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.
"What are you doing, Sherry?"
Lucy's voice scared Sheridan as much as it did the animals. All three creatures disappeared quickly back into the woodpile.
"What were those things?" Lucy asked. Lucy sat down in the grass next to Sheridan. Lucy could be so annoying.
Sheridan explained in a finger-pointing, big-sister way that the animals were their secret pets. She told Lucy not to say anything to Mom about them. Lucy didn't really understand. She kept asking if she could play with them now.
"If you tell Mom and Dad about those pets, they'll die, and we'll be in A LOT OF trouble," Sheridan hissed. "All of my pets die when people know about them!"
"Can they be my pets, too?" Lucy asked.
Sheridan fought the impulse to say no and made a decision to bargain instead. "They can be our pets," she said. "But they're a secret."
"Can we name them?" Lucy asked. She always wanted to name everything. Sheridan agreed.
Then she sent Lucy back inside with the empty bowl to ask for more dry cereal.
***
The helicopter finally arrived at the outfitters' camp late in the afternoon to airlift bodies both alive and dead to the Twelve Sleep County Memorial Hospital.
Sheriff Barnum as well as officers from the State of Wyoming's Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) were waiting at the hospital to talk to Joe. He was interviewed at least five different times by different men, including Sheriff Barnum. Although Joe could not say he actually saw the man point his rifle at Wacey or Deputy John McLanahan, he could say that he saw the man raise the weapon. Was it possible the shooting victim was raising his hands above his head to surrender at the time? Joe said he didn't think so. The state investigators didn't press that line of questioning.
By the time they were done, Joe hoped he had told the same story to each investigator, that there were no inconsistencies. It was apparent though, by the tone and questions of the last interviews, that the shooting was considered justified.
Remarkably, the man who had been shot at the elk camp was still alive and had been airlifted to Billings for massive surgery. The last Joe had heard, the man was reported to be in critical condition and not expected to live through night. The victim had been shot seven times, including five partial and somewhat reckless shotgun blasts (McLanahan) and two 30-caliber rifle bullets (Wacey).
The man who had been shot was Clyde Lidgard, a local from outside of Saddlestring who lived in a wreck of a house trailer on the road to the landfill. Lidgard was a mentally unbalanced modern-woodsman type who lived on a disability pension from the lumber mill as well as fees he collected for looking after summer cabins in the mountains. Lidgard was not an outfitter, and as far as anyone knew, he had never associated with any of the three murdered men. Joe had once been to Lidgard's trailer after someone had called the office and reported a wounded mule deer limping around near the dump. Joe couldn't find the deer, and he went to Lidgard's trailer to see if Lidgard had seen the animal.
Clyde Lidgard was not inside the trailer at the time but was instead hiding in the outhouse. Joe heard him in there and waited for him to come out. Joe had heard from someone that Lidgard didn't like visitors and that his outhouse was his hideout of choice. After nearly fifteen minutes, Lidgard had stuck a gray, craggy face outside the door.
"Ain't no sick deer here," Lidgard had bellowed.
"How do you know I was looking for a deer?" Joe had asked back.
"Go away," Lidgard had croaked.
"You is on private property!" He had pronounced it propity
Lidgard had been right, and since Joe hadn't seen any sign of a deer, dead or alive, he had left. As Joe had driven his pickup along the rutted trail toward the road, he had watched in his rearview mirrors as Clyde Lidgard had scuttled from the outhouse into his trailer. The next time he would see Clyde Lidgard would be as he came out of the tent in the elk camp and walked into a firestorm of shotgun blasts. But in the confusion at the elk camp, Joe had no idea who the man was.
Lidgard was considered crazy but not dangerous, despite the fact that he was rarely seen in the mountains without his ancient .30-.30 lever action rifle. No one had ever seen the 9mm semiautomatic handgun they had found stuffed in Lidgard's coat pocket, but few people knew Lidgard well at all. It would be a couple of days before the pistol could be confirmed to be the murder weapon of all three outfitters. Why Lidgard had stayed in the camp after shooting the men--two while they slept in their tent--was unknown and the subject of much speculation. Maybe he wanted the camp for himself, one of the state investigators said. Maybe he just didn't know what to do, McLanahan guessed. Or maybe he was waiting for someone, Barnum said.
Joe thought about the fact that men like Clyde Lidgard were not the aberration in places like Saddlestring that many might think. Mountain towns and out-of-the-way rural communities all had men like Clyde Lidgard in and around them. Stops at the end of the road collected Clyde Lidgards like dams collected silt.
Wacey came into joe hospital room that night after Marybeth had left. Wacey looked even more exhausted than Joe felt. Wacey said the investigation was continuing, but it would probably be wrapped up soon. All of the evidence indicated that the shooter was Clyde Lidgard. All they were waiting on was the report from DCI that the gun found on Lidgard was in fact the gun that had been used on the outfitters. Wacey said he had talked to reporters not only from the local papers but to radio and television reporters as far away as Denver. He told Joe, not without a hint of a sly grin, that he, Joe, and unfortunately Deputy McLanahan were being thought of as heroes. Wacey said the whole story was being treated as quite a big deal and had made all of the wire services. A stringer from CNN had interviewed him on camera, and the piece was supposed to be broadcast that night. Barnum, though, was being questioned as to why he sent the small party into the mountains without backup and why it took so long to airlift them all out with a wounded suspect.