Red Jacket (18 page)

48

Houghton

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 1913

They drove west along an impostor of a road to Painesdale, the road not much more than a deep-rutted cow path in places. They took a room at a small hotel run by a woman named Cekola who wore an eye patch and was missing two fingers on her left hand. They slept in the same bed, boardinghouse style, and had a meager breakfast. Over coffee, Cekola told them where Matti Karki lived, and she tried to pry out of them why they were interested, but Bapcat said nothing and the Russian followed suit.

They drove to the address the woman had given them, but found an empty house, the front door standing open.

A man stood by an unpainted fence next door, arms folded, watching them.

“Matti Karki live here?” Bapcat asked the man.

“Gone.”

“To work, for the day?”

“Mebbe forever, the strike and all. Been gone mebbe one hour, I think.”

“What about the strike?”

“Could get rough, no work. Matti talk about taking his family to Detroit, look for work there. We hear rumor Old Man Ford say he will pay workers five dollars a day.” The man whistled. “Don't seem possible.”

“He's driving to Detroit?”

“Matti got no car. Take family on train from Houghton.”

“What's Karki look like?”

The man laughed. “Just another roundhead. You never find him in big crowd,” the man said, pointing at other houses where carts and wagons and even some automobiles were being hastily overloaded.

“All rats jump ship,” the man said. “Get out now while they can.”

“But not you?”

The man held up a revolver. “All I need,” he said.

Zakov walked toward the Ford, muttering, “
Et slishkom mnogo fignya
, this is too much bullshit.
Yebatz etot idot
. Fuck this fool.”

Outburst complete, the Russian brooded in silence as they made their way toward Houghton, where they found hundreds of people in and around the train station.

“They act like an invasion is imminent,” Zakov said. “Or a revolution. Sniff the air, you can smell their fear.”

Bapcat approached a man with red dust on his hands and face. “The strike on?” he asked the man.

“Some places this morning,” the man said nervously. “Will spread everywhere tomorrow.”

Bapcat watched the man bull his way through the crowd of families and board a passenger car by shoving people aside. An engine wheezed in anticipation. Steam and sweat hung in the air. People were shouting, crying, surging left and right. Several dogs ran loose, snarling and barking frantically. A goat wandered by itself, unnoticed.

“John Milton,” Zakov said. “
Paradise Lost.
But only now do I finally understand something of this country. A job is just a job. Why risk one's life for mere recompense?”

“Soldiers do,” Bapcat said.

“And you are a fool,” the Russian said. “There is seldom any choice involved in serving as a soldier. When you are there you risk your life for yourself and your comrades, not for rhetorical pap. Smart soldiers, like these miners, leave when the risk of remaining outweighs the uncertainty of leaving.”

“The way you left?”

Zakov nodded solemnly and held out his hands. “I understand these people here today.”

49

Red Jacket

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 1913

Dominick Vairo was nervous and pensive, rubbing his hands together repeatedly. It was late afternoon, the saloon full of sullen men with tired eyes. Ribbons and carnival tents had been pitched in the fields near the Italian Hall.

“No good,” Vairo told Bapcat. “Feel how tense?” He rubbed his chest.

Bapcat felt it.

“Men in street, firemen from all over.”

“Firemen?” Bapcat said.

“Tournament next three days,” Frank Rousseau added. “Lotsa men stayed away from work this morning. Tomorrow, all the mines, they be shut tight.”

“The miners are not all union men,” Zakov said.

“Ones that aren't will sit back, see what happens,” Vairo said. “Stay home, sniff wind,
si?
'

“
Daily Mining Gazette
saying one hundred fifty miners have been made special deputy by MacNaughton,” Rousseau said. “He gave them badges, revolvers, billies.”

Bapcat said, “Civilians can't deputize men. Only sheriffs can do that.”

“Happen down Painesdale, paper say,” Rousseau said. “Paper say Sheriff Cruse gives permission.”

No wonder people are clearing out,
Bapcat thought.

“How do special deputies differ from Cruse's minions?” Zakov asked.

Bapcat had no idea. “Can only say what paper say,” Vairo said apologetically.

A man walked into the bar and shouted, “They got guns, and they're marching on Centennial! They're gonna shut down engine houses.”

Bapcat understood that engine houses at mines contained the pumps that kept water out of the mines' deepest levels. Without pumps, many mines would fill with water and quickly become unworkable. Anyone trapped below would drown.

“Big Jim is making more deputies,” the latecomer yelled. “He's gonna make every man take a side—no watchers, and no fence-sitters.”

Which Big Jim?
Bapcat wondered. MacNaughton or Cruse? Surely this referred to MacNaughton, who appeared intent on creating a private army. Bapcat left Vairo's, walked to the telegraph office, and sent a wire to Harju in Marquette:

CHECKED SHERIFF'S SISTER'S PLACE NEAR CHASSELL. STOP. SAW SAME THING AS HERE, MAYBE MORE. STOP. STRIKE ON AS OF THIS MORNING. STOP. MINE OWNERS SOMEHOW HAVE AUTHORITY TO APPOINT AND ARM DEPUTIES. STOP. THINGS HERE TO GET COMPLICATED, BUSY. STOP. MAY NEED HELP. STOP BAPCAT.

He read over the wire and added
NOW
after
MAY NEED HELP
, and gave it to the operator. He wished he could describe the kind of help he needed, but that was impossible. He had seen the chaos and fog of war in Cuba, and hoped this would not be like that. Once in a lifetime was enough of that.

Back at the saloon Zakov was holding court with some Frenchies from the Lake Linden Fire Company.

“Revolution cleans the air,” he expounded, taking a dramatic deep breath. “Look at France, America—brothers in arms, where revolutions and forward-thinking men freed nations of the tyranny of leaders claiming God's appointment.”

Bapcat took the Russian's arm and led him outside. “Out, now.”

“
Ya vash rabotyaga, a ne vashi sert
. I am your dogsbody, not your serf,” the Russian barked. Glowering, he pulled his arm away.

How much had the man consumed? “I want no trouble,” Bapcat said.

Zakov grinned. “It is good you recognize I am a force to be reckoned with.”

Bapcat punched Zakov on the chin and sent him down on his back in the street. He then loaded the drunk Russian into the Ford and asked a young passerby to turn the crank for him.

It is a sunny day. Why does it feel so dark?

50

Bumbletown Hill

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1913

Bapcat answered a knock at the front door early the next morning to find a stranger, fortyish, blondish, wearing a black trilby. “Looking for a game warden,” the man said. “Believe his name's Bapcat.”

“That's me.”

“J. W. Nara,” the man said.
Faint accent: Finnish?
“I got a studio up Fifth Street. Take pictures. That's my brother Frank outside,” the man said, pointing at a man in the automobile. There was a tall lump in the backseat, covered with canvas.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Nara?”

The man fidgeted, as if trying to decide something. “Show you something?” The man carried a fat leather bag.

“Come on in,” Bapcat said, swinging open the door.

Nara looked around. Zakov nodded a silent greeting. Bapcat didn't introduce them. “Coffee for our visitor, Pinkhus Sergeyevich?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” the Russian said obsequiously.

“Russians,” Bapcat said, earning the hint of a smile from the Finnish photographer.

Nara took a package out of his bag and carefully untied the string around it.

“I travel all around, you know, Copper Country, see this, see that, take pictures, make a record.” The man placed a photograph in front of Bapcat. It showed a stack of headless deer.

“When was this?” Bapcat asked. “And where?”

“West of Ojibway, in the oaks on the high ground, two weeks ago,” Nara said.

There was a cloudy haze over the pile. Bapcat touched the area with his finger.

“Flies,” Nara said, and put another photograph on the table. This one showed eight wolves, each with a headless deer, standing over each carcass with what looked like conviction of ownership.

Bapcat called over the Russian, who bent down to look. “Anything jump out at you?” the deputy asked.

“Like the others, no heads. Wolves rarely bother with heads. I surmise they must have come upon all this meat, like finding treasure under the rainbow. Wolves do not arrange orderly piles like cordwood.”

“Any people there?” Bapcat asked Nara.

“No, sir,” Nara said. “Just what you see. We didn't touch nothing.”

“This is why you stopped—to show me your pictures?”

“I would like to make picture of you and your servant,” Nara said. “For history.”

Bapcat said, “My partner, not my servant. Some other time, maybe; not today. You're on Fifth Street, you said?”

Nara nodded. “Okay, good. You keep pictures. I got more.”

“I will. Mr. Nara, do you take pictures of miners down in their mines?”

“Sometimes, but operators sometimes nervous about this, you know?”

“But you spend a lot of time with miners.”

“Yes, I guess.”

“How long ago did you hear about the possibility of a strike?”

“Three weeks back, maybe. Certainly not before that.”

“What about miner complaints before that—you know, men who were mad, or scared, nervous about accidents and all the people being killed below?”

“The men same like usual, you know, they don't like nothing to do with bosses.”

Bapcat watched the man leave and rubbed his face vigorously. “God, we should be out in the bush tonight, but where?” he said out loud.

Zakov shrugged. “You didn't want coffee, you should have told me,” he growled, then softened. “Thank you for making me more than your servant.”

“Don't sass,” Bapcat said.

“Why did you ask him about the possibility of the strike?” the Russian wanted to know.

“The way I see it, this deer-killing fandango didn't get thrown together overnight. It seems like a grand plan, like an army likes to have, you know; if our enemy does A, we will do B, or if the enemy does B, we'll do C.”

Zakov blinked. “In Russia the only strategy is to overwhelm enemies with people, and who cares how many die—a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, it doesn't matter. Soldiers are supposed to die.”

“Your view of life is dark, Zakov.”

“I lack a Widow Frei,” the Russian grumbled. “
Mne puzhn zhenschina somnitelinoi nravstvenmosto I nizk oi tseroi.
”

“In English, please,” Bapcat said.

“I need a woman of questionable morals and low price,” Zakov explained.

Bapcat laughed. “You think the two things are linked?”

“Inevitably, in my experience. Are we venturing out this morning?”

“Let's stay near Allouez and Ahmeek and watch what happens. If we hear shots we'll investigate.”

“You know,” Zakov said, “I am performing my dangerous duties without pay.”

“You get room and board, and you're fulfilling your civic duty.”

“Who will bury me if said civic duty kills me?”

“The State, and me.”

Zakov said, “The same as Russia, where they would dig large hole and fill it with dead.”

“You will have your own grave,” Bapcat said. “I promise.”

“Ah, I had only to move thousands of miles to be buried alone. America is truly great.”

Bapcat chose to ignore the Russian's sarcasm. “Let's collect our gear and see what's happening down the hill.”

51

Allouez, Keweenaw County

THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1913

Unbearable humidity. Bapcat felt the sweat rolling off him. They parked near the bottom of their hill in the woods and watched a line of miners carrying signs, all of them wearing suits and ties, marching silently on both sides of the main street in town.

“
Lumpenproletariat
,” Zakov muttered.

“What?”

“The underclass of Cimmeria.”

“What in blazes are you talking about?”

“Ulysses ventured into a foggy, dark land where there was, according to Homer, never any light . . . a land of perpetual darkness.”

“Ulysses—you mean General Grant?”

“No, the Greek adventurer.”

“But it isn't dark. The sun's up. It will be a nice day.”

“You are far too literal. I refer to Russia.”

God, the man can be annoying.
“We aren't in Russia.”

“No, the czars here are capitalists, but will step on the uprising with no less savage force.”

“Looks peaceful so far,” Bapcat said. “Orderly.”

“
Pentimento
,” Zakov said. “This word means ‘what lies underneath the painting our eyes can't see.' ”

The man was impossible to understand sometimes. “Let's get closer to the mine,” Bapcat said.

Later, in the shadow of Ahmeek's Numbers Three and Four Shaft Rockhouse, there erupted what Zakov would refer to as a scuffle, but bottles and rocks quickly arced through the air from disorderly strikers toward non-strikers, who had dared cross the lines to report for work. Behind their salvos of projectiles the strikers swarmed forward, clubs in hands, wood and pipe; the morning was pregnant with hate, frustration, fear, and the slight metallic scent of blood.

“Do you miss war?” Zakov asked. “The immediacy of blood boiling, the impending clash of forces?”

“No.”
My blood never boils.

“When the moment of truth came, our charge to destroy the Japanese usurpers, I went the other way,” Zakov said, “past our artillery, far to the rear, there to take a portion of accumulated treasure and pay my way out of all of that, to here and now, where I see mankind once again at its most basic, monstrous self. My heart is pounding, Deputy, pounding.”

“We need to stay clear of this,” Bapcat declared, as serious fistfights raged nearby. “This ain't our fight.”

“You, who are sworn to uphold your precious laws and peace?”

“I'm sworn to specifically protect game, fish, and forests.”

“A legalistic ribbon wrapped neatly around a moral conundrum,” Zakov said, retreating gingerly.

“Talk less, act more,” Bapcat admonished.

“Faced with
Gotterdammerung
, we turn tail?” the Russian asked. “My friend, I had begun to see you as a heroic figure, and now I see you as discriminating. Some might characterize this erroneously as cowardice, but I see a full measure of unanticipated wisdom, action being the last option, not the first.”

“Shut up and get in the Ford,” Bapcat said.

A man ran up beside the Ford, blood streaming from his head, a torn lip flapping, laughing demonically and shouting, “We've won, we've won! The owners have canceled the second shift!”

Zakov peeled the man's hand off the car and pushed him, sending the man bouncing along the side of the road like a marionette shorn of strings.