Dark Promises

By Tommy Webb

Two young teenagers Kevin and Sarah McClarin lost their parents and on the verge of losing the family farm, Kevin goes to work for the landlord. Lord Hamilton's nephew Adam becomes very jealous of Kevin and makes it look like Kevin stole a bridle from the stable. A fight ensues and Hamilton is accidentally killed. Knowing it was his word against Adam's word Kevin flees taking what little money Hamilton had and a watch. He planned on giving the watch to Sarah so she could sell it to survive. Little did he know the watch was the key to Lord Hamilton’s safe where all his wealth was hiding and Adam thinking Kevin has the watch chases him to America. Deception, murder, and adventure abound as all the characters follow the watch on an intriguing journey to New Mexico. In Dark Wind I introduced

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tommy Webb
• Release date: Jan 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733855129

Tommy Webb

Tommy Webb received his degree from Oklahoma Baptist University. He is currently teaching History and English at Coyle High School Coyle Oklahoma. He is the brother of Hall of fame composer Jimmy Webb

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

REMEMBERING

Sarah McClarin stood alone on deck as the ship sailed into the New York Harbor. On this particular April morning, the air was cool and crisp and it nipped at her face as she looked out over the rail towards land. On her long voyage from Ireland, a renewed feeling of hope and the thought of a new beginning in New York had replaced all the hurt and loneliness she had felt for a long, long time. Encouraged by this new feeling, she happily gazed out at the statue standing guard in the harbor. It was a lady and she looked like she danced up and down as the boat bounced along on the waves. The sun was tossing beams of light in all directions and small amounts of moisture in the air made shining lines all around the torch the lady held in her hand. The whole scene before her was on fire; she tried to memorize every line of light until the sun had completely embraced the day. Suddenly all the darkness of night was replaced by light just like the despair she once felt in her heart was replaced by hope. She would never forget the lonely nights she had spent dwelling on the great tragedies of her life. Perhaps all of it had made her a better person. At least that’s what her mother had told her.

She was alone now, but it hadn’t always been that way. A year earlier, she had lived in Chelsor Village along the rocky western coast of Ireland with her parents, Patrick and Maggie, and her older brother, Kevin.

Sarah’s mother, Maggie, wasn’t what you would call a typical Irish lady. She was small framed and that made it hard for her to do most of the heavy chores around the family farm. She did have regrets about not having an education and she tried to encourage her children to learn to read. She dreaded the thought of them having to live a life like hers; a poor life filled with disappointment and old Irish sayings.

Her father had never attended school. He was a poor sharecropper who had given the best years of his life to the local landlord, Winthrop Hamilton. Digging in the dirt, with a life-long pride of providing for his family, was all he knew.

Kevin was a big, red-headed young man, and his size made his temper seem worse than it was. He was a hard worker right alongside his father, but something in his eyes told Sarah he wasn’t going to be long at Father’s style of life. He had a yearning to be some place else, the next glen, or just over the horizon. It didn’t help that he had taken up reading dime store novels about the American Wild West.

Lord Hamilton hadn’t accomplished much in his life that anyone would remember. He had an easy upbringing, and it’s hard not to be self-absorbed when you’re born into the rich lifestyle he had been born into. Sarah wasn’t about to make excuses for the way the Hamiltons treated everyone, but at the same time, she understood how perverted life can get after a hundred years of running over everyone around you.

Chelsor was a pretty village that clung to the steep, rocky cliffs above the green ocean. It was stuck there just as if almighty God had plopped it down like a clump of mud tossed on a rock. The breeze was always fresh and the constant noise of the waves crashing against the rocks made the little village an enchanting place. All the roofs were thatched, and the stone cottages either had small white picket fences or walls that encompassed small vegetable gardens. The houses were randomly built along a winding road that skirted the top of the cliffs. Further below on the only flat piece of land along the ridge was Main Street; it was the only cobblestone road in the village thanks to Lord Winthrop Hamilton. Even though Hamilton had paid to make the village a pretty place, he was still hated by everyone because of his appetite for wealth and his constant ruthless business dealings. Men dreamed of a time when things would change, but for now he owned everything and a change wasn’t in sight.

The Hamilton dry goods store was a two story wooden building filled with candy, clothes, and stacks of food and everything you could desire, but never in a sharecropper’s life or dream to have without paying the price with your life. One of the only places in town that seemed to belong to the men of the village was the Golden Rooster Pub. It was like most pubs of the time, full of tall stories about making it rich and filled with the dark brew that made such dreams seem possible. Of course there was a bank, a place no one dared to enter unless his Lordship summoned them there. Its sole purpose was to drive the last nail into your coffin and to hold the crusty Hamilton’s money. It was a sure thing no one else had any money to put in it. The walls of the bank were filled with portraits of one hundred years of Hamiltons who had controlled the town. Perhaps of all the Hamilton holdings, the mining company was the most hated of all his businesses because it had driven many a young man to the black lung death. But if you wanted more from life than to scratch out a meager living raising potatoes in the dirt, it was the only place for a man to make better wages. Queen Isabella Inn, a three story Victorian building hanging precariously over the cliff, was built for the many guests of Hamilton that frequently came from the city, and for the occasional tourist. Some folks said it was a copy of a hotel that Hamilton had seen in Dublin, but no one around here had ever been that far away from home and they couldn’t prove it.

If you didn’t work somewhere for the old fossil Hamilton, then you didn’t work, and working was the one thing that Sarah’s beloved father knew. He was born in that great generation that thought that if you worked hard and long enough, life would be fair and give you the desires of your heart. She never understood him then like she understood him now. To her father, hard work was the meaning in his life. That’s just the way he thought. It was important for him to work hard because it was all he had to give his family. Father grew potatoes. He grew potatoes better than anyone in debt to Hamilton and growing them was a true family affair. Sarah and her mother would take the 100-pound bags of stored potatoes from the cellar in the spring, and then one by one, they would cut each potato eye out. The eye of the potato is the small black spot where the root tries to grow when they're stored in the dark. The eyes were put in sacks to be taken to the field where Kevin and Father had plowed ridges. The ridges were 2 feet apart and ran the full length of the 40-acre field. The potato eyes were then placed down the center of the rows on top of the ridges, and covered with about 4 inches of dirt. They always fought the weather; too much rain, not enough rain, and sometimes there were bugs, lots of bugs. If you were good at it, in two months and after hoeing down every weed that tried to sprout up, it would be time to hitch up the cows to turn the soil over for harvesting them.

They had two cows for plowing the fields. Lisa, a gentle, floppy-eared brown thing that had been Sarah’s pet since birth, and Bob, a big white milk cow. Sarah laughed out loud to herself as she thought about the details of how the milk cow had gotten the name Bob. One day, two summers earlier, Kevin and Sarah had been asked by their father to graze the cows along the Little John Creek in the valley just below the farm. It was an unbelievably hot day and so they made their way along the edge of the rushing water. The heavy rains early in the spring had washed out several deep holes along the creek and as they walked along, they found a big hole just below a large oak tree. Kevin leaped into the water and Sarah joined him. Over and over again they climbed out onto the branches of the oak tree and jumped into the water until they were so tired they had to rest. They crawled up on the bank to soak in the lazy, sunny day. It was rare for them to have time away from chores and just being there swatting flies was as good as it could get. Sarah just sat watching the clouds drift by trying to see what shapes they would make. She tried to make Kevin help her pick out familiar animals in the clouds, but he wasn’t interested in animals in the sky. He had his eyes on the cows. He put a grass stem in his mouth as he watched the cows eat grass while walking along beside each other. He studied them and the look in his eyes disturbed Sarah. She knew he was about to do something he would regret later. Climbing to his feet, he slowly walked up behind the cows and before they knew what he was doing, he had tied their tails together. At first, they just walked on ignoring Kevin, but as they passed on the opposite sides of a small tree, their momentum made the knot tighten, causing them to stop dead in their tracks. The cows looked at each other as if to say, Now what? They looked so funny, she joined in laughing with Kevin, who had fallen back onto the ground in sidesplitting laughter. The laughter was short lived. The two cows realized they couldn’t move. They both backed up and began tugging in opposite directions making the knot tighter and tighter. Over and over they backed up and hit the tail end of the knot on the tree, their hooves digging up mounds of dirt. Kevin went crazy trying to get them apart, but try as hard as he could, the damage was done. The knot was there to stay. Father stuck his head around the corner of the barn and yelled down to us that it was time to milk the cows. In shear panic, Kevin whipped out his knife and lopped off Bob’s tail. Fear causes people to do some pretty silly things and Sarah stood in amazement, because that was the silliest thing she had ever seen anyone do. The two cows headed up the trail towards the barn, one with a bleeding stub, the other with an extra tail. We ran to the house just knowing Father would whip us both, but when he came in later, not a word was said. Even though the bobtail on the cow wasn’t going to kill it, Kevin still felt guilty about it and spent two days dodging Father. Every time he came close to him, his lips puckered a little and on the third day began to relax. That was a mistake, because as Kevin was going into the barn to feed the cows, Father was waiting for him. He made him cut his own switch from the willow tree, then Kevin paid the piper behind the woodshed with a switch of his own choosing. Sarah chuckled to herself once again at the thought of Kevin screaming bloody murder.

Sarah loved her father; he was a quiet, easygoing man. Making sure the family had food on the table was his joy. Dawn to dusk he labored away. Every morning at sun up she would hear him unlatch the gate and slowly walk along the cobblestones into the mist. It was a comforting routine. As this life sometime dictates, one morning the gate never was rattled and she didn’t wake. Her father just slipped away into the night.

Funerals were a social event in Chelsor Village, a time when the community would come together. Father was well liked by all he knew, especially the men that he tangled a web of stories with at the pub. Many relatives came and after they had satisfied themselves that this too would be their plight, they scattered off in a hurry to the safety and forgetfulness of their homes. Lord Hamilton didn’t bother to come to the funeral; he just sent his nephew, Adam, with a message to Kevin that if he would come around in a day or two, he'd put him to work as a stable boy at the manor. Selfish as he was, he knew that would be the only way he would get his money back on the farm.

Lord Hamilton was a fat man; years of overeating and laziness had made him soft. Standing only 5’7" and weighing in at 310 pounds, he was well overweight, making his breathing short and hard. He had a grand temper and was quick to be cruel to anyone he came in contact with, especially his tenants. His only living relative was his nephew, Adam Winthrop. Adam was 21 years old and he had come to live with the old man after his parents died mysteriously a few years earlier in Dublin. Adam was a strong-willed young man who, by his own admission while drinking at the Golden Rooster, said he was going to inherit all that his uncle had. He had the looks with his thin build, almost feminine features, and coal black hair. He had learned at an early age to use his aristocratic good looks to charm his way with the girls who wished to be Lady Winthrop. Sarah hated him from the first time she met him, not because he was rich and she was poor, but because of the way he acted. He thought he could have her anytime he wanted her and Sarah stubbornly determined that wasn’t about to happen.

The rebel in Kevin made him protest the fact that Hamilton had sent a message demanding him to come to work at the manor after the funeral; but even though it made him mad, he knew he would give in just like his father for the sake of his family. He wouldn’t be his father’s son without a little arguing, and so shortly after all of father’s business affairs were settled, and despite the fact that he too hated Adam Hamilton, he set off to the manor house stable.

The castle Lord Hamilton lived in was called Win Britten Manor, named by the first Hamilton who built it overlooking Bearston Bay. The front of the house faced the valley that leads into town while the back of the house overlooked the ocean. It was an enormous house with towers built on all four corners. A moat and a working drawbridge had been added by Lord Hamilton. The gray stone, 4-story tutor estate was adjoined by a stone barn and stable containing 50 stalls. Each stall housed an exquisite horse. Rock walls boxed in all the surrounding meadows and fields.

At first, Kevin hated reporting to work at the manor, but he soon fell in love with his job. He had a way with horses, including the doctoring and grooming. Mr. Mitchell, Hamilton’s private trainer, saw something in the young man that made him want to pass his doctoring ability along to the red-headed boy. Mitchell was getting on in age and had no son to give his abilities too. Right from the beginning, Kevin displayed a lot of talent and was eager to learn the secrets Mitchell had acquired from many years living in the glen. Mr. Mitchell could often heal horses’ broken legs as he had what some called ‘the touch’. He also had knowledge of the natural herbs from the fields about the glen that could heal ailments. The freedom Kevin had found training horses and riding wild in the fields gave him a temporary glimpse of what it would be like to be in the far away places he often read about in his dime store novels. Life was good except when Adam came around complaining about how he did everything from feeding the horses to shoveling up the manure in the stalls. Kevin’s mother tried to tell him that Adam was just jealous of his abilities, but every time Adam came around, Kevin had thoughts of just running away.

Of all the horses in the stable, Kevin fancied only one, a young, spirited black stallion named Prince. Mitchell said the beautiful horse had been a gift from Lord Hamilton to Adam and had come from a racetrack in America. Jealousy and anger ruled Adam’s heart when he saw that Prince was calm around Kevin, but would fight Adam every time he tried to ride him. After being thrown off a few times, he consented to let Kevin work with Prince. One day while Kevin was riding Prince along the lane, a man in a beautiful carriage appeared on the road and began to race him towards the manor. It wasn’t much of a race, but Kevin could tell the man in the coach was delighted by the sudden adrenaline rush and then let him pass into the courtyard of Win Britten. This tall, muscular man stepped down, tipped his hat to Kevin, then turned and spoke to the butler. I would like to speak with Lord Hamilton, please.

Follow me, sir. He is in the study.

The tall man followed the butler into the study where Winthrop rose from his desk eyeing the intruder with suspicion.

Pardon my rudeness in barging into your beautiful home uninvited, but I just arrived this morning and couldn’t wait to see you about a pressing matter.

Lord Hamilton, still suspicious of the man, replied, What pressing matter could that be, Mr..?

Oh! How rude of me for not introducing myself to you. Leon, Mr. Leon is my name.

Hamilton asked, What may I do for you, Mr. Leon?

Some time ago I met a man, a not quite reputable man, who reported to me that he had recovered some artifacts along with some documents relating to the artifacts. The documents refer to the conquest of Spain and certain voyages to the New World. This man said he had been commissioned by you to bring these items to you. I am very interested in that time period in history and would pay well for anything that you might have on the subject.

Winthrop took a quick glance