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

“From the Bakken pipeline.”

He stared at me.

“Which is why you’re setting up other fake religious compounds in Garden County, Nebraska, and Hodgeman County, Kansas—you’re planning on doing the exact same thing that you did in Mexico, siphoning off a percentage of the two hundred thousand barrels of crude oil a day that’s going to be coming down from the Bakken shale development in North Dakota when it comes through all four of your compounds. Only this time, it’ll be American oil.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment but then quickly shifted into damage control. “Sheriff, let’s be reasonable and go in the office and discuss this like rational men.”

I stared at Dale Tisdale and the saturated, dark dirt underneath him. “Reasonable rational men.”

Lockhart glanced around at the armaments at his disposal, and most specifically at Bidarte, still standing at his shoulder, and whispered. “We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.”

“Well . . .” I reached up, casually tipping my hat back. “I guess we’ll do it the hard way.” I then tried to relax as I scratched the back of my neck.

16

It was as if the world inhaled.

You could feel it before you heard it, the rush of oxygen that pulled all of us up the hill toward the tanker truck. I was staring at the dust around my boots as it skipped along the ground in an undertow just before the sound and fury that was thousands of gallons of crude oil exploding with the ferocity of more Claymores than I’d imagined.

Knowing full well what was coming, I’d covered my ears in an attempt to have some semblance of hearing after the thing went. We’d all flown down the hill with the compressed heat of the explosion singeing our clothes and skin.

The three unfortunates, including Lockhart, who had been facing the tanker when it blew, were lying on the ground on their backs, with me on top of them.

It had ruptured in the rear where the incendiary had entered, causing the truck to split open along the top with massive clouds of billowing black smoke filling the canyon with eye-watering efficiency.

I rolled to the side and flexed my jaws in an attempt to equalize the pressure in my head but immediately regretted the taste of oil in my mouth. The stuff was everywhere, floating in the air like little droplets of death.

Pushing up on one elbow, I could see that the truck itself was still intact, but the rear end of the tanker was twisted and blown open like a beer can, roiling black billows of smoke and orange-tinged flames.

I watched as a fresh explosion jetted from the tank as another surge of oxygen must’ve been sucked in. The worst was over, but it would likely continue to belch fire and smoke into the limited air supply of the canyon. I looked up and could see now that the camouflage canopy was actually holding the slick of smoke and was slowly working its way down the face—before long nobody would be able to see or breathe anything if the cover didn’t burn away.

As if on cue, a few pieces of the camo started flaming and floating like space debris, and I was just as glad to have on my cowboy hat, which provided me with a little more protection than the ball caps everyone else was wearing.

One of the riflemen was dragging himself to his feet and rubbing his eyes, the autoloading rifle hanging from his chest in a military harness. I reached over and disconnected the harness as his hands fumbled over mine. I gave him a quick elbow to the bridge of his nose and watched as he collapsed at my boots.

I moved a little unsteadily, grabbing all the remaining automatic rifles and tossing them indiscriminately into the creek.

One of the mercenaries started to argue and clutched his weapon, but I introduced him to the butt end of his stock and then propelled it after its brethren.

Rockwell was still lying on the ground and was attempting to crawl—but both Lockhart and Bidarte were gone.

I looked in the direction of the rig, where men were running everywhere, some of them attempting to protect the flammables, others trying to set up a pumping unit and hoses to put out the flaming tanker.

I finally caught a glimpse of Bidarte’s leather jacket as he pushed through the men on the rig to continue toward the pinched end at the rear of the canyon. He paused for only an instant to stare me down. I wasn’t sure if he was saying good-bye or memorizing my face with those dead man’s eyes. We both froze like that for a moment, but I was sure he understood what my look to him meant.

My attention was drawn back to Rockwell as he raised a hand and touched my leg; when I looked back, Tomás Bidarte was gone.

Crouching beside Tisdale, I lifted his head toward me and lowered my face to his, amazed that he still had the energy to move. “Hang on, we’ll get you out of here.”

His bloody hand came up again and fell against my arm. “My daughter.”

I nodded. “I’ll find her, Orrin, I’ll find her. You just hang on. . . .”

He shook his head sadly, air escaping from his lungs in bubbles like pink gum. “No.” He smiled, just slightly, the missing tooth looking like a keyhole in his face. “Dale . . . My name is Dale.”

His eyes remained the same, but his head relaxed to the side and I knew he was no longer there. I thought about a man who had been forgotten, forgotten by his wife, his child, and his country. I thought about a man who had been so many men that he no longer knew the man he was. Maybe he’d rediscovered himself here at the end. Somehow, in a pool of blood, Dale Tisdale had risen to the top like cream to reclaim himself; at least that’s what I wanted to think.

The weight in my chest was enough to pull me over, so I lowered him to the ground and crouched there, thinking about Bidarte, and the look on his face as he’d seen me see him.

I continued to look around for Lockhart, but he was nowhere.

My eyes were drawn past the rig and the crowds of men racing back and forth toward the darkness at the back of the canyon.

• • •

The rock walls pinched together, towering overhead to a height of a hundred feet where the drainage of Sulphur Creek had chiseled through the rising bedrock of the Bighorn Mountains. It was dark in the constricted throat of the canyon, with only starlight peeking from underneath the backside of the canopy they had constructed.

The stars held the black sky in the arch of the Hanging Road, the thickest part of the Milky Way that the Northern Cheyenne and Crow said was the trail map to the Camp of the Dead. It was possible that the Old Ones were with me as the stars reflected from the murky water—starlight up, starlight down.

There was an abbreviated ledge to the right, but it petered out to a pile of rubble that slid into the dark creek.

Studying the ripples carefully in the reflection of the universe, I gently stepped into the cold and felt for the bottom as the water rose to midthigh.

I breathed a quick gasp, thankful that the level was no higher, and pulled the .45 from my holster, holding it high enough so that if I hit a deep spot I wouldn’t submerge my one and only sidearm.

The bottom was sandy, and the current, though slow, was steady. I leaned forward and made progress as the channel grew narrower, the rock cliffs becoming sheerer. There was a break in the wall to my right, providing a wonderful spot that you might want to use if you wanted to cut someone’s throat as they approached.

I slowed and countered by slipping to the left and keeping the Colt pointed at the darkness of the alcove. I waited a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom and could almost see the outline of somebody there. I waited a second and then realized it must’ve been a shadow before redirecting the possibility of my fire toward the oncoming creek.