As the crow flies wl-8

by Craig Johnson

  “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 w
ith 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.

  He still didn’t move but spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I’m not bluffing, Sheriff.”

  “I know that; I also know that as soon as this propane hits an ignition source like a water heater or a pilot light, it won’t matter who’s bluffing.” I blew air through my nose in an attempt to drive some of the gas away. “You say you’re tired and that you’ve had enough. Well, there’s really only one way to end this in a respectable fashion-give me the lighter.”

  If I was going to make a grab for it, now would’ve been the time.

  It was then that there was an incredible clatter behind Herbert from the other end of the hallway. I fully expected the building to go up, but it didn’t, and we both stood there as I glanced out the window and saw Barrett Long’s truck dragging the doors at the end of a tow strap.

  I was right; he did figure it out.

  I was just glad the sparks the metal doors were making on the surface of the parking lot were far away and receding.

  Our attention was suddenly drawn to the other end of the hall where Lolo Long had thrown herself through the door and had swung both the beam of her Maglite and the barrel of that big revolver of hers toward us. “Freeze. Police!”

  She was doing better.

  Herbert backed against the desk and looked at me, his thumb still on the wheel of the Zippo.

  I shouted as quickly as I could. “Don’t shoot. The entire basement is full of propane; one shot and the whole place goes up.”

  She looked uncertain but continued down the hall toward us with her sidearm and flashlight still pointed toward Herbert. It was only when she was about twenty feet away that she noticed the cigar and, more important, the lighter in his hands.

  “Holster the weapon, Lolo.”

  She ignored me and gestured at him with the barrel of the Smith. “Drop the lighter.”

  We stood there with her on one side of the stairwell opening, me on the other, and Herbert facing the creeping gas that continued to seep up from the basement.

  “Chief, holster the weapon.”

  She looked at me for the briefest of seconds and then did as I’d asked.

  I took a breath before speaking again, hoping it wasn’t my last. “Herbert? I sure would hate to think that after all the places we’ve been and all the stuff we’ve been through, that it would all end like this.”

  After a moment, his eyes turned to mine.

  I pushed off the wall and stuffed my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “You say you’re tired. Well, I’m tired too.” I watched as his eyes shifted, and he studied the lighter in his hands. “My daughter is getting married at Crazy Head Springs in a few days and I sure would like to be there for that, just like I’d think Chief Long here would like to go see her son up in Billings, and I imagine you’d like to be around for Adrian’s first birthday whether it’s through Plexiglas or not.”

  He didn’t move, and I wondered for just the briefest of moments what it would be like to be flash fried in the instant it would take for him to roll the thumbwheel on the flint and spark the tiniest of flames in the lighter’s windscreen. The alarms would clamor and most likely the building itself would be lifted off its foundation; the sprinklers would come on, but unlike the movies, reality would dictate water pressure-and the Tribal Headquarters of the Northern Cheyenne would burn again.

  We would likely never know it or see it; instead, the force of ignition and instantaneous explosion would carry the three of us through the hallway, through the doors and staircase, and throw us out onto the lawn like pulverized, flame-broiled meat.

  But I had faith in Herbert His Good Horse, the man who had brought so much laughter and good will to his fellow man. “Considering what it is you’re thinking of doing, I have to tell you that I don’t see much romance in death. We’ve seen too much of it.” I sighed and continued, figuring that if I was going to die, I was at least going to have my say. “I’ve been in these situations before and can tell you that there’s nothing romantic about it, nothing heroic-dead is just dead.” I slowly pulled a single hand from my pocket and held it out to him, steady there between us, palm up. “What is it that Jimi Hendrix says about love?”

  He kept his eyes on me but didn’t move, the words on the lighter pouring out of him like music. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

  His thumb relaxed on the wheel of the lighter. “Hey, a Native American, First Nations Indigenous Person, and a white guy walk into a multicultural drinking establishment…” He studied me with a broad smile. “You don’t like that one? Neither do I. Okay, try this one-two Indians walk out of a bar…”

  I waited for the punch line with my hand still extended.

  His smile faded. “Hey… it could happen.”

  Epilogue

  I stood there in my stiff dress clothes and tried not to scratch as I watched the traditional Cheyenne wedding ceremonial procession approach, replete with mounted retinue and my white-buckskin-clad daughter.

  As father of the bride, I had been offered a traditional outfit of my own but was having enough trouble with my tuxedo jacket and tie. I stuffed a forefinger into the collar of my dress shirt and pulled it a little looser, trying not to feel like the butler to the Northern Cheyenne tribe.

  After a moment, I shifted back to twirling my wife’s engagement ring on my little finger and felt a sharp jab from an elbow. “Stop fidgeting.”

  I spoke to her in a low voice. “I can’t help it; I think the last time I wore this was at the Wyoming Sheriff’s Association Ball when I first got elected.”

  “I thought sheriffs didn’t have balls?”

  “Ha, ha.” I looked down at my undersheriff and sister of the groom. She’d elected to come over to the bride’s side because she liked us better. “I figured we’d lost you to Nebraska.”

  “Fuck that.”

  The formal procession drew near, and Cady was radiant.

  “She looks great.”

  I smiled. “Yep, she does.”

  “It’s nice that she’s not showing.”

  I gave Victoria Moretti a look.

  “I’m just sayin’.” Her eye wandered. “Even my two-headed brother looks good.”

  I studied Michael, who was about to become my son-in-law. He looked a little dazed and confused, kind of the way t
hat other guy did what seemed like a century ago. Granted, Martha and I hadn’t had the pomp and circumstance; we’d had only that justice of the peace from Miles City and his wife playing the accordion, but it had been enough to galvanize our lives together.

  Michael looked like he might run, but there were the three other Moretti brothers to chase him down, and the old man, Chief of Detectives North, who would likely just put a bullet in his leg and then charge the municipality of Philadelphia for his ammunition.

  Lena Moretti was lovely, as usual, in a knee-length off-white dress; she was doing her best to look cool and unflappable as her high heels sank into the rich earth of Crazy Head Springs.

  We had a motley bunch seated on our side of the aisle-my dispatcher, Ruby, with Dog; my old boss, Lucian; and a contingency of deputies-Saizarbitoria with Marie and Antonio, the Ferg and his wife, and Frymire, Double-Tough having volunteered to man the desk back at the office. Dorothy, who had made the wedding cake from one of Alphonse’s old-world recipes, was seated next to Lucian, as were most of the field office of the FBI, including Agent in Charge Cliff Cly, and even a couple of Philadelphia Police Department detectives of our own, Katz and Gowder. Mary Barsad was there with Juana and Benjamin, and Omar and Lana and Bill and, of course, Doc Bloomfield.

  The Cheyenne chief sat in his wheelchair with Melissa behind him and smiled over the pageantry of the approaching bride. His right-hand man, the Cheyenne Nation, stood a little closer to us on the ceremonial bed of white sage. I repeated to myself, over and over- E-hestana Na-he-stonahanotse, E-hestana Na-he-stonahanotse, E-hestana Na-he-stonahanotse.

  “Are you chanting to yourself?”

  I hadn’t realized I was mumbling. “I’m trying to remember how to say my line.”

  She shook her head and spoke from the side of her mouth. “Look, nobody’s going to be paying any attention to you. All right?”

  I nodded.

  She changed the subject, probably hoping to divert my attention. “So, KRZZ is looking for a new morning drive guy?”