the mud. Some men had just arrived with a Caterpillar D9. “Hey, can you fellas get me up to the Mallomar place?”
It was dawn by the time they cleared the road well enough for a rescue team to get to Mallomar’s Big Dog Ranch. The rain, at this higher elevation, was coming down as stinging cornsnow. The sheriff let it gather on his eyebrows as he squinted at the jumble of aged Montana logs, glass, steel, and broken furniture that had once been the forty-thousand-square-foot residence of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Mallomar. It was just last April that it had been on the cover of Architectural Digest. Mallomar’s French architect boasted that there were more steel I-beams used in the construction of this house than the new American Embassy that he had recently completed in Dubai. And yet, the mud had gone through the reinforced Adirondack/Frank Lloyd Wright-style edifice as easily as a black bear going through a screen door. The once magnificent lodge now looked ridiculous—its massive Corten roof having accordioned down on itself like a clown’s top hat.
One hundred yards away, a late model Audi Q7 and a black Mercedes AMG could be seen standing nose down in the mud, their rear ends sticking up in the air like ducks feeding on a pond. When the sheriff ran the plates, he came up with what he already knew. The cars belonged to Dana and Marvin Mallomar. Mallomar was often out of town on business. When he was, Dana, his young and beautiful wife, was left at the ranch with the twenty-one-year-old foreman, Buster McCaffrey. There had been rumors in town about their relationship, but gossip held no interest for the sheriff unless it helped him solve a crime. Right now, he was hoping no one had been at home when this happened. An ambulance was ordered anyway. Sheriff Dudival hiked up the hill following the mudslide. On a flat bench above the house was an emptied reservoir. Everyone in town had made fun of Buster McCaffrey for bringing a douser to the property to find water to fill a reservoir above the house, but dammit if he hadn’t done it. Unfortunately, for some reason, the levee had failed and let loose twenty acres of water on the residence and the town below. Several hours later, with the help of two bulldozers and a Bobcat, they uncovered the wrought iron front door. It was pinched shut from the weight bearing on it. Four men put their shoulders to it, but it wouldn’t budge. A bulldozer was suggested, but they didn’t want to do any more violence to the house for fear of further cave in. One of the men eagerly suggested using his acetylene torch that he had brought with him in the back of his truck. Another man suggested placing hydraulic jacks on either side of the door to take the pressure off the jams. The sheriff considered both ideas and went with the hydraulic jacks. This caused the acetylene torch man to throw his shovel and stomp off in a fit of pique. People in this part of the country typically carried odd things in the backs of their trucks for years in the hope of one day using them in a heroic and manly fashion. So, one can only understand the man’s frustration, being so close to finally using his equipment—only to be edged out at the finish line.
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
