61 pages • 2 hours read
Three-Inch Teeth
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Parts 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “October 17” - Part 6: “October 25”
Part 4, Chapter 9 Summary: “Jeffrey City”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
Cates’s next stop is Jeffrey City, the hometown of his ex-cellmate, Lee Ogburn-Russell (LOR). The town was abandoned after its uranium mines shut down. Johnson wonders what sort of person would choose to live in the desolate, industrial landscape they are driving through. Cates tells her that it is the perfect place for someone as unusual as LOR.
When LOR was transferred to Cates’s cell, he was being tormented by La Familia, the Mexican gang operating in Rawlins. At first, Cates refused to help LOR, but he soon discovered LOR’s genius at crafting homemade mechanical devices, especially tools of violence, such as a rat-killing weapon fashioned from a spring, an iron pellet, and a ball-point pen. Realizing that LOR was a useful man, Cates helped him take down three members of La Familia. Soon, LOR was declared under WOODS protection and left alone. Cates believes that LOR owes him his life.
LOR runs a place called LOR Amusements, which houses mechanical creatures that he has built from spare parts from the industrial ruins around him. When Cates meets LOR at the theme park, Cates is instantly put off by LOR’s perpetual sneer and obnoxious manner—the same reasons why everyone in prison disliked him. LOR leers at Johnson until Cates tells him to stop.
Cates tells LOR that he needs his help for an important project. He wants a device that can clamp down on something at a short distance with the pressure of at least 1,100 PSI. When Cates goes to the truck to fetch the bear jaw and paws that he wants LOR to work with, Johnson looks through Cates’s phone. She finds a text chain with someone called Axel Soledad. While she’s scrolling through the phone, LOR sneaks up on her. He tells Johnson that he’ll keep her snooping a secret from Cates if she gives him a sexual favor at a time of his choosing. Before Johnson can reply, Cates drags in the bear parts.
Over the course of the next few days, LOR quickly creates a mechanical bear with the parts, screwing the teeth onto a pair of movable, pressure-powered steel jaws. He attaches the claws to a baseball bat. The idea is to use the jaws to crush the victim’s head and then hit the victim with the bat to leave claw marks on their body.
Part 5, Chapter 10 Summary: “Saddlestring”
A week after the grizzly attacked Brodbeck, the Predator Attack Team has been dispersed because the bear has not been found. Brodbeck, in critical condition, has been flown to Denver, Colorado, for surgery. Though there has been no news of another bear attack in the Sleepy River area, a pall of fear hangs over the entire county. The wardens feel weighed down with a sense of unfinished business. The best-case scenario is that the grizzly died of its injuries, but because its body has not been found, there is still uncertainty.
Meanwhile, Judge Hewitt from the county court invites the Picketts to lunch at a diner. Hewitt tells Joe and Marybeth that he wants the Picketts, who are popular local figures, to support his son-in-law Jackson Bishop’s candidature for sheriff. Hewitt himself is slated to be appointed attorney general. Joe and Marybeth congratulate Hewitt but politely refrain from supporting Bishop. Since Joe is a warden and Marybeth is the director of the library, they do not want to be seen as partisan. Hewitt tries to persuade them to make their support of Bishop public, but he makes peace with the fact that they will at least not oppose him.
After Hewitt leaves in a huff, Joe and Marybeth decide to find out more about Bishop, who is currently an undersheriff in Park County. Joe gets a call from Jennie Gordon about a fresh grizzly attack: Sergeant Ryan Winner, the CO of the men’s prison at Rawlins, was found torn to shreds in the woods near the facility, his head crushed by the jaws of a bear. What Joe does not know is that the attack is from the device made by LOR.
Part 6, Chapter 11 Summary: “Walden, Colorado”
Sheridan is in the town of Walden, just past the border with Wyoming. She checks into the Alpine motel with the five hooded falcons she transported from Saddlestring. When motel owner DeWayne Kolb learns that Sheridan’s assignment is with Leon Bottom at Neversummer Ranch, he tells her to be careful, as Bottom is a strange man. Later that night, Liv checks up on Sheridan over the phone. Sheridan is touched by Liv’s kindness and sends kisses to Kestrel, Nate and Liv’s two-year-old daughter.
The next morning, Sheridan heads to the ranch with a single peregrine falcon. She is greeted by a hostile older woman, who nearly slams the door shut in Sheridan’s face. However, Bottom emerges and welcomes Sheridan in. He tells Sheridan that the older woman is his family housekeeper, 76-year-old Katy Cotton. Though Cotton is cranky with strangers, she warms up to them soon enough.
Bottom shows Sheridan the problem for which he hired her: His farm is invaded by hundreds of starlings. Sheridan assures him that the falcons will drive away the problem species since starlings are programmed to be afraid of the predators. She bids goodbye to Bottom, whom she finds overly friendly.
Under Sheridan’s wiper blade is a note asking her to leave and never return. Sheridan is sure that the note is from Cotton. As Sheridan leaves the ranch, she is seized by the feeling that there is something very familiar about Cotton.
Part 6, Chapter 12 Summary: “Little Laramie Valley”
Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk (who helped sentence Dallas Cates’s mother to prison and is Marybeth’s friend) is walking in the woods near her family farm, with her golden retriever, Buster, in tow. Dulcie has chronic pain from injuries sustained in an ambush shooting during her career as a lawyer in Twelve Sleep County. Three years ago, Dulcie and a few police officers were on their way to a nearby bar for a drink when two sicarios—members of the drug cartel that Dulcie and the others were tracking—opened fire on the group. Sheriff Mike Reed was among those killed instantly. Dulcie took five bullets but survived. Since then, she has been in physical rehabilitation and psychological counseling. Things are looking up for Dulcie in other ways, as she has begun to date after a long time.
As Dulcie walks on, she notices that the wire fence around her farm seems askew. There also appears to be fresh tire tracks on the ground. She debates calling her father to enquire but decides against it, reluctant to inconvenience the 75-year-old man unless necessary. She follows Buster on a narrow track through a grove of willows. The dog stiffens suddenly, his stride getting wary. Before she can figure out why, something large moves toward her. Jaws clamp down on Dulcie’s head.
Parts 4-6 Analysis
The quintessential American trait of individualism is on ample display in these chapters, illustrating The Persistence of Evil and the Resilience of Good in different ways. In its positive aspect, individualism enables characters like Sheridan to follow their own path and make helpful contributions to their communities. Sheridan is a female master falconer—an expert with five years of experience in training and caring for falcons—in a male-dominated world. When she shares her profession with the manager at the Alpine hotel, he is surprised. Sheridan notes that she is used to being thought of as frivolous because she is a young woman. Characters repeatedly comment on Sheridan not meeting the description of a master falconer. Despite these attitudes, Sheridan persists in her job, sure of her choices.
Sheridan’s positive individuality contrasts with the antisocial and violent individualism of Cates and LOR. These characters use individualism as an excuse for a lack of accountability, believing themselves to be above the limits of law and community. Both LOR and Cates are cunning and ruthless, teaming up together not out of affection for one another but because Cates realizes that he can use LOR’s skills for his own advantage. Their killing spree is based entirely on Cates’s personal vendetta, with Cates completely rejecting any conventional ideas of morality or community spirit in his desire to punish the people he resents. Zeus II, the mechanical bear created by LOR, is a key symbol in the novel. It represents the power and velocity of evil, as it kills Winner and Dulcie quickly and deceives the other characters into thinking that the murders are just bear attacks.
Box uses symbols, physical descriptions, and even names to characterize LOR and Leon Bottom. Seen through Cates’s eyes, LOR “has a face that just beg[s] to be punched” (111). LOR’s obnoxiousness and eeriness are made tangible through his odd, deserted hometown and his sadistic torture devices. Later, he crudely propositions Johnson, calling her a “fine-looking split-tail” (112), with “split-tail” being crude slang for women. Thus, the physical decay of LOR’s town is emblematic of his moral rot.
In the case of Bottom, his physiognomy reflects his desperation to be liked. Sheridan notices that he is dressed in exaggerated cowboy gear, almost as if he is cosplaying a cowboy, when the truth is that he is a recent migrant from Michigan. The colorful characters contribute to the novel’s world building, evoking a landscape filled with rugged, unique individuals trying to master the world with whichever means are available to them.
Narrative elements like foreshadowing and red herrings also build up in tandem with the snowballing plot. For instance, Sheridan’s feeling of familiarity around Katy Cotton foreshadows the reveal that the elderly woman is Joe’s mother, while her discomfort around the overly friendly Bottom is a red herring since the real object of her discomfiture turns out to be Cotton. The biggest red herring is the one Cates dangles in front of officials: Believing that the targeted killings around Wyoming are grizzly attacks, Joe and the others do not suspect a human element until much later. The parallel plotlines of the two animals—one real and the other mechanical—constitute the greatest mystery for characters in the novel. Since the reader already knows about Cates’s plot, the narrative thus creates a situation full of dramatic irony.
Box also uses plotting, another important narrative element, to weave his story together. An example of plotting is Cates’s specification that Zeus II’s jaws be designed to exert at least 1,100 PSI of pressure on their victim. This is linked with the warden’s earlier observation about grizzlies having a bite force of 1,100 PSI. Johnson’s discovery of the texts from Axel Soledad and the brief appearance of Dulcie allude to the backstory of the novel. In Shadow Reels (2022), Soledad, a former special-ops member like Nate, beat up Liv, threatened baby Kestrel, and stole Nate’s falcons, dubbed the “Air Force.” Nate tracked Soledad to Portland, Oregon, where Soledad appeared to have died in a riot. Dulcie, the county attorney at Twelve Sleep in Vicious Circle (2017), helped put away Cates, earning her a box on his tattoo list. Her sentencing of Cates is the reason why he murders her in this section.
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