Strangely stocky for a tall man, the sheriff stood six-foot-three and barrel-chested. He wore a mustache in the customary way of small-town law enforcement, with his face shaded by a straw cowboy hat, and his eyes shielded by those large, dark aviator glasses sold exclusively at some secret cop store.
Though all three men were born the same year, Sheriff Donner still called them boys. Twenty years ago, they’d walked the same stage to receive their high school diplomas, and before that they had been an inseparable trio of friends. Somewhere along the way, Cam became a bully and never grew out of it, though Jake had to admit that it had served him well as the town sheriff.
“No, sir,” Steve said. “Ralph just found it this morning. Just making the rounds like always. Seemed odd to find an animal ripped in half like this, so I thought I should call it in.”
The sheriff looked at the remains one more time. “Looks like a coyote got to it to me.”
Utterly preposterous, and everyone knew it— even Jake, who had spent a career in the air-conditioned peace of a cubicle. For all the predators roaming the Rose Valley countryside, none of them could have perpetrated this horror. This was something new and vicious.
Jake wiped his brow. The sun barely peeked across the horizon, but that didn’t stop the heat from permeating his clothes. Dying brown grass carpeted the fields, and even the small hills the locals liked to call “mountains” had long ago given up their greenery, serving as a reminder that this particular Texas summer threatened to break all records.
While Steve and Cam squabbled about the likelihood of a coyote, Jake pulled out his cell phone and re-read the text message he’d sent to Shandi Mason earlier that morning. The message indicator showed Read instead of Sent. Good. If Shandi had gotten his message, then she’d be here soon. A person could get anywhere in Rose Valley in just a matter of minutes.
“Ain’t no reason to get everybody’s panties in a bunch over this,” Cam said. “Maybe it was a coyote. Maybe it wasn’t. But if you make a stink over this, every rancher in town’ll be up my ass about it.”
“Not for nothin’, Sheriff,” Steve retorted. “but if we don’t tell the other ranchers about this, it’s just going to cost us all a lot of money. We need to let people know so they can take proper precautions. Keep an eye out.”
Cam pulled his sunglasses off and moved aggressively towards Steve. “Just clean it up and keep it to yourself, y’hear me?”
Steve didn’t answer. He headed back towards a nearby four-wheeler and fetched a pair of gloves from the bed of the trailer. Though strong and self-assured, Steve tended to avoid fights. Like Jake, Steve knew the politics of Rose Valley. Though Cam didn’t hold the highest seat of power, crossing him promised to be a dangerous proposition, even for the mayor.
The sheriff put his sunglasses back on and headed back towards his brand-new suburban, its frame sitting high off the ground on comically large tires, its windows tinted darker than legally allowed. It must have cost the tax-payers a fortune. Cam stood as near royalty in Rose Valley, though. He could have anything he wanted. The title of Sheriff carried a lot of weight.
For his plan to work, Jake needed the sheriff to be there when Shandi arrived. He needed to make sure that Shandi would see the scene before Steve cleaned it up, that she could confront Cam directly—on record—about why this lamb had become the star of its own horror movie.
“Cam!” Jake hollered after the sheriff.
Cam turned, an irritated scowl on his face. “It’s Sheriff Donner, son.”
Jake fought hard to not roll his eyes. “Sorry, sir. Sheriff Donner, sir. Won’t happen again, sir.”
Jake saluted haphazardly, caring very little about the accuracy of the gesture. Cam had never been in the military. He held an elected position in a town of just over two-thousand people, which he wielded with reckless abandon, but godhood still barely escaped his grasp. Jake and Cam had shared a friendship once. To Jake, they would always be equals, regardless of Cam’s asinine arrogance.
Cam looked at Jake for a few seconds, clearly considering unholstering his gun. “What do you want?”
“How similar is this to the goat over at Serendipity?” Jake popped off.
Cam’s nostrils flared as he stomped back towards Jake. “Ain’t nothin’ the same. Just a dead goat. For pete’s sake, this is a ranching community. Animals die all the damn time. Why do you boys gotta go make a mountain out of a mole hill?”
Technically true. Animals did die all the time. Of heat exhaustion. Of predation. Of old age. Of various veterinary ailments. But not from bifurcation. Such a cause of death wholly defied the natural order of things in Rose Valley—or anywhere else, for that matter.
Jake did his best to meet the sheriff’s gaze. Jake loved Rose Valley. He’d spent his youth frolicking through town, building cherished memories. But even paradise suffered from the tarnish of politics, and Jake had no interest in playing them.
The sound of gravel crunching under tires interrupted the conversation. Jake glanced over and grinned. Success! Yes, he could fumble through a fight with the sheriff, but Shandi Mason practically owed her career to it.
Her green Toyota Camry pulled up behind the sheriff’s Suburban, blocking his exit route. The door of the car flew open and Shandi shot out like a cannonball, a Nikon camera on her hip and her cell phone out in front of her, serving as a voice recorder. Unbridled purpose burdened her every step, displaying her full intent on taking down—or, at the very least, embarrassing—the sheriff.
She walked towards Cam. “Sheriff Donner. There have been reports of livestock mutilations across Rose Valley. Care to comment?”
Shandi was short— certainly compared to Cam—but somehow, she made the sheriff seem small and weak.
Cam bristled. “Dammit, Shandi. How the hell did you
