From the pieces of knapsack and useless bits of metal trinkets found embedded in the surrounding oak trees, they guessed he had been a peddler.
The sound of the explosion had sent half the camp running toward the south entrance. Mothers ran screaming the names of their children, the unbearable sounds of terror ratcheting higher with every step.
Mike reached the area with the first wave of the panicked. He stepped carefully into the brand new clearing, which was smoking and foul smelling. “Head count!” he shouted, looking around with a pounding heart. It wasn’t one of their watch sites—in fact, everyone knew it was strictly off-limits—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a place a bored child wouldn’t wander off to. He listened to the voices, some tremulous and tearful, others angry, as they reeled off their names in the order that had been decided. Each head of household called out his surname and the phrase “all accounted for” to indicate the whereabouts of each member of his family was known.
When Donovan announced his own name, with only Gavin to account for, the thought came to him, like a deadly asp slithering into his sleeping bag, that he did not know where his son was.
The Woodsons were at his elbow within minutes. Not formally a part of the group, they remained silent as they surveyed the damage. “Who set it off?” Sarah asked.
Donovan held up a hand to her, demanding silence as he listened to the members of his group call out their names to assure him that their community remained intact.
As he listened, his eyes scanned the trees and the smoking hole before him where the landmine had been triggered, and he registered that the birds had stopped singing, the camp dogs had stopped barking.
Death has a habit of stalling everything about normal daily life, he thought bitterly.
“Da? You okay over there?”
He gave a shuddering sigh at the sound of his son’s voice, calling to him from across the camp. He glanced up and nodded at Gavin.
By this time, the crowd had stopped calling out their names and were, instead, jostling babies, pulling children back from the lip of the smoking pit, and kicking at the rim and surrounding area with boot toes and sticks.
One woman’s shrill voice pierced the din of noise above the others. “God have mercy, Mike, are there any more here?”
Donovan turned to look at David, who stood grimly by his side. David shook his head, refusing to look at him.
“No, Maeve,” Mike called to the woman. “Just the usual areas. You all know them.”
“Well, what made it go off, then?” another man called out. “Were we being attacked, or should we be looking to pick pieces of raw mutton off the trees?”
Mike noted the angry voice, soon joined by others, and he resisted the urge to look at David—the man responsible for the smoking hole and the slowly building hysteria in his community.
“Go back to camp,” he said tiredly, trying to sound commanding. “I’ll investigate and make a full report at dinner.” He turned to David who, maddeningly, didn’t seem to feel any responsibility for what had happened. If anything, he looked as if he had a mind to resume the fight with Mike over John’s whipping. Steeling himself to stay calm, Mike glanced at Sarah. “Take John back to camp,” he said. When she hesitated, looking instead to David, Mike added an edge to his voice. “Now,” he said. Without a word, she grabbed her son’s hand and tugged him away from the two men.
Mike stood with his hands on his hips looking at the destruction. “I want the rest of the landmines dismantled,” he said icily. “If you want to bury them in front of your own cottage, you’re welcome to.”
“That’s not what your group said three months ago when I found these mines stacked in an abandoned army depot in Glyncannon. Three months ago, your people begged me to plant them on your perimeter.”
“Three months ago we were bulldozed by your paranoia.”
“I’m not sure anyone would believe you were bulldozed, Donovan. Fact is, you were outvoted. Your group wanted the security. Just because some wandering tinker crept up on the camp and got himself blown up doesn’t mean the mines aren’t still a good idea.”
“Just get rid of them.”
“We haven’t had an incident in three months and now you think you’re living in Brigadoon?” David looked at him with disgust. “How do you know this guy wasn’t the advance guard of an attack? How do you know the landmine didn’t send the message to his gang that we aren’t ripe for the picking?”
Donovan strode over to a nearby ash tree and pried out a metal button with flowers stamped on it. He came back to Woodson and threw it at him, watching it ping off the man’s chest. “This guy was a peddler,” he said heatedly. “He wasn’t the advance man on anything except maybe in his plan to trade a few buttons for a hot meal tonight.”
David shrugged. “For all you know.”
“Yeah, for all I know. But I’m in charge so get rid of them.” He turned to look at the smoking hole again. “It makes me sick to think I let you talk me into them in the first place.”
“Maybe you were more concerned about protection a few months back.”
“We have security measures.”
“A few pits with sharpened stakes in them? A couple of tree snares? Three teenage boys rotating watch on the perimeter?” David jabbed a finger in the direction of the hole. “This is the only thing that protects you at the end of the day. Telling everyone under no uncertain terms that you’ll kill first and ask questions later. This is what keeps the murdering thieves and opportunists moving past your place to the next poor sod.”
“Maybe,” Donovan muttered. “But right now we just killed the next poor sod and I’m not convinced the price was worth it. Dig up the other two. Today.” He turned on his heel and left Woodson standing alone in the glade, the chirping of the birds in the trees once more resuming.
John and Sarah trudged away from the explosion site. They felt the hostile stares and grumblings as they walked. It was clear whom the camp was blaming for the disturbance.
“Mr. Donovan’s gonna make Dad dismantle the other bombs,” John said, swinging up to sit in the driver’s seat. “He thinks they’re dangerous.”
“They are dangerous,” Sarah said, watching the opening to the grove where Mike and her husband still conferred, hidden from view. “But necessary. Like having a loaded weapon. Very dangerous, but thank God for it when you need it.”
“Yeah. Dad says you can always accomplish more with a kind word and a rifle than you can with just a kind word.”
“How very Irish-sounding of him.” Sarah smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
“Who do you think got blown up?” John asked, looking at his hands.
Sarah felt her heart clutch. Lately the child was always so sure of himself, it surprised her when he reverted back to being the young boy he really was. “I don’t know, angel,” she said. “Some poor soul, I suppose.” She reached out to take his hand. “This world we live in isn’t like Jacksonville during a hurricane warning or something. There are treacherous people out there…” She turned to wave to the countryside beyond the borders of the little camp. “It’s a lawless time right now. Until we can get everything back up.”
“I know, Mom, but doesn’t that make us lawless too? I mean, hiding bombs for innocent people to walk on?”
“John, I know this sounds harsh, and I don’t want to scare you, but you don’t know when the bad people will come. You have to be ready.”
“Fiona says we’re like isolationists or something,” John mumbled.
Sarah realized that the time John spent in the community away from his family was having an effect on him. He was pulling away from her and David.
“Fiona said that?”
“Don’t be mad at her, Mom. She’s just saying what a lot of people are saying, only nicer.”
“I see.” Sarah turned away from him as she caught a glimpse of Mike striding back into the camp without David. “People blame us for what happened.”
“Well, it is our fault. Being Americans and all.”
“Maybe.” Sarah patted his knee. “Chill here for a bit, John? I need to go have a word with Mr. Donovan.”
Mike saw her heading his way and knew he should’ve expected it. She wasn’t used to being ordered about, least ways by him. Come to that, he wasn’t used to doing it. It surprised him how easy it came and, truth be told, that he’d enjoyed doing it. No, safety in numbers or not, he had to admit there was some benefit to having her live out of reach.
“Mike, hold up, please,” she said as she ran to catch up with him.
“Sarah,” he said, not breaking his stride.
“Are you having David dig up the other landmines?”
“I am.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“Why else would I be doing it?”
She grabbed him by the sleeve and forced him to stop. “There are threats everywhere, Mike.”
“So you say.”
“How can you possibly doubt it? After what happened last year? After what nearly happened to Gavin? To…to me?”
Mike looked down into her face and remembered the fear and desperation of those bad days. He remembered her agony when she thought she had lost her son and her husband, and he knew why she couldn’t feel safe. He lifted a hand and touched her shoulder.
“We can’t live in anticipation of the worst happening,” he said gently.
She watched his eyes, as if he would say more. As if that argument wasn’t just too obviously weak to stand on its own.
“That’s exactly what we have to live in anticipation of,” she said finally. “All the time. Or risk being caught off guard. That’s what these new times require, Mike.”
He dropped his hand, like it had become too heavy for him to lift. “Not here, they don’t,” he said, and left her where she stood by the center cook fire.
Caitlin stood in the veiled opening of her tent and watched as Mike put his hand on the American’s shoulder. She saw his glance, just for the barest of moments, leave the woman’s eyes as she spoke and drop to her mouth. Fury pulsed through her like a tidal wave surging over a seawall.
Caitlin knew he fancied the Yank. Everyone in camp who wasn’t either blind or half-witted knew it. That he could be so bold with her—and her with her own husband not twenty yards away!—made Caitlin want to rip his ruddy, handsome face with her fingernails. Though she’d yet to catch them, she was sure the two were already rutting: they must be! And catch them I will, of that you can be certain, she thought, squatting and stabbing the ground with the broken fork she’d been holding in her hands.
She definitely bloody would.