Depth of Winter

by Craig Johnson

  I rubbed my head where he’d hit me. “I thought for sure you were dead.”

  “No, alive and relatively well, considering.” He glanced past me through the open door. “What’s going on?”

  “I saved Cady.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “But I’m not so sure about us.”

  “Ah, but then all we have to do is escape.”

  Ushering him back through the door, I explained about Bianca and Alonzo. “As far as I know they blocked the road and are on their way down the mountain.” I paused. “She saved me.”

  “My sister?”

  “Yep, she saved me.”

  “She is an amazing woman.” He shook his head and thought about how to get out. “The roadblock will not hold Bidarte for long, but if Bianca and Alonzo get a good enough head start they should be able to drive north from Torero and get back to our place.”

  “Then what?”

  “That is according to what direction we use. We will not be able to escape on that road—Bidarte is sure to go that way after us; only the insane will go by way of the canyon and the river, especially since I do not know of any horses or mules here. Mules are really the only form of transport that can navigate those trails.”

  “Then it’s the canyon, but I’m wanting to inflict a little damage before we go.”

  He followed as we continued to open the doors and release the men who remained. “I assumed as much.”

  * * *

  —

  With the help of the liberated prisoners, we were able to dump not only the crates full of drugs, but also the cash from the windows at the end of the hall into the space behind the monastery where the smell of the slag heaps from the sulfur mine and the methane from the decomposing bodies was strongest.

  Patting the last man on the shoulder, Adan dismissed him, explaining that anywhere besides with us was probably safer and we stood there in the hallway, alone.

  “What good is all this going to do?”

  Dumping the last crate through the window, I turned to look at him. “I’m going to set it all on fire.”

  His eyes widened. “You are going to ignite the mines?”

  “I am.”

  He looked out the window at the caves and the slag heaps that trailed down the rock face, the luminescent yellow of the sulfur even more visible at night. “We have no idea what kind of damage that might do.”

  “Sulfur doesn’t explode unless in a contained environment like those uninhabited caves, otherwise it’ll just burn.”

  “And produce sulfur dioxide gas.”

  “Yep, but anybody who’s interested should be able to move the blockade pretty quickly—then they can all safely escape.”

  “And if Bidarte and his men attempt to stay and retrieve their money and goods?”

  “They die.” I looked out at the radiant cliffs. “Only appropriate that the devil should choke to death on brimstone, don’t you think?”

  “Genius.” Smiling, he shook his head. “I only hope the retainer wall is enough to contain the rockslide.”

  “In the meantime, we need to get out of here and to those mules, because I don’t think they’re going to react positively to all the pyrotechnics.”

  With Adan following, I worked my way back down the hall. I was unhappy to hear noises and shouting from the plaza and rewarded the first gunman to come around the corner with the wooden butt of the AK. He wasn’t completely out, so I threw him in one of the rooms and blocked the door. Collecting the Kalashnikov from the floor, I handed it to Adan. “Here, we can start up an Eastern bloc gun shop back at your place.”

  We’d made it to the end of the hallway when I heard the sound of a simulated electronic firefight. Glancing back at Adan, I lifted a finger to my lips and then slowly pushed the door open to find Peter Lowery in his game chair, back to us as he decimated attacking soldiers on the screen.

  He had his headphones on, but the volume was so loud we could hear it from the hallway. Slowly, I brought up the barrel of the 7.62x39mm and fired a few rounds.

  The large flatscreen exploded with a great deal of flying glass and sparks as Lowery fell backward onto the floor, the space-age chair spilling him out at my feet as his headphones flew off. The gunfire continued, the sound system evidently not connected to the TV.

  I aimed at the computer tower and blew it apart with a few more rounds.

  Lowery started screaming. “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “Shut up.”

  He slowly removed his arms from his face and looked up at me. “You’re alive?”

  “That isn’t the half of it.” I reached down and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, along with some chest, and lifted him up to his unsteady feet.

  “Wait, wait!”

  Transferring my hand to his throat, I pulled him in close. “For what?”

  “I’m the one that helped you call the cops, remember?”

  “And sent them to a restaurant in Mexico City.”

  “What?”

  “Culpepper said you gave them the coordinates for the Taco Garage or something.”

  “What? Wait, no . . . Culpepper is full of shit, man. He wouldn’t know the coordinates of his asshole if he didn’t wipe it every day.” He tried to dislodge my hand but gave up as I spun him around and put him against the wall, lifting him till he was on tiptoe. “Look, the Feds would know if I gave them the coordinates of the capital of Mexico, honest!”

  “Then where did you send them?”

  He looked around, the panic writ broad across his face. “Here, I sent them here—goddamn it!”

  “Why did you backtrack and rat us out?”

  His expression made it plain as he struggled with my hand some more. “So they wouldn’t kill me. Jesus!”

  I turned to Adan. “Do you believe him?”

  The Doc nodded. “I think he’s too scared to lie.”

  “You think we can trust him?”

  “As long as we have the upper hand, yes.”

  I turned back to the computer whiz. “You change sides again, and I’ll cut your head off and put it on a stick, you got me?” He nodded, and I lowered him to the ground. “Do you have some other way of contacting the outside world?”

  “You mean, besides the computer you just shot up?”

  “Yep.”

  He reached down and pulled up a small, padded vinyl container and unzipped it, producing a smallish cell phone in a hard black case with yellow highlights. “Sonim XP.”

  “What good is that going to do if we don’t have service?”

  “It’s a sat phone, it’ll work anywhere, almost.”

  “Almost?”

  “Inmarsat doesn’t work at the North and South poles, but other than that . . . I don’t know, sometimes it doesn’t work and you have to turn it off and back on again like everything else, but as long as you have power and a clear view of the sky all systems should be go.”

  I took it from him and stared at its blatant simplicity. “How does it work?”

  “Like a cell phone.”

  “Calling the US?”

  “Country code 011 and then 870 and the number.”

  “Charger?”

  “Unless you’re going to talk for more than eight hours, you should be fine.”

  I nodded, stuffing the thing in my pocket. “Now, where do they keep Alexia?”

  “Who?”

  “The Mexican woman who was taking care of my daughter.”

  He glanced up. “Second floor.”

  I shoved him toward the door. “Show me.”

  Massaging his throat, he croaked, “What about me, don’t I get a gun?”

  Adan and I spoke simultaneously. “No.”

  I pushed him out in front as we made the stairwell and moved up to the second floor where the ha
llway appeared empty.

  I glanced at Lowery, and he pointed farther down the hallway to the door on the end. “That one, they were keeping her in that one and the one next to it.”

  Hustling down the hall, I motioned for Adan to wait at the stairwell, just to make sure no one came up behind us. The accommodations were a little nicer on this floor, the doors replete with regular locks, and I noticed the key sticking out of the mechanism where Peter said they were keeping Alexia, which I found handy. I took the precaution of knocking on the door. “Alexia, it’s me, the sheriff.”

  There was no answer.

  I knocked louder. “Alexia, it’s me, Walt Longmire.”

  “Sheriff?” Her voice was faint but still discernible.

  I turned the key and pushed the door open to find her on the floor beside a chair. Kneeling at her side, I turned her over and could see that one eye was blackened and swollen to the point of being completely shut and that the skin was broken at the bridge of her nose and at the corner of her mouth. The side of her forehead was scuffed and bleeding where it looked as if she’d been kicked, and her nostrils were clogged with blood. “Oh, Alexia . . .”

  “It look much worse than is.”

  Adan had already returned from the next room with a few washcloths, dripping with water, and gently began cleaning her. “Who did this to you?”

  Struggling to enunciate, she spat out the words. “Culpepper. When they come to get Miss Cady I fight with them and knock him down in front of his men.”

  “Oh, I bet he liked that.”

  She attempted a smile. “He is very angry.”

  “Uh huh.” I helped her to sit up. “Can you stand?”

  “Yes, yes, but where is . . . ?”

  I steadied her as she struggled to her feet. “Safe, and on her way out of town—where we should be getting.”

  She squared her shoulders and planted her feet in the sensible shoes and made for the door like a dreadnought. “We go.”

  Glancing at the other two, I smiled, and we followed, finally overtaking her in the hallway where I moved to the front and started down the stairs toward the plaza, hoping with all my might that we’d run into Culpepper.

  I retraced the route I’d taken to get there, avoiding the crowds by staying along the walls of the square. We hung a sharp left before following the wall to the narrow street a little ways behind the sale barn and the small meadow where I hoped the mules were still grazing as if nothing had happened.

  Most of the people who had been at the auction were rushing toward the monastery and the main road, so I wasn’t too worried about running into anybody in the dark, but things were calming down and it was just a question of time before they started looking for us.

  When we turned the corner of an adjacent building, the four modes of transportation raised their heads to look at us, and I was never so happy to see a team of mules in my life.

  Lowery stopped dead and turned to look at us. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I nudged him forward with the barrel of my AK. “What?”

  “I thought you had a helicopter or something.” He stumbled forward, looking back at me. “Donkeys?”

  “Mules, and if you hurt their feelings you’ll have to walk.”

  Arriving at the animals, he glanced around. “I think I’d prefer it.”

  Turning to Adan, I handed him and Alexia the leads and pointed toward the precipice where we’d met the patrol. “You two go ahead, and I’ll meet you at the rock outcropping on the ridge where we let the kid go.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  I glanced at the wall and pulled the remaining grenade from my pocket, the darkened cliffs looking ominous and the smell of sulfur choking the air. “Light this place up like the Fourth of July.”

  “Día de los Muertos.”

  “I sure hope not, but you’ll have a ringside seat from up on that ridge.” I patted his shoulder and then gave Alexia a hug. I watched as Adan nodded and started off with two of the mules and Lowery in tow.

  Alexia sat there on her mule. “I stay with you.”

  “No.” I gestured after the departing two who had paused on the trail looking back at us. Turning and handing her my rifle, I paused a moment to lean my head forward where we touched on the spot where she was undamaged. “I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done for me and my family.” Lifting my face, I kissed her dark hair with the few threads of silver. “Now let me help you up and hang on to that mule—I don’t think he’s going to like what happens next.”

  Watching as she caught up and all of them began threading their way on the trail, I started fussing with the fuse mechanism on the M67 and tried to remember the grenades we’d trained with back in Vietnam. The one I’d tossed in the arena had blown off a few sparks, but I wasn’t sure if that would be enough to ignite the sulfur-laden overburden on the other side. I’d heard stories in Wyoming where the heat of a dirt bike exhaust had been enough to light up fields of the stuff, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  As I stepped up on the wall’s footers, I thought of all the bodies that had been dumped on the other side and reassured myself that they were better off incinerated than lying there rotting.

  Adjusting the fuse to the shortest possible time, I was pretty sure that I’d get the maximum amount of spark.

  I looked back up the hill and could see in the periodic moonlight that Alexia, Adan, and Lowery and the mules had reached the first cutback and, in a few minutes, would be safely out of harm’s way—at least I hoped.

  I went through my calculations and figured it would only take seconds for the blue flames to travel up the cliffs and hit the mines, at which point the trapped sulfur dioxide gas would bring at least part of the mountainside down in a monumental tidal wave of blue flame that would look like the wrath of an angry god.

  I looked again and was pretty sure I saw my friends’ outlines in the full moon at the high point of the ridge about to disappear by the rock outcropping nearly nine hundred yards away.

  I pulled the pin on the M67 and turned back to the wall, just drawing my arm up and making to throw, when I heard the distinct sound of more than a half dozen fully automatic weapons being charged, the clacking noise echoing off the wall in front of me.

  Turning slowly with the grenade still in my hand, I was greeted by Culpepper and eight of his closest gunmen, the pale, ferocious blue eye focusing on me from below the brim of my hat and above the iron sights of his M16 carbine. “Hey Sheriff, what’re you up to?”

  I shrugged, gesturing with the grenade. “What would a party be without fireworks?” He motioned for me to step down, which I didn’t do, gesturing again with the grenade. “You don’t mind if I’m careful with this?”

  “What? You worried about smoking us to death?”

  That’s what I got for trying to use the same trick twice.

  He stepped forward, now only a couple of yards away, as the others fanned out. “You the one that dumped all our stuff out the windows back at the monastery?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Yeah, well the four dumbasses who were supposed to be guarding it have been maximally demoted.” He gestured with the gun again. “C’mon, get down.” I did, this time, figuring I didn’t have many choices as he lowered the weapon but still kept it aimed at me. “So, anything to say before I demote you?”

  “Your boss isn’t going to like that.”

  “Yeah? Well, he doesn’t get a vote anymore.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Me and my guys, with all this shit-show going on, we’ve decided to promote ourselves—we’re taking over.”

  I sighed. “Bidarte’s not going to like that either.”

  “Well, like I said—he doesn’t get a vote. We’ve been putting up with his esoteric shit for long enough,
and we think it’s time for a change of regime.”

  “With you in charge?”

  He smiled some more and then assumed an expression of humility that did not suit him. “You know, I’ve wracked my brain, and I honestly can’t think of anybody better.”

  “Probably didn’t take much wracking.”

  He nodded. “Well, at least you get the honor of being my first official act.” I watched as he raised the barrel of the M16 and centered it between my eyes. “It’s been nice knowing you, Sheriff.”

  Jumping in spite of myself at the sound of the shot, I stood there without moving as seven more rang out and all of Culpepper’s henchmen slumped to the ground, the loud ping of an M1C Garand clip being ejected just barely perceptible in the night air—then after a moment, of all things, the faraway spring mating call of the western meadowlark, the Wyoming state bird.

  Isidro.

  Epitafio.

  Culpepper hadn’t moved, but his eyes searched the periphery of his vision, as all of his men now lay on the ground, all of them head shots, all of them most certainly dead.

  Not sure to what lengths Culpepper’s knowledge of vintage weapons ran, I figured it would take at least a couple of seconds for Isidro to recharge the en-bloc clip—but I was willing to take that chance. “If I were you, I wouldn’t even twitch.” Slowly stepping forward, I reached up with my free hand and took hold of the automatic rifle. Next, I reappropriated my hat, Colt .45, and Henry Standing Bear’s Bowie knife. “I think your men just got demoted.”

  He still didn’t move. “Who in the hell?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I waved my hat toward the rock outcropping on the ridge where I could see four individuals, including the one with the cotton poncho waving in the breeze with his weapon aimed exclusively on us. I put my hat on, turned back to Culpepper, and stuffed my Colt in the pancake holster at the small of my back along with the knife. “Now, what am I going to do with you?”

  “I’ve got a couple of suggestions.”

  “I’m probably not going to like them.” Without any warning, I brought the butt of the M16 stock around and walloped him with it.