The war was over.
What was good news for most was a renewed sense of worry and anxiety for Caitríona and her family, which now included little Moses. Lucy and Hannah had assisted Ruth with the birth. Henry had broken into tears of joy as he held his son and declared him a free man.
Life had been good for the little family. They’d slowly explored around the cabin to discover they were in Pocahontas County, near a small town called Largo. The mountain residents had built an iron furnace of stacked stone, and as Henry was the most accomplished blacksmith in the region, he soon was not only making his own tools, but was forging for others as well. By bartering his services, they had acquired nearly everything they needed to be comfortable: cooking utensils, cloth for new clothes, provisions. While they initially downed trees and hand-cut all their own lumber, there was a nearby sawmill whose machinery was in constant need of repair. Caitríona negotiated Henry’s expertise in exchange for rough-sawn boards which sped the work on their building immeasurably.
They had no idea if the original owner of the cabin, someone Lucy called Jacob Smith, might return home, expecting to pick up where he’d left off, but if he did, he would not recognize the place. By now, nearly two years after they’d first discovered the cabin, Henry and Caitríona had built a barn over the rocky outcropping where Caitríona had first fallen into the tunnel. She was now nearly as handy with a hammer and saw as he was, having long ago used the material from her dress to make britches for herself. He didn’t understand her insistence that they build over the tunnel, making a trapdoor for access, but he did as she instructed. In secret, they worked on the tunnel, enlarging and supporting the one that extended toward the cabin so that it would be accessible under the new house they were adding to the original log structure. Henry came up with an ingenious design for a hidden staircase that would allow access to the tunnel.
Though the people around Largo had accepted Caitríona’s story about being a war widow, she was always on guard for strangers. Hannah and the others sensed that there was something she knew that she had not shared with them, but did not press her for an explanation. Hannah would often find her sitting by herself in the evenings, when work had stopped for the day, brooding on thoughts known to her alone. Knowing better than to ask what was wrong, she would simply sit and rest her head against Caitríona’s shoulder, enjoying the feel of Caitríona’s arms holding her tightly. Without any drama or discussion, Ruth and Henry had accepted that their family now consisted of two couples and their children.
The one person they had met whom Caitríona trusted completely was Lucy Peregorn. Lucy knew everything about these mountains. She helped Ruth learn the local herbs and roots and, together, they exchanged their secrets for making medicines and salves. The old woman no longer surprised Caitríona with the things she knew or gleaned. Lucy had generously given them a milkcow so they were able to have fresh milk and make their own butter and a little cheese.
As weeks went by, more and more men returned home from the war. When none claimed the cabin as his own, Caitríona began to relax a bit.
“Where’s Mam?” Deirdre asked one day. Nearly four years old now, she was Orla in miniature.
“I don’t know, darlin’,” Ruth answered, stirring a pot she had heating over the fire. “She was down below.”
She went into the new part of the house to where the hidden staircase zigzagged down to the tunnel and called out, “Caitríona?”
Hannah appeared at the base of the stairs. “She’s not here. She’s carrying.” All the extra dirt and stone from their work in the tunnels had been carried, bucket by bucket, to one of the branch tunnels they had discovered. “We can’t have people wondering where this great bloody pile of dirt came from,” Caitríona had insisted.
“Come to think of it, she’s been gone a long time.”
Alarmed, Ruth said to Deirdre, “You stay here with Moses, darlin’. We’ll go find your mama and be right back.” She quickly descended the stairs. She and Hannah took an oil lamp and headed toward the tunnel where they had been dumping the debris. They found their way clogged by a cloud of dust. Coughing and choking, they came upon a wall of dirt closing off the tunnel all the way up to the roof.
Disregarding the possibility of another cave-in, Hannah screamed, “Caitríona!” Scrabbling at the dirt, she tried to claw her way through, sobbing and yelling.
Ruth grabbed her and restrained her tightly. “Don’t. We might be trapped, too. Let’s get Henry.”
Within minutes, the three of them were back at the cave-in. Henry methodically explored the wall of rock and dirt facing them. “It’s too big, and it’s holding the roof up now,” he said, pointing. “We can’t move it without bringing more down on top of us.”
“We can’t leave her in there,” Hannah sobbed.
“We won’t,” Henry assured her. “We’ll bring back some timbers and try shoring the roof up, so we can dig her out.”
Late that day, exhausted and covered in dirt from head to toe after hours of work, they climbed dejectedly back up to the house. “We’ll eat and rest a little, and then go back,” Ruth said.
She and Henry forced Hannah to eat a few bites. “You’re gonna need your strength to keep digging,” Henry said.
Just as they were lighting more lamps in preparation for returning to the tunnel, Caitríona appeared out of the darkness, limping and bedraggled and caked in mud and dirt, but very much alive.
Hannah cried out in relief and joy, flinging herself into Caitríona’s arms.
Sitting shakily, Caitríona told them of being caught in the cave-in. “I didn’t have time to run,” she said. “It just came down.” Ruth handed her a bowl of stew. She ate a few bites. “Thank the Lord, I wasn’t buried under the full weight of it. I was able to dig myself out on the far side. We never went further than the underground lake, but that tunnel comes out near Lucy’s house. I got back as soon as I could.” Deirdre crawled into her lap, clinging to her and crying. “I’m fine, child,” Caitríona said, kissing her head and holding her tightly.
“I don’t think we should go back into those tunnels,” Hannah said.
“No!” Caitríona said vehemently. “No, we need those tunnels. Those tunnels are going to save our lives one day.”
§§§
Conn woke with a start to find herself in her own room. For the past three days, she had been confined to bed, her feet treated with one of Molly’s salves and wrapped in bandages to give her burns and cuts a chance to heal. Her arms and chest were also healing from her scratches and cuts from the tree branches. She heard them whispering – her mother and Molly and Abraham and the doctor. They all thought she was distraught over the horrific events of that awful night.
The sheriff had taken the surviving members of the erstwhile Klan into custody. It turned out, they were no more members of the KKK than he was, he reported to Elizabeth. They’d just gotten to drinking and as they got each other all riled up, they had decided to try and scare Abraham and the Mitchells, taking it a step further than Grady and Joe’s first clumsy attempt at warning the Mitchells away from their friendship with Abraham. The others hadn’t counted on Joe and T.R. getting so carried away. “They’re all gonna be charged, though,” Sheriff Little said smugly. “Either as accessories or with attempted murder and arson.” This was the biggest case of his career, and was sure to get him re-elected until he was ready to retire.
Abraham’s house was gone. The firefighters had had no chance of putting out the blaze, accelerated as it was by the kerosene. The most they could do was contain the flames and prevent them from spreading to the nearby woods. Joe’s remains had been found, but the fire had been so intense, there wasn’t much left for his family to bury.
Molly had found Elizabeth and Will safe in the tunnel where Conn had left them, the men there at the house scattering as Molly drove up, brandishing her shotgun. By the time the three of them drove over to Abraham’s house, it was fully engulfed. Conn and Abraham had managed to climb down from the tree that saved them just moments before it, too, caught fire and burned.
What none of them knew, for Conn had confided to no one the thing that was tormenting her, was how close she had come to willfully letting someone die. She had been certain, after watching her trout die, that she could never kill again. But, she had come so close to doing just that. That flash of hatred had been so powerful… And part of her couldn’t help wondering if her hesitation had cost Joe the time he needed to jump from that window. The prophecy had said the curse could only be ended by “a soul blessed with light.” She felt soiled, stained by that moment, and was sure she could no longer be the one.
Yet… she had just had another dream. She lay there now, remembering. She didn’t know if the tunnels had ever saved the lives of Caitríona and the others, but she knew they had saved four lives the other night.
A knock on the door roused her from her reflections. Her mother appeared. “Are you up for a visitor? He’s been waiting three days to see you.”
Conn nodded and sat up against her headboard as Abraham came in.
“Hello, Connemara,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. Dr. Jenkins wasn’t sure the damage to his trachea would ever heal completely. She scooted over so he could sit on the edge of the bed. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “How about you?” She could see the raw stripes around his neck and wrists from where the ropes had bitten into the flesh.
“I am healing,” he said.
“Where are you living now?” she asked.
“Miss Molly invited me to stay with her until I can rebuild,” he said.
Conn couldn’t help but smile. “That must be interesting.”
He laughed a little, but then coughed as his throat was still easily irritated. “Yes, it is. She’s a little set in her ways; then again, so am I. But, she’s a good person.”
Conn leaned over to her nightstand. “Here,” she said, holding out the little leather-bound volume of The Song of Hiawatha that Abraham had given her on her birthday. “You should have this back.”
He shook his head. “You keep it. I’ll start a new collection of old books once I have bookshelves again. Maybe you’ll help me?”
He looked down at his hands, long-fingered and callused. He blinked rapidly as he said, “I can never thank you –”
“You don’t have to –”
He looked up at her with soft eyes. “I know how you felt. Out on that limb, when he called for help.” Conn stared transfixed into his eyes, wondering if he could possibly know... “Part of me wanted to leave him in there, after what he did…”
“But we didn’t.”
“No,” he agreed. “We didn’t. It was his choice.”
And to Conn’s mortification, she began crying. Abraham hesitated, then reached out to hold her as she cried.