Mind you, I still took the wine bottle upside the head—Esau’s dad must have been a baseball phenom in his day—but my speedy flight denied him the opportunity to break it against the table and grind the shards into my face, which his spin-eyed cackle betrayed his lust to do. At least his hurling it out the back door after me got it out of his hands. The last thing Esau needed to pick himself off the floor to face was his furious father wielding a glass club.
If anyone cares that I’m in the Roundup with no shoes on, they haven’t said anything. It’s twenty-four degrees and snowing, the bare foot patrol probably took the night off.
“At least it was empty,” Gunther says, gently combing through my hair to examine the throbbing lump on my head.
“It hurt plenty,” I assure him.
“Oh, I can see t
