Death Without Company wl-2

by Craig Johnson

  I ducked down a little and pulled the door open about a foot and looked down a hallway that seemed to run the length of the thing. Cheap paneling and some sort of indoor-outdoor threadbare carpeting with a few window screens leaning against the interior wall was all that was visible. No Leo Gaskell. I looked down the hallway in the other direction, but all I could make out was the textured ceiling and a cheap light fixture; at least I could be sure that Leo wasn’t going to jump on me from above. I stood back up, took another deep breath, and casually opened the door the rest of the way.

  Nothing.

  I stood still for a moment, then leaned in about two inches and checked both sides, did it again, and then again. Still nothing, so I shot the works and stuck my head all the way in along with the. 45. There was a closed door to my right and another at the end of the hallway that was partially open and led to a living room in which, sitting on an imitation leather sofa and swathed in about four Hudson Bay and buffalo blankets, was, who I assumed to be, Ellen Runs Horse.

  I cleared my throat. “Hello.” The condensation from my breath stayed in front of my face; it was probably colder in the trailer than it was outside.

  She didn’t move, just kept looking at me from beneath the blankets; after a bit she finally said, “Eeh.” Crow. She said yes as a statement that held neither question nor interest. The small cloud from her breath collected there in the gloom.

  “I’m Sheriff Walt Longmire, Absaroka County.” I felt foolish saying it, but it was procedure. “Ellen Runs Horse?”

  “Eeh.”

  Same inflection. “Are you alone?”

  A moment passed. “Eeh.”

  I was feeling a little more secure but decided to test the theory using Vic’s litmus test for sanity. “Ellen, did you know that I was a Chinese fighter pilot?”

  “Eeh.”

  It was a fleeting security.

  I stretched up, got the majority of my girth in the doorstep, and wriggled inside. I was relatively sure that Leo wasn’t in the mobile home; if he had been, he would have most certainly bludgeoned me to death as I wallowed on the floor. I pushed off the questionable carpet and slumped against the wall. I looked back down the hallway where Ellen Runs Horse was fumbling with something in the blankets; she was probably trying to get up. I waved a hand at her. “That’s okay, Ellen.”

  It was then that I saw the barrel of a chrome-plated, pearl-handled. 32 rise up from the blankets like a howitzer and tremble as she endeavored to pull the trigger.

  “Ellen…?” That was about all I got out before the. 32 belched fire and the ceiling above me blew apart with a smart sound. The crack of the automatic in the confined space was tremendous and my ears rang so loudly that I could barely hear myself yelling. I staggered against the interior wall and could feel my hand tightening around the grip of the. 45 in spite of myself. I coughed it out in a yell. “Jesus, Ellen!”

  The automatic wavered but rose again as I dodged into the room to my right. The next bullet went through the first wall into a mattress that was leaning against it. I’m not sure how much protection I thought the thin walls of the mobile home were going to be, but the structure was falling below my expectations. I looked at the hole in the wall; she was getting closer. “Ellen?” Silence.

  I waited, but the next shot didn’t come. There was another shuffling noise, so I ventured toward the door and slowly peeked around the jamb. Henry was there, kneeling before her, with the tiny automatic cradled in his hands. “I think it is safe now.”

  “Jesus!” I turned the corner and looked at the two of them.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Jesus!”

  He was doing his best not to laugh. “You take a little walk down the hallway and come back when your vocabulary increases.”

  I stood there and took a few deep breaths as they continued a very low conversation in Crow, a language that, like Cheyenne, seemed to catch in the throat of the speaker. I could feel my heart rate beginning to slow to normal.

  I picked up a few words, but they didn’t make much sense to me. Her face was broad, and she had thick brows that seemed to gather at the center and curve up, giving her a sad and questioning look. The outside corners of her eyes folded within themselves, hiding the edges of the baking chocolate pupils. Strong creases at the corners of her mouth, cascading from the cheekbones, made it difficult to tell if she had ever smiled. The movement of her lips was slight, and her voice barely carried.

  After she finished talking, Henry took a plastic cup from a television tray to her right, glanced inside, and reached to her feet for what looked like a half-frozen gallon jug of water. He shook it to make sure some of the water was still liquid, refilled the cup, and placed the straw at her lips. While she drank, I took a look around. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, a motley bottlebrush type, which was decorated with homemade ornaments constructed of Mason jar lids and old photographs. Standing beside the blind television set, the holiday enthusiasm of the scraggly tree gave the room the most depressing appearance of any I’d been in, never mind the opened and emptied cans of creamed corn, the mushroom soup with a single spoon sticking up, the heel ends of a loaf of white bread, and another jug of water that had frozen solid.

  He closed her tiny hands around the cup, and she held it. Her eyes followed Henry when he stood; he quietly spoke to her again and then stepped toward me. “She is touched.” He glanced back over to Ellen who seemed content to suck from the straw of the plastic cup. “She says that none of her friends have come to visit her for a long time.”

  “What’s the story on the pistol?”

  “Evidently Leo told her to shoot anybody that came in.”

  “What’d she say about him?”

  “She thinks I am Leo.”

  I nodded a tight nod. “How did you get in?”

  “Just forced it with the tomahawk.”

  “Noticeable?”

  He handed me the automatic, which still had a round left. “Not that much.” His eyes came back up to mine. “Why?”

  “You’ve got to get her out of here.” He looked at me. “I don’t see any other option. We’ve got to get her some attention, but he might come back and, if he does, I want someone here to meet him.”

  “You are in no condition…”

  I looked back over to Ellen Runs Horse. “You speak the language, and she trusts you. Chances are he’s still in town somewhere, but I can get Double Tough on the radio and get Vic or Saizarbitoria down here later.” I crossed back down the hallway and looked out the window. “We’ve only got about an hour till it’s really dark.” The wind was blowing again, and my boot prints were almost gone. I turned back to Henry. “You better get out of here.”

  We had tucked Ellen into the passenger side of the Bullet and allowed Dog to share the front, since he seemed to make her more at ease. I looked through my one eye at the Cheyenne Nation. “When you get out of here, call ahead and get them to throw together some supplies and bring a little backup.”

  He pulled the heavy leather coat aside and climbed in, fastening his seatbelt and pulling the Special Forces tomahawk from behind him. The carbon steel surface absorbed light like a black hole. “Here.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want that thing; I wouldn’t know what to do with it.” I patted the chrome handle of the tiny automatic, which was sticking out from my belt, balanced the Remington on my shoulder, and felt the. 45 in the holster. “I have every gun we’ve got.” He nodded and glanced toward the ridge. “Radio Double Tough and have him call in. I’ll be here.” He nodded and kept looking at me. “Aren’t you going to turn on the lights?” I reached in and hit the switch he was looking for as the blue and red reflectors bled ghosts of light across the late afternoon snow.

  He watched them for a moment. “This is the best part of your job.” He placed a hand against the driver’s side window as he passed, the large dark fingers unraveling against the glass like hemp rope.

  I watched as the truck struggle
d to stay alongside the canyon wall, disappearing in the snow as the darker gray of its outline grew lighter with the distance, and the sound of the big Detroit motor planed, muffled, and vanished. I stood there for a while longer, wondering, like I always did, if this was the right thing to do. It looked like it was going to be a long night, so I turned and started the trudge back to the trailer. I was interrupted by a weak call on the radio.

  Static. “Hey Sheriff, this is BR75115. The weather is comin’ in, just like…” I pulled the radio from my belt. “Absaroka County Sheriff Unit One, come in?” After a moment, a very faint signal came through.

  Static. “Hey, Sheriff, how you…”

  I smiled. “I’m good, how about you?”

  Static. “I’m fired.”

  The signal faded out completely, and I readjusted the gain. “Hello? Jess?” Nothing. I dropped my head a little and then keyed the mic again. “Jess, if you can hear me?” At least Henry had gotten out. I tried the radio again. Static. I looked at the radio, thought about my luck, and keyed the mic one final time.

  Static. Damn.

  I walked around to the back of the trailer so that Leo wouldn’t notice any more of my tracks. I closed the door behind me and decided to check the other rooms. There was a back bedroom at the end of the hall with another mattress squatting in the corner, a particleboard dresser that had seen better days, and a vintage console television. There was nothing in the closet but old clothes and well-worn shoes, giving me an indication of the frugal life that Ellen Runs Horse must live. The next room was a lot more interesting; there was a card table with Sterno burners and all the products used to produce meth on a clandestine laboratory scale. The floorboards were lined with plastic gallon jugs containing the toxic castoff of the operation, and it was evident that Leo’s drug venture was still a going concern.

  I walked into the living room and looked at the beat-to-shit fake tree and wished it a Merry Christmas. The ornaments were made out of Mason jar lids with glue around the threaded edges to hold on the glitter, and there were bows of knitting yarn and ribbons to make the tiny ornaments brave; some of them used photographs that were old enough to be in Henry’s Mennonite collection. There was a sepia one that carried the bruised image of a young girl with braids playing marbles. She had on a cap and an old jacket and a face of utmost concentration. I turned the ornament in my hand and read on the back, printed in block letters, ELLEN WALKS OVER ICE. There was another of a young man in a Thermopolis varsity football uniform doing the old chuck and duck; I could see that it was Leo. I turned it over to confirm my guess; the block letters said simply LEO, with no surname.

  There were others, but the one that next caught my attention was one toward the back; I guess I noticed it because its face was turned toward the wall. It twisted gently as I watched, revealing a very young Leo with the man who must be his father. He had on a hat, a broad-brim, flattop like the Powder River cowboys wore, and his head was tilted down to the young Leo, the hat hiding the eyes. The jawline was discernible, along with the lips. The connection to Ellen was there, but the black-and-white photo did nothing to tell me whether his skin was white or red; he didn’t look particularly Indian nor did he look particularly like Charlie. It was like doing a lineup with jigsaw puzzles. I turned the ornament over, but all it said was LEO amp; FATHER. He was her son, and she hadn’t even written down his name, but she had cared enough to keep track.

  I had the sandwiches that Dorothy had made and the coffee, so I had something to eat and drink. I went over and retrieved one of the jugs of water as well, the one that was only half frozen. I might need it and, if I didn’t keep it with me, chances are it wasn’t going to stay thawed. I gathered the blankets that were left and the buffalo robe, dragging them to a chair so as to sit as far away from the creamed corn as the furniture would allow. I pulled the Mag Lite from my belt for future use, placed the ornament on one knee, and pulled the little automatic out and rested it on my other knee. I placed the shotgun between my legs and pulled the. 45 from my holster and checked it again. I felt like Zapata.

  I studied the ornament and stared at the partial face, knowing that I had seen this man, knowing that he was out there, knowing that he and Leo were in cahoots, cahoots being a legal term in Wyoming, see cahooting in the first degree, intent to cahoot, and so on.

  I sat there and thought about what a long wait this might turn into and about the course of things and looked around again. I noticed a strap sticking out from under the couch Ellen had been sitting on that was made from the kind of tubular webbing that is used for backpacks. I sat the gun on the floor along with the ornament, flipped back the buffalo robe, and moved across the small room to kneel by the sofa. The strap was followed by a grimy daypack. The zipper to the main compartment was broken, but it had been fastened together with large safety pins. I unhooked the pins and had a look inside: dozens of small glass bottles and a small bundle wrapped in the Durant Courant containing close to what looked like about $40,000 in mixed currency.

  Leo, you bad boy. Whether he would slog his way through a blizzard to the middle fork of Crazy Woman to a trailer and his loopy grandmother was suddenly academic. Leo might leave his grandmother to starve to death, but he would come back for the drugs and the money.

  I put the bundle back in the knapsack and stuffed the bag under the sofa when I noticed a battered cooler in the kitchen. I wondered what Leo might have put in there. The kitchen reminded me of my grumbling stomach, but my curiosity was stronger than my appetite. If I had been hungry, I wasn’t anymore. I pulled the aged skull of an adult male from the cooler. I leaned against the counter and held it in my hand. “Alas, poor Charlie.” The prominent gold tooth was there, central incisor, right. I guess Double Tough hadn’t looked at the head; I didn’t blame him. “You got off easy, you son of a bitch.”

  I carefully placed the skull back in the cooler and walked over to the window where I raised the blind just far enough to see a fog bank beginning to form along the shadowed canyon wall. The creek water must have been warmer than the air and, if the low cloud cover held, this was going to be a very foggy, as well as dark, place in about thirty minutes. Now all I had to do was relax and watch what little light there was at the bottom of the windows die.

  Static. “Unit One, this is BR75115, come in?”

  The blankets slipped and the ornament fell to the floor, but at least I didn’t shoot the door. I had forgotten to turn off the radio. I struggled through the folds in the blanket and pulled it out, the small glow of the channel display providing a comforting light. “Hey Jess. You got through. Over?”

  Static. “Sheriff, I’m at the base radio at equipment storage. I’ve got your dog here, and he’s been shot.”

  I stared at the radio as a million and one things ran through my mind, all of them bad. “Are you sure?”

  Static. “Yeah, I’m sure. It looks like a small caliber. I’m doing all I can for him.”

  “How did he get there?”

  Static. “He must’a drug himself. I went out and followed the blood trail as far as I could, but you can’t see a damn thing with all this fog.”

  I thought about Henry. If Dog was shot… “I’m going to need you to call my office, tell them that I think we’ve got a man down and that we need all the help we can get. Then get the HPs out here.”

  Static. “Roger that, out.”

  Here I sat with every weapon that we had, and my closest friend and blood brother was probably dead out there in the snow somewhere. It was a solid three miles back to the methane wells and that was if I could find him. That’s if Leo left him, and what were the chances that Leo would have left him alive?

  I’m lousy at ignoring first instincts and mine told me to gather the weapons and head out. I stuffed the little automatic back in my belt, holstered the. 45 cocked and locked along with the Mag Lite, pulled the buffalo robe around me, and flipped the shotgun up on my shoulder. I stuffed the ornament into my duty jacket and started for the door, opened
it, and sidestepped. I pulled my hat down tight and raised my head slowly to look into the vaporous white. Barely visible in the fog were blue and red lights that blinked across the blurred canyon walls.

  My truck.

  The headlights were shining at an odd angle and the blue and red ones were simply revolving in place, so I was pretty sure Leo had misjudged the width of the trail and had planted the three-quarter ton over the edge. He was lucky he had done it near the bottom, or the truck would have flipped and killed him. The headlights cast to the left, away from the homestead and the trailer. I stepped down and pulled the door closed quietly behind me.

  It was only about 150 yards, but the fog made it seem like miles. I started the slow trudge, staying to the right and keeping my one eye on the slightly illuminated portion of the white distance. If he was coming to the trailer, he was going to have to cross that bit of diffused light and, when he did, I would be there.

  I lowered the Remington from my shoulder and allowed it to swing forward; with all my training, here I was shooting with one eye. There was a movement to my left, just out of the headlight beams. I unfocused as always, allowing my eye to become a motion detector, and waited until whatever it was out there moved again. It did, and it was large. Not only tall but wide. I stood there, watching as it lumbered into view, in no way the outline of a man. It was at least four feet across and as tall as I am. I was thinking that it was a cow, confused and trying to find some relief from the storm or a horse trying to do the same. It was a blur in the fog. It swayed there for a moment, and it seemed as though a wing extended outward and then folded back.

  After a few seconds, the wing extended again and caught a small movement of the air, then flipped sideways only to fall. It shifted its weight and then both wings caught the breeze, and I was sure the thing would take flight. My mouth fell open, and my mind was jarred to the image of Henry at the Busy Bee when he had spread the wings on his duster, his battle cry shaking the windows of the cafe.