Chapter Twelve
Sheridan slowed down as she approached the sign that read Game Warden Station / Saddlestring District and took a left off the main county road and entered the dense lodgepole forest.
“Are they still back there?” she asked Lucy, who was turned around in the passenger seat looking out the back window.
“There’s April,” Lucy reported. Then, with her voice rising in alarm: “Yes, those guys are still behind her.”
Sheridan called April and said, “Remember the trick we pulled on those dudes who followed us home from the Stockman’s Bar last Thanksgiving?”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” April responded.
“What trick are you talking about?” Lucy asked Sheridan.
“You’ll see.” Then to April: “Let’s do it. I want to find out who these guys are.”
The pines were dense on either side of the road the entire mile and a half from the county road to the Pickett home, which also served as the game warden station.
So dense, in fact, that it was difficult to see the resident moose that often lurked in the timber and then suddenly stepped out onto the road in the evening and blocked traffic until it finally ambled off.
But there were two old crossroads once used by lumber crews that weren’t entirely reclaimed by the forest.
Sheridan increased her speed and built a cushion between her and April.
“Hold on,” she said to Lucy.
“What are we doing?”
Sheridan hit the brakes and backed up onto one of the ancient roads to the left side. She reversed far enough that a driver on the road couldn’t see her until they were upon her.
“We’re trapping them,” Sheridan said. “Hand me my shotgun.”
“Shotgun?” Lucy asked, alarmed.
The weapon was on the back seat in a leather case.
Rather than explaining herself due to the time crunch, Sheridan reached through the console opening and got it herself.
She quickly shed the case and tucked the shotgun muzzle down between the driver’s-side and passenger bench seat cushions.
It wasn’t lost on her that she’d learned the procedure from her dad while doing ride-alongs over the years.
As she checked the loads in the 20-gauge pump-action shotgun, April cruised by and greeted them with a friendly wave.
“Now what?” Lucy asked.
Before Sheridan could respond, the dark GMC pickup passed by them. Sheridan got a glimpse of the driver—he was wearing a stiff straw cowboy hat—but she couldn’t see the passenger. She didn’t recognize the driver.
“He didn’t even look over,” Sheridan said as she put her SUV into gear and roared out onto the road, where she stopped but kept her engine running.
April had also stopped, and her brake lights flashed as she reversed her momentum and shot backward. The GMC lurched to a halt, then backed up to avoid being hit by April’s vehicle. It stopped moving fifteen feet from Sheridan’s SUV.
“Trapped him,” Sheridan announced.
“That’s good, I guess,” Lucy said with despair.
—
Both Sheridan and April emerged from their vehicles at the same time. Sheridan left the shotgun inside hers, but kept the door open for easy retrieval. April didn’t display the same caution. She held a semiautomatic pistol down by her side as she walked toward the GMC.
“And here I am—the only one without a gun,” Lucy lamented.
“There’s a pistol in the glove compartment,” Sheridan responded over her shoulder.
“Oh, great. Of course there is. Like I know how to use it.”
Sheridan ignored her younger sister as she approached the GMC’s driver’s-side window. April went to the passenger side.
Sheridan rapped on the window and it whirred down. The driver was a big man in his late thirties or early forties with scarred cheeks and light-colored hair. He turned his head to her as his cheeks flushed pink with humiliation.
He’s a hothead, Sheridan said to herself.
“What in the hell are you girls doing?” he growled.
“Seeing who is following us,” Sheridan said.
“You blocked our progress.”
“That was the idea.”
The driver took a deep breath and turned so he was looking straight ahead.
Sheridan stepped forward so she could get an angle on the passenger.
He was roughly the same age, but dark and feral-looking.
He wore a straw hat like the driver’s. The passenger tried to ignore April, who was now right outside his window. He looked supremely annoyed.
“Who are you, anyway?” Sheridan asked. “What are you doing on this road?”
“It’s a public road, isn’t it?” the driver asked. “Isn’t this the road to the game warden station?”
“It is,” Sheridan said. “So what do you want with him?”
“This is fucking ridiculous,” the driver said, whacking the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “You two need to clear the road so we can get on our way.”
“Again,” Sheridan said, “who are you? I see you’ve got local plates, but I know most of the people around here. I’ve never seen either one of you before.”
“You’ve got names, I’m sure,” April said from the other side of the pickup.
“I’m Jason Witten,” the driver said. “My buddy here is Marion Barber.”
“Have you ever heard of these guys?” April asked Sheridan.
“Can’t say I have.”
“Your dad knows us,” the man named Witten said.
“Probably poachers,” April said.
Witten ignored her. He was quietly seething, Sheridan thought. She didn’t want her sister to goad him any further.
“Mr. Witten,” Sheridan said, “we were wondering why you were following us.”
“I wasn’t following you,” Witten responded. “We were just all going to the same place.”
“We live there. At least for the time being. What is it you wanted from my dad?”
Witten flinched, and Sheridan caught it.
“Your dad? Your dad is the game warden?”
“That’s right,” Sheridan said. “I’m Sheridan Pickett and the nasty one on the other side of your truck is April. The one in my car with the pistol aimed at you is Lucy.”
Witten seemed tongue-tied all of a sudden. She was grateful he didn’t look behind him to see that Lucy was unarmed. But that’s when the passenger spoke up.
“How is your dad, anyway?” Barber asked. “We heard he got hurt.”
Sheridan nodded. She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell them anything. It was too painful to talk about at the moment.
In her peripheral vision, she noticed that Lucy had opened her door and was approaching them. She’d left the revolver behind. Lucy now stood shoulder to shoulder with Sheridan. She leaned into her older sister out of the men’s earshot and whispered, “Bad vibes.”
April said, “He got hurt, but he’s recovering nicely. He’ll be back on his feet in no time at all.”
“Well, that’s good,” Barber said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
She said, “Do you really expect us to believe that you drove all the way out here to find out how our dad is doing?”
“It’s true,” Barber said with a grin. “We’d like to know where we can visit him. Or at least send a card.”
“Are you friends with our dad?” Sheridan asked.
“Isn’t everybody?” Barber said.
“Real bad vibes,” Lucy whispered. Then: “Do you want me to get your shotgun?”
Sheridan shook her head.
“Where did you two dudes get your new cowboy duds?” April asked with a chuckle. “It looks like you’re dressed up for your first junior rodeo or something. Don’t you know that you wear straw hats in the summer and black hats in the fall and winter?”
April’s observation simply sounded like an insult, Sheridan thought. There was no way Witten or Barber could know that April used to work in a retail western-wear store. But at least April had distracted them from asking about where their dad was hospitalized for a moment.
“Your story is full of holes,” Sheridan said to Witten and Barber. “I think it’s time the two of you beat it.”
“I’d be happy to do that,” Witten said through gritted teeth. “But you’ve got us trapped here on this road.”
“I’ll back up,” Sheridan said to Witten. “That way you can get out of here.”
Witten nodded his head.
“Give me a minute,” Sheridan said.
Lucy followed her and got into the passenger side again. Sheridan saw that April was returning to her own vehicle.
“There’s something really off about those two,” Lucy said. “I’m glad you didn’t tell them about Billings.”
“Me too,” Sheridan said as she backed up onto the logging road.
The GMC fishtailed so fast in reverse toward the main road that both sisters waited to hear the sound of a crash. Which came less than a minute later.
Sheridan and Lucy exchanged a glance before Sheridan eased out onto the road to follow the vehicle to report the accident.
“I didn’t like them at all, but I hope they didn’t kill themselves,” Lucy said.
But Witten hadn’t smashed into a tree trunk, as they had first thought. The cow moose lay across the road with two broken legs and blood streaming out of its mouth. Broken glass from the GMC’s smashed taillights sparkled on the road. But Witten and Barber were gone.
“Well, shit,” Sheridan said. “Give me that pistol.”
“Poor old girl,” Lucy said with her eyes full of tears. “We’re all going to miss her.”
—
In the house, as Lucy rooted through the chest freezer for something other than pronghorn antelope or elk meat for dinner, and April scrolled through emails on her phone that she’d need to find time to answer, Sheridan’s phone lit up with an incoming call from Sheriff Sondergard.
“It’s Steve,” she announced. “I need to take this.”
“Oh, Steve,” April said, clutching her hands over her breasts and swooning to mock her sister. “Now it’s ‘Steve.’ ” Which made Lucy laugh in the other room.
After listening for less than a minute, Sheridan disconnected and lowered her phone.
“So what does ‘Steve’ have to say?” April asked.
Sheridan’s demeanor was grave. She said, “The sheriff’s department was investigating a fire at a camper trailer today.”
“So?”
“A man approached them and said he was the guy who called in the shooting. He said he saw everything.”
“You’re kidding,” April asked, suddenly interested. “Who is this guy?”
“I don’t know,” Sheridan said. “But he’s giving a statement now at the sheriff’s office. Steve asked me if I’d like to sit in.”
“What are you waiting for?” Lucy asked. “Go.”
“I’m gone,” Sheridan said as she gathered up her jacket and key fob. “Call Mom for an update.”
“I was just going to do that,” Lucy said.