Last Confession of Rick O'Shea Read online

  The Last Confession of Rick O’Shea

  When Irishman Richard O’Shea, commonly known to everybody as Rick O’Shea, decides that the time has come to give up his life of banditry and return to his own country, he feels the need first to make his confession in San Angelo’s Catholic church. His plans are thrown into disarray when, at the priest’s urging, he delays his voyage home, in order to undertake the rescue of a child being held to ransom across the border in Mexico. Caught between a vicious band of cutthroats on the one side and a crooked lawman on the other, Rick O’Shea’s chances of getting back to Ireland in one piece seem to dwindle by the minute and he soon finds himself wishing that he’d never troubled himself with confessing his sins in the first place.

  By the same author

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  Writing as Jethro Kyle

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  Writing as Jay Clanton

  Saloon Justice

  Quincy’s Quest

  Writing as Ed Roberts

  The Rattlesnake Code

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  McAndrew’s Stand

  The Last Confession of Rick O’Shea

  Clyde Barker

  ROBERT HALE

  © Clyde Barker 2017

  First published in Great Britain 2017

  ISBN 978-0-7198-2193-6

  The Crowood Press

  The Stable Block

  Crowood Lane

  Ramsbury

  Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.bhwesterns.com

  Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

  The right of Clyde Barker to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Chapter 1

  The bar-room of the Girl of the Period saloon was all but deserted; the time still lacking twenty minutes until noon and the midday rush consequently not yet having begun. Apart from a small group seated at a table the only patrons were two men leaning against the counter while supping glasses of porter. One was a mean, ferrety-looking man of perhaps five-and-twenty years of age, the other looked to be five or ten years older. The two of them were chatting in a desultory fashion.

  ‘So it’s really true?’ asked the younger of the two men. ‘You’re goin’ to dig up and sail back across the water to your own country?’

  ‘That I am,’ replied the other in a broad Irish brogue. ‘I’ve had about enough o’ this benighted country and its ways. I’ve a mind to see my family again, settle down and take up farming.’

  ‘I reckon as you’ll miss the life here,’ observed his companion shrewdly. ‘You won’t find switching from road agent to sodbuster so easy as you might think.’

  ‘Will ye hush your damned mouth now? We needn’t share my business with all the world and his dog.’

  At that point an acquaintance of the younger man entered the saloon. After making his excuses to the Irishman with whom he was currently drinking, the fellow who had caused his vexation went off to speak with his friend, leaving Rick O’Shea to his own thoughts. He glanced uneasily up to the clock, which hung on the wall above the bar. It showed that there were now just seventeen minutes to noon and the unwelcome confrontation which he was due to face at that hour. To distract himself O’Shea began to leaf through a copy of the Pecos County Advertiser Incorporating the San Angelo Agricultural Gazette and Intelligencer, which somebody had left on the bar. It was dated September 3 1879, showing that it was less than a week old. O’Shea’s eye fell upon a headline that announced: LOCAL CHILD SEIZED BY BANDITS. As he read the article that followed, Rick O’Shea shook his head disapprovingly. This was the kind of crime that he detested.

  Citizens in our own fair corner of this state will no doubt be shocked and dismayed to learn of the unparalleled outrage which took place near San Angelo on the 1st Inst. Local rancher THOMAS COVENAY rose in the morning of that day, only to find that his youngest daughter EMILY was missing from her bedroom. The little girl, who is but 12 years of age, had, as far as can be apprehended, been snatched from her home in order to extract a ransom from MR COVENAY. A note on the child’s bed demanded the sum of $10,000 for the safe release of EMILY. We are reliably informed that such is the state of business at MR COVENAY’s spread, that he would be exceedingly fortunate to be able to summon up a tenth of this amount.

  Your reporter spoke to Sheriff SETH JACKSON, who, while expressing his determination to hunt down the villains responsible for this dreadful crime, intimated that it is supposed among himself and his assistants that the girl has been spirited away across the Rio Grande to Mexico; out of reach of the forces of law and order. In the meantime, the lately widowed MR COVENAY and his other daughter, JEMIMA, are distraught with anxiety and fear.

  After finishing the short piece O’Shea tutted to himself. Although he too was a robber – some would even say bandit – there were depths to which he would never sink. Harming children was, according to his lights, as low as one could get.

  The minute-hand on the clock above the bar jerked forward. It was now a quarter to twelve and Richard Finnegan O’Shea knew that, little as he might wish to do so, he would soon be forced to face, unwillingly, a man whom he had no desire to meet and from whom he had, in a sense, been fleeing for the better part of fifteen years. He downed the last contents of his glass and stood up. He might just as well get it over with. For the first time since he had left his home and country in the winter of 1868, Rick O’Shea was about to make his confession in the Catholic church, which stood across the square from the saloon.

  O’Shea knew full well that if he arrived back in County Donegal and let slip to his mother that he hadn’t so much as set foot in church since taking ship for America, then she would never recover from the shock of it. He had been raised in the most staunchly Catholic family one could imagine; his mother was a regular communicant not only on Sundays, but on various weekday mornings as well. For his own part, young Richard had never really taken to religion, but would not have dared to oppose his mother in the matter. No sooner had he left home, however, than he dropped churchgoing entirely.

  Now, with the prospect of seeing his mother in a matter of months, he was aware that one of the first questions she would ask him on his return would be: ‘And when did you last make your confession?’ This, to his mother, was the infallible touchstone of virtue. No matter how a man lived his life, if he only went to confession each week he was on the right path.

  It would have sat ill with O’Shea to greet his mother after such a long absence and immediately tell her a falsehood when, as she certainly would, she asked when last he had been to confession. The obvious solu
tion would be for him to be in a position where he was able to state truthfully that he had seen to the welfare of his immortal soul just a few days before leaving the United States. With luck his mother would not pursue the matter and ask how long ago had been the time before that!

  The interior of the church was cool and dark. It smelled of beeswax polish and incense; scents, to Rick O’Shea, that were redolent of sanctity. He was at once transported back to his childhood, spending every Sunday in a church that smelled precisely the same as this one. O’Shea saw, to his irritation that, despite arriving a minute or two before the designated hour for the hearing of confession, he was not the first in line. A desiccated and shrivelled-up little woman, swathed in black, was already sitting by the booth, waiting for the priest to enter from the other side. What the devil can she have to confess? he thought wrathfully. He had just wished to get the business out of the way, yet now he would be obliged to sit here, cooling his heels, while this wretched little woman regaled the priest with a long list of trifling misdemeanours and imaginary sins. There it was, though: there was nothing to be done. O’Shea settled himself down on the bench and thought about how good it would be to see his own country again after all these years.

  Very few men managed to thrive for long as outlaws in those days. Sure, they occasionally made fabulous sums of money but, as fast as cash was acquired it was frittered away on liquor and women. It was a rare individual who existed on the wrong side of the law and managed to save any of his ill-gotten gains, storing them away against future need. Besides which, the career of the average outlaw was generally measured in months rather than years. Those who didn’t get themselves killed in gunfights, either with the law or after falling out with former comrades, generally ending up being hanged, legally or otherwise, or, failing that, incarcerated in the state penitentiary for years.

  Rick O’Shea was different. His banditry was calculated and restrained. He had come to the United States to improve his lot and that of his family back home. His aim had been plain and simple: to make enough money to send back to his family to ensure that they were freed for ever from the grinding poverty in which he had been raised. In particular he hoped to see his beloved mother settled in a little freehold property of her own, freed from the constant threat of eviction by an absentee English landlord. He had succeeded in this endeavour and now hoped to reap for himself the benefits of his industry.

  By being systematic and cautious in his depredations, never too greedy or taking too many risks, and also by moving regularly across the country, O’Shea had managed to live modestly but quite comfortably while also sending regular sums of money back to his family. This had enabled his brother to buy a small farm and expand it over the years. Richard O’Shea had come to America as a boy of nineteen and now, at the age of thirty, he was looking forward to returning to his own country and living the life of a well-to-do farmer and all that went with such a station in life.

  Yes, he reflected as he sat waiting to enter the confessional booth, he hadn’t done at all badly. He had even budgeted for whatever penance he might incur for the sins he was about to confess. Obviously, after eleven years of theft, coupled with the occasional murder, he could hardly expect to be given a couple of Hail Marys to recite. But that was fine; a sum of $1,000 had been set aside for the missionary fund or whatever else the church needed. O’Shea had it all planned out to a nicety.

  At last the old woman shuffled out. O’Shea stood up and entered the dark booth, which was little larger than a broom closet. The priest was a shadowy silhouette on the other side of the grille. O’Shea knelt down and muttered the ritual words:

  ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned.’

  On hearing the traditional response, Rick O’Shea’s heart sank. In as strong an accent as his own, one which sounded to O’Shea suspiciously like a Donegal brogue, the priest asked:

  ‘And how long is it, my son, since your last confession?’ An Irish priest! This was the last thing O’Shea wanted. Being so close to the border, he had half-hoped that he might find a Mexican in charge here; some simpleton who would not ask too many searching questions and likely to be vastly impressed with an offering of $1,000. Dealing with an Irishman – and from his own county at that – was a horse of a different colour.

  By the time he had admitted to innumerable robberies, the odd killing, various woundings and a several adulterous liaisons, O’Shea mentally raised the amount that he might have to pay as a penance. When he had finished reciting the sorry catalogue there was a silence for a moment; he wondered if the priest was too shocked to be able come up with any response. When the man did at last speak, he said:

  ‘Are ye a good shot, my son?’

  This was so unexpected that O’Shea couldn’t quite credit the evidence of his ears and had to ask for the question to be repeated, which the priest did impatiently.

  ‘It’s a simple enough question,’ he said. ‘Would you say that you’re a good shot?’

  ‘Better than most, I guess.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to guess!’ burst out the priest with the greatest irascibility. ‘Recollect where you are and answer the question truthfully.’

  ‘Then I’m the best shot you’re ever like to meet.’

  ‘And from all I am able to make out from what I’ve just heard, you’ve no scruple about killing; is that right?’

  Where all this was leading Rick O’Shea had not the remotest idea. He had never in all his life heard a man of God speak in this way.

  ‘I wouldn’t say I have no scruple about killing, Father,’ he answered slowly. ‘I’ve killed men, to be sure, but only in self-defence. When they were after killing me, you understand.’

  ‘You’re a thief, an adulterer and murderer is what it amounts to. Nothing worse – that you’ve held back?’

  ‘Isn’t that bad enough?’ asked O’Shea, still not sure where things were heading. ‘I come here seeking absolution. I thought that I could make some slight recompense by helping you establish a school or something. Paying for a mission station, maybe. . . .’

  Through the grille that separated them came a short, barking laugh.

  ‘So you thought you’d buy your way to salvation, is that how it is? You won’t get off so cheap, don’t think it for a moment. You ever hear of a fellow called Yanez?’

  ‘Valentin Yanez? Sure. He’s a rare villain. Mexican, though he operates over on this side o’ the border odd times. Why?’

  For a few seconds the priest was silent. Then he said:

  ‘Yanez and his men have stolen away the child of one of my parishioners. She’s but a little girl and her father is distracted with the horror of it all.’

  ‘That the ransom case? I read about it. Can’t he just pay up?’

  ‘The family are poor as church mice. Land rich, but cash poor. Yanez won’t take a cent less than ten thousand dollars. I’ve heard it said that he’d not hesitate to kill the child if he doesn’t get the money – as an encouragement to his next victim, if you take my meaning. To show that he’s not a man to be trifled with.’

  ‘It’s a filthy business, but I don’t see what it has to do with me.’

  ‘Do ye not? Then you’ve duller wits than I gave ye credit for. I mean for you to fetch little Emily Covenay back to her family. That’s all.’

  It was not often that Rick O’Shea was altogether lost for words, but this was certainly one of those times. He felt as though somebody had just knocked him down. Haltingly, he tried to express his feelings.

  ‘But that’s a job for the law,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. You can’t mean that you’re hoping to use me like a mercenary or aught of the sort? This is a blazing strange conversation!’

  ‘I’ve been praying as hard as I know how for little Emily Covenay, asking the good Lord to send me help. Looks like you’re all that’s on offer. It can’t be helped. You’re not the one I’d have chosen, left to me own devices, but there it is.

  ‘Now listen, until you unde
rtake this penance your very soul is at stake. You hear what I tell you? You’re in a state of mortal sin and if you die in any way other than in pursuit of this task, then the Devil will be waiting at your side to drag you off to hell. You understand that? It’s your only hope for forgiveness for the dreadful life you’ve been leading.’

  ‘You mean I’ll not be shriven until I do this thing?’

  ‘You got it, my boy. Off you go now – what are ye waiting for? You’ve a job to do. Ego te absolvo: your sins are forgiven you, as long as you carry on with this matter until the child is back with her family. Off with you now.’

  As O’Shea got to his feet the priest fired one last parting salvo, saying:

  ‘Whist! Don’t think that you’re to profit from this in any way. If there’s any reward, bounty, what have you, for doing this thing, you’re to bring it straight here and hand it over to the church, you hear me? Go on now, you’ve got a job of work to do.’

  Rick O’Shea left the church looking like a man who has been playing cards for ruinously high stakes and has lost everything in the process. He had entered the place in full expectation of catching the railroad train the next day, then taking ship for Ireland as soon as he’d fetched up in New York. Now, he hardly knew what he was to do. He knew that he could not go back and meet his mother while in a state of mortal sin; it would be the death of her.

  There was also his own fear to contend with. The old priest’s warning that the Devil would carry him off if he died other than on the track of Yanez and his captive had struck a terrible chill into O’Shea’s heart. There had been times, it was true, when Rick O’Shea had doubted the very existence of God, but of the Devil, never. He had seen abundant evidence of the Devil’s work too often to think him a bogyman dreamed up to frighten children.