IT WAS ON late afternoons like this, when the clouds were low and close and had closed a lid over the Snowy Range and the sun could not yet break through, that former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk hurt the most. She didn’t know if it was low-pressure, atmospheric feelers from a coming snowstorm, a change in the humidity, or a combination of those factors that made her bones and muscles ache and took her back to that incident four years before when her life had changed on the steps of the county courthouse.
Whatever it was that caused her so much discomfort, she did as she always did and fought her way through it. She refused to let the pain slow her down. She walked along the footpath that paralleled the meandering left bank of the Little Laramie River through the family ranch she’d grown up on. As she did, Dulcie grimaced and put one foot in front of the other. Buster, her two-year-old golden retriever, kept his nose down in the cheatgrass that rimmed the path, his tail wagging like a metronome.
She wished Buster was smarter, or at least more intuitive and alert. He was very affectionate, which was nice, but when he was outside with her he lived in his own special world where deer droppings were snack food and distant airplanes in the clouds sent him into barking fits. When she took a break to gather her strength to keep going, Buster would stop and look over his shoulder and implore her to pick up the pace.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said through gritted teeth. “Just keep a look out for skunks.” Knowing by experience that if Buster encountered a skunk he would try to play with it until the creature unloaded on him.
*
ALTHOUGH SHE WASN’T one for introspection, Dulcie Schalk could never have conceived of the path her life had taken. And although it hadn’t gone as planned, she wasn’t bitter or regretful. But that wasn’t to say that at times she wasn’t furiously angry. She channeled that anger into her physical and mental recovery, and her doctors said she was well ahead of schedule. On days like this, though, she wasn’t so sure.
Top of her class at the University of Wyoming law school, the youngest county attorney in the state, a ninety-five percent conviction rate in court, great friends including Marybeth Pickett, and a future so bright everybody could see it.
Then it happened. And everything changed.
*
THERE HAD BEEN six of them together that day. A high-powered meeting in the conference room of the courthouse to discuss the incursion of Sinaloa cartel sicarios into the Mountain West. Dulcie, Sheriff Mike Reed, FBI deputy director Sunnie Magazine, two special agents from D.C. in Jeremiah Sandburg and Don Pollock, and state FBI agent in charge Chuck Coon.
At a table usually used for hosting the birthday parties for county employees, a strategy was laid out for identifying and apprehending the violent newcomers who had left a trail of blood and bodies from New Mexico to Wyoming.
As the meeting broke up in the late afternoon, Coon had suggested they all walk down the block for a drink at the Stockman’s Bar. Although Dulcie wasn’t fond of fraternizing with too many members of law enforcement—things often got too familiar—she’d agreed to go with them to maintain the comity of the mission and the newly formed team.
Coon hung back at the door to chat with a man called Stovepipe, who handled the X-ray machine and provided half-hearted security for the building. The other five pushed through the heavy doors and started down the courthouse steps in no particular order.
That was when two sicarios sitting in a parked vehicle across the street powered down their windows and opened fire with a submachine gun and a semiautomatic shotgun. There was a maelstrom of bullets and pellets, none sharply aimed, but the blizzard of lead cut down the entire group before any of the agents could draw their own weapons to retaliate.
Dulcie clearly recalled the stuttering rat-tat-tat of the automatic weapon and the throaty booms of the shotgun. Bullets pocked the granite steps all around her, and pellets filled the air with what sounded like angry bees. There was a wild dance of death and the hollow thump of rounds and pellets hitting bodies on each side of her, and those sounds would punctuate her nightmares for months afterward.
Sheriff Reed, FBI deputy director Sunnie Magazine, and Agent Don Pollock were killed instantly. Agent Jeremiah Sandburg took two rounds in his torso and a dozen pellets in his back. Dulcie was hit five times—in the shoulder, forearm, pelvis, thigh, and right ankle. Of the FBI contingent, only Sandburg survived. Somehow, Dulcie had, too.
*
IT HAD TAKEN three years of surgeries, physical therapy, counseling, and sheer effort to get back to where she was today. On some subjects, her entire outlook had changed. She’d made a habit of immediately turning off television shows where the actors were shot in one scene and had recovered by the next. Dulcie had no patience anymore for cartoonish violence in books, movies, or television, and she despised Hollywood writers who casually created scenarios where humans were chopped down like cordwood, with no afterthought to the toll of the gunplay.
She knew from experience that it wasn’t like that at all. Bullets did tremendous damage to bones, cartilage, muscles, organs, and nervous systems. And that was just the physical part.
Getting over that kind of sudden and unanticipated carnage and seeing a good man like Sheriff Reed bleed out—in his wheelchair—would stay with her for the rest of her life, despite the mental scar tissue that was slowly, slowly forming over her memory.
*
THE CLOUDS WERE low and dark over the mountains. There were breaks in the shadow that had been thrown over Dulcie’s career, shafts of sunlight that had broken through. She’d decided against running for office again in the immediate future, but she’d been approached by several good law firms about joining their ranks. One offer in particular, from a rising Laramie firm, seemed promising. She could still live at the ranch, and they were flexible when it came to her schedule.
“What do you think, Buster?” she asked. “Should I do it?” Then: “Don’t worry. I promise we’ll still have our daily walks.”
As she said it, she knew it might be a lie. Dulcie Schalk was a hard charger. She’d always been. She knew if she immersed herself in the firm like she probably would that she’d be lucky to ever make it home by nightfall.
“That being the case,” she said aloud, “we’ll move our walks to the early morning.”
Buster seemed to be okay with that.
Another ray of light was the prospect of romance—something she’d avoided while building her résumé. Brandon was good-natured and reliable and he made her laugh. He had a little girl from a previous marriage whom Dulcie adored. Tom was a hard charger like Dulcie, but was as dedicated to his church and volunteering for Meals on Wheels as he was to his accounting firm.
Both men seemed to be more serious about her than she was about them, even though she’d made it quite clear that she’d vowed to take things slowly with both. Her aim was to enjoy dates with them, get to know them well, be on the lookout for red flags and deal-killing behavior, and not operate on a timetable or with an agenda.
So far, so good.
*
THE WALK DULCIE took was two miles along the Little Laramie River. When she reached the bridge, she cut across the bull pasture and worked her way back toward the house along the inside of their fence line. On her walks, she’d encountered elk, moose, deer, antelope, beavers, otters, coyotes, foxes, rabbits, ducks, and geese. And occasionally trespassers, which was why she always carried her cell phone and a slim Ruger LCP Max .380 ACP pistol in her back pocket. Recently, she’d added a canister of bear spray because of the fatal grizzly attacks that had occurred in northern Wyoming and as close as Rawlins.
Shadows lengthened across the footpath as she made her way back to the house. This was the time of day she loved the most: when the wind died down and the sun ballooned before ducking behind the Snowy Range.
As she passed the barbed-wire gate in the fence about a half mile from home, Dulcie noticed that the wire loop that held the gate to the post on the top was askew. It was latched, but not horizontally. Her dad, she knew, was a stickler for closing gates the same way every time. This wasn’t like him.
Dulcie looked carefully at the two-track road that led from the gate into the thick willows in front of her. Was there a new tire track? She couldn’t be sure. The dirt was hard and packed down, and there hadn’t been any rain in weeks.
It was possible, she knew, that someone had accessed the ranch by the side border fence. It happened, especially during hunting season, which was now. If someone had come on their place during the day, they’d closed the gate behind them. Meaning they were still somewhere inside, or they’d left and tried to make it look like they’d never been there.
While hoping it was the latter, she reached back and patted the Ruger for assurance, then drew her cell phone and held it in her right hand before proceeding.
Since it was nearly six in the evening, she knew her seventy-five-year-old father, Vernon, would be settling into his recliner to watch Fox News. But if he received a call from Dulcie, he’d freeze his program, grab a Winchester or Ruger Ranch Rifle, and be there in minutes. He’d always looked out for his own, and especially so when it came to his only daughter.
*
THE WILLOWS WERE thick and tall on each side of the path and shrouded in shadow. Buster led the way and Dulcie followed. Then the dog stopped and backed up, growling.
This had happened before when a cow moose and her calf were hiding in the thick brush. They’d nearly scared Dulcie to death when the two animals busted out of the cover and loped away down the road.
“What is it, Buster?” she asked.
The fur on the back of Buster’s neck was up and stiff.
“Either go forward or come back,” she said. “We can go around the willows and get to the house the long way.”
Apparently because he was ready to eat, Buster continued on the two-track. But his stride was wary. She wished she could trust his instincts more than she did.
Dulcie followed Buster into the willows as the path took a sharp left.
As she rounded the corner, it happened all too fast.
She got a glimpse of something big, boxy, and dense hidden in the high brush to her right.
When she turned to face it there was a sharp snapping sound and a tremendous WHOOSH, and the last thing she ever saw were open jaws with daggerlike teeth coming straight for her face.