Hard Ground (8 page)

When he did, what he said was, “What this is,
motherfucker?!?
”

“Clean up your vocabulary, son. Our Elvis didn't use that kind of language.”

“Ya, what would you fags know about the real Elvis?” he challenged.

“Well, he was heterosexual, unlike you and yours, and he was a person of color.”

Kokko tried to pull away. “You bitch, you callin' Elvis a colored boy!”

“No, a person of color. Where's your truck, asshole?”

“Fuck you,” Kokko said.

“Easy way or hard way, Bo?” Lurleen Turco asked her prisoner, who stood a foot taller than she.

The man answered with an elbow, which she calmly stepped under as she drove a fist sharply upward into his armpit, which dropped him to his knees, where she struck the heel of her hand against the side of his head and toppled him into the dirt. She hauled him back to his knees. “Glad you chose the easy way, asshole,” she told him as he moaned. “Behave or you'll ride the lightning, dude.”

“You carry a Tasmanian?” Kokko mumbled.

Moron.
“You bet.”

“I'm allergic,” he said.

“To what?” she asked.

“Life, I guess.”

She stifled a laugh. “Take me to your truck.”

“Fuck, I'm 'pose to find it in the dark?”

“I have a flashlight, dimwit.” She started to walk with him but changed her mind, took him to a tree, undid the cuffs, and redid them with his arms around the trunk. He was too dazed or high or both to resist. “You can stand right there, and we'll let the Elvii tribe sing in the sunrise for you,” she said.

“How such a bloated up hillbilly get all that money and poontang?” Kokko asked her. “I ain't never understood
that
shit.”

“Ask the people here; I expect they could tell you.”

“They ain't normal.”

“We are each unique in our maker's eyes,” she said.

“What the hell's that 'pose to mean?”

She noticed he was tall and sort of ruggedly handsome in the low light. Until this moment she'd never noticed. “I don't have the slightest idea. You got a wife, Bo?”

“Hell no, nor a girlfriend. I don't like being chained down. Something about me scares women.”

“You mean you turn them off.”

“Hell, I get some every day,” he bragged. “Pound them cooters regularly.”

He was totally gross and disgusting. “Yeah, what about
today
?”

“
Ever'
damn day,” he bragged.

“Don't bullshit me, Kokko.”

“Okay, it's been a while maybe, you know, with all the court shit and such you got me into, Turco.”

“You got yourself into it. How long exactly, a week, a month, a year?”

“I ain't been keepin' count,” Kokko said.

Lurleen Turco blinked and gasped. God, I can't be this desperate. This is totally sick! I disgust myself.

Detective Vincent intercepted her in the woods. “You get lost?” he asked.

“Momentarily,” she said. “Kokko's handcuffed to a tree over that way.” She handed the detective the two plastic bags. “I bought these from him. He and the evidence are all yours.”

“Where are you going?”

“Away, out, home”

“But it's
your
bust.”

“My gift to you. How many people are here?”

“Three hundred, and a hundred impersonators.”

“Everybody makes the top one hundred, that the deal?”

“Brilliant marketing, eh? Seriously, where are you going?”

“Home.”

“Alone? There'll be a big party later today.”

“Count me out.”

“You antisocial?”

“Might just be,” she admitted, thinking all evidence pointed toward a lot more days in the dry spell.

Over near the big top a voice blared, “All backup bands, ten seconds until the Group Elvis Anthem, say again, ten seconds.” Guns began to fire into the air, and Turco ducked instinctively and plodded toward her truck as the crisp morning air flooded with countless electric guitars and drums and three or four hundred voices singing more or less together “Any Way You Want Me.” And Lurleen Turco thought,
At least I still have
some
standards.

Henry VIII

The day ahead was the kind Amiziah Imus loved best: no complaints to follow up, no warrants to serve, no nothing, just strap his butt into the truck, pick a route, and go see what's happening. And in thirteen years as a conservation officer in Marquette County—the biggest county east of the Mississippi, filled with ne'er-do-wells and violators of every stripe—Imus figured he'd seen it all.

He called in service to Station Twenty in Lansing and to the county. The county dispatcher immediately asked him where he was.

“Leaving my residence. Diorite.”

“One One Twenty-two, we've got a traffic situation on County Road 496 and M-28.”

“What sort of problem? One One Twenty-two.”

“Situation is all we know, deputy requesting assistance from a conservation officer.”

“Which end of CR 496, east or west?”

“East,” the dispatcher said.

“ETA five minutes.”
Now what?

When Imus reached M-28, he found traffic stopped and backed up to the horizon in both directions. He drove up the shoulder to a Marquette County sheriff's cruiser and parked as a blue goose pulled in behind him. The problem was immediately clear: a black bear of no more than 120 pounds sitting with splayed legs in the westbound lane, sunning himself and enjoying the attention of people with cameras. Not too smart: Unwary bears invariably became deceased bears.

“What's his problem?” Imus asked the dep.

“They teach you guys to talk bear, eh.”

Imus immediately concentrated on the animal but saw nothing obvious. “He hurt?”

“He ain't much of a talker,” the dep said.

“Sometimes words aren't needed,” Imus said.

“Tell me,” the deputy said. “I got a wife.”

Imus knelt near the bear, careful not to get too close. Bears were quicker and more agile than they appeared to be. “What's your problem, Henry?” No idea why
that
name came to mind or why he'd be thinking of Herman's Hermits and their classic song. He hated Herman's Hermits, the mop-head British twinks.

He went back to the dep. “Get us a couple hundred-yard gap to let the little guy make a move. When he's gone, we can let people go on their way.”

“We've already got a lot of pissed off motorists,” the troop said.

“Let's deal with what we have to deal with first. They'll get over it.”

Imus pulled his shotgun out of its case, unloaded the slugs and buckshot, and replaced the killing ammo with cracker shells. When the traffic was rearranged, he walked over toward the bear and fired a round. The bear pawed listlessly at him. Three more shots earned only an irritated chuff. Imus took off his hat, spread his arms like a scarecrow, and ran yelling at the animal, which hopped off the road but only onto the grass just off the shoulder. Imus drew his .40 caliber Sig Sauer and fired rounds into the dirt on either side of the animal. Nary a flinch.
Shit.

“Just shoot the sucker,” the deputy said. “It ain't like we got all day here.”

In thirteen years Imus had been forced to euthanize two problem bears in school zones, and he had trapped and relocated five others, all of which had later been treed and killed by houndsmen. This was his eighth bear, and no way was this little guy going to die. In the past he'd made the mistake of telling people where he released animals. Not this time. He knew this might not be a cause-and-effect deal, but it felt that way. Not this time. “
I'll
take care of it,” he told the deputy with a snarl.

“You ain't got the stomach to put it down?” the deputy asked sarcastically.

Imus's icy stare shut him up. “Joke, man,” the deputy said weakly and turned away.

“Would be easier to shoot the damn beast,” a troop argued.

“We are not shooting En-ree,” Imus said assertively.

“Who the fuck is En-ree?” the troop asked.

Imus ignored him, watched traffic normalizing into two lanes, and headed for the field office to fetch a culvert trap, which he hooked to his truck. He stopped at Fernie's Pizza and got a half dozen of last night's fare from the morning pitch pile sale, gassed up his truck, and bought a bag of bite-size Baby Ruth candy bars.

The bear was exactly where he had left it, contentedly watching traffic from his roadside vantage. Deps halted traffic again, and Imus backed the trap toward the animal, stopping it twenty feet away on the road shoulder. He lifted and set the rear hatch, connected the bait trigger, and dumped three pizzas inside. When the animal stepped on the trigger, the hatch would slam shut behind it and lock him in.

The bear watched his every move, and when Imus tossed a piece of pizza toward it, the animal stood up, waddled lazily over, and wolfed it down. Imus backed up toward the trap throwing pizza chunks and finally pitched the biggest chunk into the cage, stepped forward, and held out a piece to the bear. When the animal stepped forward, he pitched the piece into the trap, and the bear sailed past him, went to the pizza, and stepped on the trigger. When the door came down, the bear was busy scarfing down pizza, drool cascading from his tan snout.

A TV crew from Channel 6 News had arrived on site and had recorded the whole sequence. When the bear went into the trap and the door came down, onlookers whistled and cheered and whoop-whooped, and drivers honked horns, like Imus had just scored a touchdown. A female reporter came over pointing a boom microphone at him, but he begged off any kind of interview. There was still a traffic hazard, and he needed to get the animal relocated pronto.

“How far you taking him?” the reporter asked.

“Far, far away,” he said.

“Second star on the right?” she countered, getting into the spirit.

“Not that close,” he said, getting into his truck.

Imus drove back roads all the way to east of Munising, connecting with M-28 south of town, and headed east on the two-lane highway toward the Seney Stretch, debating whether to make the drop north or south of the roadway. When he saw a good road, he went north, crossed Walsh Creek, drove three miles down a beat-up and sandy two-track, past a decaying, abandoned hunting camp, and stopped. He peeled a candy bar and pushed it through the bars to the animal, which inhaled it happily, clacking its teeth for more.

“Okay, En-ree, boy, this here's your new home.” Imus put two whole pizzas on the ground thirty feet from the trap, stood on the fender of the trailer, sprung the door, and expected the animal to leap out for the food. But the small bear sat in the cage, tilted its head, and looked up at him. “Bear, you got a screw loose or something? This is world-class blueberry country. The cage ain't got none.”

Imus frisbeed more pizza at the pile. The bear yawned, circled, and lay down.

“No nap, En-ree, me-boy,” Imus said sharply, as he took out his baton and poked the animal. “Hit the road, fella.”

No response. Imus poked again, and the animal reluctantly jumped down and ambled over to the pizza pile.

The officer leaped into the truck and sped away, not stopping for a mile. When he stopped, he looked back. No sign of En-ree.
Good,
relocation complete. He'd noticed that the animal had very little hair on its rump. Disease? Not sure. Henry looked good other than that small flaw.

Ten minutes passed.
No En-ree
. Imus felt good.

•••

Next morning at the district office near the state prison, El-tee Alvin Crate joined Imus getting coffee. “About ten days ago a man called, said he legally purchased a bear he used to train his hounds, but training was done, and he wanted to give us the animal. I told him since he purchased it legally, he could dispose of it the same way. He wasn't real happy,” the lieutenant added.

En-ree had been all over the news and Internet last night. Suddenly the bare spot on the animal's rump made sense. “Cement floor in a cage,” Imus said. “I'm guessing your caller dumped the animal west of town. He was totally unafraid of people.”

“Where'd you take him?” Crate asked.

Imus took the lieutenant into the conference room to the wall map and showed him.

Crate chuckled. “That ought to do 'er, but why drive so far?”

“Wanted to be sure.”

“You know better, Amiziah, there's no certainty in our line of work.”

•••

Three months later El-Tee Crate grabbed Imus as he was coming into the building and steered him back to his office. “Coffee's on my credenza,” the lieutenant said.

Highly unusual. Crate was a fine man and a good leader but not the chummy type. “I do something wrong, El-Tee?”

“I just wanted to share something. It seems a troop of Boy Scouts were camping and canoeing at the Little Bear Lake Campground in Pictured Rocks. They were making s'mores over a campfire, and a bear came into camp and ran at them like a big dog, right at them. They panicked and ducked under their canoes. The bear tried to get underneath with them, which totally freaked 'em, adult leaders included. The group's scream was so loud that it brought a Pictured Rocks ranger on the run with a shotgun, and he killed the animal. The scouts and their leaders fell on the dead bear with knives and hatchets and chopped it to pieces. The ranger said it was surreal and savage, like
Lord of the Flies
or something. It made him sick. Next morning he told them to pack up and get the hell out of the campground. His report says the bear's backside was nearly bald.”

En-ree
, Imus thought, gulping.

The conservation officer went into the conference room and measured the distance from where he'd put the animal to the campground in question. It was less than twenty miles as the crow flies.
Should have put him south of the highway into the Seney Wildlife Refuge. Poor Henry. Not his fault. Mine. Oh-fer-eight. Shit
.