He ordered the men to put down their rifles. SuRo put her automatic back in its holster and, before Service could react, charged the men, knocking one aside and punching the other in the nose, splattering it. When the second man recovered, he tried to intervene, but SuRo dispatched him with a crisp elbow to the jaw that sent him sprawling into a deep ditch. Fight over. After a long and heated discussion he sent the men back to their camp, and ordered the woman into his truck. He drove her into the town of Rock to buy her coffee.
“You can’t take an animal from hunters,” he said as they drove. “And you can’t beat the shit out of people.”
“Fucking idiots couldn’t piss on a barn if they were resting their pencil-dicks against it.”
“That’s not your business.”
“Fucking eh! It’s yours, rockhead. You goddamn grayshirts let people run around who are dangerous to themselves and the animals.”
“The law doesn’t require hunters to be marksmen.”
“It ought to.”
She had a point. “I enforce the laws as written, not as I might want them to be. What were you going to do with the deer?”
“Bury it. What the hell else would I do with it?”
He had stopped the truck and stared at her.
She said, “I save animals that can be saved. If they can’t be salvaged, I put them out of their misery.”
“You’d waste the meat?”
“I don’t eat meat.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Summer Rose Genova, DVM. I just moved up here. I’ve got property near Brevort. I’m going to establish an animal recovery and rehab sanctuary.”
“There are laws regulating that.”
“I know the laws, rockhead. I do everything by the book.”
“Like carrying a sidearm?”
“I have a CCW permit,” she said, taking it out of her purse.
There was something about the woman he liked. “I’m Grady Service.”
“People call me SuRo and you can help me by telling your fascist colleagues about the sanctuary. They find an injured animal, they can call me.”
“Even if they’re meat eaters?”
She grinned. “Hell, I can overlook depravity if it serves the animals.”
“You could have . . .”
She interrupted with a sarcastic laugh. “Gotten shot by those morons? More likely I’d have had them both on the ground before their fingers got to the triggers.”
“That would be murder.”
“Murder is what the state licenses them to do.”
They spent nearly an hour sharing coffee and cinnamon rolls. Genova was over six feet tall, built like a linebacker and as opinionated as a revolutionary. But Service sensed a gentle heart and a genuine interest in providing a service that was badly needed in the eastern Upper Peninsula. He told her he would talk to the hunters she had tangled with and smooth it out and he had, though it had not been easy. At first the two men were adamant about filing charges for assault against the woman. He had to explain to them that it was their word against hers and that he had found them all pointing weapons at each other. If they didn’t let it go, he’d arrest all three of them, confiscate all their weapons, and put it before a judge, which would not happen until long after deer season, in which case the two hunters would be done hunting for the year. The men reluctantly agreed that a complaint would not solve anything.
Since then SuRo had established herself and, in the process, become well known and respected throughout the U.P. Approaching her sixties, she seemed more stooped now, but as vigorous as when he had first met her.
The sanctuary consisted of 400 acres closed in by twelve-foot-high cyclone fencing. She lived in a one-room cabin attached to a larger building where she tended her animals. In recent years she had become a major proponent of the state’s wolf recovery program, which was a misnomer because the wolf packs had developed from a few animals that had drifted in on their own from Wisconsin and Minnesota, or across the winter ice of the St. Mary’s River from Ontario.
Genova was standing outside her cabin holding a wriggling buff-colored bobcat when he pulled up. He grabbed a couple of extra packs of cigarettes and held them out to her. The cat’s fur bristled as it pressed against her chest for protection.
“You ought to smoke a better brand,” she groused.
“I only smoke these because you hate them.”
“That’s my rockhead,” she said, turning her head to the side for a kiss on the cheek. “What the hell have I done this time?”
“Hunting season starts Thursday.”
She grimaced. “Don’t remind me. The bridge packed?”
“Probably like sardines.”
“Always with the meat metaphors. Breakfast and coffee?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
He followed her into the cabin. The young bobcat launched itself onto a bed and circled to paw a nest in the covers while Service sat down at the table in her kitchen area. He watched as she whisked pancake mix and brewed a new pot of coffee.
“Where’d the cat come from?”
“Her mama was hit by a pickup over by Pickford. Some kids found the kitten and now she’s trying to take over the sanctuary. Rumor has it that Grady Service and Kira Lehto are toast and the rockhead has a new squeeze. Word is she’s hot.”
Genova and his former girlfriend were both veterinarians and good friends.
“Is she better in bed than Kira?”
“None of your business.”
“Everything is my business, rockhead! What’s your hotty’s name?”
“Nantz.”
When the coffee was brewed, SuRo lit another of his cigarettes and filled his coffee cup.
“You hearing anything out of Vermillion?” she asked.
Vermillion was the federal wolf laboratory north of Paradise on the south shore of Lake Superior. “Should I?”
“Just wondering.”
SuRo wasn’t big on small talk. When she asked about something she usually had a good reason.
“It’s said they have a blue wolf up there,” she said.
Service laughed. “Do they keep it next to a white buffalo?”
SuRo didn’t smile. “Why do the ignoramati always dismiss what they don’t understand?”
He had to search his memory and the best he could come up with was, “A blue wolf, like the one the Ojibwa believe brings bad luck?”
“Only to those who harass it—or cage it,” she said, scooping dollops of viscous pancake batter into a huge black skillet. “And it’s not just bad luck, but massive disruption.”
“There’s no law against people believing what they want. A cult over by Helps believes God is coming back to earth in a UFO.”
Genova turned around and arched her eyebrows. “You mean she’s not?”
Service went to the refrigerator and poured two glasses of orange juice for them.
“You look good,” Service said, setting the glasses on the table.
“Knock on wood,” she said. “Nothing wrong a sweaty romp in the kip wouldn’t cure.”
“How’s Howard?” Howard Genova, M.D., was her estranged husband, estranged in the sense that she lived in the U.P. while he practiced thoracic surgery in Ann Arbor. He couldn’t tolerate the people or weather of the north and she couldn’t abide flatlanders and their ways. They tended to meet when their moods coincided, which apparently wasn’t all that frequently. SuRo did not talk much about her marriage.
“All surgeons are board-certified assholes,” she said. “You may quote me liberally.”
“What about the blue wolf?” Service asked, his curiosity piqued.
“You don’t know, do you?”
He shrugged. “First I’ve heard
of it.”
“I guess feds are feds,” she said, “always playing the secrecy game.”
She placed a plate with a half dozen small pancakes in front of him and sat down across from him. “Is this Nantz thing serious?”
“You never can tell,” he said.
“I can,” she said, grinning. “I hear she’s at the academy. How are you two gonna mix work and noogies?”
“We’ll manage,” he said.
“I imagine you will, rockhead.”
8
It was an easy fifteen-mile drive from SuRo’s to St. Ignace. Traffic south across the Mackinac Bridge went smoothly while the northbound lanes inched along only feet away. As Service reached the highest point of the bridge he glanced back at the northwestern sky and thought it looked like a storm in the offing. The color was right, but the winds were calm, the temperatures unseasonably warm. Rain maybe, sleet if the temperature dropped. There were better odds in playing the state lottery than guessing the weather at the Straits of Mackinac.
The Brigadoon was a sprawling pale yellow building with green-tile gables, Victorian or Queen Anne; he couldn’t remember which. There was no sign of Maridly’s truck in the bed-and-breakfast’s small parking lot, or along the curb of the facing street.
When he walked in and identified himself, the reception clerk grinned crookedly and jerked her head toward the stairs to her right. “Room Fourteen, the Forget-Me-Not. You’re already registered and I expect you’d better get yourself down to business PDQ. That woman up there is antsier than a deserted cat on a rock in a rising river.”
He wondered where her truck was as he made his way upstairs and down the brightly wallpapered hallway. When he pushed open the door he saw a naked Nantz sitting on the edge of a king-sized bed. Her clothes were in a heap on the floor, her shoes flung against the baseboard of the wall.
She looked coyly over her shoulder at him.
“You’re late,” she said.
“It’s not noon yet.”
“If you’re not here before me, you’re late.” She turned around and pointed her finger at him, forming a pistol. “Drop ’em, Banger.”
When he reached for his belt buckle, she jumped up and flung herself on him, her arms holding so tight around his neck that she pulled him down onto the bed.
“Forty-three damn days,” she said. “That’s biblical, a damn lifetime. I love your ass, Service.”
“Just my ass?”
Three hours later they walked down to the tourist district near the Shepler Line docks that were home to jet boats that carted summer Fudgies back and forth to Mackinac Island. They settled themselves into a booth on the ground floor of the Oz Marsh Club. They sat beside each other and found themselves surrounded by men decked out in faded red plaid wools and new blaze-orange camo coveralls, most of their faces bristling with whiskers that might reach some semblance of beard status over the next two weeks. The hunters were boisterous, brimming with optimism for the coming hunt.
“Two more weeks,” he lamented as they ordered a pitcher of draft beer. “How’d you get here?”
“I flew,” she said.
“Into Pelston?” It was the closest commercial airport.
“To here. I flew myself.”
“What do you mean you flew yourself?
She rolled her eyes. “I . . . fly,” she said. “I’m a pilot. My own plane? A Cessna One Eighty. You still don’t get it, Service. I told you I was loaded. I got a lift over from the airfield. I’ve been hangaring my bird in Lansing for a year or so. Just haven’t gotten around to moving it up to Escanaba, and I figured it was time to get the wings out of the hangar. If this 2001 shit drags on, it’ll save us time. Smart thinking, huh?” She playfully nudged him with an elbow. “You got a problem with girl pilots?”
He shook his head dumbly and grinned, unable to think of a thing to say. She was so nonchalant about her wealth that he rarely thought about it. She was a pilot? What other surprises would Maridly Nantz have for him?
After drinking half a glass of beer, she leaned her head on his shoulder and rubbed his inner thigh. “I’m not hungry. For food.”
On the quick walk back to the B&B, Service noted that the temperature was falling fast as they made plans for their belated Thanksgiving. Because the holiday this year fell during the middle of the firearm season, they would have to celebrate in early December. If she could get loose from Lansing, they would meet at her house in Gladstone and cook a turkey and all the trimmings. If the damn task force didn’t interfere. If it did, he’d go to her.
“How’s Newf?” Nantz asked.
“She and Cat are bunking with Kira.”
Nantz poked him in the ribs. “When you pick up our dog and cat that’s all you’d better be picking up. I don’t share my man.”
Just after midnight, Service’s cell phone awakened them. As usual Nantz was instantly alert and got to it first.
He heard her say, “He’s right here, Captain.”
Service took the phone. It was Captain Grant. “Yessir?”
Service grunted as he listened. “When?”
Another grunt. “Injuries?”
“Yessir, right away.” He hung up and felt his shoulders slump.
“What?” Nantz asked.
“The federal wolf lab at Vermillion. They’ve had an explosion.”
“When will this shit end, Grady?”
“Two fatalities. It looks like somebody touched off a bomb to release some wolves. That wrinkle makes it my business. I’ve got to go.”
“This instant?” she asked.
“I suppose we can take ten minutes for us.”
“Make it twenty,” she said, pulling him down beside her and rolling on top of him. “This has to last us a looong time, baby.”
9
Their allotted twenty minutes turned to thirty. When Service finally negotiated the severe curve that merged with the bridge approach, he was shrouded in heavy fog and it was just before 1 a.m. At this hour he expected the traffic to be lighter than what he had seen earlier, but it was even worse than before; he was hemmed in by the crush. By the time he left, Nantz had decided to go back to Lansing the next day, knowing he was going to be tied up. She was clearly disappointed but didn’t say a thing about it, knowing this was the job.
Captain Grant had made it clear that he should expedite getting to Vermillion, which with luck, sparse traffic, and a heavy foot lay about an hour north of the bridge. He turned on his blue lights to goose the traffic along, and most vehicles squeezed right so he could pass. As he carefully crawled past cars and trucks, he remembered the chaos that had prevailed before there was a bridge. Before 1957 five state-run ferries carted vehicles across at a rate of about four hundred an hour, each crossing taking just short of an hour under ideal conditions. Some years, on the night before hunting season, cars had been backed up fifty miles below the straits with waits as long as twenty-four hours. Now, under ideal conditions, you could be across in ten minutes. This morning’s conditions were the antithesis of ideal.
There were seagulls hanging suspended in the air at the apex of the bridge, illuminated by lights strung on the three-foot-thick cable housings. The temperature seemed to be rising. The weather at the straits and above could change with breathtaking speed, from good to awful in a near blink. There had been no more snow since Halloween. But it would come, as it always came. Without snow, hunters would be complaining, and with this warm spell continuing, the deer would not move around and hunting would be tougher. In a warm spell deer wouldn’t move much during the day, and hunters would quickly start complaining that the lack of sightings meant there were fewer deer—and that this was the fault of wolves.
It didn’t matter that there were fewer than three hundred gray wolves roaming the U.P., and that they each ate nine or ten whitetails
a year for a total kill of fewer than three thousand deer. Vehicles killed close to twenty thousand deer in the U.P. every year, and the hunters wouldn’t be blaming them. A difficult winter would claim another hundred thousand or more, and a severe winter twice that. If hunters weren’t finding deer, it wasn’t the fault of wolves, but facts seldom mattered when hunters began shooting off their yaps. The reality was that the last winter had been tough, and the deer herd was down in numbers.
A year ago he’d run into a hunter who said he’d stopped hunting near his home in the southern part of the state because the DNR had planted coyotes that were decimating the deer population there. Service had to explain that the DNR had never planted coyotes in the state, but the man refused to believe him, preferring to have an excuse for his inability to bag a deer, an event that many Michiganders took as an entitlement.
On the St. Ignace side he cut through a lane reserved for official vehicles and noticed an unusual amount of activity at the state police post west of the row of tollbooths. There were several National Guard vehicles and soldiers in camo fatigues, more spillover from September 11. Two weeks before, California’s governor had gotten tips from the intelligence community and warned his citizens of possible terrorist attacks against the Golden Gate and other California landmarks. Sam Bozian had quickly and publicly beefed up security by sending the National Guard to the Mackinac Bridge and Soo Locks. Service wasn’t aware of any specific warnings about Michigan targets, and didn’t bother to examine the governor’s motives. If Bozian could get in front of a camera, he’d do it—no matter how stupid or petty he looked. In the political world there was no such thing as bad publicity. Regardless of the governor’s motivation, increased security in these times was probably smart.
Blue Wolf In Green Fire Page 9
