Bone Dance (35 page)

Jimmy watched him nervously. “It's Mr. Regan's, sir. I was just looking.”

To David, it felt like a pestilence that refused to die. “Is there usually trouble at the Orange Parade up here in Ottawa?”

“Me da says there used to be fearsome fights back when he were a boy. There's not been much to it lately, but . . . There's talk of them marching up Kent Street past St. Patrick's Church.”

“Most of it is just youthful ebullience fuelled by a drop too many, Jimmy. Best to just let them march to their hearts' content. Stay out of their way, and no trouble will come of it.”

Jimmy merely averted his gaze and bent over Lady's hoof with exaggerated scrutiny. Sensing his doubt, David sought words to reinforce his point. “My own brother suffered a few broken bones in his youth before he learned that lesson.”

“And me da's brother got his throat slit by an Orange farmer 'afore he had a chance to learn it,” Jimmy replied quietly.

Shocked into silence, David took a moment to recover
before pointing out that was all the more reason not to perpetuate such ignorant, uncharitable attitudes. Jimmy shook his head.

“It's the Prods as is ignorant, Dr. Browne. Saying we're lazy and good for nothing but fighting, cheating and making babies. And July 12th—what is that anyway? They're celebrating the day their Protestant king defeated our Catholic one and took over our land. It's a day to rub our noses in it, that's what it is.”

Jimmy's vehemence took David aback, but the truth of the boy's analysis could not be denied. It was an analysis shared by the Governor General and by many of the Orange leaders, who in the interests of reconciliation had recently called for an end to the parades. Regrettably, the bigoted zeal of some of the Lodges was not to be suppressed.

“For some,” David agreed. “But many of the marchers are simply proud of what Canada stands for; hard work, loyalty and Christian fellowship, rather than the republican anarchy to the south of us.”

Jimmy was not to be assuaged. “Is that why the parade is going to march right past our church? The Orange Hall is on O'Connor Street, and the parade should go straight up Bank Street from McLeod's farm. But like I said, they want to rub our noses in it. And if they go past St. Patrick's, we have to defend it, haven't we? We can't just watch.”

David wanted to ask why not, but he sensed the futility of the question. He knew the passions of men and of boys who would be men. His brother Liam had been no more willing to ignore a gauntlet than Jimmy was now, and David had seen many heads cracked open for less.

Nonetheless, he tried a feeble rebuttal. “Remember that a war cannot begin if no one shows up for the battle.”

“Then they break all the windows in the church or attack some poor old gran as she's heading to confession. They're looking for a fight from somebody, that's what me mates say.”

David sat down on the straw bale and fixed a resolute eye on Jimmy. “Jimmy, listen to me. We come to many crossroads in our life, and the paths we choose should be based on where we want to end up and what we believe in our hearts is right. Not what our mates think, or what our uncles and our father believe, but what we ourselves, as one of God's many creatures, believe. Do you really want to square off against a handful of overheated fools, who are equally God's creatures despite their shortcomings? Are a few religious slurs or broken church windows worth the spilling of human blood?”

Jimmy did not reply; he merely picked up his harp and aimlessly plucked a string.

Now, ten days later, human blood had been spilled. As David drew near Jimmy's home, he found himself praying it was not the blood of a sensitive youth barely old enough to shoulder the mantle of war.

Before he even reached the house, he sensed the palpable fear on the street. Curtains were drawn, and in response to his knock, a gruff wary voice from within demanded his business. Only once he'd identified himself did the door crack open a few inches. Mr. Donahue's stony gaze met his.

“What do you want, sir?” Polite, but frigid.

David greeted him and asked if Jimmy were there.

The eyes didn't blink. “What do you want with him?”

“Is he injured? I'm afraid he might have been hurt in the fighting at the parade.”

He heard a scuffling noise inside as the door jerked wider, and Mrs. Donahue elbowed her husband aside. “Why do you think he might be hurt?”

“The police found his harp broken amid the wreckage. It had blood on it.”

Mrs. Donahue's eyes flew wide in horror, but her husband's held a glint of satisfaction. She boxed his ears. “See what you done, Jem!”

Mr. Donahue was less quick to draw conclusions. “But nobody saw him, hurt or otherwise?”

“No, but one man was killed whom they can't identify. What was Jimmy wearing?”

“Brown shirt and cotton britches,” she replied, then shot an accusatory glare at her husband. “And your green sash.”

David tried to picture the body on the street, but he couldn't distinguish any colours beneath the blood and dust. He didn't recall a sash of either green or orange, however. “He has not yet come home, I presume?”

“No,” the mother said before her husband could stop her. She turned on him in fury. “Jem, there's no sense lying! Dr. Browne wants to help, and if something's happened to our Jimmy . . .”

“I would have heard!” Mr. Donahue retorted. “If Jimmy'd been the one to fall, our lads would have come to tell me.”

“What have you heard?” David interjected quickly.

Mr. Donahue's stony look returned.

“You know who it was, don't you.”

“I wasn't there.”

“No, but I grew up in a neighbourhood like this. Nothing stays a secret very long.”

“I can't help you, Doctor. But the neighbourhood is a bit touchy at the moment, so you'd best be off. I'll send word if I get news on Jimmy.”

David stood his ground. He looked into the man's defiant eyes, considered the meaning of the silent streets and the drawn curtains. He remembered the constable's theory, and a sinister alternative began to dawn.

“It was an Orangeman who was killed, wasn't it, and you're all afraid they're going to retaliate.”

Mr. Donahue said nothing, but Mrs. Donahue boxed his ears again. “Is that so? Don't worry, Doctor, I'll get to the truth of this!” She elbowed her way past him into the street where she shouted at a passing woman. “Bridget, do you know who was killed up at the church?”

Her husband bolted outside to drag her back. “Shut up, woman!”

She wrenched herself free. “Was it a Prod?”

He clamped his hand over her mouth. “Hush up!”

“Who was it, Jem!”

“It were Regan's nephew!” he snapped. “Isn't that bloody grand? The nephew of an Orange Grand Master.”

She twisted in his grip. “And who killed him, then?” “Inside the house, Meg!”

She blanched. “Our Jimmy?”

Mr. Donahue shot David a sharp look. “Don't be talking rubbish—”

She pressed her fist to her lips as if to silence her lament and allowed her husband to steer her back through the door. David shoved his hand against the door to prevent its slamming. He felt sick to his core.

“If Jimmy did it,” he said, “or if Regan's boys even suspect he might have—he's in grave danger. They'll track him down, sooner or later.”

“You're right about one thing, Doctor,” Mr. Donahue said. “It don't matter if Jimmy done it or not, or if he were just
protecting hisself. That's why he's gone.”

“His best protection is the police.”

“The police are full of Orangemen.”

“He'll get a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty. And if it was self-defence—”

“Fair trial!” Mr. Donahue grunted with contempt. “The bloody Crown against an Irish Catholic? I'll let Jimmy take his chances on the run.”

David's thoughts raced as he weighed his options. On the one hand, civilized society was predicated on a fundamental allegiance to the rule of law. On the other hand, under the cold and relentless scrutiny of the courtroom, a sensitive and impressionable fourteen-year-old boy would be hard pressed to articulate the blind, primitive instinct that overtook him in the chaos and panic of that moment. David took less than a minute to make his choice.

“Then let me help him. He hasn't a chance on his own in the countryside. Let me arrange passage to Montreal, where I have friends who can take him in. Montreal is a big city with plenty of opportunity for an intelligent lad who can read and write.”

Mr. Donahue's eyes squinted warily, but Mrs. Donahue had recovered her spunk. “Tell him, Jem! This is not a trap!”

Mr. Donahue stared a long time into the hushed and fearful streets before reaching a decision. “There's a bluff hidden by trees on Major's Hill, where Jimmy likes to sit and write his tales. I'm to meet him there once I have money and a plan.”

When David arrived back at the boarding house to pick up supplies for Jimmy's escape, the head groom was nowhere in evidence, and one of the general maids met his carriage
instead. Excitement pinked her cheeks and loosened her customary reserve.

“Been a bit of a fuss this afternoon, sir,” she bubbled as she grasped Lady's reins. “Mr. Regan's nephew were killed at the parade, so he's gone off to tend to things. The police was here to talk to him just now, showed him a piece of wood from the fight. We could all see right off it were from Jimmy's harp, but Mr. Regan never said a word. Right nice of him to protect Jimmy like that. After that, he saddled up and rode off, to warn Jimmy likely.”

David froze in his tracks. “Does he know where Jimmy is?”

“Oh, aye. In his half day off, Jimmy always goes to that bluff above the locks.” She pointed east towards Major's Hill. “Sings about it all the time.”

David leaped back into his carriage and careened up Sparks Street, scattering street vendors and swirling dust in his wake. Despite the sun, he felt cold with dread. Regan had been a sergeant in the colonial forces during the Fenian wars and was an accomplished cavalryman. He rode a swift, agile mount, and even more chilling, he was reputed to be a crack shot with a pistol.

As David entered the park, the sinking sun cast a shaft of light across the river below, and the spires of Parliament soared darkly against the sky. People milled everywhere, children chased one another in zigzags through the shrubbery, and an ice cream vendor shouted his wares. Up ahead David spotted Mr. Regan's horse tied to a rail, and his heart leaped in his chest. He secured Lady to the rail before proceeding on foot along the bluff, keeping a keen eye out for the head groom. As he ran, he scanned each copse of trees for the frightened boy.

Nothing.

He doubled back, racing against time. Past a pair of clandestine lovers, a family snoozing under a tree. Then a
patch of brown caught his eye through the brush. As he drew nearer he recognized Jimmy, crouched low with his eyes rivetted on the crowded lawns. Waiting. Searching for his father's familiar face.

David crashed through the underbrush towards him with relief. The boy spun around, spied him, and to David's astonishment burst panic-stricken from the cover of the bush. He had fled only ten yards across the grass before a shot cracked the air. Women screamed. Jimmy leaped into the air, limbs flailing, then crashed to the ground. Horrified, David whirled around to glimpse Mr. Regan stuffing his pistol back into his waistband as he scurried out of sight down the path.

David raced to Jimmy's side, flung himself down and vainly tried to staunch the blood pouring from his head into the dusty grass. Already Jimmy's eyes were dimming.

“Dr. Browne . . .”

“Why?” David's throat constricted with despair. “I was coming to help you. Why did you run?”

“Well . . .” Jimmy's eyes flickered. “You're Orange, aren't you?”

As if that were the sum of it, he slipped away.