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Then she’s mad at you because you’re not
stopping me.

Suddenly John jumped up and ran to the door.
He had it open and was leaping off the porch before Sarah realized
he wasn’t trying to compete with Papin for throwing the biggest
tantrum of his life.

There was a gas-powered vehicle roaring up
to the front of the cottage right through the center of camp.

Sarah wasn’t the last person to reach the
porch to see for herself what all the excitement was about, but she
was the first to realize it wasn’t good.

A young man dressed in the uniform of a
first lieutenant in the United States Marines sat astride a
military-issue motorcycle with the insignia of the United States
decaled on the side. Sarah watched him remove his goggles, his
machine idling loudly between his legs as he waited for everyone to
gather around.

Were all young American
service personnel this confident of their place in the
world?
she thought with wonder as she
watched the young man grin lazily at two gypsy girls tittering from
the front row of the growing crowd.

Mike walked up and the young officer, his
smile never leaving his face, and nodded pleasantly at him.

“Good evening, sir,” he said. “I’m sorry if
I interrupted your dinner.”

Sarah could see that Mike, like everyone
else in camp, was mesmerized by the sight of the motorbike. It had
been so long since anyone had heard the sound of an engine running
that it sounded as unnatural now as if it were the call of an
African baboon.

“No problem,” Mike said, still looking more
at the man’s bike than at him. “Can we help you with something? I
assume you have GPS and aren’t here accidentally.”

The young man laughed, and even from the
distance of the front porch where she still stood Sarah could feel
the charisma pinging off him in waves. He was a man used to having
people listen to him, like him, and envy him.

Especially here, especially now.

He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt
pocket and pulled out an envelope. Even before he spoke, Sarah knew
it was for her.

“I have a message from the consulate in
Limerick for an American national by the name of Sarah
Woodson.”

Mike turned to look at Sarah, who descended
the porch steps. John fell in with her as she approached the
officer. She knew the whole camp was watching and she felt a
blanket of mortification that this handsome, well-fed and downright
cocky young was a representative of her country. He and his
careless charm were a billboard exclamation to the whole camp that
soon Sarah would be riding in gas-powered cars again, sleeping in
the comfort of central heat and air conditioning, living the easy
life back in the US.

After she had struggled to put on a decent
meal tonight of stew and corn bread—as she knew every other family
in the camp had, too—it embarrassed her to have to blatantly admit
that, unlike them, soon she wouldn’t have to. It said to them all:
not everyone is suffering in this new world of ours. Some people
haven’t even missed a beat

“Mrs. Woodson. Ma’am,” the officer said,
handing her the message and then grinning at John. “And I’ll bet
this is, John. How ya doing, sport? You ready to go home? Looks
like you’ll make it back just in time for the start of the school
year. Sorry about that.”

Sarah watched John smile politely, but his
eyes—like everyone else’s in camp—were on the motorcycle. She
stuffed the envelope into her jeans pocket and nodded to him.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She just wanted him gone, although the
damage was well and completely done by now. “Is a reply from me
needed?”

“No, ma’am. You don’t need to do anything
but show up in Limerick tomorrow. This is just a formality.” He
revved up his machine and Sarah watched Mike take an involuntary
step back. The rest of the men in the camp, John included, moaned
with pleasure at the sound as the man resettled his goggles on his
face, gave an airy salute to Mike and a thumbs up to John, and
turned around to drive slowly out of camp.

Before anyone had a chance to move, the
sound came to them of the squeal of the bike’s motor as the officer
shifted into a higher speed for his ride back to Limerick.

“Holy shite,” one of the gypsies said.
“Looks like it really is business as usual for the Yanks.
In-feckin’-credible. Did you see that beauty? What I wouldn’t
give.”

Declan pushed his way through the throng to
where Mike, Sarah and John were standing. “What did he want?” he
asked, looking at Sarah.

She pulled the envelope out of her pocket
and moved to the camp center cook fire to read its contents by its
flickering light.

With the bike gone, John went back to
Fiona’s for the rest of his supper. Sarah watched the rest of the
crowd disperse as she drew a single sheet of paper out of the
folded envelope.

Declan and Mike flanked her as she read
it.

“I don’t believe this,” she said, reading
and re-reading the short missive. “This can’t be right.”

“
What is it? Is it about
the trip tomorrow?” Mike said.

Sarah turned to look at him but she didn’t
see his face. What she saw were the first crumbling pieces of her
dream as they began to shatter at her feet.

“
It’s about Papin,” she
said. “Because she’s a British subject, they won’t let me bring her
with me.”

12

The gypsies slept so soundly out in the open
by the long-spent campfires that it made a person wonder how they
lasted this long not falling prey to every highwayman, wild animal
or natural disaster that could creep up on them in the night. Mike
walked as silently as his size would allow, slowly picking his way
past the recumbent forms of snoring men sprawled across the gravel
path that led to the stables.

If he hadn’t known for a fact there was no
real alcohol to be had in the whole camp, nor had there been for
months, he could have easily believed they were all stone drunk.
Certainly didn’t do much to fight the prejudice that the buggers
were as lazy as sin, he thought as he stepped over the last
somnolent body in his path.

The early morning was as dark as the inside
of his hat. It was probably closer to midnight than to morning, if
he had to guess. He was glad it was summer time. He wore a thin tee
shirt and jeans. He didn’t need to be loaded down with a thing more
than he already was.

And that didn’t even cover the hefty dose of
shame he’d pulled on before his feet had even stepped out onto his
porch this morning.

But even the guilt and the creeping sense of
wrong doing was better than remembering the look on Sarah’s face
last night when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to bring
little Papin back to the States with her. For a moment, for one
mad, crazy moment, Mike thought it might be enough to make her
stay.

But no. It was just one more crippling
heartbreak to add to all the rest of them.

There was no moon tonight, luckily for him.
And of course, also going in his favor he knew was the fact that
even if he was caught skulking about the camp at two in the
morning, or whatever the hell time it was, no one would dream to
think he was up to something he shouldn’t. Across his shoulders he
carried a saddlebag crammed with corn bread, a water canteen and
dried meat. He thought about slipping in a few apples but those
were easy enough to come by on the road. A meal’s worth of jerky to
fill an empty stomach wasn’t. And protein would give him
strength.

By the time he reached the stables, Mike had
broken out into a light sweat. Whether from nerves or the exertion
of the walk loaded down as he was, he wasn’t sure. He paused at the
stable door and listened to the silence of the early morning before
sliding the door open and slipping inside. His first idea had been
to saddle his own horse, Petey, but as he wasn’t absolutely sure
what that wanker Gilhooley would do if the deed were successfully
laid at Mike’s feet, he thought he wouldn’t do him any favors by
making it so easy on him. Stealing a horse was a serious crime—a
hanging crime, just like back in the days of the old Wild West in
America—but at least it wasn’t a giant erected billboard pointing
the way to the guilty party.

Mike grabbed his saddle and tacked up one of
the young geldings.

In for a penny…

He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d gotten the
idea that he needed to do this. Probably it had been building and
festering ever since Gilhooley won the election. In any case, once
he got the idea in his head, there was no way around it.

The young horse nickered softly and Mike
patted him on the neck. How he would explain this if he were
caught, he had no idea. He hadn’t gone far enough down that road to
imagine it and now was probably not the time to start. He tied on
the saddlebags and pulled the horse by his bridle out of the stall
and into the dark morning air. Again, he was assailed by the
perfect quiet of the camp. In a week’s time he’d never be able to
do this. Nobody would. Gilhooley would have armed patrols combing
the camp twenty-four seven.

He walked to the back of the camp, being
careful to keep the horse off the gravel path. He wasn’t shod but
the noise would be enough to wake everybody sleeping in the camp,
and the Ballinagh graveyard twenty miles away, too. Now that he was
moving and out in the open, Mike’s blood began to race in his veins
at the thought of being caught in the act. Aside from swearing he
was just running away from home or something near as daft, there
was nothing else he could say.

And once he had Ollie mounted up and headed
toward the camp exit, he wouldn’t be able to say even that.

At one point in his endless musings before
he finally realized what he had to do, it occurred to Mike he could
argue that, being the de facto community leader, he wasn’t actually
breaking any rules taking an early morning ramble down by the
jailhouse.

That was good for, if not a chuckle, at
least a half smile.

There was nothing
forgivable about what he was about to do. And there was no way he
couldn’t
not
do
it.

As he approached the ramshackle hut that
served as the camp jail until the new one could be finished, he
muttered a prayer of thanksgiving that Declan hadn’t bothered to
post a watch. Mike knew Ollie was compliant—even ready to assist
the hangman in any way he could—so it didn’t surprise him that
Declan wouldn’t feel a need to stand guard over him.

Dec was going to be royal pissed off.

Mike dropped the reins and reached for the
door latch. The smell of the interior of the place nearly pushed
him back outside. The door creaked open wide and he saw young
Ollie, on his feet and staring at the open door with eyes as wide
as a child on Christmas morning.

I guess I made more noise than I
thought.

Without speaking, Mike moved to where Ollie
was tethered. He knew a knife cut on the ropes would reveal without
a doubt that Ollie had an accomplice to his escape, but it couldn’t
be helped. Mike didn’t have the patience to work out the knot. He
drew his knife and cut the bonds. Ollie’s arms fell to his side.
Mike saw the boy look past him to the outside, which gave Mike a
little reassurance.

He wasn’t totally sure the stupid bugger
would even agree to being sprung.

“Is it just yourself, then, Mr. Donovan?”
Ollie said, breathlessly.

“Keep your voice down.” Mike grabbed him by
the arm and pulled him out of the foul-smelling cell and led him to
the horse.

Ollie looked at the saddled horse and then
at Mike. Although most gypsies were good riders, it wasn’t common
for one of them to actually own one. Ollie would have little to no
expectation that he might some day.

“Is he…is it mine?” he asked as he touched
the horse’s flank.

“Mind you don’t kill him along the way,”
Mike said gruffly. As Ollie stood staring at the horse, clearly
astonished, Mike took him by the arm and shook him to get his
attention.

“You’ll lead him out on foot through the
south entrance, you hear me?”

Ollie turned his stunned expression to Mike
and didn’t answer.

“Once you’re clear of the camp, take the
roads at a canter. Don’t go into the fields until it’s light, ya
ken?”

Finally, Ollie nodded.

“If he hits a pothole in the dark that’ll be
the end of both of you. Take the fields and head east if you’ve a
mind to go to Wales, which I’d suggest. There are plenty of your
kind living there. Or west if you think you can live off what you
can pull out of the ocean.”

Ollie looked back at the horse, and this
time his fingers wrapped around a stirrup as if to convince himself
it was real.

“But whatever you do, boy,” Mike said,
looking over his shoulder toward the center of camp, “don’t ever
come back here again. Go away and start over fresh.”

“Why…why are you doing this?” Ollie said,
his voice shaking.

Mike placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Consider it my last official act as camp leader.” Mike reached for
the reins and handed them to Ollie.

“Can…can you tell me mum I’m sorry?” Ollie
took the reins.

“She knows that, son. Now, go.”

Mike watched as Ollie walked away, slowly at
first and then at a trot beside the horse. When he disappeared into
the gloom, Mike waited until all sound of him was completely gone.
And then he turned and made his way back to his own cottage, his
heart lighter than it had felt in weeks.

***

“All I’m saying is maybe it’s better this
way.” Fiona whispered as she closed the door behind her to Papin’s
room. “She’s still asleep.”

“How can this be better?” Sarah spent the
night sleeping on Fiona’s front parlor couch. She sat now with the
ubiquitous cup of tea in her hands, and life not looking one bit
better now that it was the morning. “You said yourself her problems
would be best handled in the US.”