Chapter Thirty
Tavish passed a difficult night. The eruption of violence had him worried. So did Katie. The events of the day before had shaken her. The look of resignation she’d worn as they walked up the Irish Road weighed heavily on his mind. He wanted to do something to help her, to reassure her, but had no idea what.
The sky was still dark along the eastern horizon when he decided he wasn’t likely to get much sleep. He dragged himself to the corner of his house that served as a kitchen and set about making himself a pot of coffee. Though he couldn’t put his thumb on when or how the change had occurred, things were different between him and Katie. She was more distant, and he didn’t know how to get her back.
The sound of raised voices echoed from outside. Apparently there were others on the Irish Road too burdened to sleep. Joseph had made good on his threat. Five families on the Irish Road had received notices of eviction and were ordered to vacate their homes within ten days.
But why would they be out on the road at this hour? Heaven help them all if someone had decided to attack the Reds in the middle of the night.
Tavish crossed to his front window. A significant number of people were running down the road. But it was not an angry mob; his neighbors were panicked and afraid.
He snatched his coat and hat off their pegs and pulled on his boots. He rushed out onto the road. He didn’t need to ask what had brought them all out on a bitter cold morning. He could smell smoke heavy in the air.
His gaze followed the rush of people. Down the road, precisely where the bridge sat, a column of flames reached toward the sky.
Tavish ran down the road. Frantic shouts echoed in chaotic patterns against the backdrop of crackling flames and the taste of ash in the air. The Irish huddled along the riverbank, chipping at ice in an attempt to reach the water beneath.
Tavish dropped down beside Keefe. He snatched a rock from the bank and pounded at the ice nearest him. It was too thin for standing on, but still thick enough to frustrate their efforts. Buckets sat empty, a stark symbol of the losing battle they were fighting.
Someone a pace off managed to break through to the river water. A brigade formed on the instant. They tossed bucketfuls of water at the flames, but Tavish could see in their faces that they knew as well as he did that they were too late.
Long minutes passed as they fought the flames. Bits of the bridge dropped into the water, steam and smoke rising up as it did. The bucket brigade slowed as the fire extinguished itself.
Tavish stood amongst his now silent friends and family. The sun peeked over the horizon, illuminating the smoldering skeleton of their bridge. Keefe was directly beside him, a look of horrified shock on his face.
“What . . . ?” Tavish couldn’t find any other words.
“Damion and Eoin came to relieve Matthew Scott from guard duty. The bridge was burning.” Keefe spoke with very little inflection, his eyes never leaving the charred pillar stubs sticking out of the icy river. “He woke us, but it was already . . .” He shook his head.
Tavish looked over the crowd. “Where is Matthew?”
“We don’t know.” Keefe rubbed at his face. “He wasn’t here. No one’s seen him. Ciara ran up the road to check at his place, see if he’d gone home. He’s disappeared, Tavish.”
Matthew wouldn’t have abandoned his post. He would have fought whoever had come to set fire to the bridge. And now he was missing.
Saints above.
Tavish spotted Katie among the crowd and made his way to her. Her troubled gaze took in the river and the banks and the smoldering bits of wood jutting out of the water. She stood with her arms wrapped about her middle, the hem of her nightgown peeking out from beneath the bottom of the overly large man’s coat she wore, the same coat she always wore. It was one of Joseph’s—Tavish knew it was.
She glanced at him then back at the river. “How do we get across now?”
There was the rub. The bridge was the only way to cross the river from the Irish side. “We don’t,” Tavish answered. “Even if we head in the other direction, the river loops back and grows wider and flows faster. This is the only place to cross.”
“We’re trapped, then?”
“Like rats,” Seamus growled from nearby. “And every one of those blasted, no-good Reds knows it.” He paced away, muttering a string of words Tavish hoped Katie couldn’t overhear. “Burned down my shop. Burned down the bridge. They’ll be setting fire to our fields and houses next.”
Tavish kicked at the blackened bits of wood on the riverbank. “They can’t set fire to anything over here. We can’t get over there, but neither can they get over to this side.”
“’Tis little comfort,” Seamus grumbled. “We also can’t get any food over here. We can’t make our drive out for firewood without crossing the river. What happens when our supplies run out? We all sit here, frozen and starved in our homes? Those of us who even have homes left, that is.”
Katie’s coloring fled entirely.
Tavish held back the very real worry he felt, focusing instead on thinking of a way to take this worry off her shoulders. “We’ll think of something, Katie. Don’t fret.”
“Don’t fret?” Frustration immediately took hold of her tone. “Few families have the supplies to see them through the winter. We can’t wade across so wide and deep a river with ice floating all around in it. There’s no means of getting food here or firewood. We’ve not even reached the worst of the winter yet. That seems like ample reason to fret.”
“I only want you to not be burdened by it.” This seemed to be the theme of their disagreements lately. He wanted to help, but she didn’t want the help he offered.
Ian joined them at the riverbank. “The river freezes at some point every winter.” He spoke as though reassuring himself. “Eventually we’ll be able to walk over.”
“How long is ‘eventually’?” Katie asked.
“It always freezes by January,” Ian said.
Katie stepped away a pace. “We’ve not even reached December yet. How many families can last until January?”
“I don’t know.” Ian slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Katie rubbed her arms. Her brow creased, mouth twisted in thought.
Tavish looked to Ian, unsure what he ought to say to Katie or do. But his brother was looking out over the impassable river.
Katie rubbed her thumb over her lips, eyes unfocused. Was he permitted to make suggestions or offer encouragement, or was he supposed to keep quiet and let her think? He had no idea.
Her hand dropped away suddenly, her eyes opening wider. Katie stepped almost to the water’s edge. She cupped her hands around her mouth.
“Joseph!”
Sure enough, Joseph Archer was rushing toward them, barely visible in the dim light of sunrise. “I found Matthew Scott in my barn,” he called out. “He’d been hit on the head.”
“Saints above,” Katie whispered.
“Is he living yet, Joseph?” Anne Scott called back. “Is he well?”
“He’ll be fine.” Joseph stopped in his tracks as his eyes surveyed the remains of the bridge. His shocked expression gave way to obvious worry. His gaze immediately flew to Katie. “You’re well? You’re unhurt?” he called out.
She nodded. “How did Matthew end up on that side of the river?” she asked.
“He hasn’t said.” Joseph’s eyes never left Katie. “He is still a bit rattled.”
Tavish watched the two of them, an uneasy feeling growing inside.
“How are the girls?” she asked.
“They are still sleeping,” Joseph answered. “Finbarr is as well.”
“Finbarr?” Tavish jumped into the conversation.
“He stayed last night on account of the snow,” Joseph said, barely acknowledging Tavish. “Do you need anything?”
She smiled and held her hands up. “Nothing that you can do from over there.”
They were smiling at each other from across an icy river with a burned-out bridge. Tavish hadn’t received even the most fleeting of smiles. Something was decidedly not right about that. He’d had her affection first. Why, then, was she smiling at Joseph?
Tavish came up even with her and put an arm around her shoulders. Joseph’s gaze didn’t linger on them; he didn’t even hesitate with his next comment. Apparently Tavish hadn’t made the statement he’d thought.
“Tavish, I don’t see your parents. Will you tell them Finbarr is here and well?”
“I will,” Tavish answered.
“Tell the girls I’m sorry they’ll not be coming by for a while,” Katie called out.
“Of course.”
Tavish could feel Katie shivering. “It’s awful cold out, sweetheart,” he said. “Perhaps it’d be best”—he felt he had to tiptoe around even the most commonplace of suggestions—“if we headed back now.”
She agreed and didn’t seem offended. A good sign, that. He felt on firmer footing now. He plopped his hat on her head, smiling at how large it was on her.
“So your head’ll stay warm,” he explained.
She pulled the hat down around her ears and glanced up at him, her eyes barely peeking out from under the hat. She even smiled. At him. Not Joseph. That was how it should have been.
“Thank you, Tavish.” But she turned back toward the river before she’d taken a single step back up the road with him and called back to Joseph, “Do you think the girls might meet me here this evening? I would like to wish them a good night.”
“Certainly,” Joseph called back. “Would six o’clock work for you?”
Katie nodded. She waved to him. Joseph waved back.
It’s nothing to fret over. Simply a bit of friendliness. That’s all it is. Nothing more.
Tavish took her hand. He made a mental list as they walked back up the Irish Road of things she’d let him do for her. He could offer Katie his hat. He could suggest a warm house on a cold morning. She wouldn’t get angry at him over those things. Joseph hadn’t been scolded for asking if she was well or if she needed anything. So that was, it seemed, permitted. He could build on that short list.
And he could set his mind to other troubles as well. Every Irish family would need to make an accounting of the supplies they had and make plans to help those most in need.
And they all needed to start praying for a very hard, very fast freeze.
By nightfall, a clear path had been worn in the snow on the Irish Road. Every family had made the journey to the burned-out bridge, many several times over. Shock had given way to anger and worry.
Those whose notes had been called in the day before clearly didn’t know what to do. They had been given ten days to vacate the homes they’d lost, and yet there was very little chance of crossing the river by then. They nervously stayed in the houses they could no longer claim as theirs, knowing it was only a matter of time before they would be forced out for good.
Most of Tavish’s family, along with Katie, gathered at Ian and Biddy’s, attempting to find some way to sort out the mess.
“I can understand Seamus’s anger,” Da said after a full quarter-hour spent discussing the ways Seamus was whipping his neighbors into a frenzy, assembling a list of all the ways they would exact their revenge once the river was crossable. “But we’ve a crisis on our hands, and we can’t waste our collective time and energy on planning mobs.”
“So long as Seamus is bent on doing just that, we’ll not get anything useful out of him,” Tavish said.
“What if he could be convinced to set himself on the immediate problem?” Katie asked. “If we could get him to concentrate on something productive, he’d not be stirring up another hornet’s nest.”
“I’ve never known him to be turned from his purpose.” Indeed, Tavish had known few people as mulish as Seamus Kelly.
“But I could at least try,” she insisted.
Tavish came within a breath of warning her away from an errand that would most likely end in disappointment. But every time he’d offered any bit of advice to her lately, she’d simply grown frustrated with him. He didn’t even know what to say to her anymore.
“What did Joseph have to say?” Da asked Ian.
Ian had accompanied Katie to the river for her good nights to the Archer girls.
“He’s as baffled as we are,” Ian said. “We can’t last long on this side of the river with no way of getting goods across. There’s too little ice for walking on, let alone driving over, and too much ice to allow any kind of boat to cross. We’ve a few ideas we mean to try, but . . .” He ended on a sigh.
Biddy took Ian’s hand in hers and leaned against his arm. Tavish sat next to Katie, not touching, not even really looking at her. Somewhere along the way, things had gone wrong between them.
“Things might grow terribly bad while we wait for a means of crossing the river,” Da addressed the family. “But we’re a family, and we look out for one another.”
They always had and always would.
Tavish’s parents and siblings bid one another farewell. Da lingered over his good-byes to Katie.
“I hope you know, lass, that I include you in my family.” He smiled fondly, but with a look of concern in his eyes. “If there’s anything you find yourself in need of, anything at all, you come and tell me. And I hope you’ll not find me a bother if I check in on you regularly.”
She shook her head and gave him a hug. “You told me months ago that you meant to be a father to me. I mean to hold you to it.”
Da chucked her under the chin, just as he had all of Tavish’s sisters. “I’m not embarrassed to tell you, I’ve grown terribly fond of you, my girl. Like one of my own.”
Katie bid farewell to Ma as well, before pulling on Joseph’s coat. Joseph’s coat. Seeing her wear it drove the knife a little deeper.
“Can I walk you home, Sweet Katie?”
She nodded and even smiled a bit.
Tavish lit the lantern he’d brought with him. They stepped out into the cold night, snow falling on them. Neither of them spoke for a drawn out moment.
Katie broke the silence. “I think I’ll go talk with Seamus tomorrow. I can’t say I will do any good, but I mean to try.”
“I would be happy to talk to him for you, Katie.”
“For me?” She clearly didn’t like that phrase.
“Yes.” The statement came out as a question.
“Why do you do that, Tavish?”
“I’m only trying to do something helpful for you.” Surely she understood that.
“Why don’t you try doing something helpful with me for a change?”
She picked up the pace. He matched his strides to hers.
“Is there something so wrong with wanting to take a few burdens from your shoulders? Heaven knows you have plenty of them.”
She kept walking, not answering or looking at him. He could see, though, she was deep in thought.
“Would you rather I not be part of your life, Katie?” Even suggesting it made him uneasy. What would he do if she said she wanted him gone? His heart had been set on Katie almost from the first moment they met.
“Leaving me behind while you deal with the difficult things is hardly being part of your life. Grand gestures are all well and good, Tavish, but a person needs to be part of all the little moments, not just the big ones.” Her voice had lost some of its fight. She sounded worn down, confused. “Sometimes, it’s as if you think I’m a child, that I can’t face my own worries so you have to solve them all for me because I’m not capable.”
“I don’t think that at all.”
“I know.” So why did she sound disappointed? “But that’s how it feels.”
They walked on without talking. Katie had never been truly angry at him before. The few times she’d been a touch put out with him, he’d always been able to make things right again with a bit of teasing and a few smiles.
She was upset with him for doing what he did, for being who he was. How did a person apologize for that?
He slid his hands into his coat pockets. The night was colder than before, and for reasons unrelated to the weather.
“Do you ever wonder, Tavish, if we’re entirely right for each other?”
The question felt like a fist to the gut. They seemed to be having a rough patch, but Tavish would never have guessed she was questioning their connection so deeply.
“We took to each other from the very first, Katie. We get along famously.”
Even in the dim light cast by his lantern, her drawn brows and downturned lips were apparent. This was no offhand conversation. Katie was deeply pondering things.
“But is that enough?” Was she posing the question to him or to her own self? “We are friends, for certain. Close friends, even. And I’m not unaware of how much you were willing to give up for me. When I think of that sacrifice—”
He didn’t like the tone of indebtedness that entered her voice. “Like I said at the time, I made that decision with no strings attached, no promises or obligations on your part.”
She looked at him for the first time since they’d begun this difficult conversation. “You said you wanted a chance to see if we could become more than dear friends. Have we?”
He didn’t know quite how to answer. He’d planned to ask her to marry him, never doubting they could be happy together. But lately they’d been growing apart.
“Do you think of me during the day, Tavish?” Her eyes were devoid of accusation, but he felt it just the same. “Do you ever have a problem arise and think to yourself, ‘I wish Katie were here so I could talk with her about it’?”
He couldn’t say that happened too often. Not because he didn’t think of her nor because he didn’t value her thoughts and opinions, but because he didn’t want to burden her. Life had been difficult enough for her without adding his troubles to hers. More than any person he’d ever known, Katie deserved to be treasured. He wanted her to not be so alone in the world, to know she didn’t have to spend the rest of her life carrying her burdens on her own.
Was that so wrong of him? He didn’t even know what to think of it, except to worry that he was losing her. They’d reached Granny’s house. Katie didn’t step inside.
Tavish knew he had to say something but struggled to find the words. “Are you ending things between us, Katie?”
“No.” The word, though a little hesitant, calmed his growing sense of panic and eased the pain in his heart. “I’m only trying to make sense of too many things just now,” she said.
He took her hand in his and looked directly into her eyes. “We will sort this out, my Sweet Katie. We’ll find our answers.”
She nodded. It wasn’t a full reassurance, but it helped.
“Good night, then,” he said.
She watched him a moment, then leaned in and kissed his cheek. She lingered a moment there.
Tavish closed his eyes and shut out everything but that moment. It didn’t feel like a reconciliation. It felt like a good-bye.
She slipped into the house. He remained on the front step, trying to breathe.