Blue Wolf In Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

  “Vince is a good doctor,” Service said. “How long are they giving you?”

  “A month if I need it. It’ll be great to be home and together, won’t it, hon?”

  One month, with two pins still to be removed? This wasn’t the time frame the chief had talked to him about. She was being overly optimistic, and he decided to let her think what she wanted until he had time to talk to her about the realities. It would be good to be normal again, even for a month.

  “When do I pick you up?”

  “Robbie’s already given me the test results, so I don’t need the appointment Monday. Isn’t that great?”

  “Do you want me to come get you now?” He wished she’d stop calling the punk doctor by his first name.

  “Can you?”

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  “You’d better, Detective.” Her voice sounded husky and playful, back to normal. No woman’s voice had ever had the effect on him that Nantz’s did. She added, “Get this. Sam sent me a personal note apologizing for the task force thing. He said it was a clerical error.”

  Typical government, Service thought, to blame things on people at the bottom of the totem pole. “That’s good.” He had no doubt that the original order had come from Bozian. The action and note were no more than ass-covering, and Service knew he owed Lorne O’Driscoll for confronting the governor at the hospital. It seemed that he was suddenly accumulating debts to people—Captain Grant, O’Driscoll, Freddy Bear Lee.

  “I’m glad all this happened,” Nantz said.

  “You are?”

  “It’s a test, honey. The things we want most always require us to pass a test.”

  “Does that include us?” he asked. Was Robbie part of his test? he wondered.

  She laughed her infectious laugh. “God, Service. Don’t be so thick. We are the test!”

  Her voice suddenly dropped an octave. “Remember what you said when you thought I was out of it . . .”

  “I remember.”

  “I’m holding you to it, Service.”

  “Just holding me will be enough,” he said.

  “You betcha. I’d better go. I’m helping Fae tonight. We’re taking turkeys down to some gospel mission. I love you.”

  “See you tomorrow,” he said, thinking he needed to get gas and call the captain. He hoped Carmody wouldn’t want a meeting tonight.

  “I’ll be as nervous as a lifelong virgin before her wedding night. Take care of yourself, hon.”

  Nantz. She was a live wire and he still didn’t understand what she saw in him.

  An hour later she was on the phone again. “Never mind picking me up,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I tried to get a commercial flight but on such short notice I couldn’t work it out.”

  “That’s okay. I can drive.”

  “You don’t need to drive all the way down here, hon. I talked to a friend, Tucker Gates. He’s ferrying a bird down to Lansing for Big Bear Air on Saturday. He’ll deliver that bird and he’ll fly me back in mine. Pretty good, huh? I can get a rental car for the time I’m home and leave my truck here. Tuck will pick me up Saturday morning and we’ll be back by dinnertime, which is probably a good thing. The forecast is calling for some nasty weather swinging down from Alberta on Sunday. Heaps of snow!”

  “Is this Gates guy safe?” Big Bear Air was a small contract outfit based at the Delta County Airport near Escanaba.

  “He’s an old boyfriend, Grady, and the best pilot I’ve ever known. He flies Warthogs for the air guard out of Battle Creek.”

  Service pictured a swaggering fighter pilot, full of himself. “How did you meet this guy?”

  “Are you jealous, Service?”

  “Just asking.”

  “He’s done contract work for the department and he really wants to get on full time. We went out a few times years ago. He’s a great guy. Don’t worry, okay?”

  “I’m not worried.” Shaken up, irritated maybe, but not worried.

  “I love you, Grady Service. I can’t wait to see you.”

  God, life could be complicated, he thought.

  At 5:30 p.m. it was beginning to rain as Service aimed his truck northwest up the M-69, thinking it would help to get closer to Carmody when he called.

  Between Felch and Foster City a deer suddenly bounded out of the heavy brush on the side of the road. Service knew from long experience not to swerve. The deer had sealed its own fate and struck the Laramie nearly dead center of the steel deer guard. He felt the animal dragging beneath the truck and braked to pull to the side of the road just past where the road passed over Quarry Creek.

  He left the motor running as he got out and shone his flashlight under the vehicle. The animal was still alive, its sides heaving and breath forming clouds. He decided to take some time to let the small button buck settle and got back into the cab. If the deer wasn’t hurt badly it would recover and crawl out on its own. If the blow were lethal, it would die. He had no desire to get kicked trying to extract an injured animal from beneath the truck. He lit a cigarette, turned on his flashers, and checked his watch. It was just after 6:30 p.m.

  Listening to the motor, he reminded himself to get more gas up the road.

  All he could do now was wait for nature to take its course. Nantz was coming home. He reminded himself that she was hurt and would need to take it easy. The rain turned to snow.

  Fifteen minutes later a slow-rolling truck came up behind him, passed, and immediately pulled over and parked on the shoulder just ahead of him.

  A figure shuffled back toward Service’s truck and stood just beyond the reach of his headlights. The figure wore a ratty long coat with a hood. When the man got close, he knelt and looked under the truck, then struggled back to his feet. Service got out.

  “Cheaper to shoot ’em,” the figure said with a familiar croaky voice.

  It was Limpy Allerdyce, the poacher who had once shot him and served seven years in prison because of it. The previous summer Service had solved the mystery of the murder of Allerdyce’s son. The old man was the leader of a clan of poachers and lawbreakers who lived in a primitive compound in the most extreme reaches of southwest Marquette County. Allerdyce had known Service’s father and claimed to have had an “arrangement” with him, implying he had been one of his father’s informants.

  “Just like your old man,” Allerdyce said. “Always in a pickle, eh? You want me to take this critter off your hands?”

  “Might be the first legal one you ever took,” Service said.

  “Old farts grow wise,” Allerdyce croaked back. “They all eat good, eh?”

  Service knew Allerdyce would never change, and he had forged a truce with the miscreant; for the moment he wasn’t interested in knowing why the old man was out in his truck in the rain. Not that he couldn’t guess. Probably road hunting at night, but Service wasn’t going to press it. By law the Michigan State Police could issue a permit to allow motorists to harvest a deer killed by a vehicle. Service doubted Allerdyce would bother with such a formality. The old man had pretty much ignored all laws all of his life.

  The buck struggled momentarily beneath the truck and Service knew it was still alive.

  “Poor thing’s done in,” Allerdyce said.

  Service thought for a minute and decided.

  “Take it,” he said.

  Allerdyce looked frail, but he immediately dropped to his knees and rooted around beneath the truck. Then he shuffled back to his truck and backed it up. He left the motor running and came back with a rope.

  The animal made no more sounds.

  Allerdyce ducked under the truck again, got up, and began pulling against the dead weight of the animal, which he hauled to the rear of his pickup. He opened the top half of the gate on the cap, reac
hed down, hoisted the deer, and pushed it in. It landed with a loud plop.

  “You’re a good man, Sonny. Your old man he woulda been proud. I guess both of us is gettin’ wiser, eh?” Allerdyce let loose a little cackle.

  Service shone his flashlight into the bed of Allerdyce’s truck. There were two small bucks inside, plus the one the old man had just loaded. The throat of the newest addition had been cut.

  “All of them hit by vehicles?” Service said.

  “Youse bet. She’s a bad night for da deers oot on da blacktop, eh. And a good night for da supper table.”

  Service knew he could cite the old man; probably there would be a rifle in the cab, uncased and loaded. As a paroled felon, Allerdyce was not allowed to handle firearms of any kind for any purpose, but the animal was out from under his truck and Service thought it a fair trade, given the circumstances.

  Allerdyce stood still, waiting to see what Service would do.

  “Thanks, Limpy.”

  Allerdyce cackled. “Just like his old man.” The poacher started to move toward his cab, but stopped. “You hear inna-ting ’boot a blue wolf runnin’ over to da Skeeto?”

  Service tensed. Skeeto was Limpy’s term for the Mosquito Wilderness Tract. “A blue wolf?” Service answered. If there was a blue wolf in the Mosquito, McCants would have told him.

  Allerdyce chuckled. “Yep, a blue one. Just thought youse might like to hear what’s passin’ mouth ta ear, eh.”

  With that, the poacher was on his way with three deer in the bed of his truck. Sometimes you had to look the other way, Service told himself, grimacing at his sudden pragmatism. Maybe age was catching up to him. Compromise at any age amounted to surrender, pure and simple, and Service was never comfortable with surrendering to anyone over anything. Except for Nantz.

  And a blue wolf in the Mosquito? Doubtful, but possible. If anyone knew, it would be Allerdyce. The old man was a sociopath, but he knew his craft. Still, why had he brought it up?

  The snow kept coming. Service was parked in the hamlet of Alberta by 9 p.m. There were lights on in most of the small houses and a few vehicles coming and going. Henry Ford had built the town during the depression, and it had become a lumber camp during World War II. Little had changed in the village since then.

  The call came precisely at 9:30 p.m.

  “Service.”

  “Finally at your post, boyo. I haven’t long to chat, but the lady has put out a reward for anybody who can find a blue wolf—not to bag it, but to find it. Once it’s found, I’ll be going along with her to do the business.”

  “When?”

  “She’s just gotten word that the animal has been seen in a place called the Mosquito. We’ll be moving over there in a day or so.”

  “There are no wolves in the Mosquito,” Service said.

  “There, elsewhere, it doesn’t matter,” Carmody said. “Sooner or later her finders will locate it.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Service said. “Her finders?”

  “It’s the lady’s plan, not mine.”

  “Is her other half involved?”

  “Couldn’t really say yet. Me gut says it’s her show, but I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “You need evidence.”

  “I know my job, Service.”

  Grady Service decided not to relay Barry Davey’s message. He needed Carmody to finish before the end of deer season, when most of the heavy poaching would stop. It was now or never. “When will we meet?”

  “When I decide,” Carmody said in an almost amused tone. “Worried, are you?”

  “I’m not comfortable being out of touch so long.”

  “Welcome to the shadow world. Time I run. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Call if you change locations.”

  “Aye, wouldn’t do otherwise, bucko.”

  With those words, Carmody hung up and Service stared at his cell phone.

  It was a pain in the ass to work cases at opposite ends of the U.P. and he decided he would return home and sleep in his own bed—or rather, Maridly’s bed. The concept of a bed made him laugh out loud. A far cry from his old setup on footlockers. Your life’s changing, he told himself as he made a tight U-turn to return to Gladstone.

  The snow was steady. As he passed the old Narenta railroad crossing on US 2 near Hyde, his headlights caught a flash of something large and dark soaring low over the truck toward the Highland Golf Club course on the south side of the highway. Service instinctively put on his brakes and squinted to see what it was, but the snow was heavy and there was nothing to see but gossamer curtains. It damn sure wasn’t a bird, he told himself.

  He knew the Delta County Airport lay six or seven miles directly to the east. If what he had seen had been an aircraft, it was precariously low and ominously silent. He parked his truck on the shoulder, turned on his flashers, grabbed his emergency pack and compass, pulled on his Gore-Tex coat, pulled the hood over his baseball cap, and started walking in the direction the shape had seemed to travel.

  The golf course was flat with only a hint of rises. After ten minutes he was ready to give up and return to his truck, but there was a tree line ahead and he decided to walk that far before turning back. The snow turned to rain again as he approached the tree line, and with his flashlight he saw a couple of large white pine branches lying in the rough near the fairway. He shone his light into the treetops and saw that something had sheered off the tops of some trees. He immediately keyed the microphone of his eight-hundred-megahertz handheld radio, called the Delta County dispatcher, identified himself and his location, and asked for assistance. “Possible aircraft down,” he said as he shuffled on, returning the radio to its carrying case and plunging into the trees.

  There was no fire ahead of him, but one hundred yards into the forest his light picked up a glint of metal.

  He hurried toward the reflection and saw a small plane nose-down, one wing lying on the ground close to the wreck and the other wing torn, but caught in a tree and propping up the aircraft at an awkward angle. He pulled out his radio again and confirmed his location and the facts that an aircraft was indeed down and he was at the wreckage.

  He eased toward the wreckage through twisted strips of aluminum and aimed his light into the cockpit. The pilot was slumped against his yoke, held in place by his shoulder harness. Service had to stand on tiptoes to see. He could smell fumes.

  Service used his flashlight to search the ground for something to stand on and finally located a substantial piece of deadwood in the shape of a Y. He dragged it to the aircraft and propped it up. Using the wood as a foot stand, he pulled himself up to the cockpit window. It was closed. He tapped on the window, but got no response from the pilot. He tried to slide the window open, but it was jammed. There were fumes in the air. He heard sirens in the distance and deliberated waiting but he was here now. He knew that moving a severely injured person could sometimes make injuries worse, but the fumes were definitely intensifying, and he was still smarting from the two deaths at Seney. Probably a leak from the tank. Would the rain and snow evaporate the fuel? He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to wait to find out.

  Operating in total darkness, he took off his hat, pulled his sidearm from its holster, and wrapped it in the hat to avoid making sparks. It took a half dozen sharp whacks to crack the window, but when it went, it shattered into pellets. He felt his perch wobbling and grabbed the window frame to brace himself, reached inside, and felt the pilot’s neck for a pulse. Still alive. He stretched his arm inside and found the door latch and released it. The door didn’t open.

  The sirens were closer now, but he hurried to get the pilot out. There was nothing worse than to get close to a save only to have fate jerk it away from you at the last moment. He pulled and pulled on the door, but it refused to give. No choice, he told himself, his mind racing. The pilot l
ooked pretty small. It would be a tight fit but he would have to pull him through the window. He reached in and tried to release the safety harness, but the mechanism refused to budge. Shit. He found the parachute cord knife he had carried since Vietnam, opened the hooked blade, and slashed his way through the nylon webbing with one hand while bracing himself against the fuselage with his leg and holding the pilot’s collar with his other hand.

  When the harness was cut away, the pilot’s weight sagged forward and to the side. Service dropped his knife onto the ground behind him, got both arms around the man, and began to pull. Something on the man’s jacket caught on the window, but Service kept tugging. His perch was slipping and with a final surge, he pulled the man through, and clutched him as they tumbled face-to-face.

  They hit cold muddy ground hard. Service fought to regain his breath, eased the pilot onto the ground beside him, and rolled him over to take a look. His big flashlight was gone, but he carried a small one attached to the zipper of his jacket. He illuminated the man’s face and found himself staring at the wizened features of Joe Flap.

  “Jesus Christ, Pranger!”

  Joe Flap was an old-time CO, a horseblanket who, until retiring a few years back, had been one of the few contemporaries of his father still on the force. Until this past fall Joe still flew occasional missions for the DNR, but he had been grounded in October, and Service couldn’t imagine what he would be doing up on a night like this. Or flying at all.

  “Jesus, Joe.” Flap had crashed so many times and had so many close calls that other pilots and COs called him Pranger. Prang was pilot slang for a crash.

  Service felt for a pulse. The little man was unconscious, but his pulse was steady.

  People were yelling from the edge of the woods and Service answered them, guiding them to him. He saw lights slashing through the woods from the fairway to the north of him.

  A fireman was first on the scene, followed closely by two EMTs from Escanaba Ramparts.

  The fireman flashed his light around and grunted. “Fumes. Let’s move him outta here.”

  Service helped the men carry Joe Flap to the edge of the golf course as more help arrived.