Hell Is Empty wl-7

by Craig Johnson

  His voice echoed as it resounded through me, and once again his words were the last thing I could hear. “Leaden cloaks.”

  The forest is never silent, no matter the season; there are always sounds, and the trick is simply slowing yourself to the point where you can hear them. My situation was different, though. I can’t explain it, but it was almost as if I was laboring under a selective deafness; I couldn’t hear the wind or the sound of my own footfalls, but I could hear voices-at least I had been able to hear Joe’s, Henry’s, and now Virgil’s.

  “My grandfather told me the story of how, before I was born, his mother, my great-grandmother, died. Our village was on the Little Big Horn. He said that one day when he was very young the sun was very hot and the lodge skins were propped open so that any breeze might pass through, but even these winds were hot.”

  I tried to concentrate on his words and glean the warmth from them as I stumbled forward through the deepening snow.

  “A large party of my people was moving camp into the mountains, and my great-grandfather told my great-grandmother to water his horse while they were gone. My great-grandmother forgot this until the afternoon when she went to the horse that had been staked out near the lodge, but when she approached, he was startled and pulled the stake from the ground and ran away toward the pony-band.”

  I stumbled but caught my footing and continued on after the giant.

  “My great-grandmother ran after the horse, but she tripped and fell. When she got up, there was a man there with the horse’s lead, and he handed it to her. She took the rope, but when she did, she saw that it was not one man, but two. She thanked them and then watered my great-grandfather’s horse and returned to the lodge.”

  His strides were longer than mine and, even with him carrying the pack, I was having trouble keeping up. My mind was wandering, but I kept being brought back to the trail by his voice.

  “When they returned, my grandfather said she told them that she would be going to the Beyond-Country, that two of her sons, my grandfather’s two brothers who had died in the wars, had come to take her there.”

  Virgil stopped at the top of the ridge, and I ran into him, knocking my hat over my face. When I pulled it away, he had turned and was looking down at the half-filled tracks that led west around Mistymoon, across the meadow and into the freezing fog.

  “They wrapped my great-grandmother in a buffalo robe, and she went away in her sleep. I tell you these things even though we Crows are forbidden to speak of the dead-you know this?”

  I was breathing hard, trying to catch what was left of my breath. “I’ve heard it said.”

  He nodded and knelt down to give closer inspection to the tracks, even going so far as to blow in them to clear away the drifting snow, his breath like a bellows. “The experiences you had before, the one on the mountain that you have chosen not to share with me-have you told anyone else about them?”

  I knelt down with him, curling my arms around my knees. “No, not really. I discussed it briefly with Henry, but that’s all.”

  His eyes rose after the grizzly’s as he looked north and west into the strands of mist. “The ones you call the Old Cheyenne.”

  I shivered and not just because of the cold. “Yep.”

  “They are not only Cheyenne.”

  I looked through the binoculars, tracing the edge of the cornice with the power of the Zeiss lenses; the tracks continued across a sloping meadow and around the overhang to our left. “Where does he think he’s going?”

  His shoulders rose. “Up.”

  The satellite phone had no clock feature that I could find, and I was afraid to see what the water might’ve done to my pocket watch, so I glanced west to try to figure out the time; there was a vague glow within the clouds. “Late in the afternoon-they’re going to have to settle down for the night somewhere.”

  “Yes.” He stood and stared down at me. “What did the Cheyenne say?”

  I glanced up at him. “What?”

  “The Cheyenne, Henry, what did he say about the Old Ones?”

  I tried to realign my thoughts, but my mind remained off topic. “The Cheyenne, Henry, said…” I forced myself to concentrate. “He said that he wasn’t singing.”

  “Singing? ”

  I stood and was a little uneasy, feeling confused and angry. “When I carried Henry and this kid off the mountain, I was dehydrated, hypothermic, concussed…”

  “Like now?”

  I bit my lip but could hardly feel it, remembered the balaclava and pulled it up over my nose. “Worse; a lot worse.”

  He laughed. “Well, the evening is young.”

  I was fully annoyed now. “I thought I heard singing, and when I finally… when I got him back to the trailhead and the emergency people, the EMTs… I asked him if he thought-if singing with the kinds of injuries that he’d sustained was a good idea.”

  The giant grunted and repositioned the base of his lance. “What did he say?”

  I forced the next part out with my breath. “He said what singing?”

  “Hmm.”

  I stepped around him and looked up at his chin. “Hey, Virgil?”

  It took a while, but he finally looked down at me and it seemed like I’d gotten the attention of Mount Rushmore. “Yes?”

  “To be honest, I don’t care about any of that stuff right now. I’ve got two innocent people who are being led off to God-only-knows-where by a schizophrenic sociopath and no backup besides a seven-foot Indian who wants to stand here and discuss paranormal phenomena.” I breathed deeply after my little tirade, watching the clouds of vapor fly from my face and thinking about what exactly I was going to do if Virgil, my only volunteer, dropped my pack in front of me and went back to the comforts of his cozy cave.

  He didn’t say anything for a moment but then smiled. “Just curious.” The indentation in his forehead deepened as he turned a little toward me. “Would you be upset if we continued the conversation while we walked?”

  Now I was feeling stupid, and my head was starting to pound again. “Of course not; I just want to focus on what’s important.”

  He smiled some more, then turned and continued over the top of the tracks on a course of north by northwest, his words tossed over his shoulder. “Me too.”

  I was feeling bad about my little outburst. “I’m sorry, Virgil.”

  The snout of the bear cloak swung around, but I still couldn’t see his face. “It’s all right; I suppose I have become talkative in my isolation.”

  “Self-imposed isolation. You know there are no charges against you. You’re a free man and can go wherever you’d like.”

  I suppose it was the sheer bulk of the man and the deepness of his voice, but even though he was a good two paces ahead on the trail, his voice sounded as close as if he were talking into my ear, the sore one. “Where would I go, back to the VA hospital?”

  I wanted to be sure that Virgil understood that there were no official reasons prohibiting his return to civilization. “Back to the Rez? I don’t know… You’ve got a son who lives over in Hot Springs.”

  “He wouldn’t want me there, and I have none of my people left on the reservation.”

  “Last of your kind?”

  “Yes, in a way. Something like you.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve got a daughter in Philadelphia.”

  “A daughter, yes. When she has her daughter, she will not carry your name.”

  I laughed at the ridiculousness of our conversation as we were slogging our way toward the crown of the Bighorn Mountains.

  “She is to be married this summer and when she has the daughter she now carries, that daughter, your granddaughter, will carry another man’s name.”

  I stopped, but he kept walking.

  His voice drifted back as the fog slithered over the meadow and surrounded us. “C’mon, Lawman, we don’t have time for all this talk-we have innocent people to save, remember?”

  “Virgil, have you been talking to Henry? I mean,
did he…”

  “I have not spoken with the Cheyenne-they are a handsome people, but they are difficult.” We reached the cornice, and he floated into the mist, only his voice remaining. “I don’t know how I know these things; perhaps they’re told to me by the Old Ones, but I know in my heart of hearts that your daughter will bear a daughter.”

  He reappeared next to a rock shelf and placed the pack on the ground between us. “Do you want a candy bar?” He unsnapped the top and sorted through a few items, finally bringing out two of the aged Mallo Cups. “I want a candy bar, and these are my favorites.”

  He handed me one, took one for himself, closed up the pack, and threw it back on one shoulder as if the burden were a windbreaker. “I had a grandson once and a daughter. I had a beautiful wife. Family is important, don’t you think? I mean, they can make you crazy, but they’re very important.”

  He knew he had a grandson? How did he know about Owen? Was it something that his son had told him while he was in my jail? I brushed a hand up to the pocket of my coat and could feel the bone there.

  He was watching me, and I knew he had noticed my hand, but then he turned and started off. “C’mon.” He chortled. “Innocent people.”

  I climbed over the top of the cornice and followed the hulking mass of him swaying with the effort of battling the headwind. “You know that story I told you about my great-grandmother, the one about her meeting her two sons, the brothers of my grandfather?” He mumbled, and I assumed he was eating his Mallo Cup. “I saw her the other day.”

  I paused before responding this time. “Your great-grandmother?”

  I could see him gesturing. “Yes, she was a strong woman, built like my father.”

  “Your dead great-grandmother?”

  “Yes, but do not refer to her in that way-it’s disrespectful.” I started to stuff the Mallo Cup into my coat, but he spoke without turning. “You should eat that.”

  I looked up at him and then back at the candy bar. It was easier to eat than to argue, so I unwrapped it and fumbled part of it into my mouth-it broke off like balsa wood in the cold.

  He continued along the winding rock outcroppings as I concentrated on his words and his footsteps. I wondered how he was able to keep his feet warm with only the moccasins to protect them-he didn’t seem to mind the cold at all.

  “I was near water, or in water, I can’t remember. I was small, young. I turned and she was there, holding her hands out to me. I never met her, but I knew it was her. You know how you know these things?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  He finished his candy bar and stuffed the wrapper in his pocket. “I told her that I couldn’t go with her; that I had things I still had to do. She said that she knew of these things so she left me there.” He stopped and knelt down again, the fog and falling snow so thick that I felt like I was watching him on my old television at home, the one that didn’t get any reception. “Do you think that means I’m meant to follow the Hanging Road to the Beyond-Country with the Old Ones?”

  I drew up beside him with the thought that the Hanging Road was the Crow path to the other side and referred to the horizon-to-horizon bow of the Milky Way in the nighttime sky. “I sure hope not.”

  His wide hand lifted and a finger pointed down the hill into the whiteness. “They have left the trail and are now going across Paint Rock Creek.”

  “Then what?”

  His breath condensed, and it was as if Virgil was exhaling clouds. The twin heads rose, and I knew he was looking at the top of the Bighorn Mountains.

  “Up.”

  14

  Whiteout.

  Not only did it sound as if I were hearing through cotton, now it looked like it, too.

  The falling snow had increased to the point where we were now in a true whiteout-not the two to three inches an hour sometimes mistaken for a whiteout, but the honest-to-goodness, mountain-effect, windless blizzard where you couldn’t differentiate between the air and the ground. Visibility was cut to less than twenty feet, and the only thing that kept us going was Virgil throwing his war lance ahead and then the two of us following.

  He’d made me stop and put on my snowshoes again, but he still seemed to be punching through the drifts faster than I could walk over them.

  I knew it was a quarter of a mile from Solitude Trail across the creek and through the meadows to the falls and the ascent inclines that led up the west ridge of Cloud Peak. As near as I could tell, even though it felt as if I were still falling forward, we were on the flat and approaching the first climb.

  Virgil tossed the lance ahead of us, and I watched as the feathers and deer toes spiraled with its trajectory. We walked after it, and he trailed a hand down and picked up the lance again.

  “We used to use snowballs when I was growing up out on the Powder River. Everyone in this country has lost someone to these kinds of conditions.”

  He stood and inclined his head upward toward the cliffs and ridgeline I couldn’t see. “Why do you suppose my great-grandmother was the one they sent to fetch me from this life?”

  I should’ve guessed; it seemed that all he wanted to talk about was his theoretical impending death, but I was amazed at his ability to distract himself from the exhaustion that was continually causing my chin to stab my chest. I sighed. “I don’t know, Virgil.”

  “You would think that they would’ve sent someone I knew-someone I’d met.”

  He turned and looked straight at me. “Which leads me to believe that she was not really the one sent to take me to the Beyond-Country.” He shook his two heads. “What is it the Cheyenne calls it?”

  “Calls what?”

  “The afterworld.”

  “Henry and a friend of his, Lonnie Little Bird… they call it the Camp of the Dead.”

  “Yes, that’s it.” He gestured with the lance. “We can climb beside the falls-there.”

  I looked up but could see only vague shadows through the amber lenses of my goggles. I began thinking that perhaps they were more of a hindrance than an asset, so I lowered them and was immediately blinded. I yanked them back in place. “Whatever you say, Virgil. I learned a long time ago that you don’t argue with the Indian scout.”

  He nodded. “It gives me hope.”

  I blinked, aware that I was becoming more and more confused. “What?”

  “That it was my great-grandmother who came for me. When they’re serious, I imagine that they’ll send someone I know.” His head was very close to mine as he hunkered down to stare into my face, and it was as if he was blocking out the rest of the world. “I’ve thought about this, and I think they should send my wife. Don’t you think that’s a good choice?” I could smell the Mallo Cup on his breath and maybe even a little of the bourbon he’d poured onto the flaming log. “You don’t look so good, Lawman. White-whiter than usual.”

  I laughed and converted the next series of teeth-chattering shivers into a nod. “I’m cold and kind of tired, but I’m all right.”

  He bent down and unstrapped my snowshoes. “You won’t need these for this part, but you’ll need them farther up.” I stepped off them like a dutiful child, and Virgil drove the butt ends into the snow next to the trail; it looked as if someone had been buried there head first. “This will help the Cheyenne and the Arapaho find you.”

  “I thought you said I was going to need them.”

  He turned his great bulk toward the rocks. “We will get you another pair.”

  “How?”

  He ignored me, and I gestured toward the granite escarpment with my chin. “Up?”

  He brushed away some of the snow to reveal a good foot-and handhold at his shoulder level-it must have been where the others had gone. “Up.”

  Even with the expedition pack on his back, he had no trouble and disappeared into what the old-timers called a buttermilk sky. I made the mental note to remember where he placed his hands and moccasins, aware that in my depleted condition, his judgment was better than my own. After the first shelf there
was a gully, which made for easier climbing, and I just used the giant’s prints as footholds.

  A few times I could see the cairns jutting from the snow that pointed out the classic route to Cloud Peak, and we followed them when they were visible, taking the lesser drainage along the base of the southwest ridge. The climb became real and more strenuous as we got to the northeast ridge and continued east and up, ever up.

  I stopped by one of the rock pillars to take a breather. Virgil continued on, first blending into the falling snow and then disappearing. “Virgil.”

  There was no response.

  “Virgil!”

  I was just beginning to think that my hearing was going again when his voice drifted back from above. “Who would you want to see? If someone were to show up to guide you to the Beyond-Country, who would you choose?”

  I shifted my weight; luckily the dry-stacked stones stayed solid, probably frozen together. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  “You should be, Lawman.”

  We fell into a steady, silent rhythm and arrived at the first scree field where there was a large overhang looking like the capsized hull of a ship.

  There was a bit of light that just penetrated the veil of low-flying clouds and I thought that maybe those last horizontal rays of the sun were defining the highest portions of Cloud Peak and Blacktooth and Bomber mountains even though we couldn’t see them. I thought about the rays’ warmth, how it felt when they left the sky and you forced yourself further into your sleeping bag. I was thinking about all of these things as we traversed the ridge and followed the trail that led toward the vast boulder field that rose above us like the fallen city of Dis.

  As near as I could tell from the voice that echoed back to me from the cirque, Virgil was reading from the Inferno, the words sometimes drifting back to me through the storm. “In that still baby-boyish time of the year, when sunlight chills its curls beneath Aquarius, when nights grow shorter equalling the day, and hoar frost writes fair copies on the ground to mimic in design its snowy sister…”