“Aye. But I told him it was none of his never mind.”
Surprise dropped Patrick’s jaw. “You said that to Da? And he didn’t take a switch to you?” An unexpected bubble of amusement swelled inside. “Being old and grumpy can be handy, it seems.”
“’Tis a useful thing, indeed.” Ian nodded toward the nearby trees. “Every fourth one, that’s our rule.” He brought the wagon to a stop.
“We had rules like that in the Canadian towns where I worked, and those forests are thick.”
“This one will last if we can help it.”
Ian climbed down. He pulled an axe from the wagon bed. Patrick did the same. They walked out among the trees.
“You said at Da and Ma’s house that you hated everything about the war. You must’ve regretted signing up so readily.”
“I didn’t,” Patrick said.
The trees weren’t as plentiful as they’d been in Canada. But they were tall. Species of spruce and pine grew alongside ash. Thick trunks, strong branches. They’d get a good number of logs out of them.
“You didn’t regret it?” Ian asked.
“I didn’t ‘sign up readily.’” Patrick stopped at the base of a good, thick pine tree with room enough around it for chopping it down.
“But you always wanted to enlist. You talked about it even before we all left New York.”
He ought’ve put an end to the topic the moment Ian introduced it. Now he was in a bind. “It was complicated.”
“I’m capable of understanding complicated things.”
Patrick tapped the tree trunk. “Maybe let’s see if we’re capable of turning this tree into logs.”
But no sooner had they felled it and cut it into lengths small enough for the two of them to carry back to the wagon, than Ian jumped right back to the topic.
“You don’t talk about the war,” he said, “but not in the way I’ve heard other men avoid it, with that impression that they’re too haunted by it to endure hearing even themselves speaking the words. For you, it seems more like you thinkwedon’t want to hear about it, even though we ask you about the war.”
“If you knew what I wasn’t telling, you’d know you don’t want to hear it.”
Ian swung his axe into the stump they’d left, then stepped over to him. “Whatever this is, it’s keeping you at a distance from us. Anytime the war comes up, you tiptoe close before running away from it and all the family at full speed. But ’tisn’t anyone here but you and me just now, and we’ve a lot of days ahead of us up here on our lonesome. Best spill your budget and get it over with.”
“I’m not keeping mum on my account. ’Tis someone else who’d be hurt by my explaining.”
Ian took Patrick’s axe and swung it into one of the logs. Apparently Ian didn’t mean to allow Patrick to escape the discussion by chopping wood. “When you think about this thing you’re hiding—whatever it is—does it make you even thirstier for whiskey?”
“This conversationis making me thirsty.” Couldn’t his brother see he really didn’t want to talk about this?
“The whole reason we’re up here is to help you loosen the grip the bottle has on you. You trusted me enough to tell me about the whiskey, and I didn’t betray that trust to anyone. The family knows only that we needed to leave for a time, but not why. I didn’t even tell Biddy the reason.”
That was surprising. “You always used to tell her everything.”
“I still do, but I kept your confidence about the reasons for this trek.” Ian sat on one of the long, thick logs and motioned for Patrick to do the same. “Burdens are lighter when you’re not carrying them by yourself. You have to lighten this load, Patrick, or nothing we do up here is going to last long after we go back down.”
He was bang on the mark, of course. Sharing this burden would ease the weight of it.
Patrick sat on the log. Shoulders hunched and gaze on the tips of his own boots, he told Ian. About Grady not wanting to stay in New York. About how Grady hoped to convince Maura to leave the city. Told him about his own plans to come to Hope Springs as soon as Grady secured Maura’s agreement.
“Why didn’t you tell any of us you were planning to come west?” Ian asked.
“I did.” He looked at Ian. “I told the family again and again before everyone left that I didn’t mean to stay in New York forever, that I’d join you in time.”
Ian’s confusion was precisely what Patrick knew he’d see in response.
