Jack Higgins - Pay the Devil

‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded. ‘Diana the Huntress or the Goddess of the Night?’

She tilted back her head and laughed, the moonlight full upon her young face. ‘I had heard that Southern gentlemen were renowned for their chivalry, Colonel, but this exceeds all my expectations.’

Responding to her mood, he removed his hat and bowed gravely. ‘Colonel Clay Fitzgerald, at your service. You have the advantage of me, ma’am.’

‘Oh, no, Colonel,’ she said. ‘I much prefer to remain Diana the Huntress or even the Goddess of the Night for just a little while longer. Women are incurably romantic.’

He started to replace his hat, and as he did so, she touched her mount with the spurs so that it bounded forward across the meadow, cleared the fence with room to spare and plunged into the shadows of the trees. A silvery laugh floated back to him, and as he swung a leg over the mare’s back he knew that he was too late.

He reached the track in time to see the girl and her horse briefly silhouetted against the sky as they topped the rise at the head of the valley, and then they were gone.

When he reached the place himself, there was no sign of her. He took a cheroot from his case and lit it carefully, hands cupped against the slight breeze from the sea. He frowned, wondering who she could be, and then a slight smile came to his face. If her performance tonight was anything to go by, she would not leave him long in doubt.

He cantered back toward Claremont, enjoying his cheroot and the stillness of the night. When he reached the ridge above the house, he paused and gazed toward the distant mountains of Connemara. They made a spectacle to take the breath away, and the moonlight silvering the sea filled him with the beauty and wonder of it.

He had made the mistake of coming to Ireland in search of peace, but already he was glad he had come. The thought of tomorrow filled him with a vague, restless excitement, and as he took the mare down toward the house, there was a smile on his face.

The morning was grey and a light rain was falling as Clay rode out of the courtyard and followed the track that led up through the trees over the top of the moor.

In one of his old military saddlebags he carried the package he had been asked to deliver to Shaun Rogan, and as he rode, head bowed against the rain, he wondered idly what it might contain.

Of the man who had given it to him, he knew little. He had met O’Hara casually at a party at someone’s house in New York, and during the conversation his intended trip to Galway had been mentioned. Later in the evening, the man had asked him to deliver the package and Clay had agreed, thinking he would probably hear no more about it. When he boarded the boat on the following day, it was waiting for him in his cabin, with a polite note thanking him in advance for the favour.

There was already a suspicion at the back of his mind that O’Hara had used him and that the package was something out of the ordinary. From what he had seen of the Rogan family already, there could be little doubt that the contents were of a dubious nature.

He dismissed the subject from his mind for the moment and gazed about him. The mountains were shrouded in mist and visibility was poor, but yet there was a freshness to everything that gladdened the heart, and the air was like new wine. He started to whistle softly between his teeth and urged his mount into a canter as the rain increased in force.

As Kevin Rogan had promised, the track ran for some three miles across the moor and then dipped unexpectedly into a wide valley. Below him in the midst of a clump of old beech trees an ancient, grey stone farmhouse was rooted into the ground.

The place seemed prosperous and in good repair, with neat, well-kept fences to the large paddock. As he cantered down toward it, a woman moved out of the porch, a pail in each hand. She paused and looked toward him, then she put down the pails and stood with one hand shading her eyes.

She was tall and gaunt, her face wrinkled by a lifetime’s care. The hair that showed from beneath the shawl which covered her head was iron grey. She gazed up at him, no expression in her faded blue eyes, and Clay touched the brim of his hat. ‘Mrs Rogan?’ She nodded and he went on, ‘My name’s Fitzgerald. Is your husband at home?’

She shook her head, and said in an unfriendly voice, ‘He’s away for the day.’

‘Might I ask when you’re expecting him?’ Clay said.

She picked up her pails. ‘He comes and goes. You’ll be wasting your time if you wait.’ Without another word, she turned away and walked across the courtyard to a cow byre.

Clay watched her until she had disappeared inside, a slight frown on his face. Then a voice said quietly from behind, ‘You mustn’t mind my mother. She doesn’t take kindly to strangers.’

The man who had spoken stood in the doorway of the stables and cleaned his hands on a rag, eyes calm in a lean, intelligent face topped by the familiar Rogan hair.

Clay walked the mare toward him, and smiled. ‘Dennis, Marteen, and Kevin I’ve met already in that order. Who might you be?’

The other smiled. ‘I’m Cathal, Colonel. The quiet one of the family. Kevin said you might drop by sometime today.’

‘Your father’s not at home, I take it?’

Cathal nodded. ‘Pressing business in Galway. He and the boys won’t be back until late tonight.’

Clay leaned forward and looked inside the stable door. There were at least thirty horses ranged on both sides in neat stalls, and he whistled softly. ‘You’ve got some good stuff there.’

‘We should have, Colonel. We breed them.’ Cathal ran a hand over the mare’s muzzle in a familiar manner and spoke softly to her. ‘But not one of them to match Pegeen, here.’

Clay raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘You know the mare well, then?’

Cathal smiled. ‘The joy of your uncle’s old age. If there’s a better mount between here and Dublin, I’ve yet to see it. Miss Joanna’s taken good care of her.’

Clay resisted the temptation to ask the obvious question and there was a slight pause. Cathal Rogan made no attempt to continue the conversation, and after a while, Clay smiled. ‘Well, I’ll be moving on. Tell your father I’ll call again tomorrow.’

He wheeled Pegeen away from the stable entrance and Cathal said, ‘I understood Kevin to say you had a package for us, Colonel?’

‘For your father,’ Clay said over his shoulder. ‘And I prefer to deliver it personally.’ He cantered through the gate and followed the track back up toward the head of the valley.

When he reached the top, he paused and looked down toward the farm. Whatever else they might be, the Rogans were certainly an inhospitable clan and strangers were definitely not welcome – that much both Cathal Rogan and his mother had made plain.

As he started to turn away, there was a movement in the trees beyond the farm. He leaned forward and waited. A moment later, half a dozen horsemen galloped through the beech trees and entered the yard.

The woman came out of the cow byre, carrying her pails, and one of the men swung to the ground and approached her. They stood talking and Clay saw her shake her head vehemently and then the man pushed her so that she staggered back, dropped her pails and fell to the ground, milk spilling across the cobbles.

He wondered what had happened to Cathal Rogan, and in the same moment saw him run from the other side of the stables to the rear of the house. As the woman picked herself up from the ground, he appeared in the doorway, a shotgun in his hand. He raised it to his shoulder and one of the men rode his horse up the front steps, crowding him against the wall and kicked the gun from his grasp.