Free Falling, Book 1 of the Irish End Games

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They were arguing.

  Three men, all of them seemingly talking at once. Sarah felt herself slide in and out of consciousness as she listened to the harsh voices. She was tied up and lying in the back of the pony cart. They had thrown most of the cart contents she had packed into the dirt. Seamus sat in front where she’d left him. The men had obviously assessed, correctly, that it would be more trouble to move him and that he posed no threat to them.

  “Finn wants her alive, I tell you.”

  “How do you even know she’s the one?”

  “She’s American, you daft bugger. How many bloody Yanks you think there are out here?” That brought about some sniggering. Sarah licked her lips. Her face felt bruised and swollen; her shoulder felt broken. The fact that they’d tied her up made her believe—hope—that she hadn’t been shot.

  “Oy, she’s awake.”

  One of the men approached the cart. He was large and pale, as if he had never seen the sun. Sarah couldn’t see clearly but he appeared rough and menacing to her. He had a sharp ferret-face, and his small beady eyes darted around in his head as if he wasn’t quite in control of them.

  He jerked her to a sitting position. The pain that shot through her was like none she’d ever imagined. She groaned.

  Another man spoke from behind her.

  “I tell you, she’s the American.”

  The man with his hand on her raised his fist and held it to her face.

  “Say something, you stupid cow,” he snarled.

  Sarah looked at him blankly.

  He shook his fist.

  “I said—”

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  He dropped his fist. The other two laughed.

  “I told you,” the one man said.

  “Why does he want her?” He was watching her now with curiosity. “She’s not young.”

  “She’s the one shot him, you ejeet. Didn’t you know?”

  “Bugger me.” The lout looked at Sarah with naked admiration. “And killed Ardan.”

  Sarah looked back at the man. He spoke with a rough accent that didn’t sound Irish.

  “Well, whatever he wants with her, he wants her alive. At least at first,” the other man said. “Okay, Granddad, here’s where you get out. Out you go, now.”

  Sarah directed her attention back to Seamus who was sitting quietly as if engaged in his own thoughts. He didn’t move.

  “Just kill ‘im,” the lout said, as he moved back to his horse. He pulled out a shotgun.

  “It’s easier if they go into the house on their own,” the other man whined, “before we fire it. He looks heavy. I don’t want to have to drag—” Even when Sarah saw Seamus reach down to the floorboards of the cart, even she didn’t connect that he was doing anything more than just scratching his ankle, so long had she considered him a nonentity. So when he straightened up in his seat and shot the young man speaking, and then turned without waiting to watch the body hit the ground and shot the man pulling out the shotgun, she watched in shock.

  Seamus shot the third one in the back as he attempted to flee. He never moved from his seat in the cart. When the sounds of the gunshots had stopped ringing in her ears, Seamus turned to her and smiled tiredly.

  “Did you happen to find my reading glasses?” he asked.

  Later that day, Sarah watched John’s eyes go from hers to the window and back to hers. In a split second he had silently asked and answered his own question. It was too late to ride to Balinagh today. She hated to disappoint him. She’d already dealt with her own letdown on the long cold ride back and had rallied herself enough to focus on the joy she was bringing to dear Dierdre. The old woman had not wanted to untangle herself from Seamus from the moment they had driven into the front drive of Cairn Cottage. Sarah held off revealing any details of what had happened at Dierdre’s farm. When Dierdre asked why they didn’t bring the cow, Sarah said only that there’d been an accident and the cow was dead. If Dierdre was disappointed about it—and surely she must have been—that emotion had no room in her heart at the moment. So joyous was she to have Seamus alive—and clear-headed—that she sat next to him, holding his hand like an awestruck schoolgirl.

  It was too late for lunch by the time they had arrived back that day, but dinner was hot and filling. Dierde had roasted another chicken in anticipation of her homecoming and served it with mashed potatoes and canned creamed corn.

  First thing tomorrow, she mouthed the words to John over Dierde’s head. He nodded, resigned. She was tired, bone tired, and her back ached badly from where the big gypsy had thrown the rolling pin at her in the house. But nothing was broken. Now that she knew the face of what her fear looked like, she knew the immensity of the task ahead of her. She glanced at John and her heart hardened at the thought of someone trying to hurt him. Always before, when she thought of losing him she was filled with anxiety and fear. Tonight, the thought of someone taking him from her made her feel as cold and strong as granite, a granite that could crush and kill.

  Sarah looked at her glass of red wine, one of the few bottles she and David had held back from all the trading. Tonight was for celebration, she thought. It’s for miracles, for loved ones raised from the dead. And for thanksgiving. She listened to Dierdre’s happy, girlish prattle and let it wash over her like a job well done.

  One down, she thought, taking a swallow of the dry red wine and looking at the front door with determination. One to go.

  Later that evening, as Sarah and Dierdre were cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen and Seamus and John sat in front of the fire, Sarah told Dierdre what had happened at the farmhouse. The old woman sucked in a sharp breath as she listened and seemed to use the table to steady herself.

  “We left the cow in the drive,” Sarah said quietly as she dried a plate and glanced into the living room to see if John could hear her. “The horses I untacked, stashed their saddles and bridles in the barn, and turned them out into your cow pasture.”

  “Dear God in heaven,” the older woman murmured.

  “You okay, Dierdre?” Sarah put out a hand to touch her on the shoulder. “It had to be done. It’s thanks to Seamus and God Himself that it was done and we’re here safe. You know that, right?”

  Dierdre looked at her quickly.

  “Of course, I know that,” she said. “It’s just…” she picked up a mug and then set it back down again as if not trusting she wouldn’t drop it.

  “I know, I know,” Sarah said, trying to whisper. “It was awful, they were awful. They clearly had some plan that they were going to burn the house with…with Seamus in it, like they’d done that sort of thing before.”

  “And haven’t you heard that very thing in town?” Dierdre looked at her sharply. “Haven’t you heard that there’s a gang of hooligans rampaging the countryside killing and burning everything in its path?”

  “Mom? You guys okay?”

  “Yep, doing good,” Sarah called, giving Dierdre a meaningful look. “‘Bout time for you to brush your teeth, sweetheart?” She heard him speak to Seamus: “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything. Now I have to go to bed.”

  “It’s late, John,” Sarah said. “Plenty of time to talk with Mr. McClenny tomorrow.”

  “We’ll just say goodnight to the horses,” Seamus called to them.

  “Oh, thank you, Seamus,” Sarah said and turned back to Dierdre. “Aren’t you surprised? About Seamus, I mean?”

  “You mean, him not acting daft and all?” Dierdre smiled broadly. “It happens now and again, not for a long time now and sure, it’s wonderful to have him back—in every sense of the word.”

  “So…it won’t last? His being lucid like this?”

  “Sure, no,” Dierdre said beginning to wipe down the table. “Any time now, he’ll leave us again. We don’t know what brings it on or why it goes away.”

  “Just grateful for when it comes.”

  “Aye,” the older woman smiled at her and then her smile faded. “There’s so
mething else, then, isn’t there, Sarah?” she said. “Something you’re not tellin’ me.”

  Sarah stole a look out the window to see the two shapes of John and Seamus in front of the barn.

  “There is something,” Sarah admitted. She sat down at the table.

  “What is it, dear? What happened?”

  Sarah took a long breath and felt the agony of the day wash over her in a shroud of exhaustion and, for a moment, futility.

  “It had to do with the gypsies’ horses.”

  “The ones you turned out into the pasture?”

  Sarah nodded.

  Dierdre patted her hand.

  “Sure, they’ll be fine there until we can collect them, darlin’, you’ll not be worried about that.”

  “It’s not that,” Sarah said, so tired she wanted to put her head down on her arms. “One of the horses…” She turned her head as she heard Seamus and John walk across the yard toward the porch. She looked back at Dierdre.

  “One of the horses was Rocky,” she said. “David’s horse.”

  The next day, before light, Sarah was trotting Dan down the road toward Balinagh. After John had fallen asleep the night before, she warned Dierdre that the gypsy she had wounded seemed intent on revenge on her.

  “It makes my place a little less of a refuge for you,” she said.

  “Nonsense,” Dierdre snorted. “All it makes is you needin’ us here all the more.”

  In any case, she and Seamus had fortified themselves inside the house and placed loaded guns by each of the windows.

  When Sarah hesitated about leaving, she only needed to see John’s face to reinvigorate her conviction that she must try to find David.

  Before she left, she hugged her son tightly and whispered into his ear. “Stay safe, sweetie,” she said. “God willing, Dad and I will be back tonight. Just do whatever Mr. and Mrs. McClenny tell you to do, promise? If they tell you to hide, you hide. Promise me.”

  John murmured into her shoulder: “I will, Mom, I promise.”

  Sarah rode out into the darkness, her saddlebags bulging with cartridges, her Glock, fully loaded, in her shoulder holster. The weather was cold but clear. It hadn’t rained or snowed in 24 hours.

  Again, Sarah fought the impulse to gallop Dan across the pasture in a more direct route to town. There were too many things to help him come up lame so she held herself back. As she rode, she scanned the ditches on either side of the road for ambushers or bodies. Her fingers touched the butt of her handgun nearly the whole ride into town.

  She found herself wondering when she had stopped being afraid of guns and when she had begun thinking of them as something comforting and essential.

  “Da, sure isn’t that the American lady coming in to town?”

  Mike Donovan looked up from the cart he was packing with firewood and squinted down the main street of town. It was midmorning and the sky had darkened and let loose with a gentle, insistent rain. He saw Sarah riding down the street on a large thoroughbred cross. Most sane people would not choose to be out in this weather, he thought.

  “You’re right,” he said, watching her. “Wonder what she’s doing here.”

  The town was more alive today than it had a right to be. When he and Gavin had arrived earlier that morning, it was clear that a tentful of riffraff had spent the night there drinking and fighting. Father and son had steered wide of the noise and the crowd. Donovan needed the firewood that Siobhan kept behind her store. She was long gone and everyone else seemed to forget it was even there.

  The crowd of men looked to be mostly gypsies although some had a different look to them, hardened but in a city, seedy sort of way. Even from a distance, Donovan could tell they weren’t from around this part of Ireland, maybe not from Ireland at all. The foreign looking ones were quieter than the gypsies, he noted. They didn’t sing or dance, though they were drinking just as hard.

  He hurried Gavin to finish the loading.

  Sarah had hoped there would be another market going on. She rode slowly down the main street, keeping her eye on the group of rowdies at the end of it by a large tent. All the storefronts were either boarded up or smashed. The few cars she’d seen two months back when she spoke with Julie were now vandalized beyond any kind of value. She resisted the temptation to just pull the gun out and ride down the street demanding information.

  If she didn’t find somebody to talk to about where Julie lived, how was she going to find David? Had she truly waited all this time to finally come to Balinagh—putting her son at risk back at Cairn Cottage in the bargain—and all for nothing?

  The frustration coursed through her until she wanted to scream. Her eyes flitted from side to side for any possible indication that there was someone who could help her. She looked to the end of the street where the gypsies were gathered and where she felt herself drawn to.

  There were only five of them. They looked like thugs and so far, they hadn’t seen her. Sarah decided to stay mounted in case she needed to make a run for it although the thought of galloping across miles of snowy pasture with fences and stonewalls hidden from view did not sound like a good plan.

  She walked Dan closer to them.

  Seamus had been able to get the drop on three armed men, she thought, because they did not fear him. Her greatest protection, she realized as she approached them, was their arrogance. If she didn’t take too much time to line up each shot…

  “Blimey, Da. Is she barking? What the hell is she doing?”

  Donovan stopped stacking and stared with his mouth open at the sight of Sarah riding down the main street. “I have absolutely no idea,” he said.

  At the last minute, Sarah slid off her horse and tugged him into a small alley off the side of the street. She peered around the corner to see if they’d seen her. They gave no indication of it. Taking in a long breath, she loosely tied Dan by his reins to a stunted tree in the alley and secured her gun in the waistband of her jeans.

  I can do this, she thought.

  She crept out of the alley and slid forward one careful yard at a time until she was a hundred feet away from them. One of the men shouted. The rest of them laughed. A skinny redheaded gypsy boy with badly crossed eyes took a step off the wooden walkway into the street. He was grinning broadly and looked very drunk. A glazed look came over his face. He dropped to his knees and vomited down the front of himself. The rest of the men roared with laughter.

  Was she really looking at this rabble as a source of credible information? They were drunk. Anything they might say would probably be useless to her.

  She watched one of the men stumble backwards on the wooden steps that led to what might have been a grocery store or a restaurant a few months ago. He fell down to shrieks of laughter and rowdy insults from his friends.

  Two of the men began shoving each other until one hauled off and slugged the other in the face. The rest of the group turned their attention to the grappling fighters, now on their hands and knees in the street. Sarah used the opportunity to back away a little bit since it was clear the gang was becoming more and more out of control. The nonfighting men alternately swore and cheered the fighters on. One of the fighters grabbed a piece of wood and began hammering away at his opponent with it which drove the gathered crowd wild with delight.

  Sarah watched in horror as it became clear that the man intended to murder the other man, clearly inebriated, in the middle of the street. She watched the melee helplessly when, without warning, a pair of strong hands grabbed her from behind and jerked her sharply backwards. The last thing she remembered seeing before a large dirty hand clapped over her face and eyes was the gypsy she had shot coming out of the building. He was wearing the University of Florida sweatshirt she had last seen on her husband.