"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.