Protection

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Bliss rolled the knife back and forth in her hand to confirm her suspicions. Her father’s knife had been at the top of that mesa. Was that why he was keeping all of this a secret to her? Was that why he never talked about the events surrounding her mother’s death?

“Bliss?” Clint’s voice said.

She jerked her head up. This was the first time he had ever called her by her given name.

“You can’t jump to conclusions. There might be another reason that his knife was up there. Your mother could have had it on her when she jumped… er… fell and dropped it,” he tried to reason with her.

“What about the buckle?” Bliss reached into her dress pocket and removed the other item in question. “It was attached to a belt once, and it decayed over the years. What was that belt used for, do you think? Did he beat her with it? Strangle her? What if he killed her then stabbed her and threw her over the edge to make it look like she killed herself…” Bliss ended her accusations with a failed attempt to suppress a sob.

She covered her mouth with her hand as visions of what could have happened that day ten years ago filled her mind and flashed before her eyes.

“Don’t think like that,” Clint’s voice broke through her terror-filled imagination.

Bliss leaned back and lay flat on her back, the only sound being the slowing rain as it poured through the hole in the ceiling. Her heart longed for something - someone - to take over for her. Someone who had the power to turn back the clock and she wouldn’t even think of sticking her nose in places she didn’t belong.

“You know, if I had a glimmer of hope that God cared about me before, this shatters it. He doesn’t care a single bit about Momma or me. He ain’t gonna lift a finger to help me or anything that might give me peace,” she said emphatically.

The pit of her stomach boiled with disappointment. She was completely alone now; it was her against the world. Even Colt couldn’t be trusted with his useless infatuations with God and his beliefs that were nothing but a lie that he had enveloped himself in.

The rain slowly began to stop until it didn’t come through the hole in the ceiling, so Bliss stood.

“We better be heading back,” she said.

Clint stood and nodded in agreement. While he took care of the fire, she went out to the horses. Not more than a minute after she left the building, she came back in.

“Slade, what did you do with the horses?” she asked.

“Tied ’em up. Why?” Clint finished putting out the fire and walked toward the door.

“Because they’re gone,” Bliss stated.

One of his eyebrows arched and he looked out to where he had tied the horses to see that they were indeed gone.

“Well…,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well… that don’t hardly seem right.”

“You forgot to tie them up, didn’t you?” Bliss crossed her arms in annoyance.

“No, I tied ‘em up. At least I’m pretty sure I did,” Clint sighed.

“At least it ain’t that long of a walk,” Bliss stepped off the porch and started walking toward home. “They’ll run back to the ranch and the barn.”

It wasn’t long before Clint began to walk beside her. Her initial irritation toward him slowly dwindled as she realized that anyone could have made the mistake. So, she focused her irritability on the knife-weighing heavy in her dress pocket. She couldn’t believe that Daddy had killed her mother. She had jumped to conclusions too soon. She couldn’t go and fly off the handle at something she knew very little about. She would have to get the story from her father’s own lips.