The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (Walt Longmire #11.5)(34)
She settled in the seat, still watching the Toyota as Sam ground the starter. “You know what? I really don’t care.”
I smiled down at her. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“I can’t help but think that it’s all over, you know? That Kimama and I were meant to find each other and now that we have, that it’s done.”
“Maybe so.”
Pulling his duster closed and folding his arms, Henry leaned a hip against her car. “Perhaps that is what this was all about.”
I continued to smile, but something caught the corner of my eye as I glanced at the road heading north, something shiny. I turned my head, but it still glistened, a sparkle in the snow-dusted road.
Stepping off, I walked toward it down the scenic byway, passing the Toyota as it finally caught and started again. It was up the road, but even in the falling snow it caught the light like a beacon.
Rosey’s voice called out after me. “Walt? What are you doing?”
Hoping against hope that it wasn’t what I thought it was, I kept walking with my back to them and then stopped. I thought about kicking it to the side of the road and pretending that it wasn’t really there, but that’s not how the fates work; they align themselves like gears in a giant and inevitable machine, the spanner kicks forward, and the teeth mesh in an inexorable whir, a noise that decides your fate like a roulette wheel.
Walking to the centerline, I turned and knelt, picking up the silver dollar. There were only a few flakes on it and it was warm, very warm. Carefully palming the pocket watch I still held in my right hand, I turned the face upward and read the time.
12:34.
Automatically and in that slow motion that overtakes you in those lean moments of disaster, my eyes went to the tunnel, but no apparition was there, only the sputtering Toyopet Crown, which had shuddered and died once again, stalling just in front of the entrance of the tunnel and coasting to a stop.
As Sam Little Soldier tried the starter again, I turned back to Rosey and Henry, the trooper sitting in the driver’s seat of the Dodge with the Bear standing by the door, both of them looking at me. As I stared past the coin, it became more obvious that they were not looking at me but farther up the road.
The whir of foregone conclusion was like a meshing of time and place as I pivoted to my right in time to see the Coleman Heating Oil truck, only a quarter mile away, careen against the guardrail with sparks flying, as the driver overcorrected and bounced off the stone wall on the opposite side of the road. Trailing a rooster tail of sparks, the decrepit tanker shot forward unimpaired, the grimy yellow headlights of the runaway splitting the distance between me and the stalled car at the mouth of the tunnel.
Pushing off the ground at the center of the road, I felt my boots slipping on the snowy surface as I fought to gain traction with the tanker bearing down on me. It slammed into the cliff as Coleman attempted in vain to rub some of the speed off. His arms flailed at the wheel, but it was useless as the big Diamond Rio gained momentum, the side of the truck scraping the rocks again, the sparks arcing and leaping from the metal surface like live cables on an electric streetcar.
I heaved myself to the side of the road and rolled out of the way against the guardrail. The truck thundered by as my eyes caught the Toyota still attempting to get started—but, more important, the steadfast and almost peaceful look on Trooper Wayman’s face as she lifted a leather-gloved hand with a loose pearl snap and pulled the transmission selector of the black Charger into drive.
Henry’s words echoed in my mind.
Kindred spirits.
12
Gripping the guardrail, I pulled myself up and ran toward the tunnel as the Dodge shot forward. Spraying a rooster tail of gravel, snow, and dirt, the vehicle skidded but still stayed on a path that would converge headlong with the runaway tanker.
Henry was also vaulting toward the point of impact, both of us laboring under the delusion that if we could only get there first we might somehow dissuade the tons of steel from their impending impact.
I had the briefest of hopes that Rosey might hit the Diamond Rio on the side of its cab, that she might avoid the tanker portion of the truck, no doubt full of heating oil since it was headed for the rez, and that she might also push the truck to the side so that it might miss the rear end of the Toyota without sacrificing herself.
It wasn’t meant to be, and I watched as I ran with all the muscle I had toward the disaster thirty-six years in the making, but the Charger accelerated in front of the juggernaut and was T-boned into the front entrance of the north tunnel.
An impact of that magnitude carries a concussion all its own, and both Henry and I were having trouble keeping our feet on the slippery, hard surface of the road as the sound came back at us like some gigantic cannon, the screeching sheet metal and twisting sounds of steel against rock like an agonizing shuttle to hell.
Henry was already running as I regained my footing. Miraculously, there was no fire, but the smell of chemicals and mechanical fluids filled the air. The closer you got, the worse it looked; the Dodge was pushed into the mouth of the tunnel as if a bite had been taken out of it with the front of the tanker lodged in there with the hood peeled back over the cab.
Knowing the Cheyenne Nation was a heck of a lot faster than me, I yelled at him, “Get the fire extinguisher from my truck!” Then I pointed toward the tanker. “And get whatever is left of that idiot out of there! I’m going after Rosey!”