Craig Johnson - Hell Is Empty

I turned my head and looked out into the gloom. “I’m beginning to wonder about that myself.”

A couple of moments passed as she tried to decide if she was going to argue with me and which point of attack on my lack of logic she was going to take. This was not a pause I was unfamiliar with in my dealings with women. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Sheriff-you look like shit.”

I placed the supplies in the ascent pack and zipped it. “Thanks.”

“I’m not kidding; do you know that the whole side of your head is covered in frozen blood? Did he hit you with one of those shots?”

I turned back to her, an old pro at hiding wounds. “No, I just fell.”

“Lean in here and let me look at your eyes; I think you’re concussed along with being hypothermic and who knows what else.” I didn’t do as she instructed, so she tried another line of attack. “I don’t know what the ambient temperature is or the windchill.”

I smiled at my boots. “Thankfully, the wind’s died down.”

Her voice took on a little edge. “What’s the elevation up here, something like twelve thousand feet?”

“Probably closer to thirteen.”

She shook her head at me. “It’s nighttime.”

“Yep.”

“You’ll die.”

I threw the strap over my shoulder, pretty sure it wasn’t going to fit around my coat. “ He ’s made it this far.”

She shook her head. “He’s certifiably insane.”

I stared at her. “Look, I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know if he’s planning to sacrifice his life to finally stop those voices and visitations, or if he’s got some sort of escape in his head.” I sighed, pulled the strap of the rifle up, and settled my elbows on my knees. “You were his case psychologist.”

“Yes.” The. 40 and the phone were still in her lap. “I wish I knew what he was doing, Sheriff. I was just recently assigned as part of the task force, so I’ve only been familiar with him for about a week.” She reached down, and I imagined she was massaging her ankle. “I’d like to think that he was making progress in coming to terms with what he’d done and what was going to happen to him, but I don’t think he’s suicidal. He initiated the contact with us, no preconditions, nothing. He said he just wanted to show us where the boy, Owen, had been buried.” She took a breath. “Whatever he’s got planned, though, the boy’s remains are key.”

I stood, aware that depleting my reserves with even a short conversation wasn’t wise. “The fellow who was with me, Virgil? He’s got a knack for showing up at some of the most unpredictable places. He’s hurt, and if he appears, keep him here. He’s kind of scary looking but don’t let that put you off.”

She picked up the semiautomatic. “I could stop you by shooting you.”

I yawned again; a big one this time. “You could, but I’m so tired I’m not sure if I’d notice.”

She nodded and then translated it into shaking her head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll look for your friend. What else have I got to do?” She pulled at the sleeping bag. “How am I supposed to keep him here if he shows?”

I thought about it. “Tell him stories; he likes stories.” I pulled the goggles down over my eyes and watched the world turn amber-glow again. I wondered how long I could wear them outside in the darkness. I pointed at some of the candy in her lap. “Give him a Mallo Cup; he really likes those.”

I took out my gloves, careful to keep the bone lodged in my jacket. “This whole thing with Shade, it’s kind of gotten personal.”

“Between you and him?”

I pulled up the balaclava, fixed the rolled collar of my jacket, and pushed my hat down on my head. “Well, yes, and between Shade and Virgil; Owen White Buffalo was his grandson, and even with a slug and a half in him, Virgil is some kind of formidable.”

She looked at me, incredulity playing across her face. “You’re worried about Raynaud Shade?”

“At this point…” I reached over to get the dead man’s snowshoes, unbuckling the more modern version of the ones Virgil had left upside down on the trail. “I’m worried about all of us.”

I smiled at her one last time, but with my frozen features, who knew what it looked like. I turned and walked out into the steadily falling snow.

I trudged up the mountain not expecting to find much, relatively sure that Shade had continued toward his final goal, which I assumed was the top of Cloud Peak. There was a slight depression in the snow where he’d made his way, but I couldn’t see any tracks where Virgil might’ve followed.

The spot beside the cairn where he’d lain near the edge was still evident. I knelt and brushed some of the snow away. There was blood, and I could see where the round from my rifle had hit the lip of the rock and had splintered it, effectively turning it into shrapnel. The majority of the frozen blood was near where his head and shoulders would’ve been.

I’d gotten him, but he was still moving.

I readjusted the goggles; it didn’t seem to make much difference with or without them. I knew that if I followed the cirque up the last scree field, I would finally get to the Knife’s Edge, a redoubtable spine about as wide as a city sidewalk that dropped off a thousand feet on either side.

I’d probably take my goggles off for that.

Then it would be a case of simply bulling my way up the incline that led to the lightning-hammered top of Cloud Peak. At that point, there would be nowhere else for Raynaud Shade to go, or me either, for that matter.

I rose, turned my back to kingdom come, and started up, steadying my rate into the mule pace that had gotten me this far. That’s how I was thinking about myself as of late, like some Marine mule that didn’t have enough sense to lie down and die. It wasn’t the most comforting of thoughts, but it got me up the hill.

Thankfully, the majority of the snow had been swept from the ridge, making it easier to spot solid footing. It was now fully dark, and the only good thing about that was that I couldn’t see the passes that led east and west thousands of feet below.

The wind seemed to have let up, and I was glad that of all the elements I was contending with, the ever-prevalent Wyoming wind had been the one to decide to give me a break. That was a miracle in itself.

Maybe the Old Cheyenne in the Camp of the Dead or the Crow from the Beyond-Country were holding back the wind for me with their arms outstretched, battered by the gusts and ceding none.

Sacred lands for the Cheyenne and the Crow, we whites had been in the Bighorns for only a couple of hundred years-they had been here for thousands. There is a knowledge that comes of a place you’ve lived in for that long. These high mountain canyons that had served as highways for the indigenous peoples, allowing them passage from one hunting ground to another and relief from the summer heat below and the gathering of medicines, are their most hallowed grounds. At the center of all this grandeur and history was the mountain that I was climbing-Cloud Peak, 13,167 feet of geologic event.

But right now, it was just cold as hell.

I tried to distract myself by thinking of other things; I thought about the story that Virgil had told me about how he had lost his grandson that sunny October afternoon. I’d wondered about the animosity that seemed inherent in the relationship that he had with his son, a man who, after not seeing his father for so many years, had responded by spitting in his face. I could only imagine the panic that must’ve overtaken Virgil when he’d returned to the truck to find only the indentation in the saddle blanket seat cover. To not know what had happened to the boy-it was almost as if the gods themselves, the ones from the giant Crow’s stories, had come and whisked Owen White Buffalo away.