FOR SHERIDAN, BREAKFAST was very uncomfortable and not just because she’d arrived late to the Never Summer Ranch. She’d been held up because it took longer than she’d estimated to feed and load all her falcons into her vehicle, as well as to pack up her belongings. And when DeWayne Kolb wasn’t behind the front desk like he’d told her he’d be, she’d had to go out and find him at a diner down the block to return the room key and get his assurances that he’d adjust the cost of the room to reflect her stay.
“I hope that lunatic Bottom didn’t drive you away,” Kolb said, mainly for the benefit of the other local men at the table. “You were barely here long enough to experience the place.”
“I finished my job,” she told him. “Now I’m going home.”
“Come back,” Kolb said. “You should see this place in the summer.”
“All five days of it,” another man said with a chuckle. “It’s wonderful.”
*
LEON BOTTOM WAS a little cool at first when Sheridan arrived, but his mood improved rapidly when Katy Cotton delivered plate after plate of steaming food from the kitchen adjacent to the dining room. He dug into fried eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, syrup, wheat toast, strawberry jam, and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
Cotton retreated to the kitchen after the first round and eased the door closed. She’d made a point of not making eye contact with Sheridan as she served the food.
Sheridan was fascinated with watching the man eat. He did so with total focus, his fork working from the plate to his mouth like a piston, and not until he cleared his plate did he look up at her.
“I went into the barn this morning,” he said, going for seconds. “There wasn’t a starling in sight.”
“Excellent.”
“Where do you think they all went?” he asked. “Not that I care, but I’m curious.”
She said, “By now, those starlings have found a new place to invade. I’m pretty sure they won’t come back, but I thought it made sense to hang around here until about noon. There might be a few stragglers who return, not knowing the big group was chased off.”
“You can stay longer than that if you’d like,” Bottom said.
“I already checked out of the Alpine Motel.”
Bottom snorted and said, “No wonder you don’t want to hang around. That place is a dump and the owner, Kolb, is one of those mouth-breathing locals I was warning you about.”
“It’s okay, really. Mr. Kolb was fine.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you stayed there much longer. Did you look carefully for peepholes and such?”
Sheridan stiffened in her chair. She was shocked.
“Seriously?” she asked.
“I’ve heard things,” Bottom said, but not convincingly, Sheridan thought.
“Anyway, we have plenty of room here,” he said, gesturing to the staircase that led, she guessed, to several bedrooms upstairs. “I won’t even charge you.”
Sheridan got a warning vibe that she’d learned over the years to take seriously. He was a little too insistent. And a man who thought about peepholes might know something about them, she thought.
“No,” she said. “I really need to get back.”
It was almost true, but not quite. But Sheridan wanted to maintain good relations with her customer while firmly declining his invitation at the same time.
“You’re not eating,” he said, pointing to her empty plate with the tines of his fork. “Dig in. Katy is a great cook. That’s one of the biggest reasons I insisted she come with me.”
“I don’t usually eat breakfast,” Sheridan said. “But it does look good.”
She’d learned from going on ride-alongs with her dad that it was always a good policy to accept meal invitations from hunters, landowners, or, in this case, clients. It might be construed as insulting to refuse, he’d told her. He claimed that he sometimes ate three breakfasts in a row while patrolling elk camps and was therefore miserable for the rest of the day.
“If drinking bad coffee and eating dry eggs is what it takes to be neighborly, it’s worth it,” he’d said.
So she took the platter of pancakes and slid two onto her plate, followed by two slices of bacon.
“Katy makes the best pancakes,” Bottom said with approval. Then his cell phone chimed and he looked at the screen. “My bankers,” he said. “I need to take this.”
“Sure, no problem.”
Bottom rose from the table and turned to the door that led to the front porch. He called toward the kitchen door, “Katy, come on out and give Sheridan some company. You need to eat, too.”
Then he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
*
COTTON PUSHED SLOWLY through the door with her eyes down and didn’t say a word. She slid into the chair opposite Sheridan. Her mouth was pursed into a scowl and she came across as either angry or very tense.
As Cotton took two pancakes for herself, Sheridan lifted the handle of the syrup container and handed it across the table to her. The ceramic container was the shape of a bear and the syrup poured out of its open mouth. Cotton glanced up at it and quickly looked away.
“Okay,” Sheridan said, taking the syrup back.
Without staring overtly, Sheridan observed as Cotton generously buttered her pancakes and then lifted the top one and slid a fried egg between them. Then another on top of the stack. As Cotton did it, Sheridan again felt the curious pang of discordant familiarity that she’d noted before. Something about Cotton’s eyes, features, or mannerisms unnerved her. When had she encountered this old woman who refused to look at her or speak to her? And why the brazen animosity?
“There’s something I wanted to ask you before I leave this ranch forever,” Sheridan said.
After a beat, Cotton said, “Mmmmm?”
“Look, I think we somehow got off on the wrong foot and I’m not sure why. What I’m wondering is if we ever met each other before. Or maybe you’re confusing me with someone you had a bad experience with?”
Cotton shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“So we haven’t met?”
Again the headshake.
“Then what is it? I’m really curious to find out.”
“It’s nothing. Kindly eat and leave.”
“Wow,” Sheridan said, pouring syrup on her pancakes. “Right to the point.”
As Sheridan ate her first mouthful, she said, “I can see why Mr. Bottom likes his breakfast. These pancakes are delicious.” And they were: fluffy, slightly sweet, with a sour buttermilk tang.
“Leon likes his breakfast, even though he eats it like a pig,” Cotton said. Her tone was bitter and dismissive, but for the first time she’d actually said something to Sheridan that wasn’t passive-aggressive or downright hostile toward her.
Sheridan wasn’t sure how to respond, so she didn’t. She watched as Cotton broke the yolk of the first fried egg and let it run off the crisp white edges until it painted the surface of the top pancake. Then she lifted it and pierced the yolk of the middle egg.
Sheridan was startled, and at first she couldn’t put her finger on why. Then it hit her.
“My dad eats pancakes like that,” she said. “You’re the only person besides him I’ve ever seen who uses that … method. No syrup at all, just egg yolks soaked into the pancake.”
Cotton seemed to freeze. Again, she refused to make eye contact.
“He also makes the best pancakes I’ve ever had until these,” Sheridan said. “What’s your secret?”
“No secret,” Cotton said, deadpan. “It’s just Bisquick, but I add sugar, baking powder, buttermilk, oil, eggs, and a teaspoon of vanilla.”
Sheridan sat back. “That’s exactly what my dad does. He used to make them for us every Sunday morning. I grew up eating these exact pancakes. Isn’t that a strange coincidence?”
“It is,” Cotton said with no enthusiasm.
“What are the odds? The same pancake recipe.”
“I don’t find it all that interesting,” Cotton said. “It’s a recipe right off the side of the box. Nothing special.”
“Still …”
Cotton ignored her. She was eating more quickly, as if in a hurry to get it all over with as soon as possible. Sheridan used the moment to slip her phone out of her back pocket, activate the camera app, and raise it from her lap until the lenses barely cleared the table.
“Did you make your kids pancakes when they were little?” Sheridan asked. While she said it, she snapped several photos of Cotton, then lowered the phone back out of view.
Cotton flinched at the question. “Why do you ask?”
“I guess I’m just making conversation.”
“Yes, I made my boys pancakes. No big deal. Why do we need conversation?”
“I guess we don’t,” Sheridan said. “Boys, huh? How many?”
“Two,” Cotton sighed.
“Do they live around here? Do you get to see them?”
For the first time, Cotton looked up. Her eyes flared. “The younger one is dead. The older one I never see.”
“That’s sad for you, I’m sure,” Sheridan said.
“It’s the way it is. I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Okay. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Sheridan returned to her breakfast, but something was still nagging at her. The feeling was getting stronger.
“I’ve had only three men in my life,” Cotton said, surprising her. “The first one was very bad. The second was very good. The third is Leon. I’m not sure what he is.”
Sheridan didn’t interrupt Cotton. The woman seemed to have something to say finally. And Sheridan didn’t want to steer the conversation to her own recent loss. There were still too many conflicting emotions over that and she didn’t feel prompted to share them with an odd old woman.
Cotton said, “I regret things that I did in my life before I met the very good man, Mr. Cotton. When I cut that bad man out of my life, I cut out everything about him. Everything. It was like I had a tumor removed that also took some healthy tissue. It is what it is.”
“Do you mean your sons?” Sheridan asked.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it and I won’t.”
“What was your married name before you met Mr. Cotton?” Sheridan asked. “I might be crazy, but I can’t get over the feeling that we’ve run across each other before, somehow.”
“We haven’t,” Cotton snapped. “Now, go.”
With that, she pushed her chair back and rose from the table. Sheridan watched her carefully as she hurried to the kitchen door.
Before she slammed it shut, Cotton looked back at Sheridan with angry eyes. From behind the door, she shouted, “Go away and never come back.”
*
SHERIDAN SHOULDERED BY Bottom on the front porch. He seemed to be arguing with his bankers and his face was bright red.
She was in a fog and her stomach hurt. Her vision seemed clouded by her sudden thoughts and feelings.
The very bad man. Two sons, the younger one dead and the older a stranger to her. Healthy tissue removed along with the tumor. Katy Cotton was in her mid- to late seventies and Leon had alluded to the fact that she had some kind of ties to Wyoming in her past.
But most of all, it was the pancakes and the way she cooked and ate them.
Sheridan drew her phone out of her back Wranglers pocket and speed-dialed her mother. Marybeth answered on the first ring by saying, “Hi, honey. How are things going in Colorado?”
“Great, actually. I’m ready to head back.”
“This place is a nightmare right now,” Marybeth said. “Wait until I catch you up.”
“I look forward to that, but there’s something I really need to run by you.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you sitting down?”
“I’m at my desk. What is it?”
“What was Dad’s mother’s first name?”
Marybeth hesitated for a beat. “Her name was Katherine. I never met her, and your dad never talks about her, because she walked out on the family when he was ten years old and his younger brother, Victor, was eight. Why do you ask?”
“Was she known as Katy?”
“Yes, she was,” Marybeth said. “Katy Pickett.”
Sheridan turned around and stared at the house on the Never Summer Ranch. Leon Bottom paced and gesticulated on the front porch, arguing with his banker. Behind a lace curtain on the second floor, a figure looked back at her.
“I think I just met my grandmother,” Sheridan said. “And she’s a nasty piece of work.”