Longing for Home (48 page)

“Twice the price,” Mr. O’Donaghue was saying. “We can’t pay twice the price no matter how much the children need shoes.”

Mrs. O’Donaghue wrung her hands. A deep furrow creased her brow. “Winter’s comin’ soon enough. The two littlest have worn holes clear through their shoes. The oldest can’t hardly squeeze into his.”

Winter with no shoes.
Katie could feel the terrible pain of bitter cold. She could clearly see the icy countryside, the pitiful wrappings around her bloodied feet.

“The mercantile raised the price of the children’s shoes.” She didn’t need to pose it as a question. She knew it was true.

Mr. Callaghan nodded. “And he just now hinted at a higher Irish price for wool as well.”

The distress in Mrs. O’Donaghue’s expression grew with each word. “How are we to make coats without wool?”

No coats. No shoes.
Katie’s heart ached at the thought. They’d not all survive the winter under such conditions.

“That is a terribly mean-spirited thing for any person to do,” Katie said. “He must know the little ones’ll suffer most of all.”

“They’re punishing us, Katie.” Thomas shook his head, his mouth turned down. “We stood up to them, had one of our own living past the bridge, boasted an independent Irish business. They’re punishing us for trying, and they’re further punishing us for failing.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers, eyes glancing up the road toward town.

“Failing?”

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he pointed out. “In their eyes, that’s us failing again.”

Guilt gnawed at her in that instance. She was leaning more heavily toward leaving Hope Springs. She’d very nearly decided, though she still harbored some doubts.

“I likely am, but not because the Reds drove me off. They’re not the reason I’d be leaving.”

“It won’t matter.” Thomas moved slowly in the direction of two men just arrived from over the bridge. “They’ll claim the victory and all the spoils that go with it.”

This is my fault.
Once again she was choosing what
she
wanted at the expense of someone else’s welfare. How many of the Irish children would suffer that winter while their Red Road neighbors gloated?

Katie looked in the faces of her friends and saw worry and frustration. ’Twas the defeat she saw there that broke her heart. They’d resigned themselves to losing again.

Seamus Kelly came riding up in the next moment. Katie groaned at seeing him. Though she liked Seamus well enough, his temper never did bode well in difficult moments.

“I heard about Johnson’s latest bit of robbery,” he called out to the others, dismounting as he reached the group. “Couldn’t starve us out before, so he means to freeze us out.”

Mr. O’Donaghue pulled himself up proudly. “We’ve starved and frozen before. We can endure it again.”

Mrs. Connelly was not so easily persuaded. “But can we endure the cries of our children? ’Tis a different matter entirely when you yourself aren’t the only one suffering.”

Katie ached for them all, for the dismal future laid out before them. “Surely there’s something that can be done,” she said.

Seamus’s glance held a note of empathy. “Don’t fret yourself, Katie. You’ll likely be long on your way back to Ireland before we have to face this latest setback.”

Though he spoke with no malice, Katie felt the comment as a slice to her soul. By leaving, she would be abandoning them to the coming disaster.

“Don’t you pay him no nevermind,” Mrs. O’Donaghue said. “Your father is dying. None of us blames you in the least for wanting to be with him. Though we do all hope you’ll decide to stay.”

“Are you entirely certain only the Irish are being charged so much for shoes and woolens? Perhaps the price has gone up for everyone.” Her conscience sincerely hoped that was the case.

Mr. O’Donaghue shook his head. “Johnson said we’d be paying ‘the Irish price.’”

Seamus Kelly’s expression immediately hardened. “What do you say we exact an ‘Irish price’ of our own?” He jerked his chin in the direction of the fork in the road, pulling everyone’s gaze that way.

Bob Archibald and two of his neighbors had only just reached the point where the Red Road met the Irish Road directly in front of the Archer home. All three men eyed the gathered Irish with disdain and distrust.

“Get out of the road,” Mr. Archibald spat at them. “You can’t stand around blocking the path.”

They were, indeed, cutting off the roadway. Mr. Archibald might have driven around, but such a thing would have proven tricky. And, Katie suspected, he’d see doing such a thing as a sign of weakness, of giving in to the Irish. So his wagon came to a stop, his horses nearly nose to nose with those of the Scotts.

Seamus pushed his way to the front of the group, his neck turning a deep shade of red, his fists clenched hard at his sides. “We’ve as much right to this roadway as any of you do. You want to get past? You can just drive round.”

“And suppose I mean to drive straight through?” Mr. Archibald growled.

“Your little wagon plowing through two of ours, plus a few horses? Even your wee little brain must know you’d come out the loser in that.”

“Are you calling me stupid, Paddy?” Mr. Archibald managed to make ‘Paddy’ sound like the worst of profanities. He tossed the reins to the man up next to him on the wagon bench and jumped down to the ground.

Katie didn’t have to wait to know what would come next. There’d be a fistfight in a lick of a cat’s ear. Already the men were waving their wives away from the road, out of the coming fray. For her part, Katie moved around the wagons, closer to the men glaring each other down. ’Twas no longer just Seamus and Mr. Archibald. The other two Red Road men were fair itching for a fight, and the Irish seemed more than happy to oblige them.

“Don’t do this, Seamus,” Katie called out. “A brawl can only make things worse.”

But she was ignored entirely. Seamus and Mr. Archibald circled one another, fists at the ready, anger etched into every line of their faces.

“I’d think on this long and hard if I were you, Archibald.” Seamus spoke slowly, confidently. “You know perfectly well I’m a better fighter than you are.”

“Is that so, Irishman? I believe you’ll have to show me.”

Seamus’s fist flew on the instant. Mr. Archibald ducked out of the way, receiving no more than a glancing blow.

“Stop!” Katie shouted. “Stop this!”

A person could shout at the waves to stop crashing into the shore for all the good it would do. The men were at each other with a fervor. A fistfight in the street would hardly solve their difficulties.

Katie looked to the other men, hoping cooler heads existed somewhere in the group. Other than Thomas, who shouted more strongly worded expressions of frustration at them, stubborn chins, fiery eyes, and fists at the ready were the order of the day. Soon dust was flying, the men forgoing brawling partners and all going at each other at once.

“Quit being idiots,” Katie shouted at them all, knowing her words would do no good.

The fighting went on all around her. She made to duck around them, figuring taking refuge with the ladies was her best option in the moment, even if it felt terribly cowardly.

A sudden jolt of pain in her right shoulder was her only warning before she landed on her backside against the unforgiving ground. Her lungs seemed to stiffen, unable or unwilling to take in air. Tears stung at her eyes. She grabbed at her shoulder, pulsing with pain.

Around her the men continued throwing punches, pummeling each other in their pent-up rage. Thomas Dempsey braved the fray to offer her a hand up. She’d only just regained her feet when someone in the scuffle landed Thomas a telling blow to the back. He swayed a bit before steadying himself.

Thomas turned red at the ears. He spun about.

“You’d hit a man while he assisted a woman from the ground?” he snapped. “What kind of uncivilized savages—”

With that, he, too was full into the fray.

Katie took a quick step backward, still holding her shoulder. It hurt like the devil, but it didn’t feel dislocated. Either she’d been struck by one of the combatant’s fists or caught a thrown-back elbow.

A loud crack rent the air. The horses nickered and fidgeted. The men stopped their brawling, though they kept their fists at the ready.

“Go on home, all of you.” Joseph Archer stood on the road, horsewhip in hand, eyes flashing with anger as he looked over the group. “Breaking each other’s noses and blacking each other’s eyes isn’t going to solve anything.”

There was a slight shuffling of feet but little else.

“Go on.” Katie’d never heard Joseph’s voice snap the way it did in that moment.

Whilst the Irish took the reins of their skittish animals, Bob Archibald did the same with his. “It’s not like you to involve yourself in this,” he grumbled to Joseph.

Joseph took a single step closer, pointing the end of his whip in Mr. Archibald’s direction. “Any time I see a woman felled by a man’s fist, you can be certain I will involve myself.”

“I didn’t mean to hit her,” Mr. Archibald muttered. “She got in the middle of it, is all.”

“You are obviously headed into town.” Joseph’s tone left no room for further arguments. “I suggest you continue on your way. Perhaps you could purchase some liniment at the mercantile for your black eye.”

“I’d’ve gone there directly, except these Paddies were blocking the road.” Mr. Archibald’s mouth turned down, twisting as though he’d smelled something foul.

The O’Donaghues and Scotts and the others had already begun to make their way toward the fork, having yielded the road to the Reds. Katie’s heart ached at the terrible irony of that. Once again they had been the ones to give ground.

Joseph motioned Mr. Archibald on down the road. In a moment’s time, no one remained on that spot except Katie and a very quiet Joseph Archer.

“They were ready to tear each other to pieces right here in the road,” she whispered. “I couldn’t talk any sense into them.”

“This feud has quickly passed the point of sense. There’ll be no reasoning with anyone now.”

Katie could have cried right there. Not only from the agony in her shoulder but even more from the frustration of seeing people she cared about come to the point of brawling with their neighbors in broad daylight. They were afraid and broken and angry, and far too much of that could be laid at her feet.

Joseph sighed, the sound filled with bone-deep weariness. “Come on up to the house. We need to look at that shoulder.”

Katie shook her head. “’Tis nothing so bad as that.” The weight sitting heavy on her heart bothered her more than the pain in her shoulder.

“You took almost the full brunt of a man’s swing, Katie.” He set a hand on her back and gently nudged her toward the house. “You will be fortunate to walk away with nothing more than an enormous bruise and a terribly stiff shoulder.”

She walked at his side, thoughts heavy and difficult. “This is going to be horrible, isn’t it?”

“A bruise at the very least—”

“No. I mean the feud. The fighting.” She looked up into his face. “People are going to be hurt, aren’t they?”

He nodded, slowly and reluctantly. “At the very least.”

She rubbed at her aching shoulder. “If I stayed—” Even posing the possibility in terms of
if
set her stomach to spinning. Could she really give up the chance to see her father one last time? “If I stayed, would it help? Would they stop fighting?”

“No.” He spoke so matter-of-factly, she couldn’t doubt him in the least. “Nothing will likely stop it now.”

They stepped through the front door. Joseph shut the door behind them. She stopped in the entryway, too burdened to move further.

“It wouldn’t do any good, then? Is it already too late?” How terribly familiar that was. She’d been too late to help Eimear as well.

“Tell me directly, Joseph. No sweetening your words or skirting about the question. If I stayed, would it help in the least?”

He hesitated only a moment. “You would give the Irish an extra helping of confidence, a feeling of having an extra bit of strength on their side. But, Katie”—he looked her direct in the eye—“this feud will one day escalate into the war we all see coming, regardless of what you choose to do.”

Chapter Forty-One

The céilí bore little resemblance to the cheerful, festive affair of even one week before. Tavish knew precisely what had caused the change. Everyone in town knew of the brawl out on the road. And everyone was holding his breath to see which side would seek revenge first and how. There’d be no stopping the feud now. The future loomed before them all dark as a thundercloud.

Katie arrived among them but a few minutes into the weekly party. The heaviness Tavish had seen in her countenance the first day they met had returned tenfold. He didn’t realize until that moment how much of her worry and sadness had melted away in the months he’d known her.

“Poor Katie,” Ian said, standing beside him. “Carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, she is. Biddy says our Katie feels responsible for our latest troubles.”

Add to that guilt the weight of her own regrets and any person would crumble under that crushing burden. But not his Katie. There she stood, facing them all with a brave smile and teary eyes.