Chapter 64 Red
Pete was out of the car and running toward the bridge. “Iris,” he called out. “What are you—?”
“Stay away from me.” Iris took a step backwards, toward the twisted guardrail and the precarious drop to sharp rocks below. Jenny yelped a stuttering cry that made every muscle in Red’s body tense.
Claire lunged toward the bridge and Red caught her arm. “Don’t,” he whispered.
She’s not herself. Red looked at the woman on the bridge holding his daughter. Her cheeks were sunken and her eyes were shadowed. Iris wasn’t in her right mind. What might she do to herself—and to Jenny?
“Slowly,” he said to Claire. He took her hand. It was ice cold and he could feel her trembling. They reached the spot where Pete stood, just before the road met the plank decking of the bridge.
“Don’t come any closer,” Iris yelled, her eyes darting wildly from Pete to the drop-off.
Red felt Claire strain forward and tightened his grip on her hand. Claire gave him a look of pure anguish. “Easy,” he whispered.
“It’s your fault.” Iris’s voice was a choked sob. “It’s your fault Dell is dead.”
It took Red a moment to realize she was talking to Pete.
“Iris,” Pete pleaded. “I tried to stop him. He was always headstrong.”
“No,” she spit out. Tears glinted on Iris’s cheeks as she looked down at Jenny. “Dell is a good boy.” She put Jenny on her shoulder and swayed back and forth. Jenny’s cries stopped. “You stay away from me, Pete.”
Pete’s hand went over his heart like she’d pierced it with her words.
Claire let go of Red’s hand and stepped forward. “Iris.” Claire’s voice was tight. “It’s Claire Wilder. Do you remember me?”
Red figured it was a good idea for Claire to try to reach Iris. They were both mothers and didn’t mothers understand each other?
“You took Beth away from me,” Iris gazed down at Jenny, then raised her face to Claire with a look of distress. “You stole my grandbaby away from me.”
The bridge creaked and shuddered as Iris rocked Jenny back and forth.
Red’s knees went soft. He’d almost lost Jenny at Rock Creek, now she was in danger again—and just out of reach.
“Iris.” Claire’s voice was weak. “Please, don’t do this.”
Iris shook her head and stepped closer to the edge. “Stay back.”
Red’s heart pounded. Iris was like a pain-crazed horse.
Pete couldn’t reason with her and she didn’t trust Claire.
He could understand her pain some, after almost losing Claire and Jenny himself.
She’d lost both her sons—and was trying to make some sense of Dell’s death when there wasn’t any sense to be made.
But he didn’t know how to get through to her.
Lord, tell me what to do.
He had to do something. Red took a deep breath. The answer wasn’t going to come from the blue sky. Lord, make it the right thing, I’m begging you.
He sent a look to Claire, squeezed her hand . . . then dropped it. He took one slow step onto the bridge. “Iris,” he said. Softly. Carefully. Like he would to a spooked horse. “Dell was a good man.”
Iris nodded and her shoulders drooped. Jenny’s whimpers resumed.
Red didn’t move any closer. “He was my friend. Remember?” He could see her eyes focus on him now. Good. “You had me over for dinner once. You made pork chops and mashed potatoes.” It was the summer before he met Claire, and Dell had just started at Sunnyslope. “Best meal I had all month.”
Iris looked down at Jenny. “I remember.”
Red nodded. “Dell was happy with Beth, wasn’t he?”
Iris swayed back and forth.
Red took another careful step forward. “He wanted to do right by his wife, and his baby—be a good husband and father.” Red swallowed the lump coming up in his throat. “I know how he felt. A man would do anything to take care of his family. To be worthy of them.”
Behind him, Red heard a soft intake of breath from Claire.
He met Iris’s anguished eyes. “He just went about it the wrong way.” Red had gone about it the wrong way himself, running off to Libby. Thinking that twenty dollars a day would make him a good husband, instead of sharing his past and his heart with his wife.
Iris seemed to deflate a little, her shoulders sagging and her grip on Jenny slackening. Red took another step. He’d covered half the distance between the edge of the bridge and Iris.
“You were his friend,” Iris said, as if just now remembering Red. “And you went to jail, instead of him.”
Now wasn’t the time for Red to do any finger-pointing. “I didn’t want him to miss his wedding day.” He made his mouth curve into a small smile.
“If you were his friend, why didn’t you stop him?” Iris asked, her voice filled with anguish.
Red swallowed hard. He should have stopped him. That was the awful truth.
He was just as much at fault as anybody.
That night before Dell died, Red had gone to check on a horse at Sunnyslope.
Bucky was there, and he told him Dell wanted to talk to him.
Red met up with Dell at the Slippery Otter, thinking maybe Dell was going to make things right between them.
Instead, Dell asked Red to help him raft a load of sheds down the Yellowstone.
“How stupid do you think I am?” Red had asked.
Dell had argued, his voice rising and a few of the regulars at the Otter looking over at them. “They’re just sitting in the park rotting. It’s not like it hurts anybody.”
Red had walked out of the Otter and washed his hands of Dell.
Jenny sputtered a cry. Red looked over his shoulder at Claire. Her gaze was pinned on Iris, her hands gripped together in anguish. He had to get the woman back to safety, and his daughter back in Claire’s arms.
He turned back to Iris. If she wanted someone to blame for Dell’s death, he was willing to take it.
But what if that put her closer to the edge of the bridge with Jenny?
Lord, help me. “I tried,” Red said. “I should have tried harder and maybe I could have saved him.” It was the truth.
He wished more than anything that he’d stopped the kid. “I’m sorry, Iris.”
Jenny began to cry in earnest. Iris rocked her back and forth, her gaunt cheeks glittering with tears. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
Maybe Red was getting through to her. He stepped closer. “Iris,” Red said, his hands out, palms up and pleading. “Can I have Jenny back now? She’s hungry.” He was close now, maybe four or five strides from Iris. The tipped bridge felt sturdy enough, but Iris was so close to the edge. Too close.
“I miss my boys.” Iris’s voice was a groan of agony. “I miss them so much.”
“I know,” Red said gently, his heart twisting for the poor woman. “But you can’t keep Jenny.”
“Jenny?” Iris looked down at the crying baby, then at Red. Her brow furrowed. “This is your little girl.” She said it as if she were seeing Jenny for the first time. “Yours and Claire’s baby.”
“Yes,” Red said carefully. “It’s Jenny. And we love her very much. Just like you loved Sid and Dell.”
Iris’s gaze shifted to Claire, then back to Red, as if trying to decide if that was the truth. Jenny’s cries became more insistent.
Red held his breath.
Iris frowned. “I saw her with the nurse. Pete was looking for Beth and I just wanted to hold her for a little while.”
“I believe you,” Red said. “I know you didn’t want to worry us.”
Iris’s face cleared and she looked at the bridge, the river below and the broken guardrails as if taking them in for the first time. She took a step toward him.
Red moved to meet her, his hands outstretched for his little girl.
Then the world tilted. A shriek of steel and the crack of wood rent the air. Red staggered, trying to keep his feet under him. He shot a look over his shoulder. Claire and Pete were on the ground, rocks tumbling down the embankment.
An aftershock, and it was a big one.
Red staggered toward Iris as she floundered, reaching out for the guardrail that wasn’t there. Jenny, slipping downward. The bridge heaved. The wood decking splintered under his feet. He kept his eyes on Jenny as he vaulted forward.
Iris crumpled sideways toward the tilting edge of the bridge.
He was there, one arm scooping up Jenny, the other shooting around Iris and stopping her headlong fall.
He had them both and he held on tight, riding out the shock waves.
The shaking stopped, but the bridge continued to shudder and tilt toward the riverbed below.
He clamped Jenny to his chest and anchored Iris to his other side.
Claire was on her knees at the edge of the bridge, reaching out to him, her eyes huge and panicked.
Hurry, hurry. Her anguish pulled at him like a rope around his heart.
Pete was watching the tilting bridge with a terrified expression.
Red didn’t hesitate. He clutched his burdens—his daughter, and the woman who had taken her—and pounded over the buckled decking with long strides. Lord, let the bridge hold.
He staggered once, then caught his balance. Ten feet, then five. Then he was there, clearing the groaning bridge.
Iris fell into Pete’s outstretched arms.
Red stumbled to his knees in front of Claire. She flung her arms around him, Jenny squeezed between them. Jenny wailed, and Claire shuddered with a sob. Red held his wife and daughter to his pounding heart. They were safe. His family was safely in his arms and he would never let them go.