cade
“There is no truth…just facts,” Dodge says as we lean against the bar at The Barrel & Bridle.
The place smells of beer-soaked wood and fryer grease, with a ghost of cigarette smoke clinging to the rafters long after the ban was passed. Neon signs buzz overhead, throwing green and red light across the scarred floorboards. Johnny Cash hums low from the jukebox while a couple of ranch hands argue loudly over which drought year was worse—’11 or ’18.
I nurse my beer, not tasting it.
I’ve just told Dodge everything about Sarah. He knew some of it. Now he knows it all.
“In this day and age, people lean toward believing women.” His thumbs are hooked in his belt. “Should’ve been that way back then, too, but we were too damn blind.”
“You think I was stupid not to believe her?”
“Notwas…still are stupid, boss.” Dodge lifts his pint and drains a swallow. “I gotta be honest. Looking at her now…she doesn’t strike me as a woman who’d make up something like that—or any lie at all.”
It’s what I’ve been thinking too. “Landon’s my brother, Dodge.”
He tosses up his shoulders. “My brother’s serving fifteen in Walls for armed robbery. Doesn’t make him a saint just ‘cause we share blood.”
“You’d testify against him?”
“I did.” His tone is flat. “He roped me into driving his getaway car without tellin’ me. The second I heard gunfire, I called 911 and handed him over to the cops myself. Kept me out of prison.”
I blink. “You’re serious?”
“Like a heart attack.”
I shake my head. “My brother isn’t a rapist.”
“You sure? If I hadn’t been in that car, I’d have said the same about mine. What—you need to be under the bed while he’s on top of a girl before you believe her?”
The words are crude, and they do what he intended. They knock the air right out of me.
He regards me thoughtfully. “Why’d you believe him over her? She was your girl. You loved her.”
“He’s my brother.” It sounds weak even to my ears.
“Or maybe it was just easier.” Dodge raps his knuckles on the bar, nodding at Jose. “One more.”
“Sí,” Jose says as he pulls another PBR. He jerks his chin at me. “You?”
“Bourbon. Neat.”
The beer’s not cutting it. I need fire.
Glasses land heavy on the bar. Dodge sips slow. I throw my Buffalo Trace back in one gulp.
“It wasn’t easy, Dodge,” I mutter, bristling. “It wasn’t easy to believe him over her.”
“Wasn’t it?” Dodge asks—not accusing me but just saying it flatly. “You were twenty. She was nineteen. Kids.”
Yeah, we were. Innocent. Naïve. No more.
“And my old man drilled it into us—Mercers stick together, family above all.” My stomach churns.
“So you listened to your brother, not your girl.”
I rub my neck. “I can’t square the man I know with what she says. Landon’s got flaws, but?—”
