Page 7 of Three-Inch Teeth

“Grizzly bear attack on the Twelve Sleep River,” Joe said. “The victim is Clay Junior.”

Marybeth let out a gasp. “Is he …”

“Yup.”

“My God, does Sheridan know?”

“Nope. We just found his body.”

“This is horrible, Joe. Just horrible. Did you destroy the bear?”

He surveyed the wall of trees near the river and the rocky slope beyond and said, “No. The bear is on the loose.”

As he spoke, he received an incoming call from Game and Fish headquarters in Cheyenne. No doubt, he thought, the word of his earlier call to dispatch had made the rounds. “I’ve got to take this,” he said to Marybeth.

“Call me later when you can,” she said. “I mean, Sheridan’s coming over for dinner tonight with Nate and Liv. Clay Junior was supposed to come over later, too,” she said, her voice rising with the implication of that statement.

“I’ll be in touch,” Joe said. “Don’t wait for me to have dinner. It’s going to be a late one.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’m worried about our daughter.”

“So am I, but we know she’s tough.”

“Yup.”

“Be careful, Joe.”

“Of course,” he said. While punching off, Clay’s words echoed in his head:

“He was going to be your son-in-law.”

CHAPTER THREE

Rawlins

ON THE SAME day, at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins, two hundred and forty-six miles to the south, WDOC Inmate Number 24886 shuffled down the hallway in his state-issued Crocs, accompanied on either side by Corrections Officers R. Winner and C. Egleston. They were headed toward the outtake room near the front lobby.

The prisoner kept his head down and did not engage with other convicts who watched him pass by. He’d left the pod behind him, but his route included the open doors of the mail room, the law library, and the computer room. His ears were still ringing with the hoots, catcalls, and curses that had blasted out in E pod when Winner announced his name that morning after breakfast.

“Gather up your shit and report to the front desk,” Winner had said.

Everybody knew what that meant.

Two newbies saw him coming and reacted by backing up against the hallway walls and not making eye contact. Even though they had just arrived, the newbies knew to avoid prisoners wearing orange who came from E pod. Orange was the color of hardened criminals, and E pod was where they were housed.

“Step aside,” Winner said to the newbies with mock gravity. “Here comes Dallas Cates.” Then: “Yeah, it’s him. The one, the only. Don’t worry, he don’t bite.”

“Except when he does,” Egleston said. CO Connie Egleston was new to the facility and had obviously been assigned to shadow Winner to learn the ropes. She was one of only three female COs.

“You don’t bite, do you, bro?” Winner asked Cates with mock affection.

Cates didn’t respond.

“That was kind of fascinating back there in E pod, wasn’t it?” Winner asked. “When I called out your name, you know? It was like a sociological experiment come to life. All their true feelings about you just came pouring out. They didn’t even try to hide them anymore. How does that make you feel, bro?”

Again, Cates didn’t react. He couldn’t afford to. Not on his last day in prison. Not when anything he did or said could be used against him as a reason to keep him there a little longer.

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