Force of Blood

by Joseph Heywood

  “Sweet,” Sedge said. “My kinda gal.”

  “Did you ask Wingel about the body?”

  “She never gave me a chance. She said the wind uncovered it and she reburied it, end of story.”

  “That makes you racist?”

  “I might have mentioned something about empathy. That’s when she went off.”

  “Follow-up?”

  “No point then, but she’s on my list. What is it we want from her?”

  “Not sure. How’d the body look, what position it was in, anything with it, was it just bones, wrapped? You know … stuff?”

  “She’ll just default to weather.”

  “How people deny things is often a statement and a clue.”

  “Sometimes deniers are telling the truth. Maybe winter did uncover the remains. Katsu says it brings new artifacts to the surface every spring.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “What’re those handmade signs I keep seeing?”

  “LOL?” she said. “Laughing Out Loud.”

  “Really?”

  She grinned. “Only in the computer world. Out here it means Lands of the Lord—a religious camp,” she told him. “Catholic wilderness retreat over toward Bear Lake, a few miles south of where we’ll be. What religion are you?”

  “Earthling … mostly.”

  “I was raised Baptist-Fundamentalist-Agape-Evangelical—you know, no sex standing up ’cause it just might could lead to dancing.”

  He laughed.

  “My church is out here,” she said, with a wave at the woods.

  “Mine too,” he said.

  • • •

  They left his truck parked off a faint two-track about two miles west of the old Crisp Point lighthouse, unloaded the RZR, and headed east, keeping south of Lake Superior in the woods beyond the barrier dunes. Service carried his handheld GPS to capture the route and final destinations for future use. He’d dump all the data into his truck computer when he got time. He parked the RZR precisely 3.6 miles east of Crisp Point, dismounted, and looked around, stretching his stiff muscles. The four-wheeler pounded your back, even if you were taking it easy.

  “I think I came up from the south last Thursday—east of this hill we’re on.”

  “You did,” she confirmed.

  “You spend a lot of time out here?” he asked her.

  “Some, not a lot. But I figure whenever I’m up this way it makes sense to poke around to see what I can see and learn rather than waste gas going back south just because.”

  “How far is Katsu’s spot from here?” Service asked.

  “Half-mile, max,” Sedge said, “mostly downhill.”

  “Let’s leave the RZR and hump it on foot,” he said, grabbing his ruck.

  At the top of the hill he stopped and squatted.

  “Problem?” she asked.

  “No. You know standard military hand signals?”

  “I think so.” They reviewed them quickly and he nodded. “Delay like this is an old fly fisherman’s habit. You never wade right into the river. It’s better to stand back, watch, and see if you can figure out what’s happening before you jump into action.”

  “Sounds applicable to a lot of things,” Jingo Sedge said.

  “It is. Show me our target from here.”

  “Eleven o’clock, to the right of that scrub oak stand.”

  “What’s over at one o’clock?” he asked.

  “Sand. That’s where the ATVs have been tearing up shit.”

  “Beyond that, see the outline?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What’s it look like to you?” he asked.

  “Amoeba?” she ventured.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. “That’s as good as anything I can think of.” But there’s something swimming in the back of my mind, just out of reach, the voice in his head said, something crucial and not so obvious.

  An hour later they were in the sandy area and she was pointing out artifacts, flint chips, pottery shards—some decorated with impressions. “There’s stuff everywhere,” Sedge said.

  “The copper point was here?”

  She pointed. “Over there, right on the surface, Katsu said. See all those little bunches of vertical twigs?”

  “I see them.”

  “They’re Katsu’s idea: two means tools, three means pottery, four means weapons—stone points, hammers, stuff like that. There’s a lot more pottery than anything else.”

  “What’s a one?”

  “Put there by chance and wind.”

  The things she’s showing me are certainly interesting, but are they valuable? “Why would people steal this stuff?” he asked her.

  “Because they can?”

  “Is there a market?”

  “Katsu says there is, but I haven’t really looked into that yet. The thing that sticks in my mind is that if all this little stuff is on the surface, what sort of big stuff is there, and how much is still below the sand?”

  “I hear you,” Service said.

  “You’re sure we want to sit on this place?” she asked.

  “I think we need to mark some things, come back every couple of days, see what happens. If stuff gets scarfed up, then we’ll sit on the place.”

  “That’s closing the barn door too late,” she said.

  “Most people aren’t smart enough to limit exposure. If they score early, they’ll come back again. Greed usually blinds: A thief is a thief. Trail cameras,” he added.

  “The district’s only got three,” she said.

  “Lucky for us, I’ve got six in my vehicle,” he said. “Starmites.”

  Sedge’s mouth hung open. “From where?”

  “My dime.”

  “At seven big a pop?”

  “Hey, they work, high-res, day-night range to sixty feet.”

  “Wildlife Resources Unit?”

  “My own,” he said. “We’ll have to go back to the truck and fetch them. With six I think we can ambush any bad boys.”

  “Let’s go,” Sedge said.

  Returning, they put everything in place. With the cameras set, there would be no need for close on-site surveillance. The cameras had built-in motion-detection triggers. Some cameras they set for still photographs, a couple for motion clips. And then they left.

  “You going to stick around?” Sedge asked.

  “No, I’m thinking I’ll use my pass days to talk to Aunt Marge, find out if she knows Wingel. And spend some time in the libes in Marquette.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “The library in Marquette has English translations of the Jesuit Relations.”

  “Is detective work satisfying?” Sedge asked.

  “Mostly it’s scut work, dotting i’s, crossing t’s, all that regular police detail work. But once in a while all the sour notes fit together and you get some very cool music.”

  “I like solving puzzles,” she volunteered.

  “You’ve found a good one here—which reminds me, you need to brief your el-tee, and I also need to brief mine. Never know; somebody somewhere may know more about this crap than we do.”

  “What do I tell McKower?”

  “The same things you told me—the truth.”

  “She intimidates me.”

  “She’ll be your biggest booster if you trust her; she’s so smart it’s scary.”

  “I heard you two were close.”

  “You heard right,” he admitted. “Tell her what’s going down.”

  “It’s still my case, right?”

  “Absolutely. Yours all the way.”

  “No sneaking back here without me.”

  “Paranoia is unprofessional.”

  “What do you expect from someone who paints her you-know-what?”

  “I hear what you’re saying. What’s the fastest way back to this place?”

  “There isn’t a fast one, but there are clearer routes. I’ll show you on the AVL when we get back to the truck. Why?”

  “I don’t believe in approaching a place from th
e same direction or route every time.”

  “That also sounds applicable to a lot of things,” she said.

  Service tried to ignore her. Her youth, candor, and ways of thinking were unnerving, and he needed to adjust to her. Keep your mind out of the gutter, he told himself.

  11

  Marquette, Marquette County

  TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2007

  The bound facsimile set of the English translation of the Jesuit Relations were shelved, a neat row of black books with gold type and a layer of dust suggesting they were seldom touched, much less read. Service went through the index, found VOL. XLVIII, “Lower Canada, Ottawas: 1662–1664.” He went to the shelf, pulled out the book, and took it to a table.

  It began with a preface written by Reuben Gold Thwaites, listed as secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The preface was dated 1899. Chapter IV was entitled, “Various Iroquois Wars, and Their Results.” The report was dated September 4, 1663, submitted by one Hierosme Lalemant, S.J. The old froggies had interesting names.

  He did the math in his head. He was looking at the facsimile of a report written 344 years before—nearly three and a half centuries, photos of the original French-language letter beside the English translation. The report was to the point, and, after a quick skimming, Service found several terms he didn’t understand. He decided to write down the part that he wanted, which was less than half a page long, and chase down the unknown terms later.

  He began copying Lalemant’s words:

  Last year the Agnieronnons and Onneiochronnons, the haughtiest of the five Iroquois nations, formed an expedition of a hundred men to go and lie in ambush for the Outaouax, who constitute our upper Algonquins, and to fall upon them when engaged in passing some difficult rapid. With this purpose they set out early in the spring of the year 1662, depending on their muskets for provisions, and using the Woods, which lay in their path as a courtyard, kitchen, and lodging place. The shortest paths are not the best, because they are much traveled; he who loses his way makes the most successful journey, because one is never lost in the woods without finding wild animals, which seek a retreat in the remotest forests.

  Definitely way before GPS, and a reminder that Native Americans had no word for wilderness until we gave them one.

  After following the Hunter’s calling for a considerable time, they turned into Warriors, seeing that they were approaching the enemy’s country. So they began to prowl along the shores of the Lake of the Hurons, seeking their prey; and while they were planning to surprise some straggling huntsmen, they were they themselves surprised by a band of Saulteurs (for thus we designate the Savages living near the sault of Lake Superior). These latter, having discovered the enemy, made their approach toward daybreak, with such boldness that, after discharging some muskets and then shooting their arrows, they leaped hatchet in hand, upon those whom their fire and missiles had spared. The Iroquois, although they are very proud and have never yet learned to run away, would have been glad to do so had they not been prevented by the shafts leveled at them from every direction. Hence only a very few escaped to bear such sad news to their country, and to fill their villages with mourning instead of joyful shouts that were to ring out on the warriors’ return. This shows clearly that these people are not invincible when they are attacked with courage.

  Service signed onto a library computer and quickly translated Agnieronnon and Onneiochronnon to Mohawk and Oneida. He took his notes and went outside to smoke a cigarette and think.

  The Saulteurs were obviously Ojibwa in the Soo. This had to be the battle, but this invading force had been made up of one hundred warriors, not three hundred. Also, Father Lalemant’s report was secondhand, not eyewitness, regarding alleged events that had happened six months before. Still, the nut of the report seemed right, and would probably pass Etta Trevillyan’s notions of a reasonable-size attack force. The Iroquois had started up the coast of Lake Huron looking for Ottawa victims and had ended up in Saulteur territory. As far as he knew, the Ojibwa had controlled turf all the way down the St. Mary’s River to Drummond Island. How had the Iroquois gotten around the Soo if the attack had gone down near Crisp Point, or even if it had happened at Iroquois Point?

  Something about this didn’t jibe, and there was nothing in the priest’s secondhand report to provide direction, other than making it clear that the invading Iroquois had been effectively surrounded and dispatched. No mention of actual casualties on either side, and the statement that only a very few escaped. What about the old stories of the triumphant Ojibwa purposely releasing prisoners to take the word back to their home nations? The Jesuit said some Iroquois managed to escape. Presumably on their own, through luck.

  Do the Iroquois have a version of this story in their oral histories? He made a note.

  He wished he knew more about Indian logistics and such. A hundred warriors: Did that mean fifty canoes? Or were they in the larger Montreal canoes? With five per Montreal they would need only twenty craft, though either fifty or twenty would be damn near impossible to conceal along the coasts. No wonder the Saulteurs found them.

  He wished he could read French, but guessed any French he’d recall now would not make reading the seventeenth-century version any easier. Every language tended to shift and vary greatly through the centuries. In college he’d once looked at Old English and could hardly make it out, much less understand it without a lot of sweat, thought, and a lexicon.

  Returning to the reference room, he read a subsequent account of eight hundred warriors from the other three confederation tribes going against the Susquahannocks, only to be once again ignominiously banished. After an initial armed skirmish, the Susquahannocks in April 1661 withdrew into their impregnable village. The Iroquois sent twenty-five armed ambassadors into the village to negotiate terms, only the Susquahannocks immediately took them prisoner, put them on stakes on platforms, and burned them to death in front of the other seven hundred–plus warriors waiting for the signal to attack. These warriors reportedly withdrew to their own country with the Susquahannocks screaming they were coming there to burn all of them the way they had burned the first twenty-five.

  Had this story and Iroquois Point somehow gotten mixed up? If three hundred is unrealistic, isn’t eight hundred even further off the damn charts?

  Further on, Father Lalemant indicated that smallpox began to ravage Iroquois “towns,” which effectively curtailed any significant future forays on the war road.

  Service guessed it wasn’t the threat of a road of skulls that kept the Iroquois from coming back: It had been smallpox.

  Damn interesting reading by a writer who pulls you right back into his century, but not much there for a police case. Except for the tactical note of the Iroquois being surrounded. As a recon marine in Vietnam he had seen his share of ambushes on both sides of the equation, and to make one happen with totality you needed the best possible terrain, steady nerve, and a helluva lot of luck.

  He was sitting there tapping a pencil on his chin when Etta Trevillyan sat down across from him and said, “You look perplexed. Something you read?”

  “What if the ambush didn’t happen at all, or it happened south of the Soo, not to the west?”

  “I think that’s exactly the kind of doubt I was trying to convey when we talked. There’s just no way to know for certain unless someone stumbles upon the actual site. Artifacts and remains would reveal most of the truth.” She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind helping you with this. Native American history has always fascinated me, and anything an old historian can do to to bring clarity to disputed events is a good thing.”

  “I could use some help,” he admitted. “Do you know Dr. Wingel of Whitewater State?”

  “By reputation.”

  She’s holding back. “Which is?”

  “Professionally or personally?”

  “Both.”

  “Professionally she’s said to be very ambitious and somewhat competent. Personally she’s described as paranoid, cowar
dly, self-serving, and petty.”

  “But her cats probably like her,” he said.

  “Based on what I’ve heard I’d find it difficult to believe anyone or anything could do more than tolerate her.”

  “I get the sense you don’t appreciate directness.”

  The retired professor smiled. “Sometimes, with some people, there just ain’t no way around the honest-to-God, knock-you-twixt-the-eyes truth. What do you want me to do to help you?”

  “I want to try to nail down whether this vaunted Iroquois-Ojibwa battle actually took place, and if so, roughly when. Father Lalemant in the Jesuit Relations puts a certain battle in the spring or early summer of 1662, which seems to relate to the general story, but anything you can do to clarify would help.”

  “And if the battle didn’t happen?”

  “Then it didn’t happen.” Which would make Katsu’s whole effort null and void, clearing the way for Sedge to hammer him with charges if he kept interfering with archaeologists whose work was approved by the State. Approved by the State? Does this mean the state archaeologist alone, or are others involved?

  “The other day you said both the Iroquois and Ojibwa buried their dead?”

  “I did.”

  “If you found remains, how would you know which was which?”

  “The Ojibwa tended to dress up their dead and have viewings much as we have before burying them in their best clothes. The Iroquois wrapped their dead in birch bark because when the rotting process was done, they would dig up the bones, clean them, and rebury them with a big ceremony. You’d also know by any implements with the remains…. Well, not exactly know, but you’d have evidence for an intelligent guess.”

  “Thanks, Etta.”

  “You want to stop for pastry and coffee next week and I’ll share what I have?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “I’ll call or send an e-mail when I have something,” she said.

  “Have you ever worked with the state archaeologist in Lansing?”

  “No.”

  “Do you happen to know if the SAO is the sole government agency to grant approvals to excavate?”