Shadow of the Wolf Tree

by Joseph Heywood

  “Too long alone in the woods,” Friday whispered. “Do I look like a guy?”

  “Do you have insurance?” Service asked.

  “No, I do Russian way, I fix myself.”

  “Simon’s pretty handy with wood,” Service offered.

  “So am I,” Friday whispered, her voice trailing off.

  “You have eaten, my new friends?”

  “We just stopped to introduce ourselves, we’ve already eaten,” Service explained.

  “Bullshit! Is Russian custom, guests will take food or is insult.” He poked Service forcefully. “Maybe Russian food will improve your Russian language.”

  A bit later, the Russian served beavertail stew. “Is aphrodisiac in the Motherland,” he said.

  “Oh goodie,” Friday whispered. “Like I need a booster.”

  The man still wore his handgun. “What make?” Service asked.

  “Pistolet Makarova. Russian Makarov is cannon for the hand. You are Makarovniki?”

  “Geez,” Friday said with a whimper. “Make him stop! I can’t take any more of this.”

  “No,” Service said. “First Russian pistol I’ve ever seen.”

  • • •

  After lunch the three officers met Grinda just outside Crystal Falls, pulled up a two-track, and stood by Service’s truck. “Was that guy for real?” Friday asked.

  “The U.P. tends to attract eccentrics and individualists,” del Olmo said. “Always has, always will—as long as there’s wild land and the possibility of privacy.”

  Service’s mind was swimming in other directions. “How many people did you check on the South Branch opening day?” he asked Grinda.

  “I saw eight or nine, maybe ten. But I only actually checked three, no violations. Fly fishermen,” she said. “Boy Scouts. Most of them release what they catch.”

  “Different this year than last?”

  “Good weather this time. Last year’s opener sucked. There’s never much traffic on the South Branch. Come late June you can have it all to yourself.”

  “Did you map the location of the crap we picked up on the second day?”

  “Sure, dropped markers on my AVL. Want to see?”

  He leaned in the truck and looked over her shoulder as she brought up the map. She had marked each danger with a red X. Service studied what he saw. “The fishing below where the man was killed—that’s good water, right?”

  “It can be great this time of year. Deep holes, lots of cover, better than upstream, unless you go way upstream.”

  “Only two Xs below the bridge.”

  “Right, the concentration was higher.”

  “But the better fishing is below.”

  “This time of year.”

  “It is this time of year,” he said.

  “Maybe somebody thinks the upper section is his personal water.”

  “I thought this was about anti-fishing,” Service reminded them all. “How many camps up there?”

  Grinda and del Olmo glanced at each other. She said, “Forty, fifty—I never really counted. They’re mostly seasonal camps with only a handful of year-rounders, and most of them are strung out along Basswood Road.”

  “Maybe we should knock on some doors, see if anyone saw anything in the days before the shooting.”

  “Probably not that many people around.”

  “Some of the people over there must be trout fishermen.”

  “I suppose.”

  He could see Grinda trying to figure out how she could knock on doors and do all the other things she had to do.

  “Friday and I will get Mike and we’ll take care of it. You want to loan me your plat book?”

  Her relief was visible as she fished the book from the backseat and handed it to him.

  • • •

  “So,” Friday said, when they were alone in his truck, “I suppose we’ll start knocking on doors today?”

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Thank God.”

  “I thought we’d take a little hike tonight. You like campfires?”

  “In a fireplace, with a bottle of champagne nearby.”

  “Think campfire outdoors.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, lowering her eyes.

  “We’ll be spending the night.”

  “Are you expecting me to stand up and shout hallelujah?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “Not a real long hike. Ten miles; double that with the return.”

  “You want to hike ten miles into the bush and ten miles back—at night.”

  “It’s only 4 o’clock. We’ve got a lot of daylight left. If you hadn’t killed those poor deer, we’d have a second vehicle to spot and walk to.” He saw her trying to catch a breath. “Don’t worry, the woods are my home.”

  “My boots are in that car we don’t have,” she reminded him.

  “You and Grinda are about the same size,” he said. “She’ll borrow you some stuff,” he said, borrowing a Yooper expression.

  26

  South Branch, Paint River, Iron County

  TUESDAY, MAY 30, 2006

  After a fast stop at Grinda’s, Service drove to the west county, pulled off the road a half-mile north of Elmwood, where Forest Highway 16 sliced through a low ridge, got out, fixed sleeping bags to two packs, and tossed long johns, wool socks, and a wool chook to Friday. He studied the topography on the AVL while she sat in back, changing clothes, complaining. “It’s after Memorial Day,” she said, holding up the wool items.

  “Trust me, it’s not summer yet.”

  “I thought we were going to the river.”

  “Is that a lyric in a hymn?”

  “Seriously.”

  “What if this isn’t about fish?” he said, looking back and catching her trying to spear one pant leg of the long johns.

  She stopped struggling and looked at him. “Want to tell me what this is about?

  “We’ll know when we find it,” he said, and got out of the truck.

  He hoped. He didn’t have a clear hypothesis; more a notion, an irritating kernel of something, alternate thinking, back-dooring the problem. Booby traps kept some people away, but attracted others. The DNR had closed the river after the killing to keep people away and to prevent further injuries. Did closing the river both prevent something and enable another—the law of unintended consequences? The property where Newf had found the skulls belonged to Art Lake. Art Lake / wolf tree / booby traps—a sequence becoming a mantra. Linkages, or your own imaginings? They seem to be connected. Seem. Not sure.

  They hiked through the hardwoods, working their way through tangles of blowdowns and new and decaying slash, leafy compost, like walking on sponge in some places—sponge that hid rocks and made the footing dicey, hard slogging. “Slow down,” Friday muttered sharply from behind him. “What’s the point of searching at night? We can’t see shit.”

  “Other stuff is more obvious at night,” he told her, and began moving again. “Besides, it’s not even close to night yet. We still have plenty of light.” It was only 9:30 p.m.

  “You call it light,” she grumped. “I call it twilight.”

  Service saw the porcupine scuttle in front of him, heading for a tree, thought, Big porky, big liver. He got to the animal just as it headed up the trunk, took out his .40 caliber SIG Sauer, and killed it with a single round, pulling his leg back as it dropped heavily back to the ground.

  “It’s okay,” he called to Friday.

  She came forward with her own weapon at the ready in the two-handed position. “Put it away,” he said.

  She looked at the animal on the ground. “You shot a porcupine?”

  “Dinner,”
he said.

  She said, “I’d rather eat dirt.”

  He ignored her. Porky meat could be good if it was properly marinated for long enough, but he had neither the time nor the materials. The fast food from a porky was the liver. The animal was not an overly active creature, which produced a relatively large liver. He put his boot on the animal and rolled it onto its back. He slid off his pack, got out a plastic evidence bag and a bottle of water. He knelt beside the creature, delicately slit the belly, just breaking through the skin with his folding knife, reached into the cavity, and delicately felt around until he found the liver. He pulled it through the opening to be sure he had the right thing, and when he was certain, used the knife to sever it from the connecting tissue, and held it up for Friday to see. It was the size of a swollen baseball, perfect for what he had in mind.

  Friday sat on a log watching him. “You’re gonna get quilled,” she said.

  He chuckled. “The quills that come loose are mostly in the tail,” he told her as he emptied the bottle of water into the plastic bag, sprinkled three salt packets into the water, put the liver into the water and shook the bag, turning the water a color between pink and brown. He put the empty bottle and the bag back into his pack, wiped his hands in the dirt, put his pack back on, and looked at her. “This is great. It can soak while we hike.”

  “Yeah, that’s important,” she said.

  Thirty minutes later he had dead-reckoned his way back to the knob above where Newf had found the skulls. “Picnic?” he said, setting his pack down.

  “Picnics are done in daylight, not in the dark.”

  “Don’t knock it until you try it,” he said.

  “That’s what my ex used to say about anal sex. We haven’t hiked anything like ten miles,” she pointed out.

  “You want to make a fire?”

  “More appropriately, you should ask do I know how to make a fire, to which the answer would be, uh, nooo. And this is your house, right? You come to mine, I’ll turn on the stove. That’s a promise.”

  He assembled a small ring of stones, gathered a pile of sticks the diameter of pool cues, and tore some birch bark from a rotting tree. He opened his pack, took out a quart-size pan, and emptied two bottles of water into it. The liver bag sat beside the pan. He made the fire by putting twigs and tinder on birch bark and igniting the bark with his lighter. Birch burned like a candle, and would ignite when wet. In winter he often carried a bag of birch and tinder in his pack.

  “Tuesday, when the water boils, put the liver in and let it boil about two minutes.”

  “I’m not touching that thing,” she said.

  “C’mon, be a sport.”

  “Yeah, my ex used to say that, too.”

  He took his pack to a boulder with a slight depression about eight inches across and pulled a sheet of paper towel from his pack, along with a plastic cylinder. He used his folding knife to cut some green sticks, a quarter- to a half-inch in diameter, and set them by his pack.

  “It’s starting to boil,” Friday said. “What’s in the plastic gizmo?”

  “Spices.”

  “You’re joking. Who’re you supposed to be, Julia Child?”

  “Try Euell Gibbons,” he said, but she was a bit too young to remember. “I keep this in my pack. He tapped dried thyme and basil onto the paper towel, and most of the small container of ancho chili powder, and looked over at the pot. “Put it in,” he said.

  “Isn’t that my line?”

  She didn’t make a face, and clearly did not like handling the liver, but did as he asked and put it in the pot.

  “Two minutes,” she said.

  He handed her one of the green sticks. “Spear it.”

  She sighed, held the handle of the pan, gingerly stuck the stick into the organ, and held it out to him.

  He set the liver on the boulder beside the spices and lit a cigarette. “It needs to cool,” he said, adding, “Stoke the fire.”

  “Yours or mine?” she said.

  He shook his head and trimmed yellow membrane and gristle off the cooled liver, cutting it into quarter-inch slices. He tossed green sticks to Friday and began rolling slices in the spices. When each was done he passed it to her. “Thread it like shish kebab.”

  “Shish kebab has real meat, veggies, fruit. This isn’t shish kebab.”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t use that tone of voice with me. We haven’t even slept together.”

  “What was last night?”

  “Don’t go semantic on me . . . you know what I mean,” she said, threading the liver slices.

  All the meat on skewers, he took them from her and lay them across the fire rocks.

  “This is dinner—all of it?”

  “You won’t be disappointed,” he said. “It beats venison liver.”

  “Now that’s a ringing culinary endorsement to get my taste buds quivering.”

  “Why so uptight out here? You were a regular comedian at the Mad Russian’s.”

  “I saw humor there, none here.”

  “There’s a reason for us to be here,” he told her. “Put aside everything we think we know. Think outside of the box.”

  “This whole experience is way outside my box,” she said.

  “I know, but try to bear with me. Someone sets booby traps, not on the entire very fishable stretch, but only above the bridge where the man died. My friend and I hit the first razor wire just below here, but this is great water, so why put the wire and booby traps where they did?”

  “They’re anti-fishing nuts. They want people to leave the fish alone.”

  “Why?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  Take another angle. “Okay, pretend you’re a kid playing hide-and-seek. The searchers are moving in, and you have to do something.”

  “I’d surrender. It’s a lame game, Mom’s calling me in for dinner—and it’s goulash.”

  “Okay, you’re a cop in the middle of bad guys; if you come up shooting, you’re dead. What do you do? If you hunker, you’re done.”

  “Diversion,” she said.

  “How’s the meat doing?” he asked, poking at a slice with his finger and leaning down to look.

  “How would I know?” she said. “Liver’s not meat, anyway—it’s guts . . . or something.”

  “What kind of diversion?”

  “Throw a rock?”

  “That would work. What happens when you throw it?”

  “They turn toward the sound.”

  “Exactly—which buys you time and space, and then you can do whatever you need to do,” he said, checking the meat again.

  “If not an anti-fishing group, what?” she asked.

  “We’re not ruling them out. We’re just trying to look at the picture differently. If this was a diversion, what happened, and why?”

  “Having the DNR on the river and keeping fishermen away saved others from getting hurt, or worse.”

  “Right, our people were mobilized, and showed up in force—but only where the danger was found. The skulls were found directly below us, and if I wanted to be in this area with minimal chance of interference, having a bunch of woods cops just downstream would provide the ideal shield. Jesus,” he said, and grabbed the cell phone out of his pack.

  He hit the speed dial for Grinda. “Hey, it’s Grady. Any word from UPSET?”

  “I’d forgotten about all that with everything else that’s been going on.”

  “Can you call your friend, find out what they have?”

  “What was that about?” Friday asked after he’d finished the call. “UPSET is about dope, right?”

  “The night we found the remains, Grinda had a bit of a scrap with unknown perps less than seven miles west of here. We found
tracks of four-wheelers, which means they could easily have been anywhere in this area and seen something.”

  “All this could be about dope?”

  “Twins: Dope and violence.”

  “Sad but true,” she said.

  “Which makes it worth looking around this area, right?”

  “Wouldn’t daylight make more sense?”

  “Not for what I’m thinking.”

  He handed her a skewer. “Bon appetit.”

  When she balked, he picked up another skewer and bit into the liver.

  She still balked. He picked up a handful of dirt and held it out to her. “Your alternative entree, I believe?”

  Friday finally tasted the liver and said, “Okay, I’m woman enough to admit I’m half wrong.”

  “Half?”

  “It’s delicious, but there’s not nearly enough.”

  Fire extinguished and tamped, packs on backs, he said, “Let’s boogie.”

  “Are we carrying sleeping bags for a reason?”

  “The night’s just beginning.”

  “I’m usually naked and in bed when I like to hear those words.”

  “You’ll love walking at night.”

  “If I don’t lose an eye.”

  “Put on your safety glasses and move steadily.”

  Four hours later they were midway down a low ridge and he began kicking sticks off the pine duff to clear a space. Area cleared, he dropped his pack, undid his sleeping bag, and rolled it out.

  “This is it?” she asked.

  “Listening post,” he said. “Maybe I’m wrong and wasting our time. I’m not seeing anything. Which makes it time to sit and listen. Sometimes ears are a lot better than eyes in the woods.”

  “I’m too tired to think or listen,” she said, “but sometimes the obvious is obvious for a reason,” she said, spreading out her own sleeping bag. “Do these bags zip together?” she asked.

  He knew she was right about the obvious, but this didn’t seem to fit. “Separate sleeping accommodations.”

  “Naturally,” she grumped. “The bones you found,” she said, “they’re separate from the killing, and the other stuff?”