Ice Hunter (5 page)

Late that day another snowstorm moved in, but he pressed on. Perhaps the people had been hurt when they plowed into the snowbank and gotten disoriented. They were heading away from the road and civilization and into the deep swamps that surrounded the Hendrie River. Without equipment and know-how, most people wouldn't last long in this weather. He melted snow in a water purification device and ate the energy bars he kept in his emergency food supply. The state police and Mackinac County Sheriff's Department tried to mobilize to help him, but the storm stopped them. He continued north on his own, afraid that if he didn't push on, the people would die.

It took three days, but he finally smelled smoke, and when the snow relented a bit he saw smoke from a small fire going under some cedars. As Service approached, a gunshot sounded. Service yelled to identify himself but got another gunshot in answer. He alerted the state police, who wanted him to hold off and wait for backup, but he could hear frightened female voices coupled with an angry male voice and knew he could not wait. Having no idea what he was dealing with, he moved cautiously. The man took several shots at him as he maneuvered. Eventually he could see where the fire was and shot into the tree above it, dislodging a pile of snow that plopped on the fire and put it out. The man came forward trying to fire a rifle, but it was jammed. Service met him in thigh-deep snow and broke his jaw using the heel of his hand.

The man had robbed a bank in El Paso, Texas, two days before Christmas and disappeared despite a national manhunt. He had carjacked the Torino and, because of the storm, gotten all the way to the U.P. without detection. The women were frightened and suffering from exposure, but survived. The bank robber was returned to Texas, where he was also wanted for murder. He was later executed. Service never learned why the man had gone north into the swamps or spared the women.

In the wake of his hunt, Wansome “Wally” Purple, an Ojibwa from Rice Lake, Minnesota, had called Service to inform him that he had been chosen for the Shadow Wolves, a group he had heard of but knew nothing about. As it turned out the group's founder, Ted Owlfeather, objected to his induction, but Owlfeather was no longer in charge. Service went to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to meet the other members. There was no formal ceremony and they drank heavily for nearly forty-eight hours, but Purple knew how to publicize things so there had been a good deal of national and state publicity about Service's new status. This was about two years before he got Trip Bozian as a probie, and Service suspected that his status with the group had made it tougher for Bozian to retaliate. He had talked occasionally to Wally Purple and two or three of the other Wolves since South Dakota, but had not seen them again. Once in a while he read in the newspaper about something one of them had done. His membership, he decided, was strictly honorary, which suited him.

“My point is that you are a skilled and proven tracker, correct?” Doolin's voice brought him back to the present.

“I usually find what I'm looking for.”

“Is it true that you have never failed to find a lost person that you've been looking for?”

“Objection,” Bois said for the defense. “This is irrelevant.”

“Your Honor,” Doolin said, “tracking requires attention to detail and powers of observation beyond what we normal folks possess. A tracker needs knowledge, wilderness skills, keen eyes and ears, and a fine analytical mind. I'm trying to establish Officer Service's competence in this regard, and his success rate is the measure of how effective he's been at using these critical skills.”

“Overruled,” Peltinen said from high above. “Witness can answer the question.”

“Have you found every lost person you've ever searched for?”

“Yes.” Which was true, but too damn many of them weren't alive when he finally got to them. He knew Doolin would not ask this.

“And you use your highly developed skills to track animals and violators as well, is that correct?”

“I do.”

“Okay, let's go back to the Mosquito. You saw the buck go down, then get up and flee?”

“Correct. I thought someone had taken a shot.”

“You heard the report of a firearm?”

“No, but I saw how the animal reacted.”

“This led you to investigate further?”

“Yes. I circled on the presumption that a shot would most likely come from the animal's downwind side. I hiked in about a quarter mile and cut trail.”

“Cut trail?”

“I saw fresh signs that someone had been there.”

“What signs?” Doolin asked.

“There were deadfalls arranged in a vee, a pretty typical makeshift blind. There was also evidence of some scraping on the top log, a rest for a weapon. The grass behind the blind was pressed down. And I saw heel indentations to indicate that somebody had been sitting there.”

“Could you tell how recently the place had been occupied?”

“Yes, only minutes before. Some bent grasses were recovering their elasticity.”

“You say there were boot prints?”

“Yes and the left heel had a distinctive nick in it that made it easy to read on the ground.”

“Then what?”

“I followed the trail.”

“In the footsteps?”

“No, trackers always offset six to eight feet to one side or the other. Otherwise you can spoil the evidence.”

“Please continue,” the prosecutor said. “What did you find?”

“The trail led me to where I had last seen the buck. The animal's tracks were fresh and there were patches of deer hair on the ground, but no blood. I believed the animal had been grazed, perhaps along the spine, which would account in part for the way its back legs splayed when it went down.”

“But there was no blood.”

“Right, no blood.”

“Meaning the animal might not have been struck at all?”

“No, there was hair. It had been struck.”

“How do you account for the lack of blood?”

“Even with a kill-shot, an animal may not bleed right away. It depends on the nature of the weapon used and, if it's a firearm, the caliber, the cartridge load, and the site of the wound. An arrow, for example, rarely shows blood after a hit. It penetrates and causes massive internal hemorrhaging, which leads to shock, which eventually kills the animal. You often find no blood until the animal is down and nearly dead. Deer shot in the gut or heart by a rifle don't always bleed immediately and often can travel a long distance before there's a blood trail. The hair tufts and the animal's behavior told me it had been hit.”

Service waited for Doolin to lead him, but Doolin's eyes had glazed over, so the conservation officer continued his testimony.

“The boot tracks led toward the hair on the ground, so I followed the tracks. There was a low ridge running south, and I figured the deer looped right and the shooter was trying to move on a parallel course, using the high ground to get a second shot.”

“What did you find?”

Welcome back, Service thought. “I heard a shot.”

“You heard a shot. A loud shot?”

“No, it was muffled.”

“Like it was a long way off?”

“No, it was muffled but close.”

“But a rifle makes a very loud sound. Even a plinker like a .22 makes an audible crack, am I correct?”

“Some make more sound than others, but this was baffled.”

“Baffled? You mean like a silencer?” Doolin's face showed astonishment.It was an act for the jury. Doolin enjoyed the drama of the courtroom stage.

“Yes.” Service expected the defense attorney to object, but he was sitting silent in his chair, staring off in the distance.

“You have experience with silencers?”

“Yes.”

“During your tenure with the DNR?”

“I was a sniper in the Marine Corps.”

“Our U.S. Marines use
silencers?
”

“Yes, for some special missions and tasks. I've also worked with federal agencies that use silencers, and I've been through an FBI course on using and identifying weapons with silencers.”

“So you knew there was a silencer.”

“I knew a firearm had been discharged and that the sound was muffled.”

“What did you do after the shot?”

“I went toward the sound. Below and to my left I saw the buck thrashing around on its side. In front of me there was a man with a weapon in the position of port arms. I asked him what he was doing.”

“Then?”

“He turned in my direction and leveled the rifle at me.”

“How did you respond?”

“I turned on my tape recorder.”

“Your recorder?”

“Right. It's attached to my belt. It's Swedish-made and can pick up the sound of a butterfly running into a tree fifty yards away.”

“That's an exaggeration.”

“No, it's fact.”

Everybody in the courtroom laughed. Except the defendant and his attorney.

“Do all officers carry recorders, Officer Service?”

“I can't speak for all my colleagues. I got the idea from videocams on state police cruisers. COs generally work alone and often among armed people. If something happens to me, I want there to be some record to give somebody a starting point.”

“You mean, if you were dead?”

“Or too injured to keep going.”

“Is it legal to record this way?”

“Yes.”

“Does the court have the tape?”

“It does,” Service said.

“Are you paranoid, Officer Service?”

“No, I'm careful. I saw the shooter's rifle pointed in my direction. So I turned on the recorder.”

“Did you feel threatened?”

“The shooter told me to depart.”

“What were his exact words, please?”

“He said, ‘Split, fuckstick.' ”

“Was there an ‘or else'?”

“He raised his weapon at me.”

“And what was your response to this threat?”

“I looked down toward the buck and yelled, ‘Run, deer, run.' ”

“Run . . . deer . . . run?”

“I wanted to divert the shooter's attention.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes.”

“Tell us what happened.”

“He looked away and I charged and tackled him high so as to get inside the rifle. That way he couldn't use it. We collided pretty hard and we both tumbled down the embankment. The fall separated us, but it also separated him from his rifle.”

“What happened next?”

“He pulled a knife.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he was going to cut off my testicles and stuff them in my eye sockets.”

“Were you afraid?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He was a yapper. I'm not afraid of people who start talking when they try to threaten you. The dangerous ones don't say anything. Besides, if it looked like I couldn't handle him, I could always run away.”

“You'd do that?” Doolin feigned surprise.

“Lickety split, if that's what the situation dictated.”

Observers in the courtroom laughed. Even Peltinen grinned.

“Where was your sidearm during all this?”

“In its holster.”

“You never pulled your sidearm?”

“No.”

“But he was threatening you.”

“Drawing my weapon is a last resort. We're taught when we draw to shoot to kill. I didn't think the situation required that. Besides, his leg was broken.”

“From the fall?”

“Yes, I could see how it was bent. He was so jacked up on adrenaline that the pain hadn't hit him yet. And he was still on the ground.”

“What did you do?”

“I told him to set the knife down and push it out of his reach.”

“Did he comply?”

“No, he threw it.”

“At you?”

“It passed three feet to my right, chest high.”

“In other words, he was not complying with your order.”

“Correct.”

“Then what?”

“He put his hands up to his face and started to cry.”

“Cry?”

“Weep, bawl.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He said none of it was his fault.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to put out his hands. Then I cuffed him and read him his rights and told him I was going to call the county EMS.”

“Did he resist?”

“No, he kept yelling that it wasn't his fault. I advised him to remain silent until he got a lawyer, but he kept yelling that it wasn't his fault and that everything had been caused by intoxication brought on by sweets.”

“Sweets?”

“Hostess Twinkies.”

The people in court began to snicker.

“He actually said this?”

“Repeatedly.”

“Did you find any Twinkies?”

“No.”

“Any wrappers?”

“Just one, near the deadfall blind.”

“Did he say it was his?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“I added littering to the charges.”

This time everybody in court laughed out loud and raucously. One individual even applauded.

Judge Peltinen pounded his gavel and said, “Order, please. Let's not act like a buncha ridgerunners.” But even Peltinen was grinning.

“Any other . . .
Twinkie
. . .
evidence
?” Doolin asked, trying to subdue a smirk.

“No. I searched him, checked his trail and his blind, his vehicle. After EMS transported him, I got a search warrant and checked his cabin. No Twinkies. In fact, there were no sweets of any kind in his cabin except granulated sugar.”

“Did the defendant act intoxicated?”

“No.”

“Did you use the Breathalyzer?”

“Yes. It was normal, blood alcohol of zero.”

“Did you believe him, that sugar got him loopy?”

“Objection,” Bois said. “Not qualified.”