Chapter 1
Ireland Summer, 1843
In the usual fashion of uncut equine males, the leggy chestnut stallion shrieked and whinnied to attract the attention of the mares in the next field. Head held high, he ran the perimeter of his enclosed grassy paddock and worked up a heavy sheen of sweat.
He had been at the farm for a month but still behaved in this fashion when other horses were being led into the nearby pastures. His shrill bellows caused eleven-year-old Connor O'Malley to glance up and shake his head in apparent disgust. No one else seemed to pay much attention to the stallion's nervous calls, so Connor kept watch.
At the chestnut's continued trumpeting, Bowes Brennan, a short, bandy-legged young man with a thatch of hair the color of ripe straw, peered from behind the barn's double doors. He, too, shook his head but grinned as he checked the outside area. He waved to his wife, Annie, round with child, who sat on the top rail of the stallion's paddock fence. He blew her a kiss and disappeared back into the bowels of the barn.
Annie sat high on the fence, seemingly amused at the prancing stallion's comical attempts to entice the mares. With a joyful smile on her face, she turned and called out to the elder of her two small daughters playing in the sand pit at the near side of the barn. "Sinead, darlin'. Look," she shouted, her voice filled with merriment. "Isn't he the most glorious looking beast?"
"Aye, Mam, he is. Pretty horsey," came the childish shout from the four-year-old. The little girl smiled broadly, displaying perfectly aligned small white teeth. "Almost pretty as you."
Annie turned back to watch again, her smile wider than before.
Now unbearably anxious, the chestnut focused on the mares in the nearby field. He snorted and called again. Suddenly, in desperation, he propelled himself into a tearing gallop. His massive muscles bunched and stretched, bunched and stretched. He ran straight at the fence, rocked back on his hocks, and propelling himself forward, leapt to jump from the paddock.
The stallion missed the top rail in his surge for freedom. He was almost over when his front hooves clipped the rail, knocking Annie--and him--off balance. She tipped backward and fell to the ground. The stallion's back legs crashed onto wood, hard and split the rail in half. The two pieces of stout logs plummeted to the ground, hitting Annie, who lay crumpled in a heap outside the paddock.
Her single scream resounded above the hushed hillsides, silenced by more than a thousand pounds of horseflesh landing atop her. The stallion thrashed and kicked in his struggle to regain his feet. He crushed Annie beneath him before he stood upright.
At the sound of the scream, Bowes, his jockey-sized body pumping his legs like pistons, exploded out the barn doors. Connor bolted from the far pasture where he had been teasing the new foals. The two girls rose and stood in the sand, dumbstruck, their faces crossed with horror and their hands tightly clasped.
Bowes reached her first. He lifted her battered body into his arms. "Annie, Annie," he sobbed, watching the blood seep from her mouth. Her eyes stared blankly at the serene sky. Her lips hung open as if that one scream would be the last sound she would ever make. "Annie, lass, don't be leaving me. Please, me darling, don't go..."
Finn O'Malley, Connor's father, stormed out of the manor house, shouting, "What in hell's name is going on out here?" Bowes was on the ground holding a body. Finn turned his head and called, "Mary, come..."
The new stallion hovered nearby, head hanging, muscles quivering, his weight on only three of his four legs, unable to move. Finn's expression was wild. He shouted to Connor, who was fast approaching from the field. "Fetch the gun from the house. Quickly now, lad."
Connor swerved at his father's command and dashed into the house, pushing past his mother, who stood frozen in the doorway, her hand covering her mouth. Finn tore across the lawn toward the accident, his face a mask of sorrow.
Bowes nestled his wife in his arms and looked up at the man standing over him. "Och, dear God! She's gone, Finn," he cried. "Me Annie-girl is gone. The babe with her. I felt the last breath leave her." He sobbed with earth-shaking, gulping howls. "Only a moment ago. Me Annie's gone and the babe she carried with her." He clutched his wife closer to his narrow, heaving chest and rocked the body. Keening, he rained kisses over her bruised and bloody face.
Face drawn, Finn hunkered down next to Bowes and put a consoling hand on his shoulder. "Here, man." He patted the shoulder then rubbed the young man's head with a gentle hand.
Tears of anguish gushed from Bowes's blue eyes and forged paths down his cheeks. He looked up at the older man with an almost vacant expression. "What'll I do without me Annie?"
"Let me take her from ye, laddie. I'll be bringing her up to the house for me Mary to care for. There's nothing ye can be doing for Annie now. See to yer girls." Finn nodded in the direction of the barn. "They're little forms are shaking yet, stiff with the fright."
Slowly, with movements meant to soothe, Finn eased Annie's limp body from Bowes's grasp and lifted her gently into his own strong arms. Connor ran from the house with a rifle grasped tightly in his hand and moved to his father's side.
The sight of the blood and gore hit young Connor him with the impact of a runaway train. He fell to his knees. He dropped the gun, crossed himself and murmured a short prayer.
Finn gazed down at his son. "Lad, yer Ma and I will be busy. We must see to Annie. Ye'll have to be taking care of that crippled creature yerself," he said quietly, pointing at the forgotten stallion. "There's none other to do it. 'Tis this very day ye'll be turning into yer manhood, son. I trust ye to do the deed right, and quick."
Fighting back tears, Connor's father turned and shuffled toward the house, carrying Annie Brennan in his arms. The quiet sound of the manor's door closing was punctuated by the sobbing of a boy becoming a man, the horrific wailing screams of two frightened children and the sound of a gunshot.
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