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When Mike asked Declan to find out how the
twins had died, his brother-in-law only shrugged. It appeared the
gypsy fathers and brothers of the raped girls of the camp were not
able to tell Cedric from Colin, nor did they care to. Justice was
justice. Sometimes slow in coming, but always coming.

Gilhooley and Archie trudged side by side to
the funeral, although Mike never saw them exchange a word. The
fight seemed to have gone out of both of them during the long day
and night since the three Kelly siblings had been slain. Even so,
Mike locked them both up in the newly built jail so that the rest
of the camp might sleep without worry.

Both would leave immediately following the
burial with whatever belongings they came with—except for their
weapons.

Mike drove the cart from the burial with
Aideen and some of the older women of the camp, including Iain’s
wife, Edie, who sat in front with Mike and Aideen. Iain walked
behind, dishonored and dejected. Because he refused to hang Gavin,
Mike allowed him to keep his weapons.

But he too would have to leave.

Mike looked over at Edie sitting rigidly
next to Aideen, her face impassive and unreadable. He kept his
voice low although the children in back were too young to
understand.

“I’m happy for you to stay, Edie,” he said.
“You don’t have to go with him.”

Edie gave a snort of derision, but whether
it was intended for Mike or the situation, Mike didn’t know. “He’s
my husband,” she said. “For better or feckin’ worse.”

“If you ever want to return, you are welcome
any time.”

“Thank you, Mike,” she said, not looking at
him. “And…” She fumbled for a tissue in the sleeve of her cardigan
and Mike felt Aideen stiffen. “And I’m sorry for everything he
did.”

“No need to apologize for him…”

“You mean for him nearly hanging you? I’d
say there is.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“No, but I married him.”

Mike didn’t speak after that. It had been
hard enough to watch the three young people lowered into the grave.
His eyes kept straying to the grave close by that they had just dug
three weeks before.

Sleep well, little
Papin,
he thought sadly.
We miss you, girl.

When they reached the camp, Mike helped the
two women down, but before Aideen turned away she held onto his
arm. “A word, Mike?”

Nodding, he followed her away from the cart
to stand in front of his hut. He and Gavin had moved back in the
night before.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way you’ll
reconsider and let Iain stay?”

He looked at her with surprise, but before
he could speak she hurried on.

“It’s just that we all make
mistakes and everyone knows that as soon as Fiona showed up, Iain
was fighting on
our
side…on the side of the camp, I mean, not
Brian’s.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“He told Edie he’s sorry about all of it.
You can’t see it in your heart to let him stay? I mean, it means
Edie and the babies are out in the cold, too.”

“I said they could stay. But it’s her
decision.”

“I know, but won’t you reconsider?”

“You’ve become friendly with Edie.”

“We have a lot in common. I adore her little
boys and Taffy gets on well with them, too.”

“Did she ask you to talk to me?”

Aideen laughed without humor. “As if I had
any special influence over you.”

“Of course you do,” Mike said, resisting the
impulse to touch her shoulder to assure her. “But I can’t let him
stay. Gilhooly was barking mad about a lot of things, but on that
he wasn’t wrong.” Mike shrugged. “I was soft. I nearly paid the
ultimate price for that. I won’t soon do it again. I’m sorry,
Aideen. He needs to go.”

She nodded and looked down at her feet. “In
that case,” she said, “I think I’ll likely go with them.”

“Are you serious?” He was stunned. “Why
would you do that?”

“I don’t know, Mike,” she said brightly.
“Maybe because I’m in love with someone who every time I see him
tears my heart right out of my chest and I think I stand some
chance of being happy if I’m away from him?”

He blinked at her as if she had started
speaking a foreign language. He couldn’t believe she would leave
the safety and comfort of an established community just to save
herself the discomfort of laying eyes on him. “Is it that bad,
then?”

She laughed and shook her head. “You really
are clueless, aren’t you? Yes. Yes, it’s that bad.”

“Where will you go?”

“Iain says he’s heard of a place over on the
coast. He’s learned a lot, Mike. He’s learned what not to do. And
he’s learned all he has to lose, too. We’re all going to start
over. I’m not sad about it. I don’t want you to be either.”

He shook his head and this time he did give
in to the urge to touch her. He put his head next to hers and they
stood quietly for a moment. “If you’re sure,” he said.

“I am.”

“I’m as sorry as I can be.”

“Don’t be. It is what it is, as a wise man
once told me.” She lifted her face to him and kissed him on the
mouth. “Take care of yourself, Mike Donovan,” she said. “I wish you
happiness.”

“And me, you.”

She turned and he watched her walk to where
Fiona stood waiting for her on her porch, her arms open, ready to
take her in. And say goodbye.

***

Gilhooley slumped on his horse like a man
who’d had his spine surgically removed, Mike thought as he
approached him from his hut. The rain had started sometime in the
night and had kept steady all though the morning and the burials.
It was only getting worse as the day wore on.

You wouldn’t send a dog out
in this shite
, Mike thought. He turned to
look at Archie sitting in the driver’s seat of the wagon he’d
arrived in. The bed was nearly empty except for the saddles that
belonged to the two riderless horses tied to the back of the wagon.
Archie wore a baseball cap that did nothing to prevent the rain
from sluicing down the front of his face and across his chest. He
stared down at his hands holding the reins as if he didn’t see
them.

Mike took the bridle of the horse in harness
and patted his neck. He didn’t look at Gilhooley or his
father-in-law. “Got everything then?” he asked gruffly.

Neither man answered him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gavin
walk up to the wagon where Archie sat. Gavin stood for a moment as
if unsure of what to do, then stuck out his hand to the older man.
Mike watched Archie hesitate for a moment and then unclench from
the reins to take his grandson’s hand.

“Take care of yourself, Grandda,” Gavin
said. “I hope you stay well.”

Archie nodded but didn’t let go of Gavin’s
hand. Mike watched him put his head close to Gavin’s to speak
privately to him. Mike let them have their moment. He turned his
attention to Gilhooley.

“You know how to get back to Dublin?”

Gilhooley shifted his eyes from his pommel
to Mike’s face. His eyes were bloodshot and dazed, his face a
picture of heartbreak.

“Don’t know that I’m going to Dublin,” he
said.

“Well,” Mike said, “wherever you go, mind
you never find your way back this way again.”

“I would rather die than revisit this
godforsaken den of death and abomination.”

“Well, good. That works out for both of us
then, since if you ever come back I’ll shoot you.”

Brian ground his teeth and looked at Mike
through narrowed eyes but didn’t respond.

Mike turned his collar up against the rain
and hunched into his jacket as he turned back to Archie’s wagon.
Gavin untied the two horses and was leading them away to the
stable.

“What’s going on here, then?” Mike asked as
he walked over to the wagon.

“I gave the boy the horses,” Archie said. “I
don’t need them.”

Mike nodded. Horses—even elderly plow
horses—were extremely valuable during these times. And the twins’
mounts were good horses. “You’ll go back to Dublin?”

Archie shrugged. “I dunno. Me family’s all
dead, aren’t they?” He stared down at his hands on the reins, his
voice flat and low.

Mike nodded. “All but one.”

Archie didn’t answer.

“I never hurt Ellen,” Mike said. “I loved
her.”

Archie’s face crumpled into ugly tears, his
shoulders heaving under the rain as it came down even heavier. “I
know,” he said softly. “I was just so…so…” He brought his hands up
to cover his face. Mike resisted the impulse to touch him. With the
rain had come an early advent of autumn’s chill. He shivered in his
cotton jacket.

He tried to imagine how the poor bastard
could be feeling—could even be sitting upright—after having buried
three of his four children this morning.

It was unimaginable.

“I’m sorry.”

The words caught Mike by surprise and when
he looked up, he saw the tears coursing down the old man’s face.
Mike cleared his throat and forced himself not to look away from
the man’s agony.

“I forgive you,” Mike said. He patted the
rump of the horse in the harness. “You’d best get going if you want
to find a place for the night before you drown,” he said.

“Aye.” Archie wiped his tears with a sodden
jacket sleeve and looked around as if trying to decide how to
maneuver the horses for the best exit from camp.

“And, Arch,” Mike said, “once you’ve had
some time to think on everything and know how you feel…if you were
ever to want to come back to Daoineville, you’ll have a place.”

Archie’s eyes grew round with the shock of
Mike’s words and his lips trembled as his eyes strayed in the
direction where Caitlin and the twins were buried. He hesitated and
then nodded, not looking at Mike. “Thank you,” he said in a low
voice. “I think I’d like that.”

***

Mike sat at the dinner table, thunderstruck
by his wealth of blessings. He watched Fiona—surely showing her
pregnancy more than she had even this morning—set down steaming
bowls of mash with creamery butter, the last of the fresh corn, and
a roast chicken, the fragrance of which had tormented him for the
better part of an hour as it baked. Siobhan Murray was running her
fingers through Gavin’s hair in an obviously futile attempt to
eliminate the snarls from it and the lad was doing his best to
escape her by scooting his chair closer to Declan.

It appeared that somehow the old widow had
touched a nerve with Fiona. In the space of a day, she’d been
granted official granny status. Mike shook his head and
grinned.

A day that had begun with a noose around me
neck.

“I’ll be saying grace tonight if there’s no
objection,” Mike intoned seriously.

“Well, saints be praised,” Siobhan said. “If
nearly killing you is what it takes to bring you back onto the
path, then I’ll be sharpening me dirk.”

The table laughed.

“Thank you, Lord,” Mike said, “for this meal
made by the hands of me own personal savior, Fiona Cooper…”

“All right, now,” Fiona said, wagging a
spoon at Mike. “Say it proper or let me take over.”

Mike clasped his hands together and bowed
his head. “Thank you, Lord, for this meal made possible by your
bounty and the good weather you gave us to grow it. Thank you for
letting us live another day to eat it—”

“You are terrible at this,” Declan said,
shaking his head.

“And thank you for all of us together and
well.”

The sounds of the rain hitting the wooden
roof and shutters underscored his words with an image of safety and
protection.

“Amen.”

“Amen,” everyone repeated.

As Fiona began passing the bowls, Declan
turned to Mike. “So, no election to have you formally reinstated as
Camp Commandant?”

Mike frowned. “It’s still not a democracy. I
think we showed today that if people don’t want me as their leader,
they don’t have to kill me to get rid of me. They can just tell
me.”

Gavin spoke up. “But they voted you back in
anyway, Da. They had the election while you were in the stables
with the horses this afternoon.”

“Oh, well, then,” Mike said. “Good to know
everyone was working as hard as I was this afternoon.”

“You’ll do it then?” Fiona asked. “Take over
as leader?”

“He kind of already has,” Gavin said,
grinning. “It’s like nothing’s changed.”

“Except everything has,” Mike said. He
looked at Declan. “The loyalty of your people coming to defend
you…” He shook his head. “This community could learn from
them.”

“Well,” Declan said, plucking a large corn
muffin from a basket. “They’re family. That’s the difference.”

“Aye. I can see that.”

“You can’t expect your neighbors to act like
family,” Siobhan said. “Even if nowadays they’re really more than
neighbors.”

“Wise words, Siobhan,” Mike said, grinning
at her. “And may I say, I’m happy to see you at our table?”

“It’s permanent,” Fiona said, spooning into
her mashed potatoes. “I’ve asked her to come live with us.” She
looked at Declan but he only smiled. Asking a gypsy if he minded
living in close quarters with family was like asking if he cared
that rain was wet.

“You’ll be needing help with the bairn,”
Siobhan said. “And the lad’s not grown yet. Not by a long shot.”
She gave Gavin a pointed look and the table laughed again.

As soon as everyone turned their attention
to their meals, a low-grade humming sound became instantly
noticeable. Mike and Declan stood at the same time, but Gavin was
faster than both of them. He was at the window looking out, but
before he could even give the yelp that brought the women out of
their chairs Mike saw the light in the dark as a twin pair of
headlights pierced the window.

“What the feck…? Gavin, no!”

But Gavin was out the door before Mike could
drop his napkin on the table. Whatever it was he’d seen, he
obviously wasn’t afraid of it.