Excerpt from Cursed! Blood of the Donnellys // Keith Ross Leckie

"The Donnelly Massacre in Lucan, Ontario in 1880 was a legendary, extraordinary event that I had known about for most of my life," author Keith Ross Leckie explains. "My ancestors had lived in farm communities like Lucan and I grew up with the question; what would make normally peaceful god-fearing farmers rise up against one family, brutally kill them and burn their house to the ground? The story of the massacre has been told before in books, and plays and musicals but I wanted to go back to the origins of the family in Tipperary and go forward to explore the dynamics of the polarized Ontario town after the massacre during the murder trial. After my last novel Coppermine I decided to realize my dream and write a full, epic account of the Donnelly story with the emphasis on the rich characters involved on both sides and the connection to current world issues; the refugee crisis, religious strife and class inequity. Everyone has heard of the Black Donnelly Massacre but few know the story. Cursed! now gives a full account." 

Prologue

 Spring assizes— Old Court House, London, Ontario. June 2, 1880. “Take the book in your hands, son. That’s right. Now, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” 

I knowed this was a powerful question when he asked it ’cause what I said could mean the lives of six men, but I were ready to tell my story. “I’ll do my best, Mr. Irving.”“

Just answer yes or no, Johnny.”

“Yes, sir. Yes.”

“Please tell the court your full name and age.”

“I am Johnny O’Connor, sir. I am twelve years old as of last November fifth.”

“Good. Now tell us about yourself. Where do you live?”

“I lives with my ma and da. We got two acres on the edge of Lucan town out by the Roman Line near the church. My da does odd jobs and keeps chickens and my ma takes in laundry.”

“Good, good. Now what was your association with the Donnelly family?”

“Well they lived up the Line from us and long as I remember they’d often be talked about in stories of the various doings and goings on around town.”

“Goings on?” 

“Well, you know, like the fist fights and wooing the girls and barn burnings and various mischief and whatnot going on. The good stories was most often about them Donnelly boys, whether they did all those things or not. I liked that ’cause they was just down the road, they was real and you could see them, like trees in the woods or stones in the cemetery.”

“Right. Now Johnny, you worked for them on their farm. Is that so?”

“Yes, sir. I did. Miss Johannah come to my ma summer before last and asked if I’d be free to do chores some days.”

“Did that worry you? Were you scared to work for the Donnellys? With their reputation and all?”

“I were a little excited sir, no question, but not scared. I was some pleased. After school I’d walk the three miles to their place to do chores and make a few pennies and sometimes stay overnight for early morning doings. They treated me good, almost like family. And I must say working for the Donnellys give me some standing with the lads at school.”

“So how did you get along with Johannah Donnelly? How did she treat you?”

“Oh, she were a fine woman, sir. Fed me well and gave me clothes too small for her boys. It were a good farmhouse, big and finished inside and Miss Johannah kept it clean. There was a nice Jesus and the Virgin Mary hanging on the wall. They was good Catholics.” 

While I was answering Mr. Irving’s questions I got to thinking about Miss Johannah and it were like I could almost hear her voice in my head, so often had I heard it. Now there was one for telling stories. She’d tell me about times going way back to when she were a little one across the sea in old Tipperary. She said she growed up quite a lady, the daughter of the manager on a big estate with servants and all and horses to ride. And not a year after that, she said, she was across the ocean here on her knees in the dirt, her nails broken and her hair in tatters, working a farm with the man she loved. She would laugh about it, say to me, “Imagine that!” and call herself a fool. She’d show me the smooth round stone from the Ballyfinboy River that she kept in her apron pocket and tell me it were the only thing she had left from Ireland. It had flecks of green and red in it and she’d say the green was for Ireland and the red for the blood of her family. The stone was her good luck charm and kept her safe. It would slow down my chores considerable listening to Miss Johannah’s tales but she loved to tell them and I loved to listen. Near the end she would make me sit with her and talk my ears off. It was like she knowed what was coming and wanted to get it all out for memory’s sake.

*

The Poacher

One warm spring evening about a week before the day of her confirmation, Johannah was setting out from Lucy’s to Ballymore and made a slight detour along the hard-packed bridle path under the leafy canopy beside the mumbling stream. Like the woodlot, this was a special place she had always felt drawn toward. It was part of the estate and she and Raffy came here for picnics, to wade in the cold water and read, and it was here she had learned how to fish. So when she heard the clear notes of someone whistling a tune up ahead, it was an intrusion. She guided, her horse, Cuch carefully and quietly into a clearing to find a boy standing near the stream, his back to her as he nonchalantly rigged up his fishing gear. She mustered a forceful authority. 

“You there. These are estate lands. What are you doing?” 

The boy turned toward her and she blushed to recognize him. He was Jim Donnelly, one of the tenant children, two or three years older than her, who worked long days in the fields with his father. Though she had known him all her life, she hadn’t paid him much attention until recently, when she had spoken to Lucy about him. Jim was an altar boy at St. Patrick’s. He faced the congregation and she had to admit she had noticed his sad smile and beautiful lips. She and Lucy had compared his dark eyes and face to the plaster statue of the Archangel Gabriel that stood in the dusty east chapel. And now here he was and they were alone together. 

“You mean with this fishing gear, miss? Why, I’m picking wildflowers.” 

“You are poaching, Jim Donnelly! There are game wardens patrolling. They’ll have you arrested, so they will.” 

“I guess I should just drown myself and get it over with, miss.” 

He turned away from her as if she were a dismissible irritant and tossed his baited line into the pool. 

"You don’t realize the trouble you could be in. I have a whistle I could blow. The warden’ll be here in a minute.” 

“And just who gave you the right to these fish. They are God’s free creatures to be caught by whoever they like. You go ahead and blow, miss, if you must. I need to catch some dinner so my family can eat.” 

Johannah hesitated, then looked down with interest at the deep pool in the stream where he was slowly bringing in the baited hook. "That does look like a rather good spot.” 

She studied his back, brought Cuchulain a few steps closer and dismounted. She stood beside him in the tall grass, looking into the deep pool in the otherwise shallow stream. He tossed the bait again and it landed with a plop. She watched him critically. "That wasn’t the deepest spot.”

“They lie in the tree shadows on the right,” he whispered. “You’re still short.” “The current will take it there,” he whispered again. 

“And you should have more leader,” she spoke at normal volume. 

"Shhhh. They can hear you.” 

“That’s what people say but only an eejit would believe that fish have ears.”

“Shhhhh!” 

Suddenly the line went tight and, as easy as that, Jim had hooked a good-sized salmon. He set the hook and struggled a little to bring it in.

“Gently! You’re yanking it,” she told him. “You’ll tear his mouth and lose him. Here. Give it to me!”

“I caught the blessed thing,” he protested. 

“With my advice.”

“Oh yes, your great wisdom.” She turned and glowered at his sarcasm. 

“It’s an estate fish. It belongs to me.”

Jim resisted giving her the line at first but as they both struggled for it, he glanced over her shoulder and something changed his mind. 

“As you like, my lady,” he whispered, releasing the gear into her hands and sinking down into the high grass. Her attention was completely on the fish, for she had lost a few in her time at this critical point. She brought the catch in slowly, smoothly, letting a little go when he fought but keeping it tight as Raffy had showed her, then when he rested, bringing the line in, wrapping it neatly—no snags—around the spindle. The silver back fin of the salmon broke the surface.

“Oh look, he’s a beauty!” she cried. As she brought the fish in to shore she was laughing with delight, lifting the big, flopping salmon up high and needing both hands and all her strength to do so. “Look, I got him!” As she turned around to show the catch to Jim, an older man faced her at the other end of the clearing with a shotgun raised. The Cavendish estate game warden. He, of course, immediately recognized her and lowered his weapon, embarrassed. He wore two pistols in his belt, from which also hung a pair of shackles. He approached her and spoke through a thick moustache.

“Oh, Miss Johannah! I’m so sorry. I thought you was a poacher.” 

“Poacher! Goodness, Ernest. Nothing on earth much lower than a poacher, is there? Lowest of the low!”

“I thought I heard you talking to someone, miss.”

“Oh, just myself. I chatter away all the time.” Jim was concealed in the high grass near her feet. 

“Glad to see you’re doing such a fine job protecting our fish, Ernest.”

“Yes, miss. There are plenty of fish thieves these days. We even get the women poaching out here. But that looks like a good one.” The fish was struggling and as the warden watched, Johannah chose a smooth river stone the size of her fist, laid the writhing salmon out in the deep grass a foot from Jim’s head and clubbed the fish twice between the eyes until it lay still. Amused, Jim met her eyes for a moment.

“Your father ordered us if we see a poacher to shoot first. Have you seen any?”

“You know, I did hear quiet voices upstream not long ago. I might have scared them off.” 

The warden’s interest was aroused. “Those rascals. I best be after them, then.”

“Good day, Ernest.” The warden headed quickly upstream and Jim extended his hand for a lift up.

“Thank you. You might have had me arrested.”

“Hate to see you go off in shackles.”

“Ernest didn’t have much of a sense of humour.”

“No. That’s true. A man should have a sense of humour.” 

She looked into his eyes for a moment. “I…I have to go now. I’m late for dinner. You can keep our fish for your family, then.”

“Thank you, miss.” She mounted Cuchulain and smiled down at Jim Donnelly.

“Good evening, James. Nice to see you.” He stepped forward, reached up to take her hand in his and kissed it like a gentleman. 

“Good evening yourself, m’lady,” he said with his sad smile. She laughed and guided Cuchulain’s head around and rode off for the big house.On the way home, and then alone inside the stable, Johannah’s thoughts were all about Jim Donnelly. He was not bad to look at and had the wit to make her laugh. As she lit the lantern and loosened Cuchulain’s cinch, she remembered she had once seen him shirtless, sweating, reaping barley in the fields. She definitely wanted to see him again.

Keith Ross Leckie, author of Coppermine (Viking, 2010), has worked in the film and television business as a dramatic scriptwriter for more than thirty years. His credits include multiple movies and miniseries, including Everest!, Shattered City, Milgaard, The Arrow and Lost in the Barrens. He is currently working with Bell Media to develop a dramatic series based on Blood of the Black Donnellys. He lives in Toronto, ON.