The jacks were installed and everyone eagerly gathered around the door for the big question: were there any dead people inside? The sheriff was well aware of the Volunteer Workers’ Dark Little Secret: in exchange for having to get up in the middle of the night to ride on the back of the fire engine or drive the Emergency Medical Technician Ambulance two hours to Grand Junction, they got to witness only what doctors, police, and priests were allowed to see. The Burned Beyond Recognition, The Head That Went Through the Windshield and Rolled a Hundred Yards Down the Road, The Blue Teenagers’ Bodies Pulled From the Frozen Pond, and The Surprised Expression on The Man’s Face Whose Wife Spotted His Car in the Parking Lot of the Geiger Motel and Shot Him With His Own Elk Rifle. The sheriff always figured that voyeurism had something to do with this volunteer business. That’s why he never prevented the men from having a good eyeful before body-bagging the victims.
The sheriff nodded to one of the two young men standing by the door to go ahead and open it. Cautiously, he turned the handle. The door swung open surprisingly easy. So far, so good. Then suddenly a three-year-old Galloway steer, wide-eyed with fear, mucous blowing from its nostrils, came charging through the doorway, trampling the men.
“Shit!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Goddammit!”
And again, another “Shit!”
After the initial astonishment had passed, the men, of course, said “shit” and “goddammit” a few more times then laughed to relieve the tension and embarrassment of being frightened in front of one another. Finally recomposed, they turned on their Petzl headlamps and tentatively entered the breech once more. No sooner did they take their first step into the darkened shaft that another steer bolted out at them. And then another, and another, until forty-nine by the sheriff’s count had blasted past them—shitting themselves with fear.
There’s a detail for the journal, the sheriff thought to himself.
Now, no one seemed quite so eager to go back into the house. Who wanted to risk having their ribs broken by a six-hundred-pound animal trapped in the dark? There was a metallic clanking of Zippos as they lit up cigarettes to mull this over. Suddenly there was a voice behind them.
“Howdy, boys.”
Everyone slowly turned to see a tall, skinny cowboy squinting into the daylight from the doorway. The buckle of his belt was missing, and his pants were half undone. In his arms was a semi-conscious woman in her thirties, raven-haired and as beautiful as a movie star.
“Well, goddamn…it’s Buster.”
“Crap,” said the sheriff as he threw his latest generic cigarette down into the mud.
Buster McCaffrey smiled sheepishly, and even a half a smile was something to behold. Tall and thin as a stretch of barbed wire, his teeth were as big as a horse’s—big enough to accommodate Eskimo scrimshaw of Whale Hunting in the Bering Sea—and freckles formed a saddle over the bridge of his wad-of-bubblegum nose. His hair was reddish and fanned around his small jug ears like twists of dried hay. Above each eye was a brow bent like a piece of angle iron in permanent amazement. Taken separately, his characteristics would seem odd, one might even say freakish. And yet, gathered all together, his appearance, for some reason, comforted people. If you asked them why this was so, no one could ever say. But whether they realized it or not, Buster subconsciously reminded people of Howdy Doody.
“Hey, uh…some mess, huh?”
The men turned their attention to the woman in his arms. She was wearing black satin cargo pants and a somewhat soiled white top that provided a gauzy view of her nipples. Clutched in her hand was a piece of black metal.
“What’s that there she got, Buster?”
Buster looked down to see what the fellow was referring to.
“Ah b’lieve that’s a burner from that ol’ Vikin’ stove top. She was diggin’ in the mud with it.”
“Mrs. Mallomar?” said the sheriff.
Mrs. Mallomar just looked at him blankly. Buster jiggled her to get her to respond.
“Uh, you r’member the sheriff, doncha, ma’am?”
When she still didn’t speak, Buster winked to the head Emergency Medical Technician on the job. “Ah think she’s gonna need some seein’ to.” The EMT nodded with tacit understanding. It would actually take the better part of four months before anybody understood the half of what had transpired in this house.
The EMTs came forward to relieve Buster of Mrs. Mallomar, but she clung even tighter to his neck.
“No, I’m staying with him!”
Everyone looked back to Buster. He visibly blushed, knowing that none of Mrs. Mallomar’s antics were being lost on the sheriff. Buster, trying his best to avoid the sheriff’s eyes, turned to Mrs. Mallomar, cajoling.
“They’re jes’ gonna take ya down to the clinic and check ya out, ma’am. Ain’t that right, fellers?”
“That’s right, ma’am,” one of them said to Mrs. Mallomar’s bosom.
Now came the hard part. Buster pried Mrs. Mallomar’s fingers from his neck and tried to pass her over to the EMTs, who, by this time, had a stretcher with restraining straps waiting. Mrs. Mallomar, obviously disoriented by the ordeal of the last six hours, resisted their help with punches and kicks as well as a jazz-scat stream of profanity—the verbal thrust of which dealt mostly with different forms of sodomy.
Buster waited out her solo and then said, “It’s all right, ma’am. They’ll be nice to you down there. We’re jes’ gonna put this back, ma’am,” and gently pulled her fingers from the stovetop burner. “We’re done with our diggin’ fer now.”
“No, please!”
“Ma’am, it’s for the best.”
“Ow, my god! What was that?”
A female EMT had surreptitiously brought a syringe from the vehicle and plunged fifteen milligrams of Versed into Mrs. Mallomar’s exposed left buttock as the others wrestled her onto the gurney.
“It’s just a little something to help you relax.”
“But you didn’t even ask me if I was allergic to anything!”
“Are you allergic to anything?” the EMT said, a little late in the game.
“Why don’t we just see if I go into cardiac arrest, you stupid bitch?” Even in her