David M. Quinn
It May Be Forever is a nineteenth century tale of adventure and tragedy, based upon the real-life story of Michael Quinn. To escape the grinding poverty of Ireland’s Great Famine, Michael and his family flee to England, where at age eight, Michael becomes a child laborer in a textile mill. As he grows older and more aware of British prejudice and discrimination, he is motivated to enlist with the Fenian rebels, a group determined to free Ireland from British colonial rule. Chronic unemployment, however, drives him to America, and defeat on the battlefield lands him on the untamed plains of the Wild West.
Faced with unaccustomed opportunity, Michael quickly abandons the fight against oppression and turns away from family and friends. Dreams of achieving a great fortune lead him to support the dispossession of Native Americans of their lands and livelihood. But after the massacre at Wounded Knee, demons of conscience rise up in terrible nightmares, and only a Lakota holy man offers the hope of redemption.
It May Be Forever is a cautionary tale, which shows how the many small decisions of life can create the most unintended consequences, and how easily a man of strong convictions may become that which he hates.
Visit David Quinn’s website: www.itmaybeforever.com.
David Quinn was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1945 and grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. He studied political science at Wheeling Jesuit University (B.A.) and Fordham University (M.A.). During thirty years in the telecommunications industry, he was involved in international projects in Asia and Europe, finally completing his career with a five-year assignment in London. David made the decision to leave the corporate world in 1999. His passion for genealogy led him to uncover the remarkable story of his great, great uncle Michael Quinn. After two years of research conducted in Ireland, England, and the United States, David was ready to embark on the writing of a historical novel, It May Be Forever, based on Michael Quinn’s extraordinary life. David and his wife, Betsy, live in Prescott, Arizona, and have three grown children.
“The Irish Diaspora is a large historical canvas stretching over many centuries. Driven into exile ... the dispossessed Irish struggled for survival in their new lands. Each individual’s struggle could merit a book in itself.
“It May Be Forever: An Irish Rebel on the American Frontier is one such story. It is the story of Michael Quinn who, aged eight, escapes from An Ghorta Mhór (The Great Hunger), the most devastating of the starvations inflicted on Ireland by an uncaring colonial landlord system in 1845-9. Although a true-life story, Michael’s great-great-nephew, David Quinn, chooses to tell the story in novel form. It works brilliantly, for David shows his dexterity as a storyteller is equally worthy of his subject. It’s a book that should be listed among the great Irish diasporic accounts, told with skill and artistry by an author of whom I am sure we will hear more.”
Peter Berresford Ellis
Noted Celtic scholar, writer, and novelist
Mike and one of his cowhands, Rico Sandoval, entered the battlefield from the north. They followed the same route used by Chief Big Foot and his Miniconjou five days earlier. The remnants of the recent snowstorm clung to the wind-blown grassland along Wounded Knee Creek. Here and there, splotches of dark crimson ice decorated the ground where blood had pooled and frozen. Viewed from the rise of a hill, these seemed to Mike like strange, dark winter flowers trying to push through the icy crust. Beyond, he could see twenty or so scavengers, civilians and soldiers, scampering about, retrieving their pathetic trophies.
The cowmen eased their mounts down the hill and onto the flats where the Indian camp had been. Mule-drawn wagons creaked and rumbled past, loaded with the rigid bodies of Big Foot’s people. Men, women and children, left for dead during the three-day snowstorm, were frozen in the grotesque postures of their violent death.
They sat their mounts while the morbid caravan passed. Their horses stamped and snorted, clearly bothered. Mike pulled at his short goatee in contemplation, while Rico shook his head and whispered, “Madre de Dios!”
“Do you figure a horse can scent blood when it be froze?” Mike asked.
“I don’ know, Señor Mike. But my horse, he knows when things ain’t right.”
“Your horse must be pretty smart, ‘cause things ain’t right. These poor folk called this down on themselves. Got the whole territory up in arms. And for what, I ask you? All that dancin’ weren’t gonna bring back the buffalo, nor send white folk packin’ for the east. Damn their eyes! ’Tis a crime, a bleedin’ crime!”
A rider in a fur cap and a sheepskin coat rode down on them from a nearby hill. Reining up, he eyed them impatiently. “If you’re lookin’ for the boss, that’s Dawson. He’s up yonder at the pit.” He pointed in the direction of the hill to which the wagons were headed.
Mike nodded and raised a hand in greeting. “Thanks, but we’re just passin’ through. Goin’ to Pine Ridge.”
The young man winced in embarrassment. “Sorry, I figured you was contract hands, come late to the job. I’m Eb Jones, scout for the Eighth Cavalry.”
“We’re after sellin’ beef to Uncle Whiskers,” Mike said. Got a herd up on the Bad River. We would’ve been here sooner but for the storm.”
A sudden blast of frigid air hit them like a body blow, threatening to send their wide-brimmed hats rolling across the winterscape. Mike quickly clasped his John B. upon his crown with one hand. “Did they kill ‘em all?” he asked.
“Mostly. Four Hotchkiss cannon swept the camp like a spring-tooth harrow. Then they worked the ravine over yonder where the Injuns run for cover.” Jones indicated a weed-filled ditch immediately west of the Indian camp. “Lasted close to three hours. Somewheres near two hundred bodies, I reckon. Course, the freeze got ‘em that weren’t dead outright. It ain’t a pretty sight.”
Mike touched the brim of his hat. “Guess we’ll get on. So long, Jones.” He turned his mount and said, “Come on, Rico. Let’s take a look-see.”
They rode up the hillside past another wagonload of misfortunate ones. What they saw on reaching the pit was worse than Mike imagined. The contract laborers were unloading the wagons by pitching the rigid corpses into a long trench about five feet deep. Some of the bodies were naked. Workmen down in the trench tucked small children and infants into gaps in the heap as one might chink a cabin wall. A crowd of locals and bluecoats loitered about watching the proceedings.
Another body, a boy maybe ten years old, landed in the trench. His expression of distress was captured in frozen testimony to his final minutes. The workers picked up his awkwardly twisted body with gloved hands. He’d been shot in the back. Suddenly, Mike felt the gorge rising within him. His vision went bright. It was as if the light of a locomotive’s headlamp had blinded him. Everything was blurry. His heart raced, and he felt sure he was about to pass out. “Rico, let’s get out of here quick,” he said urgently, but quietly. Sightlessly gripping the horn of his saddle with both hands, he spurred his mare, and Rico led the way down to the Pine Ridge Road.
