Craig Johnson - Hell Is Empty

I nodded and directed my. 45 toward the entryway across a sitting room in the back. I stepped over the head of a massive Kodiak bear rug and could see something lodged against the front door. The stained glass of the door panel was shattered, and the blowout from an exit wound had sprayed in a spot a foot wide with foreign material embedded in the wood. The liquid pattern narrowed in a sliding path to a solidifying pool of dark blood and the slumped and inert body of Marcel Popp.

There was one of the Sig. 40s in his lap, and I used my boot to flip it from between his outstretched legs. His head had lolled forward, and the back of it was pretty much gone.

As a formality, I lowered a hand and placed two fingers along his neck but could feel the unnatural coolness of the postmortem flesh and no pulse. I stooped a little more and looked at the side of the big convict’s face. There was a jagged hole at the left cheekbone from which thickening blood slowly dripped, his still eyes following the path to where his life had drained.

I fought the urge that my legs telegraphed to collapse under me and take a rest. I stood and looked out the shattered door. The shot had fittingly exited through the middle of a rose-red triangle, and the insidious cold pulsed through the hole as if the wilderness was attempting to give back the bullet and the death that it carried.

I wavered there for a moment, then turned and looked at Omar, who was intently studying the crystal in his hands. He reached behind him for the bottle, poured a full four fingers, took a slow sip, and returned it and the bottle to the counter. “Happened fast. They knocked on the door, and I don’t answer the door at three in the morning up here without accompaniment.”

I crossed back toward the kitchen but stood a little away from him. The bullet he’d taken must’ve clipped him below the main tendons in his shoulder and above the clavicle, but it still must’ve hurt like hell.

“Said their car was stuck. I let ’em in, but when I turned from the door he raised up that automatic and got a shot off. I guess maybe he saw the Mag in my hand, and it spooked him.” He breathed heavily, and I could hear a faint whistling sound. “Got me in the shoulder, but I don’t think it hit anything important-still works.” To emphasize the point, he raised the arm a little. “Rolled to the side when he fired again, and I put one in his head.”

I found myself nodding. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

He breathed some more. “Yeah.” He picked up the tumbler with a sickly smile. “Sterilizing from the inside.” He took a large swallow. “Funny, I’m hungry as hell.” He took another bite of the sandwich and chewed. “You want half of this?”

“Maybe later.”

“I’m horny, too.”

I took a while to respond to that one. “I don’t think I want to help you out with that, either.” He laughed, and the timbre of it was a little higher than I remembered and a little unnerving as well. I gestured toward his sandwich. “It’s a normal, life-reaffirming process. Kicks in when you really think you’re going to die and don’t-the urge to reproduce, eat… It’s when you almost lose your life that you really start appreciating it.” Omar was staring at the counter again, so I switched to another topic, a more urgent one. “The woman’s in the bathroom?”

He glanced up. “Huh?”

“He had a woman with him. She’s in the bathroom?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s that?”

He used his good arm to gesture after picking up the scotch. “Down the hall.”

I began to turn but stopped when he started to go for the scotch bottle again. “Omar?”

“Yeah?”

“Stop drinking.”

He didn’t move. “Right.”

We stood there like that, neither of us so much as twitching. “I mean it; I may need you.”

He set the glass down, and I made my way into the hall. There were three doors-the nearest was closed, so I knocked on it. There was no answer, so I knocked again. Someone whimpered, and it didn’t sound the way an FBI agent would whimper. “Beatrice?”

There was more keening, and I leaned in closer to the door. “Beatrice, it’s Walt Longmire, the sheriff from the lodge. Is it okay if I open the door and see if you’re all right?”

There were no more sounds, and I did what I had to do, turning the knob and carefully opening the door. It was dark in there, but I could see a body wrapped around itself and wedged between the bathtub and the toilet.

“Beatrice?” She started when I spoke again. I slipped in sideways and holstered my Colt. “Are you okay?” It was a stupid question, but I had to open with something. “Do you remember me?” Another stupid question. I started thinking I should try some statements. “Beatrice, you’re not hurt.”

She mewled into the crossed arms that covered her face above her drawn knees.

“You’re going to be okay.” Nothing. “Are you hurt?”

I kneeled down and leaned against the side of the tub, the burning in my legs attempting to overtake me. She didn’t appear to be physically damaged but continued to huddle against the wall. I carefully reached a hand out to her. “I’m here to help, Beatrice. I need to know if you’re okay.”

The moment my fingers grazed the sleeve of her jacket, she yanked back and screamed and didn’t stop. Her eyes were wide, and she stared at me with the fierceness that only cornered animals have, animals like the one I’d encountered on the roof of the cabin at Deer Haven Lodge.

I didn’t move at first but finally allowed the leg under me to collapse, and I slid against the far wall, my hat falling into my lap. I sat there looking into the ferocity of her eyes and took all they could give.

She sat on the sofa near the fire and was wrapped in a rustand ivory-striped wool blanket that had a band of Lakota ghost ponies woven on the edge as I attempted to bandage Omar’s wound. I placed the affected limb in a sling made from a couple of monogrammed linen napkins from William the Samoan, as Lucian Connally referred to the purveyor of fine tableware.

Omar looked up at me, and I could see that his eyes were starting to clear a little at the pupils. “You’ll help me bury the body, right? I mean, that’s what friends are for.”

I had finished my own ham and cheese and tried not to watch the pot of water on the propane range for philosophical purposes. He was still drunk, but I’d found a French coffee press, unsure who needed the caffeine more, him or me. I had gotten him to sit on one of the fringed leather barstools and retrieved the finally whistling kettle. Carefully pouring the boiling water over the grinds in the glass contraption, I stood there for a few moments thinking about all the things I was going to have to do before heading out after the remaining escaped convicts. Henry had a French press, and from the many times I’d seen my friend go through the procedure at his house, I probably should’ve waited longer for the coffee to brew, but I had work to do. I depressed the strainer to compress the grinds and poured three of the O bar R Buffalo China cups to the brim.

I turned and sat one of the heavy mugs in front of him. “Drink that.”

He nodded, and I picked up the other two mugs and moved toward the sofa. “Beatrice, how ’bout a little coffee?”

She stayed crouched in the Pendleton blanket with her legs curled under her. I had found her glasses, and they reflected the flames of the fireplace; it was as if I were looking into two miniature hatches of a firestorm.

“You want anything in it?” I stood there for a minute more and then crossed the rest of the way and sat on the edge of the cushion beside her. I could see that she was shaking. “If you drink a little something you might feel better.”