A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery wl-9

by Craig Johnson

  I forced my way through the volunteer firemen—Double Tough’s Suburban was parked a little ways away in the lot, and I remembered how he had said he was sleeping in the back of the office to give Frymire and his fiancée a little privacy. I turned back to the inferno. “I’ve got a man in there.”

  The fire chief, a fellow by the name of Gilbert, wearing full gear with the rubber coat and leather helmet with face shield, threw a hand on my chest. “We checked; there’s nobody in there, Sheriff.”

  “How about the back room?” The look on his face told me he wasn’t sure, and I started pushing past him, the cool coming over my face along with the stillness in my hands. “One of my deputies—he was sleeping in the back.”

  He grabbed hold of me. “Walt, you can’t go in there.” Another man joined him, but my momentum carried all of us forward through the pools of water reflecting fire at our feet; it was like the world was in flames, but I’d seen fire up on the mountain and was unafraid. “Walt, if he’s in there, he’s dead.”

  I shrugged them off and continued toward the closed front door. “Not this guy.”

  Gilbert made a last grab, dragging my jacket down my arm. “Walt, there are chemicals from the bus barn that this building lodges up against—that whole back area is going to go up any minute.” His last grasp had turned me just a little. “You can’t go in there!”

  I stared at him for an instant and then yanked my arm completely free, sending him falling backward toward a group of men holding one of the hoses.

  My boots slipped on the puddled asphalt, but I got my footing back and, feeling the intensity of the heat on my face, lurched toward the door and pulled my gloves out of my coat pockets. Holding one of my gloved hands up to protect my face as I planted a staggering shoulder into the door, I exploded it inward, the glass with the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department seal shattering as my hand struck the middle of the pane, the shards cascading out like a broken spider’s web.

  The flames rushed toward me as I tripped, like something alive in pursuit of the fresh, cool oxygen of the night. It was lucky that I’d fallen, because there was a ceiling of black smoke about waist high with flames licking at the corrugated steel of the perimeter, all of them making for the door I just came through. The desk and chairs to my left were on fire, along with the stacks of newspapers that had concerned me earlier. To my right, the decrepit sofa burned, the smoldering edges of the carpet remnant were curling upward into flames, and the paint was peeling off the walls in burning strips that slid toward the floor,

  Suddenly, something with the force of a buffalo pushed me forward, smashing my face against the glass and flattening me against the door on the floor. Whatever it was it stayed there, and it took every measure of strength I had to press up onto my hands and knees. It was only when my hat skidded forward toward the inner doorway and I felt the rivulets of water falling down the sides of my face that I realized the pressure was from the hoses Gilbert and the volunteer firemen were directing on me to keep me from becoming barbeque.

  It shot around me, making a prismatic outline of my bulk in a mist that evaporated instantaneously. I staggered up only to be knocked down again by the hundreds of gallons that were propelling me forward. My hand hit the soaked surface of the sodden carpet, and I crouched, deciding that, between the fire and the high-pressure water, I damn well better stay low.

  I watched as my hat hit the door where I had seen Double Tough’s cot and I felt the heat just above the top of my head even as the water attempted to beat back the carnivorous flames, and heaving my shoulders forward, I drove with my knees, which made me feel like I was back at USC pushing blocking sleds; I tried to breathe through the fingers of my glove, but the water poured off me like a forking river and I felt like I might drown before I got there.

  Widening my eyes and trying to keep my bearings along with my balance, I stared ahead. The door was closed and the brim of my hat, lodged under its edge, was slapping up and down like some seabird attempting to take flight. I reached out and pulled it back toward me, figuring a little dripping beaver-fur protection was better than no protection at all.

  There was a whooshing sound above me to my right and the quad sheet map came floating through the smoke to land on top of me. I could see the ink on the thing blackened from the heat tracing a straight line toward the door.

  Using both hands, I pushed myself up from the carpet and the inch-deep puddle and skimmed forward into the wall beside the back door; the plywood the map had been mounted on was on my back, deflecting the two blasting jets of water up into the rounded top of the corrugated ceiling, driving the smoke long enough for me to partially stand.

  Some idiot voice in the back of my head told me to feel the door before opening it, but I barked back at it, fully tasting the smoke, ash, and moisture in my spoken words. “I know there’s a fire behind the damn thing—there’s fire everywhere.”

  I reached down with my saturated gloved hand and watched the water drain from my grip, the knob not turning. Who knew why—possibly because the boards were warped from the heat, possibly because Double Tough was afraid of monsters; it didn’t matter, nothing mattered except getting through the door and getting him out of there.

  I knew what was going to happen when I shouldered the thing open, so I bumped the cheap, two-panel door, just to get prepared, figuring I’d blow through and fall onto the concrete floor as the flames came out.

  I put everything I had into the crouching bull rush and felt my feet come right off the ground as the pressure from inside the superheated room escaped, carrying the two neatly halved portions of the door and my hunched body backward into the main office. The sound stuffed my ears and stayed there as I lay on the soaked rug for a moment trying to clear my head.

  My hat was bumping against my face, and I caught it with one hand before it could attempt a repeat performance and run away with the force of the water. I jammed it on again, dumping a good gallon onto my face in the process, and then half-crawled, half-slithered toward the door, the pressurized jet stream still hitting me as I hand and kneed it across the floor.

  The doorway was glowing, and I was sure the flames were ingesting the old wood and then vomiting the coats of leaded paint that made up the lean-to, not to mention the unknown horrors in the fifty-five-gallon drums in the bus barn at the other side of the exterior wall.

  No one could be alive in there.

  No one. Not even Double Tough.

  I pitched forward again, but the smoke was like a shroud and hung even lower than before, instantly gritting my eyes, nose, and mouth. I shifted the wet glove in front of my face again and breathed as shallowly as I could, coughed, and tried to get the stuff out of some passage or another but only succeeded in clearing my ears, the only sensory organ I didn’t particularly need.

  I remembered that the cot was against the center of the back wall, and I started crawling in that direction. The blasts of water were still prodding me forward, now hitting me in the ass, and all I could think of was how I was going to knock the damn hoses out of the volunteer firemen’s hands when and if I got out of there.

  I could feel the leg of the low-slung cot and was amazed the aluminum hadn’t melted in the heat. I felt for the mattress and found the sopping blankets, my hand bumping against something that felt like a shoulder. I grabbed hold of it but couldn’t get a grip, so I gathered all the covers, yanked them toward me, and felt the fabric tear.

  Going for broke, I shot both arms over the top and clamped them down like hooks. The cot collapsed, and a two-hundred-pound man slapped against my chest, and I fell backward. “Damn it to hell.”

  I closed my mouth and just pulled his lifeless body along with me back toward the door. We were only a few leg-drags in that direction when I heard a cracking noise and saw part of the shed roof disengage and fall, taking a third of the joists with it, the sudden rush of air momentarily pulling the flames and smoke toward the other side, at which point I could see that the rafters on my
side were in no better shape.

  Grabbing the wet bundle that was Double Tough, I prepared for a mad dash through the doorway, into the hose streams and the parking lot. This hope was hammered as I watched the top beam disconnect from the back of the Quonset hut and slam down diagonally in front of me in a cascade of sparks, flame, burning wood, and tar paper.

  I scrambled backward until my shoulders lodged against the skillet-hot ridged surface of one corner; I was trapped like a rat and yelling like a madman.

  Double Tough was lying across my legs. The side of his head was badly burned, and I wasn’t even sure that the eye was still there. He wasn’t breathing, and all I could do was pull his body next to me and try to think fast.

  I wasn’t sure what was still on the other side, but it had to be better than this.

  I hoisted the two of us, shrugging Double Tough’s body against my chest again in a modified fireman’s carry, and prepared for the hunched dash to freedom. All I could think was that I couldn’t stop—no matter what happened, keep going.

  I had pulled some of the soaked blankets over me for a little protection, but I couldn’t see because they covered my head. Suddenly it felt like the wall behind me was giving way. I half-expected the remainder of the ceiling to come crashing down and tottered forward still in hopes of finding a way out. About then two great weights slammed onto my shoulders, and the only thing I could think was that the roof had finally let go and the sixteen-inch centered rafters had landed on either side of my neck.

  I struggled to pull free, but I could feel myself losing my balance and I fell backward, crashing into the exterior wall. The grip on my shoulders didn’t let up—something was dragging me. I held on to Double Tough’s body as I shot backward, but the smoke was invading the blankets at this height, my brain started to fog, and the grip on my shoulders felt like talons digging into my flesh.

  This must have been what it was like to die—a giant messenger of the dead swooping down and carrying me along that hanging road to the camp beyond. The talons had to be from some giant owl, the only bird that eagles steered clear of.

  His claws sunk deeper, and I felt the circulation cut off from my arms. I hit the hard ground and just lay there with the weight of the wet bedding and Double Tough’s body on top of me, trying to summon enough energy for another go. Not dead yet.

  Suddenly, his body disappeared. I lifted my arms and tried to get hold of him, but there was nothing there. I flopped to my side and tried to pull the blankets off of me, but it was as if I were glued to them. Slowly I backpedaled out from under and finally slid my head clear.

  I rolled over on my back and breathed, staring at the star-filled night and feeling the cold just starting to sink its teeth in. I felt around, but still couldn’t find his body anywhere nearby. It would appear that the giant owl, having given up on taking both of us, had dropped me and continued onto the camp of the dead with him alone. The hanging road was there, the thick strip of the Milky Way draped like a hammock from horizon to horizon in icy clarity.

  I allowed my head to drop back onto the parking lot pavement and then rolled it the other way, finally seeing what had plucked my deputy and me from the burning building.

  The giant owl was beating on Double Tough’s chest. I watched as my deputy’s head bounced against the asphalt. I reached out but couldn’t get to him. I yelled and shouted for the thing to go away, slapped my hand on the ground in an attempt to get his attention, but it ignored me and went back to tearing at Double Tough’s chest in some sort of ceremonial rite.

  I raised my voice but could only croak out a warning that if I got my hands around the big owl’s neck he was going to rue the day he had decided to make birdseed out of us.

  Finally the owl swiveled its head, shuddered, and took notice of me. I tried to sit up, but it pinned me to the ground. I coughed and choked up some of the soot from my throat and spat it to the side, then turned to grab hold of him in return.

  The big bird fell to the side, seemingly as exhausted as I was. I still held on to the legs of the thing but then slowly realized that they were arms. It shook me loose and reached up to pull away its own wet, protective blanket that hung over its head, revealing Henry’s smudged and dirty face.

  He sat there looking at me as I sank back to the pavement, but only for a moment, then turned and looked toward the fire, the wetness in his eyes reflecting the flames as they consumed the rest of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Substation.

  I said something, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  Feeling the weight of my head as it slipped sideways, I could see another set of eyes looking at me from a short distance away.

  Double Tough.

  I dragged myself across the asphalt through a couple of puddles and began to shake from the cold. My hand reached his face, the scorched glove touching his chin, but he didn’t blink.

  12

  I sat on the tailgate of my truck, sipped at a Styrofoam cup of coffee, and pulled the dry blanket a little closer around me, attempting to quell the constant shivering.

  I watched as the Powder River Fire District volunteers recoiled their hoses and gathered their gear to beat a tired retreat back to the firehouse and their beds. The EMTs had loaded Double Tough into their van and had left.

  Henry’s voice sounded distant. “One of the neighbors from across the street says he saw the light from inside but just thought it was the reflection from a wood-burning stove; the next time he looked, he said, the entire building was going up.”

  I lowered the cup and looked at the pool of illumination from the dusk-to-dawn light on the other side of the parking lot, the halogen spilling onto the faded red Suburban, pink and unearthly. The truck sat there like some bashful ingénue at center stage, backed against a copse of fledgling aspens leaning in like a parted curtain.

  I remembered how much better the thing had run after Double Tough had taken it under his mechanical wing; how numerous times when I had made the drive down to deliver paychecks, I would find his hillbilly ass under the hood of the thirty-year-old unit, reveling in the big-block, carbureted, dual-exhausted monstrosity.

  “There were some other individuals at the periphery behind the sawhorses. I interviewed them, but none of them appeared to have seen anything.”

  I remember Double Tough telling me he was from someplace back East, some hollow in the middle of the Appalachian mountains; about how he’d gotten a degree in geology or mineralogy or something. I thought about how I’d wished I’d listened more closely to his story.

  “Walter.”

  I stared at the truck and thought about what a dinosaur it was, and how it was a lot like him—unsophisticated, honest, and durable.

  “There is nothing more you could have done.”

  I stood, dumping the rest of the coffee from the cup and tossing the container into a bucket that served as a trash receptacle, and, pulling the blanket up higher, squished my way toward the large SUV with the Cheyenne Nation in tow.

  “I heard you yelling, punched through the wall, grabbed you by your shoulders, and pulled you out. He probably did not know what happened, Walt.”

  The sun would be up in a few hours—the dawn of a new day. From the flats of the Powder River country, a gaseous ball of hydrogen billions of degrees in heat would brighten the mountains behind me. I would meet that day with a serious degree of heat myself, a smoldering little ember that would become the size of a man, I’d say—most certainly more than one—which I would tinder until I could find just the right fuel.

  “Walter?”

  I fumed like the fuse on a bundle of dynamite and looked at my best friend in the world, the man who had just saved my life again.

  The Bear stared into my face and didn’t like what he found there, but knowing me as he did, he didn’t say anything, just kept pace.

  I took the last few steps and stopped at the corner of the official vehicle of the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, my department, and stared through the back window of
the Suburban. Double Tough’s clothes were piled in the back, and it looked as if nothing had been disturbed.

  I hitched the old army blanket higher to cover my neck, turned, the tail end of the thing flaring with my effort, and walked toward the crumpled husk of the substation with the Bear trailing after me. He moved a little to the right in an attempt to see the side of my face with those dark eyes of his, seemingly darker than before, his eyes always growing deeper and more liquid as these crucial, emotional moments became a part of his soul.

  At what used to be the front door, I looked straight at him to assure him that I wasn’t just wandering, sidestepped in, and went over to the scorched empty key rack. I stepped on something and stooped to pick up a set of keys that were under a couple of inches of dirty water. They were on a funny ring I’d never noticed before from some second- or maybe third-tier amusement park with an image of a giant character who looked a little like Bozo, leaning on a structure that read CAMDEN PARK—AT THE SIGN OF THE HAPPY CLOWN.

  There was something else, too, that I noticed as I bent over—the vague scent of kerosene.

  I turned around and started back toward the Suburban. I flipped to the second key and attempted to get it somewhere in the vicinity of the keyhole that unlocked the tailgate. My hands continued to shake, and the damn thing fell. I started to lean down, but the Cheyenne Nation was quicker, as usual, even catching them before they struck the pavement.

  He stood and slipped in front of me, and I listened to the unctuous whir of the window descending. He reached inside, pulled the latch, flipping down the tailgate, and glanced back at me, standing there quaking. “You need to get out of those clothes.”

  I pointed a quivering hand at the dirty laundry and willed my finger to stop shaking—if it didn’t, I silently swore, I was going to bite it off. It must’ve heard me and grew steady.