Open Season

Vern Dunnegan is one of the text’s main antagonists. Vern is Joe’s mentor and the long-time game warden in Twelve Sleep County. He is a local legend, and the townsfolk not only respect him but revere him. Vern has a “round, jovial face” and a graying beard (72). Joe initially sees Vern through this larger-than-life lens, and he idealizes Vern’s happy life with his wife Georgia. Vern maintains an amicable exterior with his “quick, jolly chuckle” that he employs in nearly every situation (73).

However, Vern’s carefully crafted persona cracks as his desire to get rich cannot be contained, demonstrating The Corrupting Influence of Power and Money. Vern is a self-titled entrepreneur, but his business tactics raise eyebrows because he always pushes his partners out. Vern openly declares that he is selfish, claiming this is the best way to navigate the real world. He left his wife to lean into his promiscuity, and his drinking heavily increases throughout the text. Vern’s happy chuckle gains a sinister edge when he uses it to deflect Joe’s questions, and he “prodded and tested for what made Joe react” to better manipulate conversations in his favor (75). Vern suddenly retired from his post as game warden to chase a tripled salary at InterWest Resources. As a fellow game warden, Joe thinks he can confide in Vern about his concerns for the endangered animal, but Vern wants Joe to neglect his duty and ignore the rumors.

Vern is the mastermind behind the extermination and murder conspiracy because conservation efforts for the Miller’s weasels—if they were discovered—would jeopardize the InterWest pipeline, highlighting the theme of Conflicts Between Economic Interests and Environmental Protection. Vern regrets bringing Wacey into his plans because Wacey went off-script and started killing people, and Vern must continually cover up those murders. Vern uses his connections to call in favors, and he believes firmly in one-for-one repayment. This belief makes him think Joe will let him go at the end of the text because he held up his end of the “deal” to find Sheridan. However, Joe refuses to play by Vern’s rules any longer and forces Vern to face justice. In prison, Vern continues to manipulate the narrative about the Miller’s weasels by denigrating the preservation efforts.

Wacey Hedeman is one of the text’s main antagonists and a foil to Joe Pickett. Wacey came up through the same system as Joe to become a game warden and was also mentored by Vern Dunnegan. Vern considers Joe and Wacey “his boys” because they work together so often in their next-door jurisdictions. Unlike Joe, however, Wacey was a bull-rider before becoming a game warden, which gives him a roguish, cowboy aura compared to Joe’s orderliness. He is friends “with ranchers and poachers alike” (40), which emphasizes his moral grayness. Wacey is “thin and compact” and has a large auburn mustache (42). Wacey is an adulterer and feels no shame in his pursuit of pleasure. His negative qualities highlight Joe’s honor, but despite Wacey’s questionable morals, both Joe and Marybeth find Wacey charming.

Underneath his care and concern for Joe’s family, Wacey is one of the key people in the conspiracy that threatens the Picketts. Wacey’s number one goal is to become sheriff and to do that, he is willing to exterminate the Miller’s weasels and kill anyone who knows anything about them, highlighting the theme of the corrupting influence of power and money. In the process, Wacey threatens Joe’s seven-year-old daughter and shoots his pregnant wife, and he also extorts Sheriff Barnum into dropping out of the election. Wacey is flippant about the crimes he’s committed, as evidenced in the glib way he describes shooting at Sheridan as having “to finish up” (262). Joe shoots Wacey at the end of the novel so he can still live and face justice for his crimes. In prison, Wacey gets shunned by his fellow inmates, who mockingly call him the “Lone Arm of the Law” because of his injury (273).

Sheridan Pickett is a minor, dynamic character and Joe and Marybeth’s eldest daughter. Sheridan is seven years old, blonde and green-eyed like her mother, and she recently started wearing glasses. Due to her father’s job, Sheridan has a hard time making friends. The kids at her school nickname her “Weird Country” because she lives so far out of town, and they avoid her because of her dad’s job. She is a lonely, emotional girl—nicknamed Miss Emotional by her parents—who prefers talking to animals. Sheridan used to have a pet cat and a pet dog, but both were eaten by coyotes. Sheridan’s mood briefly improves when she finds the Miller’s weasels in the woodpile. She treats the weasels as her surrogate friends, and she grows attached to them. Her biggest worry is the weasels going away and leaving her on her own, so she keeps them a secret from her parents. Sheridan and Lucy play together by mimicking how the weasels sit up on their hind legs and beg for food.

Wacey deduces that Sheridan knows about the weasels and threatens her into silence, and Sheridan carries around the weight of this secret. She stops eating altogether and can’t sleep, and her mother notices a dramatic change in her demeanor. After Wacey’s threats, Sheridan feels a mix of anger, guilt, and fear. She wants to tell her parents what’s going on, but she often feels physically incapable of saying the words out loud. Her every waking moment is occupied by her fear of Wacey hurting her family.

Despite her fear, Sheridan is smart and resourceful. When Wacey attacks her and Marybeth at their home, she logically deduces where Wacey is least likely to look for her, and she brings a horse blanket with her to provide warmth while she hides. She learns to trust her instincts about Wacey and his lies, which allows her to stay hidden until she sees Joe come to her rescue. Sheridan’s trauma lingers long after that night, but she continues to care for the weasel family with her dad, which alleviates some of her pain.

Marybeth Pickett is a minor character and Joe’s wife. Marybeth was studying to be a lawyer in college, but she stopped her studies to become a mother and homemaker. Marybeth has blonde hair and green eyes, and “was not extremely thin, but she was still firm and still looked athletic” (85). Marybeth speaks her mind—sometimes without thinking—and likes to be in control of her family situation. When Ote is found in her backyard, Marybeth hates that the police investigation is intruding on her life. Sheridan describes Marybeth as a worrier, and the investigation only amplifies Marybeth’s stress. Joe considers Marybeth to be his anchor because of how well she keeps the family together while he works long hours.

Joe believes Marybeth is bitter and angry about his low-paying job, but in reality, Marybeth supports Joe’s dreams. She does worry about money, but she doesn’t want Joe to give up his character and morals just for a higher salary. Marybeth believes that if she and Joe continue to act as good examples for their children, whatever hardships they go through will be worth it in the end. Marybeth is pregnant throughout the text, but the gunshot wound she receives makes her lose the baby. She is temporarily in a wheelchair, but her strength and determination allow her to progress to assisted walking long before the doctors predicted she would. The shooting traumatizes Marybeth, but she leans on Joe for support. She channels her love for the unborn child into April Keeley, whom she fosters when Jeannie Keeley abandons the young girl.

Ote Keeley is a minor, flat character. Ote is a hunter and outfitter, although his methods are often illegal. Ote frequently hunts out of season and sells game trophies on the illegal market, and he and his friends Kyle Lensegrav and Calvin Mendes were kicked out of a local outfitters’ group because of their frequent misconduct. Ote is a veteran who hates the government and most other people. Jeannie claims Ote “wanted to be a mountain man” like the early pioneers (152), and Reverend Cobb describes Ote as a “throwback to a time when men lived off the land” (90).

Ote is originally from Mississippi, and he talks with a southern drawl. He poured all of his money into his Wyoming house and outfitter’s business, which left Jeannie and his kids without anything to survive on when he died. Ote is both physically and behaviorally gruff, and his favorite shirt has “Happiness is a Warm Gut Pile” printed on the front (4). Despite Ote’s anger at losing his license, Jeannie reveals that Ote respected Joe because he was an honest man. Ote thought he could persuade Joe to reinstate his license by giving him a Miller’s weasel, but Ote died before he could tell Joe about the conspiracy.

Jeannie Keeley is a minor, symbolic character. Jeannie is the wife and widow of Ote Keeley, and to Joe, she symbolizes the future consequences for his own family if he continues to chase his dream. Like Marybeth, Jeannie is pregnant with her third child, and she must care for her other two children—the five-year-old April and a younger, unnamed boy—on her own. Jeannie is bitter about the life she has and resents Ote for following his dreams of being an outfitter. Ote left no money behind for Jeannie, and she will have to rely on welfare to support herself. The situation is so dire that by the end of the novel, Jeannie abandons April and the young boy and flees the country with her new baby. Joe fears that by following his dream of being a game warden, he has similarly made his family’s life difficult, and his interactions with Jeannie serve to intensify those fears.

Clyde Lidgard is a minor, flat character. Clyde is described as a “mentally unbalanced modern-woodsman type” who lives in a run-down trailer outside of Saddlestring (70). Clyde’s trailer is full of thousands of photographs, Marilyn Monroe posters, and decades’ worth of junk. Clyde is a loner, so he is an ideal scapegoat for Wacey to blame the murders on. Clyde is an avid photographer, and his hobby of photographing his daily life provides Joe with the evidence he needs to accuse Wacey and Vern of exterminating the Miller’s weasels. Clyde goes into end-of-life hospice care after being fatally shot by Wacey at the elk camp, and his deathbed confession about finding the Miller’s weasels helps Joe ultimately solve the case.