FicWad

The predawn air is so cold that Jack’s breath crystallizes and sticks in his beard making his fiery orange beard look white with snow. A gentle snow is falling as if any more snow is needed. He stands outside in a cloud of smoke from his cigar. He hitches Blaze and Inferno to his carriage. He is going to Bridgeton. He must find Lynn a Yule present, and he must do it before she is awake. He also wants to be out of the house before his sister wakes. She is a light sleeper, and he does not want her or anyone else to know about Lynn’s present. He wants it to be a surprise. It is Yuletide morning. Most of Jack’s old friends are staying at his house, but he is still the first awake. In the hallway, he accidentally trips, and Jason wakes. He brings the boy with him. Perhaps the child will be of use. Jack drives the carriage through the woods on a path to Bridgeton. It is not the main road. His aim is to be back before anyone else wakes to find him missing. In the barn sits a pair of scissors and a spool of green silk ribbon. Jack made special arrangements for Yuletide. Everyone else thinks he is merely fetching food and drink.

Jack stops first at a butcher’s shop, a fish market, a green grocer, a chocolatier, a liquor store, a florist, and McAlpin’s workshop. McAlpin made three very fine necklaces and a bracelet dripping with diamonds and emeralds. He is a silversmith by trade. He is at Jack’s house, but he left the jewelry hidden in his shop behind a sliding brick, having received the payment in advance. He gave Jack the key, and Jack knows the location of the loose brick from when he worked there many years ago. Jack did not want Lynn to find out about the surprise. Jack then drives the fairly full carriage down a series of back alleys. To most people, this part of Bridgeton would be very dangerous, especially for someone traveling with large amounts of goods and money, but Jack knows the city very well. There is no danger here that is more terrible than he is himself, and he knows it. Hardened thieves let him pass as they sulk back into the shadows knowing that what Jack would do to them if they attempted to rob him would be a fate worse than death. They would never dream of robbing him anyway. He was one of them once. He always will be in spirit. Most of them do not want to steal for a living. They have no other choice.

For the residents of the back alleys and slums of District Thirteen Bridgeton, Jack is hope. They all dream that perhaps their children or grandchildren might get out of the terrible lives in which they themselves grew to adulthood. In theory, they could live for a very long time, but typically they do not. The women tend to die in childbirth, the men violently, and the children of disease. The light of dawn is starting to crack over the horizon, but Jack and Jason are so deep in the heart of the city that they cannot see it over the rows of tenements and shacks. Jack pulls the carriage up to a relatively well-kept old house hidden at the back of a dark alleyway. The paint is peeling a bit, but the shutters are all intact, and the front door is solid. Someone poor, yet careful lives here. Jack does not know the owner personally. He knows him only for a service that he provides.

Jack leaves the carriage near the mouth of the alley and walks up to the front door. He raps firmly. There is the sound of dogs barking inside. Jack walks into the hall upon invitation. The entire house smells of dogs, though it is not nearly as bad as he thought it would be. Jack hands a handsome sum of money to the man who answered the door, and the man hands him a large wicker basket with a blanket over the top. Jack thanks the man and carries the basket to the coach gently with both hands. He does not tell Jason what is inside. He stops at a tenement in another part of town and picks up a small object wrapped in a blanket. He puts it gently in the basket without letting Jason see the contents. Jason sits on the seat next to the basket bewildered, but he knows better than to disobey his father’s order not to peek.

Jack reaches his home just as the dawn is approaching. The twins and his sister’s beau help him unload the food. Jack knows that this man is the father of his niece and is only helping to try to convince Jack to authorize a wedding. Jack lets him do the heavy lifting normally done by Shane, the strongest of Jack’s brothers, but he makes no promises. Shane’s leg will be out of its cast soon enough. Soon enough the extra help will not be needed. Jack’s sister is accustomed to disappointment from her brothers. Jack is unreliable, and the twins are reckless. Jack returns to the barn. He has more work to do. He cares for his sheep and grooms all of the horses that belong to him, Lynn, Shane, and Jason. Then he sets up two low stools in the room where he keeps the grooming supplies, riding tack, and still. He is not about to let anyone find out about his surprise. Jack fastens a necklace around the neck of each of three Irish Wolfhound puppies and the bracelet around the neck of an Irish Terrier puppy. He leaves the dogs in the barn for a little while and goes inside. After the great afternoon feast, his guests will leave and his family will be left alone. It is then that he will surprise Lynn.

Kerrigan and Morietur, who have been staying with them to help for quite some time, are finally going home. Kerrigan is now about three months pregnant and visibly so. Morietur is very defensive of his wife. His greatest fear is her getting hurt while pregnant, though Jack heard them arguing and saw him slap her many times recently. Kerrigan needs to rest, but she insists on helping Lynn, Shannon, and Siobhan in the kitchen. Kerrigan hates to not be involved with things. To her, the idea of sitting at home while pregnant and not running around taking care of people is absurd, and it annoys her to no end. She is pregnant, not ill, and even if she was ill, she could easily find someone sicker than she, which would be an excuse to go take care of them. Mercifully, nobody will allow her to chop the firewood, but the extra hands in the kitchen are much-needed and well-appreciated.

Jack’s sister Shannon sneaks out to the barn where Jack is hiding to get away from the noise. She finds him in the tack and still room playing with the puppies. She is finally alone with him, and, as soon as he puts the puppy back in the basket, she slaps him so hard that he falls off the stool he is sitting on and hits his head on the floor, her idea of retribution for his dishonorable actions. Jack picks himself up off of the ground. She sits on the stool opposite him. He offers her the last bit of moonshine from his still. She declines, so he drinks it.

“Ye got her dogs, then?” she asks.

“Aye. Somethin’ for her to hug an’ love while I’m away,” says Jack solemnly.

“Sensible.”

“Comin’ from ye, ‘tis high praise.”

“Will you at least consider letting me marry?”

“I’m considerin’ it. Kerrigan saw to that. I’ll give ye no decisions now. Wait for me to be in me right head.”

“When will that be?”

“I don’ know.”

“By which ye mean never so long as I’m askin’.”

“I just mean not now. Everyone’s here. I’m a nervous wreck. I’ve been drinkin’ meself half to death in a freezin’ barn tryin’ to get away from me own friends an’ family.”

“Dinner’s in an hour. I suggest ye come inside.”

“Don’t tell anyone ‘bout them pups. I’m not bringin’ ‘em to her ‘til later.”

“Fine.”

Jack returns through the front door a few minutes after his sister returns to the kitchen. He sits with a jar of poitin drinking absentmindedly. He hates holidays. He only has a Yuletide feast because it is an excuse to drink a lot without anyone realizing how much. It is Kerrigan’s first Yule sober in over two centuries. Her husband makes up for her sobriety by drinking enough for the both of them and becoming violent. He starts a fight in the middle of Jack’s drawing room. Jack merely sits in his armchair hoping nothing bad will happen. He is too drunk to move without assistance. The guests stand toward the sides of the room in groups near the doors safely out of Morietur’s reach. Jack is nearly unconscious when Morietur backhands Kerrigan so hard that she lands halfway across the room across her friend’s lap. Morietur corners them in the armchair and picks up his unconscious, pregnant wife. Jack does not dare to say a word. Morietur lifts her by the shoulders and throws her into the stone chimney above the fireplace causing severe bruising her back along her spine. Her hand lands in the fire when she falls to the ground. Jack cannot help her. Morietur kicks her out of the fire and continues to kick her. She said nothing in retaliation to her husband’s accusations. He would have beaten her for insolence had she spoken. He beat her for ignoring him because she did not. She cannot possibly win, and now everyone knows just how Morietur is in private. He leaves for his home swearing that she had best not follow to her bloody, unconscious body.

Jack calls for someone to help her, for he can do nothing himself. Shannon’s beau, the blacksmith Gobnait Mac Gabhann, picks her up gently and puts her on the sofa. Jack is a bit apprehensive about letting a stranger near Kerrigan, but Gobnait proves competent enough to ask someone else to help her. Jack’s sister and Brendan Sparrow have a minor row over who should care for her. Jack’s sister assures Brendan that magic is faster and that she knows what she is doing. Brendan, like so many others, learns quickly that it is futile to argue with Jack’s sister. Kerrigan is soon on her feet again, bustling around the kitchen and insisting that she wants to help. Nobody debates her on this point because nobody wants to see her angry after her husband left. He took their carriage, so one of her sons will have to drive her home. Until they leave, she is perfectly prepared to care for everyone else. Her husband’s actions made everyone tense except her. She is so accustomed to his temper by this point that it seems normal to her while everyone else is uneasy and worried that they might offend her. She is more relaxed without her husband there, though she loses none of her formality or elegance.

Jack always overeats on Yule. This year is no exception. He eats far too much and ends up resting on his bed while his guests leave. Only Kerrigan dares to intrude and bid him farewell. When she gets there, he is sitting up in bed. “Ye’re leavin’ me, then?” he asks.

“I must go home. Get some rest. After all, you do not have much longer to relax until you must return to Crosspoint,” says Kerrigan.

“I’m well aware.”

“Sleep, Jack. You need it.”

Jack lies on his back staring at the ceiling and singing an old lullaby. He only knows one lullaby. It still comforts him even after he died. It got him through a revolution. It puts him to sleep if it is sung. His voice is not enchanting or mesmerizing like those of his wife and Kerrigan. His voice is a gruff bass. It is not unpleasant of off-key, but it is not the type of voice that normally sings lullabies. He is only singing to while away his time and to relax.

“Dún do shúile a rún mo chroí
A chuid den tsaol is a ghrá liom.
Dún do shúile a rún mo chroí
Is gheobhair féirín amárach.”

Lynn walks into the bedroom and sits onto the bed. She lays across Jack’s chest and says, “That was beautiful. How do you feel?”

“Better. Tired, but not so ill. Everyone gone, then?”

“Mike Crane and Eamon Malone just left. They were the last. Come downstairs. We’re opening presents.”

“I’ll be there in a mo’. Jus’ gotta fetch somethin’.”

Jack goes out to the barn and fetches the basket. He puts the puppies inside it and leaves it in the hall behind him. Jack’s sister bought everyone books. Lynn and Jack bought expensive formal clothing for everyone. Shane made baskets of baked goods. He made gingerbread, spice drops, cranberry and pumpkin breads, and sugar cookies. The twins bought high quality alcohol for everyone. They bought sherry for their sister, gin for Shane, dark ale for Gobnait, and whiskey for Jack. Jason received books from the twins and his aunt and a new hat, mittens, and a scarf from his uncle Shane. His father and stepmother bought him a new suit, a leather ball, and tin soldiers. John received clothing that matches that of his brother from Shane, Jack, and Lynn. From his aunt and the twins, he also gets books, though his are story books of fairytales. Jack walks into the hall and carries the basket into the drawing room. It is covered with a tartan cloth. He hands Lynn a bottle strawberry wine and then asks her to sit on the floor. She is wearing her finest silk and velvet dress, still, she sits on the floor in her husband’s lap. He pulls the basket over to them and lifts the blanket. He pulls out the little terrier puppy first. Lynn finds the bracelet and is amazed until Jack pulls out the three hound puppies.

“These had to be hard to get.”

“Not too hard. The dogs were harder than the jewelry. Jason came wi’ me this mornin’ ‘afore ye was up.”

“Where have they been?”

“Tack room in the barn. I didn’t want ye seein’ ‘em ‘till now.”

“It’s very sweet of you, but how will I care for them while you’re away?”

“That’s why I got ‘em. They can help wi’ the sheep, they can keep ye warm at night, an’ that boy’ll be ‘bout the same size as me when he’s grown.”

“Hey, Jack, can I see one?” asks Shane.

“Sure. Careful, though. The jewelry.”

“They’re lovely. Both the jewels an’ the dogs. Such a nice red color.”

“Jus’ wait ‘till they’re grown.”

“Perhaps we should remove the jewelry and plants from the dogs,” suggests Lynn. “It’s lovely but impractical.” Jack’s sister gently slips the wreaths off of the dogs’ necks, and Lynn unfastens the three unique emerald and diamond necklaces.

“D’ye like ‘em?” asks Jack.

“Yes. Very much so,” replies Lynn.

“On’y one thing left, then.”

“What?”

“They need names.”

“So one of the hounds and the terrier are boys and the other two hounds are girls?”

“Aye.”

“Which one’s the boy?”

“The one ye have there.”

“He looks like a Cúmhaí to me. The terrier has to be a Cúan. The female Shane’s holding I’d call Ceara, and the one Shannon’s holding I’d call Caoimhe,” says Lynn decidedly.

“That’s it then.”

In early January, Lynn must bid Jack farewell. He must return to Crosspoint. He takes his uniforms, a small kit of medicine and bandages, enough money to sustain him for a few months, and few personal items, and a small painted portrait of his wife. He will be alone in the cottage where he raped Kerrigan. He must journey alone, a prospect that he does not enjoy. He promises to write often and visit as soon as he can, but he knows that it is not nearly enough. His men are already back at the front line. The temperatures are well below freezing, and he is grateful for the inn he finds along the way. He is wary of the cold. All of Hell gets terribly cold winters and very deep snows. He cannot escape it. He knows this, and he does not resist. He merely wishes it would end far sooner than it ever does. At the inn, he hears hushed whispers about himself. He goes upstairs and rests on a straw mattress in an inn smoking cigar after cigar and drinking whiskey by the bottle. Occasionally, he puts opium into his arm. He is exhausted. He wishes only to smell his wife’s hair and hear her breathing beside him, her warm body pressed against his, her head on his broad shoulder. Instead, he has a straw mattress in a small room above a bar that never seems to close. The next evening he arrives in Crosspoint. Liam will be joining Jack as soon as he is well. Jack enters the little cabin silently, as if it were a cemetery. Kerrigan tidied up after he committed his crime. There is a short letter sitting on the bed addressed to him. It arrived before he did. He opens the envelope which bears Kerrigan’s familiar handwriting.

“Dear Jack,

“As you are reading this, you have obviously arrived at the cottage. I left all of your more personal items in the cabinet in the bathroom. You have a pair of gloves in the top drawer of your nightstand. I know you are not happy doing this, but it is important to an entire nation. I am sorry that I cannot be there, but I send my love. Your son will be joining you as soon as he is well enough, and your brother will be out of his cast probably in a matter of days now. We are all thinking of you and wish you the best of luck. We all love you dearly, and we all miss you very much.

“Your Loving Friend,

“Kerrigan Sheehan”

Jack cannot sleep there. He has nowhere else to go, so he buys a few more bottles of whiskey from a nearby public house and lays in the darkness. Now he is alone with his memories. He wants a way out, more sedation. He drinks heavily. One bottle of whiskey is gone. Drown the pain. Men drink. Men do not cry. He will drown the memories, and down it goes, another bottle of whiskey gone. The ground outside crackles with the sound of a very deep freeze setting in. He pulls up another blanket. This winter is a bitterly cold one. He drinks to keep warm and to forget, or at least so that he will not feel anything for some time. A third bottle of whiskey is gone. The ground by the bed is soon littered with whiskey bottles, but he is not unconscious yet. He cannot count them. He ties his arm up with a tattered old ribbon and shoots the burning pleasure into his arm. It calms him. It numbs him. It fights his battles for him. He does not have to think or feel. It is better for everyone, in his opinion, when he cannot think, feel, or move. He has approached that state. Now he just wishes for unconsciousness. Another bottle of whiskey, he thinks. He falls asleep and drops the end of it onto the floor where the glass shatters. He does not even hear it through his haze, let alone take notice or care. He has finally gotten some sleep. It is all that matters. He dreams gently, despite his heavily sedated state. He dreams peacefully for once.

In Bridgeton, Captain Fitzmaurice stands on the platform of the train station before dawn, his trunk already in the baggage car and his head hung low. Lieutenant Barrett is already back in Crosspoint and will spend the night with him in an inn before he takes another train north to his new temporary unit. He wishes he had not volunteered for the officer exchange. From what he has been told, his replacement is already in Crosspoint. A letter arrived for him in Bridgeton that morning from Corporal Callahan begging him to return. His normal unit has been in Crosspoint for only two weeks. Doctor Sparrow, who is planning on traveling the countryside with his wife and studying from local doctors upon the suggestion of a friend for the next several months, is one of only two people there to bid him farewell. Liam, still not well enough to rejoin his unit, is also there. They both promise to write Captain Fitzmaurice. This gives him little solace. He wishes Liam good health, and he wishes Captain Fitzmaurice a safe journey. The mournful whistle blows, and Captain Fitzmaurice boards his train. It will be a year before he sees any of his friends again. He sits alone, and he stares out the window until Bridgeton is no longer visible in the distance, his head hung low the entire time. He honestly expects to die with the Northern Army, alone and friendless, the red uniform as foreign to him as northern speech, and he wishes he was going to his own, familiar unit to stay.

Spring has now firmly taken hold, and it has been nearly six months since Kerrigan conceived Jack’s child. Jack will be coming home soon, and Kerrigan does not want to see him. He has never seen her pregnant before, and one of her idiosyncrasies is that she hates to be seen while she is pregnant. Her husband will not allow her out of the house anyhow. He is very protective of his wife. She knows that Jack is coming home. The Senate is meeting. She must go to the meeting, and she knows that every newspaper in Hell will send a reporter and that everyone she knows will be there. She is not a large woman. By the time the meeting comes around, she will be six months pregnant. She does not want to be seen. Her small frame does not have an easy time bearing children, despite her fame as the mother of Hell. It is late in the day, and she looks out from her bedroom window at the city before her. She turns her attention back to the book she is reading.

Jack sits atop the little thatched cottage and looks around at the city of Crosspoint. It is not a city, in his opinion. He is accustomed to Bridgeton, which is much larger. Jack smokes a cigar, being ever so careful as to drop the ashes down the chimney. He is extremely wary of thatching and cigars and for good reason. They do not mix. It is nearly dusk when he finishes his cigar. He slides off of the roof gracefully. He sits by the fire reading a book his wife sent him. He thinks about Lynn. The book he is reading is a book of legends and tales. Some are funny, some are sad, some are just fantastical. He enjoys it greatly. Jack begins to become drowsy. The battle of that day was small but intense. Liam arrived two days earlier and is staying in an inn on the other side of the city for a short amount of time. Jack cannot sleep easily in the little cottage. The worst thing he ever did happened there, and he cannot forget it. Every night, regardless of how tired he is, he tosses and turns. To combat this, he started sedating himself with yet larger quantities of opium and alcohol. This sedation puts him into a peaceful sleep, or at least one without nightmares he remembers. He has long been plagued by nightmares. He is exhausted enough that a little opium and half a bottle of whiskey put him to sleep, but he is not peaceful. His dreams plague him still.

He is mounted on Spectre, and they are running through the streets of Bridgeton. They are not running from or toward anything. They are, instead, running for the sake of running. As Jack looks from side to side, he sees the people. They are the people he has known for years. He has known the children since they were born. These are the misfortunate. Some of the people he sees, such as Francis Crane, have been dead for many years. The streets are littered with dead bodies. The bodies are all of people he knew or knows. He sees the Malone house boarded up with a red cross roughly painted on the door. He knows these sights. The Black Death is ravaging Bridgeton. He wants to save them. There is nothing he can do. He follows the river that cuts District Thirteen off from District Twenty. They are burning the bridges that gave Bridgeton is name. He races to the District Five border. The bridges are already gone. He cannot get home. All of the roads out of the poorer part of the city are barricaded. All pubs have been forcibly closed to protect people from the spread of plague, but Jack climbs the hill upon which The Three Kings is situated so that he can see far into the distance. He sees the crops in the fields outside the city dead from blight. The entire population of the city will die of disease or starvation. He is trapped. He cannot save them. He will die with them.

There is a knocking at the door, and Jack wakes with a start. He bids the visitor enter, and he sees Liam in the predawn light. Liam comes to Jack to talk. Jack does not blame him. The two go out onto the battlefield of the previous day with pistols and shoot at the birds that have gathered there. For breakfast, Jack stews pigeons they found on the battlefield. He also roasts a few fat crows. He spends the day packing his bags. There is no battle because the next three days are holidays for the Werewolves. Liam helps Jack with his things. Jack leaves a day ahead of schedule because he wants to surprise his wife. He leaves Crosspoint in pouring rain. With no snow and ice, the journey home takes only about a day and a half. If he does not stop for meals or the night, he can get there by midnight. He promises Spectre apples, and the horse complies. Jack’s horse knows that he delivers on his promises. They do not stop, and around eleven at night, Lynn hears a knocking at the front door. She opens it, and Jack rides his horse into the house. The dogs, which are now nearly full-grown, though far from mature, run over to greet him. Lynn and Shane trained them not to jump. Cúan, the terrier, barks animatedly. Lynn was not expecting to see her husband so soon. He left a day early and made a two-day journey in one. He is very hungry, and he lays out a bag of apples and oats for Spectre, chasing the dogs into the drawing room so the horse can have the foyer, improper though it may be.

Shane is walking around again with no cast. His fracture was a simple one, but Werewolf blood is hard to find deep in Vampire territory, so he suffered wearing a cast for quite some time. Cúmhaí, the male wolfhound, stretches out on the carpet in front of the fire. Jack lays next to him waiting for Lynn to look over. They are about the same length stretched out in front of the carpet, and the dog licks Jack’s face. The two females, Ceara and Caoimhe, are a little more apprehensive, but when they see Cúmhaí playing with Jack, they join in. They are still puppies, but they are nearly full size and weight. Cúmhaí will soon be about same length and weight as Jack, and the two of them are soon rolling around on the floor, Jack in one of his nicer suits. The two females patiently wait their turn, and Jack goes into the kitchen. There are bones from various dinners gone by, so he gives a large bone to each of the hounds and finds a smaller bone for the terrier, who is animatedly jumping on his leg and wagging its tail for attention. He changes into his green robe and picks an ember from the fire to light his pipe while Lynn puts something together for his dinner. To Lynn, a little something means a full meal. Jack knows this and prepares for it because the last thing he ate was pigeon stew and roasted crow the previous morning. Civilized food is hard to come by in Crosspoint.

Jack knows that his sister is coming, as are the twins, to celebrate Jason’s sixth birthday. Maire asked Shane to pick Jason up from school on the tenth. Jason’s birthday is the twelfth. It is the ninth when Jack arrives at home. He sets off in the morning to fetch his son in Shane’s stead, and his sister arrives while he is gone. It takes him until lunchtime to return with the boy. Jack’s sister brought Gobnait again and is again insisting on sharing a room and a bed with him as usual. The twins arrive during lunch and are immediately offered food. Jack and his sister end up shouting over the table about Gobnait, who retreats into the kitchen to do the dishes, so as not to be in the line of fire from Jack’s temper. The terrier starts tugging at his shoelaces, and he picks up the dog at precisely the wrong moment, as Jack is walking in to get himself a drink. Jack is not amused and snatches the little dog from his would-be-brother-in-law’s arms. Shane, who is by far both the strongest and the calmest member of the family, walks into the middle of the argument and shouts for quiet. Jack does not have to respect him. Jack is the patriarch, but Jack smartly fears his brother’s strength. Jack is strong, but Shane is far more powerfully built. Jack is faster than his brother, but he knows that Shane could break his bones as if they were dry twigs without expending any effort. He keeps his mouth shut. Shane will not coerce him into allowing a marriage, but he can and will prevent him from openly declaring war on their sister.

Jason’s birthday passes in relative quiet. Most of the relatives made him candy and bought him books and clothing. Jack’s Senate meeting also passes in relative quiet. Fortunately, reporters are not allowed inside the building where the Senate meets. Kerrigan arrived before dawn, and she plans on leaving with Jack. Shane spends the day bringing Jason back to school. Kerrigan is now fully six months pregnant, and, with her short stature, it is very obvious. Many reporters stand outside the building hoping to ask her about the child. She does not see how it could possibly be any of their business. She does not even wish to be seen by her fellow Senators, but the meeting is important, and Kerrigan is not one to shirk her duties. She looks out from behind the sheer white curtains of her office window. They cannot see her, though she can see them. She closes the heavy, black velvet drapes and pours a shot of whiskey for Jack. He knows better than to smoke a cigar in her office, no matter how much he wants one. They are sitting down to lunch. Most Senators go to nearby restaurants, but Kerrigan likes to bring lunch, and she always offers some to Jack, who is always grateful for the offer. He loves home cooking, especially since he has been eating in taverns since he returned to Crosspoint.

After the meeting, Jack returns to Highton, brings his hounds and horse for a run through the woods, and picks some pretty yellow flowers for his wife. She puts them in her hair at dinner. She has an immense love for Jack, and she spends the entire time while he is home at his side proving this truth. They both wish it would never end. She wants him to stay, and he does not want to return to Crosspoint. When the time comes for him to leave, Jack’s brother is holding Lynn around the shoulders, and she is crying for her husband. Jack is visibly saddened. Back in Crosspoint he cannot sleep. The battle has waged itself into the night. The killing is widespread and senseless. He wishes it would stop, but even he cannot call off the war. It cannot be done. Resisting is futile. Instead, the barbaric killing continues. Then a youthful man comes into his cabin with a bullet in his leg and changes everything. Liam has been shot again. Jack plucks the leaden ball from his son’s thigh, knowing that Liam’s unit no longer has a doctor, and offers him whiskey to numb his brain after washing his wound. Liam does not fuss. He, like his father, has learned to live with pain. Jack goes out hunting for revenge that night, and revenge is what he gets. All night they ride through the enemy’s camp slaughtering men in their sleep. In the morning, there is no battle. Those among the enemies who are still alive are sending their dead home to be buried. Jack has gotten Liam’s revenge. Now, he must wait.