Kilpara Read online

  The moon peeked through clouds and lit the way through pastures to the small huts lined along the banks of the Wern River where farmhands lived. I knocked on the door of Lilah’s hut and called her name in a loud whisper. I called again and heard a movement inside. She opened the door, a shawl draped about her shoulders against the cool night.

  “Mast’r Ellis,” she said without surprise. Lithe as a cat, she moved outside and closed the door. “I thought youse might be coming,” she said. “Youse been gone a long time, so youse not knowing.”

  “Know what?” I asked.

  “I got me a man.” She grinned, her white teeth gleaming in the dark.

  “No.” I groaned and slid down the rough-hewn logs to the damp ground beneath me.

  She glanced at the door that had cracked open. “Youse best be getting back to the house.”

  “I can’t.”

  “It be the Mistress O’Donovan?”

  I nodded.

  Lilah squatted down beside me. “It be the cycle. The old ones die. The Earth welcomes them back into her arms, and the young ones carry on their ways. Theyse stay with us in what we’se do and what we’se feel.”

  “I don’t want her to die.”

  “Youse don't have that choice.”

  “Why now?”

  “Changes been happening. Youse wasn’t here to see them.”

  “She wants me to take her to Ireland—to die.”

  “It be her people’s land. She be wanting her spirit to rest there.”

  “It’s ludicrous. Here is where she belongs.”

  Lilah’s arms went around me and the dread I’d been holding back unleashed itself. I moaned and helplessly abandoned myself to her bosom.

  “It be alright, Mast’r Ellis,” she purred, stroking my head. “It be alright...”

  The door of the hut squeaked shut.

  CHAPTER 2

  I awoke to a glimmer of dawn breaking over the horizon outside the bedroom window. I had fallen asleep on top of the bed not bothering to undress. That was only a few hours ago, yet it felt like I had awakened from a deep sleep. I arose and made my way quietly out of the house as light crept over the hillsides. Inside the stables, many of its stalls empty, I searched for a horse that matched my energy and found none. I settled on an even-tempered brown mare that nickered when I strapped a saddle on her back. Sensing my tension, she unleashed all her energy as we rode through grassy fields past ripening forests in the direction of Stile Valley.

  We passed horses scattered throughout low-lying pastures bordering Stonebridge House that provided the appearance of normalcy meant to satisfy the occasional curious passerby. Strangers never suspected that finer horses were tucked away in the cavernous canyon where meadows brushed up against the mountains. It was the rich grasses of Stile Valley that first prompted Father to move his more select breed there; they developed better bones and greater stamina.

  Little did he know this strategy would save Stonebridge from ruin during the early stages of sedition. Southern raiders arrived at the house without warning on one of their forays through the countryside scavenging for livestock and food. They surrounded the house and seized control, forcing the family to look on helplessly while they looted pantries and helped themselves to horses, pigs, chickens, and cattle. Satisfied with their spoils, they rode away contented, knowing soldiers’ bellies would be full for quite some time.

  I received a telegram after the raid and immediately journeyed home to view the damage firsthand. I found Father still fuming over his powerlessness to resist rebel forces, his failure to predict they would venture this far north. I pointed out this was a safe assumption, what with Union regiments protecting the area from secession. He couldn’t have known Colonel Thomas Jackson and his confederates would invade Harper’s Ferry and plunder outlying farms.

  This reasoning didn't appease Father, although he felt some consolation knowing that his prime livestock tucked inside the hollow of Stile Valley had gone undetected. After that, he moved most of the herds into the valley and kept just enough farm animals in the outer fields to satisfy subsequent raiders and stop them from searching farther. Not long after that first raid, he became enraged again when word arrived that Jackson had successfully impeded Union soldiers at Falling Waters. I was hardly surprised when this news sparked insufferable resentment in Dan, Mark, and Francis, whose anger had been seething since the raid on Stonebridge. This led them to volunteer under the Union command. They signed up to fight the perpetrators, their enlistment a personal vendetta against the South.

  The sun had cast its first rays over Stile Valley when I reached the narrow pass. Making my way slowly upward through the opening and down the other side, the valley stretched out below me, flat as a plate. Solid rows of trees edged the plain, positioned in thick succession up the mountainside, like sentries keeping watch. Horses grazed contentedly along the banks of the Wern River, here not much wider than a narrow stream. On the hillside just inside the pass, there stood three makeshift shacks and a hitching post. In front of the closest shack, a campfire smoldered inside a small circle of stones, and a coffeepot lodged among the embers spouted a welcoming aroma.

  I tied the mare to the hitching post, unhooked a nosebag hanging at one end and put it around her neck; she immediately began munching. I hunkered down beside the fire and was about to pour myself some coffee when I felt a gun barrel pressed against my back. I straightened slowly, my hands raised. “It’s me—Ellis,” I said. The gun dropped and I was pulled into an embrace.

  Rengen’s strong black frame stood inches above me, and when he spoke his words were thick with a rich southern drawl. “Mast’r Ellis, I’s thinking you was some poacher. Your brothers say youse coming home, but I never expected you up here this quick.” He slapped me on the back, his dark eyes widening with pleasure. “Let’s get some of that coffee youse wanting.”

  He picked up the pot and two mugs. I followed him inside the shack. We sat across from each other at a coarse wooden table as he poured coffee into the mugs, his hands steady, large, strong, just as I remembered them. He had always seemed grown up to me, but I knew he came to Stonebridge House in his youth. As a child I watched him melt iron over a red-hot fire, molding the metal into horseshoes. He had a gift for taming even the most spirited horse just by talking to it.

  Father always said fate had brought us Rengen, who ran away at age eighteen from beatings suffered at the hands of a plantation owner in North Carolina. Believing that life was better up North, he escaped to find it. Not long after his appearance at Stonebridge, fate stepped in again; Jasmine arrived among a group of itinerant workers and was brought under Eileen’s watchful eye in the kitchen. Rengen was taken with Jasmine and she with him. She often made excuses to carry fresh water to him while he worked. In time, he asked her to marry him.

  Remembering Jasmine I asked, “How’s your family, Rengen?”

  “Good,” he replied. “Happy the war’s done over with.” He shook his head from side to side. “There be no more worry about them rebel armies stealing from y’all, but looting's still going on in these parts, and we’se got to watch out about that. It be tough on folks, what with them trying to pick up their lives after the war and all.”

  Two farmhands came in and helped themselves to coffee. “Check the mare in the south end,” Rengen commanded. “She be foaling sometime soon.” The farmhands acknowledged his order and left.

  Rengen’s eyes followed the two young men. “All that killing and maiming, theyse say it be to free colored folks, but there ain’t no truth about that. Theyse ain’t free. Theyse just trading one set of chains for another—”

  His eyes roved around the shack and he waved a hand at the makeshift walls. “Soon’s the poaching be done over with, we’se going to tear these down. No more spending nights up here.” This seemed to cheer him up for he pushed back his chair; I did the same, and we stood at the open door watching the horses graze.

  “Nice foals,” I said.

 
; “Several’s bein’ born every day and there ain’t been no problems. Your brothers, theyse liking that.”

  “I expected to find them here.”

  “Theyse getting on back home last night. They knowed you’se needing to talk.”

  “I didn’t see them.”

  “It was late when theyse leaving—getting on after dark.”

  Rengen looked thoughtful, and his voice softened. “Too bad about your mama. She be a beautiful woman, kind too, though I never did like them soda bread of hers, anymore than she be liking them grits...”

  I didn’t answer. Thoughts of Mother’s fated illness seemed out of place in this peaceful glen where water gurgled and birds sang, where boughs swayed gently and horses roamed aimlessly. The only disturbance was a black stallion with white spots on his forehead. He galloped back and forth on long strong legs, uneasy in his confined space.

  I nodded toward the stallion. “Who’s the horse?”

  “That there’s Brazonhead.” Rengen grinned. “He be the best stallion we’se got. He’s having more energy than twenty horses. The result of your father’s experiment to breed the best.”

  “Is he quick?”

  “The fastest,” Rengen said.

  “Mind if I ride him?”

  “He be hard to control most times.”

  “I’d like to try him.”

  “Youse sure?”

  I nodded.

  Rengen walked over to the stallion that had stopped at the sound of his voice. He slipped a bridle over the animal’s head and led him to where the brown mare stood at the hitching post. Taking the saddle off the mare’s back, he strapped it onto the stallion. I moved closer; Brazonhead jerked his head upward, his eyes wild. Rengen continued to talk to him. I eased into the saddle slowly and took hold of the reins.

  The horse didn't balk as we rode up out of the valley. We trotted through the pass followed by Rengen’s deep laughter and that of the two farmhands who came to watch. As soon as we moved into the open space beyond the narrow gap, Brazonhead reared and broke into a gallop, bucking and jumping. He smelled freedom, and I was all that stood between him and heedless abandon. I wasn't the rider my brothers were, but I had worked alongside my father, so I hung on trying to remember everything I had learned.

  The ground sped past me swift as a bullet; I was jostled from side to side and up and down. Several times I came close to falling off, my head hovering just inches above the ground, inhaling upturned earth while attempting to regain my balance. Moving away from the hills, we rode alongside fields already ploughed for springtime planting. We came to the eastern bank of the Wern River and Brazonhead stopped abruptly, almost tumbling me over his head. He hesitated long enough for me to ask, “Now what?” His response was a quick leap and we splashed into deep, cold water.

  I slid off his back, holding tightly onto his mane as he treaded the current with forceful strength. When the water turned shallow, I slid back into the saddle and took hold of the reins. Climbing onto the opposite bank, an unhappy Brazonhead reared in a last attempt to free himself. The saddle was wet and slippery, and instinctively I leaned forward tightening the reins for control, my knuckles turning white on their grip. My breath mingled with his as I hung on, shivering beneath the warming sun. Neck and neck, we galloped along familiar ground and were almost into the hamlet of Gum Springs when he sensed civilization and turned south down an overgrown path. Before long, we came to what remained of the log cabin my parents had built when they first arrived in Maryland.

  Brazonhead came to an abrupt halt; I slid off his back feeling shaken. Looking around I muttered, “So you know the old homestead?” I entered the ruin where the warmth of Mother’s love and the strength of Father’s pride still lingered in this hovel that had once been small compensation for their exiled existence.

  I knew well the circumstances of their journey into exile. How they had left Kilpara, their sixteenth century Irish estate situated on lands belonging to O’Donovans. Lands they had kept out of the grip of Britain’s greedy hands until earlier in this century when punitive taxes drained Kilpara’s wealth.

  My parents explained how they married during this period of tyranny that was continually sinking its venom into a devoured nation. With heavy hearts, my grandparents sold their home to a lurking Lord Purcenell who snared it for a miserly sum. Stripped of their inheritance, my parents followed the multitude of Ireland’s diaspora in search of a better life on American shores. They left behind my grandparents who were reduced to living in a small tenant cottage they managed to reclaim—castoffs on their own land.

  Mother and Father arrived in New York almost penniless and were taken in by kind countrymen. Immediately, Father put his knowledge of horses to work and found a job in a smithy. Mother, who still owned beautiful gowns, started a small dressmaking business. Very quickly her garments became sought after by the American aristocracy and she took other young Irish seamstresses into her employ. Her reputation grew among the wives of generals and distinguished politicians not only for her exemplary garments but also for the stories of her lost family fortune.

  My parents luck changed for the better when General Frichard, an eccentric military commander who delighted in the hunt, whether man or beast, became fascinated by their misfortune and invited them to social functions at his home. He boasted before his friends of his selfless generosity toward these displaced Irish immigrants.

  On one occasion, he announced before a large gathering that he intended to make them a gift of fifty acres on his property in northern Maryland. The land was theirs to clear and make their own, thus setting their destiny in motion. Frichard’s friends were well aware of his vast eight thousand acre estate. What they wondered was why he bothered to befriend a family of immigrants, and with good cause, since he was more shrewd than generous. The primary motive behind his generosity was revealed only to my parents. He wanted my father to raise champion horses similar to the ones the O’Donovans were known for in Ireland, and to lead him and his friends in hunts.

  My parents had nothing to look forward to in New York’s overcrowded tenements, so Father agreed to Frichard’s plan, happy to free himself and his family from inclement conditions. They moved to Maryland, worked day and night to clear their land, using the timber to build a cabin that soon grew from one room into three with a loft overhead where my brothers slept. They continued to cling to the ideal that they would prosper in this land and one day return to Ireland and reclaim their birthright.

  As a child, oftentimes, I sat with my mother at the edge of the Wern River. She told me to close my eyes like she did. She would talk about Kilpara and Corrib breezes, of the ocean and mists that descended from low-lying clouds, and of rich green hillsides and the music and stories that murmured feelings of an imprisoned race. I didn’t understand what she meant, but listened attentively, her lilting voice carrying me into a world that was more make-believe than real.

  I was born inside these crumbling walls a year after my parents arrived in Maryland. There was no evidence of this now as I walked through what was left of the small rooms. Yet with each step, echoes from the past stirred inside me, of childhood conversations held around the kitchen table next to a roaring fireplace on cold winter nights.

  I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I forgot my wet clothes and Brazonhead who I had left tethered to a rotted post. He snorted. I retreated outside and was untying the reins when a rider approached. He pulled his horse to a halt. A familiar figure slid out of the saddle and walked purposefully toward me.

  Dan, my oldest brother, hugged my shoulders then stood back.

  “Glad you came home, Wiz,” he said, using the nickname I had grown up with. “Been baptized in the Wern, I see. Brazonhead’s way of testing your soul.” Brazonhead whinnied, and Dan patted his neck. “Sorry ol’ boy, didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Some horse, don’t you think? Managed to stay on this grand fella, did you?”

  “I should’ve heeded Rengen’s warning,” I said, pee
ling off my jacket and shirt. I pointed dripping clothes at Brazonhead. “He almost killed me.”

  Brazonhead nudged my chuckling brother. “Naw, not this ol’ fella,” Dan said. “But he’ll give you the ride of your life, that's for sure.” He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out two apples. He offered one to me. I shook my head. He gave one to Brazonhead who chewed noisily; then, equally noisy, he began chewing the other. Reaching back into his saddlebag he drew out a pair of boots. “Always keep extras.” He tossed them to me. “Never know when you might need ‘em.” He walked around the ruin. “I come here often, even thought about building a house here once. Can’t bear to drive away the memories though. Grand ol’ place this—”

  So far, we were treating my return like any other routine visit, each of us unable to talk about the inevitable. But my brother’s struggle was evident in the sadness clouding his eyes when he stared at the ruin that reminded him of our childhood days.

  He took hold of his horse’s reins; I did the same, the sun beating down on my damp skin as we walked toward Stonebridge. The road was one we’d traveled many times before, only now I was conscious of the passage of time. The red-haired boy, once my hero growing up, had turned into a red-haired man, a deep thinker as much at home under the stars as he was inside the heavy walls of Stonebridge House. He could be gentle or forceful, able to love or defend his rights, whatever the purpose demanded. He could move over the terrain as silently as any animal and they were his friend or his prey depending on his need. During the war, his stealthy ways caught the attention of Union commanders who deployed him to scout rebel positions.