The Walking People by Mary Beth Keane Read Free Book Online Page A

home less than twelve hours earlier. The three travellers followed the Cahills
with a horse and cart, making sure before they left to sweep it out and line it with fresh hay and a clean sheet. The horse, when it passed the field where the woman had landed, stopped to sniff the air.
    "Where is she.?" Dermot asked as he strode into the cottage. Michael and his grandfather hung back and stood side by side without touching. They seemed unwilling to enter past the front hall.
    "I'm sorry for your trouble," Lily said as she opened the bedroom door.
    Dermot stood over the bed, put his hands on his wife's cheeks. He lifted her arm and let it fall back onto the blanket. He turned and pulled the curtains apart, then lifted Julia's head from the pillow and inspected the bandage. They'd passed the pieces of splintered wood on the road.
    "A stone, I'd say," Lily offered. "When she landed."
    "The horse was spooked," Big Tom said from the doorway. "It was charging like the devil with the cart behind it and took off full gallop after the crash, harness and all."
    "Took off," Dermot repeated in a dull tone. "That horse was never spooked in his life." This wasn't true and Dermot knew it. Still, he stood to his full height, which was not as tall as Big Tom or any of the boys, and with his windburned face he looked at each of them one by one. He stood as a barrier between the group and Julia. It was the women's work, Dermot knew. The discovery was made and she'd gotten chased. A gunshot probably, aimed just over her head.
    "He might wander back," said Lily.
    "Unless someone already has him caught and stabled," Dermot said.
    "There's that, I suppose," Lily said.
    Big Tom crossed his arms over his chest. To Greta he looked the way he did when he caught one of the boys resting instead of working, or whenever they saw Mr. Grady passing on the road.
    Dermot turned his back on Big Tom and spoke only to Lily. "She had great nature for people, Julia did."
    "She did, of course. Anyone could see it."
    "And she mentioned you yesterday, the food you sent."
    Big Tom looked at Lily, who kept her eyes fixed on Dermot. "You
can leave her if you like," Lily offered. "It's no bother. You can send the women down to wash her body."
    Dermot made a little grunt, like a laugh smothered before he could let it go, and otherwise ignored the offer.
    "Boys?" Lily said when she saw that he'd made up his mind. She nodded at Jack, Padraic, and Little Tom.
    "Leave them," Dermot said. He put his fingers to his mouth and sounded a sharp, short whistle. A moment later Michael and his grandfather appeared, and Greta felt embarrassment light up in her belly when she realized that the boy was seeing his mother dead for the first time. We shouldn't be here, she thought, looking at the tall silhouettes of her brothers, her father, the softer shape of her mother, and Johanna beside her, buzzing with energy even when completely still. Dermot embraced his wife from behind, locking his arms around her chest. He nodded at the old man and the boy to take hold of her legs. Without hesitation they lifted her. Michael kept his chin up, and his lips were white from being pressed together so tight. Only when he squeezed past her brothers did Greta realize how small he was. Dermot said something in the traveller language, and the old man shifted over to help the boy.
    They laid her in the back of the cart just as she would lie in a coffin. Michael tugged at the sheet, which had gotten bunched to one side when they arranged her. He tucked the loose straw underneath, and then he climbed in next to his mother. The older men climbed in front.
    "I'm sorry for your trouble," Greta said, relieved that she'd thought of the right thing to say, and stood on her tiptoes to reach the boy's hand. Michael sat up straighter but didn't look at her.
    "Can we go up?" Johanna asked, turning her big eyes on her mother.
    "Hush!" Lily said. Big Tom put one rough hand on top of each girl's head and steered them both