“I’ll get right on it,” Cal says. “Soon as I can find a black leather dress that fits.”

Mart laughs. “Tell us, Sunny Jim,” he says, settling back onto his crook. “Where do you stand on the aul’ grudges? If you had a coupla them, would I know all the details, or would you be keeping them to yourself? I’d say you’re the strong silent type, are you?”

“I’m not from round here,” Cal says. “You gotta be local to have grudges.”

Mart cocks his head to one side, considering that. “Maybe,” he concedes. “You’d know better than I would; I’ve been local all my life. You’re telling me if someone done you wrong, or done wrong to someone you cared about, or just annoyed the holy bejaysus outa you, you’d turn the other cheek and forget the whole thing, just ’cause you’re a Yank? That’s very Christian of you altogether.”

“I just mind my own business,” Cal says. “And aim to get along with people.” Things are getting a little bit clearer. Mart, in his own way and in his own sweet time, is inquiring about revenge. He’s asking whether Cal, if he happened to have information that the gold was a load of hooey, would sit back and watch the guys sink their savings into it.

“You’re an example to us all,” Mart informs him piously. “I don’t know how many’d follow it, but. I’ll tell you one thing: there’ll be some grudges held if that gold doesn’t come through.”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “I bet there would.” He gets the warning.

“Specially if the lads go investing in that company of Paddy Englishman’s, on the strength of that bitta gold your young one found, and then the whole thing goes to shite.” Mart grins. “Bobby won’t be a happy man if he misses out on his internet woman.”

“Bobby’s a good guy,” Cal says. “There’s plenty of women that’d be glad to run into someone like him.”

“None a them live round here, though. Now there’s an example,” Mart adds, struck by a thought and pointing his crook at Cal to emphasize it. “Everyone knew Bobby had his eye on Lena, till you came along and swept her off her feet—not that she woulda had him anyhow, but sure, he doesn’t know that. Bobby doesn’t act like he’s holding any grudge against you, but you wouldn’t know, would you?”

Cal has made up his mind. It sets that dark terror pumping through him, but he doesn’t see that he has much choice. “I don’t give a shit who holds what against Johnny,” he says, straightening up from Rip. “But I don’t want to see the kid getting any blowback.”

Mart cocks an eye at him. “Theresa that was in the pub last night, waving around bits of gold she’s after digging up? That kid?”

“Yeah. That kid.”

“Sure, if there’s any gold found at all, she’ll be grand. Johnny’ll get a bitta—what did you call it, now?—blowback, if there’s not enough for the lads to break even. But your Theresa never made anyone any offers or any promises. The place won’t hold her daddy’s shite against her.” He flicks Cal a glance. “Unless she’s after doing something foolish herself, like. If that yoke she brought into the pub doesn’t hold up, let’s say. If there was no more gold found at all, or if Johnny was to take the lads’ cash and run for the hills. That wouldn’t be great news.”

Cal doesn’t say anything. After a minute Mart nods and goes back to examining the sky, sucking meditatively on his teeth. “If I was in your shoes, Sunny Jim,” he says, “and I’m only delighted I’m not, but if. The first thing I’d do is explain to Johnny Reddy that him and his business associate need to saddle up their horses and get outa town.” His eyes pass briefly, with no change of expression, over Cal’s bruised face. “If the message didn’t get through, then I’d drop a word in the ear of someone that might have a bit more firepower. And then I’d have a wee chat with that child. Set her straight on a few things. Tell her to keep the head down till this is all sorted. And for Jaysus’ sake not to do anything else foolish.”

“And she wouldn’t get any shit from anyone.”

“Ah, God, no. No harm, no foul. Like I said, Johnny’s not her fault.” Mart smiles at Cal. “As far as we’re concerned, boyo, she’s your young one, regardless of who made her. Once you’re in good standing, so is she.”

Cal says, “According to Mrs. Duggan, there’s never been any rumors about gold around here. Not till Johnny Reddy brought them in.”

That takes Mart by surprise. His eyebrows shoot up, he stares at Cal, and then after a moment he starts to laugh. “Dymphna Duggan,” he says. “Jesus, Mary, and all the saints in the calendar, I shoulda known she’d have something to contribute. I’m kicking myself, so I am, for not thinking of her before you did. I couldn’ta talked to her myself, mind you, she hates the bones of me, but I shoulda got someone to do it—not that it woulda done any good, most likely: she’d get more entertainment outa watching the action than outa anything them big lumps coulda offered her. For the love a God, bucko, tell me, before I die of curiosity: how’d you get it outa her? Dymphna never in her life handed over that caliber of intel outa the goodness of her heart; she’d want some high-quality material in exchange. What’d you give her?”

“Trade secret,” Cal says. He thinks of Lena waiting for him on his back porch, the taut hum of tension coming off her. He’s always known, and accepted without difficulty, that Lena has spaces she keeps private from everyone including him. The thought of her laying those bare to Mrs. Duggan makes him wish he had been a lot more thorough with Johnny.

Mart eyes him, assessing. “D’you know, now,” he says, “I wouldn’ta thought you’da had anything she’d fancy. She’s an awful fussy feeder, is aul’ Dymphna. There’s one or two things that I know you’d know better than to offer her, and apart from those, I can’t see what you could have that’d tickle her taste buds.”

“That’s just ’cause you think I’m predictable,” Cal says. “Doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same way.”

“Lena Dunne, now,” Mart continues thoughtfully, taking no notice of that. “Your Lena. She’s a woman of mystery, or as near as we’d get around here. I’d say she could get Dymphna Duggan’s mouth watering, all right, if she wanted to bad enough.”

Cal rolls up his handful of Rip’s burrs and shoves them into the hedge. “Go on,” he says, giving Rip’s flank a slap. “Git.” Rip streaks off to find Kojak.

“Well,” Mart says, “how and ever it was, if Dymphna says the story’s a loada shite, then it’s a loada shite. I haveta admit, I’m feeling a wee bit smug now. I got a whiff of nonsense off that story right from the start. ’Tis nice to know the aul’ instincts are still in working order.”

“Johnny owes Rushborough money,” Cal says. “And he’s scared of the guy. That’s why he doesn’t want to skip town.”

“Is he, now,” Mart says. “That wee shitemonger never did have the sense God gave an ass. This’ll want a bitta thought put into it, Sunny Jim. If I go off half-cocked, there’ll be holy war, and sure no one wants that. I’ll get back to you. Till then, you just sit tight.”

He whistles for Kojak, who turns neatly in mid-run and comes flying across the field with Rip galloping in his wake, miles behind, ears flapping joyfully. Mart watches the sunlit long grass wave around them.

He says, “If ’tis any help, man, you’re after making the right call. That’ll stand to your Theresa. No one around here wants to give the child any hassle. All we want to know is that she’s in good hands and being brought up right. If she had a wee wobble, sure, that’s natural enough, with that eejit bouncing in outa the blue. She just needs setting back on the right track, and she’ll be grand. You have a word with her.”

“I’ll do that,” Cal says. The pulse of the terror has slowed some. Mart is, to the bone, a practical man. He has no qualms about doing damage when he considers it necessary, but he would see no point in wasting energy doing it for punishment or for revenge. If Cal can talk Trey into line, she’ll be safe. He has no idea when, or whether, he’ll have the chance.

“You and me together,” Mart says, flashing him a sudden wicked grin, “we’ll have it all sorted in no time. Teamwork makes the dream work, boyo.”

“Keep me posted,” Cal says.

“There was me in the pub the other night,” Mart says reflectively, “telling you to mind your business and stay outa Johnny’s, d’you remember? And now, for once in my life, I reckon someone did the right thing, taking no notice of me. ’Tis a funny aul’ world some days, Sunny Jim. It’d keep you on your toes, right enough.”

Cal watches him stump off up the road, absently whistling patches of some old tune. He wants to go inside and get to work on that chair, but he leans on the gate for a little while first. He feels the same way he did when Trey first told him Johnny had come home: like either the ground or his legs might not be solid enough to hold him. Cal is too old to like setting things in motion without having at least some idea of where they might go.

—

It’s been a long time since Lena went up the mountain. When she was a wild-blooded teenager hunting for ways to rove, she and her mates would go up there to do things they didn’t want to be caught at; and in the bad months after Sean died, she walked up there half the night sometimes, trying to exhaust herself enough to sleep. At both ages she knew it had dangers, and welcomed them, in different ways. It occurs to her that, apart from visiting Sheila after each of the babies came, she may never have been up this mountain in her right mind before.

The sun and the heat make the mountain feel more dangerous, not less; as if it’s emboldened, no longer keeping its risks hidden, instead flaunting them like dares. The heather on the bog rustles loudly at every twitch of breeze, making Lena turn fast for nothing; real trails and false ones look wickedly identical, twisting away among the trees; the drop-offs stand out starkly, revealed by the wilting undergrowth, too close to the path. Lena left the dogs behind because of the heat, but she’s regretting it slightly. The mountain today feels like a place where a bit of company wouldn’t be a bad thing.

She finds the Reddy place all right, though, and she’s picked her time well. It’s late morning; people are off about their own pursuits. Two messy-haired small kids whose names she can’t remember are clambering around a makeshift climbing frame cobbled together out of scrap wood and metal, but there’s no sign of Banjo, and when Lena asks the kids whether their dad or Trey is in, they shake their heads, hanging on to the climbing frame and staring unblinkingly.

Sure enough, Sheila answers the door, with a potato peeler in her hand and a wary look on her face. When she sees Lena, the wariness sharpens. It’s not personal; it’s an automatic response to anything that arrives without an explanation.

“I brought this,” Lena says, producing a jar of blackberry jam. Lena makes her own jam primarily because she likes it made her way, but she’s well alive to its other useful properties. “Your Trey had some at my place the other day and went mad for it, and I said I’d give her a jar, only I forgot. Did I catch you in the middle of something?”

Sheila looks down at the potato peeler. It takes her a second to remember the correct formula. “Ah, no,” she says. “You’re grand. Come on in and have a cuppa tea.”

Lena sits at the kitchen table, asking harmless questions about the kids, while Sheila moves the potatoes out of the way and puts the kettle on. Half their lives ago, she would have taken up a knife and cut the spuds while Sheila peeled. She wishes she could; it would make the talk flow more easily. But they’re not on those terms now.

She’s not sure when she last saw Sheila. Sheila rarely comes down to the village; mostly she sends Trey or Maeve to Noreen’s for what she needs. Lena assumed it was out of pride. Back in the day, Sheila was not just a beauty but a cheerful-natured one, making the most of every laugh and brushing away any worries on the grounds that it’d all turn out grand, and Ardnakelty is full of begrudgers who take optimism personally; Lena figured Sheila had no wish to let them pick smugly over the remains of all that. Now, looking at her, she reckons it might be just that Sheila hasn’t the energy to make the trip.

Sheila brings the tea to the table. The mugs have old-fashioned prints of bunnies among wildflowers, faded from washing. “ ’Tis almost too hot for tea,” she says.

“Cal makes it iced these days,” Lena says. “Not with milk, now; just made weak, with sugar and lemon, and kept in the fridge. I don’t mind the heat, but I have to admit I appreciate the iced tea.”

“I hate this heat,” Sheila says. “Everything’s dry as a bone, up here; the wind rattles it all night long. I can’t sleep for the noise.”

“Some people are after getting fans. I’d say that’d block out the noise, or some of it anyhow.”

Sheila shrugs. “Maybe.” She sips at her tea, steadily and mechanically, like it’s another job to be got through before the day can be over.

“Johnny’s looking well,” Lena says. “London suited him.”

“Johnny’s the same as he always was,” Sheila says flatly. “ ’Tis nothing to do with London. He’d be the same anywhere he went.”

Lena’s patience, which isn’t at its fullest this week to begin with, has been further whittled down by the walk up the mountain. She gives up on the small talk, which in any case appears to be getting her nowhere.

“Here’s what I wanted to say to you,” she says. “If you need a hand with anything, ask me.”

Sheila raises her eyes to look at her full on. She says, “What would I need a hand with?”

“I dunno,” Lena says. “You might want a place to stay for a bit, maybe.”

The corner of Sheila’s mouth lifts in something that could be amusement. “You. Taking in me and the four kids.”

“I’d find room.”

“You don’t want us.”

Lena isn’t going to lie to her. “I’d have you and welcome,” she says.

“Why would I go? He hasn’t hit me. And he won’t.”

“You might wanta be away from him.”

“This is my house. And he’s my man.”

“He is, yeah. So you might wanta show everyone he’s nothing to do with you.”

Sheila puts down her mug and looks at Lena. Lena looks back. She wasn’t sure, till now, whether Sheila knew what Johnny is at. Presumably Sheila was wondering the same about her, if she was wondering anything at all. Lena welcomes the new clarity of the situation, regardless of its unpredictability. One of the main things that annoys her about the townland has always been the endless rolling game of who-knows-that-I-know-that-she-knows-that-he-knows.