Conor's Way by Laura Lee Guhrke - Conor's Way

did. It was my brother, Michael,
who always started it." He laughed softly. "He was my older
brother, and I wanted so much to be like him. Everything he did, I
had to do. The result was that we were always in trouble, the pair
of us. He taught me how to box when I was barely eleven."
    She caught the yearning in his voice. "You
must miss him very much."
    His smile vanished, and he looked away. "I
miss him every single day."
    Olivia knew he was a private man, but she was
unable to stop herself from asking questions. "Where is he now?
Still back in Ireland?"
    He stiffened, and she thought he wasn't going
to answer her question. When he finally spoke, his voice was so
low, it was almost a whisper. "The famine hit Ireland when I was
eleven. When I was twelve, I watched a British landlord's men beat
my brother to death with sticks." He paused, then added, "For
stealing one of their cows."
    She was stunned, but she didn't show it.
"What about your sisters?"
    She could almost see a wall close in around
him, shutting her out. Conor looked over at her, and it was as if
their brief moment of companionship had never been. "They died," he
answered in a voice that chilled her. "They starved to death."
     
    ***
     
    The sun was just peeking over the horizon the
following morning when Olivia went down to the orchard. Although
the sky to the east was tinged with the delicate pink and gold of
a gorgeous sunrise, she didn't notice its beauty. Olivia walked
amid the peach trees, still preoccupied with the troubled thoughts
that had kept her awake much of the night.
    Lord, he was a hard man. Hard and bitter,
with a wall around him a hundred feet high. But once, he'd been a
boy who had pillow fights with his brother and sisters, who had
gotten into mischief. He'd been a boy who had watched his brother
beaten and his sisters starved, a boy who'd grown up only to be
tortured in prison. No wonder he was bitter.
    In her mind, she relived again that moment
when he'd told her about his family, his voice so calm, his eyes so
cold. He still carried the scars, and her heart ached for him.
    Olivia leaned against a tree, staring with
unseeing eyes at the trees along the next row. Caught up in her
thoughts, she didn't notice anything odd at first, but when she
did, she straightened abruptly, and thoughts of Conor Branigan's
past fled from her mind.
    The leaves of one tree were wilted. She
walked over to the tree to examine it more closely, but she
couldn't find anything wrong. She saw no sign of insects or disease
that could be responsible. But the tree was ailing. She couldn't
figure it out, until she glanced down and saw a gash in the bark.
Frowning, she bent down for a closer look.
    Olivia ran her hand along the cut that
circled the entire trunk, dismayed. This tree had been girded with
a knife, to prevent water and nutrients from reaching the leaves.
It was dying.
    She turned away and began looking for other
trees that might have been damaged in the same way. Within minutes,
she found half a dozen more.
    Who would do such a thing?
Even as she asked herself the question, Olivia knew the answer.
Vernon was behind this. She recalled their conversation after
church the day before, and his words of warning. I can make things easy for you, Olivia. Or I can
make them a whole lot harder .
    She stared down at the fatal wound at the
base of one of her trees, and she noticed the cigarette butts that
were scattered around it. She bent down and pinched one between her
thumb and forefinger, holding it up with a thoughtful frown. The
two Harlan boys and their father all smoked cigarettes. And all of
them worked for Vernon over at the sawmill. Maybe Vernon had given
them another job on the side. She dropped the cigarette back in the
dirt.
    She'd known Vernon all her life, she knew he
was full of big talk. After returning from up North two years after
the war, he'd bought up just about every piece of land round these
parts, and most of the businesses in town as well. Now