As the Crow Flies

by Craig Johnson

  “The building’s closed.”

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s no big deal—there are three more exits in the basement; we just have to go down and come up another stairwell.”

  I pushed off and started down the steps. “All right, but let’s hurry; I don’t want Albert to think that something’s happened—I don’t think his heart can take it.”

  Barrett clomped down the steps behind me as I opened the basement door and walked through, my hand still clutching it when I stopped and jammed the doorway with my bulk.

  The young man ran into the back of me as I stood there. “Jesus.” He stood still for a moment and then coughed. “Why’d you stop?”

  I didn’t move. “Do you smell that?”

  “Yeah… Smells like fart.” I ignored him, and he coughed again before leaning forward into the hallway. “What is that?”

  I bent down, sniffing the air at a lower level. “Propane—a lot of it.”

  16

  If the overwhelming smell of the compressed, three-carbon-alkane, one-and-a-half-times-heavier-than-air compound was now at waist height, there was enough propane in the substantial basement to choke us to death, if not blow us to the moon if ignited.

  Barrett made a face. “Gas leak?”

  “Either that or somebody drove a propane delivery truck into the basement and opened the hatch.” I looked around. “Where are the other exits?”

  He pressed himself against the door. “Four corner stairwells and two central on either side, but we should go back up and force this door open.”

  “It’s a three-inch metal security door; if it’s been locked on the outside then there’s no way we’re getting out.”

  “You think somebody locked it?”

  “I don’t know, but Albert Black Horse was down here with me and went upstairs to check the mic designation in the Human Services office, and he didn’t come back.”

  Barrett stayed planted. “You’ve got your gun; you could shoot the lock.”

  I holstered my .45 and explained. “With the amount of propane flooding into this basement, discharging a weapon would most assuredly blow us to hell and not necessarily back.” I did a few calculations. “Barrett, this basement is filling with propane, a highly flammable gas that sinks; pretty soon we’re not going to be able to breathe because the oxygen it replaces will be gone. Now, that’s the least of our problems, because if this gas reaches an ignition point like a pilot light or any kind of open flame, this entire basement is going to be like the ass end of a Saturn-V rocket.”

  I started off again but then turned and looked at him and then down the hallway at the lightbulb filaments. “Whatever you do, don’t turn on any light switches or anything else for that matter.”

  “You think Albert did this to us?”

  I sighed, coughed, and breathed in more of the gas as we made our way down the hallway where the smell was even greater. “I don’t know, but somebody’s killing people around here and one of the key elements for pinning it on Artie Small Song is that doctored recording. I’ve got a suspicion that Artie’s side of that recording was made with the security mics in Human Services.”

  “The old security recording system?”

  “You got it.”

  He’d caught up. “When he had that blowup with Audrey?”

  “I’d avoid using the term blowup, considering our current situation.”

  He shook his head. “There aren’t any fire sources down here; they’re all up in the utility areas.”

  “That’s not what concerns me.”

  “What, then?”

  We arrived at the central stairwell. “I’ll tell you if the doors at the top of these stairs are locked, too.”

  We hustled up the steps, and it was with a great deal of resignation that I pushed down on the latch. I pushed again, just to make sure, but there was only a little movement and the doors wouldn’t open. “Damn.”

  Barrett stepped in as I peered through the small, rectangular windows and down at the bars on the other side, securely chained together with a heavy padlock. He shoved as hard as he could, but the two doors only budged open about an inch.

  “Barrett, do they normally chain the security doors together when the building is closed?”

  His eyes were widening a little as the realization of our predicament started settling in. “No, never. It’s against the law.” He went up on tiptoe again to look down at the heavy chains wrapped around the bars on the other side. “Jesus.”

  I nodded. “Like rats.”

  “We gotta get to another door.”

  “They’re all going to be locked.”

  His hands slammed against the solid surface. “Then we gotta get this one open.”

  I looked up and could see that the doors were hinged from the other side. “Is there any way out of the basement other than the doors? Utility hatches, air ducts, dumbwaiters?”

  “I don’t know.” He took a deep, polluted breath. “We’re safe, right? I mean, if all the doors are locked then there’s no way that anybody could light the gas.”

  “Sure they could; all you’d have to do is drill a hole in the floor and drop a match into the basement. Of course, they have to figure out how to get away before the explosion.”

  “Then why don’t we just stay up here above the propane?”

  “Because if that gas ignites, it’s going to expand and take out every door in the place, probably with parts of us, and I don’t mean gently.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “I’m trying to figure that out, if you’d stop asking questions.” I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Albert about the sordid history of the structure. “Is this building sitting on top of the original tribal headquarters that burnt down twice?”

  “Yeah, part of it.”

  “Do you have any idea how they used to heat that building back in the sixties and before?”

  He shook his head but then pointed at it. “Duh, the one thing we have plenty of on the Rez—coal.”

  I nodded. “That means there’s a coal chute back there somewhere if it hasn’t been filled in and sealed off.”

  I watched as he thought about it. “Like a cellar.”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s there; I mean the doors are.”

  As we gingerly made our way down the steps and opened the door at the bottom, we could tell the limited airspace in the basement was filling with even more of the gas. “Same rules; don’t flip any switches and stay clear of those lightbulbs—you break one and we’re dead.”

  We ignored the stairwell doors at the southeastern corner of the building, and we could see where the poured concrete walls changed to block. By the time we got to the rear of the building, it had changed once again to a slip-form foundation with large rocks imbedded in the concrete.

  There was a section of the wall with T-111 siding sealing off the opening. “Is this it?”

  Barrett nodded his head. “Yeah, but don’t you think it’s sealed?”

  “One way to find out.” I pulled my Case XX from my pocket, slipped it between the thin sheath of wood, and pried loose a corner, revealing the stud wall underneath. I placed a hand up to the opening. “I feel warm air.”

  I wrapped my fingers around the paneling and pulled it loose, yanking it with a little more urgency. “C’mon, help me.”

  “What if a nail scratches the concrete?”

  “Let’s try to make sure that that doesn’t happen, shall we?”

  Once we’d worked the plywood loose, we could see the facing on the other side, along with the cobwebs where the wall had been undisturbed for decades. I pushed at the top and was able to smell the freshness of clean air, spread my fingers across the splintering wood, and forced it on top of the poured concrete they had used to fill the open space behind the wall. I braced a boot against one of the two-by-fours and lodged a shoulder in the opening just enough to give m
e the leverage I needed to pull the stud loose from the header. “It’s been filled in, but there’s room at the top where you might be able to squeeze through.”

  “What about you?”

  I shook my head. “I’m too big, I’ll never fit.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Wait for you to come back and get me out of here.” I laced my hands in a stirrup to give him a boost up. “C’mon, we’re wasting time.”

  “What if I don’t find a way?”

  I smiled. “You will.”

  He placed his hiking boot into my hands, and I lifted him up to where he could flatten out and climb onto the surface of the concrete where there was about eighteen inches of space. “What if I can’t get the cellar doors open; what if they’re chained, too?”

  “Are the doors old or new?”

  “Old.”

  “Then break the wood.”

  I listened as he crawled through, carefully avoiding the nails, and slithered into the darkness. “I can see the light where the doors come together.”

  I waited and listened as he grunted with the strain of attempting to push them open. “They’re locked or something but it gives, so let me give it a try with my legs.” The sound of his exertions was accompanied by the noise of splintering wood, as a little more air broke through. “I got it, it broke the clasp, and I think I can make it. Where should I meet you?”

  “The nearest stairwell to the left, the southeast corner. Find something to cut the chain or break the padlock.” I thought about it. “And call your sister. Hell, call everybody.”

  “I thought this was a covert operation?”

  “Not anymore.”

  He laughed, and I listened as he kicked more of the wood away.

  “Anything else?”

  “Find the propane tank and turn it off.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Barrett? Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  He didn’t say anything else, and I could hear the pounding of his feet as he ran away.

  I slumped against the wall. “And hurry.”

  The stairwell was now to my right at the corner of the building. I was looking forward to more oxygen than the hallway was providing. When I got to the corner, I thought for just a split second that I might’ve heard something. “Albert?” A cough, and I adjusted my eyes to the partial darkness. “Albert!”

  There was a faint response, whispered and hoarse, from far down the hall, “Here.”

  The temptation to pull my sidearm was great but knowing that if I fired it the place would go off like a Roman candle in a fireworks trailer was enough to give me pause. I hustled down the hall—Albert lay in the doorway of the far stairwell and was trying to prop himself up. He was bleeding from a wound at the back of his head but not too badly.

  I grabbed him and lifted him above the gas—it was something of a miracle that he hadn’t choked to death already. “Albert, what happened?”

  His head lolled a bit. “Stupid, got hit from behind.”

  I got him up on his feet when I noticed that he was missing one of his shoes. “They knocked your shoe off?”

  He shook his head to clear it. “Lodged it in the doorway above so that we could get out.”

  I smiled. “Good man. C’mon, here we go.”

  Hoisting him up onto my hip, where I could grip under his arm and support most of his weight, I started us up the stairs. I looked at the exterior door and figured the first thing to do would be to get him to some fresh air; then I could decide if I was stupid enough to come back into the building. I stumbled toward it.

  Albert coughed. “All the exterior doors are locked; there’s a double-lock mechanism.” He gestured toward his side. “They took my keys.”

  I turned and looked toward the interior of the building, where Albert’s shoe was lodged in the door. It was like we were being herded. “Looks like we have to find another way out.”

  We limped our way across the concrete landing where I pulled open the door to the main part of the building, the wisps of propane gas following us; I was careful to kick Albert’s shoe out of the way.

  The lights were off in the main hallway, but the corner of the building where Human Services resided was lit up like Christmas.

  I sighed. “Any ideas?”

  He tried to stand, but I could feel that he still needed support. “We can try toward the back.”

  We turned and started down the main hallway that ran the length of the building. “Just out of curiosity, were the junction cords that had been tapped into from Human Services?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many people know that that system exists?”

  He stumbled in his attempt to get his feet underneath him. “Hardly anybody. Nobody goes into that basement; you’d have to be an old-timer, like me.”

  I thought about old-timers, red foxes, and medical bracelets—and finally scratched that itch that had been bothering me. I turned to help Albert again and when I did, I saw a familiar outline silhouetted by the EXIT lights near the center of the building.

  He was even wearing the hat and was leaning on the security desk, an unopened bottle of Wild Turkey sitting on top of the sign-in ledger.

  I stopped and watched as he stepped into the center of the hallway and faced us, his hands clutched together. “Fancy meeting you here, Herbert.”

  He paused. “Hi, Sheriff.” He pulled the unlit cigar from his mouth, and his voice was desolate and removed. “I thought I’d better clean up before you guys found out what I’d done.” He exhausted a sad laugh and shook his head. “It’s all so messed up.”

  “You killed her?”

  The response was choked in his throat, crowded there along with his heart. “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “She fell?”

  “I was trying to talk to her, but she backed up and lost her balance. I tried to get to her, but she fell.” His head jerked around in an attempt to find a way out of a place with no emotional exits. “I wouldn’t have tried to kill my own child.”

  “So Adrian’s yours?”

  “Yes.” He took a step forward, and I could see his face beneath the brim of the gray top hat, the eagle feather forward. It was at that moment I saw that he had put the cigar back in his mouth and was holding the old, combat-cut, brass-covered Zippo lighter in his hand.

  I started to speak but coughed with a whiff of the heavy gas. “I don’t suppose you’d like to take this conversation outside?”

  He shook his head. “No.” I took a couple of steps toward him, still supporting Albert, narrowing the forty feet between us.

  He lifted the lighter toward the cigar. “I think you better stay there.”

  I stopped. “Did you kill Clarence Last Bull?”

  He turned his head and looked at the door to the basement that he’d propped open to allow the gas to filter in. “He deserved it; he was a disease.” He gestured with the cigar, pointing it at me like a gun. “He beat her. He beat her, and he hurt my child.” There was a sob in his voice. “He slept with any woman who would have him… The drugs around the place—it was horrible. My beautiful, strong son living in a place like that.” He lowered the cigar but held the lighter next to his chest.

  I waited a moment. “Are you planning on taking all of us with you?”

  He nodded a curt nod. “That was the idea.”

  “Was?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’m just… so tired of all of it.” He looked down the hall. “Where’s Barrett?”

  “He got out through the old coal chute in the back.”

  “That’s good; I wouldn’t want him getting hurt.”

  I took another step and nodded toward the bottle of liquor on the desk. “So, it’s just you, me, and Albert here to celebrate?”

  I could see him swallow as he brought the cigar back up and glanced at the bottle. “I guess so.”

  I took a few more steps. “So you’re going to kill off the only blood relative Adrian’s got?”


  He paused. “I don’t see any other way out of this.”

  “There isn’t any way out of this, but there’s a way through it—you killed a man, and you’re going to do time; I don’t know how much because that isn’t my decision, but you’ll be alive and can tell your son what happened. You can tell him about his mother.”

  He nodded, but I could see his face tighten as he coughed. “She was a good woman.” He stepped to the side and gestured with the cigar again, as if ushering us out of a movie theatre. “You might as well get out of here, Sheriff. The stairwell is unlocked. That way I can have a last drink and light my cigar.”

  I took a few steps closer. “You’re sure that’s what you want to do?”

  He nodded his head some more, and I got within twenty feet of him before he stuffed the cigar in the corner of his mouth and flipped open the aged Zippo. “I’m sure.”

  I looked down and could see the old chief’s eyes, dazed but watching us. “Albert?”

  The eyes wobbled toward me. “Yes?”

  “You think you can make it out of the building on your own?”

  He nodded. “I think so, but…”

  “You need to go. I’m just going to stay here for a minute and talk to Herbert.” Even with his passive resistance, I ushered him through the side and watched as he carefully made his way toward the exterior door. He pushed on the bar, the door swung wide, and he turned to look at me.

  I was thankful for the flood of clear air, but it didn’t last long as the heavy door swung back and closed like a tomb.

  Casually, Herbert lifted the lighter to the cigar, his thumb on the wheel of the thing; his only souvenir of a long-dead war. He didn’t move but just stood there with his head dipped, ready to strike. “Tell my son that I loved him.”

  Keeping my intentions clear, I turned and folded my arms, leaning my back against the coolness of the corner of the wall behind me. I crossed my boots and stared down at the six feet between us as if I had all the time in the world. I brought my face up slowly to look into the one brown eye that was revealed under his hat with the one gray eye under the brim of mine.