Buckular Dystrophy

by Joseph Heywood

  “I just made a mistake,” the man said. “I shoot a lot of big bucks.”

  “In Michigan?”

  “No sir, just that one in Michigan. I usually get mine down to Wisconsin. They have bigger ones over there, ya know, more farms, more food. Can I have my picture back, sir?” The man held out his hand.

  “I think I’d better hang on to it for now.” Service keyed his radio. “Twenty-Five Fourteen partner, you want to scoot over here to help me?”

  Allerdyce was beside him in what seemed like an instant. “Let me have your truck keys, Mr. Chern.”

  “No, sir, I can’t,” the man said, his voice suddenly sharpening into a whine. “I have to go home now, sir. Please?”

  “You will give me the keys now, son. You’re not going anywhere until I say so, and that’s not going to happen for a while, so relax.” The man held out his keys.

  Service looked at Allerdyce and handed the keys to him. “He doesn’t leave until I say so.”

  “The old guy looks crazy,” Chern complained, his eyes riveted on the old poacher.

  Service said. “What you see is what you get.”

  Fifteen minutes later he found a loaded Remington .270 with a scope, a plastic chair behind a brush blind, and 40 to 50 gallons of bait in front of the rudimentary hide. He took photos of the setup and walked back to the truck, where he held up the rifle. “Look what I found.”

  “Not mine,” Chern said. “I never saw it before, sir. Swear to God and on my honor.”

  Service showed him a photo of the bait and the blind.

  “Not mine,” the man insisted.

  “I followed your footprints right to it. One set of tracks in, one set out. It’s you, and all that out there is yours.”

  “Sir, no sir, not mine, sir.”

  “You were on private property.”

  “I have permission, sir.”

  “From whom?”

  “The landowner.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t remember his name. I’ve—.”

  The man seemed to snip off whatever it was he was about to say.

  “You’ve what?”

  “Actually, sir, I do not have permission on this particular property, but my friend does.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Hill.”

  “Does Mr. Hill have a first name?”

  “Henry, but everyone calls him Fat Henny.”

  “Where does Fat Henny live?”

  “Someplace near Iron Mountain; I don’t know exactly, sir. I never actually been there. His dad’s sick, so they don’t like visitors.”

  “What’s Mr. Hill’s phone number?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have no cell phone.”

  No phone in this age? Not buying that. “Landline then?”

  “Not one of them neither. I don’t call him and he don’t call me. We just show up.”

  “Are you telling me you have no telephone?”

  “That’s affirmative, sir. No phone, sir. Money’s tight, and I don’t really need one.”

  “Are you telling me you guys communicate via ESP or something?”

  “No, sir, I don’t know what that is, that thing you just said.”

  Weird how he changes directions. “What about a phone for work?”

  “I got no work, sir.”

  “Let me see your operator’s license.”

  “I don’t got it on me, sir,” Chern said. “Forgot it. On accident.”

  “Yet you’re driving.”

  “You can’t hunt if you sit on the couch at home, sir.” the man said.

  “You said you were scouting.”

  “Hunt, scout, it’s all part of the same thing.”

  “So, for clarification, that twelve-point you got, was it last year or the season before?”

  “Well, I guess the photo is right. It was the year before last.”

  “You get a nice one last year too?”

  “Yes, sir, a thirteen-pointer.”

  “But no photo of that one?”

  “Didn’t have no phone or camera with me, sir.”

  “Who took this photo, your friend Hill?”

  “Not sure, sir. I guess I don’t remember.”

  “Mr. Chern, the deer in this picture has twelve points, not thirteen.”

  The man stared up into the night sky. “My mind, sir. It goes soft sometimes. If this is the twelve, I ain’t got no picture of the thirteen.”

  “To get this straight, you’re now telling me that you shot a twelve two years ago and a thirteen last year?”

  “Yes, sir, twelve, then the thirteen. Maybe I’ll get a fourteen this year?”

  “You shot a thirteen-point last year. Where was that shot, here?”

  “No sir, that was in Wisconsin. The twelve was here, in that picture.”

  “Where’s the twelve-point rack now?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Service puffed up. “Do I look like I just fell off the rootabeggy truck? Why the hell are you lying? You just told me it was done for you by a taxidermist.”

  “Honest, sir. I’m not lying. My mom, she wouldn’t abide lies. But my memory’s funky and furry sometimes, from the war, ya know? It’s at my house, sir.”

  “What’s with your leg?” Service said.

  “Eye-rack,” Chern said quietly, in an almost sad tone.

  “You got hurt in Iraq?”

  “Sir, yes, sir, I did, wounded in oh three.”

  “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Nasariya happened, sir.”

  Like many Americans, Grady Service had not tracked the day-to-day details of battles in Iraq or Afghanistan. He had heard of Nasariya, but was not at all sure why. “Army?”

  “No, sir. First Marine Expeditionary Force.”

  “Oorah,” Service said. “Marines are squared away, so how does that explain you’re not having your driver’s license with you?”

  “Truth, sir. I lost my license in South Carolina and moved up to North Dakota with my mom while my wounds healed and then I moved to Wisconsin, and I just never quite got around to it. Sir, I know it was wrong, but that’s how it happened. I do have a military driver’s license.”

  The man’s voice dripped with sincerity and contrition. “With you?”

  “No, sir. Back at the house.”

  “I’ll tell you how this looks from my perspective, Chern. I don’t like unsquared-away marines, wounded warriors or otherwise. I’m keeping your weapon, and I’m writing you tickets for no hunter orange, violating the quiet time, and using excess bait. I’m not going to hang you with hunting out of season or without a license, not yet.”

  “Oorah, sir. But that’s not my rifle.”

  “True that,” Service said. “It now belongs to the State of Michigan since it’s not yours. You are going to take your tickets and drive yourself home and stay there until you get a valid operator’s license. You can handle the tickets over a neighbor’s phone. I’m going to wave bond on this,” Service added. His gut was telling him there was so much wrong with this guy he couldn’t even begin to scrape it all away, but the guy was a wounded vet, and that alone meant this would take some time, attention, and judgment.

  “Thanks, sir. I don’t’ have no pot to piss in. Sir, what about my picture, sir?”

  “Go home, Chern; get out of my sight.”

  “Sir, will I get my picture back?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what, sir?”

  “Too many factors to lay out tonight.”

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  Service and Allerdyce watched the truck drive east on the rec trail.

  “He say anything to you while you were alone with him?” Service asked.

  “Boo-hoo, wah-wah, life tough, luck bad, ever’body pick on him, all he want do is hunt.”

  “It sucks to be him.”

  “Youse ain’t done with that boy, are youse, Sonny?”

  Service shook his
head and made a loud sniffing sound.

  Allerdyce nodded. “Wah! I smell dat too.”

  • • •

  Mario Novello beamed like a child on Christmas morning when he saw Allerdyce.

  “Thought you were dead,” Novello told the legendary violator.

  “Dose reports is flappergastered,” Allerdyce said.

  “You remember the time I got you up in Ericksen’s potato fields?”

  “Dat weren’t me,” Limpy said. “Youse never got me.”

  Novello kept talking. “I was right on your ass and you went into a sharp ninety right; I followed, but you were gone. Poof.”

  “Maybe da guy youse was after went ninety left.”

  “He couldn’t have. There’s only the river to the left.”

  “Could be dere’s ford dere, I’m t’inkin.”

  Both men laughed.

  “Do you want to hear about Chern?” Service asked his former colleague.

  “Who?”

  “The guy you called me about?”

  “What about him?”

  “We wrote him for no hunter orange and over-bait about an hour ago.”

  “No shit? That bird’s been a ghost-killer up here for years.”

  “How long?”

  “Oh four, oh five, at least.”

  Service showed Novello the photograph.

  “Shit, I seen that big boy, wondered what happened to him. We’ve got a couple pockets of monster bucks over this way.”

  “Including a big thirteen-point last year?”

  “Shit, did he take that one too? Every year we hear reports of monsters, only it’s never the locals who get them. They just disappear.”

  “Says he’s only hunted in Michigan the past two years.”

  “That’s bullshit. You buy it?”

  “No. You ever hear of Fat Henny Hill?”

  “Elder or Junior?”

  “There’s two of them?”

  “Major dirtbags out of Randville. They with Chern?”

  “Possibly,” Service said, sharing no more details. Randville was north of Iron Mountain.

  CHAPTER 19

  Florence, Wisconsin

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14

  Wisconsin Conservation Warden Kelly “KTR” des Jardins de Richelieu answered his cell phone in a crisp professional voice. Some years back, Simon del Olmo had been pursuing a man south after the hunter sniped a buck off private property in broad daylight. The Iron County CO had the sense to call ahead to Richelieu, who answered the phone by saying he had the man in custody at that very moment. By sheer chance Richelieu had been by the Brule River on the border, and when he pulled out onto US 141, he had seen blood on the truck’s tailgate, pulled over the driver, and found an untagged Michigan deer. Thereafter, Michigan COs called Richelieu Kelly the Rocket, KTR for short.

  Richelieu had worked for many years somewhere near Madison and had transferred to Florence about ten years back. At one point he had a partner, who was killed in the line of duty on a case Service had been heavily involved in.

  “Kelly, this is Grady Service.”

  “How’s retirement?” Richelieu asked.

  “The real thing, or retired on duty like you?”

  “I ain’t even close, and my two girls and their mother got private college aspirations. What can I do you for?”

  “Noble Chern.”

  Richelieu made a sighing sound. “We call that jerk ‘Chernobyl.’ He’s radioactive as hell.”

  “I met him tonight, stroked him for no orange and over-bait. I also found a loaded .270, but he insists it’s not his, so it’s now property of the state.”

  “It’s his,” Kelly the Rocket said.“He showed me a photograph of a twelve-point buck shot up here in oh seven. He initially claimed it was last year but changed his story when I pointed out that the photo indicated it was 2007. There’s a Michigan tag on one of the antlers, but our records show he never bought one of our licenses, not that year or any other. He told me he mostly hunts Wisconsin.”

  “Interesting. We’ve gotten him three or four times for failure to register deer kills, all does. No bucks.” In Michigan, registration of deer was voluntary. In Wisconsin it was mandatory.

  “Failure to register is all?”

  “Well, we’ve heard rumors, mostly putting him across the border into your counties. What we hear is that he hunts continuously and takes only big bucks. Apparently he shoots our does solely for their food value.”

  “Probably taste like cheese,” Service quipped. “Do me a favor; I want to go to his house and take the twelve-point mount.”

  “You mean tonight?”

  “I have a feeling that if we don’t act fast, Kell, that mount will go bye-bye to Nowhereland. He already told me he couldn’t remember where it was. We may be too late already. Are you aware he doesn’t have a valid Wisconsin operator’s license?”

  “Nope, I’ve never actually pinched him. Our guys down in Marinette County are the ones who’ve cited him. You want me with you?”

  “If you can.”

  “When?”

  “Sooner trumps later. We’re ten minutes from the border.”

  “Okay; meet in thirty minutes at the Interp?”

  “Works for us.”

  “We? Who’s with you, Simon or Sheena?”

  “Allerdyce.”

  There was a long, heavy phone silence, then a disbelieving, “Say again?”

  “You heard me.”

  “This should be rich. I thought that asshole kicked it a long time back.”

  “I’d avoid that topic if I were you.”

  Service said, “Chern says he has no current operator’s license for Wisconsin. So how does he buy licenses to shoot does?”

  “My first guess is that he borrows tags from pals and uses those.”

  “Nice. So how does he get nabbed for failure to register?”

  “Like I said, I’ll have to check it all out. I’ve never made a case on the fool. And yah, he’s a real work of art.”

  The Interp was the Florence Natural and Wild Rivers Interpretive Center, just outside town. It housed a number of state agency offices, including the local DNR. “Interp in thirty,” Grady Service said.

  • • •

  They met in the parking lot, driver’s window to driver’s window. “You know where Chern lives?” Service asked.

  “Indeed I do. Man, you are really going gray.”

  “And you don’t have anything to go gray with, dude. What’s with Chern and the military and his leg?”

  “Not sure I know what you mean.”

  “There’s an old Russian proverb used during the Cold War: Trust but Verify.’”

  “That’s way before my time, you being so ancient and wise.”

  “You never pursued his military record?”

  “No reason to. Are you going to?”

  “Probably.”

  “Isn’t that an insult to all disabled vets?”

  “Not to legitimate ones.”

  “You think he’s a sham?”

  “I’d like to know. How far away from us is he?”

  “Under five miles. He’s a mile south of the Brule Island Dam.”

  “Handy access to the border.”

  “Your words, not mine.”

  “Seriously, Kell, this guy feels like an iceberg,” Grady Service said.

  “Would not surprise any of us.”

  • • •

  There was no ground snow south of the Brule River, which separated Michigan from Wisconsin. Chern lived in a neighborhood of ten prefab houses, a mini subdivision—small lawns, modest landscaping, snowmobiles and other toys, detached garages, middle class, working class, average. Pick your own descriptor, Service thought. The tan truck was parked on the grass driveway between the house and garage.

  Service opened the rubber trash bin by the garage and peeked inside. Empty and pristine, like it had never been used. Not exactly normal.

  Chern took forever to limp to the back
door and arrived with his face flushed bright red. He glared at Service. “Don’t you guys ever let up?” he lamented.

  “We still have some unresolved issues, Chern. And until we get this all cleared up, I want that shoulder mount—the twelve-point.”

  Service saw the man break a sweat, like a switch had been thrown. “It’s here, right?”

  “Uh,” the man said, and nodded dumbly.

  “Remember,” Grady Service said, “You said you shot it last year and you gave me the photo marked 2007, and then you changed your story.”

  “But I told you that it was an honest mistake, you know, like on accident?”

  Hate that phrase. “Which accident, killing that big buck or telling me the wrong year?”

  Chern said nothing, and Service bored in tighter. “You’ve never bought a Michigan license, yet there’s very clearly a Michigan tag on the antlers in your photo.” Service could tell what year it was by color alone. “Is that license still on the mount?”

  “No sir, I don’t need none, right?”

  “I don’t know, do you?”

  “My license,” the man insisted, “my deer. Fuck your computer.”

  “If that’s how this turns out, fine by me. I’ll apologize. I know computers aren’t perfect, but this will be first time for me that the license records would be wrong. Meanwhile, that mount is leaving with me.”

  “You make me sound guilty. What happened to presumed innocent?”

  “You are guilty, and we both know it.”

  “Sir, I am a disabled veteran and a man of integrity and honor. I don’t need to buy a Michigan license.”

  “What have you been smoking, Chern? Fermented sweat socks? Military personnel on active duty don’t have to buy a Michigan license, but you’re not on active duty. Are you?”

  “You know I ain’t, sir.”

  “Then you need to buy a license. Can we come in? It’s starting to snow out here.”

  “Do I have to say yes?”

  Kelly the Rocket spoke up. “Don’t be a dick, Chern. We can have a warrant here in twenty minutes.”

  The man opened the door and stepped aside.

  Service found himself in a small kitchen with a small round wooden table and two chairs. No dishes in the sink; the counters were clear. “Okay if we look around?” Service asked.

  “Do I got a choice?” the man asked.

  “Sure you do, but like Warden Richelieu just said, your choice to cooperate lasts only until we get a search warrant.”