The Emerald Isle (52 page)

“Aye, and I just saw your father.” The man nodded, then hesitated a moment, waiting for Patrick to introduce me. In an effort to avoid embarrassing Patrick, I thrust out my hand.

“Kathleen O’Connor,” I said, managing a tentative smile. “I’m visiting Ballyshannon for a few weeks.”

“Ah?” The old man’s bushy brow shot up. “Ronan Murphy, miss, and pleased to meet you. Though your name’s Irish, something tells me you’re not from these parts.”

“She’s from America,” Patrick inserted. “New York.”

“Right so.” The man shrugged as if that were all that needed to be said, then looked at Patrick with a probing gleam in his eye. “How is your dad these days, Paddy? I’ll be wanting to know the truth, so speak plainly.”

Patrick looked down, the fringe of his lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. “He’s been better, and he’s been worse, Ronan. Last week I was half afraid he’d given up altogether, but he rallied himself today. We’re trying to keep his spirits up.”

Mr. Murphy’s eyes were gentle and contemplative as he puffed on his pipe. “The doctors have done all they can then?”

Patrick swallowed hard and squared his shoulders. “Yes.”

“Sorry to hear it.” With an admirable economy of motion, Mr. Murphy turned and pointed across the field with the stem of his pipe.

“Your dad’s over there now, bidding on a fine black-and-white bull that’s come out of your own Graham Red. I’d have bid on the creature meself, but he looks like a bit of trouble.”

Patrick nodded and murmured his thanks, managing to quell his irritation until Mr. Murphy moved away. Then, taking me by the elbow, he practically pulled me across the field.

“Do you think he’s really buying another bull?” I asked, amazed that a man in Mr. O’Neil’s condition would buy anything.

“Likely he couldn’t resist,” Patrick growled as the wet grass swished around our ankles. “The bull is descended from Graham Red, so Dad will have to get him before someone else snatches him up. ’Tis the pride thing, don’t you see? The old fool won’t listen to reason.”

A moment later I saw James O’Neil standing outside a bullpen, his thumbs hooked into his vest, a proud smile gathering up his sagging cheeks. The bull behind him was the spitting image of the animal I’d seen in the Ballyshannon barn, but this creature wasn’t slow and shuffling. His beady eyes were alert and dark, his hooves pawing the dirt as the crowd churned around him.

“Will you pose for a picture, James?” a photographer called, balancing a Nikon atop his nose. “I don’t expect you to climb in with the wee beast, but if you could get a little closer, I could get the animal in the shot. But hurry, the rain is coming again.”

“I’m not eejit enough to climb in with a bull,” Mr. O’Neil answered,“but a shot with an animal would be nice, wouldn’t it now?” He turned and moved toward the gate of a pen in which a black-and-white cow stood with her calf. “Take your picture here, with the cow,” he called to the photographer. “They’re both out of me own Graham Red, and it’s proud I am of having a part in such fine animals.”

The cow blinked and turned her massive head toward the interloper, but Mr. O’Neil went through the gate and walked toward her, his hands confidently parked in his vest pockets. Outside the pen, Mrs. O’Neil held a sheet of damp newspaper over her hair and gave her husband an encouraging smile.

Hanging over the railing, the photographer leaned from left to
right, striving for the best shot of James and the cow. “There now—just there. Och, can you back up a bit? If you could just take another wee step back, James, I’ll be able to get the calf in the picture.”

Mugging for the camera, Mr. O’Neil took another step back while I rose on tiptoe to whisper in Patrick’s ear. “Your dad sure looks like he’s enjoying himself.”

“How’s this?” Mr. O’Neil beamed for the camera, the crowd clapped in appreciation, and the startled calf mooed at the stranger who had invaded her space. The mother cow moved forward and butted Mr. O’Neil’s back with her head, causing him to lose his footing in the mud and fall backward against the calf.

The events of the next few moments will forever be imprinted in my brain. I froze, one hand lifted toward Patrick, as the calf bawled out its anxiety and leapt forward. The protective cow, displeased with the stranger molesting her baby, lunged toward Mr. O’Neil, her huge head flipping him onto his back in the mud. While he gazed up at her with wide, startled eyes, the cow pressed her head against his chest, then brought one hoof forward and stepped on his abdomen.

A scream ripped through the astounded crowd, and for all I know the sound could have come from anyone, including me. Through a haze of disbelief I saw Mr. O’Neil flailing at the cow with his fists, but that bony head didn’t give way for an instant. She just kept pressing on him, and through the din I heard sharp cracking sounds of breaking bones.

Like a child, I lifted my hands to cover my eyes, but then Patrick made a hand-leap over the railing. As he rushed toward the determined cow, I experienced a moment of empty-bellied terror, the sort you get at the top of a roller coaster. I found myself praying out loud:“Help him, Jesus. Protect them both!”

The crowd around me seemed thunderstruck. The cows in the milking shed had impressed me as the most placid animals on earth, but this beast was a wrathful mother intent upon killing the man who’d dared touch her calf. Strangely enough, she seemed not to even
notice Patrick, who grabbed her by the ears and braced his heels into the dirt to pull her away. The muscles in his back knotted and writhed beneath his jacket, his face darkened with exertion, but that cow didn’t budge.

An idea struck me, and now I’d have to say simple ignorance probably saved the day. A more experienced farmer might have tried something else, but I did the only thing I could think of—I reached through the fence and grabbed the calf around the neck, then hugged him to me with every ounce of my strength. More frightened than ever, the calf bawled in earnest, and that jittery, bleating sound cut through the screams and shouts and curses long enough for the cow to lift her head and look for whoever was bothering her baby now.

She looked at me, blinked, and stumbled forward with a bellowing roar. I released the calf and scampered back so quickly that I fell hard on the ground, but the distraction worked. Once the cow’s attention was diverted, a half-dozen men leapt into the pen and formed a human fence, separating the animal from the O’Neils, while Patrick stood over his father and hoarsely called for help.

I sat on the ground, breathless and shaken. The cow, only inches away, eyed me through the fence and bumped her head against it. For a fleeting moment I wondered if the temporary pen would hold her if she charged it, but something about the calf’s warm presence seemed to satisfy the cow’s thirst for vengeance. Breathing heavily, she stood and stared out at me, twin streamers of drool dripping from her velvety mouth.

An ambulance appeared as if from nowhere (I later learned it had been parked at the dog show), and Patrick dismantled a section of the pen so the paramedics could reach his father. The members of the human fence remained in place, several of them calling encouragement as the paramedics lifted James onto a stretcher.

“There now, girl, are you all right?” Mr. Murphy appeared from the crowd and helped me to my feet. “That was quick thinking, if I do say so myself.”

He looked at me, obviously expecting an answer, but I couldn’t speak. My mouth was as dry as sandpaper, and the warm scent of damp cow seemed to choke my breathing.

“Ah, now, and I’m sorry you got a fright. ’Tis the way of the beasts; they’re unpredictable at best and mostly temperamental with a calf. But the ambulance will have James in hospital before you know it.”

I looked at Mr. Murphy through a haze of confusion. “In hospital?”

“Aye, he’s pretty shaken up. But Paddy will ride with him, and Maddie and her young man will bring Fiona. Do you mind riding with me then?”

Too upset to ponder travel arrangements, I paused to brush the mud and grass from the back of my jeans. “I’m awfully dirty. I’d hate to mess up your car.”

Mr. Murphy threw back his head and laughed, and I marveled at the Irishman’s ability to chuckle in the face of calamity. “Listen to her,” he slipped his arm around my shoulder,“worried about my car! Nothing beats a Yank for worrying about unimportant things.”

Bewildered, I pushed my hair out of my face and followed him as the rain began to fall in earnest, sharp as needles against my skin.

An hour later, Maddie and Taylor joined me in the waiting room of the hospital. They had been inside the emergency ward with Mrs. O’Neil and Patrick, but after the doctor’s initial examination, he suggested they wait outside. I thought it a little strange that Patrick did not come out too, but perhaps he wanted to remain with his father.

Maddie wept openly, her pretty face all red and splotchy. Taylor sat beside her, cradling her head against his shoulder, and for a moment I longed for the strength of a masculine, comforting arm. Abruptly, like an afterthought, a realization struck me. Six months ago I would have wanted Taylor to comfort me, but now I didn’t want him at all. I wanted Patrick.

The wide double doors opened, and Mrs. O’Neil stepped out,
marks of grief etched into the lines beside her mouth and eyes. “He’s going to be all right, thank God.” Her voice trembled with suppressed emotion. “Or as well as he can be, in his condition.” Her gaze moved across the room and met Maddie’s. “Though he has a couple of broken ribs, we’re not going to lose your dad yet, love. He said he still intends to walk you down the aisle.”

Maddie broke into fresh tears at this, and I closed my eyes, relieved beyond words. James O’Neil was a dying man, but God had decided to leave him with his family for a few more months. That was a mercy.

I looked up and caught Mrs. O’Neil’s eye. “Is Patrick all right?”

A small frown settled between her brows. “I haven’t seen him, dearie. I thought he was with you.”

I sat back, momentarily confused. Where could Patrick have gone? He had left his car at the cattle fair, so he couldn’t have left the hospital. This was the emergency waiting room, so if he wasn’t here or in the examination room, he had to be in another public place, perhaps the cafeteria or the gift shop, if there was one.

I stood, and squeezed Mrs. O’Neil’s hand as I moved past her. “I’ll go find him.”

I asked a nurse for directions to the cafeteria, but Patrick wasn’t among the visitors or white-coated doctors eating at the small tables. I asked for directions to the gift shop, and was directed to a closet-sized room filled with cards, crucifixes, and arrangements of silk flowers. No sign of Patrick.

Standing in the gift shop, I considered one other option. “Can you tell me,” I asked the young girl behind the counter,“if there’s a chapel here?”

That’s where I found him. The small room was lit by candles and a single light burning over a huge wooden cross, but I immediately recognized the broad shoulders hunched over the railing before the kneeling bench. Entering silently, I walked forward and knelt at his side, then closed my eyes as I added an“amen” to Patrick’s prayer.

When I lifted my head, Patrick was looking at me, an almost imperceptible note of pleading in his face.

I sank back to the kneeling bench, then reached out to touch his arm. “Your father is going to be fine. A couple of broken ribs, they say. But he’ll be well enough to walk Maddie down the aisle next month.”

For a brief instant Patrick’s face seemed to open, so I could look inside and watch my words sink in. I saw surprise, a quick flicker of anxiety, then his tense expression melted in an outpouring of relief.

“Thank God. I thought I was going to lose him. I’ve been kneeling here, trying to pray, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt so far away from God. Why
is
that, Kathy?”

“God is not far away, Patrick. He’s right here, waiting for you. But you must set things right with your father because you can’t be angry and in close fellowship with God. He will not allow anger to consume people, and he doesn’t want you to remain separated from your father.”

He stared absently over the railing at the cross, with only a slight squint of his eye and a sideways movement of his jaw to indicate he had heard.

I took a deep breath and tried again to reach him. “You are going to lose your father, Patrick, for these physical bodies aren’t designed to live forever. But you don’t have to spend your father’s remaining days in unhappiness. Go to him and make things right. There may never be a better time than now.”

“I was afraid he would die without giving me the chance to ask what I’ve done to make him hate me so.” He spoke the words without heat, but they fell with the weight of stones in still water, spreading ripples of pain and regret. “Now that he’s going to live, I don’t think I have the courage to speak to him.”

Turning to face him, I took his hand and held it between both of my own. “Patrick, I can’t imagine how your father has hurt you, but I do know this: Jesus understands. He was hurt too. And still he taught that we must be open and honest with those who wound us. Just as we are to ask forgiveness from those we wrong, we must also go to those who wrong us.”