Mending Horses by M. P. Barker Page A

you? You been planning to leave her here all along.” He threw his hands up in disgust. “It’s all games with you. Peddler’s games and tricks, ain’t it? Why ain’t you just told ’em straight out?”
    â€œThese things take time. Sophie’s won Billy’s stomach already. Another day or two, she’ll have her heart.” The peddler took his spectacles off and wiped them on his vest.
    Daniel snorted. “If all it took was good eating to win someone’s heart, I’d still be back to Lyman’s.”
    â€œThat’s why it’s lucky you came along. Billy’s been spitting nails over my asking you to travel with me. The more she hates me, the more she’ll want to stay with Sophie.”
    â€œSo when exactly do you figure on talking to your cousin?”
    Jonathan forced himself to laugh. “I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.” But all he could think of right now was how setting off that fire would leave him on the wrong side of a wide, lonely chasm.

Chapter Eleven

Tuesday, September 10, 1839, Cabotville, Massachusetts
    â€œDead,” Liam said, his face gray with sickness and exhaustion. He pulled the blanket over the two lads’ faces.
    Hugh Fogarty clutched the wall to steady himself. “Both?” He stumbled forward and dropped to his knees by the mattress. The shock of his landing scattered the fuzzy cloud of drunken numbness that had fogged his brain. His hand hovered over the blanket, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it.
    Liam rose and stepped aside. “Aye, and where have you been hiding yourself all this time, whilst they were dying, eh?” He swayed over his father, little better than a walking corpse, clothes hanging from his fever-wasted body, eyes bloodshot from wakefulness, sickness, and weeping. Eighteen years old and nearly a man grown, Liam had been broad-shouldered and strong when Hugh had last seen him a few weeks ago. Now it would take but a breath to tumble him.
    â€œYou know I’ve no stomach for illness, Liam,” Hugh said. Even now he had to lean away from the stench of sweat, soiled linens, brimming chamber pots. He wanted to take out his pipe to mask the reek of illness and death with the sweet tobacco smoke, but it seemed a sacrilege to do so. God, his lads, his bright-eyed, laughing lads, who’d tumbled about the shanty like a pair of puppies at play, so loud sometimes he couldn’t bear their noise and had to strike out against it. Surely, he’d thought, the sickness would go easy with two lads so strong and full of life. How was he to know? How was he to blame? He’d other cares, so many he couldn’t number them. “Who’d’a provided for you lads if I’d’a stayed home?”
    Liam gestured about the dark, sooty room. “Providing? Thecupboard’s bare and the woodbox is empty, and I’ve not been able to more than crawl. Tell me what the bloody hell you been providing.” He slumped against the wall, panting from the effort of his outburst.
    Fists doubled, Hugh rose to face his remaining child. The rage ran through him, taking him outside himself, so he felt he was watching another man raise his hand to strike. For once, though, he didn’t lash out. He forced his hands back down to his sides. “You don’t mean that, son. It’s only the sickness talking. If Nuala was here, it would’a been different. She’d’a tended to you lads.” He’d not thought he’d miss the lass so much, that day he’d sold her to the peddler. But in no time, the money was gone and the shanty felt as empty as his pockets. And her music, sweet Jesus, how bleak the shanty was without her music. Just like a mockingbird, she’d been, only needing to hear a tune once to learn it, then turn it around and make it hers. So young, and so like her mam with her blue eyes and yellow curls and lovely voice. He’d