Open Season (8 page)

Joe kept low
and picked his way through the trees to the right side of the camp. He kept his shotgun parallel to the ground, glad he had it with him. He slid along the trunk of a thick, downed pine tree until he reached the root pan. It was there, for the first time, that he really raised up and looked at the camp.

There were three tents constructed in a semicircle, with the opening of each aimed at a fire ring. They were permanent tents with stoves inside and probably wooden floors. Black stovepipes poked from the top of each tent. A thick wooden picnic table with benches was near the fire ring, as well as stumps for the elk hunters to sit on while they drank and watched the fire at night.

The ground around the tents was hard packed by years of boots and horses' hooves during hunting season. A blackened coffee pot hung from an iron T near the cold camp fire. It was impossible to tell when the campsite had been used last.

Behind the tents, directly opposite the horse trail they had entered the camp on, was the area used for hanging elk and deer. The crossbeams for suspending the carcasses as they were skinned and cooled were wired high in the trees, as well as rusty block-and-tackle for winching up 500-pound animals. Joe could now see the makeshift lodgepole corral through the trees.

The camp was still. Only the gentle tinkling of a foot-wide creek—the headwaters of the north fork of the Crazy Woman—made a sound. They had somehow surrounded the camp without raising warning chatters by squirrels, and the horses apparently hadn't seen them either because there was no nickering. Joe looked at his watch and waited. The fused warm light of dawn was now creeping down the summit. It was a clear morning, and the camp would soon be bathed in sunlight.

He shifted to get more comfortable and tried to imagine who might be inside the tents and what they might be doing. As he did so, he noticed a quick movement.

Suddenly, there was a shiver of the canvas on the side wall of the nearest tent. Joe eased the barrel of the shotgun through the roots of the tree so it pointed in the direction of the camp. He looked down the length of it toward the tent and the side wall.

There was another shiver, then a sharp tug from the inside. Joe watched both the side of the tent and the door for any sudden movement. Joe held his breath. A low muffled grunt came from within the tent. He raised himself up hoping to catch the eye of either Wacey or Deputy McLanahan to indicate to them there was movement in the tent but could see neither. Joe settled back down and located the safety on the shotgun and clicked it off. The beating of his own heart now rivaled the sounds of the creek.

A distinct round bulge appeared in the canvas, about a foot from the floor of the tent. The bulge slid slowly down the wall, straining at the material and pulling the canvas tight until the bulge rested near the ground. Joe kept the front bead of the shotgun on the middle of the bulge. He thought about his historic inability to hit anything that was stationary, and it worried him.

He had never been in a situation like this before. How would he react?

Then the bulge pushed its way outside and what emerged was the black-and-white bicycle-seat head of an enormous badger. The badger's head darted from side to side, and it sniffed the air.

Joe lowered the shotgun and briefly closed his eyes. He let his breath out in relief. Then he studied the badger as it grunted and struggled its way out from under the wall of the tent. The badger was massive, the largest he had ever seen. As it scuttled away from the tent, rolls of fat shimmered under its coat, and its belly nearly dragged along the ground. Before it crossed the creek and entered the brush, it froze and noticed Joe for the first time. The badger swung its head at him and bared its teeth, and Joe noticed the pink tint of its head and mouth, the bright red of the piece of meat in its jaws. The badger had been feeding on something inside the tent. There was a brief, chilling moment when Joe and the badger stared into each other's eyes.

Then things happened too quickly. Nearly out of his field of vision, Joe saw the door of the middle tent flap open and a man step out wearing old-fashioned long-handled underwear. Someone yelled—McLanahan or Wacey—and the man reacted by turning toward the sound. A rifle barrel raised from the side of the man, and suddenly there was a rapid series of deafening explosions that split the stillness of the morning wide open like an ax to a melon.

Something struck Joe hard in the face and he found himself sitting down, his gloved hand covering a vicious red-hot sting under his right eye. He pulled the glove away and saw his own blood smeared across the leather. There were several more explosions and then a ringing in his ears. Joe scrambled back to the roots of the tree. The middle tent was now collapsing under the sprawled weight of the man who had raised the rifle. Flowers of dark red bloomed on his thermal shirt. The man was still and his arms outstretched, and his rifle was on the ground near his feet. Wacey was screaming for McLanahan to stop firing.

Then Wacey turned toward the camp: “Anybody in that tent throw your weapons out first and come out with your hands behind your heads!” Wacey shouted. “There are twelve armed U.S. marshals out here and one of your party is already down!”

Joe brought the shotgun to his cheek and pointed it toward the nearest tent. The butt of the shotgun was instantly slick with his blood. His face was now numb; he would assess his wounds when this was over.

In the camp, nothing happened.

Wacey barked out another warning. Both Joe and Wacey shot nervous looks at the body on the middle tent, and neither saw any movement. The tent was now down, and the man was partially covered by thick folds of dirty canvas that collapsed over him.

Wacey stepped from behind the rocks and slowly walked into the camp, his carbine held loosely and ready in front of him. Wacey had fired at least one shot from the carbine, because he jacked an empty brass shell into the grass with the lever action. McLanahan stood up from where he had hidden directly across the camp. He was reloading stubby shells into his shotgun.

You shot me,
Joe thought.
One of your pellets ricocheted and hit me right in the face, McLanahan.

Wacey had quickly determined that no one was in the tent nearest to him and had now crossed over the fire ring and approached the tent the man had come out of. Wacey squatted for a moment over the body of the man who had just been shot, apparently confirming that he would be no further trouble. Joe crossed the creek and neared the closest tent, the tent the badger had come out of, from the side.

“Anybody home?” Wacey called toward the last tent.

Joe smelled it before he saw it; when Wacey threw open the tent flap, Joe gagged and turned away.

Kyle Lensegrav and Calvin Mendes were still in the sleeping bags where they had been shot and killed two nights before, their pale naked arms and parts of their faces chewed to the clean white bone by the badger.

Sheridan sat in
the shade of the big cottonwood tree in her backyard and ate a bowl of dry cereal with her fingers. She still wore her blue school dress but had kicked off her shoes and socks. She ate and watched the woodpile, waiting and hoping for something to happen.

Someone from town had called her mom to tell her that her dad was okay and would be on his way home soon, and now Mom was calling Sheridan's grandmother to give her the good news. When Mom talked to Grandmother Missy, she talked for a long time. Unlike other grandmothers, Sheridan's insisted that her grandchildren call her by her proper name. Likewise, Missy never referred to her grandchildren as grandchildren. Sheridan felt that Missy was embarrassed that she even had grandchildren. Sheridan always felt a little silly calling a lady of her grandmother's age “Missy.” It seemed like such a lightweight name.

Mom said that the bad guys had been caught and that Dad had been hurt a little but that he would be all right. Dad would have to spend the night in the hospital in Saddlestring and answer a lot of questions and then he'd be home. So that would be good.

The hotel had been okay for a night but Sheridan was glad to be back home. It had been fun. For dinner, she and Lucy had eaten popcorn shrimp that was delicious, and there were more than 30 television channels in their room. There was an elevator to all five floors, and she and Lucy had spent hours going up and down on it. There was a game room where she begged her mom to play pinball with her, and her mom had agreed. Her mom could actually be kind of fun when she wanted to be, and it surprised Sheridan that Mom had played pinball before. She even knew how to bump the console with her hip to manipulate the steel ball. It was nice not to have to make the bed in the morning, and Mom said it was okay to leave the towels on the floor of the bathroom, which was a treat. But by then Sheridan was ready to leave and go to school. Lucy wanted to stay. Mom said Lucy liked luxury, just like Grandmother Missy.

In school, the rude girls had gathered around her and asked her questions about the dead outfitter and her Dad and what had happened in the mountains. Sheridan was for once the center of attention, and she liked that. The girls who had called her Weird Country now wanted to be around her because she had seen a real live dead man. They asked her what the dead man looked like, how is eyes were. The monster, in a strange way, had brought Sheridan not only a secret but a lot of luck. She liked the new good luck her secret had brought her. One girl, named Melanie, who was popular and had never spoken to Sheridan before, asked Sheridan if she wanted to be her best friend.

She had almost told her mom about what she had seen in the woodpile while they were in the hotel but had decided not to do it. Sheridan reveled in her secret, and wanted to see the animals again. She knew somehow that what she had seen in the woodpile was important. If seeing a dead man caused all of this attention, what would happen if people knew about the secret pets?

When Sheridan got home from school, it looked like Mom had tried to scrub the blood off of the sidewalk and had thrown away the lengths of wood from the top of the woodpile that had blood on them. Sheridan could still see some of the stain on the walk but she had to look hard to do so.

A small sound pulled her attention away from the walk. Sharp black eyes looked out at her from the woodpile and she held her breath, afraid even the slightest movement would scare the little creature away. She didn't know how long it had been watching her, and she had not seen it poke its head out from between the ends of two thick logs. The creature was perfectly still and hard to see at first.

The little animal had a round knobby head and large, black shiny eyes. Its ears poked up straight and round from its head like a cartoon Mickey Mouse. It had a tiny pink nose at the end of a slim snout, and it looked chinless. The animal was light brown with a dark stripe that came over the top of its head and down between its large eyes. She could see a long, thin neck behind its head but couldn't see the creature's body in the shadows of the logs. All that was visible was one small foot with slender fingers and nails poised around the bark of the log it stood on. The creature's hands were delicate and well-formed, and they looked capable of grasping and picking up small objects.

Sheridan was delighted that the creature had not retreated into the logs yet, but stayed and let itself be looked at. She liked the creature's big, dark eyes, and thought that the animal not only looked cute but smart as well. Its eyes were intelligent and sparkling.

Without breaking her gaze with the animal, she reached down into the fold of her dress and grasped a handful of Cheerios. Trying not to make her movements too quick, she threw the cereal toward the woodpile. Cheerios rained on the logs and the creature popped quickly back inside.

She was starting to regret what she had done—she thought she had scared the animal back into hiding—when the little round head reappeared. This time, Sheridan sat still, trying to quiet both her heart and her breath. She was so excited that she wanted to shout, but she didn't dare.

“Hello again, little guy,” Sheridan whispered.

The creature was now leaning farther out of the logs than it had been before. She could see its tiny shoulders and clawlike front feet. Its long, narrow body was now several inches out of the hole in the wood. The dark stripe ran down its back as far as she could see. The creature focused on a Cheerio directly below it in the joint of a branch. It looked from the Cheerio to Sheridan and back to the Cheerio. Suddenly, in a lightning movement, it shot completely out of the hole, stuffed the Cheerio in its cheek, turned like a little, brown tornado, and vanished back into the woodpile.

Sheridan let out a long whistle. “Wow,” she said.
“Wow.”

She scooped the rest of the cereal from her dress and the grass and tossed it in handfuls toward the woodpile. She hoped the creature would now know the sound for what it was—food.

And then there were three. Their heads popped out of the side of the woodpile.
Pop, pop, pop.
She instantly recognized the first creature she had seen as the biggest and darkest. There was also a lighter brown animal with a smaller head. And the smallest one was almost light yellow in color and with a sleeker look about it. She felt happily overwhelmed by the six shiny eyes on her, and she giggled and covered her mouth.

One by one, with the large, dark animal leading the way, the creatures shot out of the woodpile, gathered cereal, crammed their cheeks, and zipped back into holes in the logs. By the third trip, they all seemed more comfortable, and not as manic in their movements. The big, dark one ventured the farthest from the woodpile. It stood straight up on its hind legs. Then it used its front paws to stuff a Cheerio into its now-fat cheeks. It looked alert—and comical. Now it stood just a few feet away from Sheridan.