Little Bird Lands by Karen McCombie

Author:Karen McCombie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2020-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

I cannot think what we must look like, this raggle-taggle band of children I lead out of the woods.

“Ach du meine Güte!” one of the German women calls out in alarm, dropping her gathered armfuls of kindling in the road at the sight of us.

The woman’s panic pricks through my haze of sadness. For what must she think, seeing me come walking into town, all muddied and soaked, my shirt and skirt torn, propping up my brother who appears half murdered, his clothes and whole self so soaked in blood. Alongside us, Easter looks after the desperately sobbing Henni, Matilde and Morwen, while more of the boys and girls who’d happily scampered up into the woods now forlornly follow us out, after they heard the shot and yells and came scurrying to see what terrible thing had occurred.

As for Charlie, two of the Irish boys have an arm each and are – roughly, I think – helping him limp away from the terrible trouble he caused.

“Bridie! BRIDIE!” I hear Father call out as he runs from the school building he is near completing. “What has happened! Lachlan … where are you injured?”

Lachlan can barely breathe from the crying, never mind answer Father’s question.

“He is not injured,” I quickly assure Father, as he holds my brother by the shoulders and looks him up and down. “Charlie stole a rifle from the general store. He killed Odayan.”

“I thought it was a wolf!” Charlie protests somewhere behind me.

But I am done with that boy. I don’t care for his excuses. All I know is that I will never forget the look on Jean’s face as he walked back up the bank after saving Charlie, and wordlessly took the weight of his dead dog’s body from my staggering brother.

“Go!” he’d roared, walking away from us. “Go – all of you! NOW!”

In that moment I knew Jean would leave Hawk’s Point for certain and we’d never see him again.

“So none of you are hurt?” Father checks, casting his eyes over everyone while more folk appear, wondering what the commotion is about.

“Only Charlie – he’s broke his ankle, I think,” says Easter.

“You should go fetch Dr Spicer then, my dear,” Father suggests to her, and I watch as my friend gently lets go of the younger girls, leaving them in the care of the womenfolk, before hurrying away towards the mine manager’s house.

A surge of people now run and circle us, jabbering questions at us all.

“There’s something else – Bridie found something!” I hear Henni pipe up as she finds herself being wrapped in the thick comfort of a woman’s shawl.

But no one pays her any attention beyond making her cosy, or understands her meaning in the muddle of the moment.

“Bridie found something important!” she tries again, sounding frustrated, wrestling herself out of her knitted cocoon. “She found copper!”

The babble of voices eases.

And then begins again as everyone turns to me…

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.