Killing Down the Roman Line (10 page)

Audrey rolled her eyes and pouted off for a smoke break. Puddycombe deplored for the future if it was to be left in the hands of this younger generation. Mollycoddled and overbearing in a grotesque sense of their own self-importance. The whole world was being delivered to hell in a handbasket and all this generation could do was diddle their funny little phones.

Someone at the far end of the bar hollered for service, waving an empty pitcher over their heads. Berryhill was in the back of the bar, clacking poolballs while Combat Kyle waved the dead pitcher at the barkeep. Bill pocketed three stripes and then scratched. Draining his glass, he spotted something a few tables down and elbowed Kyle.

“What kinda faggot comes to the pub to read?”

~

The history of Pennyluck began with fire. A crude wickiup of greenwood and mortar joints at the southern bend of the Red Creek. A crew of topographers and land survey agents from the Canada Company, looking to build an outpost for the flow of timber down the river and on to Lake Huron. The site was already occupied, a seasonal encampment of Cree who spent the spring here before moving further north at high summer.

The Cree took issue with the encampment, wary of the company men who were endlessly marching onto their lands and claiming it belonged to the crown. As a courtesy, the elders sent an envoy to inform the survey crew that they could not build here, asking them to push on further down the river. The envoy was clubbed about the head and sent home bleeding.

When no further Cree envoys appeared, the survey men assumed the Indians had ceded the point and moved on. The Cree, however, did not move on. They watched from a distance as the white men felled green trees and built their log hut. Four days later, with the structure completed and the company men working further down the river, three Cree warriors crept in, silent as ghosts, and burned the outpost to the ground.

The survey men left, withdrawing back upriver towards Fort August. The Cree scavenged the site for anything left behind but the whites had left nothing of worth in their retreat. The calm was short-lived as the company returned four weeks later with a retinue of soldiers intent on killing any Indian they saw, forcing the Cree off the land for good. Still, the company’s victory was also culled short as the surveyors concluded that the bend in the river was too hazardous for their needs and they decamped and moved back up the river where they found a better site, displacing an encampment of Dutch settlers who had settled there.

The disputed land remained unpopulated by settlers and Cree alike for two decades until a surveyor named Bill Hodgkins found it. Seeing the potential for a mill on the river, Hodgkins leased the land from the Canada Company at a rate of a penny per acre. He built his mill and cleared a road to Fort August just as the first waves of Irish émigrés spilled from the coffin ships in Montreal and New Brunswick, the sick along with the dead. Hodgkins sent notice to his fellow Irishmen in the port cities to come settle his green slice, where he claimed every man with a strong back could own forty acres. Even the lame and the infirm could carve out five acres, the soil so sweet it begged to be tilled.

And so they came, the starved and bedraggled fugitives who had never owned land, whose fathers and forefathers were no more than hewers of wood and drawers of water for the landlord’s man. Hodgkins set the men to clearing the land, promising an acre of woodland for every acre cleared in town. Hodgkins was true to his word but poor in his accounting, granting the same piece of land to more than one settler and confusing the deeds between others. That was what instigated the feuding, the ownership of land. The wiser of the settlers moved onto their land and refused to budge or even submit to arbitration. Some were chased off by their rival claimants, beaten or burned out. The hardier families fought back and felled the trees. Seeing the disarray, some simply squatted on a tract of Hodgkins’ own land and refused to move. Hodgkins’ dream of a peaceful ‘Eire for all’ fell apart in drunken brawls in the mud street and bitter tit-for-tat revenge and counter-revenge. Big Bill retreated behind the walls of his log house and relented to the devils in the bottle and in the spring of 1849 was found dead on the creekbank with his brains dashed on the rocks.

These inauspicious beginnings fixed the disposition of the little township for the rest of the century. The feuding and the lawlessness ran amuck in the streets. Like some Wild West outpost in the fabled tales of the republic to the south, the good people of Pennyluck pummelled each other senseless in the taverns and burnt one another’s barns to the ground and shot their rival’s horses or sawed the axes of their enemy’s wagons so the whole trap collapsed on the drunken trot home.

Out of this hard-knuckled chaos came the Corrigans. Refugees lately of Tipperary, like most of the town, fleeing hardships and bad deeds. The patriarch, James Corrigan, killed a man named Patrick Cryder at a logging bee in 1884 and was sent to Kingston gaol house to await hanging under the laws of her majesty the Queen. His wife, Mary Corrigan, was left alone to raise their six children and manage the farm. When the children were taunted for having a jailbird father, Mary taught her brood to fight back and show no mercy. In the evenings, Mary wrote petitions to the courts begging clemency for her husband, father to a wayward brood in need. In 1891, James Corrigan’s date with the hangman was overturned and he returned home to a family of hard fists and grim mouths, his boys now grown into vicious young men who were quick to brawl and merciless in their fury. So feared was the clan that other families banded together in an alliance to protect themselves from the hated Corrigans. The formation of the Vigilance Peace Society was announced in church, with the blessing of Father John Donnelly, and was declared publically to keep the peace in the streets but in truth, the society was little more than a war party to fight back against the Corrigan terror.

And then it all ended one night when the inmates of the prison in nearby Garrisontown revolted and broke free. A gang of the murderous criminals fled west and laid siege to the first house they stumbled across, the Corrigan homestead. The cutthroat brigands murdered the family and dragged their lifeless bodies into the barn and burnt it down to hide their hideous sin. The severity and the horror of the murder rattled the entire community and brought an end to the lawlessness and the feuds. After that bloody night in February 1898, the township of Pennyluck settled into an era of slow prosperity and relative peace.

So much for history.

Jim closed the book and piled it atop the others borrowed from the library. He drained his pint and set the glass back into its wet ring on the table. Sorting out the details from the four books before him, he was shocked at the violence that had plagued his little town. But every town had its bad blood, its dirty history. Why would their town be any different? Only one of the books had mentioned the Corrigans and it reinforced his own vague knowledge of the tragic demise of the family. Granted some of it looked suspect, like the alliance of families who banded together in a `Peace Society` to challenge the Corrigans. That could have gotten out of hand. But the book had reiterated what little of the tale Jim knew; that fugitive convicts had laid waste to the family.

So what was the truth? What was Corrigan up to? Did he have proof to back up his claims that the other families had conspired against his own? No. All he had was a derelict house and a good spook story. Grist for any charlatan’s mill.

“You going back to school, Jimmy?” Puddycombe collected Jim’s empty glass and set a fresh pint down in its place. He nodded to the books on the table.

“Catching up on my local history.”

Puddy picked up a book and tilted his head back to read the spine. “The History of Pennyluck and its People. Sounds gripping. This a comedy?”

“More like tragedy. Out of all these books, there’s only one mention of the Corrigan murders. A brief one too.”

“Christ on the cross!” That was Berryhill, leaning on his cue and eavesdropping. “If I hear that name again I’m gonna puke.”

“You don’t think that’s odd?”

Berryhill chalked his cue. “What? You believe that asshole’s story?”

“About as much as I believe the official one.”

“You’re a piece of work, Hawkshaw. Fucking turn on your own kind like that.”

Jim gritted his teeth. Berryhill the blowhard. “This town was a pretty wild place back then. All these books agree on that.”

“That’s true,” Puddycombe said. “They used to post four constables a night just to deal with all the brawling drunks at closing time. ‘Course the constables were drunk too but there you are.”

“Drunk men fight,” Berryhill scoffed. “Big news.”

Puddycombe collected glassware onto a tray. “Wasn’t just the donnybrooks outside the pub. There’s was practically war in the streets what with all the feuding that went on. And them Corrigans were a vicious lot. They’d knock your teeth in for speaking out against them. Then torch your barn for good measure.”

Hitchens had turned away from the TV to listen in. “Puddy,” he said, “you believe that guy’s story too?”

“All I’m saying is this used to be a very rough town. And the Corrigans were Catholics, like everyone else down the Roman Line. There’s been plenty of blood spilled between them and the Orangemen at the time, on top of all the family feuding.”

Hitchens dismissed the notion. “That’s bullshit. When a fight turns to bloodshed there’s only two reasons; women or money.”

Berryhill went back to his game. “You’re both fucking crazy.”

“You’re all wrong.” Old Gallagher swung around on his stool and piled onto the discussion.

“Now look what you done,” Berryhill said. “You woke the old man up.”

Gallagher ignored the loudmouth. “It was a dispute over land. Folks used to squat on unused land in those days. Half the acreage around town was fallow with absentee landlords and whatnot.” He winked at the men. “You threaten a man’s land, well, he will kill you for it.”

“Land, money,” said Hitchens. “Same thing.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Gallagher barked. “Not to those people. Land was everything. Safety, respectability, shelter. Roots. What’s money compared to that? Nothing. Just filthy paper.”

“So says the man without any,” Hitchens fired back. A few laughs around the tables.

Gallagher ignored the fool. “Jimmy’s right, this town was a wild place with little regard for the law. The only rule folks respected was that of reprisal. And everyone was guilty of it, not just those damn Corrigans.” The Guinness trembled in his hand and he wiped the foam from his lips. “Still, there was something odd about that family. There’s a whiff of brimstone lingering yet over the Corrigan homestead.”

Berryhill rolled his eyes heavenward. “Jesus. Here come the ghost stories…”

Combat Kyle racked up the balls as the conversation drifted to the fragile state of the old man’s brains and Gallagher cursed them all for being rotten bastards and turned back to his stout.

No one noticed the new patron who strode in and stood surveying the pub. One by one the voices dropped off and all eyes swung to the man in the doorway.

Will Corrigan watched the conversation die around him, then he crossed to the bar and took a stool.

10

“BUSHMILLS.” CORRIGAN LEANED against the polished bar and nodded to the proprietor. He could almost feel the heat on his back from all those eyes.

Puddycombe pulled glassware from the steaming dishwasher. Without looking up, he said “We don’t have that.”

“What do you have that passes for whiskey around here?”

“What you see there.” Puddycombe nodded to the liquor stand. Bottles of Jack and Johnny and the obligatory Canadian Club. The bottle of Crown Royal, which confirmed Corrigan’s worst suspicions of the place.

“The J.D. then. I’ll hold my nose.” Corrigan watched Puddy splash some into a glass. “Maybe a beer to chase it down with, yeah?”

Corrigan took up his drink and spun around, elbows on the bar. All the eyeballs that had singed him from behind now swung back to their drinks or somewhere else. Berryhill and his little toadie openly glared at him. Corrigan raised his glass in a silent hail to the big man but Berryhill sneered and cued up the next ball.

Corrigan’s eye clocked the table crowded with books. A neighbour. “Hello Jim,” he said.

Jim shrank. He nodded back politely, feeling the collective eyeballs of the bar swing his way. Jim disliked attention of any kind. He withered under it, wishing his new neighbour would just bugger off, thank you very much. Corrigan seemed the exact opposite, brazenly courting attention and basking in the eye-daggers shot his way. Was the man a simpleton? Did he not know the hornet’s nest he was prodding by walking in here?

“Awfully quiet in here tonight.” Corrigan’s voice was loud in the shushed din. He sipped his drink and soaked in all the dirty looks. He tilted forward and addressed Bill. “How do you do. Mr. Berryhill?”

Berryhill didn’t even look at him, sinking the striped 7 ball. “Don’t talk to me, asshole.”

“Friendly” Corrigan bellowed back, louder than necessary. “I thought this was one of those small towns where everything is all smiles and apple pie.” Then, over his shoulder to the pub owner. “Am I wrong, Mr. Puddycombe?”

Puddy turned his back to him and loaded the washer.

“You must be dumber than a bag of rocks, mister.” Berryhill leaned on his cue and killed his beer. “I were you, I’d walk on outta here before they have to carry you out on a stretcher.”

“Ah, violent threats.” Corrigan raised his glass as if he’d been toasted. “Quel surprise. Tell me Berryhill, does murder run in the family?”

The cue slammed onto the felt pool table and Berryhill stomped towards the stranger, his intent crystal and unequivocal. “That’s it.”

Jim sprang out of his seat and headed Bill off at the pass. “Bill, come on. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Berryhill’s palms punched Jim’s chest, hurtling him backwards. “Why are you always defending this prick? You in cahoots with this fucker?”