Hell Is Empty

4

It had taken us only a few minutes to get going once we discovered the makeshift handcuff key, but it was taking an agonizingly long time to get back to Meadowlark Lodge-we’d run off the road three times already.

I held the mic from the Feds’ radio close to my mouth. “Come in, unit one, this is unit two; Agent McGroder, this is Sheriff Longmire. Over?”

Static.

Sancho risked a look. “This isn’t good.”

“No, it’s not.”

I braced a hand against the dash as we made the turn at Powder River Pass on the Cloud Peak Skyway, almost ten thousand feet above sea level. The storm had gotten serious, and the sleet now pounded the top of the Feds’ Suburban like a snare drum. Sancho was doing his best, but the puddles of slush that pooled in the tread swales of the mountainous road made every turn feel as if we were attempting to corner an overloaded rowboat.

I pulled out the Basquo’s cell phone, but there were no available bars. He glanced at me. “Anything?”

“Nope.” I’d had Holli make the 911 call down the mountain with the landline she had in the lodge, but we weren’t likely to get cell reception again until we got back to Meadowlark.

“Line of sight, or it could just be interference from the storm.”

“Yeah, but they’ve also got those satellite phones, so somebody ought to be able to get through to them.” I pressed the button on the mic again. “Unit one, this is unit two. How ’bout it, McGroder? Over.” I waited a second and then depressed the button again. “Anybody?”

Static.

Sancho gained a little speed on the straightaway as we sluiced past the cutoff to county roads 422 and 419 where Shade had buried the remains of the boy. After a few minutes we could see the lights of something in the gloom of the darkened sleet up ahead. “Are those headlights?”

“No, it’s something else.”

As we got closer, we could see that the gas pumps at Meadowlark Lodge had exploded, billowing black smoke and flames into the sodden night. The Basquo slowed and reverted to his mother tongue. “Kixmi.”

We turned and continued down the sloped parking lot and could see the reflection of the chemical bonfire in the lodge windows, and the melted sheen of the parking lot glowed in triplicate in the freezing fog. I kept thinking that if I looked at the images long enough, perhaps what they mirrored wouldn’t be real.

The Feds’ other Suburban was lodged sideways into the pump island at a crazy angle, and we could see the still-burning bodies slumped in the driver and passenger seats. I drew the. 45 from my holster, held on to the door handle, and nodded to the left of the Suburban. “Over there.”

The Basquo steered our vehicle toward the building, but a safe distance from the heat and flames. “What if the tank on that thing goes?”

“It already has.”

We slid to a stop, and I lurched from the SUV. Glancing at the flaming T-boned Suburban, I extended my firing arm as I rushed toward the front door of the lodge, where I could see a body.

The tactical yellow lettering across his shoulders bore the three letters. I was careful to walk around the blowback of what must have been the original shot and the trail of blood that he had made while trying to get to the main building. The blood was already frozen in the spot where he’d been gunned down, and it was probably the heat from the fire that had kept his body from freezing to the surface of the parking lot. He was still dragging himself toward the door.

I could feel the pressure of the air moving toward the fire, creating a vortex that pulled the sleeting snow along the ground and back up into the flames before disappearing into the conflagration. I glanced toward the lodge windows, but it was only cursory; with the DOC van missing, it was obvious where they-or, more important, Raynaud Shade-had gone.

I placed a hand on McGroder’s shoulder, and he stilled. Some of the air went out of him as I pulled him over: double-ought buck, his thigh and the oblique muscles torn to shreds. His eyes didn’t focus, and his lips hung open, but he was breathing. “Michael?”

He gargled, and his throat pulled and constricted as the blood drained from the side of his mouth. His face contorted, and it took a moment for me to realize that he was trying to speak.

“Michael? ”

With the surging noise of the fire and the continuing wind, I bent lower to hear his voice.

“Where-do…” He coughed, and more of the coagulated blood pushed out of his mouth. “Oh, hell…”

“Lie still and stop talking.” I had to get him inside. With the lack of blood pressure and the cold, he would soon go into shock if he hadn’t already; I had to get him stabilized. I glanced at the Basquo, who had approached the burning vehicle, braving the blown-out heat of the fire to check for survivors. “Sancho! ”

McGroder’s eyes wandered but then settled on me. “Who?”

“Walt Longmire, the sheriff. Remember?” It was textbook shock from blood loss. “Sancho!”

A moment later, he was beside me. “They’re all dead.”

McGroder’s eyes remained unfocused, and the pupils began clicking back and forth like a metronome. He jolted at the statement. “Oh, God

…”

“Help me with him.” We lifted the FBI agent as carefully as we could, with me taking his shoulders and Santiago his legs. I butted the glass door open with my back and we laid McGroder on the bar to our left. I unzipped his jacket and pulled aside his shirt and thermal. The wound was gaping, but it didn’t look as if it’d gotten any of his organs, so we were just battling blood loss.

There was a stack of bar towels under the counter, and I packed them into the wound in an attempt to stanch the bleeding, hepatitis C be damned. The Basquo returned from the back with a pile of wool army surplus blankets, folding one to place under the agent’s head and then covering him with another three.

Sancho tapped numbers into his cell phone then snapped it shut in disgust and grabbed McGroder’s satellite phone from the floor, where it had fallen from the table. The weather conditions must have screwed up the cell service. I lowered my face to the wounded man. “Michael, can you hear me?”

I supported the side of his head with my hand.

He swallowed. “Procedure perfect.”

“I’m sure.”

“Don’t know what happened.”

I nodded. “They took our van?”

“Killed Benton and the other marshal, Jon Mooney, right off, shot me before I could even get my… Took my sidearm.”

I nodded. “Was it Shade alone?”

“Yes.” He swallowed. “He got Benton and Moody in your DOC van. I heard the report and ran out, but he was already standing there and he shot me with the marshal’s shotgun. He took my Sig, went inside, and got the keys from the table.” He tried to swallow again. “Can I have something to drink?”

“Can do, buddy. The EMTs are on the way.” I leaned in closer-his eyes were clearing a little, and the focus was returning. “When did your other vehicle show?”

“Just as he was taking off in your van. He slammed into them and then unloaded on the driver, then the passenger-Pfaff was in there.” He sighed a rattling gasp. “Set the whole thing on fire with the pumps

…”

Saizarbitoria appeared on the other side of the wounded man with the satellite phone still in his hands. “Need to talk to you, boss.”

I glanced back at McGroder. “You’re going to be okay, just rest easy and we’ll get you something to drink.” I stepped around the bar toward the windows that still reflected the collective bonfires. “East slope?”

“Everybody’s coming, but it’s going to take forever. They’ve closed off the road; the whole east side at Powder River Pass is covered in ice and they can only go maybe fifteen miles an hour. I’ve alerted the DOJ and marshal’s offices. Henry and Vic are on their way with the EMTs and HPs.”

“West slope?”

“Joe Iron Cloud’s got 16 blocked along with 47 and 434. He’s on his way up with Tommy Wayman, but it’s already turned to snow west of here. We’re going to get buried.”

I ran a quick topographic in my head; we were close to the spine that made up the Bighorn Mountains, and the majority of the precipitation would fall here before heading onto the plains. “Yep, we are.” There was another surge of flame from the gas pumps, and even if the damn things were empty, they were liable to cause a continuing hazard. “Get him something to drink. I’m going to go out to the side of the building and find the cutoff to those pumps.”

Snow was just starting to mix with the sleet, and it was cold outside, colder than it had been when we’d arrived.

Around the corner, there was a lath fence beside the mudroom that housed a compressor and stacks of old tires, but in front of that there was an emergency kill switch. It was possible that, even empty, the pumps were still pushing gas vapor through the lines. After I threw the switch, the fire died down.

Still keeping my distance, I returned to the front of the building and studied the burning Suburban. I could go in and try and find a fire extinguisher but figured that wouldn’t be the best utilization of my time, considering the circumstances. My eyes remained on the Chevy-the back access door and the rear passenger side hung partially ajar, and I could see where Shade had run the van into the SUV, forcing it onto the pump island. One of the gas handles lay on the melted asphalt, the hose burned and gone.

I stepped in closer and carefully counted the bodies and then walked around the vehicle and searched the surrounding area, just to be sure.

Back inside, Saizarbitoria was talking to McGroder, and the agent’s color was a little better. Sancho broke off when he saw the look on my face. “What?”

“Mike, how many of your people were in the other Suburban?”

His head shook, but his eyes were steady. “Two of mine and a marshal. Three.”

Sancho glanced back at McGroder as I bundled up, and we watched the fire bank itself and dwindle even further in the face of the sleet/snow and cold. The Basquo’s voice was tight. “I think he’s gonna make it.”

“He’s tough, but you need to keep him talking.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sancho’s dark eyes reflected the waning fire as he spoke. “What’re you going to do?”

I sighed. “I’ll take a sweep between here and Boulder Park to make sure the convicts are not in a ditch. If they aren’t, Iron Cloud will have a better chance of seeing them on his way up. No word from Joe or Tommy on the Ameri-Trans van?”

“No.”

“What about Beatrice Linwood’s Blazer.”

The Basquo looked grim and then tried to put a good face on a situation that had none. “They didn’t say anything, but if this Beatrice Linwood lives in Ten Sleep, wouldn’t they have seen her?”

“Call them back and ask them to check it.”

“I will.” He bit the inside of his lip, a habit he’d picked up from me. “What are you thinking?”

I pulled out my pocket watch and read the time: creeping up on ten o’clock. “I’m thinking that an awful lot of our bad eggs just got out of the basket, and I’m afraid they’ve got one of ours with them.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are only two bodies out there, and the cargo door was open. I think he took whatever was behind the seats and the woman agent, Pfaff.”

“Why in the hell would he do that?”

“She’s the one he’s been talking to, and he’s going to need insurance.” I hustled back to the bar and placed a hand on McGroder’s shoulder; he was definitely looking better. I glanced at the can of root beer Sancho had found on the shelves. “You want another sip?”

The agent grinned. “Only if you’ve got something stiffer.”

“No such luck.” I cleared my throat. “I’ve got bad news; it looks like you’re going to make it.”

He laughed slightly. “So, what’s the good news?”

“I think he’s got one of your agents.”

The grin faded. “Kasey Pfaff?”

I nodded. “All the roads are blocked on both sides of the mountains, but I’m going to make a quick loop a little west of here. I’m hoping they’re in a ditch, so I might be able to round things up quick.”

“He’ll kill you.” He said it like taxes.

I patted his shoulder. “I’m kinda hard to kill.”

“Yeah, I know. I talked to a buddy of yours who’s in the Bureau-guy by the name of Cliff Cly. But still…”

My turn to grin. “Let me guess: Cly was reassigned to the licensing office in Nome, Alaska?”

“Something like that; he says you punch like a mule kicks.”

I shrugged. “He’s overly kind. Look, McGroder, I’ve got to get out there.”

His voice took a different tone, and his sable eyes focused on me unlike they had before, as his hand grasped my sleeve. “I’m not screwing around here, Sheriff. Listen to me. If you go after him alone, he’ll kill you. Wait for backup and…”

I took a breath and leaned in. “I’m just going up the road a bit.”

His face remained immobile. “You’ll never come back.”

I smiled at him, but it was one of those moments when everything freezes in time. I could hear the coolers laboring away, the sleet on the roof, and the last few dying sounds of the fire outside. You know those moments are a signpost, something telling you that you shouldn’t go any farther-the ones you try and ignore.

As I hurried toward the door, the Basquo intercepted me. “Hey, are you sure you want to do this alone?”

“Yep, I’m sure. I’m sure I don’t, but there isn’t anybody else for the job.” He started to interrupt, but I cut him off before he could get going. “With your experience in corrections, you have a lot more medical training; if he goes into cardiac arrest, you might actually be able to do something about saving him.”

He studied me, knowing full well I wasn’t telling him everything, including the promise I’d made to his wife.

He was holding something out to me.

“What’s this?”

“It’s my daypack with supplies. I found some stuff behind the counter-candy, granola bars, a couple of cans of pop, some chips, chewing gum…”

I took the bag and slung one of the straps onto my shoulder. “Well, at least my breath will be kissing-sweet.” He stared at me. I swear Vic was the only one who got my jokes. “I’ll be right back.”

“They took all the satellite phones that the Feds had except this one that they must have missed; they’re these Motorola Iridiums, high-end Fed stuff that might have about thirty hours of power left in them, so take this one.”

I didn’t take it. “Then you have no phone.”

He glanced at McGroder. “They know where we are.”

I still didn’t take it.

He handed me his cell phone that he had carefully wrapped in a Ziploc bag. “Well, at least take this-maybe you’ll find a signal.”

I took the phone but balked when he tried to hand me his Beretta. I patted the. 45 on my hip. “I’ve got a weapon. Anyway, in this weather they might come back.” I took a deep breath of the warm air. “Do me a favor-call Ruby and report in. Tell her what’s going on but don’t make it sound too dramatic. Also, have her see what she can come up with on Beatrice Linwood’s record.”

“Got it.” I didn’t move, so he shoved the. 40 back in his holster. “Look, when Benton was moving their stuff into our van, he put a gun case in the back section. It wasn’t long enough to be a full-fledged rifle, but it looked longer than the Mossbergs they were carrying, so I asked him. He said it was one of those Armalites with laser sights.”

I snorted a laugh. “Great.” I nodded and put a hand on the metal bar that stretched across the door. “If I find the vehicle, I’ll get it and a satellite phone. Keys?”

He nodded toward the Suburban. “They’re in it.”

“How trusting of you.” I smiled, but he didn’t smile back.

It was, as the Basquo had said, like driving on greased goose shit, and now it was really dark with a skim of snow on the road that made it even slicker. The Suburban was heavy, and I started slowing before Willow Park but still locked the wheels in a left-hand turn that resulted in my sliding into the crusty snow at the side of the road and knocking over one of the ten-foot reflector poles.

“Well, hell.”

I threw the Chevy into reverse and easily backed off the roadside onto the snow-covered asphalt. I hit the brakes and could feel the whole truck slide backward an extra four feet.

“Wonderful. At this rate I’ll be in Ten Sleep by Memorial Day.”

I dropped the gear selector down into D and pulled back into the flow of things, slowed a little, and was able to keep the Suburban on the road as my mind raced ahead. All the signs pointed to Beatrice Linwood and Shade being in cahoots-the bobbypin keys in the sandwiches, her turning west instead of east, the fact that she hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off of him at the lodge-but the Ameri-Trans van was another story. Why hadn’t it arrived at Joe Iron Cloud’s or Tommy Wayman’s roadblocks at the base of the mountain? The snow continued to collect on the conifers, and they began looking like rib cages in the contrast of light and dark as I thought about all the loose strings.

It was after I’d made the last curve before hitting the downslope that I saw lights shooting up at an angle. It was a steep embankment alongside a relative straightaway, but there was something odd about the reflection. As I got closer, I could see that it was not one vehicle in the barrow ditch but two.

I crept the Suburban to a stop about thirty yards away, cut the motor, and put on the flashers along with the Lite-Brite-the name my daughter Cady had given the emergency bars on the roofs of my assorted cruisers. I directed the spotlight at the vent window-a term from my own youth-and illuminated the wreckage.

It was Beatrice Linwood’s Blazer and the Ameri-Trans convict transport van. From the slush marks and the point where the two vehicles had crashed their way through the snow piled by the road, I was pretty sure that she had driven into their vehicle at the front driver’s side. With her greater velocity, she’d been able to push the much heavier step van into the ditch, where it had partially rolled over and now lay on its side.

Drawing my Colt, I stepped from the Suburban, careful to take a wide stance, which resulted in my sliding a good nine inches on the glassy surface of the road. I let out a breath, and it sounded like a rattler uncoiling in my lungs, the condensation blowing back in my face with the smell of snakes. I minced a few steps toward the front of the Chevy and could see the body of another one of the federal marshals, lightly covered with splatters of the wet snow, lying beside the ditch.

“Damn.”

I eased past the grillwork and crouched by the man’s outstretched hand. There’s nothing quite so still as the dead-an otherworldly stillness. His flesh was frozen, and there was no movement in him. His coat was missing along with his boots and weapons-the sidearm and the shotgun.

Crouching a little, I pulled my hat on tighter, just to keep it from sailing off with the wind, and started down the slope. The lights were still on inside both vehicles, but the ones from the old Blazer were starting to dim to a sickly yellow. The main cargo doors of the reinforced van were open-I couldn’t see anyone inside but could see the restraints that had attached the convicts lying in the doorway.

Slipping my Maglite from my belt, I focused the beam into the cavernous space where the prisoners should have been but weren’t. I played the light over the cab of the Blazer, but no one was there either. The tracks led back up the hillside and onto the road-a lot of tracks.

If I was to make an assumption, it would be that Shade had picked up all of the survivors in our DOC van.

I scanned the surrounding area again and then continued to the front of the transport. The driver was there, leaning against his seat belt, and he was painfully and obviously dead, as was the man in the passenger seat. They’d both been shot at close range with one of the. 40 pistols. I rested an elbow on the cracked windshield and listened to something in the distance, something unnatural.

It was a whining noise that rose and fell and then stopped.

I listened some more but could hear nothing except the wind. The collar of my sheepskin jacket was providing little protection, but I improved the odds by pulling it up higher and buttoning the top button. I took a second to think about the numbers: that meant six fugitives including Beatrice Linwood and two hostages-Pfaff and the other Ameri-Trans guard.

Just to make sure no one was hanging around, I checked the front of the Blazer at closer quarters, but it was indeed empty. Slogging my way back up the hillside, I remembered Santiago’s cell phone and pulled it out of the Ziploc. I flipped open the face of the device and watched as it searched for service. After about a minute, I decided it was another opportunity to wait for Memorial Day and pocketed the useless thing.

I pulled the federal marshal completely from the road and covered his face with his hat. It was all I could do for now.

The Suburban started up easily, and I punched off the emergency lights and flashers; if I ran into the DOC van farther down the highway, they weren’t likely to pull over. I kept the spotlight pointed in the general direction of the roadside and pulled out.

I’d gone about a quarter of a mile when something caught my eye, and I stood on the brakes. It was the main entrance to Deer Haven, another of the shuttered lodges in the throes of renovation. The Chevrolet slid sideways but finally stayed on the road. I refocused the spotlight and could see a clear set of tire tracks leading into the deep snow.

“Gotcha.”

I wheeled the SUV into the entranceway, careful to avoid the deeper drifts to the left and the remnants of the broken swing gate where they had crashed through; the padlock was still hanging on the post to the right.

There was a single, dusk-to-dawn fixture about thirty feet above the ground, with a bulb that created a giant, illuminated halo that lit up the blowing snow but didn’t shed a lot light on too much else. I repositioned the Suburban’s spotlight into the gloom. Up ahead, there was a forest service bridge with a large drift blocking the road, and it looked as if they’d attempted to head up West Tensleep but had been turned back. The tracks showed that they had reversed and then swung around just ahead of me and plunged into the area where the parking lot would’ve been.

This was when a smart man would’ve parked the Suburban at the head of the road and waited for backup, and I thought about it. It was going to take hours for my reinforcements to get here, if they ever did, and I had a federal agent and a transport officer being held hostage. I applied the simple rule that allowed me to make stupid decisions in these types of situations: if I was down there, would I want someone coming after me?

Yep.

I swept the spotlight to the left and could see the complex of low-slung, dark log cabins-but no van. The tracks led straight across the flat area in front of them and then turned to the right, away from the main lodge. I drove slowly in their path and finally saw the van parked between two of the log structures that sat in a row.

The place was a bushwhacker’s wet dream, with an assortment of cabins surrounding the seventy-five-yard open area, which I’d just crossed. They’d had enough time so that they could be anywhere.

I followed the path the van had cut in the parking lot and saw that the DOC vehicle had gone off the edge of the gravel and buried itself in the drift between the cabins. The noise I’d heard back on the side of the road must’ve been them trying to spin their way out in two-wheel drive.

There didn’t seem to be anybody in the van, so at least I knew one place they weren’t.

Figuring there was no reason to give them a very clear target, I shut off the headlights on the Suburban. Also figuring that for my purposes it was just as good to have things be as quiet as possible, I went ahead and killed the engine. I pulled out my Colt and slammed it into the light in the Suburban’s overhead console. Bits of plastic fell onto the passenger seat, but I thought not giving them another target as I opened the door was a terrific option.

Let the government bill me.

I pulled the keys, opened the door, and stepped into the snow, the surface crusty from sleet. Something fell out along with me. When I looked down I could see it was Saizarbitoria’s pack that now lay on the snow-dappled steps leading to the porch of one of the cabins. I kicked it aside and figured I’d pick it up when I got back to the vehicle.

There were no windows on the sides of the two structures that faced each other, only small ones in the fronts along with glass panels in the two doors. There was no movement that I could detect inside either cabin. I’d check them again after I searched the van.

I eased the door shut and started toward the back of the DOC vehicle. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the occupants had all gotten out through the sliding door at the side and continued on past the cabins to the left.

As far as I could tell, the only electricity that worked was the dawn-to-dusk at the entrance of the parking lot. There probably was no heat either, and huddled in one of the cabins or the main lodge, the group was most likely breaking up furniture to burn in one of the small fireplaces in an attempt not to freeze to death.

The bodies of the two marshals were still lying on the floorboard of the van, both of them, as McGroder had indicated, having been dispatched with one of the appropriated shotguns and at close range. Benton was the nearest, so I reached out and closed his eyes-once again, there was little else I could do. The convicts had taken everything including the steak knife that I had left on the dash. I started to return to the rear cargo door where Santiago said that Benton had stored the enhanced Armalite; I figured I’d feel a lot better if I could get a proper rifle in my hands.

Something moved above me.

I scrambled back against the cabin wall and raised the big Colt.

My back thumped into the dark brown logs, and I stood there in a two-handed grip, trying to get my blood pressure under control. There was a loud snarl like the kind you hear in the movies, but this one was up close and real. I figured it was going to take a couple of hours to get the hair on the back of my neck to lie back down.

As Lonnie Little Bird would say, she was a big one, but she was thin, and I was lucky she didn’t have cubs or I might’ve been dead. She snarled down at me and backed her haunches into the cove section of the twin-peaked roof of the cabin on the other side of the van. Her eyes were the only things I could see.

I’d never been this close to a mountain lion, and I had to admit that-even snarling with a ferocity that vibrated my own lungs-she was a beauty.

Evidently, she’d taken advantage of the shelter provided by the overhang that gave her the ability to stay covered yet capable. I guess she hadn’t moved when the van had pulled in, but when I’d driven up and started poking around, she’d decided enough was enough.

I waved my sidearm at her, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t slam a paw as big as Dog’s into the roof of the cabin in order to back me off. I stood there, a little surprised. The big cats usually aren’t so tenacious when confronted with human beings. I guess she figured there was nowhere better to go, and she’d been there first.

“C’mon, get out of here. I’ll be damned if I’m going to march around waiting for you to hurdle off onto me. Scat!”

I waved the pistol again, but she pushed herself deeper into the alcove. We were at a standoff, and there wasn’t much more I could do to make her move.

With one more glance, I eased around the van and shot a breath from my nose, pulling the handle on one of the rear doors. Just as the Basquo had said, there was a Hardigg polyethylene deployment case lying there-olive drab, my favorite color, or so the Marine Corps had taught me.

I gave another look to the roof of the cabin where I hoped the cougar was still crouched, stuffed my fingertip into my mouth, and yanked the glove off with my teeth. I slipped my naked hand into the plastic handle and pulled the case toward me. I was always amazed at how light the M-series rifles were-they had always felt like plastic toys.

I flipped open the antishear latches and opened the case, revealing the foam cavities for a full cleaning kit and extra magazines and the laser sight. There was a cutout for an M203 grenade launcher with accessories, which had been filled in with foam. The attachment had obviously not been in there-the problem was, neither was the short-barreled rifle.

It was about then that I noticed, for just an instant, a tiny green dot reflected in the van’s rear window.