Hell Is Empty wl-7

by Craig Johnson

  I turned my head and looked down the mountain where the fire had burned itself into the draw at the shore of Lake Marion. The valley was protected from the wind, and there was a larger snow load on the trees there that had smothered the flames so only a red and orange edge showed fire.

  With my hand still holding the strap of both the pack and the rifle, I pivoted to my left and looked up the hill. There was some movement to my right, and I watched as a charred elk stumbled forward down the incline toward the edge of the pond, his blind eyes dead in the sockets but his nose drawing him to water.

  I stood silently as the elk came closer, hobbling on hooves that had burned away. He bumped into a scorched tree, momentarily catching one of the points of his antlers, then yanked free and continued more carefully.

  His body was telling him that he needed to drink; his body was telling him that if he could only go a little further it was possible that he might make it. His body, of course, was lying.

  I wondered how many lies my body was telling me-maybe my hearing was gone for a reason. Perhaps my body didn’t wish to be the one to break the news to itself about things I shouldn’t hear.

  Hairless and black, he lowered his blistered nose to the soot-covered surface. The great rack on his head bobbed as his lips pulled in the water with a shudder from his midriff. I was amazed that he could stand, let alone drink.

  I stood there with him until his legs collapsed and, with a shiver and one brief exhale, he died. I waded out to him and placed a hand on his magnificent antlers as I paused and returned my eyes to the ridge, the dead silence crowding in on me and hardening like my clothes.

  The animal’s horn still looked alive with the glow of the many fights the majestic old beast had won. Every rutting season he would’ve taken on all comers: younger elk, bears, cougars, wolves, and the human hunters that would’ve followed him to the very heights of the Bighorn range.

  He had survived them all, only to end like this.

  I could feel the air around me cooling, and the water that had protected me was solidifying underneath, in, and on top of my clothes; it was like I was wearing one of Dante’s lead cloaks. The ridge was naked, with just a stubble field of nubbin trees and scalded earth. The only thing I’d ever seen that approached it was a war zone, but somehow, in so many ways, this was worse.

  I thought about all the recently lost lives, of all the current destruction, and could feel a stirring deep in a place where my ears wouldn’t have heard it harden even if they’d still worked. The ringing continued, bells of warning along with the continuing tattoo of distant drums, but the one sound that rustled over the others was the sound of the blackened, leathery wings of wrathful vengeance folding themselves around me.

  13

  Icicles fell off me with each step, but I could only imagine the delicate sounds they might have made when they struck the stones near my feet. After only a few minutes, it was getting impossible to move, so I stopped by one of the flaming logs, at least partially sure that the resin in it wouldn’t explode.

  I set the pack against the outcropping of rocks just a little away from the flames. The sodden thing felt like a boulder with shoulder straps, and I was glad to be rid of it. I pulled off my gloves, turned the cuffs inside out, and placed them along with my goggles on one of the already-burnt sections of the log.

  I held the rifle up and looked at the drop-block mechanism, which appeared fine until I jacked the lever, slid down the action and, after catching the round that feebly fell from the breech, could see the traces of ice inside the chamber.

  I slipped the bullet into my pocket and breathed into the Sharps as if I were giving it mouth-to-rifle resuscitation. I turned it around and did the same thing to the end of the barrel-amazingly enough, it appeared unharmed. I checked for any signs of mud, but there was nothing. I set it by the pack and hoped the heat of the fire would override the ambient temperature. Then I glanced through the binoculars still hanging from my neck and found that they too were unharmed, but I hung them from a blackened branch just to make sure.

  I took off my hat, hung it on another convenient branch, and reached into my jacket to retrieve the mummified hand. The pocket was empty. I turned it inside out, but there was nothing there, not even the ring that I’d taken. I must’ve lost both in the nameless pond below. Remembering the femur that Shade had left behind, I quickly checked my other pocket and was relieved to find that bone still there.

  I felt my teeth rattling and turned, moving a little closer to the flames. I could feel an ulcerous sore at the top of my ear where it had gotten frostbitten before-chilblains, I believe they were called-and gently fingered it, just the thing you’re not supposed to do.

  The convulsions continued, and I was pretty sure that if I didn’t get my clothes and myself warmed up I was going to become hypothermic, delusional, and useless.

  I shed my stiff-armed jacket and placed it beside the log flambe, where it literally stood on its own in a three-point stance, and then slid off my boots, the overpants, and the fleece that Omar had loaned me, hanging them on another blackened branch.

  Dressed only in my Capilene underwear, I backed up near the log to dry off and keep warm, squinted through the blowing ash, took a deep breath, and coughed the soot from my mouth and nose; the faintest touches of what felt like raindrops struck my upturned face-the falling snow was melting in the heat.

  I rubbed my eyes with my fists and looked around. The cold and snow were already creeping back in, and it wouldn’t be long before all the charred black would be covered with white-and me too.

  I dragged the backpack over, flipped off the top, and started pulling items from the cavernous main compartment. There were an extra pair of socks that I strung on a limb and some food-the energy and candy bars looked pretty good in their foil wrappers-and the bottle of Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve that Virgil hadn’t taken after all was unbroken.

  That, among so many things, was odd.

  You’re not supposed to drink under these types of conditions because the only thing the liquor does is dehydrate you and widen your blood vessels, allowing greater blood flow to your extremities, which may feel better in the short run but which eventually robs you of core heat. I knew a lot of old fellows who had survived these kinds of circumstances and wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen them not drink. Anyway, I was more concerned with my mental well-being.

  I unscrewed the top and took a swig of the bourbon and waited as I always did for the aftertaste that never came because the first taste was so good. I took another and carefully set the bottle on the rocks before digging into the pack and yanking out the soaked sleeping bag that had already hardened into a clump. I pulled the bag from the stuff sack-it hung there in my hand like a reluctant snake, refusing to uncoil. I shook it, and surprisingly, the man-made, water-resistant fiber released and the length of the thing flopped to my feet.

  I carefully unzipped it and noticed that the majority of the water hadn’t soaked the fiber inside the bag, so I wrapped it around me and felt better immediately. I wrested my way into the outside pocket of the pack and came upon Saizarbitoria’s copy of the Inferno. I resisted the urge to throw it in the fire and just dropped the soggy pulp onto the ground.

  Seeing the Basquo’s reading material reminded me of the cell phone that Sancho had carefully put in the waterproof Ziploc. I fetched it from my jacket and hoped that the bag was truly what it advertised. Then I pulled out the satellite phone and looked at it. I could see that the rubberized coating seemed to have no seams; was it possible that the thing was waterproof as well?

  I hit the button, and it lit up. Thank goodness for the high-tech FBI.

  I stood there for a moment or two, finally deciding to give my Indian backup a call; I was one of the only white men I knew who felt better when he was surrounded by Indians.

  “Hey, hey-you’re alive!”

  Joe’s voice cheered me even though I could hardly hear it.

  “Just barely.”

/>   “We got another one of your leftovers.”

  “You’re going to have to speak louder; my hearing is kind of shot.” I smiled in spite of myself. “You guys are at the Thiokol?”

  He was shouting into the phone now. “You betcha, just collecting the trash. Hold on, the big guy wants to talk to you…”

  I waited as a familiar voice came on the line; he was shouting, too. “Where are you?”

  I sighed. “I’ve been asked that a lot lately.” I felt the jacket and turned it-it was drying nicely. “Near the ridge at Mistymoon Lake.”

  “You…” There was a flare of static. “… traveling fast.”

  “I had help up until Shade set the whole forest on fire.”

  The concern in his voice increased after another static burst. “We could smell that. What did he do?”

  I looked up the hillside but couldn’t see anything except the rushing clouds above and the soft rain of the melting snow. “He must’ve set the beetle kill on fire; the wind took it and burned all the way down to Lake Marion.” I fought to not let him hear my teeth chattering. “I had to go for a little swim to get out of it.”

  There was more static, probably from atmospheric conditions. “You are kidding.”

  “Nope; I’m drying my clothes right now.”

  “You mentioned help?”

  I smiled. “Yep, one of our old buddies is up here-Virgil White Buffalo.” I waited for a response, but there was none. “Are you there?”

  Static. “Virgil.”

  “Yep, he keeps popping up.”

  More static, stronger than the signal this time. “… more to the story than you know…”

  I thought about it. “That wouldn’t take much, considering how little I do know.”

  The static was so strong now that I could barely hear him. “… need to stay where you are. We are only two and a half miles…”

  I held the phone out where I could speak directly into it. “If you can hear me, I’m going to keep the pressure on Shade.” I could barely make out his voice in response. “I’ll call you back when I make the ridge at Solitude Trail.”

  I didn’t move for a while, just stared at the flame on the log and watched the infinite swoops and swirls of its dance. I found myself half hypnotized by the life-giving warmth, and it seemed like I’d forgotten how long I’d been standing there. Another wave of shivers came over me, though, and I reached for the bourbon.

  It was gone.

  I looked to see that I hadn’t knocked it over in a shivering fit and then looked down at my feet, sure it must’ve been lying on the ground, but there was nothing there. I was just about to utter a curse about disappearing rings, bourbon, and Indians when two out of the three reappeared.

  He didn’t look any worse for wear, neither burnt nor marked by the fire, as he rested his lance against the rocks.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  The giant smiled in the shadow of the grizzly headdress. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean where did you disappear to? One minute I was standing down there on the lake with you, and the next minute I was alone.” I shook my head and couldn’t help but smile. “Hey… I can hear you really well.”

  He looked at me with questions playing across his face along with the reflections of the fire. He took a swig of the bourbon and studied me. “I went up to the west ridge following the trail after you fell. I told you what I was doing. You don’t remember?”

  “No.” I picked up my hat to feel if it was dry, and when half of it wasn’t, I hung it back on the branch the other way. “Virgil, what are you talking about?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he looked at me uncertainly. “After you fell, you were a little disoriented, so I told you to stay put and I would come back for you.”

  I felt my head; it wasn’t as tender and also wasn’t bleeding anymore-the pond water must have washed the cut. “You did?”

  He studied me, even going so far as to tilt his head to get a good look at the side of mine, the bear jawbones, beads, and elk teeth gently clacking together in counterpoint to the tinkling bell cones. “I was very clear. You should have stayed on the ice where you would’ve been safe.” He lifted the bottle to his lips and took another tremendous draught, then lowered it but didn’t offer to give it back. “Maybe you hit your head harder than we thought.”

  “Maybe so.” I shivered again. “Gimme the bottle.”

  “Not until you have really warmed up.”

  “I have really warmed up.” We stood there, staring at each other, and I clutched the sleeping bag a little closer.

  “Turn around and cook your front; that’s the part that needs it.”

  I did as he said and moved in a little closer to the flames at the branch end of the log. He glanced around at the wreckage. “Hell of a fire he set.”

  I nodded at the giant. “You saw him light it?”

  “I did. He made a bomb out of one of those backpack stoves.”

  I studied him and noticed that not even the moccasins he wore carried any black on them. “How did you avoid it?”

  “I told you. I took the trail to our far left. You sat down on the ice of the lake and wouldn’t move.” I turned my head a little in the folds of the sleeping bag, and he extended a hand that blossomed fingers like a gigantic sunflower. “You don’t remember.”

  “No.”

  “That isn’t good.” He made the statement flatly and without judgment, which made it sting that much more.

  I reached up and felt my ear again, then held the palm of my hand against it in an attempt to warm it back to normal. “No.” I sniffed the air, and the smell of wood fire came off his moosehide war shirt, a scent stronger than the fire in front of us.

  Virgil White Buffalo looked down at me and placed an allencompassing hand on my shoulder; I was sure it was more for my benefit than his. “Maybe you’ve gone as far as you can go, Lawman. Maybe you should wait here for the others, and I’ll go ahead.”

  I looked back at the fire. “No.”

  “There’s no dishonor in this. You’ve done everything that you could; everything that could reasonably be expected-of any living man.”

  “No.”

  He took a deep breath, and the flames wavered in his direction. “Then perhaps you should tell me why going after this man is so important to you.”

  I paused. “It’s my job.”

  He watched me. “No, I think it’s something more than that.”

  He removed his hand from my shoulder and waited, and it was that continental-drift pace, Indian wait, an otherworldly motionlessness that only the best hunters have. I turned my head all the way and looked at him, and even in the wind it was as if the feathers and the bear fur that surrounded him didn’t stir a single hair. I was afraid that my faculties had gone again.

  “Virgil?” I was relieved to hear my own voice.

  “Yes.”

  When he spoke, the spell was broken and everything about him came to life again. I stretched my hands out to the flames and tried to concentrate on what had to be done. “Nothing.”

  He nodded as if he knew what I was going to ask, and his head dropped. With happy surprise, he stared at the paperback lying beside my boots. “You’re not reading anymore?”

  I nudged the book with my toe and was a little concerned that I couldn’t feel much of my foot. “It’s kind of ruined.”

  He stooped and picked it up by the binding-it opened to a random page. He flipped the bloated book over and read from the English side of one of the curled pages.

  “They all wore robes with hoods hung low, that hid their eyes, tailored-in cut-to match those worn by monks who thrive in Benedictine Cluny.

  So gilded outwardly, they dazed the eye.

  Within, these robes were all of lead-so heavy…”

  He lowered the pulpy mass and looked at it from the cavernous depths of the grizzly cape. “Leaden cloaks; he is on to something there.”

  I reached over and plucked my steaming pa
nts from the limb.

  “Life is like that.” He flipped through a few more limp pages. “You collect things as you go-the things you think are important-and soon they weigh you down until you realize that these things you cared so much about mean nothing at all. Our natures are our natures.” He grunted. “And they are all we are left with.”

  I dropped the sleeping bag-my underwear was reasonably dry-and struggled to get the damn pants on. Without the gloves, my hands were stiff and cold. “You think?”

  The bass rumbled in his chest, but his eyes stayed on the paperback. “I think.” He raised his head, but this time his black eyes stayed with the fire. “All the horrors in this book are the horrors of the mind, and they are the only ones that can truly harm us.” He reached behind him and culled the bottle of bourbon from the rocks, then turned and poured the remainder of the liquor onto the log near the flames where the fire, now blue in tint, leapt forward and strung its way down the charred bark. “I think that’s enough old damnation for now.” He gestured with the book in his other hand. “Do you mind if I keep it?”

  I hastily retrieved my gloves as he tossed the bottle onto the other side of the log. “You’re not supposed to litter; don’t you remember the commercials with the crying Indian?” He ignored me till I gestured toward the Inferno. “I thought this kind of literature didn’t suit your tastes?”

  He shrugged. “One can be too picky-books are hard to come by this high.” He stuffed the blown-out, spine-split paperback inside his shirt. “Almost as hard as shelves.”

  I tried not to laugh. “I bet.” I took the fleece from its drying rack and put it on, picked up my jacket and stuffed my arms into the sleeves, and deposited my assortment of phones. The jacket had thawed and was even warm, but I flapped my arms around in an attempt to gain a little mobility anyway, then reached down and fumbled with the zipper.

  When I looked up again, Virgil was still watching me. Patiently, he stepped forward and zipped the jacket, and I felt like I was being dressed for school.