Penny reckoned that, with the sky lighter, she and George would be safer out in the open. They climbed down the rope from the hayloft and walked up the hill.
The sheep were penned into a small holding area at the top of the clearing. Cyrus stood on the fence rails, shouting and pointing, a still point amid constant motion. The families had gathered, too: Billy Quick and his houseguests, Ann and Barbara, Catta’s aunt Diana, Jim and Lila Hillsinger and Isa, but not James nor the Old Man nor Catta. There were other people that Penny did not recognize. Some staff stood at the bottom of the hill, forming a sort of loose funnel to guide the sheep onto the enormous bulwark and then the dock, to land finally on the barge. Some of the Cottage girls were walking up the hill, but no small boys were present. None of their tormentors from last night was anywhere to be seen. Past the houses, at the end of the dock, almost in the center of the harbor itself, she could see the barge waiting.
“Three minutes,” Cyrus said, as Penny leaned over the railing.
In that moment, it felt like a festival or a holiday, like the Fourth of July right before the fireworks began. Little Isa Hillsinger dragged her mother and father downhill and others followed, marking out the sheep’s path downhill. One farmhand held Betsy the Border collie by the collar. Cyrus handed a small gun to Billy Quick. Billy pointed the gun up and it went off with a pop. A cheer went up all over the hill. The holding pen swung open. The sheep ran out in a fury.
“Go!” Penny shouted, with all the other children.
She climbed over the railing and ran, and every other child ran, too, a swarm of little feet chasing each other and the sheep down the hill, tripping and falling down and rolling and laughing. Penny ran so fast that she caught the last lamb, who swerved to avoid her. Penny leapt off a rock next to the road and landed in the tall grass, rolled over, and bounced back up and kept running. There was no way to stop—Cyrus thought that all of them, the sheep and the children too, might run blindly into the sea. Betsy the Border collie ran just behind the herd, and at a crucial point she cut through its center, which parted instantly, steering the beasts into the funnel made up of cheering staff. It was like thunder when they reached the planks of the bulwark. The first sheep tried to slow down before stepping onto the barge, apparently afraid of the metal surface, but the rest of the herd was moving fast and pushed all of them back. The barge rail collapsed and two lambs fell off and into the harbor. Betsy then leapt off the dock and paddled after them. She chased them back onto the shore, up the beach, and around the bulwark onto the dock and then the barge again. The staff fixed the battered railing. Order was restored.
Edward Peck pulled the barge away from the dock, waving to the crowd that had gathered. The Heron followed. Once the sheep had left, Penny lay on her back in the grass, exhausted, looking up at the early-morning sky. George lay a few feet away. Penny had not known that sheep could swim, and she was sad Catta had not seen the dog save the sheep. She thought he would like George.
“When I find James,” George said, “I’m going to hit him.”
George stood up and walked toward the Cottage, climbed the front porch steps, and then opened the screen door and let it slam behind him.
“Wait!” she said, but George was already inside. James was older and much bigger. If George really did it, it would be a massacre.
“There you are,” she heard James say through the screen door.
Penny opened the door and crossed the hallway to see George running across the living room, about to launch himself across the table at James. It was suicide. None of the small boys was there—Penny thought they must be asleep upstairs.
When George was three yards from the table, James shoved a plate across the table toward him.
“Pancake?” James said with total unconcern, as if last night had not happened and there had never been an Indian Game. “There was only enough batter for one big one.”
George stopped himself against a chair and then almost fell over, and Penny finally caught up with him.
“Is there syrup?” Penny said, to fill the silence.
“Just butter,” James said.
George sat down at the table. Penny sat down, too, so that they were both across from James. She cut a slab of orange Seven Island butter and spread it out as far as it would go on the one giant pancake, to its very edges. The three of them quietly watched the butter melt.
70
Now Catta was running. Once he got off the beach and onto the forest trails, the rocks and roots cut his bare feet, but he didn’t stop until he reached the old lumber camp at Starks Cove, where a two-room shack sat near the dock. Moving quickly, he picked up all the birch bark he could carry and stacked it at the end of the long dock. He went back to the shack and took an oar from a shelf above one of the bunks and laid that on top of the bark. That ended his obligation to North Island.
Now he would have to figure out whether and how to reveal himself. He wanted them to search for him, to fail, to drag the harbors and call the Coast Guard. He wanted them to panic, for his father’s eternal calm to vanish. How long would he make them suffer? Dinnertime tonight at the very least, he thought. He could hide out in the barn or in the woods behind the Cottage until it was time to appear, but he would need warm clothes, food, maybe a blanket. Chances were that he would only find a few old horse blankets in the barn, but that was the safest option. He needed something to wear that was not in tatters, and there were always random shirts and pants and sweaters hanging on the hooks in the front hallway of the Cottage. If he scouted the house well, he could be in and out in a few seconds and have everything he needed.