Open Season (3 page)

Joe had a blank expression on his face while he was thinking. The expression sometimes annoyed Marybeth, who was afraid people would think him simple. It was the same expression, in a photograph, that had been transmitted throughout the region via the Associated Press when Joe, while still a trainee, had arrested a tall man—who turned out to be the new governor of Wyoming—for fishing without a license.

“Where did Maxine want to go?” he asked.

“She wanted to go out back,” she said. “Toward the woodpile.”

Joe turned around. Sheridan and Lucy had paused at breakfast and were looking to him. Lucy looked away and resumed eating. Sheridan held his gaze, and she nodded triumphantly.

“Better take your gun,” Sheridan said.

Joe managed a grin. “Eat your breakfast,” he said.

“What's this all about?” Marybeth asked.

“Bloody monsters,” Sheridan said, her eyes wide. “There's a bloody monster in the woodpile.”

Suddenly, there was the roar of motors coming up Bighorn Road from Saddlestring. Joe was thinking exactly what Marybeth said next: “Something's going on. I wonder why nobody called here?”

Joe lifted the telephone receiver to make sure it was working, the dial tone echoed clearly into his ear.

“Maybe it's because you're the new guy. People here still can't get used to the fact that Vern Dunnegan isn't around anymore,” Marybeth said, and Joe knew instantly she wished she could take it back.

“Dad, about that monster?” Sheridan said from the table, almost apologetic.

 

 

Joe buckled his
holster over his bathrobe, clamped on his black Stetson, and stepped outside onto the back porch. He was surprised how cool and crisp it was this early in the fall. When he saw the large spatters of dried blood between his oversized fleece slippers, the chill suddenly became more pronounced. Joe pulled his revolver and broke the cylinder to make sure it loaded. Then he glanced over his shoulder.

Framed in the dining room window were Sheridan and Lucy. Marybeth stood behind them and off to the side. His three girls in the window were various stages of the same painfully beautiful blond and willowy female. Their green eyes were on him, and their faces were wide open. He knew how silly he must look. He couldn't tell if they could see what he could: splashes of blood on the ancient concrete walkway that halved the yard and crushed frozen grass where it appeared that someone—or something—had rolled. It looked almost like the night nesting place of a large deer or elk the way the grass and crisp autumn leaves had been flattened.

Grasping the pistol in front of him with both hands, Joe skirted a young pine and stepped through the open gate of the weathered fence to the place where the woodpile was.

Joe sucked in his breath and involuntarily stepped back, his ears filled with the
whumping
sound of his own heart beating.

A big, bearded man was sprawled across the woodpile, both of his large hands folded across his belly, palms down, and one leg cocked over a stump. The man's head rested on a log, his mouth parted just enough to show two rows of yellow teeth that looked like corn on the cob. His eyelids weren't completely shut, and where there should have been a moist reflection from his eyes there was instead a dull, dry membrane that looked like crinkled cellophane. His long hair and full beard was matted by blood into crude dreadlocks. The man wore a thick beige chamois shirt and jeans, and broad stripes of dark blood had coursed down both. It was Ote Keeley, and Ote looked dead.

Joe reached out and touched Ote's meaty, pale white hand. The skin was cold and did not give to the touch. Except for the dried blood in his hair and on his clothes and his waxy skin, Ote looked to be very comfortable. He could have been reclining in his La-Z-Boy, having a beer and watching the Bronco game on television.

Clutched in one of Ote Keeley's hands was the handle of a small plastic cooler minus the lid. Joe kneeled down and looked into the cooler, which was empty except for a scatter of small teardrop-shaped animal excrement. The inside walls of the cooler were scratched and scarred, as if clawed. Whatever had been in there had been manic about getting out, and it had succeeded.

Joe stood and saw the extra buckskin horse standing near the corral. The horse was saddled, and the reins hung down from the bridle. The horse had been ridden hard and had lost enough weight that the cinch slipped and the saddle hung loose and upside down.

Joe stared at Ote's blank face, recalling that day in June when Ote had pointed Joe's own pistol at his face and cocked the hammer. Even though Ote had thought better of it and had sighed theatrically and spun the weapon around butt-first with his finger in the trigger guard like the Lone Ranger, Joe had never quite been the same. He had been expecting to die at that moment, and for all practical purposes he
deserved
to die, having given up his weapon so stupidly. But it hadn't happened. Joe had holstered his revolver with his hands shaking so badly that the barrel of the revolver rattled around the mouth of the holster. His knees had been so weak that he backed up against his pickup to brace himself so he wouldn't collapse. Ote had simply watched him with a bemused expression on his face. Without a word, Joe had written out the citation for poaching in a shaking scrawl and handed the ticket to Ote Keeley, who took it and stuffed it in his pocket without even looking at it.

“I won't say nothin' if you don't about what just happened,” Ote had said.

Joe hadn't acknowledged the offer, but he hadn't arrested Ote either. The deal had been struck: Ote's silence in exchange for Joe's life and career. It was a deal Joe agonized over later, usually late at night. Ote Keeley had taken something from him that he could never get back. In a way, Ote Keeley
had
killed Joe, just a little bit. Joe hated him for that, although he never said a word to anyone except Marybeth. What made it worse was when word of the incident filtered out anyway.

During the summer Ote had gotten drunk and told everyone at the bar what had happened. The story about the new game warden losing his weapon to a local outfitter had joyously made the rounds, and it even appeared in the wicked anonymous column “Ranch Gossip” that ran in the weekly
Saddlestring Roundup.
It was the kind of story the locals loved. In the latest version, Joe had lost control of his sphincter and had begged Ote for the gun back. Joe's supervisor in Cheyenne heard the rumors and had called Joe. Joe confirmed what had actually happened. In spite of Joe's explanation, the supervisor sent Joe a reprimand that would stay in his personnel file forever. An investigation was still possible.

Keeley's poaching trial date had been set to take place in two weeks, but obviously Ote wouldn't be appearing.

Ote Keeley was the first dead person Joe had ever seen except in a coffin at a funeral. There was nothing alive or real about Ote's expression. He did not look happy, puzzled, sad, or in pain. The look on his face—frozen by death and for several hours—told Joe nothing about what Ote was thinking or feeling when he died. Joe fought an urge to reach up and close Ote's eyes and mouth, to make him look more like he was sleeping. Joe had seen a lot of dead big game animals, but only the stillness and the salt-ripe odor was the same. When he saw dead animals, he had many different emotions, depending on the circumstances—from indifference to pity and sometimes to quiet rage aimed at careless hunters. This was different, Joe thought, because the dead body was human and could be
him.
Joe made himself stop staring.

Joe stood up. There
had
been a monster.

He heard something and turned around.

The backdoor slammed shut, and Sheridan was coming out in her nightgown, skipping down the walk with her hands in the air to see what he had found.

“Get BACK into that house!” Joe commanded with such unexpected force that Sheridan spun on her bare feet and flew right back inside.

On his way through the house and to the phone, Joe told Marybeth who the dead man was.

Of course, County
Sheriff O. R. “Bud” Barnum wasn't in when Joe called the dispatch center in Saddlestring. According to the dispatcher—a chain-smoking conspiracy buff named Wendy—neither was Deputy McLanahan. Both, she said, had responded to an emergency that morning in a Forest Service campground in the mountains.

“Some campers reported seeing a wounded man on horseback ride straight through their camp last night,” Wendy told Joe. “They said the suspect allegedly rode his horse right through their camp while displaying a weapon and threatening the campers with said weapon.”

Joe could tell that Wendy loved this situation, loved being in the center of the action, loved telling Joe about it, loved saying things like “allegedly” and “said weapon.” She did not get a chance to use those words often in Twelve Sleep County.

“I called out the entire sheriff's office and both emergency medical vehicles at seven-twelve A.M. this morning to respond.”

“Did you get a description of the man on horseback?” Joe asked.

Wendy paused on the telephone, then read from the report: “Late thirties, wearing a beard, bloody shirt. A big man. Crazy eyes, they said. The suspect was allegedly swinging some kind of plastic box or cooler around.”

Joe leaned his chair back so he could see out of the small room near the front door that served as his office. Both girls were still lined up at the back window, looking out. Marybeth hovered behind them, trying to draw their attention away by rattling a box of pretzels the same way she would shake dog biscuits at Maxine to get her to come into the house.

“Why wasn't I called?” Joe inquired calmly. “I live on the Bighorn Road.”

There was no response. Finally: “I never even thought about it.”

Joe recalled what Marybeth had said about Vern Dunnegan but said nothing.

“Sheriff Barnum didn't mention it neither,” Wendy said defensively.

“The injured man was displaying and threatening a weapon with one hand and swinging a plastic box with the other?” Joe asked. “How did he steer his horse?”

“That's what the report says.” Wendy sniffed. “That's what the campers reported. They was out-of-staters. From Massachusetts or Boston or some place like that.” She said the last part as if it explained away the inconsistency.

“Which campground?” Joe persisted.

“It says here they was at Crazy Woman Creek.”

Crazy Woman was the last developed U.S. Forest Service campground on Bighorn Road, a place generally used as a jumping-off site for hikers and horse-packers entering the mountains.

“Are you in radio contact with Sheriff Barnum?” Joe asked.

“I believe so.”

“Why don't you give him a call and let him know that the man on horseback was Ote Keeley and that Ote is lying dead on the woodpile behind my house.”

Joe could hear Wendy gasp, then try to regain her composure.

“Say again?” she replied.

 

Joe hung up
the telephone and started for the backdoor.

“You're not going back out there?” Sheridan whispered.

“Just for a minute,” Joe said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone.

He shut the door behind him and slowly walked toward the body of Ote Keeley, his eyes sweeping across the yard, taking in the bloodstained walk, the woodpile, the canyon mouth behind the house. He wanted a clear picture of everything as it was right now, before the sheriff and deputies arrived. He didn't want to screw up again.

Squatting near the plastic cooler, Joe drew two empty envelopes and a pencil from the pocket on his robe. Using the tip of the eraser, Joe flicked several small pieces of scat from the cooler into an envelope. He would send that to headquarters for analysis. He gathered several more pieces of scat and put them in another envelope. He sealed both and put them back in his pocket. He left the rest for the sheriff.

Back in the house, Joe dressed in his day-to-day uniform: blue jeans and his red, button-up chamois shirt with the pronghorn antelope patch on the sleeve. Over the breast pocket was his name plate, which read GAME WARDEN and under that J. PICKETT.

When he came downstairs, the girls were sprawled in front of the snowy television, and Marybeth was sitting at the table flanked by dirty dishes. She held a big mug of coffee in her hands and stared at something in the air between them.

Her eyes raised until they met Joe's.

“It'll be okay,” Joe said, forcing a smile. He asked Marybeth to gather up the children and some clothes and go into Saddlestring. They could check into a motel until this was over and the backyard was cleaned up. He didn't want the kids seeing the dead man. Sheridan's dreams were already vivid enough.

“Joe, who will pay for the room? Will the state pay for it?” Marybeth asked softly so the children couldn't hear.

“You mean we can't?” Joe replied, incredulous. She shook her head no. Marybeth kept the meager family budget under a tight rein. It was the end of the month. She would know if they were broke, and apparently that was the case. Joe felt his face flush. Maybe they could stay with somebody? Joe dismissed that. While they had made a few friends in town, they were still new, and he didn't know who they could call to ask this kind of favor.

“Can we use the credit card?” he asked.

“Nearly maxed out.” She said. “It might work for a night or two, though.”

He felt another wave of heat wash up his neck.

“I'm sorry, honey,” he mumbled. He fitted his dusty black hat on his head and went outside to wait.