What the Wind Knows(34)

“Not in the beginning, boyo. She said I was pasty and loud, and I smoked too much. She liked your looks. It was obvious. She only turned her attentions on me when she realised I was Michael Collins and you were just a country doctor,” Mick teased, and grabbed me, wrestling and roughhousing the way he was wont to do when the tension got to be too much.

“And what exactly is a country doctor doing, hiding in this dust hole with a wanted man?” I asked, my throat itching from said dust and my arms aching from trying to keep Mick from biting my ear, which was what he always did if he managed to wrestle you to the ground.

“He’s doing his duty for Ireland. For love of country. And for a bit of fun,” Mick wheezed, narrowly avoiding upending a stack of files.

It was fun, and I escaped unscathed, even my ears. Mick’s man, Ned Broy, had come for us before dawn, and we’d been spirited out, with no one the wiser. Except Mick. That night, Michael Collins grew much wiser. I finished my business in Dublin and returned to Dromahair, to Eoin and Brigid and to the people who needed me to be a country doctor more than a soldier in Mick’s army. I’d had no idea then what that night meant in his war. In our war.

It was in those files that Mick devised his own plan to destroy British intelligence in Ireland from the inside out. Not long after our night in the records division, Mick formed his own elite militarized squad. A group of very young men—younger than Mick or me—all incredibly loyal, all completely committed to the cause. Some call them the twelve apostles. Some call them murderers. And I suppose they are both. They follow Mick. They do as he tells them. And their orders are ruthless.

There are things I don’t think Mick wants to discuss with me and things I don’t want to know, but I was there that night on Great Brunswick Street, and I saw the names in those files. When the targeted killing of G-Men began happening in Dublin, I knew why. The rumours are that the targets are warned before they’re taken out. They’re told to back off. To step down. To quit working against the IRA—the Irish Republican Army—which is what the Irish resistance is now being called. It’s no longer the Volunteers or the IRB or Sinn Féin. We’re the Irish Republican Army. Mick shrugs and says it’s about damned time we’re seen as one. Some of the G-Men listen to the warnings. Some don’t. And some die. I don’t like it. But I understand it. It isn’t vengeance. It’s strategy. It’s war.

T. S.





9





HIS BARGAIN


Who talks of Plato’s spindle;

What set it whirling round?

Eternity may dwindle,

Time is unwound.

—W. B. Yeats

With Eoin’s hand clutched in mine, I pushed through the pawnbroker’s door, the bell tinkling over my head, and found myself inside a treasure box with the quaint and the curious, the valuable and the varied: tea sets and toy trains, guns and golden gadgets, and everything in between. Eoin and I stopped, stunned, and gaped at the trove. The room was long and narrow, and at the far end, a man stood patiently at the wooden counter, his white shirt crisp. His dark tie was tucked into his neatly buttoned dark-colored vest, a pair of tiny gold-rimmed glasses on his nose. He had a thick head of wavy gray hair, and a tidy beard and mustache covered his lower face.

“Good afternoon, madam,” he called. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

“Uh, no, sir,” I stammered, pulling my eyes away from the walls of intricate oddities, promising myself and Eoin that we would come back one day, just to look. Eoin was reluctant to budge, his eyes glued to a model car that looked just like Thomas’s.

“Good day, Eoin. Where’s the doctor today?” the pawnbroker asked, demanding Eoin’s attention. Eoin sighed gustily and let me propel him toward the counter.

“Good day, Mr. Kelly. He had patients to visit,” Eoin replied, sounding so grown up, I was reassured. At least one of us wasn’t terrified.

“He works too hard,” the pawnbroker commented, but his eyes were on me, curious and considering. He extended his hand, clearly expecting me to take it. I did, though he didn’t shake it like I expected. He grasped my fingers and pulled me forward, ever so slightly, and brought my knuckles to his bristly lips, setting a small kiss there before releasing me.

“We have not had the pleasure, madam.”

“This is my mother,” Eoin crowed, his small hands gripping the edge of the counter, bouncing on his toes, gleeful.

“Your mother?” Mr. Kelly repeated, confusion furrowing his brow.

“I’m Anne Gallagher. Pleasure to meet you, sir,” I said, but offered no other explanation. I could see the wheels turn behind the small glasses, the questions that begged to be asked. He stroked his beard once, twice, and then again before setting both hands on the counter and clearing his throat.

“How can I be of service, Mrs. Gallagher?”

I didn’t correct him but slipped the ring from my finger. The cameo against the dark agate was pale and lovely, the gold band delicate, the filigree finely detailed. I couldn’t help but think my grandfather would understand my predicament.

“I would like to sell my jewelry and was told you would treat me fairly.”

The man produced a jeweler’s loupe and made a great show of examining the ring before he stroked his beard once more.