Today's Reading
As she followed, Marybeth glanced down at her speedometer when the convoy cleared the city limits. She was going eighty-five in a fifty-mile-an-hour zone, and she had to press on the accelerator of her Ford crossover to keep up.
Marybeth was grateful that the roads were clear after the blizzard that had shut down the area the week before. There were still big snowdrifts in the swales of the terrain and impassable roads in the mountains. There was enough snow on the ground in patches that it created perfect camouflage for the large herds of brown and white pronghorn antelope, which melded into the landscape.
Should she call her three daughters? she asked herself. Sheridan, twenty-seven, was local, working as the CEO of Yarak, Inc., a bird abatement firm owned by Nate Romanowski. April, twenty-five, was in Bozeman, Montana, at a private detective agency. Lucy, the youngest at twenty-three, had just returned to Laramie and the University of Wyoming after a semester abroad in France.
Sheridan, of course, could probably get there first if she was working within cell phone range.
Marybeth decided against it. She didn't want to alarm them with incomplete information.
At that moment, her phone lit up with a call. Sheridan. Marybeth enabled the Bluetooth feature in her car and the call appeared on the dashboard's screen.
Sheridan said, "Mom, what's going on? Is Dad okay? My cell phone started blowing up a few minutes ago."
She'd heard. Marybeth said, "Let's not panic, Sheridan. We don't know what's happened yet or if your dad is even involved."
"My God," Sheridan said, her voice trembling. "I got a text saying he was shot to death and found in his pickup."
"Ignore it," Marybeth said. "Don't even look at any more texts until we know for sure. We don't even know if your dad is injured, or if it's somebody else in a Game and Fish truck."
"Who the hell else could it be?" Sheridan said, her voice rising.
"Don't lose it until you hear from me," Marybeth said. "I'm following the first responders out to the scene right now. I should be there in fifteen minutes, or sooner at the rate we're going."
"I'm scared. This could be awful," Sheridan said. "I can't even wrap my head around it."
"Just stay calm. That's what I'm trying to do."
"You don't sound calm," Sheridan said.
"Don't call your sisters just yet," Marybeth said. "Not until we know something."
"That's going to be hard," Sheridan said.
"I know. It's hard on me as well."
"Okay. For now."
"Stay off your phone. I'll call you the minute I know what's happened," Marybeth said. "I promise."
After a beat, Sheridan said, "Growing up, we all knew something might happen someday. I mean, just about everybody Dad runs across out in the field during hunting season is armed. But..."
"I know. I know, believe me. Honey, I'll call you the second I know something," Marybeth said, disconnecting the call and wiping hot tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
Marybeth was untethered.
If it was Joe in that shot-up pickup on Antler Creek Road, she needed to know what happened and why. And she needed to know if she could hold it together.
But there had always been a lingering fear, she admitted to herself. A fear that Joe would encounter a situation that he couldn't reason his way out of. A situation where he was ambushed, overwhelmed, or outgunned.
As a law enforcement officer, and one who had been called a "shit magnet" for his propensity to attract trouble and controversy for doing his job by the book and without qualms, Joe had made enemies over the years. He also had a knack for walking into—or bumbling into—situations that put his life in danger. It was a trait she both loved and hated about her husband. Joe seemed unable to understand that it was possible, at times, to simply walk away.
* * *
Antler Creek Road was an anomaly of sorts, Marybeth had learned from Joe. It started out near Saddlestring as County Road 402, and it coursed along the base of Wolf Mountain, where the foothills flattened out into sagebrush prairie. It ended abruptly at a junction near an ancient buffalo wallow, where it split off into three forks that looked from the sky like the foot track of a wild turkey.
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