The walk back from the village graveyard was a somber one. Fiona drove the cart with a few of the children from the village, including Taffy, while Declan walked along side. The morning was chilly, wet and gray.
Perfect for a funeral. Even better for three.
Caitlin and her brothers, the only fatalities from the fight the day before, were buried together in the Ballinagh kirkyard with the sun struggling to peek through the clouds that hung low in the sky before finally giving up the effort.
When Mike asked Declan to find out how the twins had died, his brother-in-law only shrugged. It appeared the gypsy fathers and brothers of the raped girls of the camp were not able to tell Cedric from Colin, nor did they care to. Justice was justice. Sometimes slow in coming, but always coming.
Gilhooley and Archie trudged side by side to the funeral, although Mike never saw them exchange a word. The fight seemed to have gone out of both of them during the long day and night since the three Kelly siblings had been slain. Even so, Mike locked them both up in the newly built jail so that the rest of the camp might sleep without worry.
Both would leave immediately following the burial with whatever belongings they came with—except for their weapons.
Mike drove the cart from the burial with Aideen and some of the older women of the camp, including Iain’s wife, Edie, who sat in front with Mike and Aideen. Iain walked behind, dishonored and dejected. Because he refused to hang Gavin, Mike allowed him to keep his weapons.
But he too would have to leave.
Mike looked over at Edie sitting rigidly next to Aideen, her face impassive and unreadable. He kept his voice low although the children in back were too young to understand.
“I’m happy for you to stay, Edie,” he said. “You don’t have to go with him.”
Edie gave a snort of derision, but whether it was intended for Mike or the situation, Mike didn’t know. “He’s my husband,” she said. “For better or feckin’ worse.”
“If you ever want to return, you are welcome any time.”
“Thank you, Mike,” she said, not looking at him. “And…” She fumbled for a tissue in the sleeve of her cardigan and Mike felt Aideen stiffen. “And I’m sorry for everything he did.”
“No need to apologize for him…”
“You mean for him nearly hanging you? I’d say there is.”
“It wasn’t you.”
“No, but I married him.”
Mike didn’t speak after that. It had been hard enough to watch the three young people lowered into the grave. His eyes kept straying to the grave close by that they had just dug three weeks before.
Sleep well, little Papin, he thought sadly. We miss you, girl.
When they reached the camp, Mike helped the two women down, but before Aideen turned away she held onto his arm. “A word, Mike?”
Nodding, he followed her away from the cart to stand in front of his hut. He and Gavin had moved back in the night before.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you’ll reconsider and let Iain stay?”
He looked at her with surprise, but before he could speak she hurried on.
“It’s just that we all make mistakes and everyone knows that as soon as Fiona showed up, Iain was fighting on our side…on the side of the camp, I mean, not Brian’s.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“He told Edie he’s sorry about all of it. You can’t see it in your heart to let him stay? I mean, it means Edie and the babies are out in the cold, too.”
“I said they could stay. But it’s her decision.”
“I know, but won’t you reconsider?”
“You’ve become friendly with Edie.”
“We have a lot in common. I adore her little boys and Taffy gets on well with them, too.”
“Did she ask you to talk to me?”
Aideen laughed without humor. “As if I had any special influence over you.”
“Of course you do,” Mike said, resisting the impulse to touch her shoulder to assure her. “But I can’t let him stay. Gilhooly was barking mad about a lot of things, but on that he wasn’t wrong.” Mike shrugged. “I was soft. I nearly paid the ultimate price for that. I won’t soon do it again. I’m sorry, Aideen. He needs to go.”
She nodded and looked down at her feet. “In that case,” she said, “I think I’ll likely go with them.”
“Are you serious?” He was stunned. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know, Mike,” she said brightly. “Maybe because I’m in love with someone who every time I see him tears my heart right out of my chest and I think I stand some chance of being happy if I’m away from him?”
He blinked at her as if she had started speaking a foreign language. He couldn’t believe she would leave the safety and comfort of an established community just to save herself the discomfort of laying eyes on him. “Is it that bad, then?”
She laughed and shook her head. “You really are clueless, aren’t you? Yes. Yes, it’s that bad.”
“Where will you go?”
“Iain says he’s heard of a place over on the coast. He’s learned a lot, Mike. He’s learned what not to do. And he’s learned all he has to lose, too. We’re all going to start over. I’m not sad about it. I don’t want you to be either.”
He shook his head and this time he did give in to the urge to touch her. He put his head next to hers and they stood quietly for a moment. “If you’re sure,” he said.
“I am.”
“I’m as sorry as I can be.”
“Don’t be. It is what it is, as a wise man once told me.” She lifted her face to him and kissed him on the mouth. “Take care of yourself, Mike Donovan,” she said. “I wish you happiness.”
“And me, you.”
She turned and he watched her walk to where Fiona stood waiting for her on her porch, her arms open, ready to take her in. And say goodbye.
***
Gilhooley slumped on his horse like a man who’d had his spine surgically removed, Mike thought as he approached him from his hut. The rain had started sometime in the night and had kept steady all though the morning and the burials. It was only getting worse as the day wore on.
You wouldn’t send a dog out in this shite, Mike thought. He turned to look at Archie sitting in the driver’s seat of the wagon he’d arrived in. The bed was nearly empty except for the saddles that belonged to the two riderless horses tied to the back of the wagon. Archie wore a baseball cap that did nothing to prevent the rain from sluicing down the front of his face and across his chest. He stared down at his hands holding the reins as if he didn’t see them.
Mike took the bridle of the horse in harness and patted his neck. He didn’t look at Gilhooley or his father-in-law. “Got everything then?” he asked gruffly.
Neither man answered him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gavin walk up to the wagon where Archie sat. Gavin stood for a moment as if unsure of what to do, then stuck out his hand to the older man. Mike watched Archie hesitate for a moment and then unclench from the reins to take his grandson’s hand.
“Take care of yourself, Grandda,” Gavin said. “I hope you stay well.”
Archie nodded but didn’t let go of Gavin’s hand. Mike watched him put his head close to Gavin’s to speak privately to him. Mike let them have their moment. He turned his attention to Gilhooley.
“You know how to get back to Dublin?”
Gilhooley shifted his eyes from his pommel to Mike’s face. His eyes were bloodshot and dazed, his face a picture of heartbreak.
“Don’t know that I’m going to Dublin,” he said.
“Well,” Mike said, “wherever you go, mind you never find your way back this way again.”
“I would rather die than revisit this godforsaken den of death and abomination.”
“Well, good. That works out for both of us then, since if you ever come back I’ll shoot you.”
Brian ground his teeth and looked at Mike through narrowed eyes but didn’t respond.
Mike turned his collar up against the rain and hunched into his jacket as he turned back to Archie’s wagon. Gavin untied the two horses and was leading them away to the stable.
“What’s going on here, then?” Mike asked as he walked over to the wagon.
“I gave the boy the horses,” Archie said. “I don’t need them.”
Mike nodded. Horses—even elderly plow horses—were extremely valuable during these times. And the twins’ mounts were good horses. “You’ll go back to Dublin?”
Archie shrugged. “I dunno. Me family’s all dead, aren’t they?” He stared down at his hands on the reins, his voice flat and low.
Mike nodded. “All but one.”
Archie didn’t answer.
“I never hurt Ellen,” Mike said. “I loved her.”
Archie’s face crumpled into ugly tears, his shoulders heaving under the rain as it came down even heavier. “I know,” he said softly. “I was just so…so…” He brought his hands up to cover his face. Mike resisted the impulse to touch him. With the rain had come an early advent of autumn’s chill. He shivered in his cotton jacket.
He tried to imagine how the poor bastard could be feeling—could even be sitting upright—after having buried three of his four children this morning.
It was unimaginable.
“I’m sorry.”
The words caught Mike by surprise and when he looked up, he saw the tears coursing down the old man’s face. Mike cleared his throat and forced himself not to look away from the man’s agony.
“I forgive you,” Mike said. He patted the rump of the horse in the harness. “You’d best get going if you want to find a place for the night before you drown,” he said.
“Aye.” Archie wiped his tears with a sodden jacket sleeve and looked around as if trying to decide how to maneuver the horses for the best exit from camp.
“And, Arch,” Mike said, “once you’ve had some time to think on everything and know how you feel…if you were ever to want to come back to Daoineville, you’ll have a place.”
Archie’s eyes grew round with the shock of Mike’s words and his lips trembled as his eyes strayed in the direction where Caitlin and the twins were buried. He hesitated and then nodded, not looking at Mike. “Thank you,” he said in a low voice. “I think I’d like that.”
***
Mike sat at the dinner table, thunderstruck by his wealth of blessings. He watched Fiona—surely showing her pregnancy more than she had even this morning—set down steaming bowls of mash with creamery butter, the last of the fresh corn, and a roast chicken, the fragrance of which had tormented him for the better part of an hour as it baked. Siobhan Murray was running her fingers through Gavin’s hair in an obviously futile attempt to eliminate the snarls from it and the lad was doing his best to escape her by scooting his chair closer to Declan.
It appeared that somehow the old widow had touched a nerve with Fiona. In the space of a day, she’d been granted official granny status. Mike shook his head and grinned.
A day that had begun with a noose around me neck.
“I’ll be saying grace tonight if there’s no objection,” Mike intoned seriously.
“Well, saints be praised,” Siobhan said. “If nearly killing you is what it takes to bring you back onto the path, then I’ll be sharpening me dirk.”
The table laughed.
“Thank you, Lord,” Mike said, “for this meal made by the hands of me own personal savior, Fiona Cooper…”
“All right, now,” Fiona said, wagging a spoon at Mike. “Say it proper or let me take over.”
Mike clasped his hands together and bowed his head. “Thank you, Lord, for this meal made possible by your bounty and the good weather you gave us to grow it. Thank you for letting us live another day to eat it—”
“You are terrible at this,” Declan said, shaking his head.
“And thank you for all of us together and well.”
The sounds of the rain hitting the wooden roof and shutters underscored his words with an image of safety and protection.
“Amen.”
“Amen,” everyone repeated.
As Fiona began passing the bowls, Declan turned to Mike. “So, no election to have you formally reinstated as Camp Commandant?”
Mike frowned. “It’s still not a democracy. I think we showed today that if people don’t want me as their leader, they don’t have to kill me to get rid of me. They can just tell me.”
Gavin spoke up. “But they voted you back in anyway, Da. They had the election while you were in the stables with the horses this afternoon.”
“Oh, well, then,” Mike said. “Good to know everyone was working as hard as I was this afternoon.”
“You’ll do it then?” Fiona asked. “Take over as leader?”
“He kind of already has,” Gavin said, grinning. “It’s like nothing’s changed.”
“Except everything has,” Mike said. He looked at Declan. “The loyalty of your people coming to defend you…” He shook his head. “This community could learn from them.”
“Well,” Declan said, plucking a large corn muffin from a basket. “They’re family. That’s the difference.”
“Aye. I can see that.”
“You can’t expect your neighbors to act like family,” Siobhan said. “Even if nowadays they’re really more than neighbors.”
“Wise words, Siobhan,” Mike said, grinning at her. “And may I say, I’m happy to see you at our table?”
“It’s permanent,” Fiona said, spooning into her mashed potatoes. “I’ve asked her to come live with us.” She looked at Declan but he only smiled. Asking a gypsy if he minded living in close quarters with family was like asking if he cared that rain was wet.
“You’ll be needing help with the bairn,” Siobhan said. “And the lad’s not grown yet. Not by a long shot.” She gave Gavin a pointed look and the table laughed again.
As soon as everyone turned their attention to their meals, a low-grade humming sound became instantly noticeable. Mike and Declan stood at the same time, but Gavin was faster than both of them. He was at the window looking out, but before he could even give the yelp that brought the women out of their chairs Mike saw the light in the dark as a twin pair of headlights pierced the window.
“What the feck…? Gavin, no!”
But Gavin was out the door before Mike could drop his napkin on the table. Whatever it was he’d seen, he obviously wasn’t afraid of it.
Which didn’t mean he shouldn’t be.
Mike lurched for his handgun on the side table by the couch and ran out the open door into the dark and the rain behind Gavin and Declan, who now stood stock still in front of him in the forecourt of the cottage.
Sitting before them was a large transport truck, its high beams stabbing the little cottage like aliens preparing to beam down. The engine was thrumming loudly in the quiet of the camp.
Mike squinted to see if it was another US military vehicle. He held his gun by his side. By God, US military or not, he’d not lose his camp after he’d just gotten it back. He strode purposely to the truck, blinded the whole way by the headlights until he reached the driver’s side door.
“May I help you?” he asked loudly, feeling much less sure than he sounded.
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” a familiar female voice said, “you can help me unload the groceries.”
The minute Sarah saw him, it was all she could do not to pop the clutch and lose control of the truck. John was out of his seat belt and the passenger’s seat before Mike had finished walking up to her window.
The look on Mike’s face was one she would never forget. His mouth was open, his eyes large and unbelieving. He stood there staring at her. Over his shoulder, she saw Fiona and Declan running up to them. Gavin was swinging John in a wide hug and pounding on his back in greeting. She could see lanterns turning on one by one as more and more of the community members came to investigate.
Sarah unfastened her seatbelt.
“I brought a few things,” she said, her voice shaking. “I got wine, sugar, guns, bullets. There’s a generator in the back for the refrigerator Fi’s always wanted…and a refrigerator, of course. In fact, four of them.”
And still Mike just stood there, a gun hanging from his hand, his mouth agape.
“I couldn’t remember everything you said we needed. I guess I should’ve listened better. But I got peanut butter, seeds, wool blankets, baby shoes, petrol…oh! And a satellite phone. John tried to talk me into bringing his iPod but I said no. You would’ve been proud of me, Mike, for acting the firm parent.” She watched him drag his eyes away from her to look at the seven thousand pound capacity truck. She could already hear the sounds of John and Gavin opening the back hatch.
“I’ve arranged for a small air-lift of a few more things I thought we might need, but that’ll be coming next week. Mike? It would really help if you would say something about now.”
“You brought wool blankets to a country that’s four-fifth’s sheep?” Mike’s gaze returned to her, and when it did, she grinned with relief.
“That would be an affirmative.”
Mike dropped his gun on the ground and jumped onto the truck’s running board, where he gripped the rim of the driver’s window and looked at her with wonder in his eyes.
“Sarah Woodson, I know you’re not telling me you willing left the world of hot baths and fast food restaurants to come back here and plant pole beans with us.” He reached through the window to unlock her door and jerk open her door.
“Crazy, huh?” she said, her eyes shining with unshed tears. To see him again, to hear his voice after so many weeks…she was sure her legs wouldn’t hold her. “I wonder if there’s any way I might get a commitment from you somewhere near the same scale?”
He pulled her into his arms. “Marry me.”
Her heart felt so full she could barely breathe. “That’ll work,” she said, gasping. She turned her face to his and felt his mouth insistent and probing, sending tingles of heat through her limbs. Then he stepped back to the ground with her still wrapped in his arms and swung her wide off the ground. She hugged him tight, not wanting to disentangle from him even for a moment—she had waited so long to feel his arms around her again.
She had given up so much to have it.
Somewhere in the background, she heard the sounds of Gavin and John unloading the truck. Squeals of delight from the growing crowd wafted back to her where she stood with Mike.
“So you’re back, are you?” Fiona said, throwing her arms around her. “I can’t wait to tell you how you helped me save the camp today.”
“Is it anything like how the Irish saved civilization?” Sarah asked, laughing and hugging her back. “Oh, my God! You’re huge! How is it possible for the baby to have grown so much in just three weeks?”
“Enough of that,” Fiona said. “For the love of God, did you bring chocolate?”
“I did! Barrels of it.”
Someone in the gathering crowd yelled out, “So you’re staying then?”
“Hell, yes, I’m staying,” she called back, then turned to Mike and spoke just to him. “It’s my home, isn’t it?”
He put his hand to her cheek and she could have sworn he had tears in his eyes. “Welcome home, darlin,’” he said.
“By the way,” she said, “did something happened here? What is that big pile of boards for in the middle of camp?”
“That is a long story, which I’ll tell you later when I’ve given you time to climb back into your clothes again.”
“Mike!” Sarah laughed. “John will hear you.”
“He’s too busy playing Santa to care about what his old da is getting up to with his mum.”
“Where’s Caitlin?” Sarah craned her neck to look past him. “And Aideen?”
“Everything in due time. I cannot believe you’re here. I cannot believe you’re standing right in front of me.”
“I almost wasn’t. They closed the window for travel back to the States, Mike. I can’t go back now even if I wanted to.”
“I’ll make you happy, Sarah. I swear on me mother’s grave I will.”
“Just you being alive makes me happy, Mike. Knowing you’re finally mine puts my happiness into orbit.” Sarah grinned at him, her hands still on his arms. She realized for the first time that she could touch him now whenever she wanted. There finally was no one to be hurt or to care.
“How did you come to buy all these things? Were you rich back in America and I never knew it?”
“I cashed out my retirement fund. And the US government gave me a cash award for agreeing not to sue them. Now we’ll be able to build a mill and grind our own flour. Plus, with the generators we’ll have lights for the perimeter watchtowers. I put the bulk of my funds in a US-secured bank in Dublin, so we should be able to buy more petrol as we need it.”
“I can’t believe any of this.”
“The airlift will bring solar panels in case the sun ever shines in Ireland. John said not, but I’m an optimist. And I loaded up with antibiotics, aspirin and basic veterinarian medicines, too. Oh! And there’s fifty miles of barbed wire in the truck for reinforcing the camp perimeter. That’s an early Christmas present for you. John said it would probably be enough.”
“I…I just don’t know what to say.”
Sarah stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “That, my darling, is a first,” she said in a low, velvety voice, moving his hand to her waist. “And we’ll drink to that and many other firsts just as soon as I unpack the Bushmills.”
“Oh, dear God in heaven,” he said, drawing her closer to him, “Irish whiskey? I really am going to cry now.”