he died. How Ote spent every dime they made on horses, guns, outfitting equipment, and that damned truck he was buried in. How the Ford dealership in Casper where Ote bought the truck was on her case because, come to find out, Ote had missed the last three payments and they wanted the truck back and wouldn't that be a hoot? How Ote married her when he was home on leave from the army and she was a junior in high school and got her pregnant for the first time on their wedding night. That was three and a half kids ago.
How Ote spent everything he saved in the service to buy this cabin and land in Wyoming so he could live his dream of killing things and getting away from people. He wanted to be a mountain man. He liked to say he was born 180 years too late. Ote hated people, but mainly he hated the government. Ote believed in the right to keep and bear arms. Ote told her all the time how he would die when the Feds came to get him for one thing or another. That's why he kept himself armed. That's why he showed her how to use and shoot the shotgun they kept in a rack near the door. That's why he wore a Derringer holster in his boot. Ote always thought his outfitting business would take off someday. He guaranteed a trophy to any of his clients on the promise that they wouldn't tell anyone when, where, or how they got it. He wanted to buy a float plane and expand into Alaska someday. He wanted to home school his kids, but she wouldn't let him because the kids drove her nuts when they were home all day, and besides, someday they would have to get jobs and go out on their own and Ote didn't know enough himself to teach anybody anything except how to butcher an elk. How Ote liked being with Kyle Lensegrav and Calvin Mendes more than he liked being around anyone else.
Ote was a mean-spirited prick of a man. Ote thought he knew everything, but he was basically Mississippi white trash in the middle of northern Wyoming. He left her nothing, not even the damned truck. She would have to go on welfare, money from the government he hated. Wouldn't that make Ote spin in his grave? She thought there might be insurance and benefits through the Veterans Administration, since Ote was a veteran. She needed to pursue that. Again, money from the government he hated. Ore would keep spinning down there. Like a top.
She would have to sell the house and the cars and move. Maybe she would take the kids; maybe she wouldn't. She wasn't sure. Her mama in Mississippi could take them for a while until she got her shit together. Go to Colorado, maybe. New Mexico. Arizona. Somewhere it was warmer. A good waitress could get a job anywhere.
Joe listened and watched her. He was as unprepared for this torrent as he had been unprepared for her at the door with the shotgun. She would not stop talking. She was bitter about Ote's death, but possibly just as bitter at the life he had given her and left her with. Joe could see that she could have been pretty when Ote had married her. But her features were now sharp, and her outlook was flinty. He was surprised how quiet the children were in the other room. He wondered if they were simply terrified of her. And she was going to have another.
'When he died, it was in your yard,' she said, her eyes flashing. 'He didn't even have the decency to die in his own yard. The prick. I had to sell his horses to pay for that funeral. I didn't know how much a front-end loader cost to rent. Why did I pay for his perfect funeral? Why? I'm so damned idiotic. He wouldn't have done that for me if I'd got shot. I bet he would have gotten drunk with his pals Kyle and Calvin and burned my body on a pyre like some kind of Indian woman.'
Joe rubbed his neck. He stole a glance at his watch. She had been going nonstop for forty-five minutes. He would need to leave soon if he wanted to get to Cheyenne on time.
'Aren't you the guy Ote took the gun from?' she asked suddenly, grinning.
Joe said he was.
'Damn, he was proud of that,' she said. 'He couldn't stop talking about it for a while. Then he realized he could lose his outfitter's license. Then he got scared and depressed. You've got to understand that if Ote had lost his license, he might as well have been dead. It would have killed him. It drove me up the wall, him talking about it.'
Joe looked at her as she talked, but his attention was diverted by the absolute quiet in the other room where the children were. He wanted to know what was wrong with the little girl in bed.
'Ote liked you,' Jeannie said. 'He bragged for a while about that gun thing, then he got scared. He said he thought you were a good man. He said you were fair and square, not like Vern Dunnegan.'
Joe asked what she meant.
She shrugged. 'Ote didn't tell me a lot about his business. All I know is that Ote was really mad once because Vern caught him doing something--poaching, probably--and Vern made Ote make it right with him.'
'You mean a bribe?' Joe asked.
'Something,' Jeannie said. 'Vern made Ote do something, but I don't know what. All I know is that Ote was pretty mad about it. This wasn't a fun place to be when Ote was mad.'
But she didn't know what specifically had happened. 'That's the way things work,' she concluded, as if she had forgotten Joe was a warden.
'Not necessarily,' Joe said.
Joe couldn't listen to her much longer. He stood and asked her if he could get a glass of water. She waved toward the sink. On the way there, he paused at the children's bedroom door. April was in the bed. She looked feverish, her hair plasrered to her skull, but her eyes were calm and piercing. On the floor, a baby boy with big dark eyes turned to him. There was a look on the boy's face that suggested he expected Joe to step in and smack him. But Joe could see no bruises or injuries on either child.
He turned on the spigot and filled his glass with brackish water that came from their well. Jeannie Keeley was staring at him. He absolutely could not figure her out. She could be cool and abrupt one minute, and absolutely gushing words the next. He wouldn't have been surprised if she had stood and walked back over to the rack and pulled down the shotgun again and aimed it at him. This house and the people in it were crazy.
'Did Ote give you whatever he was going to give you to make things right?' she asked.
Joe paused with the glass nearly to his lips.
'Ote said he had something that once you saw it you would drop all the charges against him and he'd have his license back. Did he give it to you?'
'No. Did Ote tell you what it was?' Joe asked.
'Something he and the rest of the guys found. Some kind of animal.'
'What kind of animal?'
She paused and screwed up her face. From the bedroom the little girl cried, 'Mama.'
