by C. J. Box
She tugged on his arm playfully. "So what's the problem?"
He started to say "nothing," but she anticipated it and tugged on his arm again. He didn't want to mention burning down the trailer and losing his gun. Still, that wasn't the problem.
"I guess I just feel bad that we live in such a dump that housesitting seems like a vacation."
"Oh, Joe," Marybeth said, giving him a hug. "We both know this won't last forever."
***
Joe opened his mail while Marybeth got ready for bed. The mail was mostly junk, but there were several envelopes from headquarters in Cheyenne. There were two departmental memos, one about avoiding overtime and the other about making sure that original receipts were sent along with expense reports because credit card receipts could no longer be accepted.
When he opened the third envelope and read the letter it contained, he froze. It was written in terse bureaucratic prose and he read it three times before it sunk in. He blew a short, hard breath out through his nose in exasperation as he resisted the urge to tear the letter into tiny pieces.
"What is it?" Marybeth asked from behind a washcloth.
"Headquarters," Joe said dryly. "I've got to appear in Cheyenne on Friday for a hearing."
Marybeth stopped washing and listened.
"They're investigating the incident when Ote Keeley took my gun from me. They call it 'alleged negligence with a department issued sidearm." It says here that I could get suspended from the field."
Joe read the letter a fourth time to himself.
"Why now?" Marybeth asked. "That happened months ago."
"The state works in geological time," Joe said. "You know that."
"Those bastards," she hissed. She rarely said anything like that, and Joe looked up.
"Just when things were going so well."
PART FOUR
E) (1) ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMITTEE
There is established a committee to be known as the Endangered Species Committee (hereinafter in this section referred to as the "Committee").
(2) The Committee shall review any application submitted to it pursuant to this section and determine in accordance with subsection (h) or this section whether or not to grant an exemption from the requirements of subsection (a) (2) of this action for the action set forth in such
application.
(3) The Committee shall be composed of seven members as follows:
(A) The Secretary of Agriculture.
(B) The Secretary of the Army.
(C) The Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.
(D) The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
(E) The Secretary of the Interior.
(F) The Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
(G) The Governor of each affected State.
--The Endangered Species Act Amendments of 1982
Sheridan went outside to tell her animals that she'd be away for a little while, but they were nowhere to be found. Not only that, but she felt as though someone were watching her.
Sheridan's pockets were bulging with as much food as she could cram into them and still get out the door without her mom noticing. She had sunflower seeds, croutons, dry dog food, and cereal in the pockets of her skirt. It was more food than she had ever taken out to the animals, but she didn't know when she would be back to feed them again. She was very upset about having to leave the house again, this time to go and stay in the home of people she had never even met before: a stranger's home at Eagle Mountain. Mom couldn't even tell her when they would be back. Sheridan didn't care to see what Eagle Mountain was ("wealthy people share their homes all of the time!" her Grandmother Missy kept telling her. "And they have a pool!"), because she already hated it. Grandmother Missy had said that the girls at school would be envious of her, but Sheridan didn't really care about that. Grandmother Missy liked it when other people were envious, but Sheridan wasn't sure it was all that great. Sheridan thought that taking the entire family to Eagle Mountain would be a big mistake, just as she had when she, Mom, and Lucy had stayed at the motel in town. So many things her parents did for her benefit didn't seem to help her at all. She told her mom and Grandmother Missy that. She didn't want to leave her home again, and she especially didn't want to leave Lucky, Hippity Hop, and Elway.
But the animals didn't seem to be there.
It wasn't as if the creatures always came bounding out of the woodpile at the sight of her. Sometimes it took a while before one of them would realize she was out there. But as Sheridan walked across the yard, there was something about the woodpile that seemed vacant. The secret life was gone from it. It was just a woodpile.
She rained some seeds on the top of it and waited, looking closely for any movement. She sighed and sat under the cottonwood, her chin in her hands. Hot tears welled in her eyes. Where could the animals have gone? Could they be hurt, or worse? Did she feed them something that made them sick? Did they leave during the night and go back into the mountains? Could it be that they just didn't like her anymore? Or that they knew she was leaving and were so sad or angry that they
didn't even want to see her?
"This," she said out loud to herself, "is a really bad day."
And she could not get over the feeling that she was being watched. She shinnied around the trunk of the tree and looked at the house, fully expecting to see her mom or grandmother at the window. Or at least Lucy. But no one was there. Maybe that was it, she thought. Maybe her secret pets sensed someone's eyes on them as well. Squinting, she looked all around her. She took in the rest of the yard, the Sandrock draw pulsing red in the evening sun, and even the roof of the house.
She tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear. But she could see no one. It was giving her the creeps, and her imagination started to wander. For the first time in weeks, she thought of the monster again. It came from somewhere deep in her mind, as if it had been there waiting for the right moment all along. Maybe, she speculated, the monster, or the monster's friend, had come back for Lucky, Hippity-Hop, and Elway.
When she stood her stomach ached. The feelings welling up inside of her were overwhelming: anger, fear, and guilt. Maybe she should have told her mom and dad about the creatures. If she had told them, possibly they would somehow still be around. Her dad could have caught them and built nice houses for them, like he did when he built the rabbit hutch. Maybe by not saying anything, she had caused the creatures to die.
She decided she would give the creatures a little more time. If they didn't come out, she would rush in the house and find her mom. She would tell her everything. When Dad came home they could take the woodpile apart, stick by stick, until they found the poor little animals. Eagle Mountain could wait.
She threw more food on the woodpile, this time harder. There was no way the animals, if they were okay, would not know she was out there. Then she heard the familiar trill. She was suddenly joyous. But the sound did not come from the woodpile. She stood as silently as possible, listening and smiling. When she heard the sound again, her head swiveled toward it. Past the woodpile, past the fence, past the bushes. She found herself staring through bushy leaves at the peeling paint on the back of the garage.
She found them. They had moved, for whatever reason. The sound came from the other side of thick lilac bushes, and she crawled toward it on her hands and knees. She knew the area around their house so well that she was certain where she would find her pets: under the foundation of the garage. There were some large cracks in the concrete where the structure met the ground, and the cracks led to a large dark space under the floor of the garage. She had once probed the space with a long stick and had not been able to find the sides. That, she was sure, was where she would find them.
When she emerged from the bushes, the first thing she saw was Lucky sticking his head out of the crack and then vanishing under the garage.
"Boy, am I glad to see you," she said, emptying her pockets into the hole. "That ought to
keep you guys full for a while." The relief she felt made her giddy.
"I'll be back as soon as I can be, you can count on that." She felt as wildly good as she had horribly bad a moment before. "You guys are pretty smart." She smiled, pulling her pockets inside out to get every last sunflower seed. "This is a much safer place for you."
Rather than crawl through the bushes again back into the yard, Sheridan skipped down the length of the lilacs toward the end of the fence and the corner of corral. She planned to turn and enter the yard through the same gate the monster had used. As she turned toward the corral, she saw the face of a man in the window of the pole barn, and it stopped her cold.
The man's face withdrew from the window into the shadows of the barn and then reemerged in the doorway, so that she could now see all of him. He stood in the light but didn't step outside into the corral. He was motioning to her to come to him. He was smiling. She had been right about being watched.
Sheridan couldn't move. She was terrified. She didn't know whether to scream for her mom, run for the gate, or run back toward the garage. If she ran back to the garage, the man might follow her and maybe see the animals.
"Sheridan, right?" The man asked softly. He spoke just loud enough for her to hear him.
"I need to talk to you for a second. Don't be afraid," the man said. "I know your dad."
He did look familiar, Sheridan thought. She had seen him before with her dad. She didn't know his name, and if she had been told what it was, she had forgotten. There were a lot of people who came to their house because it was Dad's office also. There had been a lot of men at their house when the dead man was found. She knew she shouldn't talk to strangers. But if he knew her dad and her name, was he really a stranger? She weighed going to the man against screaming or running to the house. If the man saw her feed the animals, he might tell her mom. If she ran screaming, she might embarrass her dad.
The man kept smiling and motioning for her to come. She walked toward him on stiff, heavy legs. Her eyes were huge. She walked past the gate and ducked through the poles of the corral. Still, the man stayed in the pole barn. Sheridan suddenly realized that he was standing there so he couldn't be seen by anyone in the house, and she knew she had made the wrong decision. She turned to run, but he was on her in an instant, and he jerked her back roughly into a dark stall with him.
He swung, her around and pressed her against the hay bales, and her scream was smothered by his hand. His face was so close to hers that his hat brim jammed against her forehead and his breath fogged her glasses.
"I'm sorry I had to do this, darling," he whispered when she had stopped struggling. "I really am. I wished you hadn't come around the yard that way. I didn't expect you and you saw me."
He kept his hand, massive and rough, crushed against her mouth. Her breath came in quick little puffs from her nose, and he didn't intend to let her answer.
"Before I take my hand down, there is something you have to understand, Sheridan. Are you listening?"
She tried to nod her head yes. She was trembling, and she couldn't make herself stop. She was suddenly afraid she would wet her panties.
"Are you listening?" he asked again. This time his voice was very gentle. "Are you listening?"
She said with her eyes that she was.
"You've got some secrets, don't you little girl? You've got some little friends in the woodpile, don't you? I've been watching you. I saw you feeding them."
The big hand did not move from her mouth. "Do your mom and dad know about them?"
She tried to shake her head no. Even though he pressed her to the hay, he could tell what she was trying to say because he smiled a little. "You're not lying to me, are you, Sheridan?"
As forcefully as she could, she tried to say no. He pressed his face even closer to her. His eyes were all she could see of his face.
"Okay, then. That's good. We both have a secret, don't we? And we're going to keep it our secret, just between us. Just between us friends. You just keep this to yourself and don't you ever say a word about this to anyone. Look at me."
Sheridan had averted her eyes toward the door, hoping her dad would be there.
"Look at me," he hissed. She did.
"If you say one thing about this to anyone, I'll rip those pretty green eyes of yours right out of their sockets. And I won't stop there."
With his free hand, Sheridan felt him reach back. She heard a snap and a huge black gun filled her vision. "I'll use this on your dad. I'll shoot him right in the face. I'll do the same thing to your pretty mom and your itty-bitty sister. I'll even kill that stupid dog. I'll blow her head right off. Keep looking at me," he said.
She had stopped shaking; she was beyond it. She was absolutely calm, and absolutely terrified.
"I'm going to take my hand down now and let you go as soon as you can smile," he said. "Then you take that smile right into the house and never, ever tell anyone what happened here. Your little animals in the woodpile are going to heaven, do you understand? Your family won't have to go to heaven or anywhere else if you keep your little mouth shut."
He eased his hand down. Her face felt cold as the air hit it. Her lips had been crushed against her teeth, and she tasted a drop of salty blood from inside her mouth.
"Are you listening, Sheridan?"
"Yes." Her voice was thin, and it nearly cracked.
"Then smile."
She tried. She didn't feel like smiling.
"That's not a smile," he chided, his voice gentle again. "You can do better than that, darling."
She tried.
"Closer," he persisted. "Keep working on it."
Her mouth smiled.
"We can live with that," he said, stepping back. His crushing weight was now off of her. She stood up. She winced as he reached over her shoulder, but he was just brushing the hay off of her dress.
"Don't be scared of me," he admonished. He sounded like a normal person now. She was as confused as she was frightened. "Nothing bad will ever happen because we've got a deal. I won't break it if you don't. Shoot," he said, "we might even turn out to be friends someday. That'd be nice, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," she said. But she was lying.
"You might even get a little older, and I'll take you to a movie. Buy you a Coke and some popcorn." He smoothed her dress across her bottom, pressing his hand more firmly than he needed to. "You might even like it."
They both looked up when they heard her mom call her name.
"You had better go now, darling," he said.
***
The house he was looking for was located down a mud-rutted dirt road in a thick stand of shadowy, old river cottonwoods. Joe had never been down the road before, but he had often passed by the crooked wood-burned sign on a post near the county road that read:
OTE KEELEY OUTFITTING SERVICES GUIDED HUNTS
ELK DEER ANTELOPE MOOSE SINCE 1996
The Keeley house was a pine log home that looked tired. There was a slight sag in the roof, its once dark green wood shingles now gray and furry-looking with age and moisture. In the alcove where the house slumped, there was a rusty 1940s Willys Jeep, a horse trailer, an equipment shed, and a yellow Subaru station wagon. Antlers hung above the doors of the house and the shed. Joe shut off his pickup, sat with the window opened, and listened. The heavy, damp quiet of the river bottom lay over the house and to Joe the scene seemed to be more Deep South than Rocky Mountain. Cross beams in the trees indicated that Ote had hung game animals in his yard.
Joe had checked in some fishermen early that morning, working his way upriver toward the Keeley house. He had ticketed a local ranch hand for using worms in a stretch of the river that was regulated for artificial lures only and had cited two itinerant Hispanics who were fishing without any licenses at all. Before he had left the house that morning, he had called Game and Fish Headquarters in Cheyenne to talk to the officer who had sent him the letter he received earlier in the week, Assistant Director Les Etbauer. Etbauer wasn't in yet
, so Joe left a message that he would see him that afternoon for his hearing.
Joe walked by the yellow Subaru on his way toward the front door of the house and glanced inside the car. There was a child's car seat, and scattered on the bench seats and floorboards were fast-food wrappers, plastic toys, and children's books.
The unmistakable sound of a shell being jacked into a pump shotgun froze Joe in place where he walked. He was mindful of where his hand was in relation to his holster--Damn! He was unarmed--and he slowly raised both his arms away from his body so there could be no mistaking that he wasn't reaching for a gun.
Jeannie Keeley, Ote's widow, stood in the open front door of the house with a12-gauge riot gun aimed at his chest. She was wearing some kind of uniform smock and a pair of faded jeans.
Using a soft voice, Joe said who he was and said he would show her his identification if she wanted to see it.
"I know who you are," she said.
"I remember from the funeral."
"In that case, I would suggest you put that shotgun away somewhere safe," Joe said.
"I don't even have my weapon with me." He spoke softly but there was a edge to his voice. Jeannie Keeley shrugged and stepped back inside the house and placed the shotgun in a rack near the door.
"Sorry," she said, not really apologizing. "I'm not usually home during the day so I didn't expect anybody showing up. I got a sick kid here and I've been a little jumpy since Ote died."
"I understand." Joe stood up straight, took a few deep breaths, and unclenched his muscles. He decided against telling her that he could arrest her for aiming a gun at him because he figured it would be pointless. Jeannie, like Ote before her, seemed capable of getting the drop on Joe Pickett very easily. He told her he would like to ask her some questions about Ote.
She stood in the doorway, trying to look tough, Joe thought. Her unlit cigarette bobbed up and down as she seemed to think about it, and him. She was wary of him. He read the name embroidered on her smock. She was a waitress at the Burg-O-Pardner restaurant in Saddlestring. That was the place that specialized in deep-fried Rocky Mountain oysters and one-pound hamburgers for lunch.
