The Run to Gitche Gumee

by Robert F. Jones

  Lawrence Hackbarth was very tall, six-six at least. A faded, elbow-patched, but neatly ironed and starched red flannel shirt was tucked trimly into the flat-bellied waistband of his khaki trousers. On his long, narrow feet he wore fluffy pink bedroom slippers. They were way too small. “Don’t be put off by my pan,” he said. “I’m really quite friendly. The injury transpired whilst blowing a log jam on the river, that was back in the winter of ’22. A mishap with blasting caps. We’re three old bindlestiffs living here, Wobblies all of us, even the Injun gal, holdovers from the olden days when this camp was still in business. It shut down in ’23. Yiss, yiss, we’re spooky old geezers, mean as hell, bushwhacky, two grungy old stumblebums from way back when and a Chippewa woman named Florinda Wakerobin. We grow our own giggleweed, distill enough corn liquor and potato schnapps to keep our innards rust free, and generally live off the land.” He reached out with the cane and tapped our shins as if to fix us in place, and none too gently, I might add. “And who, pray tell, might you gentlemen be?”

  I told him. We shook hands. His was twice the size of mine, hard and rough as Carborundum. “We saw your garden out back,” Harry said. “A bear raided our camp last night while we were out fishing, and we wondered if you might be able to sell us some supplies. We don’t need much, maybe a few potatoes and some corn. A c-c-can of sardines if you’ve got them. I can pay you whatever you ask.”

  “We don’t have much use for money around here,” Hackbarth said. “We’re against it on principle, radicals, you know, heh-heh, and besides, the nearest store is forty miles east by shank’s mare. But you’re welcome to whatever we can spare. Flo is our storekeeper. No canned goods on hand, though, Mr. Taggart. Soon’s my companions get back, I’ll send the Injun gal down to the root cellar. We got plenty of corn and spuds, that I’m sure of. And deer meat up the ying-yang. Yiss, yiss. Curly’s a crack shot, served with the Leathernecks in the first war. The AEF—Château Thierry, Belleau Wood, the St. Mihiel salient?”

  I started to smell a rat, just a faint prickly whiff of one. Was Lawrence Hackbarth stalling? Waiting for Curly to get back? Curly—an old jarhead, I thought. Fifth Marines. None tougher. Judging by Sergeant Stingley and other members of the Old Breed I’d run afoul of so far, the older these salty types got, the meaner they became. Curly—despite his innocuous name—could prove to be bad news of the worst sort. He might make Stingley himself look like a pogue.

  “When will your partners be back?” I asked the old man. “We’ve got to push on downriver, I’m afraid, make another ten miles before nightfall if we’re going to meet our ride on time. If you could maybe just point us toward the root cellar, we’ll grab a few spuds and be on our way. Thanking you very kindly, of course.”

  “We’re back right now,” came a deep voice behind me. Turning to the door, I saw the muzzle of a neatly oiled Springfield ’03 aimed straight at my chest.

  Curly stepped into the room, a short, dark, thick-legged guy with heavy shoulders that nearly grazed the doorjambs. His namesake hairdo puffed out like two giant Brillo pads on either side of a slick, suntanned avenue of scalp. His tiny eyes were ice blue. Behind him came an even shorter, broader figure, a woman of indeterminate age. She had a long, heavy-barreled pistol in her hand, an old cap-and-ball Colt Dragoon by the look of it. It was trained on Harry’s groin. Both of them wore greasy buckskin hunting shirts, homemade, that hung halfway to their knees. Moccasins on their feet.

  “Let’s get some light on the subject,” Curly said. “Chop-chop, Flo.” The Indian woman went over to a table in the shadows, and we heard the scratch of a kitchen match. Yellow light from a kerosene lamp flooded the long, low-ceilinged room: a kitchen and cookstove at one end and a rank of neatly made bunks at the other. Leaning against one of the beds were a Thompson submachine gun, the Al Capone model with a drum and knurled grip on the fore end, and a BAR—Browning Automatic Rifle, the finest weapon in the Marine Corps arsenal. Both pieces gleamed with fresh gun oil.

  Lawrence Hackbarth flinched at the sudden glare, fumbled in his shirt pocket, and put on a pair of smoked, wire-framed glasses. “Goddamit, Flo, dim it down, dim it down! You know it hurts what’s left of my optic nerves.”

  “Ah, you old pussy, stop your whinin’,” Curly said. “Octopus nerves, my ass. So what have we here? A couple a fuckin’ collitch boys, looks like. Candyass tourists.”

  “I’m a Marine,” I said.

  He looked me up and down. “They must be gettin’ pretty desperate,” he said. “I’ve wrung better-lookin’ pieces of shit out of my deck-swab on latrine duty. So whadda they teach you in boot camp these days, how to roll blind geezers for pogey-bait?”

  “All we wanted was to buy some v-vegetables,” Harry said. “A few potatoes, maybe some corn. I’ve got plenty of m-money.”

  Curly’s eyes lit up. “Let’s see it.”

  Harry pulled out his wallet, still damp from last night’s wading, and pulled out a fat wad of bills. Curly took them, thumbed through the stack, gave up counting when the bills stuck together, and pocketed it.

  “I thought you guys were radicals,” I said. “Wobblies or something. That you didn’t believe in money.”

  “That’s just Doc talkin’. Ol’ Larry, he used to pal around with Big Bill Heywood and them guys. Me and Flo, we’re capitalists from way back.” He poked me in the ribs with the barrel of the Springfield. “You wanna see the root cellar, you said. Let me show you the way.” He swung the rifle on Harry. “You too, you puny little puh-puh-puh-pogue.”

  Flo waddled into the kitchen and stooped to grab a recessed iron ring in the floorboards. She opened the trapdoor and looked up at us with slitted black eyes that glittered like basalt. She giggled and winked. A gust of cool air puffed up in our faces—mole fur, potato rot, damp dirt. Worn wooden stairs led down into darkness.

  “March!” Curly said.

  We felt our way down the rickety staircase and the trapdoor slammed shut.

  “The b-b-boom of doom,” Harry said. “Oh shit, oh dear.”

  4

  THE FLAMBEAU BOYS

  Someone pulled a heavy object over the trapdoor, maybe the icebox, and we heard them go into the main room. Their voices came to us through the floorboards. A bottle clinked, then glasses, followed by the glug-glug of something being poured.

  “Go easy on that corn,” Doc said. “You know how you get when you chug it too fast.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Curly said. “Now what’re we gonna do with these snoops? I say shoot ’em and haul ’em out in the woods for the brush wolves. Like we did with those fuckin’-tramps who poked their noses in here two years ago.”

  “Isn’t that a bit crude?” Doc said. “Anyway, the Slater kid says they’ve got a pickup scheduled downriver aways. When they don’t show up, all hell will break loose. Next thing we know there’ll be state troopers in motorboats, buzzing all up and down the Firesteel. No, I’ve got a better idea. We’ll drown ’em nice and quiet, then you and Flo take their bodies downstream a few miles, below Kingfisher Rapids, say, and sink ’em in the Blue Hole. Bust up the canoe like it hit a rock. Just another river accident.”

  “Do we have to kill them?” It was a woman’s voice, a surprisingly sweet one, the first words heard from Flo. “They’re such nice-looking boys. And polite, too.”

  “That’s your pussy talking,” Curly said. “Don’t me and Doc prong you enough, you need more?” He uncorked the bottle and poured another drink. Three glugs this time. “Women,” he said.

  “We could keep them down in the cellar a few hours, then say it was all just a joke, an object lesson. We hope they’ll spread the word around that our No Trespassing sign means business.”

  “Too dangerous,” Doc said. “If they report us, the law will want full descriptions. And I’m sure there are plenty of wanted posters still hanging in every town hall and post office north of Neenah. Pour me another one, Curly. And stoke up the fire, please. I’m freezing.” He sighed. “I knew this would happen one
day. Five years we’ve been safe and sound here, six, come next April. The perfect hideout. Ah, well, all good things must come to an end.”

  “Not if I can help it,” Curly said. “When I finish this drink, I’m goin’ down to their canoe and see if there’s anything we can use. Then, come dark, I’ll take the boys for a swim.”

  “Larry, Flo, and Curly,” I said. “Sound familiar?”

  “The Three Stooges?” Harry answered from the darkness. Mister Cool. “Except the haircuts are wr-wrong, and in one instance the gender. Moe and Flo sound close enough, though . . . . I’ve got it. We’ve entered an alternative universe, and these are their evil twins?” He read a lot of science fiction.

  “No, the Flambeau Boys. They used to operate in these parts during the depression and all through the war.” In those days I read a lot of crime stuff. “The leader was a tall, skinny, well-spoken gent name of Lawrence Haugenbusch. They called him Doc. Hailed from Lac du Flambeau. He used to run with Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, that crowd. When Dillinger was killed, Doc set up his own outfit. Pretty minor league. They stuck up taverns, IGAs, filling stations, but now and then a bank or two. Mainly they operated up here, all across the northern tier from Fargo and the Twin Cities clear over to the Soo. They had an Indian as their wheel man—nobody agrees on the name. Short, wide, and deadpanned is the best description. Whoever it was, he or she was a lead-footed son of a bitch sure enough. No one could stay on the road with them, not even the G-men. The muscle was an ex-Marine named Cobbett or Corbett, Frank Corbett, I think it was. He carried a drum-fed Tommy gun. Big mop of bushy black hair. They called him . . . .”

  “Don’t tell me—Curly!”

  “You got it. First time out of the box.”

  “I thought the FBI nabbed them,” Harry said. “Down by Green Bay or Oshkosh or someplace like that.”

  “Oshkosh, and it’s only a rumor. Wishful thinking. The Flambeau Boys were blowing the vault in a bank and one of them fucked up. They had three or four customers and a teller in the vault with them as hostages when the nitroglycerin blew prematurely. All the cops found when the smoke cleared was a mess of body parts. Nobody ever sorted them out. Cunts and cocks and teeth and assholes, all stuck to the ceiling.” Christ, I was starting to sound like Sergeant Stingley. “Anyway, Doc and his pals could have escaped in the turmoil.”

  “So you think this is them?”

  “It all adds up. Doc, Curly, and an Indian. Haugenbusch, Hackbarth. Close enough. Now here they are, tucked away in the back of beyond and armed to the teeth. Doc’s eyes were probably blown out by that nitro explosion.”

  “You’ve been reading too much Mickey Spillane.”

  “Well, you tell me then. Why the fuck are they holding us prisoner? Why are they planning to kill us?”

  By now our eyes had adjusted to the gloom of the cellar. Slivers of light filtered down through cracks in the floor. I got up from a lumpy burlap bag of potatoes to check the place out. It was walled with big riverbank boulders neatly laid, no cement to hold them together, with a dirt floor. Except for a space at the foot of the stairwell the cellar, about ten feet square, was jampacked with sacks of cabbages, spuds, turnips, and carrots. A low ceiling, not high enough for me to stand fully upright. In the northeast corner was an alcove. I crawled over the sacks for a closer look. It was a cellar access. For a moment I had hope. But when I wiggled up into the space and pushed upward, the sloping door wouldn’t budge. Locked from the outside. But the stones that lined it felt loose.

  “Look for something to pry these stones with,” I whispered, “like an old broom handle. I’ve got my K-Bar, but it’s not long enough to give me any leverage. Maybe we can get out of here after all.”

  I started pushing and pulling at the rocks, wiggling them from side to side, up and down, like worrying a loose tooth in its socket. Dirt and chunks of rotting cement sifted into my hair. Harry crawled over the potato sacks and handed me a stick. “Found this under the stairs,” he said.

  I slid the stick into a crevice in the wall and began prying. “Stand by and take these rocks when I hand them to you. Put ’em down nice and easy on the bags. Don’t let ’em clack together. If we can hear them, they can hear us.” It took a few minutes but then the first rock came loose and I passed it back to Harry.

  After that they came fast, like removing the first olive in the jar frees up the rest. In short order we had a hole that seemed big enough to squeeze through. I cleaned it out, on up to the roots of the buffalo grass that grew tall and thick around the bunkhouse.

  “What are they doing upstairs?” I asked Harry. He slid back into the dark, but returned in a very long minute.

  “I could only hear Doc and Flo,” he said. “Curly must still be outside, looting our canoe.”

  “Then we’d better make a break for it now. Doc can’t see and the Indian woman might not blow the whistle even if she does spot us.” I pushed the stick up through the sod, followed it with my hand, and began pulling down big clots of dirt and grassroots. Harry pushed up beside me and bore me a hand. Damp dirt cascaded on our faces.

  “Ugh,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Got a w-worm in my mouth.” He spat and shuddered.

  “Swallow it. We haven’t had lunch yet.”

  Then there was light. It hurt our eyes at first, but we wiggled on out of the hole, Harry first, and crouched low against the side of the building. We were on the meadow side of the bunkhouse, next to the woodpile. I pulled out the K-Bar and then looked around for another weapon. A splitting maul stood leaning against the far end of the stack. “Come on.”

  We bellycrawled down the length of the woodpile, and I grabbed the maul and handed it to Harry. Then, motioning him to stay put, I snaked on over to the corner of the building. Peeked around. Curly was sitting in the sun beside our canoe, his back rested against it, raising a bottle to his lips. My pump-gun rested across his lap, an open box of shells beside it. Another canoe, an aluminum Grumman, was hauled up beside ours. The one he and Flo had arrived in. Curly glanced upriver, sat up straight, placed the bottle down next to him, nesting it carefully in the gravel. He mounted the gun as a knot of ducks swept past. I could hear the whistle of wind through their primaries. Blue-wing teal, judging by their dark bellies and the chalky patches on the leading edge of their wings. He swung with them, smooth and fast, and shot. One shell. Three birds splashed down near the shore.

  “What’s that?” Doc’s voice came from inside the bunkhouse.

  “Curly’s shooting hors d’oeuvres,” Flo said.

  “Is he pie-eyed yet?”

  “You couldn’t tell it from here.”

  “That boy always could shoot, drunk or sober.”

  I guess he could. So Curly, armed and accurate, stood between us and freedom. Then I remembered the Thompson and the BAR in the bunkhouse. I crawled back to Harry.

  “Listen,” I whispered, “I need a diversion. Something to get Flo out of the place for a minute while I duck in and grab those automatic weapons.” I pointed to the splitting maul. “Take this and go down to the far end. Keep low so she can’t see you through the windows. When I give you the signal, start banging it against the wall, not so loud that Curly can hear it and come running, but enough to bring her out in a hurry.” He nodded. “We’ve got to move fast when the shit hits the fan. Curly can’t hurt us with the shotgun, not at this range, but once I’ve got that BAR in my hands I can waste him at leisure.”

  “Okay, S-Sarge.” He grinned. “Gosh, it feels just like a war movie.” Like I said, Mister Cool. But he swallowed hard just the same.

  “Get hopping.”

  Harry scuttled in a stoop down to the far corner and looked up. I nodded. He started tapping on the bottom log.

  “Now what?” Doc said from inside. “Sounds like those kids are up to some mischief. Trying to bust loose I guess. Go out there and cool ’em, Flo. Take that hogleg with you. Put a couple shots through the wall if you have to.”

  I heard
Flo’s footsteps clumping out the door. Waited a couple of seconds for her to get clear, then sprinted around the back corner, the front corner, and piled into the bunkhouse through the open doorway. Doc sat on one of the bunks, with the Thompson and a cleaning rag in his lap. He looked up with his wasted face. “Back so soon?”

  I was on him in an instant, wrenched the tommy gun loose, then grabbed up the BAR.

  “What the fuck . . . ”

  I ran for the door. From their weight, I could tell both pieces were loaded. Around the far corner came Flo, followed by Harry. He was carrying her pistol. He grinned. “It’s okay,” he yelled, gesturing with it. “She’s on our side. She wants to come with us.”

  Blam! A load of spent bird-shot rattled against the wall of the bunkhouse and kicked up dust around my feet. Curly had spotted us. He was running up from the river, a hundred yards away, red-faced and firing as he came. His Brillo-pad hairdo bounced as he ran. I tossed Harry the Thompson—“Hold on to this!”—and raised the BAR to my shoulder. The piece weighs twenty pounds, but it’s accurate out to 600 yards. I flicked off the safety, laid the leaf-sight square on Curly’s chest, then dropped it a tad and tripped off a four-round burst at his feet. I couldn’t bring myself to kill the fucker. I wasn’t enough of a Marine yet. He skidded to a halt and let the pumpgun fall.

  “Doc’s still inside,” I told Harry. “See what he’s up to.”

  At that moment Doc came groping his way out the door, a big, blocky Colt automatic in his hand. He winced in the sunlight, his face screwed up even tighter and uglier than usual. He pointed the .45 in our general direction and blasted away. Harry raised the Thompson, but he hadn’t racked a round into the chamber yet. He damn near snapped off the trigger trying to squeeze it. Flo grabbed her Dragoon from where he’d stuck it through his belt, walked up to Doc straight through the gunfire, jabbed two fingers deep into his eyeholes, then reversed the hogleg to hold it by the barrel and bopped him square on the bean. Thwock! He dropped like a sack of cement.