Daughter of Dark River Farm (40 page)

‘Nathan,’ I said in as calm a voice as possible. ‘Put them back; it will all be all right.’

It was only when he spoke that I realised he was weeping. ‘It won’t be. You don’t understand, Kitty… Please, go away. Pretend you haven’t seen me.’

‘Don’t be silly, you know I can’t.’ I took a step closer. ‘At least give me Evie’s diamond.’

He sagged. Had he really hoped Bel would say nothing about that? Or perhaps he was hoping she hadn’t even discovered he’d gone.

‘Nathan?’

‘Move away from the door, Kitty. Please.’

I stood firm, but my knees were shaking uncontrollably, and I didn’t know how long I’d be able to stand up without grabbing something for support. ‘You can go,’ I said, ‘but give me what belongs to Evie. She’ll be the one blamed if it goes missing again.’

‘I need it!’ His voice was higher pitched now, and I could hear panic setting in. ‘Tell her I’m sorry. But they’ll find me, they…’ He let out a shuddering breath, and my conversation with Archie came flashing back; he must have talked to Nathan while they’d been out working together, hoping to help, but instead putting this new fear into Nathan’s mind. The idea of what he might do about it had come neatly wrapped from Belinda’s eager lips. It seemed we’d underestimated both Nathan’s troubles, and his terror.

‘We’ll do our best to protect you.’ I took a few steps towards him, and he backed away. I eyed the distance between him, me and the door, and wondered if I’d be able to catch him if he suddenly ran for freedom. To my despair I realised not, and he reached the same conclusion at the same time. He ducked away to his right, slipped around me and past my outstretched arm, and ran towards the door.

I spun around, crying out in frustration, and then the light from the doorway was blocked by a tall, square-shouldered shape. ‘Stop him, Archie!’ I cried, but Nathan had already stopped. He stood very still, the bag of tools at his side, and I wanted to step forward and take it back; now Jessie had taken our wages, these tools were more necessary to us than ever, but I daren’t just yet.

Archie stooped to set Amy down. ‘Run outside, Amy-Anna,’ he said in a forcedly cheerful voice. But she didn’t. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, more urgently, ‘go into the house. We’ll come and find you in a wee while.’ Amy gripped his trouser leg, and he bent to prise her fingers loose. ‘All right, just go into the yard and wait for me.’ Finally, to our relief, she went, and Archie came right in and held out a hand to Nathan, palm up, friendly. ‘Whatever it is that’s going on here,’ he said quietly, ‘we can sort it out.’

‘We can’t,’ Nathan insisted, looking from him to me. ‘Let me past, Archie.’

‘What’s in the bag?’

‘It’s our tools,’ I said. ‘Nathan, we need those. You know that. They’re bread and water to us.’

‘And they’re life and death to me,’ he said, gulping as his own words hit him with their truth. He bent to pick the bag up again, and one hand dipped in and came out holding the newly shined dibble, gripping its spade-like handle in a white-knuckled fist. Then he broke and ran towards the door.

Archie’s normally quiet voice suddenly bellowed across the dimly lit barn. ‘Stop it! Don’t be an ass!’ He moved towards Nathan, and my breath stopped as I saw Amy running back, drawn by her beloved Archie’s shout. Archie followed my gaze, and, as Nathan reached him, he moved to stop Amy coming any farther in, but Nathan’s foot ploughed into the back of his knee, spilling him to the ground. Amy stopped still, in wide-eyed fear, and, before either of us could do or say anything else, Nathan had moved past Archie and reached out to grab her hand.

‘Let her go!’ Archie scrambled to his feet, already lurching after them before he was fully upright. He seized the arm that held Amy, and Nathan spun, openly sobbing, and his other arm moved in a blur. A high, downward-slashing motion. Archie stopped dead still, and Nathan gave a moan of horror—he dropped the dibble, and it thudded against the ground, bouncing and rolling away.

Archie staggered back a couple of steps, almost fell, and his hands came down on his thighs to steady himself, then he tried once more to grab Amy but Nathan whisked the child up and into his arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘I’ll let her go. I promise. Archie, I’m…’

I couldn’t move. I should have tried to take hold of Amy too but I was too far away, and all my attention was on Archie, who had now pitched onto one knee, and was pleading in a low, shocked voice for Nathan to leave the bairn behind.

By the time I could take a single, shaking step towards him, Nathan had reached down and seized Pippin’s harness, dragging it out with him. The door creaked shut. Then he was gone, and Amy with him, and in numb disbelief I vaguely recognised the sliding sound of the bolt, and then the padlock, and finally I was able to reach Archie’s side and drop to my knees beside him. He turned to me, his face white in the semi-darkness, and as my hands came up to catch him, he sagged against me. I eased him onto the ground, my heart tripping wildly in terror, and tried to see the extent of the injury. The spike had caught him just below the collarbone and slashed diagonally down across his chest—a good six inches, maybe more. Blood was seeping through his shirt, and the left shoulder, where the tool had struck first, looked to be the deepest point; Nathan seemed to have realised the danger and instinctively pulled back, even as his hand had continued its unstoppable motion.

Archie’s eyes came back into focus, and his right hand went to the wound. To my amazement his mouth, though tight with pain, twisted in a rueful little smile. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have made fun of that wee dibbly thing after all.’

‘Maybe not,’ I agreed, trying to match his tone, but the sight of him lying there filled me with a white-hot fury, and if Nathan had been standing before me now I wouldn’t have pulled the dibble back. I’d have driven right through—

‘Amy,’ Archie mumbled, and tried to move but hissed a sharp breath and subsided.

‘He might really leave her,’ I said with a half-hearted hope. ‘He’s not a bad person. He…he wouldn’t hurt her, would he?’

‘Wouldn’t have thought he’d hurt anyone,’ Archie said, and his breath shook as he sighed. ‘He’s a desperate man or he wouldn’t have done this, and desperate men are unpredictable.’

‘He’ll be all right now. He’s got Evie’s diamond,’ I said grimly. I stood up and went to the door, rattling it experimentally, then harder. I put my mouth to a knothole in the wood, and shouted, without much hope. ‘Amy! Are you there?’

I turned back to see that Archie’s head, which he had been holding up so he could talk to me, had dropped back. In that position it was easier to see the blood leaking from between his fingers. I knelt beside him and touched his neck gently to make him look at me. ‘I’m going to try and find something to bind that with.’

‘Aye, nurse,’ he said, but he didn’t lift his head again, and only swallowed hard as a groan shuddered up through him. ‘Better hurry. Feel a bit…strange.’

Trying to stop my hands from shaking, I wriggled out of my pullover and placed it beneath his head, then looked around for something to use. All I could find was the strip of sacking he had bound our wrists with, and it wasn’t long enough to wrap around him so I wadded it instead, and pressed it to his chest. It wouldn’t soak up the blood, but the pressure would help. ‘Hold that. I’m going to try and get us out.’

I went to the door again, and a sound from outside made my heart leap. ‘Someone’s there! Help!’ I banged on the door again. ‘Please, Archie’s hurt!’

There was no response, and I pressed my eyes to the knothole instead. ‘It’s Nathan. He’s taking Pippin.’ I drew a deep breath and yelled through the hole. ‘Nathan! It’s not too late! Let us out and we can help you!’

I peered through again; he had stopped, one foot on the board ready to climb up, his head half turned towards the barn. Hope flared, and I held my breath, watching with one eye until it burned. Then his voice, cracked and filled with tears, drifted across the yard.

‘You can’t. I…Archie, I’m…’ Then he shook his head and pulled himself onto the seat.

‘Stop! Please! Archie needs help!’

‘Kitty,’ Archie said suddenly. I looked back, and he had managed to get onto one elbow, which I took as an encouraging sign. ‘Did you say he’s got the Star?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you have to stop him.
Have
to.’ He tried to rise farther, but was overcome by dizziness and shook his head. ‘They’ll kill him for it.’

I could hear the tremor in my own voice too now, as I shouted again. ‘They’ll kill you if you take the diamond!’

There was no answer, and then I believed I was capable of killing him myself, as I heard a tiny voice say, ‘I comin’ too?’

‘Leave her!’ I screamed, in a fury so intense it became pain in every part of me.

‘I’m sorry! I need to know you won’t follow. I’ll let her go when I’m safe.’ Then Pippin, for the first time in his life, felt the whip and moments later they were gone.

Still in a mindless rage I cast about for one of the bigger tools, and found a heavy spade that nevertheless seemed to weigh nothing, and I raised it as high as I could and then smashed it, edge first, against the door. It just slid down, and the wood didn’t even tremble. I did it again, concentrating where the new padlock had been fitted, and then at random, with the same result. My voice became as cracked and sore as my hands, as, shouting and sobbing, I rammed the spade into the small gap between door and frame, and first pushed, then pulled back on it, time and time again. Nothing happened except a slight splintering at the edge of the door, and eventually I threw down the spade and came back to sit beside Archie.

He had managed to get into a sitting position, with his back against the hay bale on which Amy had been sitting, and he was still pressing the little strip of sacking to his chest. I examined my own hands, the blisters already rising, the skin burning, and with the movement I realised my arms ached horribly. But it stopped mattering when Archie reached out with his left hand and touched my face, turning it up to his.

‘I’m going to be all right, Kittlington. It’s not as bad as all that.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, it’s bloody painful, and I might let loose some of that shirt-wringing-out language you stumbled upon yesterday, but I don’t feel so dizzy now.’

‘But you’re still losing blood.’

‘Not so much. I’m all right.’ He lifted my hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing my blistered palm. ‘I’m concerned about Nathan though.’

‘Well I’m not wasting my worrying on that little thug,’ I said. ‘I just want Amy back, and I want to get that wound seen to properly. Someone will come soon. Frances and the others will be back before long.’

‘You said they’d probably not be back until midnight,’ he reminded me, resting his head back against the hay bale. He wasn’t as fine as he pretended, and I frowned, about to say as much, but he went on, ‘I meant it about Nathan. He’s a rogue, granted, but he’s not a bad person. You know that. He doesn’t deserve to die.’

‘He won’t die. He’ll just get all his debts paid and then go back to being a grocery boy. It’s Evie and her mother I’m worried about.’

‘No, Kitty, listen.’ Archie’s voice was lower now, and I didn’t like the way his breathing had changed. ‘He has no idea what that diamond is. It’s famous in…certain circles. Money-lending circles, aye? If he gives it over to someone who knows its worth, that person is not going to let him live, knowing he could point to them at any moment.’

He raised his head again, and his skin looked waxy in the last of the light that crept through the cracks in the barn roof. ‘If they kill for that bloody stone, they’ll no stop at Nathan.’ His head fell back, and he caught his breath at the jarring movement. ‘They’ll no stop. D’you understand?’

‘Archie, you’re slurring…’

‘D’ye
understand?
’ His accent was growing sharper even as his voice was becoming weaker, and I felt the cold finger of panic.

‘Yes!’ His words drove me to my feet, and I seized the spade once more, feeling my hands shriek in protest. I tried to ignore the slick feeling of fresh blood as the skin broke, and I smashed the spade into the door again. ‘It’s hopeless, Archie!’

I threw the spade down, and turned in time to see his eyes close, and I was back at his side in seconds. ‘Don’t you dare drift off now. Stay awake!’ I caught at his face as it slipped to the side, and brought it back around, both hands supporting his head, forcing him to look at me. He blinked, and stared, and a tiny sound escaped on his breath that might have been a groan, but from the exasperation and affection on his face I thought was probably actually a laugh.

‘You’re a fierce wee thing, Kitty Buchanan,’ he said. ‘Just the kind of bossy wench an officer’s wife ought to be.’

I gathered him close, pressing my cheek to the thick dark hair at his crown, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. His right hand still gripped at his shoulder, but his left crept around my waist, his fingers spread over my back and pressing me gently closer to him, his breath heavy, dampening my shirt. We stayed like that for a long time, and it was fully dark by the time I heard a sound outside. Someone was scuffling in the dirt around the henhouses. I scrambled to my feet and flew to the door, and hammered on it.

‘Help us! Please!’

‘Kitty?’ came the startled voice from outside.

‘Jessie! Quick, Archie’s in here, and he’s badly hurt!’

‘Oh, God! I’ll get the key!’

‘It’s gone, just break the lock. Anything!’

‘Gone? Who—’

‘Just
do something
!’

‘Right, just, uh…wait there.’

The preposterousness of that wrung a quick, barking laugh out of me, but a good part of that was relief; the door was still just as hopelessly locked, but she was
outside
! Where the world went on. It must be all right now. Somehow. I stumbled back in the pitch dark to where I thought Archie was, but I couldn’t find him. Panic gripped me tight, and I forced myself to stop where I was. It wouldn’t help him for me to go tripping up on him on top of everything else. Maybe the noise had woken him.

‘Archie,’ I said. ‘Can you hear me?’ I crouched down, patting the floor with both hands, wincing as the blisters flared and the cracked skin began to bleed again. At last I found a boot, and, with a little gasp of relief, patted up his leg and his hip, and then across his stomach until I was huddling into his side again. From outside I could hear the sound of Jessie smashing at the door with something she’d found, but it didn’t sound as though it was helping.