Copper River (3 page)

B
odine, Michigan, was the end of the line. It lay near the terminus of thirty miles of poorly maintained county road that ran northwest out of Marquette along the shore of Lake Superior. It was
Anatomy of a Murder
territory, a place that despite its beauty was probably best filmed in black and white. For decades Bodine had been fighting a slow death.

To the south and west rose the Huron Mountains, thick with timber. Beyond that lay the Copper Country where the red-brown native ore leached out of the Keweenaw Peninsula and spread its veins through much of the western U.P. Stretching north all the way to the horizon was the vast blue of Lake Superior, which became, somewhere far out of sight, part of Canada. On good, clear days, you could see the Keweenaw curling out of the west, protecting Bodine from the worst of the gales that swept across the lake in late fall, storms that had spelled doom for generations of sailors. Looking east from Bodine, you could almost see the spot where the water had swallowed the
Edmund Fitzgerald
.

On this late Saturday afternoon, Bodine, population 1,207, was quiet as usual. Ren straddled the ATV his father had purchased for the old resort, and Charlie held on tight behind. For nearly a mile, he drove along the drainage ditch at the side of the road. Then he came onto the asphalt, crossed the iron bridge over the Copper River, and entered town. Legally, he couldn’t drive on a roadway, but in Bodine, a place used to ATVs and snowmobiles and anything else that would lure the tourists, no one paid much attention to that detail. He passed the Superior Inn, a lodge and restaurant of lacquered yellow pine logs, and the Supervalu market, where the parking lot was almost empty, and pulled to a stop in front of Kitty’s Café. Charlie sprang off the seat with the flourish of a gymnast and bounced to the café door.

“Jesus, you’re like a slug or something,” she called to Ren, and disappeared inside.

They sat at the counter and ordered pasties, chocolate shakes, and fries. Pasties were small pies consisting of meat, vegetables, and gravy completely enclosed in a flaky crust. They were a local favorite, an import brought by Cornish immigrants who’d come to that part of Michigan in the late 1800’s to work the copper and iron mines. While they ate, Charlie made fun of the other customers, some of them locals, some tourists come for the fall colors. The customers, for their part, eyed Charlie—her buzzed head, her piercings, her dirty clothing—as if she were an animal who’d wandered out of the woods.

When they finished, Ren pulled out the money he’d taken from his mother’s purse and paid the bill.

Outside, the sun had settled on the tops of the distant Huron Mountains and the air was cooling fast with the approach of evening. Ren knew he should head back to the resort to help his mother with the man in Cabin 3, but he’d already wasted most of the day sitting by the man’s bed, and he wasn’t eager to return.

At that opportune moment Stash appeared.

“Hey,” he called out, and skateboarded across the street toward the café. Stash was never without his skateboard. Taller than Charlie and Ren, older by a year, he wore his dark hair long. He was dressed as usual in baggy jeans that rode low on his butt, a black T-shirt a couple of sizes too large, and Doc Martens. A long, thin chain connected to a belt loop hung against his thigh and disappeared into his back pocket where he kept his wallet.

“Dudes, I was looking for you. I’m heading to the river, thinking of smoking a little weed. Want to come?”

“I’m there,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, okay,” Ren agreed. “Hop on,” he said, indicating his ATV. “You can ride behind Charlie.”

Before they could mount up, three teenagers rounded the corner beyond the café and made straight for Ren and his friends.

“Circus must be in town,” the boy in the lead said. “Check out the freaks.”

“Ah, shit,” Stash said. “Greenway and his Nazis.”

“Be cool,” Ren said.

Charlie ignored him. “Make like a bee,” she said to Greenway, “and buzz off.”

The big kid smiled. Goose Jablonski and Kenny Merkin smiled, too. They all wore gold and blue Bodine Bobcats letter-man jackets.

“Yeah, and who’s going to make us?” Greenway said.

“Bite me,” Stash said under his breath.

Greenway turned to him. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Stash said.

Charlie stepped forward. “He said fuck off.”

“Whoa. The junior dyke’s flexing her muscles. What do you think?” Greenway said, addressing his buddies. “Maybe she really was born with balls.”

“Leave her alone,” Ren said.

“Shut your hole, Pocahontas. You’ll end up with your head split open just like your old man.”

Ren threw himself at Greenway with all the fury his small body contained. The larger boy stumbled back a step, then held his ground. He wrapped Ren in a powerful hug, flung him to the ground, and sat on him. He gave Ren a couple of hard open-handed slaps before Charlie kicked him in the ribs. Greenway toppled over, holding his side. Goose grabbed Charlie and gripped her in a headlock before she could dance away. He squeezed until her face turned red.

“Let her go, shithead.” Ren tried to get up, only to have Merkin pounce and pin him to the ground.

“Help her, Stash,” Ren hollered.

Stash stood frozen.

“Hey, hey, hey, break it up here.” Gary Johnson trotted up, waving his hands. He was an adult and built like a bulldozer. Johnson latched an enormous hand onto Goose’s shoulder. “Let her go, Goose.”

The kid complied, but unhappily.

“Get off him, Kenny,” Johnson said to Merkin.

Merkin lifted himself off Ren.

Johnson stared down at Greenway, who was still on the ground holding his ribs. “I’m more than a little disappointed, Dan. Big guys like you picking on kids, and a girl yet.”

“Bitch kicked me,” Greenway said.

Johnson shoved his ball cap back showing a high forehead. “Big deal. You get kicked all the time on the football field, and by guys with cleats, eh.” He turned to Ren. “That lip’s going to be puffy for a while. Better go on home and put some ice on it.”

“I’m okay.”

Johnson faced the three lettermen. “I’ve a good mind to talk to your fathers.”

“Screw off,” Greenway said.

“Or how about this, Dan? How ‘bout I talk to Coach Soames, tell him what a big man you are, how you and Goose and Kenny here like beating on girls? I could get you yanked from that starting position faster ’n you could say Brett Favre. I’ll do it.”

In addition to being the publisher and editor of the
Marquette County Courier,
Johnson covered all area high school sports. That carried a lot of weight in Bodine.

Greenway and the others exchanged surly glances but said nothing.

“Now go on.” Johnson gestured down the street. “I’m sure there are cats somewhere need torturing, eh.”

When the boys had gone, Ren said, “Thanks.”

Charlie said, “We were doing fine.”

Johnson laughed. “That’s exactly what Custer said, Charlie.” He turned his attention back to Ren. “Like I said, have your mom look at that lip. How is she, by the way? Haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Busy,” Ren said. “You know.”

“Sure. Tell her I said hello, eh.”

Ren nodded.

“Charlie, I swear I’m going to see you in the Olympics someday.” Johnson gave her a smile, then strolled away.

“Come on,” Stash said, stowing his skateboard under his arm. “Let’s get high.”

A
hundred yards from where the Copper River spilled into Lake Superior, perched on a small rise among a stand of red maples on the west bank, stood an old stone picnic shelter. The shelter was part of the Big Cascade Wayside, a little park named for the stair step of rocks and churning water it overlooked. The shelter had been built during the Depression as a CCC project but wasn’t used much anymore. The locals and tourists preferred Dunning Park on the lakefront. More often than not, Ren and his friends had the place to themselves.

By the time they reached the river, the sun had set. The water as it dipped and swirled over the rocks was a reflection of a golden sky. Ren parked the ATV and the three kids stepped inside the shelter. The corners were littered with fallen leaves. A blackened fireplace dominated the back wall. The place smelled of old burn, dusty stone, rotting leaves, and faintly of piss. Stash stood on one of the two concrete picnic tables, reached up to a low rafter, and pulled down a cigar box bound with a thick rubber band. He sat down, slipped the band off, and lifted the lid to reveal a dime bag of weed, a package of Zig-Zag rolling papers, and a Bic lighter. His real name was Stuart, but Ren and Charlie had dubbed him Stash because he kept small caches of weed hidden in a number of places around Bodine. A hole in a tree in Dunning Park on the lake. Taped under the bleachers at the ballpark. In a disconnected downspout in the alley behind Linder’s Garage. He didn’t like to carry anything on him. He’d been stopped too many times and ripped off, he claimed, by the deputy constable.

As Stash sat on the table and rolled a joint, Ren eyed the inside of the box lid. Printed in bold magic marker:
PROPERTY OF STUART GULLICKSON
.

“You’re crazy, man,” he told Stash. “That’ll get you sent to juvie for sure.”

“So I get picked up. The old man springs me, gives me a lecture on disappointment and shame, yells about military school again. Only problem is there aren’t any I haven’t already been kicked out of.” He licked the seam to seal the joint. “Besides, it’s a rush whenever I think somebody might find it and turn me in. Walking the edge. You down with that?”

“Yeah, dude,” Charlie said. “You walk the edge real good. Showed us that back there in town with Greenway and his two turds.”

Ren laughed. “Yeah, man, you were a real Captain America the way you tore into those guys.”

“Hey, I was just about to kick their asses when Johnson showed up.”

Charlie said, “Dude, I’ve seen lawn ornaments move faster than you.”

She and Ren slapped hands.

“Fuck you guys.” Stash stood up and started to leave the shelter.

“We’re just funning with you,” Ren called to him. “Come on back, man, and fire up that doobie.”

Stash returned and sat on the picnic table. He lit the joint, took a hit, passed it to Ren, who took a hit and passed it to Charlie.

“I still think,” Ren said, after he’d held the smoke in his lungs awhile, “that putting your name in the box is a stupid idea.”

“ ‘Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse.’ John Derek.
Knock on Any Door
.”

“Who?” Charlie asked.

Stints at private schools had taken Stash away from Bodine for long periods of time, and although Ren and Charlie often hung with him, they weren’t what Ren would have called tight. Stash’s family had money. His father was president of a paper company in Marquette. They lived in a restored Victorian home, huge and elegant, that overlooked the lake. Stash’s older brother was an athlete—football, basketball, baseball—but sports held no interest for Stash. In his bedroom, he had a television with a thirty-two-inch screen. He also had an extensive library of DVDs and videotapes. For some reason, he loved gangster movies, especially the old black and whites. When he wasn’t skateboarding, he spent hours in that shaded room, watching a dark world filled with characters Ren didn’t know played by actors he’d never heard of.

“Don’t you watch
any
good movies?” Stash asked.

“Dude, you don’t watch good movies. You watch, like, ancient history.” Charlie shook her head. “John Dork.”

“Derek.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s called noir, ass wipe. And it isn’t ancient history. When I get sprung from Bodine for good, I’m hitting Hollywood, man. I’m going to be—”

“The next Tarantino,” Ren and Charlie finished in unison.

“The hell with you guys.” Stash pushed off the table again and strode outside.

“Hey, don’t take the joint,” Ren called.

“My weed,” Stash threw back over his shoulder.

“No problem,” Charlie said, grabbing the cigar box. “We’ll roll our own.”

Stash said nothing, just stood on the riverbank getting high by himself.

Charlie rolled a tight number. “Toss me the lighter, dude,” she called to Stash.

“Light it between your legs.”

“Wait, I got a match.” From her pocket, she dug a match-book she’d picked up at Kitty’s Café. She lit up and for a few minutes they smoked in silence.

“Dude, know what I heard?”

“What?” Ren said. He was looking out the shelter toward the golden water and the far bank lined with birch trees whose autumn leaves were like drops of the river splashed over the branches. He didn’t know if it was the weed or the moment, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything as beautiful.

“I heard Amber Kennedy likes you.”

“Right.”

“No shit. And don’t tell me you haven’t looked at those tits of hers when you pass her in the hallway. Dude, the way she pushes them out, it’s totally grotesque. Like
Alien,
you know. I keep thinking something really scary is going to pop out of there.”

Ren slid off the picnic table, went to the fireplace, and picked up the remains of a burned piece of wood. He walked back and began to doodle in charcoal on the tabletop. Charlie watched him for a while.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Can’t you tell?”

“I don’t know. Looks like mountains or something.”

Ren drew a few more strokes.

“Jesus, that’s Amber Kennedy, and those are her tits.” Charlie laughed and gave Ren a playful shove.

“Hey, guys. Guys. You gotta see this. Quick.” Stash frantically waved them over to the riverbank.

They moved slowly, not just because of the weed but because Stash sometimes got worked up over stupid things.

“Look. See it? Do you see it?”

Stash pointed at something in the water, sweeping downriver in and out of the troughs of the cascades. Ren couldn’t, in fact, see it clearly because the light was so poor now, and the river had become a dark gloss of black and pale silver. Also, the fast water quickly carried away whatever it was that Stash had seen.

“It was a body,” Stash said.

“Bullshit,” Charlie said. “It was just a log or something.”

“I’m telling you it was a body. I saw it when it went by.”

“You mean like a dead person?” Ren said.

“Yeah, man, a dead body.”

Charlie shook her head. “Naw, if it was a body it had to be, like, a deer or something.”

Stash turned on her angrily. “If you weren’t so goddamned slow you’d have seen it.”

“Slow? Me?” Her fist exploded forward and caught Stash hard in the arm.

“Owww. Damn it.”

“That’s from my movie.
Charlie Kills Stash
.”

Stash rubbed his arm. “I’m telling you guys it was a body.”

“You’ve been watching too many old gangster movies, dude. It’s screwing with your head.”

“That or the weed,” Ren threw in.

“I’m going down there to find it.”

“You do, and you’re walking home, Stash. I’ve got to split for the cabins. You want a ride, you come with me now.”

“It was a body,” Stash said sullenly.

“Yeah, well, now it’s in the lake, and you know what they say about Superior: it never gives up its dead. So whatever it was, it’s gone.”

Stash stood looking downstream where a hundred yards away the pale river water met the deep blue of the great lake. “ ‘Oil and water are the same as wind and air when you’re dead,’ ” he said.

Ren and Charlie stared at him and waited.

“Humphrey Bogart.
The Big Sleep,
” Stash said, disappointed. “Let’s go.”