“What? I dinnae need company to go to sleep. Outgrew that years ago,” Geordie grumbled as he sat up.
“Ha! Funny guy,” Iain said. “We’ve come to talk about this trip you are going to take.”
“Thought we did. I’m going to go along with James.”
“Aye. And Robbie.”
Geordie looked at his grinning younger brother. “Ye want to come?”
“Aye,” Robbie answered. “I can manage.”
“Are ye sure? It is a long trip.”
“I am much stronger than I was. So long as we arenae galloping across the country for days at a time, I will manage just fine. And ye will have James with ye, so it will nay be just the two of us who dinnae usually travel much. I have been riding regularly, Geordie. I can hold up.”
Geordie looked at Iain. His eldest brother did not look worried about it or even inclined to argue with Robbie’s decision. Geordie could not decide if that was because Iain and Robbie had already argued over it or if Iain was truly not concerned. Iain was very skilled at saying what sounded right, just what you wanted to hear, but if you sat and looked very carefully at what he said, you would find it was a rather empty package of words, and that he was placating you.
“Weel, all right then. Now let me sleep.” He lay down with his back to them and tugged the covers up. “I need rest for the journey.”
“Rude,” Iain muttered as he stood up.
Geordie kept his eyes closed as he listened to them leave, then flopped onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. He had no real objection to Robbie coming along, but he did have a worry or two. Robbie’s leg injuries still left him with a serious limp and his hand could occasionally go so weak it was useless. It also remained too stiff for him to do some things, like the weaving he used to love doing. A long trip could possibly set him back in the healing he had done.
Then he shook his head and closed his eyes. Robbie still managed to work at the cider business he and Emily’s brother Reid had begun, and suffered little from it. He just had to trust that Robbie knew what he could or could not accomplish. It would also be a good adventure for him, and Geordie suspected his brother needed one, needed something to make him a little more sure of himself.
He hoped James would agree to travel with them. It would make Geordie feel even more at ease about taking Robbie. There was a lot of good the ocean could do for his brother. Many people felt the water had a healing effect on people. Geordie was not sure he believed that, but he did feel it could soothe a person and he strongly felt there was something in Robbie that needed some soothing.
Just sitting and watching the waves come in might do Robbie a lot of good. Geordie could easily recall how that worked. The years had soothed away the memories that could cause his brother to wake up screaming, but maybe a trip to the ocean would help even more. It was odd that the ocean could be so powerful, so destructive at times, yet, when it was calm, it could also soothe.
Sleep began to creep over him and he welcomed it. There was a lot that needed thinking on, but it could wait until morning. He would make better decisions with a well-rested mind.
* * *
Robbie rubbed the cream, which Abbie and Mrs. O’Neal swore would help him fight the aches he suffered at the end of the day, into his wounded leg. He had not told them that there were times during the day when it was painful. It did soothe it at night and he was grateful for how that helped him to fall asleep. It did nothing to quiet his mind, however. His mind was crowded with thoughts of all that could go wrong and doubts about his taking part in the journey, but he fought to banish them. He could not decide if that fear and worry was born of reason, or of unreasoning fear.
Shaking his head as he put the cream away, he settled down in his bed. He faced his fear and wrestled it down. His leg was ruined but it was also healed. Crooked and ugly, but healed. Travel could not ruin it more than it was already ruined. Robbie told himself yet again that he was fortunate he still had it despite the pain that too often troubled him. During the war, the solution for such an injury was usually amputation, a solution not everyone survived. At least he had escaped that fate.
He would have to have a talk with Reid. The East did seem to be the place with the innovations and ideas. He might find one that would help them take a big stride forward. Their business was doing well enough, but it needed to be built up a bit before it got them a really nice return for their efforts. It was probably a bad time to just go off for a while. He hoped he could explain why he felt he needed to.
As he closed his eyes he wondered if this trip would inspire him, if he would return with new ideas and new strength to work on the business. He promised himself he would go visit any cider mills in the area they were in while he was in the East. Sleep slipped over him as he wondered if that would be enough to calm any anger Reid might feel.
Chapter Two
Studying the clothes he had laid out on the bed, Geordie decided he had all the clothes he needed. It was probably more than many men would take for a short journey with no plans for a long stay, but he needed to be sure he would not have to wear dirty clothes. The journey they had taken to find their new home, with all the dirt and mud that had constantly assaulted them, had left him with an abhorrence of unwashed clothes. He was so particular he had even learned how to wash his clothes himself. His brothers questioned him about it often, wondering why he did not just wait for washing day when the women did it, but he knew several of them had picked up a few of their own odd habits. Mrs. O’Neal referred to them as “twists.”
Despite the fact that James had not yet arrived or agreed to travel with him and Robbie, Geordie had begun to pack the rucksack Iain had given him. When he was done he saw that he had a lot of room left in the bag. He was about to choose a few more clothes when he caught the scent of breakfast cooking and decided packing could wait. Tossing what he had chosen to add to the rucksack onto his bed, he followed the scent of food.
Geordie took a seat at the table after saying good morning to Mrs. O’Neal. Iain walked in a moment later and stared at him in surprise before sitting down next to him.
“Ye are up and about early,” Iain said as Mrs. O’Neal set a platter of ham down on the table. “I have a loud bairn. What is your excuse?”
Geordie shrugged. “Despite how far and wide your bairn shares that loudness, it wasnae that loudness that roused me. Figured I might as well pack so I am ready when it is decided whether I go along with James or nay.”
“I was wondering why we havenae seen the mon yet. Thank ye, Mrs. O’Neal,” Iain said as the woman put a mound of scrambled eggs on his plate. “I pray that cough your Marie was struggling with yesterday hasnae developed into anything worse.”
“No. It never does. Beginning to think it is from all that dust or whatever it is, floating around in the air at this time of year, that is the troublemaker. You can see it on the fences or anything else left outside.”
“Ever wonder what it is?”
“Comes off the plants and trees this time of year.”
“Huh. How do ye ken that?”
“Ever look at a bee when it is in a flower?”
“Nay, seems like a good way to get your face stung.” Iain grinned when Geordie laughed.
“Well, when I was young, bees fascinated me. Didn’t see that many of them in the city. I used to watch them closely when I could. They would land in a flower, wriggle about, and get loaded up with all this yellow dust, then fly off to another flower. So, if it is there for bees to collect up, it is obviously all round us and the wind can move it. I wager there are some fellows who have studied it and can tell one why and when and all that. Probably even have a name for it.”
“Undoubtedly. And some fast-talking man sells a cure off his wagon. Do you think those who may study it can make a living from that?”
“Who cares?” asked Geordie “If anyone does something about it ye will ken all about it then, for they will have some concoction they will be wanting to sell ye. Or,
while ye wait, ye can just try out some things on her, all on your own.”
Iain muttered something about Geordie being heartless, then looked at his wife and brothers as they shuffled into the kitchen and took their seats. “Ye all look like ye had to dig your way out of a cave to get down here.”
“And ye look all cheery and weel rested,” snarled Nigel, one of Geordie’s brothers. “Dinnae ye e’en stir when the bairn screams?”
“No, he does not,” said Emily and glared at her husband before turning her attention to filling her plate.
“I wake when I am needed.”
“What nonsense are you spouting? Are you trying to tell us you can tell why she is wailing?”
“Aye.” Iain ignored his wife’s scornful disbelief. “When she is crying for a cuddle or food I just go back to the sleep she rudely pulled me out of. I willnae spoil her with a cuddle in the middle of the night or whenever she demands one, and I cannae feed her, so I just go back to sleep. Seems the only reasonable thing to do.” Iain quickly took a sip of his coffee to hide his grin when his wife actually growled at him.
Geordie shook his head as he gathered up his empty plate and took it over to the sink. He had to wonder why he thought he would miss this crowd. When Emily’s nephew, Ned, came up and held up his empty plate for him to put in the sink too, Geordie ruffled the boy’s hair. Well, he mused, there were some he’d miss, he decided, and grinned down at the boy. Then he sighed and wandered back to the table to have some more coffee.
He was about to refill his mug when a knock came at the door. Iain hurried out to the front door to see who it was. The greetings were loud enough that Geordie suspected James had finally arrived. When the two friends walked into the kitchen it was clear Iain was very pleased to see the man. Geordie was surprised Matthew was not with him.
“Matthew didnae come?” he suddenly asked and almost grimaced in embarrassment.
“No,” James said as he sat down at the table. “He said he’d come round later. Seems he promised Abbie he’d watch the bairns while she went shopping.”
“How are the major and Maude doing?”
“Just fine. Seems marriage suits them both and they arenae suffering much for fighting on the wrong side. I got the feeling the whole town, where they get their supplies, had split and guess people have decided the only way they can stay in town is to just ignore the reasons for the war. The major and Maude are not in the midst of a town or village, but out in a farming community. Though I got the impression Maude is very skilled at redirecting talk so that it is as if they have landed in a place that doesn’t know the war ever happened. She is also very kind to the people in the area who lost someone.”
“One has to believe that happens more than we know,” said Mrs. O’Neal as she poured James some coffee. “Folk are always fighting somewhere, and yet things settle afterward. The ones that seem to hold hard to what caused the fight are the men who planned to fatten their wallets if they won or the ones who lost what fortune they had because they picked the wrong side.”
“Always comes down to money and power, and they are not the ones who get out and do the fighting.”
“The way of the world,” muttered Iain. “So ye are headed back to Maine.”
“I am. Stayed away for the worst of the cold season, but my mother just sent word that I am to trot my backside home because my fool dad hurt his foot and cannot work.”
“Ah, aye, a request that must get a swift response,” said Iain.
“Definitely, though I told her it was unkind of her to make me come home during fly season and she should not say such insulting things about Da.” He grinned when the MacEnroys all laughed.
“Fly season?” asked Iain.
“Black flies. Biting flies,” James replied. “They swarm all over the place at this time of year. Tormenting little beasts.”
“And this is the place you have been wanting to go back to since you joined the army?”
“Oh, yes, I should get home in time to offer the mosquitoes a meal.”
Geordie laughed. “I remember those creatures. Hated them. Don’t get that many up here, although there are days when they can be thick in the air.”
For a while they talked idly about what Iain was still doing, what Reid and Robbie were still working hard on, and what James had plans to do. Then, when James idly asked Geordie what his plans were, Geordie thought for only a minute before telling him.
“I am planning a journey east. Want to see the ocean again,” he said.
“Why not go west? There’s an ocean that direction too, and a lot is happening that way.”
“Too much, I am thinking. I dinnae want an exciting or dangerous journey just to see any ocean. I want to see the one we traveled on, the one I have always looked on the times I got close enough to do so.”
“It is just water.”
“So speaks the mon who has lived near it his whole life. Probably can step out on your front stoop and stare at it.”
“Nope, not that close. Only a fool builds that close to it. It can be as destructive as it is beautiful.”
“Really? I suppose we did hit some rough waters on the way here.”
“Well, picture those rough waters hitting the shore. They have washed away many a man’s home.”
“Sad, but I dinnae have a wish to be living there, just a craving to see it, sit on shore and soak in the sight and sound of it when it is calm.”
“Before the two of ye get caught up in whether the ocean is calm or nay, dangerous or good, let us discuss what we were wondering about before ye came here, James,” said Iain.
“Oh? Am I going to like this?”
“Dinnae ken. Ye are headed back to Maine, aye?”
“I am. Hoping to spend a night in a bed here, then riding out.”
“Mind if Geordie and Robbie ride out with you?”
James looked at the two young men, then back at Iain. “Company is always good, but”—he looked at Geordie—“are ye hoping to stay with me? Because I am nay certain there will be much room. Had a bad storm come through and had some damage there. That damage is what caused Da to hurt himself. My sister and her family had to move in with us until they get their home fixed. Tree came down and took out their roof.”
“I wasnae expecting to be housed,” said Geordie. “I rather assumed there would be rooms to let or something, since I suspect ye get a lot of folk coming in for a summer visit.”
“Yes, we do, and that number appears to be growing. Also, a bit of trouble with men using underhanded legal tricks to take homes or land the owners don’t want to sell. I made sure I can get the money I saved quickly and easily in case it is needed by my folks. Mother often had a room to let so she could get some extra money, but my sister and her family are in it now. I have neighbors who even built a couple small cabins to let on their land, and do quite nicely when the summer folk wander up. It may be a slowly growing business, but it is a growing business. Trains going up that way have really added to the numbers. Haven’t decided whether I like it or not, but doubt I will get much say in the matter.”
“I am nay sure I could abide dealing with strangers wandering in every year,” said Iain.
“Seems a relatively good way to get some money and there arenae that many ways to do so in some places now,” said Robbie.
“Too many businesses destroyed and fields burned and towns pummeled into dust. From what I have seen it is being cleaned up fair swiftly though.”
James nodded. “Not that much ruined up my way. So, are ye ready to set off as soon as tomorrow? Hate to rush you, but when one’s mother sends out an order . . .”
“Aye, I have already started packing and can finish that tonight,” answered Geordie, and then he turned to look at Robbie. “Are ye ready?”
“I can be by morning.”
“Good,” said James. “I promise I willnae be up at dawn snapping out orders.”
“Verra kind of ye,” muttered Geordie, as Robbie got up to put his dishes
in the sink and walked away.
A moment later, James looked at Iain and asked quietly, “Are ye sure Robbie can deal with a trip like this?”
Iain sat back and crossed his arms. “I suspect he will need a lot of resting when he gets there, but, aye, he has healed enough to do it. True, he might make ye have to go a bit slower but nay by much. He has not healed as much as we hoped, yet probably as much as he can. There is a slight weakness that comes and goes, but it is there and I fear it always will be.”
“He wants this,” said Geordie. “I am nay sure why, as he didnae show any great interest in the ocean when we were near it, but I can feel that he really wants this.”
Iain nodded. “I could see that. He needs to go, yet I dinnae think he is trying to prove anything.”
“Nay. I didnae get that feeling, either.”
“He just needs to move, to go for a wee wander.” Iain shook his head. “He really hasnae gone anywhere since we arrived here and nowhere since those men beat him and left him on our doorstep. We arenae the wandering kind.” He frowned at Geordie. “Usually. Mayhap Robbie just believes that, if he can do this, then he can do anything he chooses to. I do feel he will come back feeling less uncertain of himself.”
“Maybe more confident that he can lead a normal life?” asked James.
“That may be some of it. A lot of men didnae come back whole, and ye see too many of them in the big towns and cities, many of them broken, poor, drunk, or dazed on something to kill pain, and homeless, rootless and alone. I can easily imagine him seeing that and fretting about his own fate.”
“Well, I hope a long, boring trip to Maine will help him.” James looked around at the people sitting at the table. “Although, I can’t believe the boy has any concern about finding himself alone with this lot around.”
“I dinnae ken why he frets, either, but maybe he will stop after traveling a bit.”
The Scotsman Who Swept Me Away Page 2
