Blue Wolf In Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

  Service walked into the District 3 office through the front entrance. Margie, the district’s dispatcher-secretary-receptionist, was in a hushed debate with two men in flannel shirts about property lines. She waved at him and smiled as he passed.

  The biologist sat on a stool in his cubicle, staring at a poster of two wolves barely visible in a snowstorm. Zambonet’s office was cluttered with wolf posters and photographs, black radio collars, and several stainless-steel leghold traps.

  “Where’s the fire?” Service asked. Zambonet swiveled slowly around on his stool. He groaned as he got to his feet, took Service by the arm, and led him quickly past several small cubicles to where they could see the small waiting area on the Division of Environmental Quality’s side of the building.

  A woman in a black business suit and black pumps was talking quietly to a man in a faded brown corduroy suit. The woman’s back was to them. Both had black hair. Indians, he guessed, dressed for business.

  “That’s the fire,” Zambonet said. “Or the accelerant,” he added.

  Service watched the two visitors and when the woman turned around, he sucked in a breath.

  “They’re here to talk about the blue wolf,” Zambonet said. “They want to know what plan we have to protect it.”

  Service wasn’t listening to the biologist. His eyes were still on the woman in the black suit. “What did you tell them?” he asked, the biologist’s words barely registering.

  “Shit-all, so far. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Let’s talk to them,” Service said, stepping into a small conference room.

  The biologist fetched the guests.

  Service stood when they walked in. The woman’s dark eyes were fixed on him.

  Zambonet held business cards and read from them. “Ms. Natalie Namegoss and Mr. Gaylord LiBourne, this is Detective Grady Service of the Wildlife Resource Protection Unit. Would you folks like a cup of coffee? We drink a lot of it this time of year.”

  “Thank you, black for me,” LiBourne said. “Is there a rest room handy?”

  “Also black,” Namegoss said.

  Zambonet and LiBourne left together, and Grady Service and the woman eyed each other across the table. It had been twelve or thirteen years, Service thought. She had a streak of gray now, almost a stripe, but she was still stunning. “Ahh-neen, Nena.”

  The woman smiled. “Ahh-neen, petcha,” she said. “You were in the news last summer.”

  “Seems like you’re always in the news,” he said, which drew a shrug and a smile.

  He had met Namegoss while she was a law student at University of Oklahoma, on an internship with the American Indian Movement, and in the Upper Peninsula on a fact-finding tour to prepare a briefing on treaty rights. Her rental car had run out of gas between Munising and Marquette and he had been on his way to a predawn patrol of fishermen on an Alger County river where poachers often operated. He had taken her into Munising to a gas station, gotten her coffee and a can of gas, returned her to her vehicle, and put her back on the road.

  It had not been an auspicious beginning. It was dark, well before sunrise, and she had seemed wary of getting into his vehicle. On the way back with gas and coffee she had said, “I was told wa-bish lawmen look down on Nish-naw-be women.” Wa-bish was Ojibwa for “white.”

  “Not all wa-bish are racists,” he said. “Just as all Nish-naw-be are not racists.”

  “You speak the language?”

  “Just a few words. I can barely speak English.”

  She let go of a nervous, but pleased chuckle. “Woods cop,” she said. “Game warden.”

  “Woods cop works for me.”

  Before getting her back on the road, he had given her one of his business cards. “If you have more problems, call me.”

  He never expected to see her again.

  Two days later his sergeant had called to tell him a complaint had been lodged against him. “What kind of complaint?”

  “Chippewa woman,” his sergeant whispered. “Said you were antisocial.”

  Service knew who it was. “Did she call in?”

  “She’s standing right here,” the sergeant said.

  “Give her the phone.”

  Service didn’t wait for her to talk. “I don’t know what your problem is, miss, but I don’t appreciate bullshit calls. I stopped in the middle of the night, got you gas, coffee, and put you back on the road. What’s your problem?”

  “My name is Natalie Namegoss and you didn’t even ask me my name, Officer,” she said.

  “I didn’t need your name.”

  “Oh, but you do, Officer. I didn’t thank you properly that night.”

  His anger ebbed, her tone of voice puzzling. “You don’t need to thank me.”

  “Oh, but I do. I was remiss. I would like to take you to dinner—as a thank-you.”

  Service had stared at the phone. “I’m working nights.”

  “How about lunch? You do eat lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes you accept or yes you eat lunch?”

  “Both,” he said.

  “You aren’t a conversationalist, are you?”

  “When I have reason to be.”

  She laughed teasingly. “Well, I will just have to find a good reason for you to talk, won’t I? Lunch tomorrow. Where’s good for you?”

  He had to see the county prosecutor in Marquette in the morning. “Marquette, Scipio’s Pizza. Noon?”

  “Noon is fine. Do we need reservations?” she asked.

  “For pizza?” It was his turn to laugh.

  “Good, noon it is, Officer Service.”

  His sergeant came back on the phone. “What the hell was that all about?”

  “Beats hell out of me,” Service said.

  Two days after their lunch they were wading the Yellow Dog River south of Big Bay and he was teaching her to fly fish. He learned that she had been born in the Soo, the daughter of full-blood Chippewas, a doctor and a teacher. Her parents had moved to Columbus, Ohio, so that their only child could get a better education.

  Over the next month they were nearly inseparable, both of them neglecting some of their duties in favor of more enjoyable pursuits. She tried to teach him more of the Ojibwa language and in time she became ne-nan-ing, meaning “five times each time,” and he began to call her Nena instead of Natalie. He became petcha, which means “lasts long.” It had been a month of sheer lust with no promises implied or asked for, but she had made an impression on him. She was smart, adventurous, independent, and focused almost solely on the life ahead of her. The last thing he had read about her placed her with the American Indian Movement, living in Denver.

  Now her card said indigenous peoples’ red-green circle.

  “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the symbol on her card.

  “Native Americans dedicated to environmentalism. Red and green.”

  “How’re your parents?” Service asked.

  “My father retired. He was in the running for surgeon general in the first Clinton administration, but he got out-politicked. I thought he’d move into a small practice to keep active in medicine, but he hasn’t. He fishes and shoots photographs. I think he’s happy.”

  “Your mother?”

  Namegoss shook her head. “She met an Athabascan lawyer from Juneau and decided to move on. He was twenty years younger. She passed away last year.”

  “I’m sorry,” Service said.

  “Live for today,” Namegoss said. “We can’t get yesterday back and there’s no way to predict tomorrow. You still working nights?”

  He smiled. “Some.”

  “I was thinking along the lines of lunch. How’s the pizza around here?”

  “I thought we couldn’t get yesterday back.”<
br />
  Namegoss gave him a look. “I’m talking about today, now.”

  He was more than flattered; something definitely stirred in him. Their month had been one to remember. He was relieved when he said, “I’m seeing someone.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Seeing as in we saw each other, or seeing as in love?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Namegoss raised her eyebrow again and let forth a soft whistle. “I’d like to meet that woman.”

  Zambonet came back with coffee with LiBourne trailing close behind him.

  Namegoss was first to speak. “We’re aware that a blue wolf was released from Vermillion,” she began. “We’re here to find out what the Michigan Department of Natural Resources plans to do to protect the animal. All wolves are sacred to our people. We believe that what happens to the wolf will happen to man and vice versa. The wolf was nearly extinct, but now it is returning. Native Americans were similarly hunted and persecuted for the purpose of extermination. By watching the wolf we can learn to live a more natural way. And to survive.” Namegoss took a deep breath and her voice hardened.

  “That’s the philosophical spin. We’re not here to make nice. The facts are these: The blue wolf was part of an American government experiment to use wolves for military surveillance. We have indisputable evidence of this and we suspect that the state is not party to such federal bullshit, so we believe we can be allies in this.”

  Her black eyes lasered into Zambonet, who sat impassively. Service felt the lanky biologist’s leg bouncing anxiously under the conference table.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Service said. “What is it that you want?”

  “We want what we want for all our brothers,” LiBourne said. He had a soft, almost musical voice. “We want our brother to remain free, not to be returned to captivity.”

  “There’s no plan to recapture the wolf,” Yogi said, suddenly joining in. “Now that he’s out, he’ll disperse as any other redundant pack animal would do.”

  “Disperse?” LiBourne asked.

  “He’ll travel around until he finds a female to mate with and then they’ll start their own pack. Or he’ll continue to have conflicts with existing packs. More wolves are killed by other wolves than by humans or vehicles.”

  LiBourne received the information passively and said, “But some of our brothers have been killed,” he said politely.

  Zambonet looked over at Service, who said, “Yes.”

  “What’s being done about it?” Namegoss asked.

  “It’s under investigation,” Service said.

  “The classic federal bromide,” Namegoss shot back.

  “We’re not feds,” Service said.

  “Your words are the same,” she countered.

  “Our blue brother would be a trophy for some,” LiBourne said.

  Service agreed. “The law doesn’t differentiate a blue wolf from other gray wolves. The penalties are the same and the blue runs the same risks that other wolves run. The Endangered Species Act classifies them as endangered. There are stiff fines and jail time for killing or harassing.”

  “How many wolves have been shot?” Namegoss asked. “Not since the animals decided to return on their own, but this fall.”

  “Three,” Zambonet said.

  Service felt his neck turn hot. Three? Had Yogi held back on him? Sonuvabitch.

  “The same shooter?” Namegoss said.

  Service put his arm in front of the biologist. “It’s under investigation.”

  “Yes,” Namegoss said. “We’ve heard that. Three of our brothers are dead and the blue wolf is out there, and what do you plan to do to protect him?”

  How did you protect something you couldn’t find? “Is there anything else?” Service asked to end the discussion and the meeting.

  Namegoss and LiBourne picked up their briefcases.

  LiBourne followed Zambonet out the door, but Namegoss held back.

  “Petcha is a fine quality in sex,” she said, “but not in finding a killer.”

  “Sometimes it takes sheer endurance to get to any destination. It’s under investigation,” he repeated.

  “You would make a fine politician,” Namegoss said with an admiring smile. “You are skilled in the art of saying something that is nothing.” She put another of her business cards on the table. “We’re at the Verdigris Inn in Iron River. The invitation to lunch stands.”

  “Lunch?” he said.

  “Lunch,” she repeated in a monotone.

  Their visitors gone, Service launched into the biologist.

  “You asshole! Three wolves. It’s not enough we’ve got Sheena Grinda playing Lone Ranger. Three? Jesus Christ.”

  “Calm down, for Pete’s sake, chill! The third one was found last night. Just before you walked in I got a call from Gus Turnage in Houghton.”

  “Gus found it?”

  “He said some Finn named Wetelainen found it.”

  Service nodded and changed tone. “Yalmer Wetelainen, the Shark. He found it near the Firesteel River.”

  Zambonet looked confused. “I thought you didn’t know. Thirty seconds ago you were ready to rip off my head.”

  Wetelainen managed the Yooper Court Motel, two miles from the campus of Michigan Tech in Houghton, and worked only to pay for his hunting and fly-fishing obsessions. He was forty, bald, thin, short, and partial to beer, especially his homemade brew, which he made and consumed in copious quantities, mostly because it was cheap. Despite drinking beer and straight vodka in alarming amounts, Wetelainen never showed a single symptom of inebriation. And despite eating and drinking like a pig, he never gained weight. Service and Gus had decided their friend’s unique metabolism fit no known human physiological profile and because of this, they had named him Shark.

  “Shark is a friend. He has a camp on the Firesteel. Last summer he showed me a female and four pups in that area. Is the dead one a female?”

  The biologist shook his head. “Gus is bringing the body down for necropsy. It’s a male.”

  Service felt relieved. Since seeing the wolves last summer he had thought often of them and hoped the day would come when wolves would settle in the Mosquito.

  “Last night?” he asked Zambonet. He had talked to Carmody last night, and the undercover had said nothing about another wolf. What did this mean?

  Gus arrived an hour after the Red-Green Circle people departed, dragging the carcass in a black plastic garbage bag and hoisting it up to a table with a stainless-steel top. The animal had dark fur, nearly black, which the office’s fluorescent lighting turned a dark blue.

  “Where’s the head, Gus?” Service asked.

  “This is all we found,” Turnage said.

  Service and Turnage talked while Zambonet measured the body. Service helped him load it on the scale for weighing.

  “Have you seen Wink Rector?” Service asked.

  Gus said, “Yah sure, he’s around town all the time nowadays.”

  Which could offer a rational explanation for his not being part of the Soo team.

  “BATF there?”

  “Yah sure. They’ll be gathering evidence for months.”

  BATF was visible in Houghton, but not at Vermillion. Why?

  Yogi estimated the animal’s age at three years. The carcass minus the head weighed seventy-one pounds. “Nice big fella,” the biologist said sadly.

  “He looks blue,” Service said.

  “Trick of the lighting in here. This fella’s pure black. Not common, but not rare like a blue. You see a blue in the bush and you’ll understand what I mean. It’s not something you’ll soon forget.”

  “What blue?” Gus asked.

  Service quickly briefed him on the events at Vermillion, the escaped blue wolf, and the two previous wo
lf shootings.

  “I heard something about Grinda’s wolf,” Gus said. He dropped a black plastic garbage bag on the table and opened it. Inside was a shirt that looked like a CO’s uniform top.

  “What the hell is this?” Service asked. “You gonna do your laundry while you’re here?”

  “The animal had been gutted, and this shirt was hanging on the carcass. That happen with the other two?” Turnage asked.

  Service gave him a look. “No. It looks like this one is an even more direct message to us.”

  Turnage said with a grunt, “Like a six-foot-long middle finger standin’ straight up.”

  “You recover brass?” Service asked.

  Turnage took out a small, clear evidence bag and placed it on the table. “This was at the shooter’s perch, stuck on a stick. I brushed it for prints, but it’s clean.”

  Service saw Wolf Daddy look over at him and cringe. Every wolf kill was a stab at the biologist’s passion.

  “I wish I had known about Grinda’s wolf earlier,” Service said.

  Turnage shrugged and said deadpan, “What can I say, we working wardens don’t like talking to you paper-pushing pukes.”

  The biologist grinned at the put-down and Service bristled momentarily, but his mind was too engaged in the wolf situation to take real umbrage.

  “Can I ask a theoretical question?” he asked Zambonet.

  “Uh-oh,” Turnage muttered as an aside.

  “Ask,” the biologist said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Theoretically you could capture a wolf to put a collar on it.”

  “That’s not theoretical. We do it all the time,” Zambonet said seriously.

  “I mean a specific wolf.”

  Zambonet paused before answering. “Theoretically, if you have the manpower, the know-how, and some luck. You have to identify the animal and its travel routes and habits, then put down a heap of traps and check them once or twice a day to make sure the animal isn’t injured when the traps are sprung. When a wolf learns about traps he’s usually too damn smart to fall for it again. We think the older ones teach the younger ones, so when you have a pack, you usually have some knowledge and wariness of traps being passed along. The challenge is to trick the target animal into stepping in a sixteen-square-inch space inside a territory that can be up to one hundred square miles.”