Hard Ground (15 page)

“Bought it this morning,” White Hair said. “There's a lag. I used to work at Meijers in Flint.”

“You guys came here with your girlfriends last night. You haven't left the campground.”

Purple Hair turned to his partner and sneered. “Let's just drive us up over the fuckin'
bridge
and have us a good old time,” he said mockingly. “Don't nobody pay attention to nothing up there among them cedar savages. Christ, they got fucking cops up here with superpowers.”

“Littering,” Sergeant Collar added, pointing at a can in the boat and the trail on the lake.

“Ain't no fucking litter if it's
in
the boat,” Purple Hair said.

“I'm talking about nearly a case of empties floating on the lake, from the empty carton in the boat. A plus B equals littering.”

“Jesus,” Purple Hair said, “this one got superpowers, too! What is this shit?”

“Them ain't our cans,” White Hair said. “Ain't gonna lie. Lotsa companies use blue cans.”

“We'll just compare serial numbers, the ones in the boat against those in the water,” Sergeant Collar said.

“
What
serial numbers?” White Hair asked, stammering.

“Take the boat, go on out there, and get in those cans.
All
of them.”

Purple Hair started to follow his partner, but the sergeant caught the man's arm and pulled him back. “It's a one-man job.”

•••

The next week during a break at the district meeting in Newberry, Jespert Ivory heard Sergeant Collar telling a group of COs about how he and Ivory had barked their way to a stolen handgun and stolen boat, littering, no PFDs, no fishing licenses, much less all-species, and sixty trout—only three of which had met the ten-inch minimum.

Ivory stood back out of sight and lit a cigarette.
That ought to keep him out of my hair for a while.

Humane Disposal

Arno Skell got into Jack Elray's Silverado, slid his gear bag, rifle, and shotgun cases in back, handed his partner a thermos of coffee, said, “Cream and sugar, what's the plan today?” and snapped into his safety belt.

“County just called, complaint from Lunatic Pond,” Elray said.

“Oh, joy,” Skell said. “They share any details?”

“Something about a pest removal dispute.”

“Goody, a rat wrangler rodeo. Think the city fathers will ever get around to renaming the city?”

Lunatic Pond was the label COs applied to the town, which had a different name on maps, a small college with high tuition, a small, rich student body, a smug, affluent faculty, a disinterested administration, and a small mental health infirmary that served patients from a three-county area. It seemed wherever officers went there they encountered people who babbled with vocabularies miles above the average man, or with damaged brains that made for the strangest sorts of conversations.

“I think the city's stuck with the old name. Intellectual paper pushers hate change. Hell, they're still badmouthing some poor asshole who came back from the outside and had the audacity to open a store catering mainly to students. They called him everything but a goddamn Commie. The prevailing local business attitude back then was to leave the little snots and their uppity profs to themselves, and if they needed something, let them come crawling to town from the campus. Which they did, in trickles. Classic town and gown,” Elray said. “The new guy got rich real fast, and now they all cater to the rich kids.”

“We got an address?” Skell asked.

Elray said, “The Charles Edward Emerson Bone House on Lunatic Pond.”

“What the hell kind of address is
that
?” Skell asked.

“My wife says Bone was a Georgia architect in the '40s and '50s; he became famous and wealthy, built custom houses all over the country.”

“Geez, Jack, why would Lois know all
that
?”

“I don't know,” Elray said. “But maybe we can get us some breakfast after this. Tata Café maybe.”

The Tata was in reality the Morning Coffee Diner, but it employed four female waitpersons with enormous bust lines and tiny waists.

“We'll see,” Skell said.

“It ain't an actual address,” Elray said.

“Guess we don't need one,” the other officer said. “Let's just get there and take us a look-see. I'm gonna guess such a chi-chi house ain't gonna be too hard to pick out. There a name on this complaint?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Charles. The missus, name of Juvamelia, was the one who called the county.”

“What flavor's that name?” Skell asked. “Latin? This is all weird. Complainant is Emerson Charles, and the house is Charles Emerson. What's that all about?”

The house was indeed easy to locate, not because of the uniqueness of the structure, which Skell considered a gray cinderblock bomb shelter, but because of a gaudy panel truck parked in a driveway, the signage on the truck declaring
God's Human Disposal Corps: All Creatures Large and Small, Scaly, Venomous, Furry, and Yucky. Our Quotes Are Our Word
!!!

“Boy,” was all Elray said before resuming his train of thought. “I'll go to the front. Why don't you swing around back, see what's up.”

Elray just arrived at the door when his partner came up on the 800 MHz. “We got us a deal out back.”

Circling the structure, Elray saw that the house was on a hill overlooking Lunatic Pond, which was ringed by cattails, tag alders, Russian olive, honeysuckle, and other invasive species. While the main house was a hundred feet up the hill, there was a smaller cinderblock building halfway down to the water. There stood Skell, who waved Elray toward him.

Elray estimated fifteen live traps on the grounds, each with a dying animal in it, plaintive-eyed creatures looking for some sort of divine intervention and mercy.

“At least a dozen more traps over the lip of the hill,” Arno Skell said, rolling his eyes.

Elray saw woodchucks, coons, two skunks, possums, rabbits, and a small badger. Both skunks had panicked, loosed their gas. The area reeked.

A man and a woman stood with a second man, whom Elray guessed to be six-six. He had the turkey neck and countenance of Abe Lincoln, whiskers and all, and wore a pale blue jumpsuit with gold embroidery that read
ghdc
and underneath those letters
Sharleton, Boss Man
#2.

Skell joined the trio. “Conservation officers. You folks the Charles's?”

“Juvamelia,” the woman said. “Juvamelia Charles.” She thrust her tiny hand in Elray's direction.

Firm grip, he noted, maybe a little
too
firm.

“My husband, the eminent Chinese anthropology scholar Professor H. Emerson Charles, Ph.D., will observe. Unlike we mere mortals, Emmy's mind takes him to faraway places that we shall never know, much less comprehend.”

The woman tilted her head toward the man in the jumpsuit.

“This creature here, this . . . charlatan, this dishonest, money-gouging bunco artist, has trapped all these poor animals and refuses to remove and dispose of them until we pay. His quote was $50 per creature, but now he wants more than $250 per head!”

“I have a copy of the quote,” the man said. “I am the Right Reverend Acmetha Sharleton with an S, not charlatan with a C.”

Skell stared at the man's embroidery. “If you're number two, who's Boss #1?”

Sharleton pointed up at the sky, and Skell wondered if there had ever been such a thing as a wrong reverend but kept it to himself. “Why don't you show us the paperwork, Reverend,” Elray said.

“Yessir, indeed, I obey the letter of the law, all of them, here and . . . ” he pointed upward again.

“That man,” Juvamelia Emerson said, “is the poorest excuse for a human being I ever did meet, and we once lived in Spain. Right, Emmy?”

The professor put a finger on his chin and rolled his eyes. “
España
,” he said. “
Hola
.”

“See?” the woman said. “Even Emmy can see it, and he's rarely in our dimension.”

The man tugged at his own sleeve and said, “Okay, my darling, see you later.” His eyes rolled back until only the whites showed. He stood with his hands at his side. Elray thought at first he'd fall over, but he seemed stable, even statuesque, rooted into the earth, with dying, gasping animals surrounding him.

“He's at work now,” explained the woman, whom Elray guessed was fortyish. She was short, with purple toenails, flip-flops, a deep tan, possibly chemical.

When the reverend returned with paperwork, the woman thrust hers at the officers. The reverend's read $250 a head, the woman's, $50. Skell shook his head.

The conservation officer held up the $50 quote. “This what you gave her, Reverend?”

“Yessir, before He spoke to me on it.”

“He? You mean God spoke to you?”

The reverend tapped the higher quote paper. “Changed the number, which is His prerogative. That is God's handwriting on that page, and we must do what our creator orders.”

“But
you
revised the original number?” Elray asked. “God didn't have his own pencil, right?”

“God dictated the original, and He simply amended it appropriately upward through my hand, no doubt because there are so many of His creatures here and all the suffering they've been through.”

Juvamelia Emerson suddenly punched the reverend in the chest so hard that he took a step backward.

“Suffered because of
you
, you, you . . .
false disposer
!”

The woman turned to Elray. “He put these traps in nine days ago. We've called him every damn day and left a message, and he never called back and never came out to check the cages, which, according to his sales pitch, the goddamn sonovabitch promised to do once
every
twenty-four hours.”

“My dear woman,” Reverend Sharleton said. “Anger over temporal matters is no reason to use God's name in vain.”

“Bite me, you ugly, cheating, incompetent turd!” the missus screamed.

“I forgive you,” the reverend said quietly. “And so, too, does our Lord.”

“Fuck you,” the woman yelped. “The animals on the lower hill are already dead, and those up here are close. We've tried to feed them and give them water, but they refuse it.”

Jack Elray knew the past week had seen 90 percent humidity and five days of temperatures over one hundred. “You asked the reverend to take these animals away and kill them, yet you fed and watered them?” he asked. “I just want to understand the whole picture here.”

“Not kill,” the reverend said. “Humanely dispose of . . . for two fifty a head.”

“And how exactly do you accomplish that, Reverend?” asked Elray.

“With the blessed sleep of water,” Sharleton said.

“You drown them?” Skell asked, intervening.

“Humanely, amen,” Acmetha Sharleton said, joining his hands.

“You have a church, Reverend?” Skell asked.

“Between assignments,” Sharleton said. “God gave us this work to carry us through.”

“Where was your last church?” Skell asked.

“I don't see the relevance, but I am seeking my first church, my initial service to Him.”

“How long's your so-called seek been on?” Elray asked.

“A long, long time, amen. I can assure you, it renders a man humble.”

“So you drown them humanely to not mar the pelts, right?” Skell asked.

“Of course, waste not, want not, God's loving directive to help us find The Way.”

“I don't think that's biblical,” Skell offered.

“You have biblical training?” Reverend Sharleton asked.

“No, sir.”

“Well then.”

“Yoohoo,” the woman said. “I am not paying this pompous asshole. I'd go to prison and become a jailhouse lesbian before I'd give this creep a nickel!”

“Been in this business long?” Elray asked the man in the jumpsuit.

“Seven years, approaching eight.”

“You've disposed of a lot of animals?”

“Yes, but I maintain no running total.”

Elray looked over at Skell, who nodded and walked away.

“Where do you perform this humane disposal, Reverend?”

“Upper Moth Creek. I have a camp there.”

“Moth Creek, huh? That's pretty far north of here. You drown them, then what?”

“I won't listen to this shit!” the woman shouted before marching away, while her husband remained in his trance.

“Eviscerate and skin,” Sharleton said.

“Sell the pelts?”

“Prices have been mightily depressed,” the man said.

“So you stockpile and collect them until prices go up?”

“You might say that. All proceeds go to God.”

“How's that?” Elray asked. “You don't have a church.”

“They go to me. I represent Him. I'm not-for-profit. My heart is pure and true.”

Skell came back and told Elray, “He's never bought a fur harvester's license.”

“A man of God does not need an earthly license,” the reverend said. “It is written, amen.”

“How many furs you got at your camp now?” Skell asked.

Sharleton tried to step away, but Elray blocked him. “Answer him.”

“God wants me to take care of His suffering creatures,” the reverend said.

“Take the skunks down to the pond and drown them,” Elray said. “Leave the others where they are.”

They watched the man struggle and gag with the two cages, the cloud of skunk stench around him almost visible.

“Nasty shit,” Skell said. “He charges people with a problem whatever he thinks they'll pay and takes the pelts, too. The old double dip.”

“God as entrepreneurial muse,” Elray said.

“We won't argue that,” Skell replied. “We'll get a warrant for his house and his camp. He admitted that he's stockpiled furs.”

“Now?” Elray wanted to know.

“No, we'll let him walk now and get after him later.”

“He'll dump the evidence.”

“Look at him,” Elray said. “He's a cheat, greedy, and a nutcase. He'll hold onto them. God's on his side.”

“But
Gawddd
is not on his side, nosireebob,” Professor Emerson Charles announced, popping out of his trance. He ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair, blinked repeatedly, started to walk away, stopped, and looked back at the officers. “I just visited God. He wishes to inform us that the reverend is a fake and not one of his true appointed agents on earth.”

“Like you?” Skell said.

Professor Charles grinned demonically. “Don't fun me, son. God and me are tight. We
get
each other.”

Skell and Elray looked at each other.