the document, the paper like onionskin in his fingers. The script was cramped and hard to decipher. Then it became crystal clear. “Robertson James Hawkshaw.”
The old man nodded. “Your ancestor. Robbie Hawkshaw was the ringleader of the vigilante group. He led the assault on the Corrigan home that night.”
February 28, 1898
I, Robertson James Hawkshaw, did wilfully and with malice commit murder and violence to the family of James Orin and Mary Agnes Corrigan and their children; John James, Thomas Finn, Michael Patrick and Bridgette Mary Corrigan.
Murder, so help me God, was not my intention that night. The Vigilance Peace Society had assembled in John Murdy’s tavern to discuss plans to protect ourselves from our tormentors. James Corrigan and his sons, Thomas and Michael, were to give depositions in their lawsuits against myself, Fergus Hitchens and Tom Berryhill. Our intentions that evening were simply to warn the Corrigan men not to depose and frighten them into dismissing their various legal pursuits.
The meeting at the tavern adjourned just before midnight and we resolved to reconvene at the Roman Line school house within the hour. Twenty-one of us in all crowded into that little building. James Corrigan and myself had built that school house long ago, back before the feuding began, before the Corrigans began their campaigns of abuse and intimidation. Charley Puddycombe brought a bottle, the rest of us brought what weapons we had or could obtain.
It was decided that we should disguise our faces and Michael Keefe reached into the woodstove and scooped out the cinders. We blacked our faces with soot until only our eyes shone. A frightening sight we were, like dark wraiths, and I shudder to recall it now. With our masks in place, I led the men across the snow to the house of our enemies that night, February 4, year of Our Lord 1898.
We surrounded the house and hailed the Corrigans. I stove the door in and James Corrigan charged at me with an old army pistol. I shot him in the chest with my rifle and he fled out the back where Tom Berryhill skewered him with a pitchfork.
I shot and killed Michael Corrigan in the parlour room. I killed Mary Corrigan in the kitchen by dashing her skull with her own shillelagh.
Thomas and John Corrigan were killed by the other men in our group. Bridgette Corrigan was attacked and defiled in one of the upstairs rooms but I had no part in that business so help me God.
When the awful business was done, we dragged the bodies into the barn and I scattered lamp oil through the hay and set it ablaze with a match.
In our madness, none of us thought to look for the youngest member of the family, the cub Robert.
When the deed was done, each man swore themselves to secrecy and we dispersed to our homes. Few of the men kept their tongues, blathering it all to their wives and when the women learn of a secret they none can keep it, even when it means condemning their own husbands.
To these crimes I confess with an open heart and may the Lord have mercy on my soul;
23
“TRAVIS!”
The barn was dark and humid. Emma stepped through the bay doors and into the pitch, calling out to her son. It shouldn’t be this dark in here. She’d told both Jim and Travis a hundred times to leave one light on for the horse. A hundred times they’d forgotten.
“Travis? Come on out, honey!”
She patted the beam until she found the switch and the bulb glowed through a gauze of cobwebs. The stalls, tack room and bay were empty. She crossed to the ladder and hollered up the monk hole to the hayloft. Again, no answer. Emma cursed and went up. The smell of old hay was ripe, the air even hotter. She walked to the open loft door at the far side but there was no Travis, no sign he had even come up here.
Back down the ladder. The horse woke and swung its head over the stall door. She stroked Smokey’s jowl and spoke softly into her ear. Summer nights, she’d leave the horses in the paddock but the weather report had called for thunderstorms so had brought the animal inside. She whispered goodnight and stepped away. The goat stood with one hoof in its trough, watching her with marbled alien eyes.
The storage shed was empty, as was the old Chevy rotting on cinderblocks behind it. The door groaned in rusty protest as she pulled it open. Travis used to play in this old hulk. Judging by how badly the door was seized, he hadn’t been in here in a long time.
Where else would he be? His bicycle was still in the back of the truck when Jim stormed off. Travis would be stuck here unless he decided to walk the six miles back into town. Unlikely, the way Travis shambled and dawdled like an old lady. So where was he? Unless he ran due south and clear into the field, there was simply nowhere else to go. The creek maybe.
Panicking, she called out again. Screaming his name into the night, to the stars overhead. The wind blew the clover stalks over her shins, the air damp and heavy. She could feel the downpour building, ready to burst. And Travis out there somewhere, caught in it.
Images flicked through her mind’s eye like a snapping Viewmaster reel, all of them horrid. Travis lying in a ditch, broken and bleeding from being hit by a car. Lost in the dark down near the creek. Fallen in, flailing in the cold water and carried off in the current. She told herself to stop it but her brain wouldn’t shut down.
A dull patter rose all around her, the dusty driveway darkening in dots of rain. She held out a palm to feel the rain coming down on the heat. Feel it specking her face. With a rising roar it deluged down, forcing her back into the barn. She stood dripping under the eaves and watched the wall of rain pummel everything in sight.