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“Two nights,” Sarah said. “We’ll leave
Wednesday morning early. Your da’s arranged to have old Jimmy
Dorsey take us.”

“Why can’t he take us, himself?”

Sarah felt very tired. “Well, now that he’s
no longer camp leader, maybe he can,” she said.

“You and him broke up, didn’t you?”

“I’m not sure we were ever together.”

“That’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“Nothing. It’s just that it’s not like you
to out and out lie like that.”

Sarah’s mouth fell open.
She wanted to respond sharply to her. Tell her to watch her tongue,
respect her elders…but she knew she couldn’t.
Papin was right
.

Papin grimaced and sat down on a wooden
chair as if her legs suddenly gave out on her. “When you first told
me about him? You know, in Wales?”

Sarah nodded.

“I thought you were in love with him. You
talked like you were.”

“You’re confused, Papin. I’d just lost my
husband.”

Papin shrugged. “Just saying what it sounded
like to me.”

Sarah couldn’t help notice how pale Papin
looked. She was almost positive she could see the girl’s hand was
shaking.

“And then all year long everyone’s asking me
when you two were getting married or at least moving in together
and I was totally clueless. You could tell you were a couple in
every other way, you know?”

Sarah turned to the sink to fill the
teakettle and set it on the stove although it was cold. “I guess
that’s what it looked like,” she said.

“Only now, he’s snogging old Aideen and
we’re pissing off to America like nothing ever happened.”

Sarah forced herself not to
react to the image of Mike
snogging old
Aideen
. “Things don’t always turn out the
way we think they will.”

“Only this time it’s
not
things turning out
a certain way, but
you
making them
be
a certain way.”

“I thought you wanted to go to the
States.”

“I do.”

“But?”

“But I thought you loved Da.”

Sarah looked at Papin and
heard what the girl was really asking:
What about the next time you tell me someone is important to
you?

“
Go tell John to get his
things, will you? Unless you’d rather lie down. You look all in,
sweetie.”

Papin stood up slowly. “I wouldn’t mind a
wee kip,” she said, her voice soft and heavy with
disappointment.

Bugger
, Sarah thought as she heard Papin’s bedroom door
close.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

***

After Mike settled young John in on a
bedroll in the front room of his small hut, he stood out on his
porch, smoking and surveying the camp. The gypsies alternated
between monopolizing the main cook fire—to sleep, play music,
cook—or they kept to themselves for weeks at a time at the south
end of the camp. It bemused Mike that there was no real set pattern
to their schedules or behavior. Sometimes they were there, and
sometimes they weren’t.

Tonight, a few of the gypsy men had dropped
their bedrolls in front of the fire. One of them had a guitar and
the soft strumming melody caught on the summer evening breeze and
crept into every cottage and tent in the camp.

He and John had eaten at Aideen’s tonight.
It had been a quiet meal, with Aideen clearly afraid to put a foot
wrong in front of her main rival’s son. Mike knew she needn’t have
worried. John had many things on his mind tonight but Aideen Malone
wasn’t one of them. Before they’d left for dinner, John had
revealed to Mike that he’d done everything but beg his mother to
reconsider leaving.

“Surely, that’s a bit of an exaggeration,”
Mike had said to the boy, grinning. John was very different from
his son, Gavin, but Mike always surprised himself to realize that
he loved John Woodson every bit as much. The lad was smart. And
whereas it was true Gavin could easily find his way out of a woolen
jumper given some advance notice, brains were not what one first
thought of when describing him.

The singular intelligence
in John’s eyes always belied the fact of his years.
Speak to him longer than ten minutes and you’ll
forget he’s a kid.
How many times had he
told Sarah that? He smiled ruefully and stepped off the porch, his
heart aching in his chest. God, he was going to miss that
boy.

Declan waved to him from the porch of his
own cottage and jumped off the deck, heading toward him. They
hadn’t spoken since the news of the election. As far as Mike was
concerned, it had always been clear who Declan wanted to lead the
camp.

And that hurt.

“Mr. Cooper,” Mike said, nodding to Dec as
the two met by the fire. “May I interest you in a post-election
tot?”

“You got booze?” Declan asked.

“No, but there’s always the swill from the
still.”

Declan made a face. “I get a bigger high
from me cuppa. And it tastes like petrol.”

“That it does.”

The silence bloomed between them and Mike
let it stay. He had something to say to his brother-in-law and he
didn’t consider having him comfortable as the most ideal condition
to hear what he had to say. Just before he was about to speak, he
noticed Sarah slip out of the shadows. The flickering firelight
played shadows against her face as she moved toward Mike’s hut.

Mike waited until she was in earshot and
then called to her. “Sarah, love. If you’re going to stay goodnight
to yer boy, he’s already asleep.” He watched her stop and then
hesitate as if she might just go on anyway or turn and leave the
way she’d come. He held a welcoming arm out to her, and after the
briefest of pauses, she joined them at the fire.

“You all tucked in at the Widow Murray’s?”
he said.

“The woman doesn’t speak English,” Sarah
said.

“She speaks Gaelic.”

“If you say so.”

“I’m glad you wandered by, Sarah,” Mike
said, keeping his voice light and casual. This was the first time
the two had spoken since she’d berated him for his engagement.

He turned to Declan. “Dec, you remember what
happened when we executed Caitlin’s bloke, Aidan?”

Declan looked up in surprise. Mike could
tell he hadn’t expected a discussion on the upcoming
execution—although it was clear to Mike by the way the man trudged
through the motions of his day lately that he’d been thinking of
little else.

Aidan Walsh was the boyfriend of Mike’s
sister-in-law, Caitlin. Late last year he’d been found guilty in
the murder of Sarah’s husband, David. Caitlin was exiled from the
community for her involvement.

But Aidan had been hung.

“Do you not remember the
shadow that came over the whole camp for
months
afterward?” Mike put a hand
on Sarah’s shoulder and was surprised to feel she was trembling.
“Was it healing, Sarah? Did it help your grief at all?”

“No.”

Mike turned back to Declan.
“The killing of another human being…when you
have
to do it, in a fight for your
life, that’s one thing, but to take a life in the name of justice,
well, I’m not sure any of us is qualified for that, eh?”

“
You were there, too,
Declan,” Sarah said. “You have to remember what it was like after
Aidan…died. And for me and John, it was worse. I didn’t feel like
David was avenged or anything like that. I just felt sick. Like I
was no better than his killers.”

“Maybe it was the way we did it,” Declan
said. “We hung Aidan with him screaming and kicking and shitting
all the while.” He shook his head. “Maybe if we did it more gentle
like.”

“
What Ollie did is what
they call a crime of passion.” Mike waved down the start of an
argument from Declan. “Now before you go taking that wrong, I’m not
letting him off the hook for what he did. It was murder and he
should pay for the taking of a life.”

“But not with his own life.”

“I just don’t see how that helps.”

“Maybe you should ask
Eeny’s folks if it helps. Maybe
they
should be the ones to
decide.”

Mike was tired. He looked to Sarah but saw
she’d already given up on the outcome of the discussion. And why
wouldn’t she? After tomorrow, she was no longer a member of the
camp.

“Besides,” Dec said, “it’s not up to us. Or
you, anymore.”

“Aren’t I a part of this community? You’re
so determined to be democratic and making sure everyone gets a say,
so why are you just going along with what Gilhooley says? Seems
like that’s no difference than when I was in charge.”

“I still think what he says makes
sense.”

“Ollie’s just a boy.”

“And Eeny was just a girl. A girl who’ll
never get a chance to grow into a woman now thanks to him.”

“Banish him, Dec. Turn him out on his own,
but don’t kill the poor sod.”

“Not up to me, Mike. I’m thinking now I’m
kind of glad about that.”

“Except it’ll be you who puts the rope
around his neck. The rest of us can go back to our huts and pretend
it never happened. It’ll be you who looks into his eyes then snuffs
the light out of those eyes.”

“Brian says he wants everyone gathered for
the hanging. Kiddies too.”

Man turned and spat in the dirt. “Man’s a
monster.”

***

“Mind you don’t let Muffin
out when you use the bog at night.” The older woman sat rigidly on
the old sofa stroking a large orange tomcat that had one ear chewed
off.

“I’ll be careful, Mrs.
Murray,” Sarah said, lighting a lantern and adjusting the wick. The
camp was low on kerosene and she was surprised to see the old woman
had any at all.
Must usually be in bed
before it’s dark
, she mused as she turned
to survey the small cottage interior. It wouldn’t be wonderful but
for two nights, it beat sleeping in a bag by the fire, which she
assumed was her only other option.

Sarah had grumbled about clearing out before
Brian and his family arrived. But Fiona insisted she needed the
extra time to make it fit for him.

She’s lucky I’m not the
sensitive sort when it comes to my housekeeping
, she thought, feeling another in a long endless line of
stabs to the heart when thinking about her friend and all that she
would soon miss about being here. She set the lantern down on the
table next to the sofa where Siobhan Murray was squinting at a
crossword puzzle over the cat’s purring body. Sarah could see the
puzzle had already been filled in—probably months ago.

“I’m just going to step outside for a little
air.”

“You don’t have to tell me
when or where you go,” Mrs. Murray sniffed without looking up. “I’m
sure it’s none of my business.”

Sarah didn’t know how to
respond to that so she let herself out of the cottage and stood on
the rickety front porch. The old widow’s cottage was situated at
the back of the camp, nearly a city block from the center where the
main cook fire was. It was darker this far back, too, for that
reason. On the other hand, it was quieter.

The only thing behind the
row of shacks, tents and falling down cottages was a small pasture
and a line of fir trees that stood at attention guarding the back
of the little community. It surprised Sarah that Mrs. Murray felt
comfortable back here. With nothing but field behind them, it felt
very exposed to her.

Sarah settled down on the
top step and strained to catch the sounds of the gypsies’ music as
it lofted gently in the night air.
One
more night after tonight
, she
thought,
and then we’re gone.

She hadn’t been sure what
to expect when Mike called her over to him this evening. The truth
was she wasn’t sure how she would react to him either. To have him
behave as if nothing had happened, as if she weren’t about to leave
for good, or that he wasn’t engaged to marry someone else, had been
almost as bad as if he’d made a scene. She knew him well enough to
know he felt it. Unlike the gushy, demonstrative American, he just
didn’t show it.

A sound caught her
attention on the narrow gravel path that led to the interior of
camp and, because she’d been thinking of him, she irrationally
jumped to the hope that it was Mike. A moment later, she could pick
out the distinctive business-like lope of Fiona hurrying up the
dark path toward the Widow Murray’s cottage.

“Evening, Sarah! I hoped I
might catch you still awake.”

As Fiona reached the porch steps, Sarah saw
that she carried two mugs of tea.

“This is a nice surprise,”
Sarah said, reaching for one of the mugs. “I guess Declan lets you
out this late when you have company?”

Fiona laughed. “Trust me,
he doesn’t care
who’s
in the house when he’s in the mood.” She sat down next to
Sarah. “No, I just wanted to have a quiet word with you before
things got crazy tomorrow.”

“Things are going to get crazy
tomorrow?”

Fiona shrugged. “Well, I
guess it’s more like we haven’t really had much time together since
the harvest and now you leaving so soon.”

Sarah sipped her tea. If Fiona had something
to say, she’d do it in her own time.

“I wanted to be the one to tell you that
Declan and I have some very special news to announce.”

Sarah put her mug down and
put her arms around Fiona. “I think I already know,” she said. “It
is just the best news ever. How far along are you?”