Page 45 of Three-Inch Teeth

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.

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