The Highwayman: A Longmire Story (Walt Longmire #11.5)(36)

“Yep.”

“And the emergency brake is off?”

“Yep.”

“Is Sam’s foot on the brake?”

“That I didn’t check.” I looked and came back, reporting in. “Negative.”

“I do not suppose there is any sense in attempting to start it.”

I took a moment to give him my most incredulous look and then continued pushing. We both bore down to the effort when I noticed we were heading in a slight turn toward the other wall. “Keep pushing, and I’ll try and straighten the wheel again.”

He gave me the look back as he now strained double time.

I reached in and aligned it just as a strange noise came from behind me. I stood up, hearing the clatter of metal on metal, then something sizzling and a long hiss along with the unmistakable sound of liquid hitting the pavement like a cow having a highly combustible piss on a flat rock.

Turning, I stooped and saw a dark reddish liquid filling the gutters on each side of the road and flooding the entire surface as it poured underneath the crashed vehicles and began pooling toward us like arterial blood.

The smell was unmistakable.

“Heating oil.”

“Yep.” I shifted my gaze to Henry as I rushed to join him at the rear of the Toyota, scrambling to get it and its occupants to the far end of the tunnel and safety.

We pushed as hard as we could, and I could feel the Crown getting easier to move, but we were still making uneven progress. I glanced behind and could see the dyed fluid moving toward us like a tide of red.

? ? ?

I don’t know where the spark came from, maybe it was something from the engines, or the settling of sheet metal against granite, or more likely the headlight and emergency-light electrics that finally shorted out.

Heating oil needs a catalyst, and I can only guess that there must’ve been enough gasoline leaking from one of the vehicle tanks to cause it to catch.

The explosion of the vapors was enough to suck both Henry and me from the trunk of the car and away from Rosey, but the flash of heat and disappearance of oxygen was nothing compared to the wall of fire that rose up from the thick oil, now burning blue, that covered the road and continued its relentless crawl toward us.

Deafened by the compression of the explosion in the tunnel, we continued putting our legs into it until the heat of the advancing flames licked at our ankles. Neither Henry nor I was willing to look and see what was happening when another explosion knocked the two of us to our knees.

I hit my head on the chrome bumper and felt the noxious smell of the oil filling my nostrils and throat, causing me to cough and my eyes to water. In the thickening atmosphere, I could hear Henry gagging as well.

I blinked, my eyes burning and my sight blurred, and then blinked again, sure that I could see someone standing in the inferno reflected in the metal, an erect figure with a long slicker and a flat-brimmed hat who seemed to step down from the wreckage and move freely through the walls of flame toward us.

I kept pushing. “You know how he died . . .” Coughing from the clouds of smoke, Kimama’s words escaped my lips before I could stop them. With one last look back, I wiped at my eyes, grinding the soot into the wrinkles, but in the wavering heat of the flames couldn’t see anything.

Turning my attention forward as the heat became unbearable, all I could think was that if that oil got to us and the gas tank of the Toyopet Crown, we were all going up.

I felt a nudge by my shoulder as someone joined us, pushing both Henry and me to the side, and our speed increased remarkably.

Stealing a glance to my left through the black smoke, I could see him turn his flat-brimmed hat toward me. The lower part of his face was covered by the high collar of his slicker, with only his eyes showing. The eyes stayed on me for a moment, and I had a good look at the darkness in them, almost as if there were no eyes at all until the light caught the slightest glimmer, like the spark that had put us in this precarious situation.

The Crown leaped ahead, and I stumbled to keep up, trying to hold Rosey on the trunk.

After a moment the heat was easier to withstand, and I watched as the front end of the little car crossed through the stark white line of fresh snow as we exited the tunnel. Still pushing the Toyota forward, I glanced to my left again, but the only one there was Henry.

Craning my neck, I looked back, wiping the greasy smut from my eyes. The ghostlike figure was standing at the very edge of the tunnel, backlit by the burning oil, only the brim of his hat and the cuffs on the sleeves of his slicker touched by the moonlight and the falling snow. He looked down as the oil burned, stopping at the snow’s edge and sizzling but going no farther. He waited for a moment, looking at me, and then slowly turned and limped back into the hellhole, the flames licking around him and finally swallowing him.

There was another explosion as the second gas tank must’ve let go, the flames roiling toward us as they burst from the tunnel and rimed the uneven surface of the opening.

Still stumbling backward, I turned and glanced over the quarter panel and could see someone steering the car from outside the driver’s-side window.

It was the exact same figure as the one in the tunnel, a figure completely covered by a black slicker that trailed from his covered face to the ankles, where his boots protruded. The same flat-brimmed hat sat on his head as he released the wheel of the tiny car and walked past us back toward the burning tunnel.

In the distance, I could hear approaching sirens from the EMTs, HPs, and Hot Springs County patrols that Henry had no doubt called in while at my truck getting the fire extinguisher.