A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery (30 page)

The creek was a long way down, and I figured I better start paying attention to the job at hand when suddenly I felt as though somebody was staring at me. Feeling the adrenaline rush through my nervous system like a body blow, my hands jerked in surprise along with the rest of me as the hairy figure standing on the running board tapped on the passenger-side window.

Orrin Porter Rockwell.

I hit the brakes and watched as he almost fell off but then recovered and smiled at me with a grisly grin showing a missing tooth. He’d looked better—dried blood plastered his forehead and his hair stuck to one side of his face and beard. I caught my breath, slowed the truck, and punched the button that lowered the window. There wasn’t enough room on his side to open the door. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He scrambled through, finally settling in the seat beside me. “Howdy.”

“And where the hell did you come from?”

He laughed. “I apologize for my appearance, but I’m afraid when your lady friend had her accident I was knocked unconscious.”

“You were in the back of my truck again?”

“I was, yes.” He breathed heavily from his exertions and then shut his mouth sharply, as if the missing tooth was paining him. “I told the children to stay with the vehicles and started off in the direction they indicated. Fortunately, you came down the road in this majestic conveyance, and I couldn’t resist the temptation of jumping on board.”

I glanced down the road, aware that it was only a question of time before the men working below noticed a stainless-steel eighteen-wheeler sitting idling in the roadway. I also thought about the crosshairs of the Nightforce NXS 8-32×56 Mil-Dot telescopic sight that was now trained on the ass end of the tanker we sat in. “You have to get out of here.”

He looked around and then asked with genuine curiosity. “Where is it I should go?”

His point was well taken; it was too far back up the road to safety, and he wasn’t likely to receive any warmer a welcome than me if I sent him ahead. “Never mind.” I released the brakes again and began the slow roll down the narrow road, my mind scattering thoughts like pea gravel as I tried to figure out what to do with him.

The activity on the rig had blown into a full frenzy, and it looked like they were finished filling the next tanker, which was pulling forward. I allowed the transmission to shift into a higher gear and hoped that I could get to the bottom of the incline before they pulled onto the road, which would result in, appropriately, a full-blown Mexican standoff. “Well, Mr. Rockwell, it appears that you are along for the ride.”

He looked forward with an expression of deep anticipation. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Sheriff.”

The driver of the other truck was the one to notice me first and tooted his air horns in confused concern. I in turn tugged mine to announce my arrival to any and all in a long, sustained blast echoing off the canyon walls.

There looked to be about forty to fifty men on and around the rig, but there might’ve been more in the few surrounding tin buildings to my right. All faces were turned toward us as I applied a steady pressure to the brakes and stopped dead in the road at the throat of the canyon where no one could pass. I listened as the air brakes locked like a vault, then switched off the diesel and tossed the keys over my shoulder.

I turned to Rockwell and spoke in a gentle and assured tone, thinking about how I wished that there had been another time for this, but that I needed to be sure that the man held some sort of mental stability in the coming moments. “We don’t have a lot of time, and I need you to listen to me.” He nodded his head. “These men up here are pretty bad, and I’m going to have a word with them. I would tell you to stay in the truck, but that isn’t an option. Now listen to me and listen closely—I think you know you had a life before this one, before you were MIA and before prison. You had a name—Tisdale, Dale Tisdale, Dale ‘Airdale’ Tisdale.” He seemed to be considering my words. “You had a wife—still have a wife—by the name of Eleanor.”

He stared at me and then his head dropped just a bit. “I seem to remember something about that.”

I studied him, hoping that I was doing the right thing in revealing this information now. I wasn’t sure how he was going to react, but I figured I’d rather have him have his epiphany here in the truck rather than out there with all those guns pointing at us. “That’s not all; you have a daughter, the young woman I’m trying to find—her name is Sarah.”

He didn’t move. “Hmm.” Finally his hand came up and rested on the dash, almost as if seeking support. “My daughter.”

“Yep.”

He mulled on it, and I glanced out the windshield where a large group of men were watching us and slowly starting to move our way. “When I was in prison in Missouri . . .”

“That wasn’t Missouri, Dale. It was Mexico.”

He nodded his head. “The man I made an acquaintance with . . . The man is here.”

I watched as the crowd drew nearer and concluded that we were almost out of time. “Bidarte, he’s the one that you were in prison with all those years.”

“He said he would help me find my daughter.”

“And the boy, Cord? He’s your grandson.”

“I see.” He studied me for a few moments, scratching at the blood flaking from his beard. “Sheriff?”

“Yep.”

He continued to stare at me with the opal eyes. “You are behaving very strangely.”

I nodded and pushed open my door; that’s what I got for trying to be the only sane person in the world.

•   •   •

The men had streamed toward the base of the incline but parted as a few that I recognized from before who were holding rifles appeared from the small building to my right.

I jumped down from the running board and walked around to the front of the Kenworth, forward enough, I hoped, that the Cheyenne Nation and Vic would be able to see me and, more important, my hat and neck.

A semicircle of men stood looking at me and my uniform. I searched their faces for somebody I might know, someone from in-county, but none of them looked familiar. Somewhere in the distance, someone shut off the generator that was making the majority of the racket and the other diesel truck shut down as well. Far from silent, it was a lot less noisy than it had been moments ago.

My voice sounded loud, even to me. “I’m looking for Tom Lockhart.”

Nobody said anything as Rockwell/Tisdale joined me, but they continued to train the automatic rifles on the two of us.

“This is an illegal drilling operation, and I’m here to tell all of you that you’re under arrest.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Lockhart appeared from behind the crowd and approached with Bidarte trailing behind. The faux-CIA man was wearing a hooded tactical jacket, a battle dress uniform, and combat boots, all in black, effectively dressed for the role of a lifetime. “I’m not even sure we’re in your county.”

“Above 43"30' N latitude; and yes, you are in my county.”

He pulled up a few yards away. “Well, if we are, then we are certainly beyond the scope of your jurisdiction.” He turned and looked at the group, some of them looking at each other and then at me and my star. “You men can go back to work; we’re running out of time here. . . .”

“You’ve run out of time.” I spoke in what my father used to call my field voice so that they could all hear me. “You men know there’s something fishy about this operation, but it’s possible that Mr. Lockhart here has suckered you into thinking that he works for the government—well, he doesn’t and he and his friend Mr. Bidarte are responsible for the death of an Absaroka County sheriff’s deputy.”

Lockhart laughed. “That’s bullshit.”

I threw a thumb over my shoulder. “Now, at the top of this canyon, I’ve got detachments from the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department—”

Lockhart was shouting now. “This is a United States government project, fully sanctioned by the Department of Homeland Security and a number of other agencies. . . .”

I raised my voice over his. “This man has no connection with the federal or any other government other than some polo shirts with embroidered patches on them. When all that honest-to-God law-enforcement personnel come barreling down that road, they’re going to take him and his bunch and lock them up. Now it’s possible that none of you will face prosecution, but he and his buddies with the rifles will. It’s up to you to decide how you want to play this, but my advice is to put your tools down, raise your hands, and get over to the side out of the line of fire.”

The workers were now talking among themselves, and you could see that there were at least some concerns.

Lockhart raised his voice again, gesturing toward Rockwell. “And is that one of your deputies, Sheriff, or a derelict?”

Rockwell’s voice rose above mine in a righteous indignation. “My name is Orrin Porter Rockwell!”

Lockhart smiled. “
The
Orrin Porter Rockwell, the Destroying Angel and Danite, Man of God, Son of Thunder?” Lockhart continued, turning to look at the group as he spoke. “The bodyguard of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, frontier legend, marksman, and man of iron nerve?”

Rockwell was studying him now, aware that he might be being made the butt of a joke. “Some would say, sir.”

Great. I stuck a hand out to silence the crazy man. “Orrin, you might want to let me talk here.”

“But I was to understand that you died in 1878, Mr. Rockwell.”

He looked at the crowd of them the way a bear would look at a baiting. “I was fortunate enough to receive the blessings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, saying that as long as I did not cut my hair I would be harmed by neither shot nor blade.”

“That means you would be two hundred years old?”

Rockwell’s eyes narrowed like train tunnels. “When the Prophet touched me, it imbued me with a spirit unlike any other living man and retarded the aging process so that I now stand here before you.”

Some of the roughnecks were drifting off and going back to work, assured that the sheriff and the fruitcake weren’t really a threat to the operation. Lockhart stepped in a little closer, with Bidarte and a few of the gunmen flanking him. “Thank you, Mr. Rockwell; you were most invaluable.”

I watched as Rockwell’s eyes moved past Lockhart to Bidarte. There was a change in his expression as he looked at the man, a softening that was unsettling. “Tomás, you can tell them.”

Bidarte dropped his face a little and then raised it to look at the man he’d shared a cell with those many years. “Orrin.”

Rockwell seemed disappointed, glancing first at him and then at Lockhart. “What are you doing working for this man?”

“It’s a job, my friend. Just a job.”

Lockhart spoke to me as the remainder of the workers siphoned off and began going about the business of dismantling the rig. “Sheriff, how about you and your friend here join me in the office and we can discuss what it is we need to do next?”

I shook my head at him. “How about you put your guns down and we stop playing games?”

Rockwell interrupted again. “I don’t understand, Tomás.”

“It’s just a job, Orrin, like looking for your daughter. I will explain to you later. I promise.”

“My daughter?” Rockwell stepped toward him as I reached out a hand. “You know where she is?”

“I do.” Bidarte threw a hand around Rockwell’s shoulders and pulled him in close. “I will take you to her.”

I surged forward, but the barrels of three automatic rifles pushed against me, holding me in place.

I saw Orrin’s shoulders slope and his body grow stiff, convulsing as Tomás Bidarte slipped the length of that deadly blade into him. Rockwell slumped, and I watched as the larger man supported his body and wrenched the knife up and sideways, a strike reminiscent of what he had done to Frymire. Tisdale went up on the toes of his boots in an attempt to ease the pressure, half-turned in Bidarte’s arms, the opal eyes draining like twin moons in his face as he looked at me, his mouth hanging open as he tried to speak.

We all stood there, the gunmen providing a visual insulation to the killing of a man.

With my aborted movement, my face was only inches from Lockhart’s, and I watched as a smile garroted his face before dropping into the easy speak of a boardroom deal maker. “You and I both know there’s no army of sheriffs and deputies up there.” He stepped in even closer. “This operation is chicken feed in comparison with what it is we’re going to make. . . .”

“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.

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.

It was then that he charged from the rock and slammed into me with the additional force of having launched from above. It felt like someone was trying to beat me to death with a rock, hammering the side of my head and shoulder. I took the first two hits and then bull-rushed the man against the canyon wall as pieces of debris fell down on us from the triangular slabs that projected upward like miniature pyramids.

I felt the air go out of him and decided that short of just blowing his brains out, slamming him against the other side of the canyon wall might be an option, so I did.

Whatever air was left in his lungs from the first impact most certainly left his body in the next, but with a lucky swing the rock made better contact and I felt my neck muscles give way along with my knees as I fell forward.

Expecting the knife to begin carving at my guts any minute, I pushed off and up, swinging the .45 but missing him as he ducked. I fell backward, and he continued to pummel me with the rock as I rolled to the side, trying to protect my head and bring up my sidearm.

I felt the big Colt 1911, a mechanical device that had stood the test of time by remaining cutting edge for more than a hundred years, fly from my hand as the most primitive weapon from the eons slammed against my arm. I drove my hand after the thing, but the rock grazed the side of my face, and I decided I’d better deal with first things first.

As he lifted the rock for one last skull-crushing blow, I drew my waterlogged legs underneath me and thought about a high school line coach who had said, “I don’t care how big they are, boys; they can’t do anything if you get ’em up off the ground.” I pushed across the tiny channel and carried him out of the water against the rocks with as much force as I could muster, feeling not only the air go out from him but also the structural integrity of his rib cage give way.

I heard the softball-sized rock drop into the water as I held him and stood there, the weight of the two of us driving my boots into the deep sand at the edge of the creek. Breathing heavily, I wiped some of the blood from my face, pushed back, and looked at him still hanging slightly above me.

Lockhart.

He was breathing in sync with the popping sounds in his chest and the soft gurgle of his exhale.

I sank a little deeper and wasn’t sure what to do with him before we both disappeared underneath the cloudy water. I reached behind him and unrolled the tucked hood of his tactical jacket, reversed the thing, and hung it over the top of the rock, effectively hanging him up like a side of beef.

I snapped the buttons on the front of the jacket so that he wouldn’t slip out and drown in the three feet of water. “This time”—I gasped, trying to catch at least part of my breath—“you don’t walk.”

I started pulling one of my legs from the muck, lost my balance, and reached across to the other side with one hand, at least giving myself a fighting chance of working the boot free. Turned as I was, I could feel my left foot coming loose with a sickening vacuum. I eased it back down in order to attempt to lift the boot with my toe. I figured that if Bidarte got out of the other side of the canyon he would be on foot—a trail I would only be able to follow if I had shoes.

The boot came loose slowly, and I lifted it clear and took a step further down the creek to where my .45 had fallen into the water. Careful to not overstep, I searched the bottom with my hands, running them along the smooth surface of the sand, but feeling nothing. I worked my way forward, my face only inches from the surface of the water as my teeth began to chatter. I bit down hard in response, figuring I still had a ways to go and that the nearest weapon, other than the rock, was my own.

My hand brushed against something, and I pulled it out of the mud.

Lockhart’s tactical boot.

At least I wasn’t the only one.

I tossed it behind me, took another step forward, and became aware that there was more light on the surface of the water in front of me. Raising my head and wiping some more of the blood away, I could see that the canyon had opened into a small, rectangular pool.

And someone was standing in that pool of water and light.

Backlit as he was, I could see the outline of his hat and the drape of his leather jacket as his lean body turned slightly to the side, like a snake, relaxed but ready to strike; his left arm dropped down along his side, curved like a long fang.

The water reflected like some alternative universe, and I watched as he planted a leg forward, maybe twenty feet away: perfect throwing distance. “Sheriff.”

With my chin only a few inches from the surface, I watched the water drip from the brim of my hat. I tried to think of a more compromising position but couldn’t come up with one.

He didn’t move. “You are looking for something?”

I lied, since it was the only option open to me. “I think I might’ve found it.”

He adjusted his head, and I was sure he was looking at Lockhart, still hanging from the rock but now making a few noises. “I heard the sound of the fight and thought I would come back to see who had won.”

“Pick off the winner?”

“Señor Lockhart is in possession of some information that I might not like to be made public.”

I continued to breathe heavily. “Like Dale Tisdale?”

He waited a moment and then moved his leg to indicate the water, the eddies of his movement rippling across the surface and lapping against me. “As I recall, your weapon is one of those old .45s.”

Trying not to move my hands but desperate to feel steel somewhere, I stretched my fingers out underneath the surface. “Yep.”

“My experience with ancient firearms is limited, but I think they still fire, even if submerged.”

I stretched my fingers a little more and thought I felt something at the farthest reach of the third finger of my right hand. “I’ve heard that, too.”

“But it also might blow up in your face.”

I nudged my fingers a little and could feel the trigger guard as I carefully pulled it toward me. “It might.”

“Or you could miss.”

Gently turning it, I could feel the grip in my fingers. “I could.”

“It will most certainly jam, so you will only get one chance.” He gestured ever so slightly with his back arm, and I could hear the lethal click of the foot-long stiletto opening. “Whereas I am armed and ready.”

Lifting gently, I slipped my finger in the trigger of the cocked and locked weapon. “I figured.”

“Sometimes the knife is better.”

“Maybe.” I thumbed the safety on the submerged Colt. “But you could miss.”

He laughed softly. “I could, and you would not be the first to bet his life on that.” He still didn’t move and, except for the voice, he might’ve just melted like the reflections and disappeared into the night. “I don’t want to kill you, Sheriff, but I will not return to prison.”

“Ours are a lot nicer than yours.”

He laughed again.

“Color TV and Ping-Pong tables; with your hand-eye coordination, you could be a champion in no time.”

“As appealing as that might be, I think I will pass.”

I had the Colt in my hand now, safety off and ready for fire—but would it? When I brought the thing up, it would still be filled with water or plugged up with mud and would most likely blow up in my face, not shoot his. My choices were to fire it and take what happened, or throw the thing at him in hopes that it might upset his aim. I was battered and bloody, but I still liked my chances in hand-to-hand, especially if he’d already thrown the knife.

Eyes. Throat. With the weight of my horsehide jacket, I figured his targets were limited, but . . .