Straw Man

Part One of Three

Fionn stood at the small window beside the front door looking out over the nearly barren fields. His da hadn’t got much off their wee bit of land for silage this past year. He had said to Fionn, “We may not get the full of it this year. And it’ll be wild expensive to buy from yerman. We may have to part with one of the heifers.”

This disturbed Fionn, as his father well knew. His youngest son had too much of a soft spot for the animals on their small farm, and he knew this suggestion would meet with great reluctance.

“Sure, Mam’s making a good wage now,” Fionn said earnestly. “Will that not help to pay for more silage if we need it?”

“Aye, it just may,” his father agreed. He wasn’t optimistic about there being any extra punts or pence to put aside for emergencies.

Padraic wasn’t happy about Niamh having to get a job to keep the family afloat. His three daughters and two sons were growing faster by the day and it was a race to get enough food into the house for them every week. It would be another year before Colum would be finished school and able to help him more with work that needed doing about the farm. He wouldn’t be able to afford Mick Campbell to help much anymore. Still, Colum would be fit for it, he thought.

Fionn’s voice roused him from his thoughts. “Da, can’t I do a wee bit of deliverin’ on my bike? That might bring in enough, so it might?”

“You’d be doin’ a quare bit of deliverin’ to make a dent in it I’d say.” Seeing his son’s disappointment, Padraic said, “We’ll not worry about it now. Thon field may not feed a snipe but we’ll make do. Don’t we always?”

“I can maybe do some wee bits of work for Seamus,” Fionn suggested, not ready to abandon his idea of helping. “He might charge a wee bit less for the silage, mightn’t he?”

“He might indeed.” Padraic answered, not wanting to disillusion his son with dour speculation. “Away on in. It’s time for your tea, anyway.”

The Rafferty family lived near the town of Ballintee, not far from the most popular strand in Ireland. . On weekends in the good season, there could easily be hundreds - maybe thousands - of tourists making their way to the white sands along the shore of the North Atlantic. They came from all over Ireland, and many another European country for the surfing and the sheer beauty of the place, where grizzled, austere cliffs fringed the sea and the sunlight shone for all the world like a perpetual rainbow. “See, Fionn, God is pointing his flashlight down through the clouds,” Da had told him when he was just a young cub.

Fionn loved life on the farm, near his wee town and didn’t truly understand the worried discussions he’d overheard Mam and Da having on the many nights when sleep eluded him. Often, after the rest of the house was tucked in and asleep, Fionn would quietly pad down the stairs to the pantry, open the door to the yard and make his way across to the old barn where he could spend hours visiting the heifers and bull calves who had chosen to sleep indoors rather than in the fields. He had human friends, of course, but he preferred the company of the cows and sheep and the two old cob horses who always listened to his troubles and stories, and let him pet them and scratch behind their ears. Toby, the young Border Collie who helped him with rounding up the sheep, was his best friend, of that he was sure. He and Toby spent hours, when they weren’t helping Da, making their way up the heathery hill and down the other side to the wee stream and makeshift grotto where pilgrims would come to pray to St. Brigid. There were always bits of hankies and even coins the visitors left in homage to the good saint, in return for favors asked and prayers they hoped would be answered.

Fionn thought sometimes about nicking the coins and keeping them in the old Cadbury’s chocolate box under his bed. He wasn’t a spendthrift and rarely took anything from his meager savings, and he was proud of himself for managing to collect nearly 15 pounds from birthdays and the odd message he’d do for his Gran when she wanted a pack of cigarettes or medication from Hughes Chemists. She’d hold out a fist to him when he’d return with her order and change, and give him a wink. He’d gently prise open her fingers and take the coins she’d always have in her palm. “For your trouble,” she’d say. It was never less than 30 pence and it seemed to have added up quickly. He was keenly aware that smoking was discouraged but, somewhat selfishly, he hoped Gran wouldn’t give it up any time soon.

It was after midnight when Fionn woke to the sound of a branch of the big alder tree scraping against his bedroom window. He was glad to be awakened as his dream had been disjointed and confusing. Though he wasn’t anxious to remember it, his mind couldn’t keep from trying to piece it together. It made no sense but he knew that he had been trying unsuccessfully to find his way out of a dark and very damp cave, where condensation dripped down upon him from the deep rock depression above. He woke just as what sounded like an explosion had sent shards of stone and clumps of dirt showering down upon his head.

Absent-mindedly, Fionn ran a hand over the top of his head, as if to clear away the debris his dream had left behind. He felt his heart still racing from the unpleasantness of what he’d imagined in his sleep. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep now. He never could when he awoke during the night.

Fionn listened carefully for the familiar sound of the old house mumbling in its sleep. He wanted to be certain no one else in the family was lying awake in bed, or up watching a late night movie in the lounge.

He congratulated himself that he was in luck. Everyone else in the house seemed to be asleep. Quietly so as to disturb his brother, Colum, in the bed across from him, he pushed back the duvet and slid out until his bare feet touched the floor. He glanced at Colum and could see he was still sleeping, so he tiptoed out of the bedroom and down the wooden steps to the lounge. Ensuring it was empty, he made his way through the scullery and out the side door.

Toby was lying on the heavy mat just outside the door and Fionn nearly tripped over him. With a hurried whisper, he shushed Toby lest he have any plans to give a loud welcome. “Good lad,” Fionn said, petting the dog’s head. “Shhhhh. Let’s go for a wee visit.”

The pair ran across the yard where Mam had forgotten to remove the last bits of washing from the clothes line, then under the huge beam that seemed to hold up the entire barn. Once inside, Fionn called quietly, “Hi. Howya?”

He was met with the sound of low murmurs and a grunt from the paddock to his right. Bronagh and Bramble, the two young heifers he’d helped their old cow, Breda, deliver only a few months ago, raised their soft heads. He felt their dark eyes on him and couldn’t help but smile in their direction. The three horse stalls stood empty. Sidhe and Suvla, the black and white cob horses must have decided to stay out in the field for the night, Fionn thought. They hadn’t seemed keen on the stalls since the night Sorcha, the third horse, had colicked and died just as dawn cast its morning light over her stall. In the time it took Fionn to run back in to the house and shout for his father, the beautiful Sorcha had died. Fionn had never cried that much before in his life. He understood why the other horses would now sooner be out in the field than standing beside Sorcha’s empty stall.

Fionn climbed up the rungs of the wooden fence between him and the heifers, then crouched down on the straw beside them. Their cold, wet snouts reached for him, and Bronagh curled her long pink tongue out and around the two fingers he held outstretched. They still associated him with feeding from the big plastic bottle when their mother had refused to nurse them. Two calves were a lot for any young cow to birth, and Breda must have been confused about what to do next. The next day, after a long night trying unsuccessfully to convince Breda to feed her two babies, Fionn asked Da if one of the older cows now nursing their own calves might have enough milk for the two newborns.

“Croppy might do the job. She might indeed,” Da had answered him. Fionn got Croppy from the yard just outside the barn and brought her in to the calves. The old cow peered down and, after a few sniffs of their warm satiny coats, began to lick their heads. His father immediately got the two babies on their feet and over to Croppy’s udder. They knew what to do and this always surprised Fionn.

“How do they know that’s where the food is, Da?” he’d asked.

“Ah, sure nature’s a great teacher, son. They know what they’re after doin’,” Da replied.

Fionn bent in closer to the heifers, now nearly five months’ old, and kissed the top of each soft head. As he began to look up, he noticed a quick blur of a movement in what had been Sorcha’s stall. There were three old bales of straw piled just inside the stall door, and Fionn imagined it had been a marten or rat looking for food or a spot to nest. He wasn’t at all surprised.

Turning his head to where he’d entered the barn, to ensure no one had wakened and followed him out, he heard a rustling sound. He quickly craned his neck around as the top straw bale tipped up, then over, followed by a sound he knew didn’t come from the cows.

Fionn prided himself on his bravery and quickly decided there was nothing he needed to worry about. Even a small animal, going fast enough, could topple one of the small bales. But the noise he’d heard he couldn’t explain.

He began to doubt his bravery and wondered if he should just go back into the house and hope for sleep before someone caught him outside. Colum would be sure to tattle on him and Nirvala, his oldest sister, would haul him in by the ear if she found him outside in the middle of the night.

Still, he was intrigued by the activity in the stall so, to prove his valor to himself, crawled quietly along the rough floor. He wished he could have turned on the lamp on the way in, but that would be a sure sign to the rest of the family that something was amiss. When he had made his way to the open door of Sorcha’s old stall, his hand touched something that felt wet. It was too dark to see what it was but, when he moved a bit to the left, a shaft of moonlight shone in over his right shoulder, illuminating the ground in front of him.

What he saw made his heart pound so loudly he could hear it in his ears. It looked like blood. He realized it was coming from under the bottom stall rung, and had left a small pool on the floor just underneath him. Immediately, Fionn decided it was time to panic. He hated finding injured animals as he and Toby often did. Though he always tried to help them, more often than not they would die and his heart would be broken. He knew he shouldn’t cry – he was too old for that now – but he couldn’t help the sadness he felt at any loss of life. He didn’t really want to follow the track of blood in behind the straw bales but he knew his help might be needed. He would spend the rest of the night and likely many days after, worrying if he didn’t at least try to be of some assistance to one of God’s creatures.

Quietly he raised himself to a crouch and, carefully stepping forward toward the open gate, he inched his way – dragging one foot after the other – toward whatever might be on the other side of the bales.

It was even darker in the stall than in the open barn and it took a moment for Fionn’s eyes to adjust. His heart was beating a bit too fast as he tried to remind himself he wasn’t afraid of what he’d find.

He saw a boot. Though partially covered by loose straw, he saw clearly it was a boot. He drew in his breath and, knowing he shouldn’t, reached out to move the straw out of the way. At the last moment, fear got the better of him and he backed up intent on running back to the house.

As he rose from his knees and turned to leave, something caught hold of his right foot. Fionn tried to pull away but couldn’t release his foot from the grasp of the hand he saw was gripping and holding him firmly in place. As he opened his mouth to call for someone in the house to help, an arm shot out from behind the bales and a hand quickly covered his mouth.

To be continued...