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

As if reading my mind, he spoke. “Why take the chance, Sheriff?”

I stiffened my muscles, ignoring the body-numbing cold of the water but allowing the coolness to come into my face and the steadiness into my hands, thinking about a young man lying in the backyard of a rented house in Powder Junction. “Frymire.”

He nodded, and his black hat reflected in the water with the movement. “That was his name?”

“It was.”

“Unfortunate.” He remained maddeningly calm. “I didn’t really want to kill him, but Señor Lockhart said it would slow you down.”

“It did.”

“But not enough.”

“No.”

“A shame. I appreciate the care you took of my mother; I will always be indebted to you for that. I have already retrieved her from your town and made arrangements for her transportation and comfort.” He shook his head, the hat again dancing on the water. “This will all disappear, we will all disappear—you will disappear.”

“I don’t suppose, in the spirit of fair play, you’d let me stand, disassemble, blow the water out of my gun, and let me reassemble and reload it?”

“No.”

I took a deep breath, just like I always did before exhaling into the steadiness of a shot. “I didn’t think so.”

I moved forward and aimed the Colt and about ten gallons of water to boot. I watched his arm extend toward me, anticipating the bite of the stiletto somewhere in the explosion of water, but the effort drove me to the side as I fired, the shot detonating out of the sidearm in my hand, my adrenaline so pumped that I couldn’t even feel the thing firing.

At least in that split second, that’s what I thought was happening.

The blast of the extended fire was faster than my .45 could cycle, and as I stumbled against the rocks I heard the knife go by me like a deadly hummingbird. I fell forward as Bidarte was lifted up and backward, the numerous rounds entering his body, jerking his arms and legs like some frightening, akimbo tango dancer.

I watched as he splashed into the pool like a depth charge and then floated there in the silence.

I stared at the slide mechanism of the Colt, lodged back and jammed, just as I’d thought it would be as I pushed off the rocks. I started to turn to see who was behind me when another round shattered the silence of the canyon by bouncing off the rock walls and striking the surface of the water with a vicious spak.

I ducked as another round followed that one, shooting by and skipping across the water, and then another.

She was standing in the creek in a two-handed shooting stance, the barrel of her Glock still extended toward Bidarte’s floating body. Her voice was labored and rough. “Die, fucker.” I watched as she lowered the semiautomatic, her arm bumping into something as she stopped and looked down to where the six-inch handle of the knife stuck out from her abdomen, slightly below the ribcage on her left side. “Oh, shit. . . .”

I got to her before she fell, took the Glock, and stuffed it in my jacket pocket. I leaned her back, careful to avoid the gleaming black handle protruding from her body, and supported her head with my shoulder.

Her eyes wobbled a little but found mine. “Is he dead?”

I didn’t even bother to glance back. “Seven times over as near as I can count, and maybe three more for good measure.”

“The fucker is Dracula; he’s lucky I didn’t run a stake through his heart.”

I studied the knife in her and winced as the blood began spreading onto her uniform shirt. “Speaking of, how do you feel?”

“That is the Academy Award of stupid questions; I feel like I’ve been stabbed, you dumb ass. . . .” Her head rolled up on my shoulder, and she looked at the handle, rising and falling with her breath. “Is that close to the same spot where I got shot back in Philly?”

“A little to the center.”

Her head relaxed against my chest. “Fuck me; he couldn’t have stuck me in the boob or something?”

“I don’t know how he missed.”

She snickered and then let out a slow, liquid exhale. “At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I’m cold.”

I could feel the surge of concern blooming into full-blown panic as I looked at the switchblade sticking from her like a pump handle. “I don’t think I better take it out; I’m not sure what organs he got, and I’m afraid you’ll bleed more.”

Her eyes widened just a little. “Don’t touch it.”

Henry appeared from the shadows of the canyon, the sudden silence of the area disturbed by his movements. “Okay, but we need to get you out of here.”

The Bear leaned forward, placing two fingers under her jaw. “Shock?”

“I think.”

Her eyes flashed between the two of us, but her words were slow. “She’s fine and stop talking about me like I’m already dead.”

Henry left his fingers at her throat and then raised his eyes to look at mine.

I started lifting her.

Her head moved. “Wait.”

“We’ve got to get moving.”

The Bear watched silently as the panic I was feeling progressed geometrically as Vic swallowed with difficulty and then had a little trouble catching her breath. “Just a second.” Her hand came up and grazed the knife handle as she reached for my face. She grimaced and then smiled with half her mouth—that little upturn of the corner that drove me crazy. “I want to look at you.”

“You can look at me as we’re getting you to the hospital.” Her hand stayed on my face and her fingers were cold, and all I could hope was that it was the water causing the coolness in her extremities, the water, just the water.

“You think about my offer?”

I focused my eyes on hers, willing her to be there with me now, disregarding every other thing in the world from my mind and hers in an attempt to hold on. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about, and it almost got me killed.”

She continued to grin the half smile, but it was fading. “I’m the one who saved you.”

“Yes, you did.”

The tarnished gold with the harlequin flecks seemed to dance in her sockets. “I’m quite a catch, huh?”

I shook my head and began lifting like a deep-sea salvage operation before the tears in my eyes robbed me of the strength. “Boy howdy.”

EPILOGUE

I hate funerals, and it seemed like today I had a passel to go to; the only good thing was that I had company inside the perimeter of the POLICE LINE—DO NOT CROSS tape that surrounded us.

Henry studied me as I drove Vic’s beat-up unit, a large manila envelope and a small white box lying on the center console between us. “Any word from South Dakota?”

I nodded. “Tim Berg says they raided the compound in Butte County and took the few women and children left there into protective custody. They confiscated the equipment and foreclosed on the property after the payments on the back taxes fell through.”

“Same story in Nebraska and Kansas?”

I parked, and Henry and I got out of the vehicle. Pushing off the speed limit sign, I walked toward the two-lane blacktop and the roadside marker. “All the assets have been frozen, and without money the whole thing is shutting down.”

“What about the Lynear family?”

I studied the tiny cross with the plastic white and maroon chrysanthemums, daisies, and blue lilies. The ever prevalent Wyoming wind kicked at the horizontal piece of wood of the makeshift cross, causing it to gesture with a will that almost seemed its own. “There are enough charges to put the whole bunch away, but chances are they’ll all end up back in Texas where they started; without the money from the oil scams, I’m betting that that won’t last long either.”

“But that is Sheriff Crutchley’s problem.”