Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys Read online

  Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys

  Keith Ross Leckie

  A Novel Based on a True Story

  Cursed!

  Blood of the Donnellys

  Copyright © 2019 Keith Ross Leckie

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [email protected].

  Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.

  P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

  www.douglas-mcintyre.com

  Poem on page 216 (“So the spirit bows before thee”): Excerpt from “Stanzas for Music” by Lord Byron

  Poem on page 216 (“But the sword outwears its sheath”): Excerpt from “So We’ll Go No More a Roving” by Lord Byron

  Poem on pages page 297–98: Excerpt from “Gentlemen-Rankers” by Rudyard Kipling

  Poem on pages page 311 and page 319: Excerpts from “Oil in My Lamp,” traditional

  Edited by Pam Robertson

  Cover design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe

  Text design by Carleton Wilson

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on 100% recycled paper

  Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

  Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

  We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Government of Canada and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys : a novel based on a true story / Keith Ross Leckie.

  Other titles: Blood of the Donnellys

  Names: Leckie, Keith Ross, 1952- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190125020 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190125039 | ISBN 9781771622394 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771622400 (HTML)

  Subjects: LCSH: Donnelly family—Fiction. | LCSH: Lucan (Ont.)—History—19th century—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS8573.E337 B56 2019 | DDC C813/.54—dc23

  For Mary, my soulmate, my lover, my rock.

  Thank you for your great ideas and for your patience.

  Author’s Note

  This novel is a fictional account inspired by the lives of the Donnelly family that once lived in Biddulph Township, Ontario. Occasionally details including names, dates, events and locations have been changed or invented for the sake of the narrative.

  Since the massacre of the Donnelly family on February 4, 1880, the story has been told and retold in newspapers, magazines and books. There were the Kelley novels of the 1960s and the Reaney plays of the 1970s and the deeply researched non-fiction books by Ray Fazakas. There have been at least two musical albums, many poems, documentary films and recently a full-cast live Donnelly musical. I admire and thank those writers who have gone before me to try and sort out whether the Donnellys were cruel, vindictive monsters or innocent lambs to the slaughter. This novel explores that complex and compelling ground in between and brings the epic Donnelly story to new generations who will find chilling comparisons to events in the world today, where more than at any other time in history, huge numbers of refugees are fleeing violence, persecution and starvation to find hope, prosperity and a new life in a new land. Like the Donnellys, they may find themselves burdened by racism, ignorance and religious tensions of the old country.

  Acknowledgements

  Again I would like to thank the writers that went before me finding their truth in the Donnelly story in books and plays and poetry and song. I would like to thank my agents, Bruce Westwood and Meg Tobin-O’Drowsky, for their encouragement and trust. Special thanks for excellent early editing work by the highly skilled Barbara Berson, who is both tough and passionate. Later editing by Douglas & McIntyre editor Pam Robertson was insightful and supportive. My thanks to Nicola Goshulak and managing editor Anna Comfort O’Keeffe at Douglas & McIntyre for pushing authenticity and truth and guiding the book to print.

  Contents

  Part One Prologue 13

  Of the Earth 17

  The Poacher 25

  The Ponies 30

  Confirmation 35

  Exile 42

  Eviction 46

  The Whiteboys 50

  Johannah’s Return 55

  Ruins 59

  Raffy 65

  Oyster Nan 72

  Awakening 77

  The Troubles 82

  The Plan 90

  The Voyage 96

  Headway 103

  Quarantine 109

  The New Land 115

  The Wager 123

  A Piece of Heaven 133

  To Your Good Health 139

  Society 146

  Seven Young Devils 153

  First Justice 158

  Homily 165

  First Blood 172

  Fugitive 183

  Surrender 187

  The Trial 192

  Thirteen Steps 197

  Part Two Prologue 207

  The Terrors 210

  Johannah 218

  The Business 231

  The Homecoming 236

  Settling In 244

  The Flanagans 254

  Feud 265

  Mrs. Thompson’s Cow 270

  Queen Victoria Day 276

  Rising Stakes 284

  The Elopement 297

  Blessings of the Church 302

  Sarah Keefe’s Wedding 306

  Blood Moon 313

  In Retreat 318

  Devil’s Work 322

  The Peace Society 328

  No Rest for the Wicked 337

  The Light of Day 344

  Testament 352

  Justice is Done 357

  Epilogue 364

  Part One

  Prologue

  Spring assizes— Old Court House, London, Ontario. June 2, 1880.

  “Take the book in your hands, son. That’s right. Now, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  I knowed this was a powerful question when he asked it ’cause what I said could mean the lives of six men, but I were ready to tell my story.

  “I’ll do my best, Mr. Irving.”

  “Just answer yes or no, Johnny.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes.”

  “Please tell the court your full name and age.”

  “I am Johnny O’Connor, sir. I am twelve years old as of last November fifth.”

  “Good. Now tell us about yourself. Where do you live?”

  “I lives with my ma and da. We got two acres on the edge of Lucan town out by the Roman Line near the church. My da does odd jobs and keeps chickens and my ma takes in laundry.”

  “Good, good. Now what was your association with the Donnelly family?”

  “Well they lived up the Line from us and long as I remember they’d often be talked about in stories of the various doings and goings on around town.”

  “Goings on?”

  “Well, you know, like the fist fights and wooing the girls an
d barn burnings and various mischief and whatnot going on. The good stories was most often about them Donnelly boys, whether they did all those things or not. I liked that ’cause they was just down the road, they was real and you could see them, like trees in the woods or stones in the cemetery.”

  “Right. Now Johnny, you worked for them on their farm. Is that so?”

  “Yes, sir. I did. Miss Johannah come to my ma summer before last and asked if I’d be free to do chores some days.”

  “Did that worry you? Were you scared to work for the Donnellys? With their reputation and all?”

  “I were a little excited sir, no question, but not scared. I was some pleased. After school I’d walk the three miles to their place to do chores and make a few pennies and sometimes stay overnight for early morning doings. They treated me good, almost like family. And I must say working for the Donnellys give me some standing with the lads at school.”

  “So how did you get along with Johannah Donnelly? How did she treat you?”

  “Oh, she were a fine woman, sir. Fed me well and gave me clothes too small for her boys. It were a good farmhouse, big and finished inside and Miss Johannah kept it clean. There was a nice Jesus and the Virgin Mary hanging on the wall. They was good Catholics.”

  While I was answering Mr. Irving’s questions I got to thinking about Miss Johannah and it were like I could almost hear her voice in my head, so often had I heard it. Now there was one for telling stories. She’d tell me about times going way back to when she were a little one across the sea in old Tipperary. She said she growed up quite a lady, the daughter of the manager on a big estate with servants and all and horses to ride. And not a year after that, she said, she was across the ocean here on her knees in the dirt, her nails broken and her hair in tatters, working a farm with the man she loved. She would laugh about it, say to me, “Imagine that!” and call herself a fool. She’d show me the smooth round stone from the Ballyfinboy River that she kept in her apron pocket and tell me it were the only thing she had left from Ireland. It had flecks of green and red in it and she’d say the green was for Ireland and the red for the blood of her family. The stone was her good luck charm and kept her safe. It would slow down my chores considerable listening to Miss Johannah’s tales but she loved to tell them and I loved to listen. Near the end she would make me sit with her and talk my ears off. It was like she knowed what was coming and wanted to get it all out for memory’s sake.

  “Johnny? Did you hear me?”

  “Sorry, sir. What?”

  “How long had you been working for the family before Jim Donnelly came home from prison?”

  “I would say more than a year, sir.”

  “All right. Now was Jim Donnelly ever abusive to you, Johnny? Did he ever hit you or kick you?”

  “No, sir. He could be gruff but he were always fair and even with me.”

  Now I knew these was the easy questions and soon they’d be asking me about the night of February 3 and it’s not easy going back to that bloody night and remembering and thinking and dreaming and then telling about it. You knows how a dream can sometimes get mixed up with real life and then for a moment you’re not exactly sure what were one and what were t’other? I was sleeping out at the Donnelly place, and this wild dream come furious to me. It started with the sound of distant thunder like I’ve never heard. A hundred hooves come, hitting the frozen ground, and I saw two dozen horsemen riding close and hard on that frosty winter night along the flat Roman Line north of Lucan town. And in my dream the steel on the horses’ hooves were kicking up ice and dirt and I remember the horses’ eyes was wild, mouths frothing, coats all lathered, frosty breath. There was torches in the hands of some riders and the broken, moving light showed them to be strange creatures for sure. They were men, but none like I’d ever seen. Some wore women’s dresses, hiked up to ride. Others was sporting feathered hats tied on with rope, and carnival masks like I seen at the Idyll in Guelph. Others was wearing clown paint or had their faces blacked up. They all rode with one hand to the reins because in the other was the tools for their purpose, clubs and pitchforks. A few held rifles. There was bottles of whisky passed between them as they rode and long drinks managed without slowing down.

  My eyes had opened from that dream on that night and I was a little trembly from it. The thunder had stopped but I could feel them out there, those men from my dream, horses left behind now, creeping toward us in the house with their tools quick and quiet. I was lying in the big bed beside Old Jim with moonlight coming in the little window above my head and the fire in the kitchen stove had burned low so I could see my breath. In the other big downstairs bedroom, I could hear Johannah and Bridget sound asleep, breathing soft. Big Tom was asleep as well, snoring on the cot in a small room off the kitchen.

  I raised myself up to the window, pulled the curtain aside and peeked out. It was all true, the dream. I seen them, their eerie bodies in the torchlight, armed men in wild costumes, spread out across the yard, coming for us. I called out once to Old Jim that there was men outside, but it only came out a whisper. I was frozen, looking out the frosted window, then suddenly a ghoul’s painted face was right there, his nose two inches from mine own, looking in at me, and we locked eyes like, and he was one of the Ryder boys and I prayed to Jesus and all his angels to forgive my past sins and, in the name of everything that was holy, to please deliver us all from these demons…

  “Johnny? Did you hear me? I asked you, how was it that you came to be at the house that night?”

  I heard the question Mr. Irving was asking me, but Johannah’s voice had come into my head and the courtroom was suddenly far away. I were there again, in that house on that night, and saw her in the kitchen. I was hiding from them under the bed in the first bedroom and I could see her through the open kitchen door, on her knees on the bloody floor with three bodies down and the men standing around her. She was saying her prayers.

  “Johnny? Are you all right?”

  It was Mr. Irving again from far away, but I was back in the house and I seen Miss Johannah turn from her prayers and look right at me.

  “Johnny?”

  And we stared at each other and I felt her strength flow into me to help me survive that night and I closed my eyes and hid behind the laundry basket before they started to put the clubs to her again.

  Of the Earth

  In one of her earliest childhood memories, Johannah Magee sat on the bank of the Ballyfinboy River on a hot summer day with her toes in the cool black water as an old man rowed past in a small boat painted green. The boatman smiled pleasantly at her and paused to tip his cap, and she remembered the drops from his one lifted oar blade created pretty concentric rings in the smooth surface of the river. She waved at him and he blew her a kiss, then he slipped his oars into the water again and continued on his way, disappearing around the bend. Johannah was overcome with a deep sadness to the point of tears, because she believed the nice man and his rowboat no longer existed. She had no way to explain her sorrow to her nanny, but at that point in her young life she believed that everything she could see or taste or touch in the world had been put there for her benefit and when she looked away, those things simply ceased to exist. People would have conversations in her presence, plowmen would plow fields, ships would sail out on the sea, and they were all there for her momentary amusement and pleasure and when she turned her alert green eyes elsewhere, those things would disappear. She was not perceptive enough for this to come from arrogance or entitlement, but rather she simply assumed the universe was a performance staged by God for her alone. When she was much older and remembered this strange little fantasy of hers, Johannah Donnelly wondered if perhaps, for at least a short while, every child saw the world that way to help them ease into the disappointment of a reality in which they were not literally the centre of the universe.

  Another fantasy the young Johannah had was that her mother and father weren’t really
her parents but had kidnapped her as a baby. Her real parents, her beautiful, compassionate, idyllic mother and father, were out there somewhere searching for her. Such had been the lonely yearning of her little heart.

  Sadly for her, Johannah’s parents, Mary and George Magee, were not kidnappers, but her real mother and father. They lived in the manager’s house, called Ballymore, where her father ran the Cavendish estate for an absentee landlord outside the town of Borrisokane in County Tipperary. She was their only child. Theirs was a formal household—her father, usually gruff and distracted by his work, hardly realized she existed in the early days, and her mother kept a distance from her for reasons she never understood. Her mother was a pale woman who wore an expression of concern and seldom smiled. Johannah did sense that deep within her mother’s shell she loved her but any hugs or kisses were always cool and perfunctory. Perhaps, Johannah often thought, it was a son they had wanted.

  On the outside, Ballymore House was a grey stone block of a building, largely devoid of imagination, sacrificing gentility for size, without a porch or pillar, gable or gazebo to soften the stark, stern simplicity of its design. The narrow windows were small in number as if to keep the darkness in. The interior fared better under her mother’s influence, with several fine framed landscapes and watercolours gracing the walls in an attempt to bring some warmth to the place. Her mother arranged flowers in the spring and brought in novels by Shelley and Owenson and Austen, which were left lying around. Johannah would discreetly borrow them, for she learned to read early and loved the new worlds these writers provided.

  Miss Jane Rafferty was their housekeeper and Johannah’s nanny and also her advisor, co-conspirator and friend. She provided the warmth and affection Johannah so needed in her life, and her favourite place was buried in Raffy’s ample bosom, her strong arms around her in a good night embrace that signalled no doubt about her love. Raffy could read her palm and tell her fortune. They would examine maps of the world together, compare drawings of exotic dress from other countries and make up wild stories about their adventures together in other lands, saving a princess from monsters or discovering a cave of pirate treasure guarded by huge eels. Raffy was the source of joy in Johannah’s early life but Johannah became aware early that like her mother, Raffy feared Johannah’s father, a heavyset, powerful man with a red face and eyes that were rarely still.