Declan stood with his hand on the latch to the jailhouse door. He took a breath, straightened his shoulders, and jerked open the door. It wasn’t a pleasant place. It wasn’t designed to be.
His cousin stood up from a crouching position over by the far wall. Declan wasn’t worried. He had heard the poor bastard’s sobs from halfway down the path leading to the jail. Up until today he’d let Gavin feed and tend to Ollie. But he knew he was just putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later he had to deal with him.
“Pull yourself together, man,” he said to Ollie as he entered the room. Originally a two-stall stable, the room was divided in half by thin wood planking that had had a hole kicked into it by some horse. The straw bedding had long been stamped to incorporate into the hard, dirt floor.
He’d let Padraig out within hours of detaining him for beating his Missus. There wasn’t any point in keeping him. It sure as shite wasn’t going to make him stop. And hanging onto him would only ensure poor Annie got it even worse when he finally got home. Still, Padraig wasn’t a bad sort and Declan was sure his company in the little jail had given some comfort to poor Ollie.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come, Dec,” Ollie said, wiping his snotty nose with a sleeve. He wasn’t even out of his teens, Declan knew.
“You’ll likely be sorry I did,” Declan said going over to him and starting to unknot the restraints.
“Is today the day, then?” Ollie’s voice seemed full of hope.
“The day?” Did the daft bugger think they were letting him go?
“The day you hang me.”
Declan’s fingers stilled for a moment and he looked in his cousin’s face. “Jazus, Ollie,.Why the hell did ya have to kill her?”
“I didn’t know! I wasn’t thinkin’ right!” Ollie’s face screwed up into a terrible visage of agony and Declan jerked the boy’s hands free of his bonds to distract him.
“All right,” he said. “Although it smells like you’ve been happy to piss right where you sleep.”
“I loved her, Dec,” Ollie said, hiccoughing with renewed tears as he stumbled after Declan through the open door. “I loved her like my life. To think I coulda hurt her, that I killed her…”
“Well, you did kill her, right enough. Here then, go piss against that tree.”
Declan stepped away from the boy and got a flash of what it would feel like the day he put the noose around his neck. He flinched and wiped a heavy hand across this face as if to erase the vision.
“What happened, exactly?” he asked tiredly. The details didn’t matter. Nothing could save him. The boy would die in two days’ time no matter what. Gilhooley had made that clear.
“Eeny was mad at me,” Ollie said, turning back toward Declan. His arms hung limply at his side as if he didn’t have the strength or the will to lift them.
“Why?”
“I did something stupid and fecked.”
“You cheat on her?”
“Is it cheating when it’s just a blow job? Or not much more?”
Declan almost wanted to smile. He was so young. “I’m sure it counts as cheating,” he said, motioning the boy back toward the hut.
“She just went mental, saying I was a feckin’ cheater and had betrayed her and on like that. I felt guilty, you know? I just wanted her to shut up, only she was right to say the things she did. I just wanted them not to be true so I tried to get her to stop saying them.”
“I’m sorry, lad. Has your mother been over to see you?”
Ollie nodded miserably. “She says I’ve disgraced the family.”
“Is that all?”
Ollie looked at Declan, his face a mask of shame and pain. “She says she still loves me.”
This just sucks every way that it can suck, Declan thought as he motioned him back inside.
“I’m sure she does. And I know you’re sorry it happened.”
“I want to die. I want them to hang me.”
“Go on, now, boyo. In you go. Nothing’s happening today.”
“Tomorrow then? Only it would help to know.”
“Not tomorrow either,” Declan said. He took a shallow breath in defense against the rank smell of the interior of the hut and picked up the rope.
“Soon, though, right? You’ll do it soon?”
Declan fastened the rope around Ollie’s wrists, already rubbed raw, and looped the end through a metal ring fastened to the stall wall.
“Don’t worry about when, Ollie. If you’ve got a mind to do it, though you might pray. It can’t hurt.”
“Not for my life. I won’t pray for my life.”
“Maybe just for peace or forgiveness. I don’t know. Mind you don’t piss in here again, yeah? Or I’ll make you clean it up.”
“Okay, Declan. Thanks, mate.”
For what? Declan wanted to say. For washing me hands before I put the rope around your neck? He shook the image out of his mind and exited the stall before Ollie could say anything more. He threw the bolt and locked the door and found himself jogging to get away from the place.
The three wolf puppies—two males and a female—bit and pawed at the basket that contained them. They had rough dark brown fur and big dark eyes. Their tongues lolled around in their mouths in between the playful snapping they launched at each other. Mike still couldn’t believe they were real. Had there been any wolves in Ireland in the last seven hundred years?
“Where in the name of God did you find them?”
John grabbed one of the wolves before it escaped from the basket and shoved it back inside. “Whoa! That one nearly got me! You see those teeth? We’re talking sharp.”
Gavin dragged the wooden cage over to where Mike and John sat with the puppies. When John had come to get him to see something outside the camp, for some reason Mike thought it was an edible plant or maybe a broken snare. He should have known when John wouldn’t tell him what it was that Gavin had to be involved.
And it had to be something daft.
“Did you just find them in the woods? Is that possible?” Mike stretched a hand out to the basket and all three puppies attacked it with their tongues.
“Is that what John told you?” Gavin said, grinning. “Yeah, that’d be the luck, wouldn’t it? No, Da. We got ‘em for trade when a bloke came by the came this morning.”
“What bloke? When did somebody come by the camp?”
The rules were clear about strangers approaching the community. If any did they were to be immediately brought to Mike.
Obviously the rules of the old regime had been quickly scuttled.
“He was just a trader, like, Da,” Gavin said in his best scoffing tone. “He said he’d run into Brian on the way to Dublin and that he was to bring this lot straightaway to us.”
“Brian told him to give you fecking wolves?”
“It’s for the camp’s defense, Uncle Mike,” John said, scooping up one of the puppies and cuddling it in his arms. “Mr. Gilhooley says we can train them. Other places are doing it. People have been bringing ‘em over from the UK to train as guard dogs.”
“He is totally off his nut. That is the craziest idea I ever heard of.”
“Brian said you’d say something like that.”
“Watch your mouth, boy.” Mike stood up from the crouch he’d assumed to examine the dogs and straightened his back. With dinnertime almost upon them, the temperature had dropped and so had the light. “Who knows anything about training wolves? It’s insane.”
“Well, if other places are doing it, we can learn to do it too.”
“What did you trade for the puppies if I may be so bold as to ask?”
Gavin looked at John as if to warn him to keep his mouth shut. He shrugged. “Brian had already given the bloke whatever he needed for ‘em,” he said.
“They’re not living with us,” Mike said. “And they’re not getting any of my meat ration, either.”
“It’s for the good of the camp!” Gavin said.
“Bullshite.”
“John!”
Mike turned in the direction of the camp entrance one hundred yards away. “Is that your mum, John? Sounds like she’s looking for you.”
John stood up, still holding the little female he’d picked up. “But who’ll take care of the puppies?”
“They’re all going back to our place for the night any way,” Gavin said reaching for John’s dog. “Go see what she wants.”
“They are not coming back to our place,” Mike said. “I’ll not have whining and crapping and peeing all night long—at least not any more than I have to put up with living with the two of you.”
“Da, please! John and I’ll take all the care of them.”
“We will, Uncle Mike. You won’t have to do a thing.”
“John! Are you outside the camp? Answer me!”
Mike gave John a gentle push toward the camp. “Go on now before she sends out the militia. The dogs’ll be back at our place when she’s finished with you.”
John grinned and handed the dog to Mike before dashing off in the direction of Sarah’s voice. Mike looked down at the little wolf, who promptly licked him in the face and whimpered.
“Jaysus, Joseph and Mary,” he muttered, wiping off his cheek. “Whatever the hell next?”
“Da, can you carry the cage back to our place? Now that John’s buggered off, I can’t do both.”
“I reckon that’s what you’ll say when he climbs on that helicopter day after tomorrow, too, Gavin. How are you going to handle these three on your own?”
“I can do it, Da. Brian has a book on training ‘em.”
“Right. Because you are so good with rubbish you learn out of books.” But he handed the puppy to Gavin and bent down to pick up the cage. When they turned back to the camp entrance, Mike was surprised to see the new addition of a large white sign that was nailed to the gateposts. He stopped to stare at it.
“It’s Mary Collins painted it,” Gavin said, seeing where he was looking. “She used to do computer graphics before the bomb but she has a fair hand at drawing letters.”
The letters were stark black against the white background of the back of a placard. It had once been a sign in Ballinagh, Mike knew. In another life, it had hung over the hardware store entrance.
It read, Welcome to Daoineville
“It just made sense to change the name, you know?” Gavin said. He kicked at the dirt with the toe of his trainer and hoisted the basket of puppies higher into his arms.
Mike grunted.
“Daoine is Gaelic for people,” Gavin said.
“Mebbe. But adding ville to the end is just barking.”
“Well, at least it sounds less like a dictatorship.”
“I never named the place Donovan’s Lot! That was a joke!”
“Still. Better not to have a joke name, don’t you think?”
“Bugger it.”
“Did you hear Brian’s thinking of requiring Gaelic be taught in the school? And only Irish is to be spoken in the home? And any newcomers wishing to be considered for entrance have to be fluent in Irish?”
“Hey, it’s what the buggers wanted. He is what you all wanted.”
“He’s doing some real good, Da.”
“Aye, and Hitler always had the trains run on time.”
“Well, it must be change everyone wanted,” Gavin said. Mike could tell the boy didn’t know how to comfortably speak to him about the election.
“I hear you’re already working on a new jail?”
Gavin nodded, not looking at Mike. “Declan set me to it,” he said. “Me and Iain.”
“And you’re fine with them executing poor Ollie tomorrow?” He watched his son closely. “The two of you were mates, weren’t you?”
“We never were. We played football in the field sometimes is all.”
“So, you’re okay with them hanging him?”
“Da, he killed Eeny.”
“It’s not that simple, Gavin.”
“Brian says it is,” Gavin said as he pushed past his father to enter into the camp. “Brian says sometimes the clearest most rightest things are the simplest.”
“Does he,” Mike muttered. “I think that’s the same thing some serial killers say.”
“After the jail, we’re gonna build a school. Did you know that? We’ve got enough kiddies now. And Brian’s wife is a school teacher and a nurse.”
“She’s both?”
“Brian says she’s an angel. You should see him, Da. He gets tears in his eyes just talking about her.”
“Very touching.”
“Who do you think the father of Papin’s baby is?” Gavin nodded to his girlfriend, Jenna McGurthy, as they walked past the camp center cook fire, a bubbling rabbit stew in the large black pot. “The gypsies have odds on it.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“They tell me I’m the leading suspect.”
“You?” Mike stopped walking. “In the name of all that is holy, boy, tell me there’s no truth to that…that…”
“Blimey, Da, you’re gonna have a stroke. Of course not. Papin’s like me sister…or a really cute second cousin.”
“Gavin…”
“I’m having you on, Da.”
“And you have no idea of who it might be? What about that shifty little bastard, Bobby McClure?”
“Nah, he hasn’t got the stones. It can’t be anyone in camp. Are we even sure she’s really up the flue? Mebbe she’s lying?”
“Aunt Fi says she’s puking pretty steady mornings.”
“Oh, well.”
“If you hear of anything, you’ll pass it on to me, ya hear?”
“Sure, Da.”
Mike shook his head as Gavin quickened his pace heading toward their hut, the wolf pups whining rising higher and higher on the escalating night breeze.
There was a time, she would’ve told me, Sarah thought as she hurried to Fiona’s cottage the next morning. Her mind was a jumble of questions that had kept her awake most of the night. When she went to Mike’s to see if John was up yet, she found the place empty. She called out his name as she walked over to Fiona’s place.
Where could the boy be? Wherever he was, he must have gone there even before the camp was awake.
Was she losing total control of both her children?
As she drew closer to Fiona’s cottage, she saw Papin sitting on the front porch. Papin startled when she saw Sarah and jumped up.
“Oh, no you don’t, Papin,” Sarah called. “I will just track you down wherever you go.”
She watched the girl slowly turn back and slump down into her chair. Sarah stood facing her. “Who is the father?”
“That’s all you care about, isn’t it, Sarah?”
“Who is it? Is it that little rodent, Jimmy Dorsey?”
Papin made a face. “Don’t be insulting. I wouldn’t let Jimmy Dorsey touch me tits for a dollar.”
Sarah knew Papin was trying to shock her. “Wow. Good to know you have boundaries.”
Papin pointed to her stomach and smiled smugly. “Well, clearly not.”
“This isn’t a joke, Papin!” Sarah ran her fingers through her hair. “You’re going to have a baby!”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I want this baby? That maybe this isn’t an accident?”
“In that case, you’re more confused than I gave you credit for. Who did this, Papin?”
“No.”
“Why are you protecting him? Is he married?”
Papin stood up and Sarah could see her bottom lip was trembling.
Had she hit a nerve? Was the baby’s father married?
“I’m done talking with you about this,” Papin said, her voice shaky. “Auntie Fi says I should rest a lot so I’m going in.”
“We’re not done, Papin,” Sarah said. But Papin fled into the house and slammed the door. Sarah sat down on the wooden bench on the porch. The confrontation had left her shaky, too.
Why wouldn’t she say who the father was?
Papin hadn’t left Donovan’s Lot even for fifteen minutes, except for last week when they rode to David’s grave, not since the moment Mike brought her here from Wales. As she sat on Fiona’s porch watching the clouds gather in the sky again for another morning downpour, it suddenly occurred to Sarah that Papin had been nearly terrified to go as far as David’s gravesite.
Maybe it hadn’t been a fit of nerves with the horse but more about leaving the camp that had her so nervous? And if Papin had developed into a king-size agoraphobe during the last seven months, just what exactly would the thought of flying to the States and starting a new life there do to her, I wonder?
She glanced in the living room window to see Fiona talking to Papin. Sarah watched her hand Papin a mug of tea and put a shawl around the girl’s shoulders.
Me, she runs from and keeps secrets but for Auntie Fi, she’s a purring kitten. Maybe I should let Fi raise her.
“Mom? You wanted me?”
Sarah was startled by John’s sudden appearance in front of her and took in a quick intake of air. “Lord, John, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Yes. Where were you? I couldn’t find you anywhere in camp.”
“I was right outside the entrance with Gavin and Uncle Mike.”
“Whatever for?”
“It was just something we found we wanted to show him. Did you need me for something? I’m still staying at Gavin’s tonight, right?”
“Something interesting happening at Gavin’s tonight?”
“Not really. Whose house am I eating at?” He wrinkled his nose and looked up at Fiona’s cottage. “Don’t tell me the Widow Murrays. I heard she once cooked her cat.”
“No, she’s going to Aideen and Taffy’s place tonight. I supposed you can either go wherever Mike goes or you can come to Fi’s. Your choice.”
“Where are you eating tonight?”
“Fi’s.”
“Then I will, too.”
Before he could leave, Sarah moved down the steps toward him. “John?”
“Yeah?”
“I just wanted to…thank you for being okay about our leaving tomorrow.”
“I’m not okay with it.”
“No, I know. I meant, in spite of the fact that you don’t want to go, you’re not giving me a hard time. Thank you.”
“Okay. Is that all?”
She nodded. “Sure. See you at dinner in an hour.”
But he had already trotted away in the direction of Mike’s place. She watched him go and envied the fact that he was welcome there.
Dinner was a disaster right from the start.
Sarah had not expected Mike to be there. When her bunkmate, the acerbic Widow Murray had received the dinner invitation for dinner at Aideen’s, Sarah assumed Mike would be in attendance there. After all, Aideen was his effing fiancée now. Sarah had been invited too, but Sarah sent her roommate off with her regrets.
Actually, the exchange had involved a healthy dose of the old widow’s opinion that turning down friendly dinner invitations was part and parcel of the main reason “why no one likes you, Miss America, because you’re always thinking you’re better than everyone,” although what prompted the outburst or the opinion was beyond Sara’s ability to understand.
But still, she had assumed Mike would be there.
Unless he had assumed she would be there? And so he was trying to be elsewhere?
In any case, the table at Fiona and Declan’s held the two lovebirds, a chatty and oblivious John, two people who were careful not to look at, speak to or, God forbid, touch each other all during dinner, and a sullen, pregnant gypsy teenager.
The numbers rounded out to a classic family table: two parents, two kids, and a loving aunt and uncle. It made the reality all the more painful to bear. The minute Mike walked into Fi’s house, Sarah’s stomach did its usual flip-flop just to see him. His hair blown thick and wild around his face and his eyes, so blue, so piercing, it was all she could do not to fan herself.
There was nothing comfortable about the feeling.
Except for John and Declan, Sarah had a bone to pick with just about everybody at that table. She thumped down a steaming bowl of buttered squash.
“Sorry about the election,” she said to Mike without looking at him.
He ignored her and sat next to Papin at the table. Sarah watched him pull Papin’s chair over to his where he leaned over and looked into her eyes and spoke in a low voice. A part of Sarah was relieved that Mike was there to back her up, to talk to Papin, to possibly get something out of the girl besides sass and monosyllables. One look at the exchange between them quickly dashed her hopes.
Papin had never openly defied Mike and so to see her cross her arms now and resolutely refuse to even look at him or speak was shocking to Sarah. She watched frustration war with outright anger in Mike’s face as he continued to talk to Papin, but it was clear from her expression that no naming of the father would be forthcoming tonight.
“I don’t understand why you won’t tell us,” Sarah said, sitting next to Papin. “Why the big secret?” she said with exasperation.
“I’m handling it, Sarah,” Mike said quietly.
“Well, no you’re not. She’s sitting there rolling her eyes and you’re talking to a wall. Is it a boy we all know? Is he afraid he’ll be banished from the community?” She looked at Mike. “Is that the punishment for this sort of thing?”
“How the feck would I know?” he said, finally looking at her. “I’m not in charge anymore. For all I know, they’ll want to tar and feather him.”
“Michael Donovan!” Fiona said as she came to the table with a large tureen of rabbit stew. “You’ll not say such things at my dinner table!”
“Yeah, sorry, Fi,” Mike said, leaning back in his chair. He looked behind her. “Dec not here tonight?”
“He’s late. Obviously,” Fi said, putting the tureen down but keeping her voice hard. Fiona didn’t forgive easily, Sarah knew. It had been a pretty terrible thing to say.
But Papin appeared oblivious to everything happening around. Sarah couldn’t understand it. It was like Papin had morphed into a different person. And while Sarah had heard of such things happening—especially with girl teens—the speed of the transformation was staggering.
“Besides,” Fiona said, picking up Papin’s bowl and ladling stew into it. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Papin’s going to the States tomorrow so it doesn’t matter who the father is.”
John looked at Papin for the first time. “So will it be born an American even if its parents are both Irish?”
“I’ll know who the feck it is before anybody leaves for anywhere,” Mike said pushing back in his chair.
“Well, I don’t know how you will if she won’t say,” Sarah said.
“Then you’ll not be taking her.”
“What? You can’t do that,” Sarah said hotly. “She’s coming with me and that’s final.” She turned to Papin. “You still want to go, don’t you?”
Papin just shrugged and picked up her spoon.
“Of course she wants to go,” Fiona said. “And it’s the best thing for her, too,” she said to Mike. “There’ll be all sorts of…resources for her there. A lot more than we can do for her here, living in the equivalent of the eighteenth century.”
Sarah glanced at Fiona and wondered for the first time if she felt insecure about having her baby without a doctor or the blessings of modern medicine. Of course she must. It stood to reason. There had been several babies born in the camp in the last two years, but it hadn’t been an easy time.
Not a bit of it.
“I’ll have the name of the bastard who did this or nobody goes anywhere,” Mike said, but Sarah could see the heat had gone from his voice. He wouldn’t stop them. He just didn’t know what else to do.
“I’m not hungry,” Papin said, standing up. “Auntie Fi, can I retire for the night?”
“It’s not even six o’clock,” Sarah said.
“Auntie Fi?”
“Yes, of course, darlin,’” Fi said. “Go on now and lie down. I’ll be in to see you in a bit.”
Papin smiled thinly at Fiona and, not giving a glance to either Sarah or Mike, excused herself and left the table.
Sarah looked at Mike. “She’s mad at us.”
“American pop psychology?” he said pulling the stew tureen toward his plate.
“It’s obvious. I can’t believe you can’t see it. It’s classic. We’re splitting up and she’s behaving like every other child of a divorce behaves when that happens. She’s angry at both of us.”
“Well, it’s not my fault, is it? And she knows that. Hell, the whole camp knows that.”
Then she’s mad at you because you’re not stopping me.
Suddenly John jumped up and ran to the door. He had it open and was leaping off the porch before Sarah realized he wasn’t trying to compete with Papin for throwing the biggest tantrum of his life.
There was a gas-powered vehicle roaring up to the front of the cottage right through the center of camp.
Sarah wasn’t the last person to reach the porch to see for herself what all the excitement was about, but she was the first to realize it wasn’t good.
A young man dressed in the uniform of a first lieutenant in the United States Marines sat astride a military-issue motorcycle with the insignia of the United States decaled on the side. Sarah watched him remove his goggles, his machine idling loudly between his legs as he waited for everyone to gather around.
Were all young American service personnel this confident of their place in the world? she thought with wonder as she watched the young man grin lazily at two gypsy girls tittering from the front row of the growing crowd.
Mike walked up and the young officer, his smile never leaving his face, and nodded pleasantly at him.
“Good evening, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry if I interrupted your dinner.”
Sarah could see that Mike, like everyone else in camp, was mesmerized by the sight of the motorbike. It had been so long since anyone had heard the sound of an engine running that it sounded as unnatural now as if it were the call of an African baboon.
“No problem,” Mike said, still looking more at the man’s bike than at him. “Can we help you with something? I assume you have GPS and aren’t here accidentally.”
The young man laughed, and even from the distance of the front porch where she still stood Sarah could feel the charisma pinging off him in waves. He was a man used to having people listen to him, like him, and envy him.
Especially here, especially now.
He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope. Even before he spoke, Sarah knew it was for her.
“I have a message from the consulate in Limerick for an American national by the name of Sarah Woodson.”
Mike turned to look at Sarah, who descended the porch steps. John fell in with her as she approached the officer. She knew the whole camp was watching and she felt a blanket of mortification that this handsome, well-fed and downright cocky young was a representative of her country. He and his careless charm were a billboard exclamation to the whole camp that soon Sarah would be riding in gas-powered cars again, sleeping in the comfort of central heat and air conditioning, living the easy life back in the US.
After she had struggled to put on a decent meal tonight of stew and corn bread—as she knew every other family in the camp had, too—it embarrassed her to have to blatantly admit that, unlike them, soon she wouldn’t have to. It said to them all: not everyone is suffering in this new world of ours. Some people haven’t even missed a beat
“Mrs. Woodson. Ma’am,” the officer said, handing her the message and then grinning at John. “And I’ll bet this is, John. How ya doing, sport? You ready to go home? Looks like you’ll make it back just in time for the start of the school year. Sorry about that.”
Sarah watched John smile politely, but his eyes—like everyone else’s in camp—were on the motorcycle. She stuffed the envelope into her jeans pocket and nodded to him. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She just wanted him gone, although the damage was well and completely done by now. “Is a reply from me needed?”
“No, ma’am. You don’t need to do anything but show up in Limerick tomorrow. This is just a formality.” He revved up his machine and Sarah watched Mike take an involuntary step back. The rest of the men in the camp, John included, moaned with pleasure at the sound as the man resettled his goggles on his face, gave an airy salute to Mike and a thumbs up to John, and turned around to drive slowly out of camp.
Before anyone had a chance to move, the sound came to them of the squeal of the bike’s motor as the officer shifted into a higher speed for his ride back to Limerick.
“Holy shite,” one of the gypsies said. “Looks like it really is business as usual for the Yanks. In-feckin’-credible. Did you see that beauty? What I wouldn’t give.”
Declan pushed his way through the throng to where Mike, Sarah and John were standing. “What did he want?” he asked, looking at Sarah.
She pulled the envelope out of her pocket and moved to the camp center cook fire to read its contents by its flickering light.
With the bike gone, John went back to Fiona’s for the rest of his supper. Sarah watched the rest of the crowd disperse as she drew a single sheet of paper out of the folded envelope.
Declan and Mike flanked her as she read it.
“I don’t believe this,” she said, reading and re-reading the short missive. “This can’t be right.”
“What is it? Is it about the trip tomorrow?” Mike said.
Sarah turned to look at him but she didn’t see his face. What she saw were the first crumbling pieces of her dream as they began to shatter at her feet.
“It’s about Papin,” she said. “Because she’s a British subject, they won’t let me bring her with me.”