Fin Gall by James L. Nelson Read Free Book Online

ran down to the beach and the sea beyond. He was looking out to sea. His back was to the sheep. Donnel could not imagine what he was doing.
                  He shook his head and trudged off through the dew-wet grass toward his brother. “Patrick, what are you doing, now?” he called when he was close enough to be heard over the breeze.
                  Patrick turned. “Come here and look at this, Donnel!”
                  Donnel hurried over. The cliff was high and rugged, and if the wind had been at their backs Donnel would have been nervous about approaching so close.
                  He stepped up beside Patrick. Below them, the white sands that ringed Barnageeragh Bay stretched away in a semicircle, and beyond that the sea glittered in the early morning sun.
                  “A boat, is it?” Donnel asked.
                  “Sure it’s a boat. And a fair sized one at that.”
                  For a moment they were silent, looking down at the battered curragh laying half on its side on the beach. It rocked slightly with each incoming wave, as if, in its death throes, it were making one final effort to free itself.
                  “Should we have a look, then?” Patrick asked.
                  Donnel glanced back at the sheep. They were grazing and, being sheep, would much prefer to remain where they were rather than be herded off. They weren’t going anywhere. And the Lord knew what might be found on board a wrecked ship, particularly one of that size.
                  “Come on.”
                  The young men worked their way north to where the pasture met the steep path to the beach. They had been this way several times and were quite familiar with the tricky climb. For the moment thoughts of the riches the curragh might hold were set aside as they concentrated on picking their way down the steep trail, still slick with mud and crumbling from the recent rains.
                  At last they reached the soft sand that lapped like the sea against the cliff and crossed the beach to the wreck. Up close they saw it was much larger than they had thought at first, three perches long at least. It lay at an odd angle, it’s deck tilted toward the sea. The mast was broken and the single yard lay across the gunnels, snapped in three places and held together by the remnants of the sail. There seemed to be no real damage to the hull.
                  Donnel and Patrick slowed their pace as they approached. There was a haunted quality about the wrecked ship, as if the souls who had perished in the storm were not ready to leave, and it made the boys waver in their determination to see what was aboard.
                  Slowly, as if they were sneaking up on it, they crossed the sand to the curragh’s side. Together they reached out and placed hands on the gunnel, stood on tiptoes and peered over.
                  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Donnel shouted. He and Patrick leapt back, their hands flying from forehead to abdomen to shoulders as they crossed themselves, then turned and fled.
                  They were twenty feet from the wreck when the panic began to ebb and they stopped and turned back. For a long moment they just stared at the ship. Finally, Donnel spoke.
                  “They’re but dead men. They can’t harm us now.”
                  Patrick nodded. The two young men retraced their steps, this time walking around the bow of the ship to the low side. They could see the whole deck from where they stood, the chalk-white, bloated, waterlogged bodies strewn fore and aft. They could see gaping wounds washed clean of blood by the rain and seas.
                  “Whatever do you think happened?” Patrick whispered, but Donnel did not answer. Instead he climbed over the side of the boat,