Red Jacket (30 page)

81

Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1913

Michigan game wardens had been in the town that locals called the Soo for a week to train, get acquainted, and compete. For Bapcat and Zakov, who walked away with the two-man shooting competition, most of the rest of the week had been a strain, beginning last Sunday with a strange scolding by some mealymouthed lawyer from Lansing about them illegally subverting the laws of the state legislature in the suspension of the deer season, while Oates and Jones looked on without comment. As soon as the lawyer left the room, the diminutive chief deputy Jones put them in a brace, and gave them an ass-chewing “for being too damn involved in strike politics,” a dressing-down Zakov later characterized as “legendary in tone, proportion, and duration.”

Despite the heavy daily schedule, the two men got down to the St. Mary's River and found a sloop called
Angel Wind,
whose master said he had been contracted to carry immigrant miners to Copper Harbor. So far there had been but two deliveries, with no more scheduled. Further, the captain remembered a passenger named Frank Fisher, who had gone to Copper Harbor in July and whom he had not seen since. There was also another passenger slated for that trip, the man's name Rudyard Riordan, but the man had not shown up for departure, and had been left behind.

The two game wardens also learned from Deputy Harold Barothy of Schoolcraft County that a man by the name of Riordan had arrived in town sometime in July, and caught on with a logging company about eight miles north of town in the Little Fox River country.

“You're sure the man's name is Riordan?” Bapcat asked.

“ 'Tis indeed,” Barothy reported.

When the weeklong meeting broke up, Bapcat and Zakov intended to locate Riordan and question him.

Three full days of grinding through statutes and procedures in
Chase's Duties for Game Wardens
and
Tiffany's Criminal Law
left most of the wardens with headaches, and it hadn't helped that the presenting lawyer for the
Tiffany's
work had all the dramatic effect of stagnant pond water.

The night before there had been a group dinner at the old Fort Brady's officers' mess. The fort had been built to house soldiers guarding the Soo locks. Last night's speaker was an army colonel from Pittsburgh, who talked about the implications and safety issues involved in the shooting of antlered deer. After dinner, and clearly in his cups, the man lamented what he called the absolute certainty of a war in Europe within two years, a war, he said, which would draw in the entire civilized world. Bapcat had only a vague notion of Europe, but Zakov seemed quite grim all night after hearing the speaker.

At final assembly this morning after breakfast, Bapcat and Zakov received medals for their shooting triumph and kudos for their Italian bird case. Chief Deputy Jones asked Bapcat to get up and tell the other officers about the case, an order which made Bapcat's knees shake and heart palpitate. Talking publicly was a nightmare for him, one he had pretty much avoided his entire life.

Afterward, Horri Harju laughed and congratulated him. “Nearly canned, decorated, and complimented, all in the same week, Bapcat. Well done. They tell you to enforce the new law?”

“No, just chewed us out.”

“They were both covering their potentially exposed political posteriors. Jones and Oates are both real good at that.”

“Meaning, we just keep on?”

“Yessir, and if it comes up again down the road, our supervisors can claim honestly that they chewed your ass once before, and that will be that. Unless they decide to discharge you.”

“Because it will then be my fault.”

“Attaboy. That's how this business works, but neither Oates nor Jones has yet hung any of us out to dry.”

“This sort of thing is worthy of the czar's convoluted court,” Zakov said with a groan.

Bapcat said, “I never expected this job to be so—”

“Vague?” Harju said, finishing the sentence for him.

“Right.”

“There are times when none of this seems real,” Bapcat said.

“Stop and think. People have died because of the strike, and there have been mass violations of fish and game laws. That's as real as it gets, but even if it wasn't, who cares? Lansing has one reality and we have another. Lansing, where A can't ever relate to B. You going to need me back over your way?”

“We're not sure yet.”

“Let me know.”

That night in the barracks Zakov said, “I think I have a superb aptitude for the law.”

“Most of us would prefer you mute,” Bapcat said.

Zakov laughed and pointed a finger. “
Touché, mon ami.
Did you understand the significance of what we heard about Europe?”

“No,” Bapcat admitted.

“It means that small political missteps could create a conflagration.”

“Europe's across an ocean, right?”

Zakov rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Then what do we care about a war thousands of miles from us?”

“Because,
gospodin
, America's days of isolation from the world ended when you and your comrades fought the Spaniards.”

Bapcat didn't understand how Cuba related to Europe, and didn't care. “Seney tomorrow,” he said, and Zakov grinned.

“The reputation of Seney is the equal to Siberia,” Zakov said.

“Siberia?”

“Across the Bering Straits from Seward's Folly.”

“Seward?”

“Your secretary of war under your great slave-freer Abraham Lincoln, and his successor, President Andrew Johnson. Seward negotiated an obscenely small price for a land mass from Russia that is twice the size of your state of Texas. Another example of a czar being incompetent at things he should be strong at.”

Bapcat knew about Lincoln, and even Johnson, but who was this Seward, and what land was the Russian talking about?

82

Seney, Schoolcraft County

MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1913

Zakov, Bapcat, and Harold Barothy got off the train with their packs and rifles and headed straight across the main dirt road to the Grondin Hotel, a white, three-story building that stuck out among all the other buildings painted in dark colors and tones.

Barothy's wife and kids lived in Manistique, in the far south of the county, and when he worked this part of the county he always took a room at the Grondin. The proprietor had once been a famous cook at a logging camp, had saved his pay and opened this business. He was successful right from the start because of his fabled kitchen.

Barothy guided them into the bar and pointed at a man at a side table. “Riordan.”

“I thought he was a logger?” Bapcat said.

“I said he caught on with a camp, not that he lasted. He busted his leg real bad in the second week and now he's here for the winter.”

Riordan was manhandling an oversize spoon in a large bowl of fragrant brown liquid with vegetables floating on top.

“Mr. Riordan?” Bapcat ventured.

Riordan kept eating, said nothing—did not even look up from his bowl.

“Are you Riordan?” Bapcat repeated.

“I am indeed, and who might be inquiring?”

“Why didn't you answer the first time?”

“Needed to know you were serious about talking. Phil Grondin himself makes this Mulligan, and there ain't a stew on Earth can match its flavor. Do yourselves a favor and grab a bowl—while it's still available.”

“Not hungry,” Bapcat said. “How's the leg?”

“A doc here wanted to whack it off like a dead branch, and I told him if he did, I'd put a bullet in his head.”

“Is that how you settle things—with a gun?”

“At times,” Riordan said, shoving more stew into his already-full mouth.

“Word is that strike-breaking left a bad taste in your mouth.”

Riordan stared at him. “You some kind of law?”

Bapcat showed him the badge he shared with Zakov.

“Game warden? Why you sticking your nose in?”

“I heard you lost your nerve.”

“More like I recovered my brain when I found out Frank Fisher was going to be my boss.”

“Who's he?” Bapcat asked, playing dumb.

“Count your blessings you don't know,” Riordan said. “The man stinks of hellfire.”

Zakov sat down on the other side of the man. “A metaphoric fantasy I would like very much to witness as a phenomenon.”

“Who the hell are
you?
” Riordan challenged.

“Zakov,” the Russian said, and pointed to their badge, on the table. “Tell us about this remarkable fellow redolent of hellfire.”

“One of J. J.'s lone operators.”

“J. J.?” Bapcat asked.

“J. J. Ascher, president of the Ascher Detective Agency.”

“Never heard of them,” Bapcat said.

“I have,” Zakov said. “Waddie competitors. I heard Cruse also hired some Ascher men.”

“Your friend's right,” Riordan said.

“You were headed over to the Keweenaw?” Bapcat said.

“I usually work alone—go in, gather information, and bring it out to pass on to my boss or clients. I don't get involved in nothing else, see? But I got out here and there's this Fisher, and he tells me, ‘You're working the conflict lines,' and that's when I didn't bother getting on the boat. I gather information, nothing else, and I don't think everybody interested in unions is a flaming socialist. My specialty is information-gathering, not skullduggery or violence.”

“Yet here you sit, broken leg and all,” Zakov pointed out. “My deepest sympathies. I have myself recently recovered from a similar disability.”

“I drown my disappointments in Grondin's fine menu.”

“What do you live on?”

“Promotion. Each time I get someone to order a meal, I get a percentage of the price, and I talk up Grondin's all over town—or I will, when I heal sufficiently to get around better.”

“Is Fisher armed?” Bapcat asked.

“Always, and you can bet his bloody Krag is never far from hand.”

Krag
.“He talk about his background?”

“Not to me, but I've heard he brags to some that he killed nineteen Spaniards at Roosevelt's side in Cuba.”

Frankus Fish for sure
.
Why is he here?
“Who does he work for in Copper Country?”

“Only J. J. Ascher. Who places the orders with Ascher, I can't say, and since I was never out there, I can't even venture a guess.”

“Did he indicate where he would be in the Keweenaw?”

“Nothing specific, only that he had special business in the north.”

“Of which county?” Bapcat asked.

“How many are there?” Riordan asked back.

“You took a ship, not a train.”

“That's the order come down from New York, and when I saw Fisher he didn't bother to explain. If you fellas don't mind, the Mulligan's not getting any hotter.”

Deputy Barothy came down from stowing his gear and took them to a small cafe near the railroad depot where they ate a logger's meal of fresh baked bread, beans and bacon, black tea, and vinegar pie with spice and raisins.

Barothy was an older man, a longtime timber cruiser who had gotten a political appointment as game warden in northern Schoolcraft County and demonstrated enough mettle and competence to be shifted to civil service this year. Harju told Bapcat that Barothy knew more about deer and their habits than all but a rare few outdoorsmen in the state.

Bapcat told Barothy about the Keweenaw and how deer seemed scarce most of the time.

The older warden said, “You cut down all the whites for your mines, and I mean pine, spruce, and cedar, not to mention hemlock. Take them down, you remove shade, and that lets the bright sun hit evergreen shrubs like Canady yew. Now, you ask a big old buck deer what his favorite vittles might be, and sure as blue vitriol kills blue jackets, old horny head will say, ‘Apples, clover, and Canady yew.' I seen pictures of the mines over your way, and all those trees got cut down. Was me, I'd go look down in your gorges and deep canyons for yew, anywhere they can get good shade. Find yew, find deer, and that, my boy, is a fact of white-tailed deer life, not some city sport's fantasy.”

“Is there yew around here?”

“Not much, but we've got a small stand over by the watering hole. Can show you fellas, if you want.”

They walked west down the main street until they reached the Fox River, where it ran south past the west edge of the village, and Barothy took them to a place just north of the railroad trestle.

The yews were under a thick stand of white birch and ringed in by thick brakes of red willow. Bapcat remembered seeing what he now knew was yew in several places in the Keweenaw, places he and Zakov had not yet patrolled.

“The water here have something special that makes it good to drink?” Zakov asked.

Barothy chuckled. “Well, if it's good enough for speckled trout, it's surely good enough for mankind, but we don't call this the watering hole on account the water's particularly sweet. See, this has always been a lawless town, and for long periods there weren't no police or judiciary, so when somebody got himself out of line, citizens had to take care of it themselves. If the man did something, for example—say, took advantage of a lady against her wishes—the committee would walk him over here, make him strip, wade the river, and keep going. Men with bullwhips flogged him the whole time he crossed the river until he was gone, and he was told that if he ever came back, there would be a bullet waiting for him.”

“What if he resisted the whipping?” Zakov asked.

“They shot him right here.”

“This approach,” Zakov said, “is something a Russian can embrace.”

83

Marquette

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1913

The train hissed and jerked to a stop at the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic Railway depot in Seney, and the two game wardens clambered aboard.

A short woman with an open face and clear voice asked, “If you gentlemen are hunters, shouldn't your weapons be safely secured in the baggage car?” The woman had a pad of paper and pencil in hand.

“Tools for your job?” Bapcat asked the woman.

She smiled, “I suppose they are.”

Bapcat showed their shared badge and put the rifle between the seats. Bapcat reminded himself that he needed to have another badge made for his Russian partner.

“Is the weapon for dispatching wounded, sick, or wild animals?” the woman asked.

“All of those things, two-legged and four-,” Bapcat said, sitting down beside her. The Russian had already slid into a seat by a ginger-haired beauty with far too much face paint.

“What's your work?” Bapcat asked the young woman beside him.

She had a small, fat leather briefcase under her legs and a lot of pencil graphite on her left hand. “I could say I hunt jobs,” she said with a smile. “I work for Northern State Normal School in Marquette, officially the secretary for placement, which means I travel around the Upper Peninsula trying to arrange jobs for our teaching graduates. So far, every single one of them has been placed. Knock on wood,” she added.

Bapcat liked her.

Zakov and ginger-hair were conversing with an overabundance of dramatic hand gestures. “Sounds like you're pretty good at your work,” Bapcat said.

“I like to think so. Axelinavellimina Aho, but people call me Lina,” she said, holding out her small hand.

Bapcat grinned. He knew only one Finnish phrase, which equated roughly to “How are you today?” “
Kuinka voit tanaan?
”

The Aho woman smiled. “
Hauska tavata
. How long have you been a game warden?”

“Six months.” The words were out before they sank in. It seemed sometimes like he had always done this job. He could hardly remember working his traplines.

“Before that?”

“Beaver trapper.”

“Schooling?”

“Grade seven, more or less.”
Mostly less
.

She had a quiet, thoughtful manner. “Did you leave school for work?”

“No—to become a cowboy.”

She chuckled. “Ah, a romantic's choice. How did that turn out?”

“Some of the time I was a big-game hunting guide out west, and later I was a soldier.”

“Where?”

“Cuba.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Rough Riders?”

He nodded.

“Surely that's something to be proud of,” she said.

“Everything I've done seems like an accident,” he confessed. “Just happens.”

“And you think this is unusual? Do you have regrets?”

He whispered, “Sometimes I wish I had finished school.”

“Why don't you?” she asked.

“I'm too old.”

“Nonsense. How old
are
you—if I may be so bold as to inquire?”

“Thirty-five.”

“There's no age barrier to finishing school.”

It was his turn to smile. “Can't see me sitting in a classroom full of tykes.”

“Neither can I,” she said, “and that's not what I'm talking about. There are tests to help determine what level you're at.”

“Then what?”

“A place like Northern State Normal would evaluate you on your tests, interviews, life experiences—of which yours seem numerous—and then we'd decide what level you should enter.”

“Is this what you do, evaluate?”

“No, but there's a secretary who does that, and she's very good. She picks the students and when they graduate, I help them obtain positions.”

“I have a position,” he said.

“You anticipate never changing?”

“No, ma'am, probably not.”

“Doesn't matter. More education and knowledge will help you do your job better. It always does.”

“I don't know,” he admitted. School seemed an unclimbable mountain, and after a while he tuned out the helpful woman, and thought about when he'd see Jaquelle and the boy again.

Upon their arrival in Marquette, Zakov and his traveling companion arose, and Bapcat realized that the two had made a connection. Zakov looked back at him and mouthed,
Brunswick Hotel?

Bapcat nodded.

No stopover had been intended here, but it wouldn't hurt to see Harju again. Zakov went off with ginger-hair and Bapcat walked up the steep hills to Harju's green house on Rock Street.

“Didn't expect to see you again so soon. Where's our Russian?” Harju asked.

•••

Two hours later Bapcat was smoking with Harju in the green house, helping the shaved-head Finn to clean and oil weapons.

“I don't feel like I'm making headway,” Bapcat confessed.

“It takes time, and the stakes are high, Lute. If this thing doesn't work and the system reverts to the old political patronage, we might as well fold the whole bloody thing as unworkable. We can't have statewide protection of natural resources run on pinhead county-by-county rules. The people of this state deserve better.”

•••

Zakov was seated on the second-floor porch overlooking the street when Bapcat got back to the Brunswick Hotel.

“Where's your lady friend?” Bapcat asked.

“She is neither a friend, nor a lady, and our business has been successfully transacted.”

“Did you even get her name?”

“To what end?” the Russian countered. “It was just business—pleasant and satisfying, but just business. Did you see Harju?”

“Briefly.”

“There's a night train west,” Zakov said.

“Let's stay the night and eat a good meal.”

“No argument. All that disagreeable strike business seems a million miles away from here.”

“I guess we'll be back in it soon enough.”

“Don't remind me,
gospodin
.”

“You've used that word before. What does it mean?”

“
Gospodin
means citizen. It's an honorific.”

Good—explain the meaning of one word I don't know with another word I don't know.