“Not near enough damn guns is what, nor the will to use ’em,” Faks said. “Face it, boys, and I hate to mention this out loud, but we have, and it even pains me to say this, we have become a nation of pussies.”
“I ain’t no pussy,” Pokryfyke said with a growl. “I won’t even eat that shit.”
Nation of pussies, Faks thought, has a nice ring to it. He’d write it down later, keep it in his leadership repertoire. “You’re right. We ain’t no pussies, but look around. I put out the summons to battle, and it’s just us three here.”
“Kind of cold tonight,” Balum said, stepping closer to the fire and folding his arms across his chest. “Just our luck Loco Joe will show up and beat da shit outta all of us.”
“One against three?” Faks said incredulously. “You afraid?”
Pokryfyke said quietly, “Not afraid, cautious is all. It’s okay even for brave men to be cautious. Otherwise them Navy Seals wunta got old bin Laden, sayin’?”
The three men heard a badly muffled four-wheeler surging northward on Glen Cove Road. Faks said, “Koney Tomarck. When’s he gonna get that piece of shit muffler fixed? Can’t work with people gonna hear his ass coming a mile off, for chrissakes.”
The visitor turned out to be not Koney Tomarck, but his Hamtramck cousin’s friend Gilbert Horseman.
“We thought you was Koney,” Faks greeted the new arrival.
“His old lady got him throwed in the tank.”
“What for this time?” Pokryfyke asked.
“I guess he knocked her around some, and she called the nine one one, and in come the storm troopers, led by Loco Joe Traynor, who just happened to be closest when the call come in.”
Faks said, “Fricking Traynor, and everywhere we look we got Loco Joe and those damn Russians.”
“Koney resisted,” Horseman said, “but Loco Joe beat up on him real bad and real quick.”
“Where’s a man’s rights?” Pokryfyke asked. “I once seen this movie ’bout a country where a woman fucked anybody but her old man, the law let him brand her head with a H for horticulturess, and if he wants, the old man can kill her sorry ass, all legal-like.”
“You gotta stop watching movies,” Faks complained. “They’ll just tie knots in your mind.”
“Yah, well, I seen the same damn thing on a video game, and everybody knows they can’t put nothing that ain’t true in video games, you know, the ones that are s’posed to be, like, real life. That’s the law.”
Video games? Sweet Jesus God. “Hank, shut your damn beer hole before we all kick your stupid ass.”
Pokryfyke shrugged. “I try to enlighten you dudes, but you don’t wanta know; ain’t no sweat off’n my balls.”
Faks looked at his crew. Clegg and Holo he’d known his whole sorry life, but Gilbert Horseman was an outsider. He’d shown up a year ago with Koney Tomarck’s cousin and come north now and then since that time. A union guy, he worked tool and die outside Flat Rock and seemed okay, but he was an outsider, and Faks couldn’t get past that fact, which put his nerves on edge. As a leader, you had to be damn careful with so many Russian stooges and informers around.
“How long you up this time?” Faks asked Horseman.
“Month, GM’s got model changeover going on. So, what we got going for giggles and profit?”
“We?” Faks shot back. “You ain’t no we, Horseman. Leastwise not yet. And what’s with that faggy name? You tribal or what?”
“Yeah,” Horseman said. “Fuckawee tribe: Where the fuck are we, eh?”
Pokryfyke and Balum laughed at the old joke. Faks didn’t. “How you know Traynor was first to get to Koney’s place?”
“His old lady told me.”
“Best stay clear of that stuff,” Faks said. “She’s trouble, calls the law over spilt beer and such.”
“Beatin’ on your old lady ain’t no small thing these days,” Horseman said. “Cops and judges downstate take that shit, like, serious, sayin’?”
“Fuckin’ Russians,” Faks said.
“Who?” Horseman asked.
“DNR, judges, all pigs, social workers, whole frickin’ lot.”
“I heard down to the shop the DNR has special federal money to pay snitches,” Horseman said. “Couple million this year, the guys said.”
“Snitches,” Faks said, making a face in the firelight. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, Russians payin’ kids to snitch on their mommies and daddies, keep track of ever’body, ever’thing.”
“I thought the Russians went broke,” Balum said.
“You see that in a movie?” Pokryfyke asked.
“On the TV, I think. Fox mebbe.”
“Nah, they still got money,” Faks said. “Commies stole all the government’s shit, mines, old factories and shit, and call themselves businessmen. Rob your ass just like corporate suits right here in America. Can’t believe nothing on the damn TV. They all owned by corporations, says what the suits want ’em ta say.”
Balum protested. “But it was Fox News, that Glen what’s-his-face, looks like a prairie dog sucked bad lemons?” Balum made a face.
They all laughed.
“Heard something else,” Horseman said. “Feds are afraid A-rabs got secret agents here by the hundreds. DNR’s getting money to help Homeland Security root out towel-head spies, shoot their asses like wild hogs, no questions asked.”
Faks said, “Ain’t no frickin’ A-rab spies up here in these woods. There was, we’d know.”
“Boys in the shop said the DNR will use money to step on guns and violator crews. Feds think violators are supplying them Christ-hating Moslems with guns and ammo.”
Deathly silence. “Fuck we want to give our guns to towel heads for?” Faks asked.
“Cash. You know them Moslems got all that damn A-rab oil money, man. That’s a fact you can look up your Winkiepedia.”
Faks said, “We ain’t no terrorists, and we ain’t no traitors. Not us. Hell, I was a US Fucking Marine.”
“Drummond Island’s gonna be a top target for the DNR and Homeland Security,” Horseman said. “Just a short boat hop from Hockeyland across the lake.”
Faks mulled over what he had heard. Logic here was unwarranted yet seemed reasonable. The Gem of the Huron was just across the lake from Canada. “Who down to your shop told you all this shit?”
“Lotsa guys, and it was also in the Detroit Free Press. You didn’t read it?”
“Fuckin’ newspapers is Commie liberal tools,” Faks declared.
“Damn right,” Pokryfyke chimed in.
Faks hadn’t read or heard any of this shit, but it had always rolled around in the back of his mind that the feds and state boys could team up and, like, bring major heat. “Okay, boys, that’s it for tonight,” he announced.
“What about that job you got in mind?” Balum asked.
“We’ll talk later,” Faks said. “I got to gather me some more facts and intel first.”
The men nodded, got on their machines, and headed into the darkness for their homes.
Faks used a shovel to knock down and extinguish their small fire. You couldn’t shoot ducks, bears, wolves, or deer if the damn woods burned down. When the fire looked safe, he mounted his Polaris RAZr and raced away into the night.
•••
Horseman ducked into a camp off Johnswood Road. The DNR truck was backed up the two-track lane. Joe Traynor was smoking a cigarette, cupping it with his hand to hide the glowing ember. Horseman’s real name was Kripp, a detective with the Department of Natural Resource’s Wildlife Resource Protection Unit, and operating undercover as he had for the past three years.
“How’re my boys?” Traynor asked.
“Dumb as bicycle chains,” Horseman said. “I gave them the story, and they split. Faks is cagey and real
cautious.”
“Not cautious enough. His sister Engadetta tells me everything he’s doing. She hates his ass.”
“Why bring me in?” Kripp asked.
“To save me time. If I can neutralize Faks with disinformation, I can spend time doing important things, not chasing those idiots.”
“Maybe those guys are right,” Horseman said. “We might operate a bit like the Russians.”
“Whatever floats their boat,” Loco Joe said. “They know I’m on the island?”
“Told ’em you put the whoop ass on Koney Tomarck.”
“Good, I’m gonna poke up into alvar country, spend the night out that way, catch the first ferry back tomorrow morning. You?”
“Last ferry tonight, head below the bridge, sleep with my wife; I hope she remembers how.”
“Do you?” Traynor asked his colleague.
Tripp snickered. “Guess we’ll find out, eh.”
Last Night as a Secret Squirrel
All Buck Dudek could think about was the crew of thugs he had to meet tomorrow. They were bear houndsmen out of Kentucky, and he had worked them for two years and eased his way into their confidence, a sickening job because they were lower than pond scum. Unlike most violators, who saw poaching as a sort of game, the Kentuckians were out-and-out lawbreakers, raping everything; anything that threatened their bottom line was “handled rat quick,” their leader once confided.
The Kentuckians guided licensed hunters, mostly from Michigan, but took gall bladders and paws from their “sports” kills, and from what Dudek could tell, unlicensed hunters in the group also had taken six to ten more animals each year for paws and galls to be sold to Korean middlemen in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Dudek knew this would be a major take-down and subsequent case. Or, if it went awry, he would be dead. There were no other outcomes between the two extremes, not with this crowd, and he was amped already.
Naturally, this would be another day Karna felt the need to do jumping jacks on his psychological trampoline.
“Good God, Buck, that damn ponytail makes you look like a fool. How long does this charade have to go on?”
Ten years in uniform, the last four as an undercover detective, and Dudek had made it a point to keep his wife as far in the dark as possible, which was a difficult balancing act because she was smart, curious, nosy, and downright assertive about what she wanted. Truth: She was too emotional and too impulsive to entrust with even small tidbits about his undercover work. His only choice: Lie and dissemble, which made him sick.
His ponytail, of course, told her something about what he might be up to, but he never revealed precisely what, with whom, or where. All Karna knew was that he was a detective and not required to wear a uniform.
“I swear,” she said, “most wives in my situation would pack up and move the hell on. Out all hours—for days sometimes—comin’ home stinking of cigarettes, cheap whiskey, dope, perfume . . . How am I supposed to know you’re not fooling around on me, Dudek? Tell me that.”
“Because I’m not,” he answered, calmly eyeing his body armor. No way he could hide a Kevlar vest around the Kentuckians, but without it he felt naked and exposed. The hammerless Taurus .38 snubby in his calf holster didn’t help his confidence, either. A gun was a matter of last choice, desperation. Having to reach for the weapon would mean he had failed, that the case was in the shitcan, and he’d be damn lucky to get out with his life and body intact.
There were times when he wished Karna could be calm and serene, and listen, but this just wasn’t her way. She was a born drama queen in all things, large and small, and a legendary gossip. Actually, her being so gossipy helped his cover. If anyone came poking around, they’d look at Karna and think no way that woman’s husband is an undercover cop.
“When are you leaving this time?” she demanded.
“Half hour. You know where the will and paperwork are, right?” He knew this would set her off, but it was part of their ritual, and he had no desire to change ways after they had helped keep him alive for ten years.
“Goddammit, yes. You say the same thing every time you leave, and it still just about floors me. It really, really creeps me out, Buck, this talk of wills and that damn silly ponytail.”
“I said the same thing before every patrol when I was in uniform,” he reminded her.
“It’s different since you became a damn secret squirrel.”
Dudek looked over at his wife. “Where’d you hear that term?”
Karna rolled her eyes. “I talk to the other wives, duh? They seem to know more about your work than I do, and that makes me wonder what you’re really up to.”
“What do they say?”
“They say they’d divorce their spouses if they took such a job.”
“Is that what you want?”
Karna pushed his chest with the heels of her hands. “No, you big jerk. I just want a normal life, watching you getting into your patrol truck, listening to you bitch about your sergeant and Lansing, finding all the stinky evidence you left in our fridge and freezer, yelling at the kids for leaving toys in your boots, you know, a normal uniformed game warden’s life.”
“I doubt many would call that normal.”
“They’re not game warden families.”
“And we are, you included?”
“Dudek,” she said, “I’m the pilot of this mother ship, keeping us all on course while you battle the forces of evil.”
Dudek made a sniffing sound toward her. She was a foot shorter, skinny. “You been hittin’ on the bottle?”
She slammed his chest again and waved her hand at the back door. “Go on and get yourself shot, or have sex with some diseased swamp angel.”
“Do I get to pick?” he shot back.
“Hell no, that’s my job! Pushed to a wall, I’d prefer you do the flatbed tango with skanks than take bullets in your brainpan.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Git,” she said. “When will we see you again?”
“Day after tomorrow, probably. Sometime.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Yep.”
“And when do you leave again?”
“Saturday.”
“Well, at least you’ll be home for a few days.”
“Saturday you and I will be driving over to Crystal Falls to look for a house.”
Karna Dudek stared at her husband, her mouth open, frozen between words.
“Promoted,” he said. “Lieutenant for the district.”
His wife whispered, “Ohmygod.”
“You like?” he asked.
No words, but she nodded enthusiastically. “Can’t you stay home tonight so we can, well, you know. Geez, Buck, can’t they find another officer this one time? I mean, good God, Buck!”
“No can do, hon. You know better than that. You need to start thinking like a lieutenant’s wife. There will be twenty families for us to worry about.”
“You mean no gossip?” she said.
“That would be a fine start.”
“Soap-on-a-rope, Buck, I don’t know. Maybe you should have talked to me before you accepted.”
“I can still turn it down, stay with what we have.”
“No more gossip,” Karna said, making a zipping motion across her mouth. “We got time to fool around?”
“I can’t do you and a swamp angel in the same night. Don’t have that kind of stamina anymore.”
She leered. “You had it last Tuesday morning.”
“The exception that proves the rule,” he said, pulling her to him. “You know where the paperwork is, right?”
She pulled away and wagged her finger. “Tell you what, Dudek, you make that the last time you ask that, and I’ll never gossip again, quid pro qu
o. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, pulled her close, and they had a lingering, tender kiss.
Out in the truck he called his lieutenant. “All set?”
The plan called for him to hook up with the Kentuckians. His truck was equipped with an electronic tracker and a disguised automatic vehicle locator panic button, hooked to his key fob. When an unlicensed hunter took an animal, he would sound the silent alarm, which would shoot a signal up to satellites and back down to his backups, who would come in hard and fast and make the arrests, including him. The bad guys wouldn’t know he’d set them up until it got to a jury, if it got that far. Meanwhile, Kentucky officers would serve warrants at the homes of the suspects in the group, and several Michigan officers would converge on the Kentuckians’ camp off Coast Guard Road, where they kept a freezer filled with illegally taken meat and animal parts.
•••
Driving to the rendezvous with the hunters, his hands kept shaking, and he stopped and bought a pack of unfiltered Camels and lit up. One more time, he told himself. Keep it together. Deep down he knew Karna was right. No one could endure the life of a secret squirrel for years on end.
“Last night as a secret squirrel,” he said out loud. “Keep your eye on the damn ball, Dudek.”
Sisyphus Redux
At more than two score years, the callipygous, auburn-haired Gayfryd Davilla Fairlane Flood had the tight-packed figure of a woman half her age, an IQ in the I-shit-you-not-o-sphere, the temperament of Virginia Woolf, the insatiable sexual appetite of Cleopatra, and the moral compass of a snake.
Ten years on the bench in the Upper Peninsula, and District Judge Flood had built a fearsome reputation as a punitive jurist, an avenging angel some called “G-Bomb.” She didn’t just throw the book at her docket dogs, she used the book to pound them so deep into the system that they’d never get loose.
The severe sentencing practices of Gayfryd deeply disturbed Conservation Officer Ernie Fortier, though he could never admit it publicly. How could he? For going on eight years Ernie had compiled a remarkable and enviable record of never having lost a case that went to a jury, not once. This made him the envy of Upper Peninsula law enforcement personnel, a sort of demigod of hardrock copwork.
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