Free Falling (16 page)

            “I remember a place, maybe,” John said to her when she was eyeing a likely ditch for their bedding down. “A kind of broken down cottage or something across the pasture a ways. I saw it when we came out this morning.”

           
Was it really just this morning
? It felt like a week since they’d set out on their journey to rescue David.

            “Is it far?” Sarah’s head ached fiercely and it seemed that Dan’s limp was becoming more and more pronounced. “What if there are snakes or rats inside?”

            “No snakes in Ireland,” John said cheerfully, and then more soberly: “Besides it’s the wrong time of year for them. Let me just ride ahead and check it out, okay? It’s better than sleeping out in the open.”

            She couldn’t argue with that and she was so tired and miserable, she honestly couldn’t see how things could get much worse. She let him go.

            She felt like she hadn’t taken ten steps when he was back, trotting when she’d begged him to keep at a walk, and excited to lead her back to the place he’d found.

            It would do.

            The shed, and it wasn’t more than that, was shelter from the rain and the quickly dropping temperatures. It was open on one side, like a lean-to so they were able to hobble the horses at one end of the shed (“Seamus showed me how, Mom.”) while they huddled in the other. John begged for a fire, but Sarah wouldn’t allow it.  

            Together, the two of them endured a long wet night, punctuated once with what could only have been the sound of a gunshot. Not near, but not far enough away, either.

At one point, when Sarah thought he was asleep, John asked her: “Is this a message from God, do you think?”

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh. “You mean, like maybe He wants us to leave it to Him, after all?”

“Do you think?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” she said tiredly. “Maybe He wants us to try harder. Maybe it’s just bad luck and it doesn’t mean anything at all.”

John ruminated for a moment.

“I’d hate to think He sent a lightning bolt our way,” he said finally.

She kissed him on the cheek. “Try to get some sleep, sweetie.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“We’ll try again to find Dad as soon as Dan is better?”

“We will, dear boy. I promise. Now go to sleep.”

Sarah leaned against a wooden support beam, the gun in her lap, and slept more than she stood sentry.

            In the morning, both horses had hobbled out into the surrounding pasture and the rain had stopped. Her forehead was crusted with dried blood, the cut over her right eye where she had fallen, sore but not deep. Both she and John were badly chafed from having slept in their wet clothes.

            As soon as it was light enough to see one foot in front of the other, they began the three-hour trudge home.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Well, David’s been gone for a little over a month now. John and I tried to go out and find him a week ago but ended up with a lame horse and never made it to Ballinagh. We’ll try again as soon as Dan can walk again without limping. I don’t really know what happened to him but John thinks he fell. (I did, too, but am fine.) He probably twisted an ankle or something. He seems to be getting better, thank God. I know I couldn’t shoot him if it came to that but I guess you’re supposed to. Anyway, Christmas is next week and it’s really, really cold here. John and I haven’t seen a soul since the people came last month to collect the sheep I’d traded them. David was the one who brought us news from Dierdre and Seamus and without him; we don’t even know how they’re doing or what’s going on. It’s so cold that, mostly, John and I stay indoors even in the daytime.

We do the chores we have to do, clean out the stalls, feed all the animals, and that’s about it. We moved the sheep up closer to us which isn’t working out great (for them or us!) but I’m afraid if I move them back to the pasture I won’t have any sheep left come spring. At the rate they’re dying, even here at the farm, I may not have any left anyway. I know it sounds gruesome but when one dies, it’s usually because of the cold so, well, we eat them. At first, John and I would drag them away from the flock and just let the snow cover them up. (My feeling was kind of like: let David deal with it when he gets home!) But now, it seems such a waste. I cut their wool off too. I don’t know. I don’t want you to think we’re at our resources’ end here or anything, because we’re not, but I don’t feel good about wasting what we have. I figure it might make the difference to us down the road.

As far as David being gone so long, I won’t lie to you, I’m pretty worried. I cannot imagine what would prevent him from returning home, unless he’s hurt. I’m dying for us to ride to Balinagh, find out where this Julie lives, and go bring him home. I cannot go alone on John’s pony and leave John here by himself. If Dan doesn’t snap out of his injury soon, we’ll walk to town. We did it once before. The problem with that option is that there are rumors of roving bands of thugs going around robbing travelers and the less time spent on the roads, the better. Poor John is so worried. It really is agonizing, not knowing.

I know, in my heart, that David hasn’t come home because he’s being prevented somehow. I don’t know how, I can’t imagine how. And it’s so hard keeping an optimistic affect with John when I really want to scream myself.

Prayer helps. Like with every trial we’ve faced these last few months since the crisis, prayer helps a lot. In fact, as bad as things seem right now—and I know this is going to sound strange—I can’t help but feel that God is holding us all in his palm. Isn’t that weird? I mean, right when things are so awful, I actually feel that God knows what’s going on and it’s okay. I don’t know if that means things will turn out okay—or okay in the sense that John and I think of as okay—but I know that God has this covered. Somehow, I just know that.

So, take care of each other, you two. I hated missing Thanksgiving this year and now not being with you for Christmas. We’ll make it up in all the wonderful holidays to come. Promise.

Love,

Sarah

P.S. We celebrated John’s eleventh birthday this week. It wasn’t very jolly and I had nothing but promises to give him for a gift. (Although I did give him a coupon good for one free week of no stall mucking!) When I think of all the money and effort I’ve spent on his birthdays in the past, from moon walks to booking entire game rooms, it’s a little amazing that, aside from not having his Dad there, it wasn’t too bad.

Christmas Day marked six weeks plus three days that David had been gone. Sarah and John both knew that David not getting home for Christmas was not a good sign. It meant there was now not a hint of a possibility that he wasn’t somehow being prevented from coming back to them.

If he were still alive.
Sarah sometimes allowed the unthinkable to appear in her thoughts, like a dangerous enemy she was always on the look-out for.

“Pretty crappy Christmas,” John said brushing the fur of the young dog, Patrick, by the fireplace. The other puppy, Spongy, patiently waited his turn. He was curled up on the floor, his chin resting on John’s knee. To mark the special day, Sarah had allowed a fire in the hearth.

“Is that my hairbrush you’re using?”

John tossed the brush on the couch.

“No presents, no turkey.” He paused and gently pulled Patrick’s ear. “No Dad,” he said quietly.

Sarah had been curled up in the big chair by the fire, one of the two large rugs she had knitted from their sheep’s wool across her lap. She had a steaming mug of hot tea in her hands and given all that she knew she had lost, felt strangely content.

“A savior was still born today,” she said.

He made a face.

“Well, he was born all those other Christmases, too,” he said. “And it didn’t stop us from having presents and stuff. I didn’t think it was an ‘either or.’”

Sarah smiled into her mug of tea so he wouldn’t see her amusement.

“I know, John,” she said. “We’ve got the best part of Christmas, though. That’s what we need to remember.”

“How can it be the best part with Dad not here?” John absently picked up the hairbrush again and began grooming Spongy. The dog closed his eyes while John brushed him.

I can always wash the brush.

“We just need to have faith he’ll come back to us,” she said, staring into the fire. “Today of all days, we just need to believe.”

Before the words were barely out of her mouth, there was a knock at the door which made them both jump. Sarah spilled her tea and John bolted for the front door.

“John! Wait!”

But he had already snatched the latches off and pulled it open, expecting, Sarah realized later, his father to be standing there, probably with a Christmas goose in one hand and an Xbox 360 in the other.

By the time Sarah untangled herself from the heavy throw around her fand stumbled to the door, John was already off the porch and pulling boxes out of Dierdre’s pony trap that stood directly outside the cottage. Dierdre, herself, stood on the porch, her coat wrapped around her shoulders, a tremulous smile on her lips.

“Happy Christmas, darlin’,” she said. “We brought Christmas dinner.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The room was so dark when David opened his eyes that, at first, he couldn’t be sure his eyes were really open. His lips were cracked and dry, his throat parched. The last time he’d awakened…
was it really the last time?...
she had tried to help him relieve himself in a pail by the side of the bed. The ensuing mess that followed had resulted in a sharp slap to his already throbbing face and a shrill threat to withhold water in future. A threat she had obviously made good on. David licked his lips in agony. How long had it been since he had had water? He waited until his eyes adjusted to the dark. How long had he been tied to this filthy bed?

As the light from his window began to filter into the room, his eyes filled with tears at the prospect of another day.
Dear God, would he ever see Sarah and John again?
Were they okay? How long had he been gone? Had they come looking for him? If they made it as far as the old woman’s farm,
a big if
, they would either be turned away or killed, and he had no way of knowing. The woman, Betta, told him daily that no one was looking for him. Once, she told him she heard that the two Americans had left, along with everyone else, to go to Dublin. As desperately alone and abandoned as that news made him feel, a part of him hoped it was true. There was no way Sarah could survive and take care of John out here. At least in the city there might be facilities or laws or provisions for the refugees. He cursed himself for allowing them to stay.

What had he been thinking? That they could hold out in the midst of Mad Max 2012 and survive?

Recently the woman had begun talking about a gang of gypsies that was going from hamlet to hamlet, murdering whole families, taking food, slaughtering the livestock. She was terrified that they were coming for her next. She talked incessantly of how she might secure the farm against them. She begged his advice.  She promised to free him when they came so he could protect them both. Yesterday, she told him the American woman and her son hadn’t left after all. She heard that the gypsies had murdered them. She had wept for his loss.

His stomach muscles tensed as he heard her beginning to move about in the other end of the farmhouse. This signaled the fact that his nightmare would resume shortly.

He had ridden to Balinagh, however many weeks or months ago now he couldn’t tell, and met Julie. She was waiting for him in front of where Siobhan’s Dairy used to be. She sat on a small Highland pony, her hair down by her waist, looking pretty and farfetched like something in an Irish fairytale. Why hadn’t he realized it couldn’t be true? Why hadn’t he taken one look at the pretty lassie in her pastel gypsy dancing skirt and realized what a lie she was? Did he even question it? Did he even wonder, if she was a widow with two small children and a farm to run, who was at home taking care of everything while she was perched on a pony, her hair flowing in the wind? No, he saw what he wanted to see. A damsel in distress. Not what she really was—bait for the trap that would snare him.

David struggled to a sitting position against the headboard. The light was strong enough now for him to take inventory of the room and of himself. The room was small, big enough just for the single bed he lay on and a dresser filled, he knew, with the old woman’s dead husband’s clothes. His left arm, broken in two places, was strapped awkwardly to his chest. It had stopped hurting him weeks ago, whether because it had finally mended or had died, itself, he had no way of knowing. Both legs were loosely tied to the end of the bed. His right arm was manacled to a long chain which was attached to, of all things, a boat anchor, rusting in the corner of the room.

When he had first arrived at the farm with Julie, he saw immediately the disrepair of the place. There were no cows that he could see and no children. Julie took him into the farmhouse where a woman in her late fifties sat at the table waiting for him. She broke into a broad grin, her teeth yellowed and brown, and she clapped her hands in delight.

“Saints be praised, you’ve come,” she said.

David smiled and extended his hand.

“I’m glad to help, ma’am,” he said. “You’re Julie’s mother?”

“Sure, can’t you tell the resemblance?” The woman laughed good-naturedly but David noticed that Julie did not join in. “Please sit and have a cuppa, you’ll be tired from your ride in from town.”

“Okay, great, thanks.” David sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs. “I didn’t realize your place was so far from Balinagh, you know?” He smiled and accepted a mug of tea. “I can’t believe Julie rode there all on her own. It took us nearly four hours to ride back.”