of the thunderheads rolled back, eventually clearing the top of the Bighorn Mountain, leaving big, blue sky.
She believed there had been a battle. The battle took place in plain sight, in front of everyone, but few could see or sense it. She wanted to believe that the battle was between good forces, with the bear as the agent, and evil, embodied by some other kind of beings who had recruited Eric Logue and Nurse Bob. Perhaps the good forces had engaged her dad and Nate as temporary foot soldiers as well. But she would never know that.
It was remarkable to Sheridan how little the incidents—the cattle, wildlife, and human mutilations—were talked about. It was as if everyone in the Twelve Sleep Valley collectively wished that nothing had happened. But they had. Men had died. Maxine would forever be changed from seeing something that had scared her white. A family, the Logues, was destroyed.
Even when the e-mail came to her father from someone named Deena, who had written to him from somewhere in South America where more mutilations had subsequently occurred, her father didn’t want to discuss it. Sheridan wouldn’t have even known about the e-mail if she hadn’t heard Nate try and broach the subject with her dad.
“Too many holes in the earth,” Nate had said. “Maybe something was released into the atmosphere that drew in a force like putrid meat draws in flies.”
Her dad had said, “Or maybe not,” in that dismissive way he had, and changed the subject. When Nate tried to steer him back, her dad told Nate, “I don’t want to talk about something we’ll never have the knowledge to understand.” Then: “Nate, I hate woo-woo crap.”
Nate said, “I know you do,” and smiled, the edges of his new scar twisting his mouth slightly.
She was with her dad later that fall when he slowed his pickup on the bridge to call out to Not Ike Easter, who was fishing in the river. Not Ike hollered back, laughing. Sheridan asked her dad what Not Ike had said.
“He said he’s caught three fish.” Then he smiled as if he were content, as if things had finally returned to normal.
