Susan Kiernan-Lewis - Free Falling

Standing in the front yard of the little farmhouse, Finn would be able to see the first hint of anyone coming down the front drive from the main road. His men stood flanking the main road for nearly two hours now. Most of them were sitting, some of them were lying down asleep. Finn’s anxiety began to throb in his chest like a panicked bird.

Maybe she knew Conor was listening? Maybe she was setting him up?

Plus, the American bastard and Brendan were still not back. As soon as he formed the thought in his head he realized that this was, largely, the core of his agitation. He needed her husband for his plan for torturing the bitch to work.

Where the shite was that bastard Brendan?

Gavin insisted on being in the lead. Sarah guessed it might have something to do with an order given to him by his father so she tucked in behind him and kept Dan at a slow trot. The posting action of rising up and down actually helped dissipate the anxious energy that was coursing through her. Every time she rose out of the saddle, her stomach muscles clenched and then released and the action began to calm her, like being forced to take deep inhalations and exhale. Sarah imagined what men going to battle on horseback for hundreds of years must have felt like. They must have taken succor from the rhythm and familiarity of the horse beneath them, just like she was doing, even as it carried them closer and closer to horrors and to probable death.

Aidan and Jimmy rode behind her. All of a sudden, it struck Sarah how foolish it was what they were doing. Unless they were going to talk with the gypsies—and they were not—they could not hope to penetrate their camp and kill their leader without being killed themselves.

Is it true? Have I been watching too many Stephen Spielberg movies? Is there any way this can have a happy ending?

Just at the moment where Sarah was a breath away from calling to Gavin to tell him she wanted to turn back, she saw him grab his midriff, grunt and slowly drop from the saddle, his hands clawing impotently at his horse as he fell.

Somewhere in the lowered audio of her memory, she heard the accompanying gunshot.

David ran in the direction that Brendan had indicated. Even though he was quickly winded after his illness, he felt he could run the entire six miles to Cairn Cottage. He jogged carefully through the underbrush in the light woods that surrounded the pastures. He knew a wrong step in a hidden pothole would be the end of him and his hopes of finding Sarah in time.

When he heard the gunshot, he’d slowed and then stopped. Brendan had warned him not to but he stood, undecided, on the verge of the pasture which bordered the main road. He had seen no traffic of any kind on the road, not horses, not pedestrians.

What could the gunshot mean?

He looked back over his shoulder. It was totally quiet. Only the sound of his own labored breathing breaking the silence.

He knew from the minute that Brendan found him that he hadn’t been serious about bringing him back to the camp. He was too slow, too interested in talking. It hadn’t taken much to make the promises that bought his freedom.

“I’ll give you more money than you’ll see in a lifetime.”

“Five thousand US,” Brendan said. He’d obviously given it some thought.

David nearly laughed in his face. Why not make it a million?

“Done,” he said.

“Because I know the Yanks’ll come for your lot sooner or later,” Brendan said. “If any of you’re alive.”

“Alive, we can make you a rich man, Brendan,” David had said, holding his bound hands out to the big gypsy. “Dead, we are just another blot in that big copybook in the sky.”

It had been the exact right thing to say. The big Irishman was clearly not feeling too secure about where he stood with God these days. It made complete sense to him that God’s way would also make him rich.

Brendan gave David the directions back to his cottage, but the cottage was not where David was going.

He turned in the direction of where he had heard the gunshot and prayed like he had never prayed before.

When Dan reared, Sarah didn’t have time to lean forward. She tumbled to the ground and immediately felt rough hands on her, pulling her away from the horse’s feet. Both knees of her jeans had ripped in the fall and she bloodied her elbow, too. As the man held her, Sarah found herself wondering why Dan—usually so steadfast and calm—would do that, when she saw the big gypsy grappling with the horse’s bridle. More men scrambled from out of the bushes at the side of the road, reaching for her, her horse, and yelling. She twisted in their grip and saw the still form of Gavin crumpled in the middle of the road. Her stomach lurched and she turned and was sick on the man who held her the tightest.

“Blimey! The bitch puked on me!”

“Shut your gob, you git! Just bring ‘er.”

Sarah tried to wrench free from the two men who held her. They were no taller than her but wiry and muscled. Even terrified and sickened, Sarah found herself turning away from the sour breath of the one closest to her. He kept his face near hers as if, any moment, he would lean over and take a bite out of her.

“The bastards are getting away!”

Sarah heard more gunshots and she prayed Jimmy and Aidan had the sense to leave the main road as they retreated. Her eyes rested on Gavin.

That’s my fault, she thought. I did that. That poor boy…

“Forget it. They’re too far.”

“Should we go after ‘em?”

“Nah. Let’s get these two back to camp. He was expectin’ ‘em hours ago.”

Sarah looked at the body in the road.

They were bringing Gavin, too? Did that mean he was still alive?

One of the two men holding her let go of her arm long enough to tie her hands together in front of her. They pushed her towards a smaller horse. They ignored Gavin.

She heard one of the men behind her rasp out sharply:

“Let’s go, boyo. Try to run and we shoot yer mum, yeah?”

Sarah snapped her head around, nearly jerking herself out of the vice-grip of one of her captors.

Twenty yards away, John sat on his pony, the reins looped in the hands of a tall skinny youth who was leading him down the road. He was looking down at his hands.

Sarah gasped.

“Finn’ll be pleased,” her captor said to one of the other men as he roughly turned her to face the horse and boosted her into the saddle. “We’re bringin’ him a little bonus.”

The howls of laughter from the men echoed in Sarah’s ears as they moved down the road at a walk, each horse carefully stepping over or around poor Gavin.

“What do you mean you couldn’t find him?”

Brendan rubbed his hands along his jeans and refused to look at Finn. He had returned not ten minutes before, empty handed.

Finn glanced around the nearly deserted camp, his frustration coming off him in waves. He looked back at the big gypsy before him.

“You let the bastard go,” he said, biting off every word.

Brendan looked up at his leader.

“No,” he said.

“You did.”

“I tell ya, I couldn’t find ’im.”

“What did he promise you?” Finn stuck his face close to Brendan’s and the man recoiled. “Money? American dollars? An hour with his wife?”

Brendan looked back at the ground and rubbed his perspiring hands against his pant leg.

“I didn’t find ’im, Mack,” he mumbled. “I swear.”

“I need that bastard back here!” Finn shrieked. “They’re bringing his wife down that road any minute.”

Brendan looked up long enough to look toward the road that Finn indicated.

“I… I could try again, yeah?” Brendan looked back at Finn. Perspiration from his scalp begin to trickle into his eyes. “I could go back out there. I’m sure I know the way he went.”