*
Brendan thought it out carefully. “Father Patrick? No, I haven’t seen
him. I thought he returned to the mainland with you on Sunday.”
Tim shook his head. “Not according to Eamonn or Canon Hanrahan.”
One handed, he jammed his pitchfork into the ground. As much as he wanted
to say that Patrick was somewhere close by, something told him to investigate
this.
*
“Last time I saw him,” Jeremiah Corrigan said as he studied the tips of
his boots, “He followed that last lose ball into the bushes at the edge of the
Highside. Right when the storm hit.”
The next words went unsaid. The whole of them, Jerry, Wee Sean, Eamonn,
Tim and Brendan took off towards the football field and the Highside. Rory
Murphy caught up to the group. “Father Patrick? When that ball…. “ They didn’t
wait for his last words neither. They hurried.
Throughout an exceptionally long journey, most of his body parts refused
to cooperate. Brendan dragged his belly along with him. His knees were weak and
his head floated off his shoulders in the direction of the playing field and a
lose ball. He forced the lead weights that his feet had become to move ahead of
the others.
When they made the Highside, and the broken and burned cart, and what was
left of their makeshift goal post, Brendan paused. It was long enough to gather
the strength he needed to proceed, and again for the others to catch up.
Wee Sean pushed Brendan backwards. “Stay put,” the smaller man ordered,
“I’ll look.” Hands belonging to two men larger than himself, clasped his
opposite shoulders, holding him in place. Wee Sean slipped into the bushes next
to the fir tree, disappearing for what seemed an eternity.
He returned, finally, bleached to white and holding an old shoe. “I
couldn’t see over the edge,” Wee Sean explained. Brendan’s legs came out from
under him. “But there’s a hole there. Recent, too.” Brendan sat, losing sight
of his friends all together. He felt that eternity pass before him again,
damning himself for the anger he aimed at his friend and praying that he’d soon
wake up from this nightmare.
“Let’s go,” Jeremiah Corrigan instructed. “Straight away, we’ll row about the Island. Brendan jumped up. “Nay, you’ll stay here.”
The redheaded pivoted about, staring, but not seeing as he backed away.
“Nay. I won’t.”
“Brendan, there’s nothing you can do.”
He hurried. “Like hell I can’t.”
“Brendan,” Wee Sean called behind him. “Jerry’s right.”
“Rot in hell, the whole of you.” Turning his legs to full speed, he ran.
He created a wind that tore at the flesh on this face. His arms pumping. His
feet churning. He left the field and entered the path leading to the harbor.
He’d never remember this part of the journey later, only that the lead had left
his feet. He remember them pounding along the paths. He remembered tugging at
the stern of a boat that rested upside down on the embankment. That’s where the
others caught up to him again. Wee Sean latched on to a gun rail, making an
attempt to flip it. “Let go!” he screamed, “I’m going!”
“We’re all going,” Wee Sean assured. “You, me, Rory and Jerry.”
He backed off as Rory Murphy and Jeremiah Corrigan hefted the craft high
and carried it to the strand. Their efforts weren’t fast enough by any means.
Brendan hurried them on, standing in the waves, calling out to them to catch
up. When at last they set the craft upright into the water, Brendan climbed in
and tried to push off before any of the others were inside. Jeremiah Corrigan
grabbed the oars from Brendan’s grasp and pushed him aside. “You calm yourself
down, before I pull a sack over your head and toss ya on the strand to wait.”
Rory and Wee Sean pushed them away from shore and then crawled in to either
side of Jerry and Brendan. Another trip he barely remembered, only that it took
so bloody long. Then in a blink, they found what they didn’t want to see.
Beneath the jagged rocks that formed the highest cliff on the Island, two
bodies, one decayed, and one bloated, rested. From the water, Brendan recognized
his friend. Patrick’s dark hair, strong shoulders and borrowed clothing.
Suddenly Brendan couldn’t move. Wee Sean groaned and Jerry Corrigan swore. Rory
Murphy jumped from the boat and waded to shore. With difficulty Wee Sean and
Jerry eased themselves into the water and pulled the craft along with them.
Brendan waited, turning away from the scene. First Bridey and Liam, now
Patrick. The little bit of food he had eaten earlier in the day crept up his
gullet, threatening to burst forth. He couldn’t sit. He crawled over the far
edge of the boat and into the water. Turning away from the scene, he vomited
into the waves.
Jerry Corrigan returned to meet him. “It’s Father Patrick all right. It
looks as if he… broke his neck. The other, I’m thinking that’s that Major those
Brits were looking for.” Jerry wiped the back of his neck with the palm of his
hand. It wasn’t like him to avoid anyone’s eyes, but this time, he seemed to
need to look anyplace but in Brendan’s eyes. “We need to get them back to the Frontside…
Someone needs to get into Killelea. I’m sure Wee Sean’s lads can row back. You
think you can hold it together long enough to get them back there?” He glanced
quickly at Brendan and away again.
Brendan agreed and waited at the far end of the boat. His friends did the
worst of the work, carefully lifting the bodies from the sand and placing them
in the bottom of the boat. The smell of rotting skin, worse than putrid
potatoes, sickened him. No one climbed in with the bodies, but pushed the boat
along in the shallow water surrounding the Island’s strands. An extraordinarily
long walk.
At first Brendan couldn’t look at his boyhood friend. The thought of
losing Patrick might just be harder to accept than losing his wife or his
sister. He dared himself to defy the need to look away, and suddenly he
couldn’t take his eyes away from his friend.
Patrick wore a shoe on one foot and a ragged stocking on the other. The
blood in his body had settled. The parts of his hands and arms not covered by
Brendan’s shirt and the cheek that rested on the sand were black. The upwards
sides of his hands and his other cheek were translucent white. His neck twisted
one way and his hips another. Pain settled into the area between his eyes.
This site was unreal. A fragment of a bad dream that one couldn’t forget
no matter how hard he tried. If only Brendan could say this wasn’t Patrick
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