Free Falling

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “We’ll come, of course,” Sarah said. “And with thanks. I’m so grateful to have found family.”

  “I’m glad,” Fiona said. “I was hoping you would.”

  “Now that we’re sisters, can I ask you a question?”

  Fiona grinned. “Shoot,” she said.

  “What happened to Gavin’s mother?”

  “That would be Mike’s Ellen,” Fiona said. “She died when the boy was five.”

  “How?”

  “A riding accident. She was brilliant, so she was. Nobody better with horses around these parts and that’s saying something.”

  “She fell?”

  Fiona nodded. “In a competition. The horse shied at something. She came off but got right back on and finished the course. Went to bed that night. Never woke up. Mike loved her something fierce. Probably still does. But there you are.”

  Sarah watched Mike as he directed the men to tighten a canvas drape over one of the campfire cook stoves.

  “Yeah,” she said, watching him work. “There we are.”

  The little group kept well away from the burnt house, not least because wisps of ash and soot sprang up at every breeze from the blackened grave and clung to any nearby face or bit of clothing. A comforting and large cook fire had been constructed in the middle of the forecourt with bedding in the barn and a half circle of small tents in the adjacent paddock. While there were ten people in all, Sarah counted only five men. Estimates of the gypsies numbers ranged wildly between fifty to well over a hundred.

  As Fiona and the other women worked to cook a meal over the open fire, Sarah slipped into the barn. The gypsies had killed most of the livestock except for the two ponies, Star and Ned, who had been in the pasture.

  Sarah went to Dan’s stall and he walked over to greet her. She patted him on the neck. Just seeing his big brown eyes, so seemingly understanding, filled her with a kind of comfort.

  “Hey, boy, you doing okay?”

  He nickered in response and she held his face in her hands and looked into his eyes. His lashes were long and he regarded her sleepily. She touched the velvety softness of his nose as he blew warm breath into her hands.

  “You came through for me yesterday, big guy,” she said quietly. “You got me here when I needed you to, as sure footed and fast as Secretariat himself.” She patted his neck. “I don’t know why I think so but somehow I don’t think I could be doing any of this without you.”

  “Ahhh, don’t be giving me a reason to kill the poor beast.”

  The unexpected voice made both Sarah and Dan jump, even though Donovan showed himself before he finished speaking.

  “You scared the life out of me,” Sarah said, turning to him with a grin. “What are you doing in here?”

  Donovan shrugged. “Probably same as you,” he said. “Having a moment to myself before all hell breaks loose.”

  Sarah turned back to her horse.

  “I talked to Fi this morning,” she said. “She told me a little bit more about the community y’all are starting. You know, Mike, I hate the thought of putting your family in danger,” she said over her shoulder. “I wish I could make you understand why I feel the way I do.”

  “It’s easy enough to understand,” Mike said, leaning on the half door of the stall. “They killed Dierdre and Seamus. You want revenge.”

  “That’s not it,” Sarah said, her finger tightening around Dan’s mane. “I’m afraid for my life. For my son’s life.” She turned and looked at him. “I can’t live with the threat of them surprising us. I can’t live like that.”

  “If you live with us,” Donovan said, “in a community, you won’t need to. You’ll be protected. That’s what communities do.”

  “And I would like that,” she said, looking directly into his eyes. “I absolutely want that. But it doesn’t take away the threat. Look,” she said, joining Donovan in the aisle of the barn, “If you had wolves attacking your sheep, would you remove the threat or just put the sheep in a bigger flock?”

  “That’s asinine,” he said, his eyes locking onto hers.

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “It’s not at all the same thing.”

  “Tell me how it isn’t! You say ‘don’t upset the wolves, and they’ll leave you alone.’ I say, ‘kill the wolves and hang their molding, stinking carcasses on pikes by the front gate as a warning to future wolves.’”

  Donovan looked at her and then burst out laughing.

  “Remind me,” he said, wiping his eyes and shaking his head, “is it an American Soccer Mom you are or a Chicago hit man? I keep getting them confused and obviously you do, too.”

  Sarah laughed. “In America, we’re all a little bit of both.”

  “And it’s not the same thing,” he said. And then, without warning, he leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.

  Sarah, surprised, allowed the kiss for longer than she would’ve if he’d in any way telegraphed his intention. She finally pulled away and put her fingers to her lips.

  “Mike, no,” she said. “I can’t.”

  Donovan took a step back.

  “I am so sorry, Sarah,” he said. “I swear I didn’t know I was going to do that until I was doing it. Believe me…”

  “I do, I do. It’s okay, it’s just…”

  “No need to explain. Jesus! And you still wondering if your husband is alive or dead. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Mike, it’s okay. Really.” Sarah touched him on his sleeve. “Let’s forget it, okay? If the world was different, maybe if circumstances were different…”

  “Now, now, none of that.” Donovan waved away her words. “Best idea yet is to just forget it, if you can do that.”

  “I can.”

  “That’s good. Now, if you’ve checked on your gallant steed, we’ll be seeing what delights Fiona has cooked up for our pleasure this evening.” He held out his arm to usher her from the barn into the dying light of the early evening.

  Mack Finn sat, smoking a cigarette, in the old wooden rocking chair on the front porch. It was a good chair with a comfortable pad. Finn had spent nearly the full day in it, rocking, sipping tea and smoking. From the porch he had a good command of the whole camp and the long drive that led to the croft. He watched as ten or so of his men transferred boxes from the two shabby horse-drawn wagons that stood in the middle of the old lady’s vegetable garden next to the barn. Every once in awhile, one of the horses would dip its head to nibble at some wonderful discovery on the ground.

  They had found the farm abandoned a few days earlier. Maybe because they hadn’t killed its inhabitants, Finn had decided to move in rather than put it to the torch. He decided it suited him, being a landowner. It occurred to him that he would be the first of his family not to live in a tent or a caravan. He wondered for a minute if he really cared about such things. He was now the oldest living person in his family, a family that went back hundreds of generations.

  He recognized that he missed the girl Jules.

  Everything had gone arseways so fast, he wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. When the old woman was killed, Jules had gone mental. It was all he could do to protect himself from her. That was a shocker. Up to then, she’d been so sweet and gentle like. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. But the stupid hoor attacked him! It was her own fault. He was only defending himself.

  “Oy, Mack!”

  Finn didn’t move his head but his eyes flickered to the young man who had just come on to the porch.

  “Brendan wants to know should we raid the kitchen or eat what we got in town. People are getting hungry.” The boy looked nervous to Finn.

  “What people?” Finn said, his eyes directed back to the working men again. “You?”

  The boy didn’t speak.

  “Where’s the Yank?” Finn asked, leaning forward in his chair to see if he could spot him from the porch. “Is he talking?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Brendan said he told him he came here on holiday to f
ish. He said he came alone, like.”

  Finn stood up, flicked his cigarette butt into the bushes and abruptly walked off the porch. The farm was noisy with the antics of his men, some of them drunk, some fighting. He walked into the barn where two men were stacking boxes against a wall. They turned when he came in.

  “Where’s Brendan?” he asked.

  A swarthy man in his forties jerked his head to indicate the other side of the long barn.

  Finn strode down the barn, glancing with satisfaction at the half-full stalls. The family had taken their horses but had left behind full bales of stacked hay. The need to take care of possessions was a new feeling for Finn. He was used to just taking when he needed something. He wasn’t sure he liked the feeling of ownership. It made him feel anxious.

  At the end of the barn, he exited the south entrance. There sat two men by a small stone-ringed campfire, the Yank and Brendan.

  Brendan stood up at Finn’s approach.

  “Hey, Guv,” he said easily. “Checking out your plantation?”

  Finn ignored him. Brendan was a big man with the easy confidence that comes of towering over most people in daily interactions. It annoyed Finn that Brendan never acted worried about him. The way Finn saw things, Brendan should be plenty worried about him.

  The American looked up and, amazingly, smiled. It was all Finn could do not to smile back.

  What the shite did he see to smile about?

  “Comfortable, I see?” he said to the man.

  “I’m good,” the Yank replied, pulling his worn blanket around him tighter as if to belie the fact. It had been a cold afternoon and the evening promised to be much colder.

  “So, just in Ireland on holiday, are you?” Finn squatted down next to the man and fished out another cigarette. Because he was looking for it, Finn saw out of the corner of his eye that the American glanced up at Brendan.

  Oh, so it’s like that, is it? Friends, are we?

  “Yes, I heard about the great fishing in this part of the country…”

  “Oh, yeah, we got great fishing here. Really great. So, how is it you ended up lashed to a bed by that harpy back yonder?”

  “I was just helping out,” the man said. It was more of a mumble, Finn thought, He glanced over at him. The man looked bad but he’d rallied in the week since Finn’s men had found him tied to a boat anchor in the back room of that hag’s cottage. They’d nearly killed him, too, until all the noise from Julie, who was in complete hysterics over the murder of her mother—an unexpected bollocks—had brought Finn’s attention to what they were about to do.

  The Yank was his winning ticket to getting her. He hated to think how close he’d come to losing him because of those stupid gobshites.

  “So you got enough to eat?” Finn stood up and stared down at the man. In many ways, he didn’t look any different from his men. He had a scruffy beard, filthy, ripped clothes and a look that vacillated between desperation and vacancy. But there was something else about him. Something settled and self-assured. The kind of something that came from money and having it all done for you your whole life.

  The kind of something that Finn absolutely hated.

  David watched the scruffy little gypsy walk away. He watched him as he rubbed his shoulder like it still hurt him. Likely, it still did. When he spoke, David could see the malignancy in his eyes, like a feral animal that wanted to rip and hurt just for the sake of it.

  There’s something really wrong with that guy, David found himself thinking.

  The other gypsy, Brendan, eased back down onto the ground next to David and gave the little campfire a poke with a long stick.

  “He’s not buying your shite, Yank,” he said matter of factly.

  David only brought his hand to his face to massage his forehead tiredly.

  “He knows she’s yer wife, mate,” Brendan insisted. “Why d’ya think yer still alive?”

  “I don’t know, man,” David said. “I just know I am.”

  While Brendan assembled a mealy sandwich to share with him, David couldn’t help but watch him in wonder.

  He didn’t think Brendan was the one who’d murdered Betta, but his hands were likely not clean in any event. He’d been kind to David for reasons other than his American celebrity but what those reasons were David couldn’t fathom. He couldn’t help but feel grateful to the man but he knew he needed to fight the feeling. Brendan was operating with his own agenda in mind and David’s life or wellbeing likely played no role in it. He needed to quickly regain his strength and try to use the big gypsy for his own reasons—which meant separating his gratitude from his actions. The only thing that mattered now that he was still alive, was that he reunite with Sarah and John.

  By any means possible.

  Brendan handed David the sandwich and David smiled at him in a perfect mime of typical American eager politeness.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  “No worries, Yank,” Brendan said, smiling back at him.

  That night at the evening meal, the group at Cairn Cottage sat around the open fire. Fiona seemed to be generally accepted as the one in charge of all things domestic—meals, the children, and the other women. Sarah could see that most of the women, with the exception of the young teenaged niece of Donovan and Fiona’s who was also the unwed mother, were the wives to Donovan’s men. So far, the extent of their contact with Sarah was to smile shyly at her.

  Donovan sat down next to her on a log rolled up to the campfire. He held two tin plates of stewed lamb and soda bread and offered her one.

  “At least it’s not squirrel again.” he said, his eyes watching the perimeter of the small camp as he spoke.

  Sarah took the plate and tore off a piece of the still-warm bread.

  “Fiona’s a miracle maker to be able to create these meals out of virtually nothing,” she said with amazement.

  “Fiona’s a good girl,” Donovan said absently. “Your boy doing okay?”

  Sarah appreciated his question but knew there was more to it.

  “I guess I’ve been acting pretty clingy with him lately,” she admitted.

  “No, no,” he said, looking at her now. “Not at all, not at all. No more than any sane mother would who had just experienced thirty minutes of believing her bairn to be murdered. Not at all.”

  Sarah looked away to hide the emotion stinging her eyes again.

  Would she ever get over those thirty minutes? Could any mother?

  “But we’ll be needing to talk about your problem with the gypsies now.”

  Sarah put her plate down and decided to choose her words carefully. “It is my belief, Mike,” she said, “that it is not just my problem. I mean, unless you think you can live with them somehow.”

  “I’m not thinking that.”

  “But you think by defying them or calling attention to yourselves you’ll make it worse?”

  “Something like that.”

  Sarah heard first and then saw John across the campfire laughing at something Gavin said. She watched the older boy scoop her son up and the two playfully wrestle in the dirt before Fiona shooed them away from the fire.

  “Ejeet boy will never grow up,” Donovan muttered, watching them too.

  “I guess that’s what this new world is all about,” Sarah said. “Growing up fast. I’ve seen it in John and hated to see it at the same time I was glad of it.”

  Donovan looked back at her and smiled.

  “You’re like no Irish woman I ever knew,” he said.

  “How so?” Sarah picked her plate back up. “Don’t tell me about being strong or resilient or crap like that, I warn you. I’ve seen Fiona in action so I wouldn’t buy it.”

  “No, it’s not that. Ireland is full of strong women. With the drunken bums many Irish men are, they’ve had to be. No, it’s not that. Being tough is one thing, but doing it with your…your…”

  “Swagger?” Sarah laughed. “Trust me, all American women
have a little bit of John Wayne in them,” Sarah said. “It’s part of our culture.”

  “Yeah, must be.”

  Sarah watched the other men sitting around the campfire. There were two, not counting Gavin. Two more were patrolling the perimeter of the little camp and would, in shifts, all night long.

  “All right then,” Donovan said, collecting her empty plate. “I have a bit of news for you that probably won’t change your mind much about waiting for the gypsies to come kill us all but I need to tell you.”

  “News? Where did you get more news?”

  Instantly, Sarah tried to locate John with her eyes. She needed to see him before the landscape changed yet again.

  “Same place I got the first bit, Aidan Kinney. He’s one of ‘em’s that’s on watch tonight. He’d neglected to tell me a bit of information he picked up in town. Didn’t think it was important until he got to talking with his wife last night about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Well, really, just about you being American and all.”

  “He heard something about David.”

  Sarah felt a huge chasm open up beneath her and she put a hand out to Donovan to steady herself.

  Donovan held her by the arm.

  “He heard in town that the gypsies have an American in their camp.”

  Sarah clapped her hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Alive. David was alive.

  “I’m glad for you, Sarah. It’s good,” Donovan said, sounding not at all like any of it was good. “Well, it could be a little better but, aye, it sounds like he’s alive.”

  Tears seeped out between her fingers and she opened her eyes to look at him.

  “Thank you, God,” she whispered. “I knew he was okay.”

  “Well, that we do not know, and let’s not be getting ahead of ourselves but yeah, it gives us something to go on.” Donovan rubbed her arm lightly where he held her. “And unfortunately I know this means, more than ever, that you won’t change your plans to stay.” He looked at her sadly.

  Sarah wiped her tears away with her fingers and took a deep breath. She smiled briefly, fiercely, at Donovan and shook her head.