The morning brought with it the first hint that fall was coming. A bite to the air sifted between the bars of the jail cell where the three men were just waking. Mike stood by the window to inhale as much of the sweet air from the meadows as he could. Just the week before, members of the community had taken the remaining wheat to the little town of Callan—nearly fifty miles away—to have it ground into flour. Mike was proud that the members had been able to orchestrate such an important task on their own without him holding their hands every step of the way.
There was truth to the idea that he hadn’t been good at delegating. He looked over his shoulder at his sleeping son in the hay and felt a debilitating wash of weariness. On the other hand, while it’s true they got the wheat milled without buggering it up, they were also going to stand by and watch a public murder and not raise a hand or a voice.
These people who he had laughed with, shared hard times and good times, who he had called his friends as well as his neighbors, were going to watch him hang, and Declan too—the man who risked his life to save their ungrateful arses barely a year ago. He shook his head but deep down, he understood them.
When it comes to sheep, even a shepherd lobbing hand grenades at you is better than no shepherd at all.
“Mike? You up?” Declan’s voice was soft and raspy. He’d had a bad night.
Not surprisingly.
“Aye. How you doing?”
“I’ve been better.”
Mike turned his attention to Gavin who was sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He looked so young. Mike remembered the boy as a toddler when Ellen would carry him about the cottage and sing to him. A stone settled on his heart to think of how much she had loved him.
Had loved them both.
“They’re coming,” Declan said.
Mike turned to see the group walking down from the main camp. It looked like it was Jamison, Gilhooley, Archie and the twins, Cedric and Colin. Five against two, and the two still securely tied.
Nobody spoke until the door to Mike’s cell swung open. Jamison filled the doorway. He didn’t look at Mike but gestured to Gavin. “Say goodbye to your da,”
“You’re a right bastard and I hope you rot in hell, Iain Jamison,” Gavin said, tears choking his voice.
Iain backed out of the cell, leaving the door open. “You’re likely right, lad.”
Mike heard the other cell door opening and he turned to Gavin. He had spent most of last night wondering what in the world he would say to the boy if a miracle didn’t happen and they came for him.
He still didn’t know what to say. He cleared his throat and held out his hands, still bound. The boy rushed to him, his own hands also tied, and rested his face against Mike’s shoulder.
“I love you, lad,” Mike said hoarsely. “Mind you take care of your Auntie Fi.”
“I will, Da,” Gavin said, trying to talk past his tears.
“I’m proud of you, Gav. I’ve always been proud of you, son.”
“I love you, Da.”
“I love you, too. And Gavin?”
“Yes?”
“Promise me you won’t look.”
Brian ordered every member of the community to watch the hangings. They stood, all sixty of them, shoulder to shoulder in front of the seven-foot high stage. As Mike stood over the secured trap door, the noose tight around his neck, he could see most of the people he knew.
There was Caoimhe Byrne, who Fiona had nursed for a week because the poor bastard had no kin who could or would. There was Cian O’Neill, who Mike carried on his back for three miles across a rocky pasture because he’d turned an ankle out hunting.
If he wouldn’t do anything to stop it, he at least, had the decency to stand watching with tears streaming down his face. There was Ciara O’Reilly, shaking her head and mouthing the words sorry, I’m so sorry. Mike had rescued her eldest boy, Dan, from a wild boar and still carried the scar on his calf from the beast’s tusk to show for it.
“What part of you thinks justice is being done here today?” he shouted at to them.
The crowd murmured. A few looked up at him. Most simply shuffled and looked at the ground.
“There was no trial that brought me and Declan here. Just vengeance and racism. That’s all that’s being proven today. Every last one of you that stands there and does nothing is a part of it as surely as if you’d put the noose around our necks yourself.”
“Well, did you do it, Mike?” Someone yelled out. “Did you let young Ollie go?”
“That’s not why I’m here, Jerry,” Mike called back. “I’m here because that man has nowhere to go with his grief over his dead daughter but to lay it at my feet.”
A few in the crowd turned to look at Archie, who stood glowering at Mike, his arms crossed against his chest, his face purple with hate and, now, embarrassment.
“Shut up. You’re not being punished for your wife’s death,” Archie shouted. “He’s being punished for letting Ollie go.”
“Yeah, but wasn’t he acting leader at the time?” somebody called out.
“That doesn’t matter,” Gilhooley said. “It was in direct violation of my orders!”
“Cor, sure sounds like you give as many orders as Mike did. And I’m still waiting for my extra ration of sugar to show up.”
The voices in the crowd swelled like a wave cresting as more people added their complaints to the growing din.
“This is neither the time nor the place!” Gilhooley yelled, trying to silence the crowd. “After the execution, we’ll have a general camp meeting to address all of your concerns. Tell me you ever did that with Mike Donovan?”
Mike saw the crowd consider Gilhooley’s words. No, he’d never had a camp meeting to do anything but to tell them what would happen next. A couple of them nodded as if they had to agree with that.
“This is just the vengeance of one old man,” Mike said. “This is murder.”
“Enough talking!” Archie yelled out. “Jamison, do your job!”
Mike turned to look at Declan who stood impassive and unnerved. He stared straight ahead, not looking around, refusing to look at Mike.
If that’s what he needs to do to get through this, Mike thought with resignation, I’ll not fault him. Mike turned away to close his eyes and pray.
God, please don’t let Gav see this to be tortured with it the rest of his days. Please look over Fiona and her bairn and watch over me and Dec as we come to you, please God, this day.
And dear Lord, please have my Sarah finally happy with her life wherever she wants to be.
Into your hands, I commend my soul.
***
Fiona saw the two of them as they stood on the stage and forced herself not to react to the sight of it.
She’d been preparing herself for much worse.
The horse she rode was skittish, used to pulling a cart and green under saddle. She knew she telegraphed her nerves to him through her knees and thighs, her hands jerking on the reins.
He didn’t so much enter the camp as charge it.
Fiona twisted a handful of his mane into her hands and hung on as he galloped through the gate and straight down the main pathway to the center campfire and the staging area. She saw Mike standing with his head down, his hands in front of him as if praying. Her own husband watched her come, his eyes growing larger as she neared.
She was grateful no one was directly in her path. The few who were too close had only a moment to jump out of the way before she barreled on through and up to the foot of the stage. Her chest heaving with fear and anticipation, she watched Gilhooley and Jamison stare at her with open-mouthed shock. But neither went for their pistols.
Sarah was right about that, Fiona thought, with breathless satisfaction, feeling the strength she needed well up in her chest. If the bastards think you’re weak, you can catch ‘em off guard. She pulled out the handgun and pointed it at Iain Jamison’s head.
She could hear the members of the community gasp but she wasn’t worried. With her back to them any one of them could approach her from behind and pull her down from her horse—even now dancing about as if his feet were on fire. But she knew they wouldn’t. They weren’t participants in this nightmare. They were only watchers.
Her gun arm wobbled and she fought to keep it aimed at Iain. Instead of reaching for his gun, Iain raised his hands in surrender. It was then she knew he didn’t want to go forward with any of this. He had been waiting for an opportunity to back out of it.
“Declan, Mike, back away from the trap doors,” she said, hating her voice for sounding so shrill and feminine.
“Are you going to just let her do this?” Another female voice punctured the air, rising several decibels with each word.
Fiona didn’t bother to look at Caitlin. She cocked her semiautomatic with one hand and struggled to keep control of her mount with the other. “We’re leaving the way we came in,” she said, panting and trying not to think about what she was doing or how she was going to get Mike and Dec out of the camp.
Thinking too much was never good.
If she’d heard Sarah say that once, she’d heard it a hundred times.
She was amazed that still nobody moved. To Fiona, it was almost as if the crowd was waiting for the show to start. Which is why, when she heard the rustling and murmuring grow louder—yet nothing on stage had happened to warrant it—she turned to see what was happening.
Behind her, a stream of men and women poured into the staging area from all sides of the camp. The gypsies who normally kept to themselves pushed to the front of crowd. Fiona could see they were armed and that they held their weapons in their hands ready to use. Still pointing her gun at Iain, Fiona shifted in her saddle to see that the three largest gypsies stood at the foot of the stage in front of Declan.
But they were looking at her.
She directed her attention back to the stage and steadied her aim. “Untie them.”
Iain moved quickly to Declan and jerked his hands free of the leather thong. He turned and did the same for Mike and then stepped away, his hands held up.
“You coward!” Gilhooley shouted at him. “Nobody move! This execution will go on as planned!”
Fiona saw him grope for the gun he had jammed in his belt loop, but before he could reach it Caitlin jerked it from him and pointed it at Mike.
Instantly, Fiona corrected her aim and pulled the trigger. She watched Caitlin jerk backward as the bullet punched into her chest at the same time Fiona’s horse screamed and wheeled away at the loud report. As she grabbed at the saddle to stay upright, the gun slipped from her fingers. A roar from the crowd engulfed her and she felt rough, harsh hands grabbing at her and pulling her to the ground.
She hit the earth hard and felt the air punch out of her lungs in a violent expulsion. When she opened her eyes, Archie Kelly was standing over her. He held her by her jacket in one hand, and drew his other back in a large meaty fist aimed for her face. Before she could bring her hands up to protect her face—or the baby—hands reached out and grabbed Archie, yanking him away. Fiona scrambled to her feet and felt herself being pulled to the perimeter of the melee. Siobhan Murray, with a bloody lip, held her tightly by the elbow and pushed them both to the outskirts.
“Watch yourself now, darlin’,” Siobhan said soothingly. “We’ll not let the bastards have their way this day!”
Did…did I just shoot Caitlin?
Fiona turned to see the gypsies ripping down the stage with their bare hands. Some of them were running after the Kelly twins, chasing them with planks of wood with jagged nails sticking out of them.
“Where…can you see Dec and Mike?”
“Oh, they’re fine now, lass. Don’t you worry. Let’s just get you and the little one somewhere safe while we wait out the row, aye?”
“Siobhan…did…did I…is Caitlin dead?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know. Seeing as how she was spawned from the depths of hell, we probably won’t know for certain if she’s really dead. But we can hope!”
Fiona allowed Siobhan to take her to the porch of her old cottage and sat with her on the bench and watched the battle as the members of Daoineville took back its community with a two by four to the head.
She could see Gilhooley bending over Caitlin’s body on the stage and her stomach lurched to see it. Demon from hell or not, she thought, trying to swallow past her bile, did I kill her?
“Hello, my beauty.”
She snapped her head to the other side of where she was sitting with Siobhan to find Declan—a fresh cut over his right eye—and a broad grin on his face. “Oh, Dec!” She launched herself into his arms. “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe it.”
“Nor me, darlin,’” he said laughing. “Did you really decide to spring me and your brother all by your lonesome?”
She looked at him with wonder. Hearing him say the words made her realize how mad the idea had been. “I guess I did. But oh, Dec! Your family came! At just the right moment!”
“Aye, they said they went to find you at the cottage and Aideen told them what you were up to. You know they’ve decided you’re their new Gypsy Queen? My wonderful Fiona—mad, beautiful and brave as any gypsy goddess you could hope for.” He kissed her.
Siobhan leaned in to speak over the fighting still going on. “Not to take anything away from the gypsies, mind,” she said pointedly to Declan, “but the people of Daoineville are finishing the job they started. Let’s don’t leave that part out of the story when it gets told around the campfire.”
“It’s true,” Dec said, putting his arm around Fiona. “When that nutter Kelly went for you—a pregnant woman, no less—it finally stirred something in the crowd.”
“The very idea—attacking a woman with child!” Siobhan said. “What are they, English?”
A shadow descended across the front porch and Fiona looked up to see Mike and Gavin walking away from the dismantled stage.
“Mind if I kiss my rescuer?” Mike said, leaning in to kiss Fiona on the cheek. “Sure, I never imagined in my wildest days that it would be you, Fi. And six months pregnant to boot!”
“I know,” Fi said, feeling the glow of his praise and the pure joy that he and Declan were safe. “Sarah always said a woman’s best weapon was a man’s blatant disrespect of her abilities. ‘You can always take ‘em by surprise,’ she said.”
Fiona saw Mike’s face soften as he brought Sarah to mind. “Aye,” he said. “I can just hear her.” He leaned in and kissed her again and then slapped Declan on the knee. “Come on, mate. Let’s mop up what’s left of this mess.”
Declan gave her a last squeeze before bounding down the stairs to join the gypsies and the cleanup of the melee.
Fiona watched him go and realized that the day that had started so poorly—so full of terror and hopelessness—was ending with a happiness she had no right to ever imagine or hope for.
And all it took was riding into an armed camp with one gun on an unreliable horse and a determination not to accept failure.
Fiona placed her hand on her swollen tummy and leaned back against the house and watched the activity before her. Archie and Gilhooley were both on their knees weeping by Caitlin’s body, but being watched closely by Declan, who stood near them with a gun in his hand. The stage was now a pile of splintered wood and Fiona watched two gypsies dragging pieces of board to the main cook fire.
Women walked by with babies on their hips as if today were no different than the last time a stage was constructed—at the Harvest Festival. A few of the gypsy women smiled shyly at Fiona as they passed. One waved.
As Fiona watched the camp right itself, she slipped her hand into Siobhan’s without speaking. The old woman turned to look at her and Fiona watched her face visibly ease.
“You all right?” Siobhan asked. “Quite a bit of excitement for so early in the morning.”
“I’m good,” Fiona said. “I’m real good.” She beamed and let the glory of the morning—and what she had done—wash over her.
She had changed the tide. She, Fiona, had turned it all around when no one else could. And now Mike was back bossing people around with Declan, his best mate, at his side just as before.
And on top of it all, she was home again. She was sitting on her own front porch, safely reinstated in her own tiny corner of the world. Fiona smiled and closed her eyes, feeling the sun break through the thick morning clouds to caress her upturned face.
Sarah, darling, you would’ve been proud of me today.