Force of Blood

by Joseph Heywood

  “How does a war party that large move by water westward past the Soo in the first place?” Grady Service asked. “If they came up the St. Mary’s from the east, the fight would more likely have been east of the Soo, not west.”

  Professor Shotwiff had a crooked grin, his eyes tight. “Is that your professional theory, and, if so, why should either of us care?”

  “I just can’t buy it happening to the east, but how the hell did they get past the Soo without being seen? I’m thinking it might have taken place farther west.”

  “The thing about amateurs is that they can let fantasy captain their imaginations.”

  “What if someone found a bear-bone-handled breakhead with an agate striking head, or several of them?”

  “Did someone? Items, plural?”

  “Theoretically,” Service said.

  “First, such artifacts would be quite valuable to collectors and archaeologists. Second, their presence at a site would strongly suggest Na-do-we-se presence.”

  “Ever heard rumors along those lines?” Service asked.

  “In my business I used to hear all sorts of peculiar and equally asinine things. I ask again: Why are you here?”

  “Zhenya Leukonovich.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Her.”

  “Same answer. No joy.”

  “She knows you, and recommended you as the authority on Native American cultures east of the Mississippi River. We need an expert to advise and guide us on a case we’re working.”

  “Involving relics or artifacts?”

  “That’s not yet all that clear. Maybe both.”

  “How much does this consultancy pay?”

  “It doesn’t.”

  Shotwiff smiled. “Are you always so abrasive with the public?”

  “My superiors have tried real hard to reform me. And hell, here I thought I was treating you with kid gloves.”

  “Stubbornness can be a virtue,” the professor said. “I’ve always harbored doubts about Iroquois Point, but not for your reasons. What’re you thinking?”

  “I barely qualify as an amateur with this stuff.”

  “Presumably you’re not an amateur at solving puzzles; amateurs have made a lot of important historical discoveries.”

  “Father Lalemant in the Jesuit Relations wrote about a battle that might be the one we’re talking about, but he talks of one hundred Iroquois warriors, not three times that many.”

  “Of course. I’ve read Lalemant; all Jesuits exaggerated all things—especially when exaggeration would promote a heroic image for the often-infamous Society of Jesus.”

  “Then you know he talked about another fight on La Baie des Puants.” This was French for Bay of Stinkers and referred to modern Green Bay.

  “I remember there were no details.”

  “Meaning it didn’t happen?”

  “Not necessarily. The Iroquois attacks drove Potawatomi, Huron, and even some Ottawa westward, all the way down the Bay of Stinkers, which refers to the Winnebago tribe at Green Bay, living in mud huts. Winnebago translates in Algonquin to ‘evil-smelling.’ The Winnebago, or Ho-Chunks, seemed to rub everybody the wrong way. Let me hear your theory.”

  Am I amusing the old bastard? The old man was hard to read. “What if they had the scrap over toward Green Bay, and on the way east and home decided to cut north to the Soo, trying for a little payback?”

  “An attack on either side of the Straits of Mackinac would be too risky. Too many people, no way to come in unseen, too many tribal fragments in the area. Please continue.”

  “You can run all the way up the Whitefish River, make a short portage to the AuTrain River, and pop into Lake Superior west of Munising. From there they could work eastward toward Bawating.”

  “Why would they go to such extremes?” the professor asked.

  Service found himself caught short and blinking in the face of the professor’s challenge. “Too hard to get past the Soo. Too narrow there, too much chance of being discovered.”

  Professor Shotwiff smiled. “At the time you’re talking about, there wasn’t a permanent village there. Years of attacks by the Iroquois had pushed Nipissing, Saulteur, Ottawa, and Huron way west, even when the Saulteur won all the battles. At the time you’re talking about, I believe the main Saulteur force and their allies from Sault Ste. Marie were staying with their Keweenaw kin near L’Anse.”

  Service felt deflated. “Sorry to waste your time, Professor.”

  “You haven’t wasted anything, son. Some accounts report the Saulteur et al. had traveled east to Bawating to fish and hunt, and that’s when they bumped into the Mohawk-Oneida force, which presumably had come up the St. Mary’s looking for a village to eat, but this isn’t necessarily the final word on that. It’s only the account endorsed by the Jesuits and other French reporters, none of whom were in attendance at the event. You’re a detective. What would you do to find the truth?”

  “In our terms this one is a really cold case—like frigid.”

  Shotwiff chuckled and nodded. “Welcome to the historian’s world.”

  “I’d talk to the Iroquois, see if that side has a different memory of the battle. All we have now are secondhand accounts from the Anishinaabeg side.

  Shotwiff grunted. “The Whitefish route,” he said tentatively. You’re sure you don’t mean up the Manistique-Fox, with an east portage to the upper Tahq?”

  “Nossir, the Whitefish.”

  “You’ve floated this route?”

  “Full length, several times. Over the years I think I’ve floated all the major river courses in the U.P.”

  “I’ll be damned,” the professor said. “You think they could have come north from Green Bay?”

  “Afterwards, if they prevailed, they could have shot the rapids eastward past the Soo, or they could have reversed course and come back the way they’d come in,” Service offered.

  Shotwiff said, “Distance was meaningless to Na-do-we-se war parties. They often left their towns for two and three years to travel the war road. What do you think you have?”

  “An old harbor, sanded in, but once open and a good place for an ambush.”

  “Somewhat west of Iroquois Point, I presume.”

  “Fifty miles on crow fly, more by canoe.”

  “Huh. Artifacts?”

  “Copper points, but mostly pottery shards.”

  “The breakheads?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. They were found, but precisely where isn’t yet clear, and nobody seems to know for sure. What would such weapons be worth?”

  “Anything from a thousand dollars to fifty times that—or more. But if you have a group of them, the collection could be worth a whole lot more, depending on the quality.”

  “People have that kind of money?”

  “Private collectors and museums. What about bodies? How many?”

  “Only one we know of, allegedly turned up by winter weather and wind.”

  Shotwiff sniggered. “Could happen, but it’s also the old dodge of ambiguity used by archaeologists when they get caught off the reservation. Where’re the remains now?”

  “Reburied.”

  “Huh. Photos?”

  “Not acknowledged.”

  “Trust me, there are photos. Archaeologists and treasure hunters are like Nazis—they can’t help keeping detailed records even when they’re enthusiastically committing crimes against humanity.”

  “Do a lot of archaeologists break laws?”

  “One is too many,” Shotwiff said, “but most of us are wimps and greedy, at least for ego reasons and professional reputations. The big-money jackals in the archaeological business are looting crews.”

  “You know about them?”

  “In my line of work, we all know. It used to be a bunch of raggedy-ass local pot hunters looking for easy cash. Now they’re well-equipped, experienced, professional looting crews. They can dismantle and empty a site in no time. Is it possible to see this site of yours?”

&nbs
p; “To what end?”

  “I can probably tell you if professionals have gotten to it.”

  Grady Service sensed opportunity. “No more bear feeding?”

  “Goddammit, that’s blackmail!” the professor said.

  “Pretty much. Do we have a deal?”

  “I suppose. What if they keep coming back?”

  “Call us. We’ll trap them and move them.”

  The professor’s face contorted. “What are game wardens doing policing archaeological sites?”

  “One of our many unacknowledged services. You ever deal with the state archaeologist?”

  “Flin Yardley? I know him,” said Shotwiff.

  “Opinion?”

  “Bureaucrat, paper pusher, neither a first-rate scholar nor overly experienced field man. Barely more than a glorified high school history teacher with family political connections to Clearcut Bozian.”

  “Honest?” Bozian was former governor Sam Bozian.

  “Can you define that word?”

  “Not absolutely,” Service said.

  “Therein lies the rub with values,” the professor said.

  “You ever deal with looting crews?”

  “I have, and it’s often unavoidable. Some are technically quite good, so we ask ourselves: Is it better to buy from them with some sense of provenance, or to let amateurs simply strip away history and make it disappear? There’s no simple answer.”

  “Honesty and law pitted against reality.”

  “The classic conundrum.”

  • • •

  Service tried several times to call Sedge on his way east but couldn’t raise her by cell phone, radio, or computer.

  He called Sergeant Jeffey Bryan. “Sedge talk to you and Lis about her case?”

  “Briefly.”

  “She’s trying to find a camp on Teaspoon Creek, but I can’t raise her. Think one of your guys could see if they can find her truck?”

  “You got it. Where are you?”

  “West of L’Anse.”

  “Okay, I’ll roll and get other help if needed. Bump me when you get closer.”

  “Clear,” Service said, closing the cell phone.

  24

  Teaspoon Creek, Luce County

  THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007

  “Headed east,” Service told Friday as he flew past Marquette. “Sedge went to creep a cabin. She’s not on her radio, she’s not answering her cell phone, and her truck hasn’t moved.”

  “Be careful, Grady,” Friday said.

  “How’s the kid?”

  “Keep your focus,” she said. “He’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine. Keep your head in the game.”

  Her ability to prioritize sometimes amazed him. “I’ll be back,” he concluded.

  “She’ll be okay,” Friday said reassuringly.

  My gut’s not so sure, Service thought. He called Sergeant Bryan as he passed Seney on M-28. “She show?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “Turn north in MacMillan on 415, go till you hit the tracks, and park. The captain will meet you in her RZR.”

  Captain Grant? He was confused for a moment, then realized McKower was now Grant’s equal, and to some extent, his superior officer. Talk about a changing world.

  • • •

  McKower looked worried. “Bring your rifle,” she ordered as he strapped his field ruck and cased .308 on the back of the Polaris. Her hard plastic rifle case was already strapped down. He did as he was told and lowered himself into the right seat. The tracks ran east and west. McKower ran on the left side in the cinders where other four-wheelers had gone before. In Luce County the damn things went anywhere and everywhere, a constant pain in the ass for conservation officers, county deps, and state police, all of them.

  “How far?” Service yelled over the motor.

  “Three miles to the Teaspoon on the tracks, then cross-country a third of a mile downstream to the Oxbow.”

  “Bolf’s Camp?”

  “No, a man named Delongshamp.”

  “Godfroi Delongshamp?”

  McKower had the hammer down and they were being shaken violently, but she managed to stare at him.

  “Why there?” he yelled.

  “Her cell-phone chip.”

  “What chip?”

  “Do you ever read your damn e-mail?”

  “Don’t need to. You’re telling me what I need to know, right?”

  She glowered. “Test program. Sedge and five other officers have GPS tracking chips in their cell phones.”

  “Let me guess,” he yelled. “They don’t have to be on.”

  “A gold star for our techie-boy,” McKower said.

  “No other contact?”

  “None.”

  “The phone isn’t on?”

  “No, the system’s designed passive.”

  “Big Brother,” he said.

  “Don’t start,” she yelled.

  “She briefed you on her case?” he shouted.

  McKower stopped the machine on a low bridge, took out a topo map, and handed it to him. The coordinates of Sedge’s cell phone were written on the plastic cover over the map. “Must be hard ground on that finger,” he pointed out, thinking out loud, trying to decipher what he was looking at. “The rest looks like swamp,” he said, sliding into his ruck and slinging his rifle across his chest, barrel down. “My radio will be off until I see what’s what. Where’s Jeffey?”

  “Working his way in from the other side of the Teaspoon.

  Service entered Sedge’s cell-phone coordinates in his handheld GPS and plunged north on foot into the dense swamp, finding himself knee-deep in dark water with a root-and-black-mud bottom. Careful, his mind warned. Move steadily, not fast.

  Thirty minutes later he heard three shots, the reports muffled. He had his earbud in but he had heard it, and touched his chest to activate the transmitter on the mike. “Two One Hundred, Twenty Five Fourteen. Shots fired, forty-cal.”

  “Copy,” McKower said. “You there? Clear.”

  “Gotta be close. Clear.”

  When he heard the shots, he had immediately lifted his hand and pointed to where he thought the point of origin was, a technique he and Tree had learned in the marines, and which had persisted over his career, as a lot of his marine training had.

  “Twenty Five Fourteen, Two One Oh Three.”

  “Go, One Oh Three.” It was Bryan.

  “I’m with Two One Thirty. She’s okay. Where are you?”

  “Edge of the high ground south of the Oxbow,” Service said, looking ahead. “You?”

  “Other side of the Teaspoon. It’s got a fair bottom if you look upstream about twenty-five yards. You’ll see where Two One Thirty crossed back. Clear.”

  Service found the location and crossed holding his rifle and ruck above his head, mosquitoes crawling all over his sweaty body. “Left,” Jeffey Bryan yelled from above.

  Sedge was kneeling on one knee, her face beet-red. “You all right?” Service asked.

  “She’s mostly pissed off,” her sergeant said, pointing at a cedar next to her. Service saw a crossbow bolt protruding from the reddish bark. Bryan held up three fingers.

  Service squatted beside her, got water from his pack, held it out. “What’s the deal?”

  “I found the damn camp is what’s the deal.”

  “Bolf?”

  “Never saw him, but someone was living there. It’s on the north edge of that low ridge and down, well camouflaged. It’s just a shanty, but it’s damn near invisible.”

  “You spook someone?”

  She looked at the bolt in the tree. “Ya think?”

  “Talk us through it,” Service said, trying to calm her.

  “Luck. A laser sight crossed my arm and I hit the deck as the bolt pounded the tree. I heard two more go through the foliage. I actually saw the last shot and then I saw him, and put three rounds over there.”

  “Him? Can you describe him?”

  She che
wed her lip. “He was green.”

  “Green?”

  “Yeah, like Kermit the fucking frog.”

  Whoa, he thought. “You did good.”

  “I missed the bastard.”

  “You backed him off.”

  “I wanted to take him off the fucking planet!”

  Change the subject. “Where’s your truck?”

  “On County 434 where it crosses the tracks. East-northeast of us.”

  “Where’s your four-wheeler?” her sergeant asked.

  “At the Bomb Shelter.”

  “Any description at all?”

  “I told you. He’s fucking green! I felt like I’d landed on the set of Predator, for Christ’s sake.”

  “That bolt isn’t Hollywood shit,” Sergeant Bryan said.

  “You saw a laser?” Service asked.

  She pointed at her left arm.

  “What direction was it moving?”

  She paused to think. “I was stationary. It moved right to left,” she said. “I can’t figure out why he was scanning. All he had to do was put the dot on me and squeeze off the shot.”

  Service watched her. Upset, but remarkably under control, reacting much the way I would. “Where was this Kermit?”

  She pointed.

  “Keep guiding me.”

  He followed her hand signals to a thick cluster of tag alders, separated the trees and branches, and looked down at the ground.

  “You’re there,” Sedge said.

  “Got him,” Service said. “Frog tracks.”

  “You asshole!” Sedge screamed.

  “Swear to God,” Service said, sorry he’d provoked her with a bad joke.

  Bryan joined him, leaned over, looked back at her. “No shit, Sedge, but they ain’t man-size. You think your boy might’ve been decked out in camo paint?”

  She buried her face in her hands.

  “Let’s go see the camp,” Service said.

  Sedge didn’t respond. Service looked at the sergeant and nodded toward the creek.

  The two men waded the river and found the shack. They searched methodically, finding nothing.

  “Fish camp?” Bryan asked. “Locals say the brook trout in this stretch are something special. It’s one of those cricks they don’t talk about to outsiders.”

  “Trapper,” Service said. “This swamp and lower marsh are first-class muskrat habitat.”