Open Season (27 page)

Joe wandered aimlessly but conveyed a sense of purpose that he didn't really have, and no one stopped him. When he glanced into the rooms he was passing, he saw there were older people on this floor. People waiting to get better or die. A television set was on and Jay Leno was interviewing someone.

A Billings police officer stood casually at the nurses' station and leaned on the counter. He didn't give Joe a second glance as Joe walked past. The policeman was talking in low tones to an attractive nurse who seemed interested in what he was saying but was feigning boredom. Joe noticed the policeman's empty chair near a room at the end of the hall, and he walked past it. The card on the wall of the room read C. LIDGARD.

Joe took a few steps before it hit him. He stopped and looked down the hall over his shoulder. The policeman had his back to Joe, and he could hear the nurse giggle. Joe hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked into the room. He eased the door shut behind him.

Clyde Lidgard lay in the dark room illuminated by a small bulb mounted in the headboard. Joe hardly recognized him. Lidgard looked like he was 80 years old and was little more than a skeleton. His skin was waxy and yellow and harshly wrinkled. Webs of tubes sprang from his arms looking like the white roots of a neglected potato. His head was turned on the pillow toward the door, and the light from the bulb infused his feathery silver hair with a glow.

Joe stared at Clyde Lidgard's face as if willing him to wake up out of his coma.

“Tell me what you know, Clyde,” Joe said. “Just tell me what you know.”

When Clyde Lidgard's eyes slowly opened, Joe stood riveted to the floor. Lidgard's eyes were rheumy and caked with mucus. Joe wasn't sure Lidgard could even see out of them. It didn't seem possible that Lidgard was actually awake or had any idea that Joe was in the room. Maybe Lidgard normally did this while he slept.

“Can you hear me, Clyde?” Joe asked softly. He half-expected the nurse and police officer to burst in at any moment and throw him out.

Lidgard's lips pursed as if he were sucking on a candy.

“You're dry. Do you want some water?” Joe said, pouring some from a plastic pitcher into a small paper cup. He held the cup to Lidgard's lips, and Lidgard drank. His eyes followed Joe's movements.

“Do you know who I am?” Joe asked quietly.

“Warden.” The response was so weak that Joe almost didn't hear it. “Warden.” Joe replaced the pitcher and bent over Lidgard's face. He smelled the odor of decay on Lidgard's breath. It was the same smell a deer or an elk had after it had been shot.

“That's right,” Joe said. “I'm Game Warden Joe Pickett from the Saddlestring District. You need to tell me what happened up there in that elk camp.”

Lidgard's eyes closed momentarily then opened again. “I'm going to die now,” Lidgard said.

“Not before you tell me about the elk camp,” Joe persisted. “Not until you tell me about the Miller's weasels.”

There was a tiny reaction on the corner's of Clyde Lidgard's mouth, as if he were trying to smile.

“I took some good pictures of them weasels,” Lidgard replied. “But I never got to see if they turned out. Instead, I died.”

Joe gave Clyde Lidgard some more water. It was still quiet in the hallway.

“You talked for a while and cleared your conscience. A huge weight lifted off of you,” Joe said. “And
then
you died, feeling much better about yourself.”

“I did?” Lidgard asked.

“Starting now,” Joe said.

 

When Joe came
out of the room, the policeman was still leaning over the nurses' counter, and Clyde Lidgard was dead.

 

The first thing
Joe noticed as Marybeth was rolled out of the operating room was that, compared to Clyde Lidgard, she looked remarkably healthy. He found her hand under the sheet and squeezed it as he walked alongside the gurney. The emotion he felt when he looked at her flat bandaged belly brought tears to his eyes.

They made him let go of her hand for a moment while they situated her bed in the room, but when the nurses moved to set up the IV bottle, he went back to her. They told him they had just given her some powerful sedatives and that she would be asleep until morning.

But the drugs hadn't kicked in completely yet, because for a moment, she awakened.

“You're going to be all right,” Joe said, forcing a smile. “You're going to make it and be just fine.”

She seemed to be looking to him for some kind of reassurance. He hoped he was providing it.

“Marybeth, do you know who did this?”

“I couldn't see. All I know is that it was a man.”

“Is there anything you can tell me?”

“What about my baby?” Her voice was thick.

Joe shook his head.

She turned her away, her eyes closed tightly as she cried. He squeezed her hands.

Suddenly, Marybeth was looking at him, frantically searching his face. Her eyes were wide.

“Where's Sheridan?” she asked. “I told her to run.”

Like blind men building a mechanical elephant, each of the players picked up a hammer and wrench and, working separately and often secretly, fashioned gears, soldered wires, and pounded sheet metal. One built a leg, another the tail, a third the trunk. Then suddenly this creation, like a dreadful android, sprung to life, catching its builders in its gears as it lurched, uncontrolled, toward unknown destinations, without purpose, limit, or remorse.

 

Sheridan had never
been so cold, so hungry, or so alone. Once the fire down in the woodpile had died out, utter darkness had descended over the mountain. She rolled herself into a tight ball against the base of the boulder and tried to tuck the horse blanket around her body, but it was too thick and too small to cover her completely. The boulder, the dirt, and the air were all cold. She wished she had brought the backpack with her because it was filled with scraps of food. This was the first time she had ever missed dinner. She wished she could do something routine, like change into her pajamas or brush her teeth, so she could at least feel kind of normal. She didn't know what time it was, but she knew it was late. There was no moon and the cold, hard stars were relentless.

Night animals were out. Something—it sounded like a dog by the way it walked—had come down the Sandrock draw from above but had stopped when it either smelled or sensed her. With an abrupt
thump-thump-thump,
it had reversed course and crashed back through the brush up the mountain. It had scared her at the time, because for a moment she thought it was Wacey. But she was pretty sure it had been a coyote. There were lots of them up here, according to her Dad. They had eaten her puppy and her kitten, after all.

She had slept for a while, but she didn't know how long. A sharp crack—a gunshot from somewhere up in the mountains—had jarred her awake a few minutes ago. She listened for more shots but heard none. She crawled on top of the boulder again and looked down. The woodpile, now coals and ashes, glowed deep red. The lights were still on in the house but she couldn't see the man moving around inside or out. She would feel better if she knew where he was. For a moment, she thought about going back down.

She wished she had some way to defend herself if he found her. She assessed what she had—the horse blanket, a barrette, two pennies from her pockets. She didn't even have a stick. If she were in a movie, she would be able to fashion something clever out of those items to beat the bad guy. But this wasn't a movie, and she wasn't that clever. She was cold—and scared.

Then she saw the headlights coming down from Wolf Mountain. She watched them as they crossed the river and came down Bighorn Road. The pickup pulled back into the driveway at the front of the house. She heard a door slam but couldn't see who had been driving.

After a few moments, she saw someone in the house pass by the back picture window. The porch light came on and Wacey stepped out. He was carrying a rifle.

“
Yoo-Hoo!
Sheridan? Are you still with us?”

Sheridan began to cry. For a moment, she had thought the driver was her father.

“Answer me, sweetheart, so I know you're okay!” His voice was friendly, as it always was when he started out.

She was crying hard now, uncontrollably. It was as if something had released inside of her.

“It's nice and warm inside, Sheridan. I've got some hot chocolate warming up on the stove. Hot chocolate with itty-bitty marshmallows that I found in the cupboard.
Mmmmmmm!
You've got to be getting a little chilly up there.”

She could not stop crying. She covered her face in her hands.

For a few moments, there was silence from below.

Then: “I can
heeeeear
you. I can hear you up there. Stop crying, or you'll make me feel bad. I don't want to drink all of this hot chocolate by myself.”

She scrambled down from the boulder. As suddenly as she had started crying, she had stopped. She was horrified that Wacey had heard her crying. Now he knew for sure where she was.

“You sound pathetic, Sheridan. Why don't you come on down so I don't have to come up and get you?”

She pushed her way around the side of the boulder through a juniper bush so she could see down into the backyard again. He was still standing in the light of the floods. He had raised the rifle and was trying to see her through the scope but he was looking in the wrong direction, somewhere off to her left. Maybe he didn't know where she was after all. Maybe her sobs had echoed and confused him. Either way, he wasn't coming up after her. Yet.

It would be different when the sun came up.

It was three
in the morning in Saddlestring, Wyoming, when Joe Pickett roared in from Billings. The four stoplights flashed amber, and no one was about. The last of the bars were closed, and it was too early for morning activities yet. The town was as dead as it would ever be.

Joe drove straight down Main Street and pulled around the corner from Barrett's Pharmacy. He stopped and turned off the motor and looked at himself in the rearview mirror. He expected his eyes to glow red, as if he were some kind of demon or alien. He was so tired, so drained. He had not slept in two nights and had not eaten since breakfast, now almost 20 hours ago.

And he was absolutely enraged. He knew it wouldn't be long before he would explode. The only question remaining was how many people would be involved in the blast.

Dim lights were on inside the pharmacy and Joe pressed his face to the window and looked in. In the parking lot, he had seen the pickup with a magnetic sign on the door that read HANS'S JANITORIAL SERVICE. Hans was in there all right, pushing a vacuum through the aisle that featured magazines and paperback books. Joe rapped on the window, but Hans didn't look up. He couldn't hear Joe over the vacuum. Joe hit the window again so hard he risked smashing it or tripping the alarm. But Hans, who has half-deaf anyway, didn't respond.

Joe took his flashlight from his belt and shined it through the window into Hans's face. Hans twitched and absently rubbed his mouth, not yet aware of what was annoying him. When he finally looked up, he jumped and nearly stumbled back into the best-sellers. Joe turned the flashlight on himself so Hans could see him, and he held his badge to the window. Hans stood thinking it over, his chin in his hand, then motioned Joe around to the backdoor.

“I probably shouldn't let you in,” Hans said as he unlocked the door in the alley. “Bill Barrett told me never under any circumstances to let anyone in the store after hours, even him. There's all kinds of narcotics and stuff in the pharmacy.”

Joe thanked him and brushed by. “It's official state Game and Fish Department business,” Joe answered. “It's lucky you were here.”

Hans grunted and locked the door after them.

“I gotta tell Bill Barrett about this.”

“That's fine,” Joe said, walking through the store to the photo counter.

“Hope you don't mind if I vacuum,” Hans said. “I went hunting with Jack this afternoon, and I'm running late. Got a buck, though. Finally. Missed a nicer one. You can ask Jack about it.”

“Hans, I've got to ask you something.”

Hans stopped and stared at Joe. His hands shook. Joe could tell that Hans was trying to recall anything he might have done recently that could be a violation of the Game and Fish regulations.

“Don't worry,” Joe assured him. “You haven't done anything wrong that I'm aware of.”

Hans continued to shake.

“Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when I drove up on you and Jack after you got that pronghorn buck?”

Hans nodded his head yes.

“You asked me about whether or not I had heard of an endangered species in the mountains. Do you remember that?”

Hans nodded again.

“What do you know about it?” Joe asked. His voice was firm.

“Nothing,” Hans said. “Honestly. We just heard rumors. You know, bar talk. Somebody said somebody else had found something up there.”

“Who found it?”

“Somebody said it was Clyde Lidgard,” Hans said.

“Vacuum away,” Joe said, waving his hand. He slipped behind the counter and slid out the oversize drawer that held envelopes of developed pictures. The envelopes where alphabetized by name. Joe quickly leafed through them, finding the packets filed under “L.” He found Lawton, Livingston, Layborn, Lane, and Lomiller. But he didn't find what he was looking for. Across the store, Hans fired up the vacuum cleaner. Joe slammed the drawer shut and said, “Shit!” But Hans was oblivious.