Page 15 of Battle Mountain

Amy Ehrlich shakily placed her face between the side of the open door and the doorjamb and leaned against the interior wall to keep herself standing. She was dark-haired and heavyset and wearing a thin yellow bathrobe. Her eyes were half-open and her skin was gray and sallow.

“I guess you know why I’m here,” Joe said. He was prepared for whatever came next, knowing it might be a threat, a confession, a statement of total innocence, or the admission to a crime he knew nothing about.

On this occasion, it was none of those. Ehrlich’s eyes rolled back into her head and her mouth flopped open and she collapsed like a rag doll. Her weight made the door fly open and Joe barely retreated in time to not be swept off the steps by it.

She fell in a heap and then stretched out, her arms up above her head and her now-exposed white legs lying inside the trailer on thedirty vinyl flooring. Then, after a beat, she began to convulse. Her arms and legs twitched, and white foam covered her mouth.

“What is happening?” Joe asked himself aloud. He quickly mounted the stairs and stepped over her.

Matt Theriault was on his side next to a cluttered table as if he’d just slid out of it. He appeared to be either sleeping or dead.

Ehrlich’s convulsions became more violent, and her naked heels bounced off the floor like a drumbeat. She was gagging, and Joe pulled her into the trailer by her ankles and flopped her over onto her belly. She was heavy and hard to roll over. Although the gagging stopped, her convulsions continued.

He called 911 and requested an ambulance as quickly as possible. When the local dispatcher asked him what he thought the problem was, he said, “I think they OD’d, but I can’t be sure.”

“We’re sending the EMTs now,” the dispatcher said.

“Tell them to hurry.”

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“Fucking fentanyl,” SheriffBishop said to Joe. He held up a small Ziploc bag of pure white powder that he’d snatched from a mirror on the tabletop. “These folks are the third and fourth victims this week. They probably thought it was cocaine they bought. Some asshat came through town selling this poison. I’d like to find whoever it was and mess him up for good.”

An evidence tech who had been taking photographs of the scene strode over and impatiently grabbed the bag from the sheriff’s hand and dropped it into an evidence envelope. Bishop shrugged.

“Please let me do my job,” the tech pleaded.

“Sorry,” Bishop said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Four victims?” Joe asked, stepping aside to clear the way for the EMTs to work. They’d already wheeled Ehrlich outside because she was still breathing, but Theriault had been pronounced dead on the scene. The EMTs had tried to revive him with a portable defibrillator, but they were unsuccessful, and their efforts had produced an acrid odor of burned flesh that contributed to the stale smells already inside the trailer. There was no reason to transport his body to the hospital.

Joe needed fresh air and he turned toward the door, when Bishop said, “Three fatalities. Maybe four if Theriault’s girlfriend doesn’t make it.”

“Her name is Amy Ehrlich,” Joe said.

“Whatever.”

Bishoplookedlike a no-nonsense western sheriff, Joe thought. He was in his early forties with broad shoulders, a bushy cowboy mustache, a square jaw, and a staccato way of speaking that made him sound authoritative on many subjects even if he wasn’t. A former deputy from Park County and the son-in-law of newly retired Judge Hewitt, Bishop had been elected in a landslide and had immediately rehired two former deputies, Ryan Steck and Justin Woods, who had quit because the department had become such a feckless mess under former sheriff Scott Tibbs. They joined Deputy “Fearless” Frank Carroll, the only LEO who’d survived the purge when Bishop arrived. Carroll had confided to Joe that Bishop’s first words of instruction were to “kick ass and take names.” Hence the allegations of excessive force.

Bishop roamed through the trailer, obviously not impressed with it. He called out and described further drug paraphernaliaand the weapons he found stashed in drawers and closets throughout the structure, then returned to Joe.

He was fuming. “Both of them were on welfare,” he said. “But somehow they could afford weed, meth, and fentanyl they thought was cocaine. Plus five guns running from a .38 snub-nose to an AK in the closet. Not to mention that seventy-two-inch TV on the wall with probably every streaming service that exists.”

Joe had noticed the huge screen as well. He fought back nausea and nodded to the door to indicate that’s where he wanted to go.

Bishop didn’t pick up on the gesture. “Let’s hope Theriault’s girlfriend recovers enough to tell us who sold them the fentanyl,” he said. “Otherwise, there will be more bodies piling up and the voters will start calling for my head. But I’m not the problem.

“Folks say to blame the Chinese government for the fentanyl epidemic,” Bishop continued. “The Chicoms supply the Mexican drug cartels with the precursor chemicals to make fentanyl. They’re deliberately killing our kids, and losers like Theriault and his girlfriend here. But do you know who I blame?”

Joe said he didn’t.

“Our own government,” Bishop said, dropping his voice to a whisper and leaning close to Joe. “The deep state on the East Coast. They allow this all to happen and they encourage it.”

“Why would they do that?” Joe asked.

“They want to eradicate us rural folks,” Bishop said. “It’s part of the plan. Wipe out the white rural class and replace us with all those people coming over the southern border who will vote for them.”

Joe didn’t know how to respond. He hadn’t heard Bishop makeconspiratorial statements like that before, and it certainly hadn’t been a platform in his bid for sheriff.

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