The Kilternan Legacy Read Online Free Page B

Aunt Irene’s last days.
    The third bedroom was long and narrow, with a sloping ceiling. A recently built wardrobe stretched across one wall, but apart from that, only a narrow cot, a very small chest, and a chair occupied the room.
    “I’d like this room,” said Sim thoughtfully, his eyes roving about. He had to bend to see through the small rear window into the yard. “Say, there’s a vegetable garden behind the stable. We eat!”
    “I don’t know if we can stay here yet, children.”
    “Why not?” asked Snow.
    “There are such things as death duties, and I may be wise to take the first buyer that conies along with ready money in his hand.”
    “That girl didn’t want you to talk to Kelley,” Snow said.
    “Mom has a point, Sis. We’ll find out this afternoon from the lawyer. But I do like this room!”
    “I’ll switch beds with you,” Snow said to her brother. “You like yours rock-hard.”
    “You sprawl.” Simon pointed to the narrow cot. “You’d be on the floor half the time.”
    “Better than feeling like a corpse … whoops! Sorry, Mom.”
    For I’d given a shudder, not so much for her untimely simile as for my growing sense of trespass, unwelcome, and trouble. My right hand itched intolerably. I mastered the desire to scratch, because Sim and Snow would know I had one of my itches again.
    A loud clanging, rattling, rumbling distracted us, and, curious, we all made for the front of the house. A huge construction bulldozer was churning up the lane, figuratively and literally, because you could see the tread marks on the unpaved road. I groaned. The springs on the Renault were not good enough to take that mess. Suddenly the bulldozer stopped. Or, I should say, was stopped. Craning my neck, I could see a stocky figure standing resolutely in its path.
    Simon inched the window open. It was very tight, judging by his grunts and groans.
    “This is a private road,” Stalwart Defender was saying, “owned by Miss Teasey and not to be used by commercial vehicles.”
    “I was told to take Swann’s Lane,” said the driver, angrily gunning his engine for emphasis.
    “By whom?”
    “By Kerrigan. He owns the field there,” and the man pointed up the lane. I couldn’t see what lay at the end. But I’d all too often seen what havoc bulldozers made in fields before they got strewn with ticky-tacky boxes. Suddenly I very much did
not
want a development around this lovely pastoral setting.
    “That wall also belongs to Miss Teasey.”
    “She’s dead. Who’re you?”
    “I own that cottage. I also own a right of way on this lane. Kerrigan does not.”
    “I can’t give a damn who owns what. I got orders to use this lane to get into that field!”
    “Get out!” said Stalwart Defender. “Miss Teasey wouldn’t give Kerrigan the right to spit on her land, much less use this lane. So get out!”
    “You and who else’ll make me?” and the driver began to fiddle ominously with his gears, activating the plow end.
    “Hey, he’ll run the guy down with that thing!” said Simon.
    I started to reassure him, and then wasn’t so certain myself. There was an obstinate just to the driver’s jaw, and he was beet-red with frustration..
    “I’ll make you, young man,” I shouted from the window. “You just stay where you are!”
    As I turned from the window, I heard a startled, “Jasus, preserve me!” from Stalwart Defender.
    The three of us rattled down the steps. “Did either of you see a phone in the house?”
    “There!” Simon pointed to a hand set on the small hall table. “And here!” He detached a shotgun from the wall above it.
    I took the gun and started out the door, armed to defend my property, though I’d never held a weapon before in my life. I suppose the Irish air imbued me with this sort of courage and rebellion; certainly I’d never experience it before.
    “I’m Irene Teasey,” I said, foursquare on the steps. Over the wall I could see the man on the seat of the bulldozer, but