Chapter 4: What the Old Man Counts

"She didn't get out," Niall said. "I opened the gate."

Fergus took the cigarette out of his mouth.

"Do I look stupid to you, boy?"

"No, sir."

"Then don't lie to me in my own house."

He walked past us and down the stairs, one hand on the wall, and looked at the cage.

He looked at the four screws lying in a row on the floor, and at the padlock hanging loose on the gate, still locked.

When he came back up, he was smiling.

It was a small, dry smile, and it frightened me more than the shotgun.

"Wake them," he said.

Ten minutes later the five old men stood in the kitchen with their cuts on over their undershirts.

Niall and I stood in front of the table, and Fergus sat in his wooden chair.

"My son says he let her out," Fergus said. "That makes him a liar or a fool. Which, Niall?"

"A fool."

"Hands."

Niall held out both hands, palms down.

I understood a moment too late what was about to happen.

Fergus lifted the cane from the back of his chair and brought it down across his son's knuckles.

It cracked.

Niall's breath hissed through his teeth, and he did not move.

The cane came down again, and a third time.

The old men watched with their arms folded. One of them looked at the floor.

"I said she'd be locked," Fergus said. "A man who can't hold what he's carrying doesn't carry it."

"Stop it."

It was my voice.

Fergus turned his head.

"I'm the one who got out," I said. "I did it with a spoon. Not him."

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