Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [31]
“You intend to go out again, Colonel?” he said.
Clay nodded. “You can saddle the mare, but first get that map I purchased the day we landed and find Kileen for me. If I remember rightly, we passed through it on the way here yesterday.”
Joshua opened the brown valise and produced a linen-backed map, which he spread on the bed. “I’ve got it, Colonel,” he said, after a moment. “About nine or ten miles from here.”
Clay moved beside him. “There should be a large estate nearby. It belongs to a man called Marley.”
Joshua glanced up, surprise on his face. “They were talking about him in the servants’ hall tonight. His coachman was there. Some of the stories left a bad taste.”
Clay laughed grimly. “I had the doubtful pleasure of meeting the gentleman in person. You can believe anything you were told about him. Now saddle the mare. I haven’t much time.”
Joshua left the room and Clay examined the map. After a while, he gave a grunt of satisfaction. A track was marked which cut straight across the moor at the back of Drumore House, joining the Galway Road a mile from Kileen, shortening the distance considerably.
He folded the map and opened the leather travelling trunk which stood against the wall. After a moment, he found what he was looking for—his old felt campaign hat and the shabby grey military greatcoat with the caped shoulders which had served him so well during the last two years of the Confederacy.
He buttoned the coat up to his chin and belted the Dragoon Colt in its black leather holster about his waist. Finally, he pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes and examined himself.
In the dim light of the oil lamps, a ghost stared out of the mirror, a man who had died the night before Appomattox. In some strange way, it was like meeting an old friend. For a moment, he was conscious of a feeling that was close to nostalgia and his mind jumped back into a past which was so near and yet so incredibly far away.
He sighed and opening a drawer in the tallboy, took out a black silk scarf, which he knotted behind his neck and pulled up over his face. The effect was startling. The man who now stood there in the shadows was a stranger, full of menace and utterly dangerous.
It was as if another person stared out at him, someone over whom he had no control, and for a moment he hesitated, a queer coldness seeping through him, while inside a tiny warning voice seemed to tell him to draw back before it was too late. But only for a moment. He pulled down the scarf, bowed mockingly at his reflection and, turning on his heel, left the room.
Joshua waited in the courtyard, one hand gently rubbing Pegeen’s muzzle. She whinnied softly with pleasure when Clay appeared and swung up into the saddle. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be,” he said. “It all depends on friend Marley.”
“I’ve seen that look on your face before,” Joshua said. “Presumably you don’t intend to pay him a social call.” He hesitated and then continued. “Excuse me if I’m talking out of turn, Colonel, but what happened back there? Did Mr. Marley insult you?”
“I think you could call it that,” Clay said.
“Then you aren’t visiting him for the sake of his health?”
“I wouldn’t say so,” Clay told him. “In fact, I may very probably have to shoot him before the night is out.” He clicked his tongue, and Pegeen moved quickly across the courtyard and took the path which led up toward the rim of the valley.
The night was clean and fresh, the darkness perfumed with the scent of gorse and the faint indefinable touch of autumn lay over the land, drifting up from the valleys below like wood smoke, filling him with a nervous excitement.
The track lay clear and white in the moonlight as he gave Pegeen her head and galloped across the moor and the lower slopes of the hills.
Somewhere laughter sounded faintly through the darkness, gay and carefree, touching him with an envious sadness, and he turned Pegeen onto the turf and moved forward at a careful walk. Drumore House lay below in the valley, still bright with lights, and music drifted up toward him.
He paused for