Free Falling (24 page)

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.

“You’re wrong, Mike,” she said. “This changes everything.”

“You mean you’ll not be insisting on waiting for them brigands to descend upon us?” he said, with hope in his voice.

“No way.”

Sarah jumped to her feet.

“We’re going after the bastards.”

*                *                      *                      *                      *                      *

Three hours later, the young gypsy boy, Conor, slipped silently down from the tall pine that hung over the little encampment and carefully picked his way through the woods past the two sleeping men on guard duty. It had taken all his self-control not to leave earlier, so excited was he to tell Finn what he had overheard.

The American woman and her group were planning to raid them!

Once he was sure he was out of earshot of the sleeping guards, Conor broke into a full, arm-pumping run back to the gypsy camp.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“You’re crazy, you know.” Donovan surveyed the picnic table in front of him. Every firearm and bit of ammunition, except for the ones carried by each man was on the table.

“How much do we have?” Sarah stood next to him and looked down on the table. “Is it very much? Is it enough, do you think?”

“No, it’s not enough,” he said with exasperation. “There are at least thirty of them and only five of us. If each of us had a Gatling gun and automatic weapons too it wouldn’t be enough.”

John approached the table. He held a large biscuit in one hand stuffed with jam.

“Wow!” he said. “That is a
lot
of guns.” He turned to his mother. “You have to let me come, Mom,” he said. “We need every man. Mr. Donovan said so.”

Sarah turned and looked at Donovan.

“I did
not
say the boy should come,” Donovan said loudly, turning and frowning at John. “I did not say that.”

“No, but I know we’re outnumbered and we need every man.”

“Stop it right now, John,” Sarah said. “The answer is no so please let Mr. Donovan and me continue without having to fight this battle, too.”

John blushed and turned away from the table. Sarah called after him but he kept walking.

“Damn it,” she said. “I know he’s just trying to help…”

“Alright,” Donovan said gruffly. “Here’s my plan and you’ll abide by it, aye?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, don’t say that when you know it’s the last thing you’ll do.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sarah said. “I have no idea as to the best way to handle any of this and am only too happy to be told what to do.”

“Even if, like with young John, I tell you to stay back at camp?”

“Except that.”

Donovan gave her a withering I-told-you-so-look.

“Come on, Mike,” she said. “The plan?”

Donovan looked down at the guns and sighed.

“I’m in the lead,” he said, glaring at her as if expecting her to challenge it. “And we’ll put two of our lads in the trees the night before.”

Sarah nodded. “Snipers?”

“More for coverage, like, than snipers,” he said. “So when we retreat we don’t get all shot to shit.”

“That doesn’t sound like a great plan,” Sarah said, frowning. “In fact, it sounds more like planned suicide.”

“Which is what I’ve been telling you all along. Plus…” Donovan nodded to the grey skies with scudding dark clouds bunching up on the horizon, “there’s a bad storm coming.”

“The Irish aren’t afraid of a little bad weather,” Sarah said.

“Don’t do that,”

“Do what?”

“Pull that national shite on me. Try to make it seem like it’s somehow the patriotic thing to do to march into a well-armed camp where we are hopelessly outnumbered. This is not bloody England, you know. We don’t buy into that stupid “we the five hundred” shite.”

“Six hundred,”

“Okay, how every many, it doesn’t matter, okay? This is not an epic poem. This is real life and you are putting every man and his family at risk by this barking mad, this crazy…”

“Look, Mike, much as I like to argue this same issue with you over and over again
ad nauseum
let me remind you that I am not the bad guy here. Okay? It’s easy to lash out at me for doing what needs to be done, but you know it’s
Finn
and his damn gang that is putting your people at risk, not me.” She held up a hand to cut off his protests. “If you think I’m the bad guy then bugger off right now and I’ll go alone.”

“I have no doubt you would.”

“I would.”

“Because you’re crazy.”

“Because. I. Want. My. Husband. Back.”

Donovan sighed heavily and looked away.

“Look, Mike, let me put it to you this way: if you had a wife, let’s say, oh, I don’t know, say she’s the mother of your children and you love her very much and if she were being held by murdering scum, would you just sit tight, and hope they don’t come bother you? Or would you gather up your guns and as many people as you could and go bloody
get
her?”

He shook his head but she could see he finally agreed.

“We’re all going to get bloody killed,” he said.

“Right,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Leave the pep talk with the men to me, okay?”

      Finn had slept very well. The farmer’s bed was soft and large and the fleeing family had been kind enough to leave the linens on the bed. Finn had drunk long into the night but, as usual, woke up refreshed with no ill after affects from the night’s abuses. It also seemed to him that his bad arm hadn’t hurt last night. He touched it now and massaged it gently. It surprised him to realize that he associated the pain of his healed wound with the continued life of the woman who had caused it. He really believed it would stop hurting him as soon as she ceased to exist. He stood up and looked out the window at the grey misting Irish morning. Today seemed to be a perfect day for that, he thought with a smile.

      David watched the young boy wolfing down a full breakfast over the campfire. He had been present last night—indeed it really appeared most of the men thought David to be invisible most of the time—when the boy had presented his report to Finn. The cheering and the drinking had shifted into high gear at the prospect of a battle with the American and her group. David was as near to a state of shock as could be possible without having taken an actual hit on the skull. Up to this moment, he thought Sarah and John were living placidly and quietly in the little cottage just as he’d left them. The boy, Conor’s, revelation and subsequent speech by Finn destroyed that scenario in one swift, blinding moment.

      “The bitch is coming to us!” Finn roared to his men. Sparks from the outdoor fire shot into the air almost as if conjured up by him and his words. With a bottle of wine in one hand and a fist in the other, Finn had gathered his crew of twenty men. “And we’ll meet her halfway. Are we not accommodating?” His gang laughed, more from a general belief that it was expected of them rather than any real mirth. “I don’t want her touched so be mindful of that,” he said. “Anyone else—and she will not come alone—kill them straightaway. D’ya ken?”

      He turned and clapped young Conor on the shoulder and handed him the wine bottle. Before he turned to go back into the house where he would drink alone until he fell asleep, his glance fell briefly on David.

      The plan was easy if not foolproof.

      David ate the moldy soda bread and washed it down with strong, tepid tea. He felt lucky there was anything to eat this morning at all. Like the others, Brendan had drunk too much and was still asleep. One of the younger gypsy boys, with terrible acne and crossed eyes, had made him breakfast, such as it was. The cold had been awful during the night and David fought to return feeling to his numb fingers and toes. He slept by the campfire which usually went out a few hours after he nodded off. He wasn’t tied or restrained in any way as he was still considered too weak to do much more than bring a spoon back and forth to his lips.

He may have encouraged that assumption more than was absolutely accurate.

David could tell that most of the gypsies were still sleeping off last night’s drinking. Even Finn, usually an early riser, hadn’t shown himself yet this morning.

All David had to do was get up as if he were going to relieve himself in the woods, like he had done many times before, and just keep walking. With any luck at all, he’d intercept Sarah and her group well before they were ambushed by Finn’s death squad.

He took one more look around the deserted camp, stood up, brushed the nonexistent crumbs from his meager breakfast off his jeans, and headed for the woods.

      Sarah sat quietly atop Dan. The bad weather was definitely moving in and quickly. She looked around at the small group of men, also on horseback, and felt a wave of discouragement.