A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery (22 page)

“No, and it would appear that a portion of the American government wanted to get in on the action.” His eyes dropped. “There were a number of subsequent investigations, indictments, and arrests—one of whom was Tisdale.” He shifted in his seat. “Operation Milkshake . . . That sounds strangely familiar; where does that come from?”

“Albert Fall, the secretary of the Interior under Harding, was convicted of taking bribes for oil rights on public lands, namely from the Teapot Dome Naval Oil Reserves just a little south of here. In a congressional hearing, the senator from New Mexico was famous for having made a statement about the process of directional oil drilling—‘If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake.’”

“What a typically white venture.”

I ignored the remark and continued. “Tisdale appears to be something of an expert in history and would know that statement.”

“Whatever happened to Fall?”

“Died penniless in El Paso.” I took the off-ramp at Powder Junction. “Do the papers indicate where all this Mormon stuff comes from?”

The Bear synopsized. “After an unfortunate incident with a Cessna Bonanza, the U.S. government denied his existence and reported him dead. The Mexican government, left with an unidentified prisoner, dumped him in Penal del Altiplano where he shared a cell with newfound Mormon Tomás Bidarte.”

I turned and looked at him. “You’re kidding.”

Henry shrugged. “Evidently, Dale Tisdale converted to the point where he actually thought of himself as Orrin Porter Rockwell; as a Caucasian finding himself in the environs of a maximum security prison in Mexico, it might have been a survival instinct and the only way he made it through.”

“So he and Bidarte were locked up together; I thought there was something that passed between them when they shook hands down at East Spring.” I stopped at the sign at the bottom of the interstate ramp alongside the rest stop. “How did he get out?”

The Cheyenne Nation nodded. “As you have surmised, with Bidarte’s help, they bribed their way to freedom by selling Tisdale’s land holdings in East Spring Ranch to Roy Lynear.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” I made the left through the underpass and stopped at the next sign where the Short Drop road crossed Old Highway 87. A Powder River Fire District truck approached from the south with its siren and lights going but made a left before getting to us.

“He was picked up in Utah by the Highway Patrol while kneeling by a roadside cross; he was then incarcerated in a psychiatric ward for observation, but once he admitted to having lived in Wyoming, they shipped him off to Evanston.”

“Why didn’t they contact his family?”

“At that point he claimed to have no living relatives and asserted to be
the
Orrin Porter Rockwell, and before anyone could ascertain just who he was, he escaped.”

“So he lived the Legend.”

“It would appear so.”

We sat there in the darkness at the four-way stop in Powder Junction, Wyoming, the caution light intermittently flashing and giving me the feeling it was a metaphor. I listened as the siren from the volunteer fire truck stopped—it didn’t sound all that far away. “Then why is he here now, protecting his grandson? Who contacted him? Who knew he was still alive? Bidarte?”

“The answer to that question does not appear to be in the file.” The big Cheyenne Indian looked at me with a sad smile. “What about the daughter?”

I sat there, idling. “Unavailable for comment, and not very popular with her parents.”

He nodded, the yellow light flickering its warmth on the reflective surface of his dark eyes. “Now everything leads to Mexico, Operation Milkshake, and the Apostolic Church of the Lamb of God.”

“Agreed.”

Another truck pulled up across the road and sat there, obviously waiting for me to go first, so I reached down and flicked the lever, throwing my brights at him so that he’d know it was okay to proceed. “Double Tough says the Teapot Dome Reserves are tapped out and that the federal government tried to sell the place off to private developers but nobody bit.”

“Then why are they here?”

I blinked my lights at the truck again; obviously he’d noticed the stars and bars on my vehicle and figured it was a trick. “According to Vic this is the end of the world, and maybe they’re what they say they are, religious zealots looking for a place to be left alone; wouldn’t be the first time that type has turned up on the high plains.”

The Bear completed my thought. “The drill bit, the weapons, and . . .”

“And what?”

“One of these things is not like the others. Tom Lockhart, Tomás Bidarte, the man Gloss—some of these individuals do not seem to fit the religious modus operandi.”

I flipped on my light bar for an instant, just to give the guy in the truck an official assurance he could go ahead. “Anyway, I just want to know what’s happened to Sarah Tisdale.”

“So, when we get through at the substation, we are continuing on to Short Drop?”

“You read my mind.” I watched as the truck lurched from across the road and pulled alongside us. The driver rolled his window down, and I recognized him—Powder Junction’s mayor. “Brian, what’s the matter with you. Are you drunk?”

Kinnison, who was usually smiling, looked very serious for a change and perplexed. “What?”

“Why were you just sitting there?”

“I thought you might want to get by—Walt, the sheriff’s substation is on fire.”

•   •   •

The Powder River Fire District truck was pouring water onto the Quonset hut with four different high-powered hoses, but with the flames rippling through the broken windows, it looked to me as if the building was well on its way to melting.

I forced my way through the volunteer firemen—Double Tough’s Suburban was parked a little ways away in the lot, and I remembered how he had said he was sleeping in the back of the office to give Frymire and his fiancée a little privacy. I turned back to the inferno. “I’ve got a man in there.”

The fire chief, a fellow by the name of Gilbert, wearing full gear with the rubber coat and leather helmet with face shield, threw a hand on my chest. “We checked; there’s nobody in there, Sheriff.”

“How about the back room?” The look on his face told me he wasn’t sure, and I started pushing past him, the cool coming over my face along with the stillness in my hands. “One of my deputies—he was sleeping in the back.”

He grabbed hold of me. “Walt, you can’t go in there.” Another man joined him, but my momentum carried all of us forward through the pools of water reflecting fire at our feet; it was like the world was in flames, but I’d seen fire up on the mountain and was unafraid. “Walt, if he’s in there, he’s dead.”

I shrugged them off and continued toward the closed front door. “Not this guy.”

Gilbert made a last grab, dragging my jacket down my arm. “Walt, there are chemicals from the bus barn that this building lodges up against—that whole back area is going to go up any minute.” His last grasp had turned me just a little. “You can’t go in there!”

I stared at him for an instant and then yanked my arm completely free, sending him falling backward toward a group of men holding one of the hoses.

My boots slipped on the puddled asphalt, but I got my footing back and, feeling the intensity of the heat on my face, lurched toward the door and pulled my gloves out of my coat pockets. Holding one of my gloved hands up to protect my face as I planted a staggering shoulder into the door, I exploded it inward, the glass with the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department seal shattering as my hand struck the middle of the pane, the shards cascading out like a broken spider’s web.

The flames rushed toward me as I tripped, like something alive in pursuit of the fresh, cool oxygen of the night. It was lucky that I’d fallen, because there was a ceiling of black smoke about waist high with flames licking at the corrugated steel of the perimeter, all of them making for the door I just came through. The desk and chairs to my left were on fire, along with the stacks of newspapers that had concerned me earlier. To my right, the decrepit sofa burned, the smoldering edges of the carpet remnant were curling upward into flames, and the paint was peeling off the walls in burning strips that slid toward the floor,

Suddenly, something with the force of a buffalo pushed me forward, smashing my face against the glass and flattening me against the door on the floor. Whatever it was it stayed there, and it took every measure of strength I had to press up onto my hands and knees. It was only when my hat skidded forward toward the inner doorway and I felt the rivulets of water falling down the sides of my face that I realized the pressure was from the hoses Gilbert and the volunteer firemen were directing on me to keep me from becoming barbeque.

It shot around me, making a prismatic outline of my bulk in a mist that evaporated instantaneously. I staggered up only to be knocked down again by the hundreds of gallons that were propelling me forward. My hand hit the soaked surface of the sodden carpet, and I crouched, deciding that, between the fire and the high-pressure water, I damn well better stay low.

I watched as my hat hit the door where I had seen Double Tough’s cot and I felt the heat just above the top of my head even as the water attempted to beat back the carnivorous flames, and heaving my shoulders forward, I drove with my knees, which made me feel like I was back at USC pushing blocking sleds; I tried to breathe through the fingers of my glove, but the water poured off me like a forking river and I felt like I might drown before I got there.

Widening my eyes and trying to keep my bearings along with my balance, I stared ahead. The door was closed and the brim of my hat, lodged under its edge, was slapping up and down like some seabird attempting to take flight. I reached out and pulled it back toward me, figuring a little dripping beaver-fur protection was better than no protection at all.

There was a whooshing sound above me to my right and the quad sheet map came floating through the smoke to land on top of me. I could see the ink on the thing blackened from the heat tracing a straight line toward the door.

Using both hands, I pushed myself up from the carpet and the inch-deep puddle and skimmed forward into the wall beside the back door; the plywood the map had been mounted on was on my back, deflecting the two blasting jets of water up into the rounded top of the corrugated ceiling, driving the smoke long enough for me to partially stand.

Some idiot voice in the back of my head told me to feel the door before opening it, but I barked back at it, fully tasting the smoke, ash, and moisture in my spoken words. “I know there’s a fire behind the damn thing—there’s fire everywhere.”

I reached down with my saturated gloved hand and watched the water drain from my grip, the knob not turning. Who knew why—possibly because the boards were warped from the heat, possibly because Double Tough was afraid of monsters; it didn’t matter, nothing mattered except getting through the door and getting him out of there.

I knew what was going to happen when I shouldered the thing open, so I bumped the cheap, two-panel door, just to get prepared, figuring I’d blow through and fall onto the concrete floor as the flames came out.

I put everything I had into the crouching bull rush and felt my feet come right off the ground as the pressure from inside the superheated room escaped, carrying the two neatly halved portions of the door and my hunched body backward into the main office. The sound stuffed my ears and stayed there as I lay on the soaked rug for a moment trying to clear my head.

My hat was bumping against my face, and I caught it with one hand before it could attempt a repeat performance and run away with the force of the water. I jammed it on again, dumping a good gallon onto my face in the process, and then half-crawled, half-slithered toward the door, the pressurized jet stream still hitting me as I hand and kneed it across the floor.

The doorway was glowing, and I was sure the flames were ingesting the old wood and then vomiting the coats of leaded paint that made up the lean-to, not to mention the unknown horrors in the fifty-five-gallon drums in the bus barn at the other side of the exterior wall.

No one could be alive in there.

No one. Not even Double Tough.

I pitched forward again, but the smoke was like a shroud and hung even lower than before, instantly gritting my eyes, nose, and mouth. I shifted the wet glove in front of my face again and breathed as shallowly as I could, coughed, and tried to get the stuff out of some passage or another but only succeeded in clearing my ears, the only sensory organ I didn’t particularly need.

I remembered that the cot was against the center of the back wall, and I started crawling in that direction. The blasts of water were still prodding me forward, now hitting me in the ass, and all I could think of was how I was going to knock the damn hoses out of the volunteer firemen’s hands when and if I got out of there.

I could feel the leg of the low-slung cot and was amazed the aluminum hadn’t melted in the heat. I felt for the mattress and found the sopping blankets, my hand bumping against something that felt like a shoulder. I grabbed hold of it but couldn’t get a grip, so I gathered all the covers, yanked them toward me, and felt the fabric tear.

Going for broke, I shot both arms over the top and clamped them down like hooks. The cot collapsed, and a two-hundred-pound man slapped against my chest, and I fell backward. “Damn it to hell.”

I closed my mouth and just pulled his lifeless body along with me back toward the door. We were only a few leg-drags in that direction when I heard a cracking noise and saw part of the shed roof disengage and fall, taking a third of the joists with it, the sudden rush of air momentarily pulling the flames and smoke toward the other side, at which point I could see that the rafters on my side were in no better shape.

Grabbing the wet bundle that was Double Tough, I prepared for a mad dash through the doorway, into the hose streams and the parking lot. This hope was hammered as I watched the top beam disconnect from the back of the Quonset hut and slam down diagonally in front of me in a cascade of sparks, flame, burning wood, and tar paper.