doubt.
“But don’t worry, we’ll get ’em. And we’ll get ’em soon.”
“Well,” Koesler extended his hand, “thanks is a poor word. I owe my life to you.”
“Think nothing of it, Father.” They shook hands. “But for the rest of the time you’re in the Republic, there’ll be a Garda nearby. I don’t expect any more shenanigans, but we can’t be too careful.” O’Reardon rose. “I’ll be leaving now, Father. Take care. And keep us in your good prayers.”
Koesler turned to the doctor. “How about it? Can I—may I— leave now?”
“Whoa now. Father. You seem to be all right internally. But especially in view of your head injury, we’ll be wanting to detain you at least overnight for observation. It’s the very least, you know. Then we’ll just see how you are tomorrow.”
“O.K.” He wasn’t going to argue.
“Here, let me help you, Father. Can you just step down from the examination table and sit in this wheelchair?”
“I think so.”
Koesler stood gingerly and felt pain in muscles he hadn’t known he had. “Oh, yes; I think a little rest might do me a lot of good.”
The doctor was alert. “And we’ll give you something for that pain, too.”
As Koesler took the couple of steps to the wheelchair, he caught sight of himself in a mirror. Then he knew the ugly reality of those euphemisms: abrasions, contusions, and hematomas. He looked as if he had been the big loser in a very tough fight.
“Oh, yes,” he eased himself carefully into the wheelchair, “a little rest is definitely called for.”
Patrick Joseph O’Flynn tipped his head to one side. He gave every indication of seeing something he found difficult to believe. He watched wordlessly as a uniformed Garda assisted an obviously battered Father Koesler into Teach Murray.
Until the arrival of the walking wounded, O’Flynn had had the pub to himself. Tom Murray was out back hanging up some bar cloths. O’Flynn was patiently awaiting the hour of ten, when he would start nursing his first pint of the day.
On catching sight of Koesler, O’Flynn had respectfully snapped to his feet, meanwhile snatching his cap from his head, leaving his fine brown hair pointing in every direction.
Then he noticed Koesler’s obvious distress and was unsure whether to go to the priest’s aid or await developments. He decided to remain at the table, especially since Koesler and his human crutch seemed headed in O’Flynn’s direction.
Koesler lowered himself gingerly, wincing as his back met the unpadded chair. The Garda tipped his cap, excused himself, and retreated to the rear of the pub whence, on earlier orders from Superintendent O’Reardon, he continued to watch over Koesler. O’Flynn sat down opposite the priest.
“I suppose you’re wondering what happened,” said Koesler, after a brief but pregnant silence.
“Well, now, the thought did occur.” O’Flynn jammed the cap back on his head. “Y’ve been gone only a day! Meanin’ no irreverence.”
“My car . . . that is, the car I was driving, was forced off the road. In the Burren. I crashed. The car’s a total wreck.”
Pause.
“Well,” said O’Flynn, “ya might try lookin’ at the bright side of it.”
“The bright side of it?” Koesler fixed O’Flynn with a quizzical gaze. “What could possibly be the bright side of this?”
“Arra,” O’Flynn stuck pipe in mouth, “it could have happened to ya in England.” It was said with great conviction.
Koesler made no reply. His mind, recovering from a goodly amount of pain-killing drugs administered yesterday and this morning, attempted to compare the benefit of being nearly killed in Ireland with suffering the same fate in England. He was not doing well.
“Wait now!” O’Flynn almost shouted. “Was it forced off the road ya were?”
“That’s right.”
“Now who would do a shameful thing like that? To a priest! In Ireland!”
“I don’t know. But it’s the same one who shot a policeman from Detroit and one of the ones who will try to murder the Archbishop of Detroit this Saturday in St. Patrick’s in Dublin.”
Normally, though gregarious, Koesler was not garrulous. However, the combination of the events of the preceding week and the cumulative affect of the drugs caused him to be more talkative than usual.
O’Flynn sucked in his breath sharply. “Ya don’t say! Arra, the wonder of it! Why, nothin’ in Ireland’s happened the likes of that since . . . well, since the days of the Tans.”
“The Tans?”
“Surely, y’ve heard of the Black and Tans, Father.”
“Well, yes, but I don’t know much about them.”
“Much about them, is it? My, oh my, oh my!” O’Flynn had worked a wad of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe and began the ritual of lighting it. Between efforts to draw the flame into the tobacco, O’Flynn reminisced about the Black and Tans. For he had lived through those days, though he had been a young boy at the time.
“It was back in ’20 and ’21 when the Brits tried one more time to wipe from the face of the map the IRA— that’d be the Irish Republican Army.”
“I know.”
“Well, the Tans were recruited from many of the British troops as had just finished combat in World War One, and then, later, from among the dregs of England—criminals, thugs, and hoodlums. They were called Black and Tans because they were such a ragtag bunch they had to wear makeshift uniforms of khaki tunics and trousers of the military, with the black-green caps and belts of the police.” O’Flynn paused to puff on his pipe in an attempt to waken the embers.
“Black and Tan,” Koesler mused. “Speaking of black and tan, that black man was lying after all. I wonder what he hoped to gain? He couldn’t have thought we would drop all security just on his word that there were no Rastafarians in Ireland so there’d be no attack on the Cardinal. And if they weren’t going to make an attempt on the Cardinal’s life, then why bother taking Inspector Koznicki off the board? Strange . . .”
Koesler drifted off into his own reverie which would continue undisturbed by O’Flynn’s continued commentary.
“They were sent here in ’20 with orders to ‘make Ireland hell for the rebels.’ Well, what with one thing and another, they did their damndest—if you’ll pardon the irreverence. Father—to make Ireland hell for all the Irish.
“Arra,” O’Flynn sucked in his breath, “those were the days, and especially the nights, of terror. Ye’d hear the rumble of the lorry, racin’ as fast as the horses could carry it. Then when the lorry stopped, ye’d hold yer breath. Especially if it stopped near yer own house. Then there’d be the bangin’ on the door. And the Tans’d go runnin’ through the house lookin’ for a rebel but mad enough so’s they wouldn’t leave empty-handed. There was times a man’d be shot dead before the eyes of his missus and the little ones.”
He puffed again on his pipe. “One night, they made a surprise attack: surrounded the barracks just up the street there.” He tilted his head toward the east. “Well, the lads weren’t goin’ to take that lyin’ down, so a shootin’ match started.” He looked at Koesler. “It isn’t a barracks now; it’s the doctor’s house . . . but you can still see the bullet marks.”
“There’s something wrong,” said Koesler, continuing his soliloquy, now more audibly.
“Wrong?” O’Flynn, concerned, looked at the priest intently. “What’s wrong, Father? Are ya not feelin’ all that well? Would ya like to lie down or somethin’? Is there anything I can get fer ya?”
O’Flynn started to stand, but Koesler almost absentmindedly waved him back in his chair.
“. . . something wrong with the scenario. It doesn’t fit assumption is it’s a Rastafarian plot to eliminate the
