Ice Hunter (2 page)

3

Department of Natural Resources Director Eeno Tenni stood wringing his hands as the wash of the blue and white state police helicopter swept across the empty parking lot.

Conservation Officer Grady Service stood behind the director and next to Lorne O'Driscoll, chief of law enforcment, the DNR's division charged with enforcing the state's fish and game laws.

The call to the Higgins Lake meeting had come late the night before, while Service was patrolling north of the village of Ralph, near Flat Rock Creek. It was early October and black bear season was under way; Service had spent a long day checking hunters and their bear dogs. The call for the meeting had come down not through channels but directly from the chief. Despite a poor sense of humor, O'Driscoll was widely respected by the state's conservation officers. He set high standards for the force and would not allow such standards to be compromised.

It had been a brief telephone conversation. “The governor wants to see you at the CCC at zero eight hundred.” The CCC was the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum at the north end of Higgins Lake in the north-central part of the state, a five-hour drive from Service's home halfway between Escanaba and Marquette. “Be in proper uniform,” O'Driscoll warned tersely before hanging up.

Service didn't have to ask the subject of the meeting. He had known this was coming. All that had been in doubt was when.

There was a chill in the early-autumn air as Service and his superiors stood in the parking lot that served as a convenient helipad. In the distance the hardwoods were fading to pastels, while towering white pines maintained their dark green. A sloppy vee of geese passed over the tree line, their sounds drowned out by the approaching helicopter.

Governor Samuel Adams Bozian hopped out of the state police chopper and strode purposefully toward the men, his wispy silver hair whipped by rotor wash.

The governor was an undistinguished, rotund man who had been in politics since college. He appeared soft but was well established in his first term as a formidable politician with a firm hold on the state's reins and a burgeoning national reputation.

Eeno Tenni rushed forward to greet the governor, but Bozian ignored him and marched directly on to Service and O'Driscoll.

“Service,” the governor said, fixing his hard blue eyes on the conservation officer. “This meeting is off the record. I'm here as a father, not as governor.”

“Yessir,” Service said, knowing full well that Bozian was always acting as governor.

Bozian's son had been a probationary conservation officer, and in one of his rotating assignments had been sent to Grady Service, whose job it was to train and evaluate him. All probationary officers spent a year in such rotations before being declared qualified to handle the demanding and taxing work of a fully certified CO. Getting to this point was tough for any candidate. Of five thousand candidates, only four or five a year made it all the way through probation to full duty. The governor's son, Samuel A. Bozian III, was called Trip, looked nothing like his father, and lacked all of his father's fire.

In July Service and Trip Bozian had been called to a private campground near Rapid River to handle some rowdies, who turned out to be very drunk members of a Flint motorcycle gang called the Blood Moon Barbarians. As motorcycle gangs went the Barbarians were more unruly than dangerous, and Service had bumped heads with them before. They usually showed up somewhere in his district in July, after the Fourth, which was a good thing because on Independence Day the campgrounds tended to be filled with families.

The two COs' arrival had been greeted by a cacophony of drunken catcalls and a long string of profanity.

Service recognized the group's leader, a man in his thirties with a stringy blond ponytail and a small gold dog bone in his nose, which gave rise to his nickname, Nosebone.

The diminutive and muscle-bound leader stepped forward to meet Service, grinning the way he always did.

“Bone,” Service said.

“What's happenin', officer?” the biker replied.

“Your crowd's over the top, eh?”

The biker grinned. “Just enjoying the beauty of nature.”

“You're gonna have to break it up and dump the beer, Bone.” No doubt some of the bikers were on drugs too, but Service was neither stupid nor heroic about such confrontations. Two against many were lousy odds. They'd need more backup to shake them down. Better to calm the scene now and, if circumstances warranted, call in help later to check for illegal substances. Mostly he just wanted to shut them up and be finished with it.

“Dump the brews? The state gonna pay us back?”

“It'll be cheaper to dump the alcohol than call in a lawyer and make bail,” Service said calmly.

Nosebone had a long rap sheet, but Service could see that this wasn't one of his dark moods. He'd bitch, dump the alcohol, get his troops in order, and the COs could be on their way.

“Yah, I guess,” the biker said. “Gettin' so you can't have a little howl anymore.”

“How it is,” Service said, not unsympathetic to the biker's feelings. “You got a problem with the laws, talk to your state rep. I just enforce the laws they give me.”

“Yah,” Nosebone said.

The exact sequence of what had occurred next was stuck in Service's mind. Trip Bozian sort of swaggered up to half a dozen bikers and ordered them to put down their beer cans. Service noticed too late that the probie's gun holster had been unsnapped.

“Fuck off,” one of the bikers growled at Service's partner.

Trip Bozian fumbled for his firearm, and before Service could intervene the weapon was out and the probie's hand was shaking. The PCO ordered the bikers to move, but the men stubbornly held their ground. When they didn't respond, he fired one round into the ground across the front of them, kicking up small clods of hard dirt.

The shot caused a momentary scramble as the bikers retreated, roaring in one voice.

“Fuck this,” Nosebone said. “Barney Fife can't shoot at us like that.”

Service was in a difficult position. Bozian had made a major mistake, drawing his weapon and discharging it, but he couldn't let the bikers react and he couldn't reprimand Bozian in front of them or this would split them and give an edge to the rowdies.

“Dump the suds and call it a night,” Service said with a steely voice to the biker.

Nosebone studied him momentarily, tipped his can, let the foamy beer run out, and told the others to do the same, which they did, but not without grousing.

“Time for you to take your herd and clear out,” Service said.

“We paid ahead,” the leader complained.

“You shoulda thought about that before you turned loose the menagerie.”

“The what?”

“Move out,” Service repeated, and after taking a moment to consider his options Nosebone gave the signal. The bikers went to their hogs, cranked them up, and departed, several of them doing dirt-spewing wheelies and playing cowboy in pathetic displays of opposition.

When they were gone, Service found Trip Bozian trembling badly. He carefully took the probationary officer's weapon away from him, pushed in the safety, returned the weapon to the man's holster, and snapped it shut.

The governor's son looked devastated. “I fucked up big time, didn't I? Oh man,” he said, moaning softly.

Service didn't answer right away.

Rather than let the young officer go home to brood alone, Service took him into Rapid River and bought coffee at an all-night gas station.

They sat outside on a picnic table and talked.

“You have to report this,” young Bozian said.

The question was purely rhetorical. “What happened?”

“I'm not cut out for this,” Trip Bozian said.

Before Bozian had arrived for his rotation with Service, he had been briefed: Other officers had noticed that the young man showed a great deal of anxiety in tight situations, and often less-than-adequate judgment. The jury was still out on his ability to do the job. Bozian's previous failures had been minor, but this error was a strong indicator that the governor's son was indeed not suited for CO work.

“I'd rather get bounced than hurt somebody,” Bozian lamented.

Service didn't lecture because there was no need. The probie already understood that he wasn't suited for the nerve-racking job.

Still, Service didn't say anything. He would make his report, but it would be somebody else's call on young Bozian's fate. Given that his father was the state's chief executive, Service had a hunch he might be kept on and shielded.

It came as a surprise when the governor's son was dropped quietly from the program, but he knew that eventually the department would have to contend with the governor. He'd guessed that eventually the governor's wrath would be vented in his direction.

That moment was now.

“What the hell happened with my son?” the governor demanded again.

Service took a deep breath before replying. “He couldn't cut it, Governor.”

“You encountered violent elements, and my son met force with force,” the governor declared.

Service wondered what Trip had told his father. “Sir, we encountered some rowdies, and your son drew and discharged his weapon outside department rules.”

“You were both being threatened.”

“No sir. We were in discussion with the subjects and it was under control. Our rules of engagement are clear,” Service said. “There were no weapons in evidence and no overt threat, only a crowd of drunks. Your son overreacted.”

“That's
your
version,” Governor Sam Bozian said.

The implication was that Service was wrong and expected to recant. “Those are the facts, Governor.”

“And based on your version, you recommended my son's termination.”

Chief O'Driscoll intervened. “Governor, Officer Service simply reported the facts, which he is required to do. The decision to terminate Trip was mine.”

“The shot did not hurt anyone,” the governor said. “Nobody was injured.”

“That's irrelevant,” Chief O'Driscoll said. “Civilians were needlessly endangered. Your son experienced previous problems during his probationary assignments. He lacks the requisite self-control to deal with ambiguous and potentially explosive situations.”

The governor stared at the chief of the law enforcement division. “My son was railroaded,” the governor said angrily.

“If so, sir, your son laid the tracks himself,” O'Driscoll countered.

Director Tenni sucked in his breath and cringed, expecting one of the governor's legendary verbal assaults, but Bozian simply stuck out his finger and shook it at Service. “I have a long memory, Officer Service.”

Service didn't like the threat but knew enough to keep quiet. His chief had impressed him by stepping in the way he had when clearly the governor wanted his scalp.

Bozian marched back to the helicopter, which quickly lifted off, its turbines screaming and pelting them with dust.

“Thanks for the support, Chief,” Service said to O'Driscoll.

“The next time you are ordered to report in uniform, it will be the proper uniform,” the chief replied icily.

Service was wearing the same overcoat his father had worn during his career as a CO. Modern uniforms had superceded the old shapeless horseblanket coats years before, but Service clung stubbornly to the old one.

“Young Bozian was not cut out for police work,” O'Driscoll said. “Lose the coat. That's an order.”

Service had no intention of disposing of the old coat. Michigan had been the first state in the union to hire a full-time salaried game warden back in 1887, and in more than a century since then game wardens—now called conservation officers—had fashioned a proud and honorable record. For more than half their history the COs had worn horseblankets, and Service wore his father's coat to honor those who had gone before him.

Service watched his superiors get into the chief's truck and drive away, leaving him alone, which was how COs lived a great deal of their professional lives.

A museum employee was standing near Service's truck smoking a cigarette.

“Was that Clearcut?”

This was the nickname the pro-business governor had earned among state employees and conservationists.

“In the flesh.”

The man chuckled. “He's sure got plenty. Pretty unusual the governor meeting up here like this. You get a medal or something?”

“More like a kick in the ass,” Service said.

“You don't look none the worse,” said the man.

Service took out a cigarette and lit up. He was signed out for the rest of the day and he had to pass the Manistee River. He decided this was a good day to fish for chinook salmon, which were beginning to fill the river. In a way he felt sorry for Trip Bozian, but the young man was simply not up to the job and knew it. He would land on his feet. The governor would take care of his son. He'd also take care of Service if the opportunity came, he told himself as he began to map out his plan for the day's outing. He would fish into darkness, then drive the five hours back to his district, sleep in the truck, and greet tomorrow's bear hunters bright and early.