Free Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo. Campbell Page A

inside, with their black hair and beards. So much had happened since three days ago when she had seen them. Brian got up and opened the door, still holding a hand of cards. “Who’s out there?”
    Margo inhaled.
    “Sweet Mother of Jesus,” he said and folded his cards into a stack. “Am I seeing a beautiful ghost, or has the maiden of the river come upstream to bless me? Come in out of the cold and shut the door.” He returned to the table, sat down, and leaned back in his chair to take a wider view of her. He seemed genuinely overwhelmed by Margo’s presence. Paul was sitting with his back to the door, looking over his shoulder. He squinted one eye. “Jesus, Brian. What’s a woman doing here with a gun? Is she going to shoot us?”
    “Put on your glasses, Pauly. It’s Maggie Crane,” Brian said.
    Margo might have cried in relief at being anywhere she could rest. She was grateful to be out of the elements, but the sheer size of the two men spooked her. Both of them were as tall as Cal and bigger around. She was at their mercy. If they didn’t feed her, she would starve; if they sent her away, she would probably freeze; if they wanted to force her to do anything with them, they might well succeed.
    “Put down your rifle, Maggie, and come sit.” Brian pulled a chair away from the table and patted the seat with his hand. She rested the butt plate of the Marlin on the pine floor and leaned the barrel in a corner, next to a broom. She sat in the chair beside Bryan.
    “You came just in time for my winning hand,” Paul said.
    Margo didn’t know why she had earlier thought the two
men seemed alike. They were the same size and their features were similar—black hair, beards, and blue eyes—but where Brian was broad-shouldered and solid in the middle, Paul was rounded in his shoulders and belly. Brian’s hair was too short to go into a ponytail like the one Paul wore. Paul’s face was thinner and paler and intensely focused on his cards, which he now put down reluctantly. He fished a pair of glasses from the pocket of his sheepskin-lined vest and put them on. One eye looked big through the glasses, and the other was half closed. Margo couldn’t stop looking at him.
    “One hand isn’t going to drag you out of your five-year losing streak, you sorry bastard,” Brian said.
    “I beat you last week.”
    “Like hell you did.” Brian turned to Margo. “We heard the news about your daddy. We’re so sorry. I worked with him for a couple years in heat-treating. Old Man Murray said he was smart and very careful. That’s what he always said about him. Loved him like a son. I mean, he was his son, I guess. I never knew the story there.”
    “I’m sorry, too,” Paul said. “I never met him, but that’s a rough business.”
    Brian said, “Paul and I lost our daddy five years ago, and it wasn’t easy, not even for us grown men. Even though the son of a bitch used to beat the hell out of us.”
    “He sure did,” Paul said. “That mean bastard beat us and made us tough.”
    “Made us the mean bastards we are today,” Brian said.
    Paul smiled and took off his glasses. One eye remained squinted.
    “Why don’t you leave them on so you can see?” Brian said.
    “The damned things give me a headache. Worry about your own eyes, Brian.”
    “When we were kids, I shot my brother in the eye with a BB, blinded him in his right eye, so I have to take care of him now,” Brian said.
    “You don’t take care of me, asshole.”
    “Kept him out of Vietnam. Probably saved his goddamned life,” Brian said.
    “Can we just finish the game?”
    “The other eye went blind for the usual reason. Too much yanking his own chain.” Brian winked at Margo. “The priest warned us.”
    “Will you shut the fuck up, Brian?”
    Margo took off her leather gloves and laid them on the table. They remained in the shape of her curled hands.
    “Oh, poor Maggie. Paul, this child is freezing. Look at her fingers.” Brian took both her