Table of Contents
Also by Craig Johnson
The Cold Dish
Death Without Company
Kindness Goes Unpunished
Another Mans Moccasins
The Dark Horse
Junkyard Dogs
For Joe Drabyak (19502010), who has died so many literary deaths and continues to live on in so many well-read hearts.
Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, act I, scene 2
Chi non averei creduto
che morte tanta navesse disfatta.
I should not have thought
that death could ever have unmade so many.
Dante Alighieri, Inferno, canto 3, lines 5657
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Hell Is Empty could be the most challenging novel Ive attempted so far and, like Dante, I wouldve found it difficult to make such an effort without my own guides into the nether regions. In my part of the country, the one thing you dont do is argue with your Indian scouts.
When I first signed with my agent, Gail Hochman, I didnt know what trustworthy hands I was placing myself in, but over the years it has become quite evident. The first person she delivered me to in the wilderness of the publishing world was Kathryn Court, my editor extraordinaire and president of Penguin USA. Second in command of my books, and the person to whom I must bid a fond farewell, is Alexis Washam, who has since moved on, but was a guiding hand in the writing of this book as well.
In the many rings of publishing, you hope for a head of publicity like Maureen Donnelly, a senior publicist such as Ben Petrone, a publicist like Gabrielle Gantz, and, of course, we all hope for an all-purpose angel who turned out to be Tara Singh.
My good friend and counsel, Susan Fain, continues to be an inspiration and assistant in the realms of higher literature, and without her help some of the more apocryphal and obscure aspects of Inferno mightve escaped me.
Marcus Red Thunder has long been the influence for Henry Standing Bear and the guardian of all things Cheyenne and Crow in my books. Without him I would be the one lost.
Thanks to Bill Matteson for accompanying me on numerous trips into the Bighorn Mountains, including visits to the top of Cloud Peak, the only spot on the mountains with crystal clear cell phone reception.
A great big thanks to wilderness ranger Robert Bob Thuesen out of the Bighorn National Forest Powder River Ranger District for the times above tree line and my endless conversations that always started with, What if... ?
These are my guardian angels, the people who enable me to do what it is that I do, but theres one who supersedes them all. Thank you, Judy, the one who shares my life and all my love.
Didnt your mother ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?
I tried to focus on one of my favorite skiesthe silverdollar one with the peach-colored banding that seriates into a paler frosty blue the old-timers said was an omen of bad times aheadas I stuffed a third of a bacon cheeseburger into Marcel Popps mouth in an attempt to silence the most recent of his promises that he was, indeed, going to kill me.
At last count hed made this statement twenty-seven times to me, eight to other members of the Absaroka County Sheriffs Department, and seventeen to Santiago Sancho Saizarbitoria, who was dragging a few french fries through his ketchup as his eyes stayed trained on a paperback in his left hand.
I looked at Sancho. That was twenty-eight.
The sun reflected through the western window and struck my face like a ray gun. I was tempted to close my eyes and soak in the warmth of the early afternoon, but I couldnt afford the luxury. I hadnt allowed any silverware at the table and Marcel Popp was manacled, but I still warned him that if he bit either Sancho or me hed go without food.
The Basquo tilted his head from the book. Do dirty looks count?
Popp glanced at Santiago, who was watching the other two convicts quietly eating their lunches, and we could only guess what his words wouldve been as he chewed.
No. I placed the rest of the convicts burger on his plate and looked back out the window as the sunshine took another dying shot at my face.
Sancho and I had been amusing ourselves by keeping score, and even though the Basquo was down by eleven, he had made a fourth-quarter comeback with a tirade hed received as wed unloaded the transported prisoners at South Fork Lodge in the heart of the Bighorn Mountains. The Basquod apologized for handling Marcels head into the top of the door while getting him out of the vehicle; I still wasnt sure if it had been entirely innocent.
I glanced at Santiago and then risked closing my eyes for just a second. Even with present company, I had enjoyed my own Absaroka burger and fries. South Fork was my favorite of the lodges, with the best menu and a river-stone fireplace in the dining room that owners Holli and Wayne Jones kept roaring when the temperature was under fifty degrees. It was a year-round, full-service lodge nestled away in one of the southside canyons, with snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, horseback riding, trout fishing, and hunting in season.
It was early May, and the summer crowds hadnt arrived yet. With the outside temperature in the high thirties not including windchill, I was afraid we still had a few shots of winter left.
Despite the weather, there was a comfortable, close quality to the lodge, and I fantasized about reserving one of the rustic cabins by the partially ice-covered creek and calling Victoria Moretti, another of my deputies, to see what she was up to this weekend. Vic had just bought a new house, and shed invited me and my best friend, Henry Standing Bear, over for dinner tonight. I was still thinking about the cabin when Popp spoke again.
Im going to kill every single one of you motherfuckers.
It was a general statement, but hed been looking at me. Twenty-nine.
Currently, Marcel wasnt a happy camper. I hadnt released either him or the other two murderers from their traveling chains in order to eat. Marcel had already killed two Winnemucca, Nevada, city policemen and a South Dakota highway patrolman in an attempt to escape a year back. That and his limited vocabulary had endeared him to the entire Absaroka County staff. We would be just as happy to be rid of him when we met up with the Big Horn and Washakie counties sheriffs departments, the FBI, and the Ameri-Trans van near Meadowlark Lodge in less than an hour.
Ameri-Trans was a private firm that contracted with law enforcement to transport prisoners, but they had no contract with us; I didnt like the fact that they had a record high percentage of escapees and wouldnt allow them in my jurisdiction, so wed made a little jaunt into the mountains this afternoon with the prisoners.
Id asked the FBI agent in charge over the phone what all this was about but had been told that the details would be made clear when we delivered the convicts to the multiagency task force that awaited us a little farther up the road. I didnt like his answer, but for now that was my problem.
I glanced at Raynaud Shade, the prisoner who worried me most, the one who continued to look at his plate as he chewed. I didnt know why the Crow-adopted Canadian Indian was being transported but would be just as glad when he was no longer my responsibility. He hardly ever spoke, but in my estimation it was the quiet ones you really had to worry about. Id been distracted by my thoughts for only a second, but when I paid attention again his pale eyes were studying me from under the dark hair. He had this unnerving ability that whenever you refocused your eyes on him, he was there with youlike a cat in a cage.
