A Kiss and a Promise (44 page)

Conan stared at her, almost unable to believe his ears. ‘A hundred pounds?’ he breathed. ‘An’ – an’ a horse an’ cart … farm produce … peats? Oh, Nan, wharrever made ’em think Ginny’s da’ were that rich?’

‘You did,’ Nan said, not mincing matters. ‘You telled ’em he had a great big farm in Kerry and were a rich man. You said he had beautiful horses, a big flock of sheep and a grand house and a big fishing boat … you said …’

Conan put his head in his hands and groaned. It would have been wonderful to be able to deny that he had said any such thing, but he knew very well he had said as much and probably more. He remembered his Auntie Deb warning him that one day his lies and boasting would turn back and bite him, but as time had passed he had become more and more convinced that she was wrong. But now … Conan groaned again. The tinkers had believed every word he had said – the more fools they – but now he realised that if he couldn’t find Ginny, his chances of becoming a trusted member of the tinker tribe would be utterly lost. He said as much to Nan, who looked at him for a long, hard moment and then slowly shook her head. ‘Losing Ginny means they won’t find out about your lies,’ she said positively. ‘If you ask me, it’s a bleedin’ good thing she has got away – for you, I mean. For me, it couldn’t be worse. I shan’t get the pretty things my mam promised me and everyone will have a swipe at me and one-eyed Benny will use his leather belt. And they’ll never accept me. I’ll never be one of ’em.’

They had been continuing to walk down the track as they talked but now Conan stopped. ‘When, exactly, did she get ahead of you … how long ago, I mean?’ he asked. ‘An hour? Two?’

Nan shrugged helplessly. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘It were after the old ’uns had come round wi’ the grub. And we was goin’ uphill … an hour or two, I guess.’

Conan nodded briskly. ‘Right; I’m goin’ back,’ he said briefly. ‘I’ll find her, see if I don’t, an’ bring her back, too.’

‘Shall I come with you?’ Nan asked hopefully, but Conan shook his head.

‘No fear, you’re too slow, you’d only hold me back,’ he said cruelly. ‘If anyone asks where I’ve gone, say I’m after a likely-lookin’ pony what I saw grazin’ in the valley.’ He turned away, raising a hand in farewell. ‘See you later, Nan.’

‘Will I say you took Ginny wi’ you, to help catch the pony?’ Nan said, her voice echoing off the rocks around her. ‘How long will you be, Conan? Oh dear, I hopes you catches her.’

Conan did not answer; there was no point, but he had already decided that no matter how long it took, he would fetch Ginny back to the tinkers. He was happier with the tribe than he had ever been and thoroughly enjoyed the wandering life and the closeness with the animals which such an existence brought. I won’t be slung out because a bleedin’ girl decides she’d be better on her own, he told himself savagely as he hurried up the path. She shan’t ruin me life, norrif I can help it.

Conan slogged on up the mountain path and down the other side, and as he descended the cloud thinned and cleared and he was able to scan the countryside for his quarry. There was no sign of her but if Nan were to be believed she had at least an hour’s start on him, so he did not despair. He did wish he had thought to bring one of the lurchers; dogs, he knew, could pick up a scent trail and follow it when people were unable to do so. However, it had not occurred to him, so now he must manage alone. For a moment he stood still, staring about him. Ginny was escaping from the tinkers. She did not wish to be caught yet he was pretty sure she still wanted to get to Kerry. If he had been in her position, what would he have done? I’d cross the river, he thought triumphantly. Tinkers always seem to stick to the same side of the river. They use the water all right but you never see them swimming in it and they seldom cross, so far as I can see. So if it were me getting away from the tribe, I’d cross the river just as soon as I came to a ford or a shallow place. Therefore my best plan would be to go down to the river and follow it. She won’t think of being pursued so soon, so she isn’t going to hurry. If I jog-trot I’ll maybe catch her up in thirty or forty minutes and if I keep my eyes open I may see her on the opposite bank, though if it were me I’d move inland. Tinkers follow the tracks over the mountain because they’re usually quicker than the windings of the river – at least, I suppose that’s why they do it.

Hurrying along in what he devoutly hoped was Ginny’s wake, he presently came to a patch of marshy ground and here, to his immense relief, he began to think that he really was on the right track. Someone small and light had been this way before him. He could see her footprints dancing along, jumping from one firm patch of ground to another. He remembered Ginny had worn plimsolls with her toes protruding through the ends and was pretty sure that these were her footprints. Unfortunately, however, the weather was worsening. The cloud was pressing lower so that he could barely see the far side of the river and it had begun to rain; a gentle misty rain which nevertheless soaked everything as effectively as a stronger downpour would have done. Conan rubbed it out of his eyes and cursed all women. He was just rehearsing in his mind what he would say to Ginny when he caught her up, when he rounded a bend and realised, for the first time, how swollen the river had become and how dangerous. Up here, he entered a rocky defile in which the river was probably at its narrowest, but as a result it was both deeper and faster than it had been for many miles. The water was brown with churned up silt and streaked with creamy foam where it dashed against the rocks. It no longer looked the sort of river that a grown man could cross, let alone a skinny bit of a kid, and Conan was about to turn away and go back to the track when something ahead caught his eye. At this particular point the river was strewn with large boulders and one of the boulders seemed to have what looked like a round dark object balanced on top of it. Below the round dark object was something which, at first, he took to be some sort of plant clinging to the rock, yet even as he thought this he realised he was wrong. The round dark object was a head and the two plant-like projections below it were the desperate fingers belonging to the owner of the head.

Even as he realised, terror shot through Conan like the blade of an icy knife, almost stopping his heart. The little idiot! She could not have chosen a worse place to try to cross the river, yet even as he broke into a run he guessed why she had done it. Here, there were boulders actually above the water and the river was at its narrowest. Knowing nothing of what happens to rivers when they narrow, she had thought this a good place to cross and now was well and truly stuck.

Even as he ran, Conan was beginning to blame himself. He remembered how sweet and trusting Ginny had been when they had first set out on their adventures. She had bought them both food and had shared everything with him, uncomplainingly. She had helped him to steal though she had strongly disapproved of such actions, and even in the tinkers’ camp she had never let him down, never told the tinkers that he was a liar and a boaster. And what had he done in return? He had used her – and her farming father – as a means to make himself popular with the band. He had known that the chief meant to sell her to her own father and had not even had the decency to warn her. He had kept her a prisoner and had dogged her footsteps, determined not to let her get away, whereas had he been a real friend he would have done everything in his power to help her.

Never before in his whole life had Conan actually looked at himself and realised that he was not a nice person. Many and many a time his Aunt Deb had said that his lies and his boasting would come home to roost, but in his wildest nightmares he had never thought that someone else would suffer as a result of his behaviour. Now it seemed that Ginny had been forced to run away from the tinkers and might easily lose her life as a consequence.

Sick with guilt and fear, Conan reached the spot at which Ginny had entered the water. Not even thinking of his own personal safety, he splashed down the bank and just as he was whirled off his feet by the current he saw Ginny’s hands slip from their precarious hold, saw her swirl downstream and found himself following her, keeping afloat with the greatest difficulty, and realising, as the current channelled between the rocks, that Ginny could not swim. He glanced round desperately, praying for help, and heard what sounded like a faint mew, perhaps a gull or a distant creature, for there was no one within sight. Then the water dragged him down and the last thing he saw was Ginny’s out-flung arm before the water closed over his head.

Nan watched Conan disappearing up the track and felt despair. It was her fault that Ginny had escaped, or at least one-eyed Ben and all the others would say it was. Her own mother might not; at first in agreement, she had changed her mind and had not approved of the chief’s desire to ransom Ginny to her own father, and told Nan that she should refuse to guard the girl. But Nan was trying to make a place for herself; all she would make by losing Ginny was enemies. And she had enough of them, simply by not being a true member of the tribe. Sticking closer to Ginny than glue had brought approval from the older tinkers and such approval was sweet. So even as she watched Conan disappear into the mist, Nan decided to follow him. She might not be able to help Conan to recapture Ginny, but with two to one it would be a good deal easier to get her back to the tribe. And anyway, if the three of them returned together, everyone would know she had at least been willing to do what she could.

It was tough going though. For the first ten or fifteen minutes, Nan managed to keep the mule by her side, but the animal was plainly uneasy at being separated from its fellows and by the time Nan reached level ground it had clearly worked out its own next move. It whipped round so quickly that Nan lost her balance and landed with a painful thump on the track. By the time she had scrambled to her feet, it had disappeared into the mist once more, braying defiance as it did so.

Nan cursed softly and glanced ahead of her up the track; it looked uncommonly steep and she guessed it would take her a good deal longer without the mule’s help. However, she could just make out Conan’s small figure ahead of her. Grimly, Nan set off in pursuit.

She could not have said how long it was before Conan turned towards the river, but his action put Nan in a quandary. The land at this point was flat and marshy and if she followed him, one glance back would be sufficient for him to spot her. I’ll stick to higher ground, Nan decided. After all, it isn’t as if he’s likely to try to cross the river. Nan had all the tinkers’ aversion to water and seldom paddled, even on the hottest day. Gaining higher ground was not difficult but with the soft, fine rain blowing into her face, it was hard to make out what was actually happening. She saw Conan suddenly break into a run, however, and guessed that he must have seen Ginny. She was still wondering whether this was the moment that she herself should make for the river when she realised that Conan had disappeared. She stopped short, a hand flying to her throat; her first thought was that if she lost him, she would also lose her chance of a triumphant return to the tribe. But then she thought she heard a shout and, peering through the rain, saw that Conan was up to his knees in water and actually going in deeper yet.

To do Nan justice, she immediately set off as fast as she could towards the water. It was hard going through the marshy ground but she gained the bank just in time to see what looked like two bundles of rags fairly hurtling along downstream. Desperately, miserably aware that she was no runner, Nan began to hurry along the bank. She saw an out-flung arm – she could not tell whether it belonged to Conan or Ginny – and then she reached a bend in the river and lost sight of them. By the time she had negotiated it, the rain was so heavy that she could only see a few yards ahead, and though she trudged along the bank for another half hour, there was no sign of anyone, either in the water or out of it.

With a heavy heart and tears mingling with the rain on her face, Nan turned her weary footsteps back to where she imagined the tribe would now be making camp for the night. It was several hours before, footsore and exhausted, she managed to join them again and then she found the place in a real uproar, for they had realised that the three children were missing and though Ginny only meant money to the elders of the tribe, they had no wish to see her making trouble for them by telling the authorities they had kept her with them against her will. What was more, they valued Conan for his abilities as a horse caller, and Nan herself because she was an obedient child who did her best to help. Indeed, her mother pounced on her and gave her a tight hug before beginning to rail at her for her absence. Nan, exhausted and in a state of considerable nervous excitement, promptly burst into tears. ‘C-C-Conan an’-an’ Ginny an’ me went down to the river after one o’ the mules,’ she said, hiccuping and stammering but keeping in mind the story she had carefully rehearsed. ‘C-C-Conan saw a grand, black horse wi’ a white star on its forehead on t’other side o’ the river. I c-c-can’t swim so they telled me to stay on this bank while they crossed to fetch the pony. I did what they said but when they was halfway across the water took Ginny and whirled her away and Conan went in after her. Th-the bleedin’ mule gorraway from me but I follered Ginny and Conan from along the bank un-until the water dragged ’em under. Even then I follered, hopin’ they’d be swept ashore, bu-but the river got deeper an’ faster … Oh, Mam, they was both drownded dead before me eyes and there weren’t nothin’ I could do, nothin’!’

Nan had to repeat her story many times before nightfall but since most of it was true, she did not mind too much. Of course, she had had to make up a lie about the reason they had all taken off in the first place and she supposed that some people probably realised that it was a lie; guessed that Ginny had been fleeing from the tinkers and that Conan and Nan herself had been trying to recapture her. But none of that was important; what mattered was that the two children had been drowned and there was no point in searching for them further.