Chapter 6

 

The man stood like a phantom at the edge of the woods. His hair and beard were long, his clothes rags. He held a large staff in his hand.

Ellen wrenched away from Regan and ran to him. He never moved. He stood near the path but not on it. He watched her come. Sarah grabbed Regan’s arm and hauled herself to her feet, pushing her hair out of her face. She could hear Mike coming up fast behind her.

“Who the feck is it?” Mike yelled. He reached Sarah and pulled her and Regan both behind him. Sarah clung to his sleeve, not wanting him to go further, afraid for all of them.

Ellen staggered down the path. “Barney!”

“Mam!” Regan screamed. “Mam, no!”

Mike pushed past Sophia who stood on the path, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide in astonishment and fear. Ellen held her arms out to the man who still hadn’t moved. She walked to him and then sagged to her knees in front of him. Slowly she dropped her hands and head to the ground as if in supplication. Mike reached her but never took his eyes off the man. He touched Ellen on the shoulder.

“Come, lass,” Mike said. “It’s not your Barney.” His eyes filled with tears and he angrily brushed them away. He took two steps toward the man and pulled him hard into his arms.

“Granddad!” Gavin yelled. Sarah watched him bound over to the two men. Mike turned and knelt by Ellen while Gavin hugged his grandfather. The old man stood as if stunned, his eyes looking over Gavin’s shoulder at Sarah. She smiled. And when she did, it seemed to break something inside him. It was as if he’d been warring with himself over whether this was all a dream.

“It’s really us, Archie,” Sarah said softly, knowing he couldn’t hear her from this distance. “We’re finally home.”

 

**********

So now they knew. The whole story of how it happened. And Mike had been right. And oh, so wrong.

Archie sat in Mike and Sarah’s cottage—his cottage too four months ago—with a mug of whiskey in his hand. He’d aged a decade since Sarah had last seen him, looking much older than his seventy-two years. After the attack at the compound he’d been living in the woods and then in an old abandoned cottage. When Sarah hugged him she felt a tremor in his right hand.

When Regan and Sophia got back to the compound, they worked together to calm and settle Ellen who, once in bed, fell quickly to sleep. There was no real resemblance between Archie and Barney, who was twenty years younger. But if there’d been any doubt as to the extent of Ellen’s fragile psychological state, this afternoon had eliminated it.

“You found the lads then,” Archie said with a nod at both Gavin and John. “I knew you would.”

“It took us awhile,” Mike said as he refilled the old man’s glass. “We just got back day before yesterday. Coming home was a shock as you can imagine.”

Archie’s eyes glanced at his shaking hand as he reached for the glass.

“So it was the Garda,” Mike said.

“Aye. Rounded everyone up. Piled them into trucks waiting outside. Then came back in and cleared out whatever else they were looking for.”

“They took guns and some electronics,” John said.

Archie nodded, then looked at Mike. “Who was it ye were putting in the ground?”

“One of the compound women. Kendra.”

Archie made a sound of distress. “I remember the lass well. A good fighter. Was she living here alone, do ye think?”

“She’d been dead a long time. Likely killed the day of the attack.”

“I didn’t know. I came back several times but I never really…searched, ye ken? The place always felt so empty. I just felt in me bones it was empty. Stupid.”

“It was too late anyway,” Mike said. “Why, Archie? Did they say?”

“I’ve asked meself that question for four months now,” Archie said. “Why not just turn us out if they wanted to ransack the place? But they brought the trucks because they wanted them. They wanted our people.”

“How did you escape?” Gavin asked. He sat with his arm around Sophia. Regan sat on the other side of Mike, her face implacable.

“I didn’t, did I?” Archie said. “They herded everyone onto the trucks—the women and kiddies in one and the men in t’other, and no room for an old man. They didn’t care what I did. They just left me.”

“Wait,” Sarah said. “They divided them up?” She looked at Mike. “Why would they do that? Why would they separate the men from the women and children?”

“And they didn’t fight?” Gavin asked. “When they saw what was happening?”

“Well, aye, a bit,” Archie said. “But it was the Garda, ye see. At first we thought it was maybe a safety issue or something. What with the plague and all.”

“You expect the state police to protect you,” Sarah said. “Not kidnap you.”

“Exactly so, lass,” Archie said, finishing his drink. He rubbed his hand across his face. “I waited,” he said, his voice muffled by his hand. “I waited for ye to come back. It was all I knew to do.”

Mike leaned out and placed a solid hand on Archie’s shoulder.

“Ye did all ye could, Arch. Ye did the best anyone could.”

Sarah got to her feet and massaged the small of her back. The baby had been particularly active today. And she hadn’t slept well.

“Regan, I need you and Sophia to manage dinner tonight. John, please boil the water and fill a tub bath for Mr. Kelley. Gavin, make up a bed for your grandfather at your place.” She turned to Archie. “Once we get things sorted out, you’re welcome to come back to live with us.” She leaned down and hugged him. “I’m so glad we found you, Archie. You are the second best thing that’s happened since we got back.”

“Oh, aye?” Archie said. “What’s the first then?”

“That would be finding Regan and her mother.”

Regan’s shoulders stiffened when she heard her name and then relaxed. She handed the bread knife to Sophia and went to pull dishes out of the cupboard by the cook stove.

“Mike?” Sarah said. “I need to lie down for just a few minutes. I assume we’ll be leaving at first light tomorrow?”

Mike stood up and put his hands on his hips. Sarah knew him well enough to know he was deliberately making himself seem larger than he was on the off chance it might put her on the back foot. She’d been down this road with him before.

“We’ve got all night to discuss that,” he said cryptically. He nodded to Archie who was already standing. “Go ahead and wash up, Arch. Anything else you can think of to tell us, you can tell us over supper.”

“Aye, I could do with a scrub. Thank ye, Mike,” Archie said, scratching his chin through his beard. “And I do have a few other things you’ll need to know before ye go.”

“Like what?” Sarah asked, still standing in the doorway leading to the bedroom.

“Sarah, go lie down,” Mike said.

“Like what?” Sarah asked again, ignoring him.

“Like where they went,” Archie said. “Seeings how I followed ‘em, didn’t I?”

 

**********

Sophia and Regan worked silently setting the table and putting the food on it. Mike was surprised no blood was shed even with all the knives around but the two seemed to have come to at least a temporary detente. Maybe they both could tell that there was something more important going on or perhaps Mike’s own little tantrum this morning had shaken some sense into Regan. Whatever the reason, he was grateful.

Sarah slept soundly for an hour. Mike hated to wake her but he knew she’d never forgive him if she wasn’t present for the rest of what Archie had to tell them. It was all he could do not to follow Archie to the bathing area and pull it out of him. Instead, he used the time to double check on the tack in the barn. He’d seen several good horses in the village yesterday and while they were likely used to pull carts, most horses before the bomb were trained under saddle, even if they hadn’t been ridden in awhile. He’d have to find something to offer their owners but one way or the other, he’d have those horses.

Gavin came to fetch him when dinner was ready and they walked back to the cottage together.

“I can’t believe Granddad is here,” Gavin said. “Now we just need to get Auntie Fi and Dec and the bairn and we’re set.”

“We’ll need everyone back,” Mike said firmly. “Every fecking person who was put on a truck and driven away against his will.”

“Aye, sure Da. Got a plan for that, do you?”

“I may do. I’ll need you to come with me, lad.”

“Just try and stop me.”

Mike grinned. “Aye. Now if I can just talk your step-mother out of saying those same words, we’ll be golden.”

Gavin laughed. “Women. They’re a handful, eh?”

That made Mike laugh and he clapped Gavin on the shoulder. “That they are, lad,” he said. “That they are.”

Back in the cottage everyone was already sitting at the table. Mike was surprised to smell roasted meat and looked over at John who grinned.

“My old trap worked,” John said. “Nobody was more surprised than me.”

“Well done, lad,” Mike said as he reached Sarah and pulled her in for a long kiss. “You okay?” he whispered.

“Never better,” she said, one eyebrow arched.

Oh, aye, Mike thought, feeling his determination settle on his shoulders. Game on.

Ellen sat between Regan and John. Mike couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since she’d sat down to a meal with dishes and a napkin on her lap. He clapped Archie on the back and sat down between him and Sarah. Archie was freshly shaved and his hair was even trimmed.

On the table sat bowls and plates of creamed corn, biscuits, honey, baked potatoes, apple butter and roasted rabbit. In a way, it was their Thanksgiving feast. Mike glanced at Sarah. After all, Thanksgiving was an American custom. When he saw the tears in her eyes as she gazed at the table and at everyone’s faces, he knew she was thinking the same thing. He squeezed her hand and she smiled at him.

By unspoken understanding, Archie didn’t tell his story until after the last dish had been wiped free of rabbit gravy with the last biscuit crumb. Once the table was cleared, Mike poured wine for everyone except Sarah. He worried mildly at how Ellen would react to anything that Archie had to say but there was no help for it.

Ever since Archie said he’d followed the trucks, Mike had felt much less anxious, as though someone had given him a road map. He knew whatever Archie told them would answer their questions and help explain the mystery. And by this time next month, everyone from the compound would be together again. He was convinced of it.

He put his arm around Sarah and felt her warmth, solid and reassuring against him. He also felt her tension and expectation as she waited.

“All right then, Arch,” he said. “Tell us.”

Archie took a long draught of the red wine. The glass trembled in his hands as he set it down.

“I followed the trucks,” he said. “They were big diesel bastards. They out of here in third gear—easily doing forty k’s.”

“How could you keep up?” Sarah asked.

Archie shrugged. “I couldn’t, could I? It weren’t ten minutes until I lost sight of both of ‘em but I didn’t quit. It rained the day before and the central drive was mostly mud so it was easy to follow their tracks. And they’d hit us early in the day so I could see what I was doing. I knew when they came to the main road it would be harder to track them, but what else could I do?”

Archie took another sip of his drink.

“I followed the tracks the whole rest of the day. When it got dark, I slept in the woods. There was no hurry. I knew I couldn’t catch up to them. It didn’t rain that night, praise God, so in the morning, I saw their tracks plain as day. I walked until late afternoon—maybe twenty kilometers—when I saw another set of tire tracks.”

“More than the two trucks?”

“Hard to say. Nobody else has vehicles these days so I figured it was the trucks for sure and you know I’m no tracker, Mike,” Archie said, looking at Mike. “I’m a fisherman. There were a lot of footprints in the mud too like maybe people had gotten out of the trucks and were walking around. I looked at these tracks all jumbled up on top of one another for about an hour. The sun was dropping and still I was trying to make sense of ‘em and then it was like the Almighty shone a golden beam of sunlight right on the road to separate one set from t’other. Two sets of tracks and one set veering off.”

“The trucks split up?” Gavin asked.

“Aye. That’s what it looked like. The one truck went east in the direction of the M8 on ramp and the other kept on straight. I didn’t know what to do! I stared at those tracks forever and finally I just chose. I walked on after the truck that went to the highway. As soon as I got there, the tracks were gone but by then I knew it was likely heading for Dublin so I just kept walking.”

“How long?” Sarah asked.

“Two days. I thought at the very least I’d be able to tell someone where they’d taken the women.” His lips were trembling. “Didn’t I know you and Mike would return one day? I had to know what to tell you.”

“Then what happened?” Mike asked.

Archie gave a long sigh. “I found out on the fourth day that I’d been following the wrong truck. It wasn’t the women’s truck at all. It was the men’s truck.”

“How did you know?” John asked.

Archie made a face. “I…I found a body on the side of the road.”

Ellen gasped and Regan slipped an arm around her mother. They watched Archie, their faces grim.

“The bastards had thrown ‘im off the truck. He’d been shot in the head. I figured he’d either tried to escape or had just proved too much trouble for them. Anyway, I knew then I’d likely lost wherever they’d taken the women.”

The silence built in the cottage. Mike tried to imagine that terrible night, breaking so many lives forever. He held Sarah closer to him. She dropped her hand to her abdomen. She always did that when she felt a need to protect the baby.

“I buried him with me bare hands,” Archie said in a shaking voice, “by the side of the road and then came back to the compound to wait. It took me five days to get back. Nine days in all after they’d been taken.”

“How did you eat?”

“A group of young people. They fed me, so they did. I told ‘em if they ever got tired of living hand to mouth in the woods, they could come to Ameriland. Hope that was okay.”

Mike nodded.

“I came back here, loaded up on food from the root cellars and camped out in the woods for a few days.”

“Why not just stay here?” Sarah asked gently.

“I couldn’t. Sure it broke my heart to be here with everyone gone, so it did. I finally moved to the cottage down by the way, past the big pasture. The Garda took all our guns, ye see, mine included, but I still had me ankle knife. I made traps and caught what I could, took food from the compound when I needed to, and checked every day to see if you’d come back.” He finished his wine and placed the glass back on the table with a thud. “And now, praise God, ye have.”

Regan and her mother sat frozen opposite Archie, their eyes willing him to tell them, and begging him not to.

“Who was it they killed on the road to Dublin?” Mike asked quietly.

“I’m so sorry, Mike,” Archie said looking at Mike with tears in his eyes. “Sure it breaks my heart to tell you. But it was Fiona’s man, Declan.”