Craig Johnson - Hell Is Empty

I aimed at the exact spot where I’d seen the four-point flare, squeezed the trigger, and the big-bore kicked. I was certain that if I didn’t kill him, I hit part of him. I jacked the lever action, replaced the round from the butt stock, and slammed it home, placing another round at the ready.

I held the sights on the exact spot where I’d fired. If he was still alive, he might try for another, but if he was smart and ambulatory, he’d move. There hadn’t been much of him revealed, but even a fragment shot off the edge of the rocks would’ve done the trick.

I lifted my head a little and became aware of the beer-barrel chest of the giant Crow rising and lowering. “Virgil?”

He coughed, grunted, and then strangled out a laugh. “I told you I saw something.”

“How bad are you hit?” I adjusted my weight so that I wasn’t lying on him, then reacquired my target as much as the whiteout would allow.

His voice was strange. “Bad enough-don’t let him shoot me again.”

“I promise.” I kept my eyes on the rimrock.

I noticed that my shivering had stopped and that my mind was now relatively clear, evidently the side effect of every bit of adrenaline in my body being dumped into my nervous system. I wondered abjectly how long the high octane would last.

His words were slurred. “Did you get him?”

“I’m not sure.”

There was a pause. “I would like to think that you got him.”

“Me, too.” There was no more movement on the granite shelf, and if I hadn’t gotten him, he’d moved to another spot or retreated. I thought again about the old maxim that had crossed my mind when Raynaud Shade had fired on me back at Deer Haven Lodge: “The first one to move is the first one to die.” Shade held the advantage in that I wanted to check Virgil’s wounds and possibly move him to the overhang ahead, but I had to be sure that we weren’t drawing fire while I did it.

So, I waited.

“How do you feel, buddy?”

He grunted again. “Not so bad; I think only one got me good. The other one deflected and climbed up my chest and face.”

The original 55-grain lead-core round had a propensity to fragment at the cannelure at certain ranges, but that was crazy. “A tumble round? I haven’t seen that since Vietnam-they haven’t made those since ’67. You must be imagining things.”

“It climbed over my face, so I think I would know.”

I suppressed a smile. “Sit tight, and I’ll take a look at you.”

He was breathing regularly, talking, and even joking, so I figured our situation must not be too bad. Trying to carry the monster to the overhang was going to be the hard part; as near as I could estimate, Virgil White Buffalo probably tipped the scale at almost four hundred pounds.

I hoped his legs worked.

I growled in my throat, knowing every passing minute wasn’t doing the big Indian any good. “Virgil, I’m going to check you and then try and move us to that overhang.”

“I would like to sit up.”

“Okay, here we go.” I lowered our only defense into my lap and turned, watching in amazement as the giant pushed off with one arm and rolled up to a sitting position. He turned to look at me, and the effects of the. 223 round were evident. The bullet had ripped up over the surface of his jawbone, had continued across his cheek, and deflected from the ridge of his brow toward his hairline. The wound was deeper at the side of his face where the distended tissue was opened like a flap, and the majority of the blood was coming from there. The socket was already swollen but appeared operable. “Can you see out of that eye?”

“Yes. I have a matching set of scars now?”

“Like train tracks.” I yanked off a stiffened glove and attempted to lay the flesh back together on his cheek, but it wouldn’t stay. “Virgil, I need to see where the other round went, so I realize this is a pretty absurd situation, but can you hold your face?”

He gently nodded, and one of his enormous hands came up to press the skin back in place. I pulled the cloak open, revealing the moosehide shirt underneath, and could see two small marks where the slug must’ve fractured and split away into three separate pieces. I felt the spot where the round had hit and had to laugh. It was like a cliche from an old pulp western-the slug had struck the thick paperback. The book hadn’t stopped the bullet, but it had deflected it enough so that it hadn’t killed the behemoth-maybe it hadn’t been a tumble round after all.

I started laughing. “Jesus, Virgil, Dante saved your life.”

For obvious reasons, he didn’t smile but grunted.

I yanked at the shirt, even going so far as to pull the book from underneath, noticing the. 223 had gone as far as page 305. I tossed the book aside and gently peeled the hide shirt back-it was then that I saw where the second round had gone. Dead center, but with the angle of deflection and the big Indian’s response, it must’ve traveled down and not into the heart or lungs. Where the hell did it go? Virgil had the unfortunate disadvantage of having the larger silhouette, thus being Shade’s primary target, but he also had the advantage of having more room for bullets.

The only thing left to do was check his back for an exit wound, so I leaned him forward against my shoulder. It was like bulldogging a steer, but I could hear his breathing and it was steady. I pulled at the bear fur cloak that fortunately wasn’t trapped underneath him, and then pulled the shirt and a thermal top away from his vast back. “Virgil, you may be the luckiest son of…”

The words caught in my throat when I saw the exit wound at his lower back.

The pack was lying next to him, so I snagged the first-aid kit that Omar had included from the bottom cavity. I put a number of pads over the wound, and then used the packaging as a seal to keep air out of the cavitated tissue. I tore open rolls of medicated gauze, which I wrapped around his chest and closed off in the front. “How are you feeling?”

He nodded.

“Breathing no problem?” He nodded, and I was pretty sure we weren’t looking at a sucking chest wound or any sort of lung damage. I pulled the thermal, shirt, and cloak back down; with the loss of blood, he’d be facing hypothermic symptoms soon enough without keeping him exposed. I concentrated on his face and packed snow on the wound to try to stop the bleeding. It worked, and I was able to get a gauze pad and medical tape to stick. “Can you move?”

He swallowed, and I could see that he didn’t like the idea.

“I wouldn’t ask, but there’s cover up ahead and I want to get you to it.”

His legs shifted, indicating that his core was intact, but he didn’t seem to be able to get them underneath himself.

“How about if I try and help?”

He nodded, but even between the two of us we didn’t get much lift. He looked at me, and there was something I’d never seen in the giant’s face before-just that little bit of panic.

“Virgil, can you move?”

He shook his head and slumped a little.

“Virgil?” Air escaped from between his lips, and more than a little panic now shot through me. “Virgil…” I placed a hand against his throat but couldn’t feel a pulse, which wasn’t unusual with the conditions. I moved my hand and felt along the side of his heavily muscled neck, still finding nothing.

“Lawman.” I glanced up and could see one large eye, the other now completely closed. “You must go ahead.”

“No.” I tried pulling at his arm, but he didn’t move; it was like trying to lift a grain mill. “C’mon, Virgil. I’m not going to leave you here.”

I pulled on his arm again, but his eye just stayed there, passive-almost as if I wasn’t there with him at all. Finally, he spoke in a soft but insistent voice. “You must go. The others are just ahead and you must save them-innocent people…”