A Serpent's Tooth: A Walt Longmire Mystery (29 page)

We turned a sharp corner and suddenly, far below, there was a city.

The usual lights and illumination that generally accompanied a drilling operation were not there, and the entire drilling rig and outlying buildings were painted a flat desert tan. It was an operation, a big one, and in spite of the camouflage pattern, I was still amazed that no one had noticed it.

“How the hell do you keep something like this from being seen?”

The Cheyenne Nation started to speak but then looked up.

I followed his eyes—there were no stars and no setting moon. I allowed mine to adjust to the darkness and could see what was blocking the sky: a mesh of guide wires running across the distance of the canyon interlaced with gillie material—more than a mile of it.

“Holy crap.” Vic stepped forward, looking at the gigantic canopy. “I’m impressed.”

I made a noise in my throat. “But how do you get the oil out of here?”

The Bear’s hand came up and pointed at a number of polished aluminum shapes parked against the base of the drilling rig, looking incongruous amid the military paint scheme.

I took his binoculars and could see the milk trucks being filled with the last tankers full of oil. “I’ll be damned.” I passed the binoculars to Vic and stood there, taking in the magnitude of the operation, unsure of what to do next.

She surveyed the entire scene. “I don’t get it, though. They can’t be making enough money to support all of this long term—what’s the next step?”

“I don’t know.”

Henry’s voice sounded from the darkness. “It looks to me like they are breaking things down and loading up just a few more tankers. I am betting they will be out of here by morning—just leave behind a skeleton crew to dynamite the canyon and nobody but us will be the wiser.”

Vic nodded her head. “Smart.”

I nodded. “Very smart.”

The Bear remained silent for a moment and shook his head. “Not so smart.”

We turned and looked at him as he pointed at the road on which we stood. “Only one way out.”

The milk truck driver wasn’t sure what to make of the shapely woman standing in front of the Jeep with the hood up near where the first sentry had been positioned, but he knew what to make of the .45 Colt I poked through the driver’s-side window into his left ear.

As I cuffed him to the Jeep’s spare along with Carlson, I started having second thoughts and figured maybe we should find something larger to pin them to. I turned to Henry. “Do we need the Jeep anymore?”

“For speedy egress possibly.”

“If I cuff both of these guys to the spare they could just pick it up and walk off with it.”

Vic looked around as she closed the hood on the Rubicon. “Where the hell would they go?”

She had a point.

I turned back and looked at the two of them, the one from Minnesota, the other from Louisiana. “You guys aren’t that stupid, are you?”

They looked at each other and then back to me, their faces blank—and I was not reassured.

“Look, there isn’t much out here that can eat you, but what can eat you is the distance, okay? If the two of you go on walkabout in the dark you’re likely to get hurt or, more important, get lost and then you’ll just be two corpses handcuffed to a spare tire—another great mystery of the high plains. Got me?”

They looked around again.

I was still not reassured.

I threw a thumb toward my undersheriff. “Or I will let her shoot you.”

They seemed to get that last part.

I joined the squad back on the road, sighed deeply, and thought what a nice cool morning it was if you weren’t up to the types of things we were up to. “I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows how to drive this thing.” I studied the length of the milk truck and made some calculations.

The Bear stiffened and shook his head. “You are also the better shot.”

I glanced at the eighteen-wheeler. “It’s a tanker; I think you’ll hit it.”

He nodded reluctantly. “So, what is going to happen?”

“On Highway 1 in Vietnam, I saw a tracer round hit an oil truck.”

Vic leaned forward into my line of thought. “And?”

“Well, it was aircraft fuel, not crude. . . .” They both stared at me. “And it was more than one tracer, probably a bunch of them.” They continued to stare at me. “But it blew like a sailor on a three-day drunk.”

The Bear’s voice rumbled. “How many Claymores?”

Since Vietnam and our association with Claymore directional mines, Henry and I had developed our own private method of determining a demolition scale. “Eight.”

His eyes quickly traveled from Vic’s to mine. “Eight?”

“Maybe seven, but that was high-octane with lots of tracers.”

He raised an eyebrow, the closest thing the Cheyenne Nation did to a guffaw. “The concussion will collapse the canyon.”

“It’s crude oil—won’t be anywhere near that bad.”

Vic stretched a hand out and placed it on my arm. “How about we simply jackknife the trailer on the road?”

“We’ll fall into the creek. I think I’d rather blow it up and have them have to put it out, and I want a lot of smoke and noise.” I reached over and tapped the extended barrel of the TAC-50. “One blue-point from this should do that.” Henry still looked worried. “I don’t want anyone killed—just want to plug the bottle until we can get the weight of the law to swing to our side.”

Our attention was drawn to two individuals carrying a spare tire between them. I guess they were that stupid.

“Hey, where do you two idiots think you’re going?”

The Cajun was the first to answer. “I was looking to see if there was another lawn chair in the Jeep?”

The Minnesotan was next, and his tone was a little indignant as he pointed toward the cooler. “We’re out of water and figured we’d get a drink. Is that okay?”

My undersheriff made an exasperated sound, yanked the silenced S&W she’d taken from Carlson, and fired a round into the cooler. The two men might as well have been statues: still life, roughnecks with spare. “No, it’s not all right. You are under arrest, and you need to sit down. Now.”

They did, and quick.

The Cheyenne Nation continued to look at me. “Shoot one of them in the foot.”

“Don’t encourage her.”

He glanced at the Kenworth, still patiently idling in the roadway, pointed in the wrong direction. “Why you?”

“I told you . . .”

“Tell me.” Vic joined him in the interrogation, her eyes as angry as one of those snakes she so disliked. “Why you?”

I thought about it. “It’s my stupid idea, and if anybody’s going to get killed doing it, I’d just as soon it not be either of you.” I set the muscles in my jaw. “Also, I want Lockhart.”

The Cheyenne Nation shook his head. “That I can do better.”

“I want him alive.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re better than they are.”

He snorted. “I suppose we are about to find out if that is true.”

Vic still didn’t look convinced. “But if they start shooting, we shoot back, right?”

“I don’t think they’re that stupid.”

“Well, you didn’t think those morons were that stupid either. Let’s do the math, shall we?” She counted off on her fingers. “Desperate + guns = stupid.”

“I’m betting that the majority of the guys down there are just hired hands, brought in and told to keep their mouths shut.”

Her lips stiffened. “Maybe, but then there’s Frymire.”

I added. “And then there’s Bidarte.”

•   •   •

In all actuality, the Kenworth had an eight-ball suicide knob and an automatic transmission, but I didn’t see any reason to share that information with the rest of the crew. I had to drive the fully loaded tanker down to the T in the road before being able to turn it around but reassured myself by seeing that the blockaded youths were still hanging around the disabled vehicles.

I pulled the chain and sounded my horn as I turned, watching as they waved.

I throttled up the big tanker and started back down the road, pulling up and stopping to get Henry. He stepped onto the running board and shouted to be heard above the diesel engine. “We could still call in the Highway Patrol and the Natrona County Sheriff’s Department.”

I nodded. “We will, but first I want those hornets in a bottle.”

“You will be in the front of the tanker when it explodes—you will be trapped with them in that bottle.”

“I’m hoping to be out of the truck and a little ways down the road when the truck explodes.”

“Signal?”

I smiled. “Me running for my life from this damn truck.”

“Perhaps something more specific?”

I thought about it and remembered being told by a Special Forces colonel that in these situations a two-part signal was best so as to not inadvertently tip the shot. “I’ll push my hat up and scratch the back of my neck.”

He nodded. “They will see you coming and wonder why the truck has turned around.”

“I’m counting on that.”

“They will shoot you.”

“Not until they know what’s going on.”

The eyebrow again. “Maybe, brother, maybe.”

“Lockhart will want to parlay.”

“And Bidarte?”

Indicating that I was ready to go, I shrugged and put my hands on the wheel. “If he comes near me with that knife of his, you have my permission to shoot his arm off.”

Vic swung the Jeep out onto the road and pulled in front of the truck as he finally grunted a laugh. “Deal.”

I watched as she turned her classic profile to look at us. “Keep an eye on her, Henry.” He turned his head to regard my undersheriff. “Does she seem a little emotional to you lately?”

“She is worried about you.”

I batted my eyelashes at him. “Aren’t you worried about me?”

A full laugh. “No. I have this McMillan TAC-50.” He stuck his hand out and waited as I gripped him back. “Pax?”

I nodded into the glint in his eyes, perfectly confident that if things went completely wrong, it would be me and not the Cheyenne Nation that screwed the pooch. “Pax.”

•   •   •

The Kenworth was an older model but rode nicely on the hardpack and in no time we were at the cutoff to the canyon. Vic pulled past as Henry jumped out, pulling the brush away. I flipped off the headlights so that they wouldn’t reflect from the rock walls of the canyon, unconcerned with the noise of the engine since the machinery associated with the clandestine rig would mask that until the last moment.

It was quite possible that I wouldn’t have to detonate the tanker; that parking it in the middle of the one-lane road and stuffing the keys in my pocket or tossing them into Sulphur Creek far below would be enough. I was hoping that was the case, but it was also possible that Lockhart and Bidarte and a few of the others were desperate enough to avoid prison that they would rather kill some no-name sheriff than serve time or worse. Lockhart, I was sure, would try and negotiate, but Bidarte, looking at a lifelong jolt in Rawlins at the least, was another matter.

I took a certain comfort in watching the Jeep swing around. Henry walked up and stood on my running board with the .50 in his hand. I inched my way down the incline toward the only major curve in the road and a pavilion of sharp-edged rocks that would provide good cover and a magnificent shooting position.

I pulled alongside the boulders, and he stepped off the running board with the McMillan and the canvas bag of ammo. I watched as he picked the exact spot I would’ve, another rock like the one before, although this one looked more like a chest freezer, that was angled a little downward with a protective shield of rubble in front. He began setting up the bipod for the big, magazine-fed bolt action, and I watched as he loaded the weapon with the blue-tip incendiary rounds. I guess he figured that an incendiary would take Bidarte’s arm off as well as a regular one.

Vic appeared in the window with the binoculars around her neck, her disparagement in full bloom. I looked at her and noticed that her hair was longer and even had a few butterscotch streaks leftover from the summer. “Do you dye your hair?”

She shook her head at me. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

“I guess.”

She folded her arms on the sill and averted her gaze. “Yes, I dye my hair in hopes that you might someday notice.”

“I notice your hair and the rest of you to the point of distraction.”

The tarnished gold eyes came back to mine and stayed there. “So, where are we?”

“What?”

“You and me, where are we?”

I waited a moment before making the next statement. “You want to talk about that now?”

“You brought it up.”

I smiled and fiddled with the eight-ball on the steering wheel. “I’m trying, kiddo. You once said that you didn’t want hearth and home and to do like you said and take one day at a time. I’m attempting to adjust to that, but it’s hard for an old dog to learn new tricks.”

“Yeah, well, that may have changed.” She sighed. “I’m thinking that I love you and don’t want to share you with the rest of the populace.”

I stared at her, and it was like the world had stopped on its axis. “Are you proposing to me?”

“No, dumb ass. I’m trying to get you to propose to me.” She looked down the length of the Kenworth’s hood in the direction of the rock cornice and the disappearing road. “Get as far away from this damn thing as you can before playing with your hat and neck, okay?”

“I am always careful when playing with my neck.”

“Sure you are.” She watched Henry make the last adjustments on the McMillan and arrange the rounds within easy reach like not-so-small soldiers standing at attention. He rolled over on the rock to look at us with a downturned palm to the chest and a fist.

I turned back to my undersheriff, thinking about the things she’d just said. “You spotting?”

“I am; you got a problem with that?”

“Don’t shoot until I say so.”

Her lips kicked sideways, and she studied the suicide knob on the steering wheel of the Kenworth. “They shoot you—I’m having the Bear unload into every flammable piece of equipment down there and then I’m shooting every single motherfucker that tries to crawl out of this burning hole.” She turned back to look at me, and I could feel the warmth of her breath on my ear. “So for the sake of population density and your future relationship, don’t get killed.”

“I promise to do my levelheaded best.”

She reached over and grabbed my chin, pulling my mouth toward hers. “You never had a levelheaded day in your life.” She tasted like bottled water, sweat, and the slight tang of metal that was probably the uncertainty in both our mouths; she tasted good. She raked her nails across my jaw as she released me, and I was pretty sure there were fire trails there, marking my flesh. “Do not confuse that with a good-bye kiss.” She stepped off the running board, and I watched as she swung the desert tan FN carbine onto her shoulder. She blew me a kiss with a smile at the end of it. “Hit the road, Jack.”

I let off the air brakes and inched forward, getting a feel for the narrow road and making sure I didn’t strike the rocks where my team was set up, which might cause an avalanche. The Kenworth was now in the line of sight from the rig below, but with all the activity it would probably take a while for them to notice me.

I thought about what Vic had said and had to admit that it made a lot of sense. There was the difference in our ages, but obviously she was okay with that. There would be talk, but there was always talk in a small town. Here I was just getting used to the terms of our relationship, when all of a sudden she wasn’t. Perverseness of human behavior. Boy howdy.

I made the turn and started down the long straightaway, maybe an eighth of a mile. Still moving slowly, I glanced over the side into the drop-off that lead to Sulphur Creek, aware that if I made a mistake in my trajectory I would likely roll over and go into the shallow drink.

I guess I was going to have to reassess my relationship with Vic and go back to my old way of thinking. I would really have to finish my cabin. It was a shame she’d just bought a house, but even with the market the way it was, she could sell it or maybe we could keep the little house in town for when Cady visited. Things were changing on that front with her married now and expecting my first grandchild. What would Cady think? She’d been bold enough to ask me about the relationship between Vic and me this summer, but I’d told her in a polite way that it wasn’t any of her business. I guess now it was.