Craig Johnson - Hell Is Empty

“You don’t say. I must’ve missed that in Bible school.” It was Sunday morning, after all.

“Yeah, people don’t remember that part. See, the reason the Thunderbird had to go get help was because the Water Monsters kept eating his young.”

I pushed my hat back for a closer look at Virgil’s face. “Really?”

He studied me for a few seconds and then returned his eyes to the ridge, giving me the full view of the indented part of his forehead where a drug dealer had pounded it with a claw hammer. “The Water Monsters or Long Otters would come whenever there was a fog and eat the young Thunderbirds before their feathers were mature. So the Thunderbirds got the help of one of my people to do battle against the Long Otters. The warrior shot them with arrows and poured red-hot rocks down the Water Monsters’ throats to kill them.”

“That’d do it, in most cases.”

Virgil smiled, suffering my trace of sarcasm. “Yes, then the warrior was given many powers by the Thunderbirds so that he could change his shape, becoming many different animals and birds. He lived by the big water for many years but came down with a case of lice and longed to go home.”

The big Indian could see me smiling at the details of Crow mythology.

“Lice? You’d think if you had all those powers, you could get rid of lice.”

A little indignation crept into his voice. “Hey, this stuff is handed down.”

“Right.”

He ignored me and continued. “Anyway, the warrior remembered that he wanted to return to his native land, the Yellowstone Country. He turned himself into a crow and flew home. Once his travels were over, he saw an elk by the river and thought he would kill it.”

“A crow could kill an elk?’

“It was a big crow. Anyway, it grabbed him and drew him into the water where the Long Otters were waiting. The Thunderbird thundered and shook the earth, but the Water Monsters paid no attention and tortured the warrior, finally asking him if he knew what he was. He said he was a crow. They told him, no, you are an Indian and you have killed many things here in the water, but we do not wish to kill you. We will release you back to your people-and that is how the Crow got their name.” He sniffed a little in indignation. “It is also how the Elk River or Yellowstone got its name, but that is not so important.”

I nodded my head. “And the moral of the story is?”

He raised an eyebrow, and it was as if the dent in his forehead was looking to dig deeper. “What is it with you white people and morals? Maybe it’s just a story about what happened.” He paused for a moment. “If an Indian points at a tree, you white people are always thinking, What does that mean? What does the tree stand for? What’s the lesson in this for me? Maybe it’s just a tree.”

“Okay.” I wanted to get going but was still curious. “What happened to the young Thunderbirds?”

“How the hell should I know?” He glanced up to where the sky would’ve been if we could’ve seen it. “My great uncle, the ditchdigger, he said they grew up and populated the earth as eagles.”

I waited for more, but there didn’t appear to be any so I asked the next question that had been on my mind. “Virgil, back down the trail at the meadow, did you know there was only one of them in the Thiokol?”

He continued to study the lake, possibly looking for either a hoof or a monster that might be sticking out of the ice. “Yes.”

“How come you didn’t tell me?”

The double head dipped, and it was the first time I’d ever seen a grizzly shrug. “You had to arrest that one before you could come after these. I thought I could keep an eye on them while you were busy.” He studied me. “You don’t tell me everything down below, Lawman, and I don’t tell you everything up here. Like I said, the rules are different this high-we do not have the final say.”

“How so?”

He breathed deeply and thought about it. “Down there-it is so loud and so busy we can block them out, but up here is different.”

I wasn’t sure I knew what he was talking about, which was nothing new with Virgil White Buffalo, Kicked-in-the-Belly band, Crazy Dogs warrior society. Nonetheless, I thought I’d give it a shot. “Virgil, that wasn’t you down at the West Tensleep parking lot that drew me over and showed me where the Thiokol had gone, was it?”

He looked around, his gaze stopping here and there as if he were seeing something or someone I wasn’t. He didn’t move for a moment, then the wind struck his wide back as if urging him onward, and the dark hollows above his cheekbones turned toward me. “There is the singing water and the drumming rock and this is the way of it. Listen.”

Foolishly, I thought he was going to say something more. “What?”

“I am serious now. Listen.”

I finally got his meaning and stood there trying to hear the report of Shade’s. 223, cries for help, or even Water Monsters and Thunderbirds, but all I could hear was the wind and snow scrubbing the high country like an unforgiving brush. “I can’t…”

“Listen.”

I tipped my hat back in exasperation. “What the hell am I listening for, Virgil?”

“They follow you still.”

My skin prickled, and my mouth grew dry. All I could think of was what had occurred since my experience on these mountains more than a year ago. I thought about almost drowning in Clear Creek Reservoir, racing a borrowed horse across Forbidden Drive in Philadelphia, hunting a killer in a ghost town, and being drugged on a mesa in the Powder River country. Strange things had happened to me in all those places, including the parking lot at West Tensleep only yesterday, but I’d filed all those instances away as explainable phenomena. What stood before me now was much larger and more powerful than the giant cloaked in a bear hide. As strange and mystifying as it might be, I needed to know. “What are you saying, Virgil?”

“The Old Ones, they have spoken to me for the first time-or maybe it is the first time I have been able to listen.” He smiled a little and turned his head to catch the corners of the wind as it redirected itself around him, and it was like the snout above his head tested the air. “They tell me to watch over you and to keep you safe-which is all very strange.”

I stood, now especially anxious to stop talking and get moving.

“They don’t watch over white men.”

Slipping the rifle strap onto my shoulder, I took a few steps toward the opening that led toward the trail. “Well, I don’t know what to say to that, Virgil.”

He let the smile play on his lips like a warped board. “You saved an Indian the last time you were up here, yes?”

I froze, and not because of the temperature, and thought about how Henry had taken a bullet that could’ve easily been mine. “Sort of.”

“So…” The giant nodded his great, hooded face, the slight glimmer from the reflection in his pupils remaining steady as he lowered his head to look me in the eye. “What Indian are you saving this time?”

It was a command performance asking for a response, but now was not the time to discuss things that would derail the entire venture. It was hard, but I remained silent.

The wind gusted against him again, but he stood in front of it, unmoved. “Still keeping secrets from me, Lawman?”

A few flakes blew into our protected area and lit on my face, burning like ash. “Maybe it’s like you said; up here we don’t have final say.” He was still, like a hunter is before the defining act, and all I could feel was the sympathy I’d had for the giant when I’d heard the boy’s name.

“No, we don’t.” He shrugged the cloak higher with a roll of his shoulders; maybe the inactivity of not moving was beginning to have an effect even on him. “You have great sorrows burning in your heart, and you’ll have more sorrows with someone very close to you in the not so distant future. The Old Ones have told me this, and that’s probably the most important thing I have to say to you.”