Walt Longmire 07 - Hell Is Empty

by Craig Johnson

  The tower of flames reached out from the top of the forest with a sound like a freight train, and the vacuum pulled at my chest, trying to topple me from the log where I stood as live ash struck at me from the dead trees. I stood in a spot where flammable material, oxygen, and a temperature above the point of ignition would spontaneously combust and essentially detonate.

  I twisted my hat down tight on my head; in the next few seconds, I could die, still erect in a state of astonishment, or I could tuck in my arms and legs and . . . I clutched the binoculars to my chest and stepped off the log.

  The expedition pack on my back absorbed the majority of the shock just as I’d hoped it would. I’d thought of leaving the rifle on the bank, but it would’ve been nothing but a smoking husk of charred wood and burnt metal if I ever got back to it, so it went into the drink with me as well.

  I’d felt water this frigid just over a year ago when I fell through the ice in Clear Creek Reservoir, but I didn’t remember the chest-seizing cold that struck me like a ball bat and forced the air from my lungs; all I could think was that I was going to need that air in a matter of moments.

  I felt the pack hit bottom and estimated that the pond must’ve been only about four feet deep, hopefully enough to insulate me from the coming hell above. I stood and fully inhaled.

  The steam vapor rising from the expanse of ice made the entire pond look as if it were being whipped away up the hill and lifted into the pitch-colored sky. The noise was deafening, and as I looked back at the log that I had been crossing, I could see the smoke beginning to pour off the thing.

  I unsnapped the pack, shifted it around and over me, and heaved myself backward into a cleft of rocks where the water spilled into the pond, any sort of shelter being an advantage.

  Generally, except for the very heart of the inferno, there would be a stratum of oxygen up to about fifteen inches from the ground. I didn’t know how the water would affect this pocket, but my hopes were that the vapor would provide added insulation without parboiling my lungs.

  I forced a massive amount of air into my chest, hoped there was enough there to suffice, and plunged into the water again.

  The fire’s heart struck it like a cannonball, and I could feel my ears deaden with the brunt of the blow. Tiny explosions of blue, white, orange, and finally red covered the surface, and it was only when I noticed the temperature of the water rising that I realized it was attempting to boil.

  I was sure I was in the belly of the beast now. Those fire devils were circling above, hunting for me, hoping to turn me into a hairless, bloated, purpled, and slick-skinned corpse—a collection of blackened bones wearing nothing but a charred leather service belt with all my extra ammunition exploded.

  As I buried my face into the pack and slunk deeper into the crevasse, I thought about the phones in my pockets and all the calls I should have made to all the women in my life. I thought about Cady, about her wedding and what she was going to look like standing in the golden grasses of the Little Big Horn country in July. I thought about my wife, how long she’d been gone, and how she wouldn’t forgive me for not being there to represent us at our daughter’s wedding. I thought about Ruby, who would want to know exactly where I’d died. I thought about Vic, who would likely pound her fists on the chest of my corpse for being such a dumb ass.

  I couldn’t die—I had too many women who would kill me.

  The log I had been standing on exploded like a pipe bomb, the resin inside finally reaching the temperature of napalm, the dead husk no longer able to contain its fury. The force of the eruption hit the pond like a depth charge, the pressure making it feel as if my mouth, nose, ears, and eyes were being pressed back in my head. I stifled the scream that would kill me; instead, I crammed my face against the backpack and just lay there, crushing it against me.

  The panic from lack of oxygen was yanking at my chest, trying to get me to the surface, but I held on with my face pressed against the Cordura fabric for what felt like another eight hours but was likely twenty seconds. I felt the involuntary heave of my diaphragm and knew that I had to get to the surface before the next one.

  I disengaged from the pack and turned my head; the roar of the freight train was distant now, but I wasn’t sure if it was because my eardrums were partially, if not totally, shot, or if the fire was receding. My eyes were still working, however, and I could see that red had subsided to amber.

  I figured I had about five seconds before I pulled in two solid lungs of pond water. I carefully listed to the side and raised my face slowly to the surface, barely allowing my nose and lips to break the tension where air and water met.

  As horrifying as it was, it was magnificent. About a foot and a half above me, the air was burning like some gargantuan convection oven, jets of undulating flame coating the air and water vapor steaming from the surface of the pond. I was actually fortunate in that the water’s temperature had started at just above freezing, which was keeping me from being boiled alive.

  I coughed uncontrollably and inhaled. The air was superheated, just as I’d expected, but it was air and breathable. I could feel my face beginning to burn, especially my eyes, so I closed them, hurriedly filled my lungs, and sank back into the warm and insulating water.

  I lay there, thinking that if I could just hold on for another couple of minutes, the majority of the fire’s front would’ve passed and I could reemerge relatively unscathed—well, as long as a flaming tree didn’t fall on me.

  I wasn’t taking anything for granted.

  The reflections on the water continued to change from red to orange, finally fading to yellow. My air was running out again, and I was pretty sure that that last gulp had held a lot less oxygen. It seemed by the color refracted that the fire had receded to the banks. I really didn’t have much choice and carefully raised my head again.

  The ceiling of flame was gone. There was a thick layer of ash on the surface of the pond, which I wiped away with the back of one of my gloves, and sleeper fires were still burning along the banks of the pond.

  I rose up to my full height, the ash water rolling off me as I stood, leaving me cloaked with a grayish-black soot.

  It was like hell on earth.

  There was not a tree standing in the gulch leading toward the ridge, only blackened husks in the forest where I had stood only five minutes ago. The flat plains of scree and boulders steamed from the heat, and the pond had dropped about a foot since I’d entered it, the exploded tree trunk sunk into the black water from both ends.

  I could hear nothing, not because there was no sound, but because I was stone deaf from the compression of the exploding log. I stretched my jaw again and felt a popping in my ears and a ringing, muted like an alarm clock under a pillow, with a dull thrum as accompaniment. I could feel the air going in and out of my lungs, but I could swear that there was no sound.

  I turned my head and looked down the mountain where the fire had burned itself into the draw at the shore of Lake Marion. The valley was protected from the wind, and there was a larger snow load on the trees there that had smothered the flames so only a red and orange edge showed fire.

  With my hand still holding the strap of both the pack and the rifle, I pivoted to my left and looked up the hill. There was some movement to my right, and I watched as a charred elk stumbled forward down the incline toward the edge of the pond, his blind eyes dead in the sockets but his nose drawing him to water.

  I stood silently as the elk came closer, hobbling on hooves that had burned away. He bumped into a scorched tree, momentarily catching one of the points of his antlers, then yanked free and continued more carefully.

  His body was telling him that he needed to drink; his body was telling him that if he could only go a little further it was possible that he might make it. His body, of course, was lying.

  I wondered how many lies my body was telling me—maybe my hearing was gone for a reason. Perhaps my body didn’t wish to be the one to break the news to itself about things I sh
ouldn’t hear.

  Hairless and black, he lowered his blistered nose to the soot-covered surface. The great rack on his head bobbed as his lips pulled in the water with a shudder from his midriff. I was amazed that he could stand, let alone drink.

  I stood there with him until his legs collapsed and, with a shiver and one brief exhale, he died. I waded out to him and placed a hand on his magnificent antlers as I paused and returned my eyes to the ridge, the dead silence crowding in on me and hardening like my clothes.

  The animal’s horn still looked alive with the glow of the many fights the majestic old beast had won. Every rutting season he would’ve taken on all comers: younger elk, bears, cougars, wolves, and the human hunters that would’ve followed him to the very heights of the Bighorn range.

  He had survived them all, only to end like this.

  I could feel the air around me cooling, and the water that had protected me was solidifying underneath, in, and on top of my clothes; it was like I was wearing one of Dante’s lead cloaks. The ridge was naked, with just a stubble field of nubbin trees and scalded earth. The only thing I’d ever seen that approached it was a war zone, but somehow, in so many ways, this was worse.

  I thought about all the recently lost lives, of all the current destruction, and could feel a stirring deep in a place where my ears wouldn’t have heard it harden even if they’d still worked. The ringing continued, bells of warning along with the continuing tattoo of distant drums, but the one sound that rustled over the others was the sound of the blackened, leathery wings of wrathful vengeance folding themselves around me.

  13

  Icicles fell off me with each step, but I could only imagine the delicate sounds they might have made when they struck the stones near my feet. After only a few minutes, it was getting impossible to move, so I stopped by one of the flaming logs, at least partially sure that the resin in it wouldn’t explode.

  I set the pack against the outcropping of rocks just a little away from the flames. The sodden thing felt like a boulder with shoulder straps, and I was glad to be rid of it. I pulled off my gloves, turned the cuffs inside out, and placed them along with my goggles on one of the already-burnt sections of the log.

  I held the rifle up and looked at the drop-block mechanism, which appeared fine until I jacked the lever, slid down the action and, after catching the round that feebly fell from the breech, could see the traces of ice inside the chamber.

  I slipped the bullet into my pocket and breathed into the Sharps as if I were giving it mouth-to-rifle resuscitation. I turned it around and did the same thing to the end of the barrel—amazingly enough, it appeared unharmed. I checked for any signs of mud, but there was nothing. I set it by the pack and hoped the heat of the fire would override the ambient temperature. Then I glanced through the binoculars still hanging from my neck and found that they too were unharmed, but I hung them from a blackened branch just to make sure.

  I took off my hat, hung it on another convenient branch, and reached into my jacket to retrieve the mummified hand. The pocket was empty. I turned it inside out, but there was nothing there, not even the ring that I’d taken. I must’ve lost both in the nameless pond below. Remembering the femur that Shade had left behind, I quickly checked my other pocket and was relieved to find that bone still there.

  I felt my teeth rattling and turned, moving a little closer to the flames. I could feel an ulcerous sore at the top of my ear where it had gotten frostbitten before—chilblains, I believe they were called—and gently fingered it, just the thing you’re not supposed to do.

  The convulsions continued, and I was pretty sure that if I didn’t get my clothes and myself warmed up I was going to become hypothermic, delusional, and useless.

  I shed my stiff-armed jacket and placed it beside the log flambé, where it literally stood on its own in a three-point stance, and then slid off my boots, the overpants, and the fleece that Omar had loaned me, hanging them on another blackened branch.

  Dressed only in my Capilene underwear, I backed up near the log to dry off and keep warm, squinted through the blowing ash, took a deep breath, and coughed the soot from my mouth and nose; the faintest touches of what felt like raindrops struck my upturned face—the falling snow was melting in the heat.

  I rubbed my eyes with my fists and looked around. The cold and snow were already creeping back in, and it wouldn’t be long before all the charred black would be covered with white—and me too.

  I dragged the backpack over, flipped off the top, and started pulling items from the cavernous main compartment. There were an extra pair of socks that I strung on a limb and some food—the energy and candy bars looked pretty good in their foil wrappers—and the bottle of Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve that Virgil hadn’t taken after all was unbroken.

  That, among so many things, was odd.

  You’re not supposed to drink under these types of conditions because the only thing the liquor does is dehydrate you and widen your blood vessels, allowing greater blood flow to your extremities, which may feel better in the short run but which eventually robs you of core heat. I knew a lot of old fellows who had survived these kinds of circumstances and wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen them not drink. Anyway, I was more concerned with my mental well-being.

  I unscrewed the top and took a swig of the bourbon and waited as I always did for the aftertaste that never came because the first taste was so good. I took another and carefully set the bottle on the rocks before digging into the pack and yanking out the soaked sleeping bag that had already hardened into a clump. I pulled the bag from the stuff sack—it hung there in my hand like a reluctant snake, refusing to uncoil. I shook it, and surprisingly, the man-made, water-resistant fiber released and the length of the thing flopped to my feet.

  I carefully unzipped it and noticed that the majority of the water hadn’t soaked the fiber inside the bag, so I wrapped it around me and felt better immediately. I wrested my way into the outside pocket of the pack and came upon Saizarbitoria’s copy of the Inferno. I resisted the urge to throw it in the fire and just dropped the soggy pulp onto the ground.

  Seeing the Basquo’s reading material reminded me of the cell phone that Sancho had carefully put in the waterproof Ziploc. I fetched it from my jacket and hoped that the bag was truly what it advertised. Then I pulled out the satellite phone and looked at it. I could see that the rubberized coating seemed to have no seams; was it possible that the thing was waterproof as well?

  I hit the button, and it lit up. Thank goodness for the high-tech FBI.

  I stood there for a moment or two, finally deciding to give my Indian backup a call; I was one of the only white men I knew who felt better when he was surrounded by Indians.

  “Hey, hey—you’re alive!”

  Joe’s voice cheered me even though I could hardly hear it.

  “Just barely.”

  “We got another one of your leftovers.”

  “You’re going to have to speak louder; my hearing is kind of shot.” I smiled in spite of myself. “You guys are at the Thiokol?”

  He was shouting into the phone now. “You betcha, just collecting the trash. Hold on, the big guy wants to talk to you . . .”

  I waited as a familiar voice came on the line; he was shouting, too. “Where are you?”

  I sighed. “I’ve been asked that a lot lately.” I felt the jacket and turned it—it was drying nicely. “Near the ridge at Mistymoon Lake.”

  “You . . .” There was a flare of static. “. . . traveling fast.”

  “I had help up until Shade set the whole forest on fire.”

  The concern in his voice increased after another static burst. “We could smell that. What did he do?”

  I looked up the hillside but couldn’t see anything except the rushing clouds above and the soft rain of the melting snow. “He must’ve set the beetle kill on fire; the wind took it and burned all the way down to Lake Marion.” I fought to not let him hear my teeth chattering. “I had to go for a lit
tle swim to get out of it.”

  There was more static, probably from atmospheric conditions. “You are kidding.”

  “Nope; I’m drying my clothes right now.”

  “You mentioned help?”

  I smiled. “Yep, one of our old buddies is up here—Virgil White Buffalo.” I waited for a response, but there was none. “Are you there?”

  Static. “Virgil.”

  “Yep, he keeps popping up.”

  More static, stronger than the signal this time. “. . . more to the story than you know . . .”

  I thought about it. “That wouldn’t take much, considering how little I do know.”

  The static was so strong now that I could barely hear him. “. . . need to stay where you are. We are only two and a half miles . . .”

  I held the phone out where I could speak directly into it. “If you can hear me, I’m going to keep the pressure on Shade.” I could barely make out his voice in response. “I’ll call you back when I make the ridge at Solitude Trail.”

  I didn’t move for a while, just stared at the flame on the log and watched the infinite swoops and swirls of its dance. I found myself half hypnotized by the life-giving warmth, and it seemed like I’d forgotten how long I’d been standing there. Another wave of shivers came over me, though, and I reached for the bourbon.

  It was gone.

  I looked to see that I hadn’t knocked it over in a shivering fit and then looked down at my feet, sure it must’ve been lying on the ground, but there was nothing there. I was just about to utter a curse about disappearing rings, bourbon, and Indians when two out of the three reappeared.

  He didn’t look any worse for wear, neither burnt nor marked by the fire, as he rested his lance against the rocks.