Her dad always asked people to call first and set an appointment, but sometimes they just showed up. Since it was her dad's job to serve the public, her parents had told her that if she was home alone and someone stopped by, she should be polite and get a telephone number where her dad could call them.
She cinched her robe tightly and approached the window. Pulling aside the front window curtains, Sheridan peeked outside.
An older, portly pear-shaped man stood on the front porch. He had a round, full, red face and was not shaved. He wore a low-crown gray cowboy hat, and a weathered canvas ranch jacket and blue jeans. Scuffed lace-up outfitter boots with riding heels poked out from the bottom of his Wranglers. Sheridan always noted the boots men wore because she thought that boots, more than anything, defined who a man was.
The man stood looking at the door, his shoulders slumped, his head tipped forward, as if he were very tired. She looked out through the yard and could see the roof of a car over the fence but couldn't tell what kind of car it was. Sensing her eyes on him, the man turned his head and saw Sheridan looking out at him. He smiled self-consciously at her. Sheridan thought he had a friendly face and that he looked like somebody's grandfather.
Nevertheless, she made sure the door chain was secured before opening the door the several inches the chain would allow.
"Is your father the game warden in this area?"
There was a wooden sign out front on the fence that said exactly that, but oftentimes strangers either didn't see it or chose not to acknowledge it.
"Yes, he is," Sheridan said. "He's not here right now but he'll be back soon." This is what she was supposed to say, that he would be back soon. Sheridan's mother had drilled this into her, this deliberate vagueness.
The man seemed to be thinking. His brow furrowed and he stroked his chin.
"It's important," he said, looking up. "How soon will he be back?"
Sheridan shrugged.
"Do you think it will be in a few minutes or a few hours?"
Sheridan said she didn't know for sure.
The man rocked back on his boot heels and dug his hands into the front of his jeans pockets. He looked annoyed and troubled, but not necessarily with Sheridan as much as with the circumstances in general. She had not been much help to him, but she "would only say what her parents had told her to, nothing more. "I can give you his cell phone number," Sheridan offered. "Or if it's an emergency you can call the 911 number and ask the dispatcher to radio him." She wanted to be helpful.
The man didn't respond.
"I suppose you can't let me come in and wait for him?"
"Nope," Sheridan said flatly
The man smiled slightly It was clearly the answer he expected.
"If I leave him a note, would you make sure he gets it?"
"Sure."
"Back in a minute."
The man turned and walked through the picket fence gate toward his car. Sheridan went into her dad's office and got a business card from the holder on his desk. She waited at the front door. Then she saw the man emerge from his car. As he came through the gate he was licking the back of an envelope.
"Here's his card," Sheridan offered, exchanging it for the envelope through the crack in the door.
The man's handwriting on the envelope was wavery and poor but it said "Game Warden," followed by the word "Important," which was underlined three times. She read the return address on the envelope.
"Are you a lawyer?" she asked. The printing was for the law offices of Whelchel, Bushko, and Marchand, Attorneys at Law, in Denver, Colorado.
When the man looked at her there was something very sad in his eyes.
"No, I'm not I just borrowed the paper."
"Okay"
"Make sure you give that to him the minute you see him, little lady," he said as he backed off of the porch.
"My name's Sheridan Pickett."
He stopped before opening the gate and looked over his shoulder.
"My name is John Coble."
Sheridan shut the door and threw the bolt home as he slowly walked to his car and got in. Through the windshield, she watched him as he collapsed into the driver's seat. He seemed exhausted. Then he rubbed his eyes with both of his hands, ran his fingers through his gray hair, and reached forward and started the engine. He backed up and drove away on the Bighorn Road.
Sheridan took the envelope into her dad's office and put it on his computer keyboard where he would see it right away
***
JOHN COBLE, THE OLD MAN, felt remarkably good about what he had just done. It was the first thing he had felt really good about in two months. It was possible, he hoped, that he had set some wheels in motion. The girl had been suspicious of him, which was a sign of both intelligence and smart parents. She was a good girl, it seemed to him.
But there was more to be done. His next trick would be harder, and much more unpleasant.
Luckily he knew these mountains well, and after seeing the crude map that Charlie had pulled from Tod Marchand's pack, he had a very good idea of where Stewie Woods's cabin would be.
***
Joe was approaching the grade that would lead to switchbacks up the mountain, when he looked in his rearview mirror and saw the horse trailer listing to the side. There was Lizzie, who liked to thrust her entire head out of the false window opening in the trailer as if she was desperate to force air in through her nostrils, leaning to the left.
He pulled over onto the shoulder and got out. Curls of acrid dark smoke rose from the flattened right tire. He'd been riding a flat for a few miles. The bearings were white hot and smoking in their sleeves of steel and the asbestos brake pads had sizzled and melted.
He unloaded Lizzie, and picketed her in tall grass, which she munched as if she had never eaten before. With her weight out of the trailer, Joe assembled the jack and raised the trailer into the air to change the tire. He barely even noticed the green Mercedes SUV that roared by him on the highway.
***
John Coble saw the horse trailer and the familiar pronghorn antelope decal on the door of the pickup as he passed and he took his foot off of the accelerator.
It had to be the game warden, he thought.
Coble studied the reflection in his rearview mirror as the Mercedes began to slow. The driver of the truck was in the ditch next to the trailer, working the handle on the jack. Behind the man, a buckskin horse was staked down, contentedly grazing.
Coble looked at his watch. It was approaching eleven. He had no idea how far behind him Charlie Tibbs was but he still expected to see the black Ford at any moment.
He had already wasted time in Saddlestring finding the game warden's house. He had left his message for the game warden, done his good deed. Coble had been a little reluctant to meet the game warden face to face in the first place, having no idea how that would go.
Coble made the decision to continue on to the cabin. He pressed on the accelerator and his head snapped back into the headrest as the Mercedes rocketed up the base of the mountain.
***
Three miles past crazy woman creek, Joe slowed and pulled off the highway onto a gravel two-track. The thick lodgepole pine trees formed a high canopy above, casting deep shadows over the road. The crude map he had drawn from Marybeth's directions was on the console between the
seats. He had never been on this particular road before, but knew it led through the National Forest to several sections of state and private land where there were old hunting lodges and mining claim cabins. As he drove further up the mountain, the road worsened, pocked now with spurs of granite that slowed him down considerably
Because of the thick trees, Joe was surprised when he crested the mountain and a massive valley opened up before him. He stopped before he had completely emerged from the forest, put the truck in park, and grabbed his binoculars from his pack on the seat beside him.