Page 53 of Wyoming Promises
He strode across the room, bending low into his brother’s face, grasping a meaty shoulder in either hand. “Where was God the night Pa sliced my face?” Words spat out like firecrackers in the flames, and his grip tightened. He leaned closer, his nose a breath away from Frank’s. “The night Pa turned on you?”
Frank blinked, drawing back only a fraction before Bridger released his grip. “He was in me that night, Bridge. That was the night Pa might’ve killed you, and that was the night God gave me the strength to step in and call Pa out.”
Bridger shook his head. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t remember much about...before. But I remember some about that night. I know he hit you. Don’t know why he never took to me that way, ’cept I was bigger.” Frank drew a deep breath, his eyes lost in the long-ago nightmare. “I remember he beat you something fierce. Especially that night. I knew I couldn’t watch that no more—so I stepped in.”
Frank blinked and shuddered. “I wish he hadn’t messed your face, Bridge. But I grabbed him right after he cut you with that bottle. Then I don’t remember much after, except waking up and seeing your face all bandaged, and Ma telling me Pa was gone for good.”
“They found him drowned in the creek after that night,” Bridger whispered. “I was too little to remember much, but it was a long while before you woke up.” His chest constricted as he stared at Frank, thinking of all he had cost his brother. “God has a strange way of answering prayers.”
“Lots seems strange to us, but He did answer,” Frank said.
Bridger looked out the window, unable to face his brother’s faith any more easily than his flat gaze. “But look what it cost you!” he whispered into the glass.
“I’d do it again, Bridge. I’d do it again. I just wish I had done it sooner.” Frank stood. “But you got no call to blame God, nor those people at the church.”
“How can you not?” Bridger asked. Pleaded.
“’Cause that hate makes me just like Pa was,” Frank said. “And I don’t want to be nothing like him.”
Bridger leaned his pounding head against his arm at the window. Hadn’t he spent all his life trying to be anything except what Pa had been? He huffed a deep breath, feeling wearier than when he’d first ridden into town. “None of this changes the problem we have now. And church can’t fix this. I can’t take you, Frank. I’m sorry, but it’s how it has to be. Especially now.”
“Why? We’ve been here a long while, Bridge. You have a good job and all, right? Can’t you tell folks about me even yet?” Frank’s tone came as close to whining as he’d heard.
“No! That’s part of the big mess we’re in! Ike, my boss—he knows you’re in here.” He paced the narrow gap at the end of the bed.
Frank’s brows curled. “How could he know?”
“I don’t know!” Bridger moved to the only chair in the room and dropped, rubbing his eyes with his hands. “I mean, he’s not exactly sure, I don’t think, but he knows there’s someone here. You haven’t been snooping around Miss Lola’s again, have you?”
A slightly sick expression crossed Frank’s face, and he flinched at the accusation. “He didn’t see me!”
Bridger read the truth. “Maybe he did, or maybe someone else did. The point is, I told you to stay away from her, but you had to do things your way.” He bit his tongue before he said more, feeling the anger press harder against his ribs. “You were careless, Frank, and now we’re in a bad spot.”
Frank sat still for a long moment, and Bridger could fairly see the wheels of understanding start to crank, his wide eyes darting back and forth. “That’s not enough to put us in a bad spot, no worse than before, at least.”
Bridger groaned, heat burning up his neck in what he couldn’t label as anger or shame for a certainty. Because even in his dimness, Frank hit this nail on the head. His brother’s infraction paled in comparison to the trouble he’d pounded them into.
“Our only way out of this trouble is to—”
A knock at the door interrupted what might well have been the dumbest, most unfair comment he’d ever make about his brother. But the sharpness of it jolted them both to high alert.
* * *
Lola could hear muffled odd scrapes and rattles through Bridger’s room door as she waited. She glanced along the dim hallway in both directions and shifted her feet. The stuffy air pressed against her, heavy with the smells of musty curtains, old cigars and cheap liquor. Hopefully no one would be about this time of day. She knew by the heat her face must be pinker than a wild rose.