When she came back to the bedroom in the trailer, he was sitting up, his arm bandage dirty and blotchy with dried blood—she couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen him bathe—waiting for her.
“Sorry,” she said, slipping back into bed, careful not to let her cold feet touch his. She’d paid the price for that mistake early on.
“Anybody else up yet?” he asked.
She shook her head.
That seemed to please him at least a little. She knew he liked to be the first one awake.
“Did you make tea?” He asked it as if he expected an obvious affirmative. She cursed herself for not thinking of it. Should she lie?
“I put the water on,” she said. “But I might’ve forgotten to boost up the fire.” She pulled the covers back to jump up and amend the oversight when he stopped her.
“Never mind,” he said. “Someone will be up soon and they’ll do it.”
She returned to her place in bed, watching him.
“How long would you say the Yank has been at your Mam’s?”
The question surprised her. Under Finn’s orders, she had lured the American to her mother’s farm nearly five weeks earlier. Until this moment, Finn had not mentioned it again.
She licked her lips. “About a month, I think,” she said.
“And you checked on him a few weeks ago?”
She nodded. “I went to visit me Mum,” she said.
“And saw him?”
She nodded again. “He…he had had an accident,” she said.
Finn’s eyes flashed to hers from the spot on the ceiling he had been studying.
“What kind of accident?” he asked.
“He… I… I think he fell,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t kill her. She had seen enough evidence of his cruelty to his men and the occasional wandering traveler to know what he was capable of.
“But he’s still alive.”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “He’s alive, but… but…”
“But what Jules?” The look he gave her was as deadly as any pit viper’s, she thought, trying to calm herself enough to answer him.
“But me Mam’s got him restrained… from leaving, you see,” she finished, feeling a thin residue of sweat developing on her upper lip.
Finn looked at her and then burst out laughing.
“‘Restrained from leaving’?” he asked, still laughing. “That’s beautiful,” he said, grinning at her. “How about we visit her today? Would you like that, Jules? So we can relieve her of her responsibility.” Julie watched his gaze return to the invisible spot on the ceiling, his smile slowly fading. “Yes,” he said more to himself than anyone else, “I think today’s the day to be doing exactly that.”
“Mom! Mom! You okay?”
Sarah felt the cold and the wet before she opened her eyes. It was dark out but whether that was really the case or just her head, she couldn’t tell. John was kneeling down next to her, his hand holding his pony’s reins.
“Mom, you fell. Are you okay? Oh, gosh, Mom, can you please be okay? There’s so much blood and I’m not really sure…”
Hearing the panic and fear in her son’s voice, Sarah struggled to swim back to full consciousness and reassure him. It was so dark, she couldn’t see his face.
“I’m okay, John,” she heard herself saying. “I’m okay.”
“Oh, Mom, I was so scared. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Her head hurt badly. She put a shaky hand up to her face and saw John wince as she did so.
“You’re bleeding, Mom,” he said. “A whole bunch, like everywhere.”
“Where… where’s Dan?” she asked, pulling away her fingers, slick with her blood.
“He’s over there. He ran for a while and then he came back. But he’s all trembling and he’s limping, too. I think I saw him fall down.”
Oh, Jesus God.
“Help me up, sweetie,” Sarah said.
“Are you sure, Mom?”
“Just to sit up.” Sarah had to admit, between the rain and the blood pouring down her face, it was difficult to see. Worse, what she was seeing was slightly double.
Great. A concussion.
“Is it… is it night already?” she said, trying to look around. She had landed squarely in the middle of the road which was lined on both sides by short, sparsely-leafed trees.
“It’s kind of night,” John said, standing up and absently patting his pony. “Or maybe it’s just the storm making it feel like night.”
“How long was I out?”
“I don’t know. Maybe fifteen minutes?”
“That’s a long time.”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t that long. I’m not good at times.”
“It’s all right, sweetie,” she said, feeling like her breakfast was about to come up. “Can you go bring Dan over here and let’s check him out?”
Glad to have something specific to do, John led his pony over to where Dan was grazing in the rain. Sarah threw up onto the road.
How far were they from Balinagh? she wondered, trying to wipe her face with her jacket sleeve. She eased her helmet off. She could feel the crack in it and wondered if wearing it broken would be any help at all. When she saw how badly Dan was limping as John led him over, she realized it didn’t matter.
Nobody was going to be riding anywhere.
The night was nearly unbearable. The rain never let up for a moment. It took her an hour just to climb back on her feet. At some point, without her having to say the words, John realized they would not be going the rest of the way to Balinagh. It was arguable at this point whether they were closer to home or the village, they honestly couldn’t tell. It never occurred to Sarah when they set out walking down the road toward home that they might not make it before morning. She underestimated how hurt she was and they had to stop frequently. She and John took turns riding Star but, even so, it was clear they were all exhausted and would do better to hole up some place for the night rather than try to forge on.
“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.