Craig Johnson - A Serpent's Tooth - A Walt Longmire Mystery

The Bear turned to look at me. “What is this all about?”

We watched as she passed the building and continued on toward the Suburban, still parked where we’d left it early this morning. Henry clutched the open door as I spun the wheel and pulled across the parking lot to follow her. When we got to the SUV, she had the passenger-side door open and had dived onto the front seat, her legs sticking straight out of the open door.

The Cheyenne Nation glanced at me as we got out. “It must be something important.”

We stood there as she extricated herself from the Suburban with Double Tough’s duty clipboard in her hands, pulling the forms free of the clip and throwing them into the open cab.

“Vic?”

She ignored me and opened the inside of the clip where the white copies were usually deposited to be filed. She stood there looking at the top one, finally turning it around and handing it to me.

The form was a standard ticket written out as a warning to one of the kids Double Tough had mentioned stopping yesterday evening—he was driving an early-seventies C-10 pickup with South Dakota plates, and his name was Edmond Lynear.

I raised my eyes to hers. “Eddy Lynear, late of Butte County, South Dakota?” I thought about it. “The kids.” I studied the form. “What the hell were they doing over here last night?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but they were here in that diarrhea-colored truck and somebody got in there and took that bit. Either you were wrong about Lockhart being unconcerned about the damn thing or someone else was interested.

• • •

When we reached the entrance to East Spring Ranch, the scours-colored truck was sitting on the other side of the gate with a gaggle of heavily rearmed teenagers in the bed, on the hood, and in the cab.

I pulled my truck to the side of the road, still a little ways away from the gate, and left the engine running. I shut off the sirens but allowed the blue lights to continue racing across the blockade like an accusation.

Eddy Lynear was, of course, the first one to speak. “That’s as far as you go.”

Stepping from my truck, I watched as Henry, having left the shotgun behind, slid out the other side. Vic, who evidently had decided to hold back until this particular group of the youth of America made their move, remained in the Bullet and watched.

Henry joined me, and we walked toward the fence as I pulled the paper from my pocket and held it up for them all to see. “This is a warrant for admission to this property, and I will now ask you to move this vehicle and unlock this gate to grant us entry.”

Eddy, who was holding some sort of tactical shotgun with a folding stock and built-in light, called down from the top of the cab, “We were told to kill you if you try and enter.”

I looked up at the kid. “Hey, Eddy, why don’t you climb down here and talk to us?”

The other four were now making menacing noises with their weapons like they were starring in an episode of Steadfast Resolution , beside the fact that these modern automatic armaments haven’t had to be cocked since well before they were all born.

I rolled up the warrant, for all the good it was doing me, and put it away. The light from the shotgun was bright, and I raised my hand to block the beam. “Before you do something stupid, how about we talk?” My only concern at this point was that they might accidently discharge one of their exotic toys, and I knew from experience that accidentally dead was still dead. “I bet I can guess who it is that gave you these weapons.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I’m betting it was that character Tom Lockhart, wasn’t it?”

He still didn’t say anything.

“I bet he also filled your head up with a bunch of hooey about him being some kind of big wheel with the CIA, didn’t he?”

You could see the doubt beginning to chip away at the others, but Eddy was still standing tall before the man and wasn’t giving ground. “He says you’re dirty.”

“What?”

“He says you’re planning on getting rid of us, that this is Armageddon.” He motioned with the barrel. “I’m not kidding, Sheriff. If you try to get past us, I’ll kill you.”

I shook my head. “All right. First off, I’m here to tell you that Tom Lockhart is not CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, FEMA, NASA, the Absaroka County Dog Catcher, or any of the other things he’s been telling you. He’s just a loudmouth with a checkered past—pretty much a never-was. Now I don’t know if he got you guys to go after my deputy Double Tough and get the drill bit out of the Suburban. I don’t know if you guys are the ones who set fire to the sheriff’s substation as a diversion or what, but the important thing for you to know is that my deputy is still alive. I’d like to think that you didn’t mean to hurt him or that you didn’t even know that he was asleep in the back room.”

The kid poked the shotgun at us with a little more enthusiasm. “Shut up.”

“The point being that you haven’t done anything that you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life in an eight-by-eight cell paying for—unlike your buddy Tom Lockhart and his friends in there.”

Eddy’s face was red as he screamed down at me. “Shut up!”

“He gave you the guns and told you that was just the beginning, didn’t he? Said he’d cut you guys in on the deal? Well, I’ve got news for you—he’s just a money-grubbing lowlife who’s tricking all of you into doing his fighting for him.”

Eddy jacked the breech of the tactical shotgun.

Both Henry and I watched the spent unfired shell bounce off the sheet metal of the cab and land at our feet. The Bear looked at me, neither of us all that concerned with Eddy Lynear.

At that point I heard a roar from behind us and figured Vic must’ve accidentally stepped on the accelerator in trying to get out of the truck, but I should’ve known better. The engine racing had been a warning, kind of like when a bull snorts, paws the ground, and bellows. When Henry and I turned to look at her, she had already reached up and pulled the selector in my truck down into gear.

More readily able to tell the difference between a potential and absolute threat than I ever could, the Cheyenne Nation pushed me to the side with all his considerable strength and then leapt backward as the three-quarter-ton charged forward into the giant gate. The Bullet slapped the gate backward and in turn broadsided the truck on the other side.

The young men, not unaccustomed to vehicular assault, leapt from their vehicle, leaving Eddy as the only occupant. Vic pushed the aged Chevrolet down the road sideways, Eddy dropped the shotgun in an attempt to stay on the top the truck, and Henry and I stood at the center of the road as Vic continued to push the entire mess like an icebreaker.

“When do you think she will stop?”

“When she finds a cliff to push him off of.” I stooped and picked up the shotgun, noticing that it, too, was a Wilson. “Fancy. They must have a dealership.”

Vic finally took her foot off the accelerator as she deposited the Chevy into the roadside ditch like some botched Macy’s Thanksgiving Day float.

One of the kids loped next to me, the others fell in, and pretty soon we looked like some lost platoon in search of transport. I reached down and took an elongated weapon from him. “You mind if I take a look at that, Edgar?”

He smiled. “Nope. I don’t even know where the safety is, and it weighs a ton.”

“It doesn’t have a safety.”

“Oh.” He cantered along. “It was the last one, and nobody wanted it—I mean, it’s a bolt action.”

“Uh-huh.” I held the exotic weapon up and looked at the barrel as we neared the two-truck pileup. “Fifty-cal BMG.”