Walt Longmire 07 - Hell Is Empty (16 page)

I lifted the binoculars just to check the trail more closely and saw what I must have sensed—there was another set of footprints along the creek bed. I tromped my way down the slope, kneeled—careful not to let the top-heavy pack topple me over—and gently blew in the nearest print. It was a huge track, moccasins, smooth with just a trace of the stitching on the side—crude stitching that could only have been homemade.

Virgil.

I glanced back up and half expected him to be standing there with the paws of the giant grizzly swaying in the breeze beside his massive girth, but there was still nothing, only the tracks that continued to follow the other three. It took the better part of a mile to get to Lake Helen, and Virgil continued to follow the others. As I trudged along, I thought about the Crow Indian. Had he known that they had left Freddie in the Thiokol and continued on? Why was he following them? Was he the guide whom Hector had alluded to, that Beatrice had mentioned? If he was, then why had he taken the time to fool with me?

He said he’d been watching them last night before waking me, and if that was the case, wouldn’t he have seen them leave? If he was the so-called guide, then why wouldn’t he have simply joined them there?

The moonlight had given way to dawn, and I could see some movement on the trail far ahead. I pulled the binoculars up again and looked.

The blue patches of the early morning sky were succumbing to a wall of gray, but it was light enough that I could see the Cloud Peak massif rising above the valley. The granite-ribbed peaks gave way to the subalpine forests trickling down to scattered groves of conifers that strung all the way to Mistymoon, one of the last lakes before the true high country.

I used the ridge as a guide and followed the trail from there to the area below where I could see three people struggling to make their way up to the next hanging plateau. The one in the back was stumbling under the weight of a large pack and was unarmed—must be the real Ameri-Trans driver; the one in the middle with the blonde hair had to be Agent Pfaff; and the one in front carrying a large pack, an automatic rifle, and what looked to be a black duffel had to be Raynaud Shade—confident son of a bitch.

I lowered the binoculars and thought about what Omar had said in his cabin before I’d left: “Kill ’em, kill ’em as fast as you can and from far away.”

I unclipped the center strap of my pack and carefully slipped the rifle off my shoulder. I figured just a hair over six hundred yards—at the edge of my limit. All my instincts were telling me to take the shot, to do it now and end it. I would never have a better opportunity or conditions.

It would take about a half second to reach out to Raynaud Shade, but there was something about shooting a man, even a guilty man, unawares from great distance that didn’t sit well with my job description.

They’d made the ridge but weren’t moving too rapidly, mostly because of the Ameri-Trans driver, who seemed to be having trouble keeping up. I looked at him for a moment, then moved the rifle back to Pfaff, and then to Shade. He had dropped his bags and was standing on the ridge, the .223 aimed with his eye pressed to the scope.

Watching me.

I had that same eerie feeling I’d had every time I looked at him and had found him looking at me. It was possible that there was no surprising Raynaud Shade.

He knew that the Armalite wouldn’t reach this far. He was aware, also, that what I was carrying would, but he still didn’t move. We stood like that, the two of us, for a long second.

Waves of unease overtook me, and I remembered the last long-distance shot that I’d taken with a Sharps buffalo rifle and how it had ended in tragedy. In some ways they all ended in tragedy, no matter which end of the slug you were on.

He lowered the tactical carbine but continued looking at me. After a moment his left arm came up and he waved, but it was a strange wave. Then he closed his fingers as if grasping something.

The satellite phone in my pocket rang.

I lowered the rifle, pulled the device out, and hit the button.

“Hello, Sheriff. We are somewhat at an impasse.”

I measured my words. “You need to stop this.”

He breathed into the phone. “That is what I’m trying to do.”

“Let the two hostages go, and maybe we can figure all of this out.”

“They tell me you don’t believe in them.”

Of all the conversations I wanted to have with Shade, this was the one I wanted to have least. “Shade, look . . . We need to get you some help.”

He laughed, but there was nothing but depravity in it. “I have all the help I need.” He was silent for a moment. “More than I can stand.”

I waited.

“You should acknowledge them; so few of us can. They discovered me when I was very young, but from the reading I’ve done and what the psychiatrists and therapists tell me, that isn’t abnormal.”

“No.”

“They took part of me with them then. I’ve been trying to get that part of me back ever since—that’s why they speak to me so much; that’s why I listen.” He stopped talking but didn’t disconnect, and I pulled the binoculars up to watch him remove something from the bag he carried and place it on an uncovered boulder alongside the trail. “I’m leaving this for you because they tell me it is what I must do.”

The phone went dead, and I watched him for a few more seconds as he loaded up and continued on over the ridge with the other two following.

Adjusting the optical ring at the back of the binoculars, widening the aperture, I scanned the slope behind them, half expecting to find a giant Indian wearing a bearskin. I trailed the optics along the path all the way back to the southern edge of the lake but still couldn’t see any sign of Virgil.

I needed a drink and settled for water. I sat my pack on the trail. The bottle was on top and, as I pulled it out, the satellite phone began ringing again from my inside pocket. “Shade, listen . . .”

“Hey Sheriff, there are fucking Indians up here.”

“Hector, how did you get this number?”

“You were right, they’re sequestered or something like that . . .”

“Sequential.”

There was a jostling. “I’m not kidding. These two Indians were just here, and they’re looking for you.”

“I know. They’re on our . . . they’re on my side.”

“Well, I just thought that with you bein’ a cowboy and all I better call you up and let you know. These were some really tough-looking hombres. The one guy, the really big one? I mean, they had guns all over ’em, but the one guy, the big one? He had this axe thing between his shoulders.” There was a pause. “He took the gun away from me. I told him it wasn’t loaded, but he took it anyway.”

“It’s okay. He’s a friend of mine.”

“I’m jus’ sayin’.” There was some noise in the background, and I could hear someone else talking. “I’m tellin’ him about the Indians.”

I held out the phone to look at the display. “Hector, you’re eating up my battery.”

“Sorry, Sheriff, but I’ve got this Wop cop here who wants to talk to you.” More fumbling, and I heard Hector say ouch. “Hold on, here she is.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m providing a phone messaging service for the entire Bighorn mountain range.” I waited and was glad she wasn’t nearby. “It’s really good to hear your voice.”

“Where the hell are you?”

I glanced around at the eye of the storm. “I am currently enjoying an exquisite alpine idyll.” I’d loaded up, discovering that I could multitask—both talking and tracking—and, keeping an eye north, made my way down the cutback of the boulder field. I figured I could stop if the signal started breaking up. “Lake Helen, then Lake Marion and probably Mistymoon here in about an hour—I figure that’s where I’m going to catch up with them.”

“The weather is going to turn to frozen shit in a matter of hours—stop.”

“I don’t think so.”

There was an audible sigh of exasperation, which was my undersheriff’s usual response to me. “Why not?”

“He’s more likely to play nice if he knows I’m here.”

There was a pause. “He knows you’re there?”

“Yep. We just had a nice conversation.”

“You what?”

I slid a little on the ice at the base of the trail and steadied myself. “I took the satellite phone I’m talking on from the convict in the Thiokol, which, by the way, is when I had him call Shade—then he called me.”

“Get the fuck outta here.”

“Yep, we had a wide-ranging confab about conversing with dead people.” She didn’t laugh. “He’s the only one left, and he’s got two hostages, Pfaff and the Ameri-Trans driver.”

She readjusted the phone in her ear. “Walt, he’s going to kill them.”

“Not if he thinks they’re the only thing that’s keeping him alive.”

“He’s got the marshal’s .223 for that.”

Indeed. “Speaking of, where the heck is my backup?”

“Bear was with Joe Iron Cloud and Tommy Wayman’s just above. Hey, were there any trees across the road when you went up West Tensleep?”

“No.”

“Well, lucky for you Wayman’s an old-school Wyoming sheriff and keeps a Husqvarna 42-inch chain saw in his truck. He said the last time he saw Henry and Joe they were leaping over the fallen trees in the finest James Fenimore Cooper tradition and were headed out at a high rate of speed.” I thought about how the odds were evening. “Tommy said there was no way the Bear and the Cloud were going to keep up that pace.” She laughed. “I asked him if he wanted to bet.”

“What’d he say?”

“Not now, not ever.” It was my turn to laugh as she continued attempting to bolster my mood. “Why don’t you wait; you’ve got some pretty intense Indian backup coming—both the Arapaho and Cheyenne nations.”

“Yep, the mountains are full of them.”

There was another pause. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Virgil’s up here, too.”

“The jolly red giant?”

“Ho, ho, ho.”

“That’s not good. Does he know that evil scumbag is the one who murdered his grandson?”

I stared at the trail as if approaching a cliff, and maybe I was. “That’s how it stands?”

“Yeah.” I stood still and could hear her lodging the phone against her neck, which, as I recall, was a very nice place to be. “It would appear that Virgil’s son, Eli, had a child out of wedlock—the boy, Owen White Buffalo. There are no reports of a missing child, because there are no records of him, period. We’re attempting to find the mother, but so far—nothing.”

“Okay.”

She could read the tone of my voice. “Are you getting ready to hang up on me?”

“I’d better—I’ve got to catch up.”

She gave me Joe Iron Cloud’s satellite number. “Give them a call to see where they are and what the weather is doing before you do anything stupid, all right?”

“Roger that, nothing stupid.” I would dial it into the phone after we hung up. “Gotta go.”

“And call me before you do anything stupid.”

“Anything stupid, my SOP. 10-4.”

She hung up. I turned the device off and tucked it back inside my coat. Annoying Vic was always the simplest way to get her off the phone and, all in all, it was usually pretty easy.

I started out again, looking up the valley at the west ridge of Bomber Mountain, so named because in 1943 an unfortunate B-17 had abruptly come to rest there with all crewmen on board.

I know how they must’ve felt.

So it was quasiofficial that it was Virgil’s grandson. Could he know, and how could all of these horrible coincidences have fallen in place the way that they had?

I suddenly remembered Joe Iron Cloud’s cell number, so I pulled out the phone and dialed. Even if he didn’t answer, the number would be recorded. As expected, it connected me to an answering service—the Arapaho had even taken the time to record a message. His halting voice made me smile, and I could just see those two very tough men racing their way up West Tensleep Trail; God help anything that got in their way.

“Hey, hey, this is Sheriff Joe Iron Cloud. I’m unable to answer your call right now, but if you’ll leave a message I’ll get right back to you. Ye-ta-hey.”

I waited for the beep and then spoke. “Joe, this is Walt Longmire, president of the Give America Back to Americans movement, and I was wondering if you’d help the three-hundred million of us pack? Give me a call.”

I closed the phone and tucked it away.

“That should get their attention.”

Keeping an eye on the cloud mass that seemed to be leaning on me, I worked my way around the west side of the lake. If I was lucky, I’d get them pinned in the open meadow adjacent to the big peaks, and I would have cover at the ridge of Mistymoon Lake. Raynaud Shade would have the choice of either giving it all up or taking a chance on the delivery of a high-powered, high-mortality package at long distance.

I began to climb to the next level that would lead to Lake Marion and started feeling the burn in my legs, mostly the tops of my thighs. I was doing pretty well with my lungs, but my legs were another matter, and after twenty minutes more I was starting to resent the supplies in Omar’s pack—the very supplies that, if everything went bad, were going to be responsible for keeping me alive. I trudged on, every once in a while lifting my face to scan the ridge where they’d disappeared.

When it happened, it hit like a wall. The second front of the storm came in. I knew it was just the barometric pressure, but it still felt like I was being inhaled by that giant blue devil on the cover of Saizarbitoria’s book. The exhaling riptide came quickly, and I watched it bend the trees like a sweeping claw as it topped the extended northern backbone of Bald Ridge.

It was like the winter had shattered, and the shards were now blowing in my face, small bits of the last season, blasted and blown.

My eyelids were starting to freeze, and I remembered the amber-tinted goggles that were hanging around my throat. I fumbled to pull them up as I climbed and concentrated on just putting one foot in front of the other as I pushed up the last part of the hillside trail where I’d last seen the three. Every time I looked away from my boots I’d stumble and veer from the path, so I tried to focus on their tracks. It was only when I got to the point where Shade had called me that I almost stumbled over the huge man in the grizzly bear hide. He was sitting on a boulder with the lance balanced between his knees, his back to the storm, his moccasined feet stretched out onto the path.