Killing Down the Roman Line (36 page)

“You must be starving,” she said, turning for the trailer. “I’ll start dinner. Can you fire up the barbecue?”

He watched her disappear inside and listened to the water gurgle and spurt as she ran the taps. He looked for Travis but the boy was nowhere in sight and he didn’t know where to go so he stood in the hot sun, in some halfway mark between the ashes and the double-wide trailer home.

It was almost funny. He had dug that second grave after all.

The way Emma and Travis looked at him now. He was down deep at the bottom of it and it would be a slow, thorny climb back out of this coffin hole if he was going to win them back.

After what you done? What they saw? Hell, you’re getting off easy, son.

A screech hooked his ear, shattering his thoughts. A turkey vulture squatted on the roof of the barn, spreading its wings in the sun and lifting one foot then the other. Its boiled-looking head turned and watched him.

He scrounged up a good sized rock and hurled it full bore at the obscene bird. It clattered short against the pitched roof and the vulture continued to dance its little dance as if the peak of the barn was too hot. He pitched another and the foul thing flapped up and flew away.

His shotgun was gone, lost in the fire but he would get another and when those ugly birds came back, he’d just start shooting. Blast them out of the sky and leave them to rot on the ground until his plough blades churned their carcasses into worm meal.

He had won, hadn’t he? Corrigan was gone and no court would convict him for it. History was written by the winners and the story had played out exactly as it had a century ago.

How else could it have played?

It was meant to be.

Jim closed his eyes and crossed his fingers but when he opened them his home was still a cinder pile and across the field, beyond that stone fence, rose the Corrigan house, teetering and rotten but still standing.

Come sundown, Jim would fetch the red gas canister and burn that goddamn eyesore to the ground.

A brief note about the story:

If any element of this story rings a bell, that may be because it was inspired by true events. On a cold night in 1880, the ‘Black Donnellys’ of Lucan, Ontario were attacked and murdered by a mob of vigilantes. The parents (James and Johannah), a son (Tom), and a niece (Bridget) were violently dispatched with guns, clubs and pitchforks. The house was set ablaze and the mob then marched on the home of the elder son, club-footed Will Donnelly, with the intent to shoot him down but ended up killing another son, John Donnelly. The following day, the entire town turned out to see the razed house. They traipsed through the ashes and some collected souvenirs of the occasion, including small bones. The local constable did not arrive at the scene until midday.

Despite two separate trials and an eyewitness account, no one was ever convicted for the murders. Enraged over the injustice, Will Donnelly erected a monument at the grave inscribed with the term “murdered” after each name. That tombstone became a popular tourist draw until it was removed from Saint Patrick’s Cemetery in 1964 and subsequently vanished.

Lucan Ontario in the late nineteenth century was something of a wild town and overwhelmingly Irish. Feuding broke out with regularity among the locals over land ownership and business. Disputes were commonly settled with fists and clubs, reprisals and the cycles of violent revenge inevitable. Torching an enemy’s barn was a particularly popular payback, but if you were really vindictive, you’d wait until the loft was stocked with hay for the winter and then burnt it down.

Without doubt, the Donnellys were a tough bunch but perhaps no more vicious than any of the others. What made the difference was the newly arrived parish priest, Father John Connelly. Unfortunately the Donnelly’s rivals got to him first and convinced him the Donnellys were a menace to the town. With the priest’s guidance and blessing, the locals formed a crude alliance named the Biddulph Peace Society to “defend” against their enemies. As the feuding escalated, the men of the Peace Society decided they had had enough and reconnoitred at a small schoolhouse near their enemy’s farm to make plans. Drinking their courage up and blacking their faces with soot, they marched across a field and attacked the Donnellys under the cover of a cold February night. The violence that ensued was one of the most gruesome crimes in Canadian history and became the stuff of legend.

Secrets are hard to keep in a small community and tongues wagged and then an eyewitness appeared but in the end, the vigilantes got away with murder. Although charged with murder, the members of the Peace Society were acquitted in two separate trials. The surviving Donnellys eventually moved away and the whole sordid business was forgotten about. Taboo even, as local folklore held that simply mentioning the name ‘Donnelly’ ensured bad luck.

Over time, the story of the Black Donnellys became the stuff of popular folklore. Writer Thomas P. Kelley was the first to popularize the tale in print for the pulp market of the 1950’s with two novels, “The Black Donnellys” and “Vengeance of the Black Donnellys”. Other books followed, along with plays, documentaries and features on the History Channel. The best of the bunch are two non-fiction books by Donnelly historian Ray Fazakas, “The Donnelly Album” and “In Search of the Donnellys”. In 2007 NBC premiered a TV series called the “The Black Donnellys”, created by writer-director Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby). Born and raised in London, Ontario, (a short drive from Lucan) Haggis grew up hearing the legend of the Donnellys and re-imagined the tale for modern times.

Film work, in fact, was how I came across the story. Although I had heard the name Donnelly before, it wasn’t until talking to a film producer in 2006 that I delved into it. The producer had always wanted to do a project about the fabled murders and was looking for concepts on it. (I’ve since learned that almost every Canadian producer has a pet Donnelly project in their portfolio) At the time I was working with my screenwriting partner, Tyler Levine (awesome dude), and we brainstormed half a dozen pitches for a feature film based on the Donnelly massacre. One of the ideas I cooked up featured a long lost family member turning the site of the crime into a museum to agitate the locals. No one else liked that pitch but the idea got under my skin and wouldn’t let go. I eventually churned it out myself as a script that, while it was well received, never got off the ground. (Incidentally, after countless pitches and discussion, nothing ever materialized with that initial producer. Such is the way of movie-making.)

As I said, my book was ‘inspired by’ the Donnelly tale, not ‘based on’. A small distinction to be sure. The details are the same but I didn’t want to be hampered by facts, needing to fictionalize as the story demanded. But more than that, I didn’t want to stir any ill will. The families living in Lucan have been there for generations and they know the history. There are descendants of the Donnellys too, to consider. So boundaries were set and names were changed to suit this work of fiction. I have no wish to get the ‘haint’ put on me by any vengeful Irish ghosts.

Speaking of ghosts, if you ever visit the town of Lucan, you just might see one if you visit the Donnelly homestead on the Roman Line. Robert Salts lives in the house built overtop the original site and offers tours of the house and barn. Salts, a sensitive to the paranormal, has encountered the ghosts of the Donnellys many times and will gladly share his tales as he shows you around the site. You can book a tour through his site at The Donnelly Homestead Site Tour.

More information about the Donnellys can be found at
The Official Donnelly Homepage

or by visiting the
Lucan Area Heritage & Donnelly Museum

Acknowledgments

Huge thanks to Chris Szego for her editing skills in whipping this into shape. Thank you to Max Jänicke for his artwork and Rob Noel for his advice about farming in southwestern Ontario. And a big shout out to Joe Konrath for blazing a trail for me (like so many others) to follow.

Thank you for reading
Killing Down the Roman Line
. Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to find readers. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Even a few lines would make all the difference and would be much appreciated.

You can drop me a line at
Ink Spatter

Or via twitter at
twitter.com/TimMcGregor1

About the author

Tim McGregor is a novelist and screenwriter with three produced feature films, all of dubious quality. Although the last one did star Luke Perry. His first novel,
Bad Wolf
, is available as a Kindle book. Tim lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.

An excerpt from BAD WOLF

ONE

THE WOLF MOVED through the trees, nose to the ground. Down from the mountain and out of the primordial darkness of the forest, towards the lights of the city. It skulked through a hole in a fence, its heavy pads on the worn pavement. Past a leaning stack of pallets and into a lot that stank of gasoline and men. Jaundiced light beamed from the poles haloed in the light drizzle. The rain dampened the stink of the ground and turned it sour.

It kept to the shadows, winding through the yard to avoid the lights. It wasn‘t far now, the smell it was after. Prey. It caught the scent from a mile away and tracked it from the slope of the dead volcano down into the city.

It was close, the thing it tracked.

The dogs came after, a clumsy pack of pokey ribs and ravaged hide following the lead animal. A Rottweiler and three pit bulls, a Doberman and a sleek Siberian Husky. Others of no discernible breed and still more of such bastard mix they were barely dogs at all. Heads low and single file, the dogs followed the lobo‘s path step by step. The pack snorted and snuffed, sometimes snapping at one another but none barked, none made any unnecessary noise. When the hunt was on, they stifled the raw instinct to bark and ran silent. The lead animal taught them this and they had learned it the hard way. The pack was down in numbers because two ill-mixed breeds couldn‘t help themselves and barked on a hunt. The wolf killed them both, snapping their necks in its enormous maw. The troop was learning. Dogs barked, wolves did not.

They were hungry but the wolf had taught them how to hunt as a pack. First the small woodland animals darting across the forest floor and then bigger prey. At night, always at night. But this night was different and all to an animal knew it. The wolf hunted even bigger prey bigger this night. Something slow and stupid and easy to kill.

TWO BOYS AND A GUN. How many terrible nights have started this way? The gun was an old bolt action rifle. A 303 Enfield with a walnut stock and a battered scope. Lifted quietly from its dusty rack in Owen‘s grandfather‘s house in. Owen held the gun now, sliding the bolt forward to reveal the loading gate, showing it to the other boy.

“Just lemme shoot the fucking thing.” Justin was fifteen and impatient about all things. He drained his beer, also stolen from Owen‘s grandfather, and crushed the can.

Owen looked at him with contempt. “You gotta learn how to load it first, dumbass. Maybe you ain‘t big enough to wear the big boy pants.”

“Hurry the fuck up. Before those things run off.”

They were hunkered down under the steel bridge that spanned the Willamette, the dark riverwater moving slowly below them. Empty cans of Pabst scattered around, two fresh ones sweating cold in the plastic bag. The air was warm, pushing the stink of the river up the banks.

Owen had seen that old Enfield in his granddad‘s cellar since he was seven years old. Once, when he was ten, he pushed a chair up to the wall and climbed up just to touch it. The black metal was cold to his fingers but the wood felt warm. His grandfather had caught him just as he was trying to lift it from its cradle and Owen had gotten a sharp crack over the ear for it. After that the old man kept the basement locked but Owen never forgot about the gun. Now that his grandfather rarely left his bedroom, Owen took it whenever he wanted. Justin wanted to shoot it so they got the beer and the gun and headed down to the river. There were raccoons and cats down there among the broken bikes and appliances dumped from the roadside and the boys had taken to shooting at them late at night. But tonight was different, tonight they got lucky. There were dogs.

God knows where they came from. Six, maybe seven. Hard to tell at this distance. Big and mangy looking. Strays for sure. They swarmed over something down in the weeds, scrapping over it. Teeth snapping and jaws popping. Feeding time.

Justin tossed his can away. “Lemme shoot already.”

Owen sighed and handed him the rifle. “Here”.

Justin rolled onto his belly in the dirt, aimed and fired. It was that quick. He jumped back at the recoil and whined. Owen watched the dogs bolt away then circle back. They sniffed the air then tore back into the thing in the weeds.

“Fuck are they eating down there?” Justin looked through the scope, watching them feed.