Red Jacket (7 page)

16

Bumbletown Hill, Keweenaw County

MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1913

Vairo seemed unsurprised to see his friend the following morning. “I figure maybe that place, she won't do,” the tavern owner greeted him. “What exactly you want?”

“No neighbors, nearby firewood, a good well.”

“How many rooms—five?”

“One large one is enough if we're on a hill and there's woods and a good well.”

“Okay, I bought four log shacks from one of the mines. Not too good shape, but solid, okay? Top of Bumbletown Hill. Can almost see both sides Keweenaw on clear day, eh. No cellar, though.”

“How much?”

“Got cabin, not justa one room, but
quattro
rooms, storage shack; call it all a hundred and it's yours. You want me to show you?”

“No need for you to go along.”

“Okay, I got Mass, the wife and bambino, yes?” Vairo drew a rough map. “Heard there was dump where this place she got built. Mebbe some rats. You mind rats?”

“Not as long as they mind their own business.”

Bapcat took the electric trolley to Allouez and traipsed west out of town a half-mile up a long hill until he found the log shack. There was a hard-rock outcrop nearby, and he could see where loggers had cleared forests for underground shoring. In the distance he could see mine structures and towns: Allouez, Ahmeek, Copper City. At night he guessed he'd see Red Jacket with all its electric lights. A couple small rats watched him as he studied the building. Opening the door to the snow room sent more rats scuttling. Four rooms, no cellar, but a privy and a small storage shack to the north.
This will do. The woods are close and thick, and it will be easy enough to walk up the hill from the electric
.

Back in Red Jacket he sent a telegram to Harju in Marquette and Chief Oates with details of the place, including the cost, and promised to send a contract at first opportunity.

He was back in the rented room by midafternoon. Zakov was still on the bed. “Did I mention Widow Frei requests your presence?” he said.

“No.”

“My deepest apologies. I meant to, but all this anxiety over a domicile to inhabit has caused my thinking to become somewhat distended.”

“I can imagine,” Bapcat said, suspecting the scheming Russian did little by accident. “You can relax now.”

“You are accepting our living arrangement?”

“Until I can dispose of you.”

“
Dispose.
There are many layers of meaning in that one small word.”

“Pick the one you like,” Bapcat said. “Where, east of Bootjack?”

Zakov explained in a way only another outdoorsman could understand.

Bapcat got out a crude map Harju had given him. The electric trolley would take him from Laurium to Lake Linden, and he could hike south from there.

“Are you abandoning me again?” the Russian inquired.

“Mrs. DiSilvestro is around.”

The Russian sighed heavily. “Clearly this woman does not like me and is not
sympatico
.”

Bapcat said. “You should be used to it.”

17

East of Bootjack, Houghton County

MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1913

Bapcat knew the upper Keweenaw well, but Houghton County was relatively unfamiliar. Wondering why the Russian got run off, he wanted to look over the lay of the land, see what was there. A good two hours remained until summer sundown. Zakov's shack was along the creek, whose clear moving waters were tinted orange.
Mostly woods, first growth, little sunlight penetrating. Deer would be on the edges near fields
. He pasted his exposed skin with creek mud to ward off mosquitoes and other insects.

Despite a careful search he found little sign—virtually no pellets, few tracks.
The does should be throwing fawns by now. Where are they?
There was a small hill just north of the shack, and beyond that, a much larger one.
Impossible to guess distance.
Mainly he wanted to find the edges of hardwoods and look for sign. He crossed a trail showing heavy wagon use, about a half-mile north of McCallum Creek. Just east of there a less-used trail pointed north, eventually leading him across a brushy, muddy creek, a half-mile from the hill. Here he stopped to reapply mud. He half expected to find deer sign on the new trail, but it seemed barren.
Strange
. He'd always heard that deer were abundant in this area.
If so, where are they?

Just before sunset he moved into the hardwoods on the big hill. Mosquitoes and blackflies swarmed until he sat still and stopped perspiring. He made camp and settled in for the night.

•••

Morning came gradually, as it tended to do in summer. His mud cake had dried and cracked away. He had a can of beans in his ruck, so he made a tiny fire, heated the can, and poured them down his throat once they had cooled. Late morning he found several hunting blinds made of windfalls, and below on the edge of a big field, the remains of an old Indian deer fence—evidence there had been deer here, but neither deer nor Indians were here now. The fence funneled animals through a few narrow openings where hunters would wait to ambush them.

Unlike some rich white men who hunted for sport, Indians hunted only for food, and their ways tended to be practical and lethal. Down by the field he found four deer skulls, old, no flesh on them. This was clearly not a winter yarding area where multiple remains could always be found. The remains here were close together, which told him hunters had been sloppy in their bloodlust, paying no attention to wounded animals.

Bones close to each other. The wolves haven't gotten to these carcasses. Conclusion: No hunting here, just mass killing. No wonder Zakov had been run off. The question was, why so much carnage when deer around here had been so plentiful in the past?
Something feels wrong,
he thought,
something I can't yet name.

18

Bumbletown Hill

FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1913

The rat was cat-size, gray, edgy, sizing him up eye to eye. Having lived so long in the boreal forest at the tip of the Keweenaw, Bapcat had become an experienced rat killer, one or two daily, sometimes as many as six. There was a poison he could get from the county health department, which apparently thinned the animals' blood and shut down their organs in twenty-four hours. But other creatures fed on rats, and he feared the poison would work its way from animal to animal; as a consequence, he chose to depend on his seven-foot-long fish spear.

Rats never looked in the direction they would flee. This one glared at him and then to the right, toward a wood pile. Bapcat guessed it would go left.

When it scampered, he skewered it with one thrust of the spear.

“My sweet dear old da, he hated the rats down in the mine,” a voice said from the side of the house. “Name's O'Brien, and you, I presume, must be Deputy Bapcat.”

O'Brien the circuit court judge; what the hell could he want?

“Aye, I'm Bapcat.”

“If ya don't mind me sayin' so, you don't look like a killer,” Judge O'Brien said. He had fair hair with a reddish tint, and a fedora tilted rakishly on the top of his head.

“You want to come inside, Your Grace?”

O'Brien laughed enthusiastically. “It's not Your Grace, son. It's Your Honor. I'm not no fookin' Cousin Jack or a bloody Pommy, boyo. Being a lowly Bark, I truly appreciate the invite, I do indeed, but best for the two of us we remain in the shadows whilst I have my say. You mind?”

“No, sir, Your Honor.”

“You forty yet, Bapcat?”

“No, sir, thirty-five, thirty-six—I'm not exactly sure.”

The judge grunted. “Me da, he died down in the mines, fell in a hole in C and H in 1899. Predictably, me ma got nothing from the bloody buggers. I was studying for the law at the time, come back here in '01 and started representin' miner claims in accidents. Didn't make the local company boys happy, but the people elected me judge last year, so I guess at least they were pleased. Fook the owners and moneymen, I say. You think it's important to keep people happy in your line of work?”

“What work would that be, Your Honor?”

“Don't dissemble, Bapcat. Chief Deputy Jones is an old chum. Sent me a letter, said you'd pick the time and place to announce yourself. You're a game warden, Bapcat. Who will you labor to keep happy?”

“The chief deputy and his boss, justices of the peace. Your Honor, how did you know about this place?”

O'Brien chuckled. “This is the Copper Country, Bapcat. I'm a judge, and people tell me things all the time, hoping to curry favor. Sometimes I hear drivel or things I never want to hear, but I didn't come here to lament. Listen, Deputy, everybody dies with shit in his britches, no exceptions, even the rich and powerful and famous. As soon as we die, we're all equal. You hearing rumors of trouble brewing?”

“Some.”

“Mark my words, there'll be a strike, and she'll get nasty fast. If the union delivers strike benefits, that should keep it more or less orderly, but if not, those miners and strikers will flood the woods, trying to feed their families. Are you taking in what I'm sayin', son? In their place you'd do the same thing, and so too would I. My advice: Catch 'em, tongue-lash 'em good, and let 'em go. You do that, and word will get around that the new warden's a fair man, not one of Cruse's sycophants—like the last one.”

“But the law—”

“The dear old law's not an iron bar, Bapcat. She's flexible, and men on the bench like to interpret statutes, try to use judgment and common sense. I'd advise you to do the same. Fight the big fights, not every fight.”

Bapcat listened.

“You try poisoning your rats?”

“Just the spear.”

“Jones said you once was an undergrounder, a beast of burden like me da.”

“Yessir, three years tramming.”

“Rats?”

“Everywhere.”

“But you couldn't see them most of the time.”

“Right.”

“It's the same aboveground, Deputy. There are rats all around us, and I do not refer to the kind you skewer with that fish gigger. Think about what I said, Deputy, and best of luck in your new job. To start, you might want to ghost on down to Bootjack and have a look around. I hear there's a lot of deer down that way.”

“Yessir, Bootjack, Your Honor.” He didn't tell the judge he'd already been there and that he hadn't found any deer.

“One final little suggestion, if you don't mind: Big Jim MacNaughton runs Calumet and Hecla up here, and all the other mines' managers
and
their owners take their lead and marching orders from him. He was raised here, and he rules with an iron hand. I've known him a long time. Big Jim wants to be liked and admired and feared and respected, but not at the cost of compromise. C and H has only one way of doing things, and that's
his
way. They look benevolent. They're not. If you cross swords with MacNaughton, expect the worst, but expect it to come at you indirectly.”

The judge paused before speaking again. “One way or another, C and H touches everything in these parts. It owns everyone, lock, stock, and barrel.”

“Not everyone,” Bapcat said.

“There's a fine sentiment to embrace, boyo. Be sure to hang on to it. You'll be a bloody legend if you can.”

A moment later the judge was gone, leaving Bapcat wondering why he had come so far out of the way to talk in darkness.

19

Bumbletown Hill

FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1913

The automobile looked like a jury-rigged contraption, its fenders black and muddy, the motor sounding like trapped rats scurrying inside a tin can. Deputy Horri Harju stepped down to the dirt road and surveyed the log building as he stretched and yawned. “You probably should have the owner pay the State for this ramshackle disaster,” Harju said, grinning.

When Harju extended his hand, Bapcat drove his fist into the man's chin from below, lifting and dumping the muscled Swede onto the ground, raising a puff of dust and sending two large rats scampering for cover.

The still recuperating Zakov sat watching from a small bench on the front porch. Bapcat had made the bench of birch stumps and a rough-hewn board. “I shall never adjust to American greetings,” Zakov announced. “You are all insane, and while our new abode is hardly a manse, it serves,” he said, his voice thick with disapproval.

Harju rubbed his chin and let Bapcat help him up. “Never saw it,” he admitted. “You got a damn brick in that hand?”

“The automobile overflows with treasure,” Zakov announced, using a crutch to stand. “I have great hopes some portion of the contents are edible. My esteemed friend has us living on rabbits and squirrels, and other pedestrian and largely indigestible fare.”

“You don't refuse any helpings,” Bapcat said.

“A starving man must eat to heal,” the Russian replied.

“You're not starving,” Bapcat said. Then to Harju, “Meet Zakov.”

“His reluctant wife,” the Russian said with no hint of a smile.

Harju looked to Bapcat for an explanation. “He's a wolfer driven insane by his poisons,” Bapcat offered.

“I use no such things,” Zakov said shrilly in his own defense.

“Well, he sure
sounds
wifely,” Harju said.

“He does nothing but sit around, grow fat, and complain,” Bapcat said.

“My observation stands,” Harju said. “Shall we unload?”

When the vehicle was empty Harju said to Bapcat, “She's all yours now.”

Bapcat stared at the odd vehicle. He had never ridden in one, much less driven one. He'd never had any interest in owning one, as he preferred walking to riding in any conveyance.

“I thought I was supposed to provide my own transportation.”

“Well, I guess your President Roosevelt changed that. Was him arranged this contraption for the department, under the stipulation you be the one to use it.” Harju held out his hand and gave a small box to Bapcat. It contained a small bronze badge, a circle wrapped around a small five-point star. “A gift from your colonel,” Harju explained.

“Ah, now we shall travel in style,” Zakov said.

“Think there's room for a coffin in that thing?” Bapcat asked Harju.

“Sure. Just chop him in half and put one half on top the other,” replied the officer.

“You are silly, mindless children unworthy of serious attention,” Zakov carped, going into a pout.

“What is this thing?” Bapcat asked his colleague.

“Model T Touring Car chassis. Mr. Ford tried to sell this as a delivery truck last year, but without much success. Now he sells the frame and the buyer arranges to have a top installed. This one is a gift to the department from President Roosevelt. Oates and Jones decided that, given your connection to the president, you should be the one to use it—at least initially. Most roads up here are far better and newer than in almost any other location in the state.”

Bapcat struggled with his thoughts and finally admitted, “I don't know how to operate one of these things. Do better in your hands than mine.”

Harju laughed. “I'm new to it as well, and if I can drive one, so can you.”

“And I shall serve as his mentor,” Zakov declared.

The two game wardens ignored him.

Later in the afternoon they loaded Zakov in the rear and drove to a stretch of the Gratiot River, a mile from the hill cabin, and caught enough brook trout for dinner.

Bapcat boiled potatoes over the fire and fried the trout in a new black iron skillet Harju had brought with some other equipment, all from President Roosevelt.

“Judge O'Brien of the circuit court visited me,” Bapcat told Harju. “He knew my job and where I live.”

“Not from me,” Harju said.

“He claims Jones is a chum.”

“Take the man at his word, Lute.”

“I don't like surprises,” Bapcat said.

Harju changed directions. “You've not yet announced yourself and your appointment?”

“The judge knows, Nayback knows, my friend Dominick knows, and I have a feeling so do plenty of others, but for now I don't want to just put it out there for everyone.”

“What's to know?” Zakov inquired, and again the two men ignored him.

“Have you patrolled any?” Harju asked.

“Bootjack, mainly,” Bapcat said, and he explained what he had seen to the Russian and the other warden, adding that the judge had also suggested he visit the same area. “Not much to see at present.”

“Market hunters won't get serious until after Independence Day,” Harju said.

Bapcat knew venison tasted best July through September, when the animals' coats gleamed red instead of winter gray.

“You should get to know the railroad people,” Harju said, “get a sense of meat and fish shipments in past years, unusual cargo requests, things that are out of the ordinary.”

“Suggesting the railroad people are in cahoots with market hunters?”

“No, I'm only suggesting your prospects for information have to be carefully nurtured and developed, and railroads are a good starting place. If your investigations point toward railroad men, so be it. Tell me about Mr. Cornelius Nayback.”

“He denies receiving money from Bestemand.”

“Evidence contradicts him.”

“I'm not so sure,” Bapcat said. “The checks were made out to Bestemand, who cashed them. There's nothing to show the money got into Nayback's pockets.”

“You believe the man?”

“No, but without some access to Nayback's finances, I don't see a future for this.”

“What of our local scouts?”

“I doubt any exist.”

“Will you pursue establishing a chapter?”

“Not with a lot of enthusiasm; I've already got enough to deal with.”

“And your dear acquaintance, Cap'n Hedyn?”

“I saw Nayback with him at the Cornish wrestling matches.”

“That's all?”

“I'm guessing Hedyn's having me watched.”

Harju nodded. “What of your newest acquisition?” he asked, with a nod toward the Russian.

“He has skills, and knows the land around here.”

“Your call,” Harju said. “Jones and Oates have a target on Hedyn's back; any idea why?”

“The department's new. It needs big marks?”

“
Lufda
, you're a sharp one.”

“Why? Hedyn's hundreds of miles away from Jones or Oates.”

“There are telephones, telegraphs, letters, messengers,” Harju said.

“The judge?”

“Somebody far away has no love for Hedyn is all I know,” Harju said.

“Are we returning to our Kremlin tonight,” Zakov asked, “or do we plan to live rough to provide the carnivorous insects their nourishment? I am an ailing man.”

“You sound more like a pain in the extremes,” Harju said. “What in dickens is a Kremlin?”

“A fortress.”

Harju laughed. “That's a good one.” He turned to Bapcat. “Want your first driving lesson?”

“Will there be more than one?”

“Two. You can drive me to Red Jacket tomorrow. That should suffice.”

They stood beside the vehicle. “The motor runs on gasoline. There is a transmission, which has two speeds forward, and one in reverse. There are three pedals on the floor. The throttle is this lever here.” He pointed at the steering column. “The starter crank is in front. It can break your arm. You turn the crank until you have ignition. The hand lever goes in to release the parking brake and engage the gears. You step on the pedal and use the throttle to move. What could be more simple?”

“Walking,” Bapcat said.

“Walking wears out boots. Leave walking to the Indians.”

Passing through Allouez, Bapcat was shaky on the gears, making the truck buck, jerk, and convulse, and causing Zakov to cry out in fear as much as pain.

“You could get out and walk,” Harju carped at the Russian.

“My leg is broken,” Zakov said, glowering.

“Just like a wife,” Harju told Bapcat.