Depth of Winter

by Craig Johnson

  The Cadillac smashed into the corner of the bus one last time and then veered to the left before gliding to a stop at a crazy angle, lodged in the sand itself.

  Looking forward, I could see all the children on the floor. Cady gunned the engine, but the bus didn’t move. She threw it into reverse, but the results were the same. “Get those kids over to the right side of the bus!”

  Just as I finished yelling, another strafe of fire stitched its way across the length of the Mercury, Bianca and Alexia grabbing the children and huddling on the far side.

  Leaning forward, I hung my arms out the window and unloaded the M16, watching the rounds blister the side of the Escalade. Pulling back in, I slumped against the rear door, ejected the mag, and dropped the Armalite onto the floorboard.

  Looking at Isidro, I shrugged and pulled the Glock from my jeans. “Well, we are now officially out of rifle ammo.”

  He stared at me, his eyes unmoving.

  I reached toward him and watched as he slumped forward, the blood covering his back; I caught him and held him, feeling his neck for the pulse that wasn’t there. With my breath stuttering in my chest and throat and feeling the anger that I’d fought against my whole life, I sat there holding the young man.

  You find that kernel of madness at an early age, and if you’re lucky you start building up a callus around it, a tough layer of humanity that holds it at bay, because it’s just too dangerous to allow to escape. Your family can’t ever see it, your friends can’t ever see it, no one must ever see it—but it’s there, waiting to burn the protective covering away that has taken a lifetime to build and burst open like a volcanic canker of maniacal emotion.

  Carefully laying him to the side, I stood. There were a few rounds of pistol fire striking the bus, but I didn’t care. I strode forward, the bullets chasing after me as I walked down the aisle to the front of the bus, stepped over Bianca, Alexia, Adan, the children, and my daughter, and pushed the handle, opening the bifold door.

  Curled on the floor mat, Cady uncovered her face long enough to look up at the unfamiliar me. “Daddy, what are you doing?”

  Swinging on the chrome bar, I stepped down the stairs and landed both boots in the powdery sand and turned as a few more rounds pierced the side of the Mercury.

  The driver stumbled past the hood and fired again, this time toward me but wide to my right. I raised the Glock and shot him dead center in the chest.

  As I walked across the rutted road, another round flew from the Escalade, and I focused on the muzzle flash at the back window as the shooter opened the rear door—it took two rounds to stop the gunman, and he fell out and planted face-first in the roadway.

  I turned to aim at the front passenger-side door as it slowly opened wide. It hung there revealing Culpepper, covered with blood and still caught in the shoulder belt like a broken marionette, my hat on his head and my .45 dangling in his right hand.

  At first I thought he was dead, but then I saw the half grin as he watched me approach. “Jesus, you play rough.”

  I cased the rest of the vehicle until I was sure the others were dead and then put my full focus on him.

  He tried to move but then coughed up more blood onto his shirt and laughed. “I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

  I stopped about a grave’s length from him. “Probably not.”

  The blood drooled from his lips as he tried to lift his head with a laugh. “I get that little Aztec fucker?”

  I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “No.”

  He glanced up at me from under the brim of my hat. “You’re a liar.”

  “Raise that pistol of mine and find out.” He didn’t move, and I kept the front sights of the 9mm on the one eye that I could see. “I’ll ask you one last time, did you kill my son-in-law?”

  He laughed some more, ending it with more coughing, more blood, and more lies. “Yeah, I killed him—back in Philadelphia—shot him in the back and then rolled him over and shot him in the face.” He smirked the smile that I’d most certainly had enough of. “He cried like a bitch.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  He continued grinning the death’s head smile, and the one eye stayed on me. “All right . . . The boss did it himself; he likes doing his own dirty work when it’s personal. He says when that hot rod of an undersheriff of yours shows up, he’s going to do her, too. Do her slow.” His head shifted. “Right after he does you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Out there. Somewhere.”

  I took a breath, maybe the first since I’d exited the bus. “Well, as much as I’ve enjoyed our conversation . . . We need to get going, and I want my hat, gun, and Henry’s knife.”

  He turned my Colt in his hand, the dark metal glinting in the cold, soulless moonlight. “I’ll give you the gun, all right.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Oh hell, Sheriff . . .” He began lifting my .45 very slowly. “At least I’ll be killed by an American.”

  When he’d almost gotten it at eye level, I fired.

  His head snapped back and his body followed, bouncing off the upholstery before slumping forward in the belt, hanging there lifeless. The blood poured into his lap from the hole where his remaining eye had been.

  I took another breath and stepped forward, picking up my hat and putting it back on my head before stooping to pick up my sidearm. I found Henry’s Bowie on the floorboards. Looking up at Culpepper’s ruined face, half of it still covered by the bandages, I could see he had died with the smirk he’d carried laughingly into hell.

  Standing, I checked the Glock, found it empty, and tossed it into the Cadillac. Slipping out the magazine of my Colt, I found it also empty, the only round left the one in the pipe. Sighing, I fed the mag and then walked around the Escalade in order to gather up one of the Kalashnikovs and as much ammo as I could carry.

  When I got back to the bus, Cady, Bianca, and Alexia were using their hands to dig it out, scooping double handfuls of sand from under the old Mercury. Bianca turned to look up at me. “Isidro’s dead.”

  “I know.”

  She glanced toward the drug dealer’s SUV. “And them?”

  I gestured with the collected armament. “All dead.”

  Cady dusted the sand from her hands and then assisted Alexia. “I think it’ll move now.”

  “No one else was hit?”

  “No.” She shook her head and stepped toward me, the streaks from her tears washing across her dusty face like war paint. “We wrapped him up in his poncho and placed him on the floor.”

  I nodded and glanced at the faint glow on the eastern horizon, feeling the energy leaving me as if I’d opened a valve. “We need to get going; the sun will be up before long.” I glanced at the rust and powder blue bus and barely got the next words out. “And I’m not sure how good the air-conditioning is in this thing.”

  She stepped forward the rest of the way and wrapped her arms around me, and it felt better than anything I’d felt in quite a while.

  * * *

  —

  We dislodged the Mercury and got enough traction to allow it to drag all four weather-checked tires back onto the roadway, the first rays of the sun digging gorges in the flat, volcanic terrain of the desert.

  With the sun rising it was almost as if a strange world were erupting around us, a ruinous, unrelenting planet of rock and fire that was enhanced by the internal combustion of the old bus that chugged along.

  The gas gauge read a quarter tank, and all I hoped was that we would be able to get somewhere where there might be gas enough to get us to the border.

  My tank on the other hand had long ago reached the critical stage of no reserve. We were now angling east, and my eyes were closing, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I hadn’t slept in years, the accumulated beatings I’d taken, or if I’d just had enough of staring into the
sun.

  Cady and Bianca were quietly talking in the seat behind me. They were ministering to Adan, but Alexia and the children were asleep, and if there had been any way in the world, I would’ve joined them.

  It seemed like we’d been driving for hours when I thought I could see something far in the distance, but I honestly wasn’t sure what it was, or if it was really there. In the simmering yolk of the sun, there was something with wings, great wings that in my imaginings spread, sending undulations of heat across the surface of the desert.

  The phoenix is the legendary bird with a brilliant plumage and a wondrous voice that rises from the pyre of its own ashes only to regenerate itself and fly to Heliopolis in Egypt to the Temple of R, the Egyptian god of the sun. A symbol of immortality and an allegory of resurrection, the thousand-year-old female bird was there in the road in front of us, and all I could think was that it was like the sun that figuratively dies each night and is every morning reborn.

  I slowed the bus and looked around, but the only thing that my red-rimmed eyes saw was the unforgiving terrain of Mexico, unyielding to this tired Mercury, every bit the mythological match for the obstacle that blocked the road in front of us.

  I sat there for a long moment, looking to my left and right before cutting the ignition and allowing the engine on the bus to die.

  Cady’s voice behind me was just above a whisper. “Oh my God.”

  There is a lie in all fiction, a fabrication that says that when the critical moment of your life arrives you will be rested, clean, composed, and prepared, but you won’t be. I guarantee it. You will be exhausted, scattered, dirty, and wounded. But with this comes one miraculous strength.

  You. Won’t. Care.

  Lumbering to a standing position, I turned and looked at the three women and the wounded man, who had regained consciousness and was now sitting up and looking back at me with a bloody face.

  “Don’t go out there.”

  Looking past him, my eyes rested on the children and particularly Alicia—and then I turned. “Close the doors behind me, and no matter what happens, don’t any of you get off this bus.”

  I opened the folding doors and slowly stepped down the stairs onto the hard-boiled surface of the road, and pulling the .45 with its one round from my jeans, I turned to look at the Beechcraft twin-engine, the gleaming aluminum sides sparking with the light of the rising sun.

  Walking forward, I gazed out into the desert where a number of men were scattered, standing about fifty yards from us in all directions, their automatic weapons pointed at me and the bus.

  Taking a deep breath, I focused on the sun, the plane, and the man standing in the road as the sweat began building under the band of my bloodstained hat. I began walking toward him, pretty sure that if I raised my hand with the .45 in it, I’d be dead before I hit the dry ground.

  “Welcome.”

  I stopped at the sound of his voice, then registered what he’d said and attempted to assemble a response. “Get out of our way.”

  He stepped forward, and I could see that his knife was in one hand and some sort of red cloth was in the other. “Still following your moral compass?”

  “If you don’t get out of the way, I’m going to kill you.”

  His head cocked a bit in mock surprise. “Ah, Sheriff, perhaps your moral compass does not encompass situations such as this—a place where justice is helpless.”

  I gestured, ever so slightly, with the Colt in my hand. “Hardly helpless.”

  Studying me from under the brim of his hat, he clarified the situation. “You could shoot me, but then my men will shoot you and then they will kill every living soul in that bus behind you.”

  “What do you want?”

  He moved slightly to the left, studying me still. “It is time for this to end, this thing between us.” He glanced around. “This is not as I had planned, but then again it is perhaps as it should be.”

  “So how do we end it?”

  At first he didn’t move but then quickly unfurled a long, red, Basque sash, the gerriko—the material lying in the road like a fresh wound.

  “So you want me to hang myself?”

  He breathed a laugh. “You have your friend’s knife?”

  “I’d rather use this Colt.”

  Shaking his head, he took another step closer. “Somehow, I do not think that would be fair.”

  Considering all my alternatives, I tossed the .45 into the sand at the side of the roadway and pulled Henry Standing Bear’s stag-handled Bowie from the small of my back. “I don’t suppose we could just duke it out?”

  He flipped the end of the twelve-foot sash toward me. “I am afraid that in that, you would also have the advantage.”

  Stepping forward, I stooped and picked up the end. “And you don’t have an advantage with this?”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps, but it is mitigated by your superiority in size and muscle—shall we see who is victorious, skill or strength? One last bullfight to determine the sacrifices to the altar of justice, even if there is none?”

  Wrapping the thing around my fist with a vicious yank, I drew his arm forward as he positioned himself sideways with the foot-long stiletto poised at shoulder height like the curled tail of one of those scorpions.

  I circled to the left, he countered by moving right, and I watched his careful foot placement—he was like a picador, waiting for the bull to be distracted for even an instant.

  Henry’s heavy-bladed knife felt good in my hand, and I attempted to awaken all my senses, knowing full well that if I didn’t do that quickly, there would be no reason to bother.

  I felt like the bull that was reaching the final act, bleeding and bowed, just waiting for the final blow that would pierce its tired heart. I moved in a half circle and could see Cady and all the others crowded in the windshield of the old bus. They watched with the horror of the situation written across their faces, and I wanted to smile or say something that would assure them.

  And that’s when he struck.

  The only thing I felt was a tug at the front of my sweat-soaked shirt and the popping of one of the snap buttons as it came loose.

  I hadn’t even seen him move—he was that fast.

  Passing underneath my outstretched arm, he must’ve gone completely by me only to turn and regard me with an impassive expression. “The acoso y derribo, a test of the spirit before the true fight begins.”

  Using my knife hand, I brushed the back of it against my abdomen and looked at the fresh blood that was smeared there. There was no pain—the cut wasn’t deep, just enough to let me know that it could’ve been and that he could’ve ended the fight with a single move.

  A slight chill traveled across my skin like electricity as I was just starting to understand what I’d let myself in for.

  “So you don’t enjoy the bullfights, Sheriff?” He still watched me and changed directions, raising the blade again. “The cambio, of which we will have many before this fight is done, my friend.”

  I felt the anger rising in me. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “I shall attempt to educate you.” He continued circling, and I countered. “My greed overtook me in my attempts to auction you, but this is better, more personal—and all justice, remember this in your last moments, is personal.”

  He feinted to his right and dipped in as if to attack again, and I went for it, stumbling a little on the uneven road as he pulled back and studied me, taking in another weakness.

  Pulling in the opposite direction, I grabbed another handful of the sash and wrapped it, figuring that if I could get him close I’d have an advantage in size and weight, but he simply danced to the side and raised his blade again.

  “The embestida, or charging of the bull.”

  Sensing an opportunity, I swung wide, but he carefully stepped back and then sliced through the unprotected s
houlder of my knife arm, almost causing me to drop the thing.

  He came around behind me, but I had circled and swung again, this time barely catching him on the forearm as he withdrew. “The parado, the bull tires but retains his cunning.” He watched as I stretched my shoulder, felt the alien stitch in the movement, and now knew I was impaired. “There is no shame, Sheriff; however, there is a price.”

  I stood there on wooden legs and figured I had maybe two more lunges before I collapsed, but I was at least going to make those two lunges count. If I was going to die, carved up like a beef roast, I was at least going to make sure the devil got his due.

  Spreading my arms to their outermost reach, I circled opposite him but then changed directions, yanking the sash toward me. I charged again, but he slipped to the side and ducked under my arm, slashing my thigh and roping the cloth between my ankles causing me to trip and fall.

  Scrambling up the berm, I limped onto my wounded leg and spun to face him, but he was watching at the full length of the sash again. “The suerte de varas, the first act of the kill.”

  Breathing heavily, I looked up at my daughter’s horrified face as I felt the blood in my body along with any energy seeping into the sand at my feet. Time to regroup. I shambled my way to the right. He’d taken a few steps, but then spun in with a backhand that slashed across my face before I could get out of the way.

  Swinging hard, I caught something as the blood sprayed from my jawline. I stopped and turned, blind in my left eye, but could see him standing there, looking down at the blood seeping onto the torn side of his shirt.

  His face rose, but there was no panic in it.

  Swallowing, I wiped my eye on my shoulder and was alarmed by the amount of blood. It was still in its socket, but I was essentially half blind.

  Stopping with his back to the bus, I watched as he raised the stiletto above his head again, shifting his weight to one side and then the other so that I was unsure of which direction the blade would come.