felt proud, if a bit fearful, that she had been right. The only light had been the moon through the dried leaves of the cottonwood tree. The monster had rattled the back gate before figuring out the latch and had then lurched clumsily (sort of like mummies in old movies) across the yard to the backdoor. Its eyes and teeth glinted yellow, and for a second, Sheridan felt an electric bolt jolt through her as the monster's head swiveled around and seemed to looked directly at her before it fled. The monster was hairy and shiny, as if covered with liquid. Twigs and leaves were stuck to it. There was something white, a large sack or box, swinging from the monster's hand.
'Sheridan, stop talking about monsters,' Joe called out. The dream disturbed him because the details were so precise. Sheridan's dreams were usually more fantastic, inhabited by talking pets or magical things that flew.
'You're going to scare your little sister.'
'I'm already scared,' Lucy declared, pulling her blanket to her mouth.
'Then the man walked slowly away across the yard through the gate toward the woodpile where he fell down into a big shadow. And he's still out there,' Sheridan finished, widening her eyes toward her sister to deliver the complete effect.
'Hold it, Sheridan,' Joe said abruptly, entering the room with a spatula in his hand. Joe was wearing his threadbare terry-cloth bathrobe he had purchased on a lark in Jackson Hole on his and Marybeth's honeymoon ten years before. He shuffled in fleece slippers that were a size too large.
'You said 'man'.' You didn't say 'monster'.' You said 'man'.' Sheridan looked up quizzically, her big eyes wide.
'Maybe it was a man. Maybe it wasn't a dream after all.'
Joe heard a Vehicle outside, racing up the gravel Bighorn Road much too fast, but by the time he crossed the living room and parted the faded drapes of the front picture window, the car or truck was gone. Dust rolled lazily down the road where it had been.
Beyond the window was the front yard, still green from summer and littered with plastic toys. Then there was the white fence, recently painted, paralleled by the gravel road. Farther, beyond the road, the landscape dipped into a willow-choked saddle where the Twelve Sleep River branched out into six fingers clogged with beaver ponds and brackish mosquito-heaven eddies and paused for a breath before its muscular rush through and past the town of Saddlestring.
Beyond were the folds of the valley as it arched and suddenly climbed to form a precipitous mountain-face known as Wolf Mountain, a peak in the Twelve Sleep Range. With Wolf Mountain in front of them and the foothills and canyon in back, the Pickett family, eight miles from town in their house, lived a life of deep and casting shadows.
The front door opened and Maxine burst in, followed by Marybeth. Marybeth's cheeks were flushed--either from the brisk cold air or her long walk with the dog, Joe wasn't sure which--and she looked annoyed. She wore her winter walking uniform of lightweight hiking boots, chinos, anorak, and wool hat. The anorak was stretched tight across her pregnant belly.
'It's cold out there,' Marybeth said, peeling the hat off so her blond hair tumbled onto her shoulders.
'Did you see that truck tear by here? That was Sheriff Barnum's truck going too fast on that road up to the mountains.'
'Barnum?'Joe said, genuinely puzzled.
'And your dog was going nuts when we got back to the house. She nearly took my arm off just a minute ago.' Marybeth unclipped Maxine's leash from her collar, and Maxine padded to her water dish and drank sloppily.
Joe had a blank expression on his face while he was thinking. The expression sometimes annoyed Marybeth, who was afraid people would think him simple. It was the same expression, in a photograph, that had been transmitted throughout the region via the Associated Press when Joe, while still a trainee, had arrested a tall man--who turned out to be the new governor of Wyoming--for fishing without a license.
'Where did Maxine want to go?' he asked.
'She wanted to go out back,' she said. 'Toward the woodpile.'
Joe turned around. Sheridan and Lucy had paused at breakfast and were looking to him. Lucy looked away and resumed eating. Sheridan held his gaze, and she nodded triumphantly.
'Better take your gun,' Sheridan said.
Joe managed a grin. 'Eat your breakfast,' he said.
'What's this all about?' Marybeth asked.
'Bloody monsters,' Sheridan said, her eyes wide. 'There's a bloody monster in the woodpile.'
Suddenly, there was the roar of motors coming up Bighorn Road from Saddlestring.
Joe was thinking exactly what Marybeth said next: 'Something's going on. I wonder why nobody called here?'
Joe lifted the telephone receiver to make sure it was working, the dial tone echoed clearly into his ear.
'Maybe it's because you're the new guy. People here still can't get used to the fact that Vern Dunnegan isn't around anymore,' Marybeth said, and Joe knew instantly she wished she could take it back.
'Dad, about that monster?' Sheridan said from the table, almost apologetic.
Joe buckled his holster over his bathrobe, clamped on his black Stetson, and stepped outside onto the back porch. He was surprised how cool and crisp it was this early in the fall. When he saw the large spatters of dried blood between his oversized fleece slippers, the chill suddenly became more pronounced. Joe pulled his revolver and broke the cylinder to make sure it was loaded. Then he glanced over his shoulder.
Framed in the dining room window were Sheridan and Lucy. Marybeth stood behind them and off to the side. His three girls in the window were various stages of the same painfully beautiful blond and willowy female. Their green eyes were on him, and their faces were wide open. He knew how silly he must look. He couldn't tell if they could see what he could: splashes of blood on the ancient concrete walkway that halved the yard and crushed frozen grass where it appeared that someone--or something--had rolled. It looked almost like the night nesting place of a large deer or elk the way the grass and crisp autumn leaves had been flattened.
