The Last Horseman Read Free Page B

wasn’t I about to tell Colonel Baxter that myself,’ Kingsley said with a smile.
    Baxter extended his hand to Radcliffe. It was a gesture of silent thanks. ‘Then we’ll talk again, Kingsley, I’m sure I’ll find what I want in your stables,’ he said, and added, ‘with due care and consideration, when I have more time.’
    Kingsley gestured for a stable lad to bring Baxter’s horse across the yard.
    ‘And I’ll be sure to have your best interests at heart, colonel.’
    ‘And at a price that befits the quality of the horse,’ Baxter answered. He turned to Radcliffe. ‘You’ll ride back with me?’
    ‘Not today, Alex,’ Radcliffe answered without further explanation.
    Baxter eased into the saddle and gathered the reins. ‘You and Mr Pierce will be at the regimental dinner? I expect you.’
    Radcliffe didn’t answer. Baxter was aware of his reluctance. ‘No excuses, Joseph.’ He pressed his heels into the horse’s flanks and nodded his farewell.
    Kingsley walked across the yard with Radcliffe and held the bridle as Radcliffe pulled himself into the saddle. ‘You’re a strange fish, Radcliffe. A widow man from America with a black fella for a secretary and a son who rides like the devil’s burning his arse while his daddy defends murdering Fenians. We get some strange people in these parts. A man has to ask himself if much good would come from it.’ He released his grip. ‘Be careful how you go.’
    Radcliffe wondered if the benign comment was a threat. He eased the horse forward and knew, without looking back, that the man would watch him depart until he was out of sight.

C HAPTER F OUR
    Benjamin Pierce sat at a fine old oak desk mellowed to a warm honey patina from a hundred years of use. Radcliffe had bought it at some expense when they first arrived in Dublin. How long ago had that been? Damned near half his life if he remembered correctly. He and Radcliffe were still young men when they turned their backs on a war against the American Plains Indians and searched out a new life. A year in London had given Radcliffe the qualifications to practise law and they would have stayed in that cosmopolitan city had Radcliffe not met a woman there who seized his heart. Kathleen was beautiful, Pierce had to admit that. He had argued with his friend that London offered them more opportunity. That and more. It was the British who had abolished the slave trade and, being a black man, Pierce drew fewer stares in London than when they first arrived in Dublin. But Radcliffe followed his heart and Pierce, as always, followed his friend.
    The scratches and chipped corners devalued the oak desk in the eyes of the auctioneer but Radcliffe had bought it anyway, paying too much and ignoring Pierce’s admonishments that he was a damned fool. They had little money to set up the practice, let alone for squandering on a desk big enough to sleep on. But within a year that broad expanse of sawn, hand-polished oak was covered in documents tied with red ribbon. Injustice knew no boundaries and Radcliffe took the cases that were most pressing, and which usually offered little payment, if any at all. Landowners and shopkeepers were charged more to fund the truly needy. But, now that he had defended Fenians, clients had drifted away. It was only by good fortune that they had paid their rent on the townhouse six months in advance. Pierce and Radcliffe had once endured the harsh life of soldiering but the chill that hung forever in the Irish house, and the sky that seemed constantly grey and frequently deluged them, made the house unwelcoming and cold. As the months had gone by they determined to save money, and in order to pay the coal merchant’s account they burned only one fire in the drawing room, and the other in Radcliffe’s study.
    Pierce’s fingers protruded through woollen mittens as he held the document; it was Radcliffe’s appeal for clemency for the young Daniel Fitzpatrick O’Hagan. Its articulate request for