Running Dark

by Joseph Heywood

  “I always thought you’d head west again,” Service said. “Or up to Alaska.”

  “Used ta say that, an’ I almost did. But when dis Garden mess kicked up, I decided ta see ’er through. I ain’t much for walkin’ away from a scrap.”

  The two men made small talk for a while and Service asked his father’s old friend about aircraft procedures and capabilities, but kept his other thoughts to himself.

  Joe Flap walked him out to his patrol car. “Sorry you had ta join dis sorry outfit,” he said. “Your old man—”

  Service cut him off. “My old man’s dead, Joe. Let’s leave him that way. I’m not him—I’m me.”

  The pilot looked at him quizzically. “I guess we’ll see about dat. Bear scat don’t never fall far from da bear.”

  10

  SHOW-TITTIES POND, DECEMBER 31, 1975

  “Do they expect you guys to live like this for twenty-five years?”

  Once again Brigid Mehegen had shown up unannounced, pounding on Grady Service’s trailer door just after dark. He opened up to find her with a bottle of Cold Duck in one hand and a package of meat in reddish-brown butcher paper in the other. “Just so we’re clear on this,” she said, extending the gifts to him. “Fuck buddies, nothing more.”

  Service laughed and let her in, put the sparkling wine in a bucket of snow outside the door on the stoop, stashed the package in the fridge, and opened beers for them. “Does Perry have a New Year’s Eve act?” he asked. He liked Mehegen, but this was all a bit too fast, and there was an aura around her. She was attractive and engaging, but was she a flake or a free spirit? He wasn’t at all sure.

  “I told him if he shows up, I will put two in his hat and gut him.”

  Ten minutes later the telephone rang, and Service groped around for a pen to make notes. “You’re sure they’re there now?” he said, reaching for his boots as he hung up.

  Mehegen handed his gunbelt to him. “Where are we going?”

  “We?”

  “I came to spend the night with you—as in one plus one equals one. You got a problem with women riding along?”

  He was in too much of a hurry to argue, and he had to admit it would be nice to spend another night with her.

  Walking to the patrol car he explained, “The woman on the phone wouldn’t give her name, but she claims two guys up on STP shot two deer with a crossbow last night. They’re driving a blue pickup, make unknown. She said their names are Ivan Rhino and Eugene Chomsky.”

  Mehegen got into the passenger seat and buckled her safety belt. “The caller saw them do it?”

  Service said, “One of them’s been yapping about it.” He looked over at her. “You stay out of the way.”

  Mehegen saluted with her left hand and smiled. “STP?”

  “It’s a summer hangout for local teens and occasionally the biker crowd. Most years it barely qualifies as a pond, and it’s not named on maps. The name is strictly local.”

  She laughed. “You talked right around that one.”

  “Show-Titties Pond,” he said.

  She laughed even louder. “You take your honeys out there in your day?”

  “I was busy with other things,” he said. From age twelve through college he had played hockey virtually year-round.

  “I can’t believe you were celibate,” she said.

  “I wasn’t,” he said.

  After a few minutes she asked, “Do you know you haven’t turned on your lights?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you always drive around at night without lights?”

  “Usually,” he said.

  “The DNR endorses this?”

  “There’s no written policy,” he said. He had been told during training that there once had been, but department lawyers ordered it rescinded, feeling they could work better from ambiguity than specificity. Officers were never ordered to run dark and many didn’t. In the U.P., where there were more two-tracks and logging trails than hardtop roads, the practice tended to be a standard operating procedure.

  “I’m surprised the Lansing lawyers allow it.”

  “Nobody asks.”

  “And if you plow into somebody?”

  “They’ll have to ask.”

  She braced both hands on the dashboard.

  He braked suddenly, stopping the vehicle in the road, and took out his plat book and penlight. The caller told him there were two camps owned by flatlanders from the Port Huron area. Service looked up the Floating Rose Township maps, found STP, and saw there was state land all the way around the pond except for the northwest corner, where two twenty-acre parcels showed the owners as August and Angie Agosti. He turned off the penlight, dropped the book on the back floor, and accelerated.

  Most back roads had stayed fairly mushy until mid-December when it got cold; now all the two-tracks and gravel roads were snow-covered, pitted and frozen. They would likely stay frozen into late April or early May. He kept both hands on the steering wheel as the ruts yanked violently at his tires.

  He knew that a tote road-driveway led north up the west side of the pond to where the private parcel was, but he stopped in a logging area west of the STP entry road, parked the Plymouth, left the motor running, and started to get out.

  “Are we going for a walk?” Mehegen asked.

  “One of us is.”

  “Don’t pull this,” she said.

  “You’re gonna be a cop, right?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “I’ve got my brick,” he said, showing her the handheld radio. He held up two microphones for his vehicle radios. “You know radios, right? County on one, DNR on the other.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  “I’m gonna walk in and scout the place. When I call, bring the car up to the camps. Can you do that?”

  “I guess.”

  He gripped her upper arm. “This is important: You’re my backup. When you come, no gumball flashing and no siren unless I tell you to light it up and play your music. Understand?” He showed her the toggles for the overhead gumball and siren. He didn’t mention the stupidity of game wardens having gumball lights. In the woods you needed to be as nondescript as possible, and a big light on your roof made you stand out, even if it wasn’t lit. Obviously somebody in Lansing wanted COs to look like the Michigan State Police. Having done both jobs, he could tell the originator of the idea that the only similarities in the jobs were wearing a badge and being armed.

  He eased open his door and took out the ruck, which he kept filled with emergency gear. The ruck still smelled new, and he shook his head when he thought about how he came to have it.

  He had been in Newberry three weeks before starting official solo duty in the district when his sergeant told him to report to the garage where the district’s fire-fighting equipment was stored.

  There he found an elongated green panel truck with a DNR emblem on the side. A man was sitting behind a sewing machine in back. The truck was filled with racks of shirts and trousers and coats and hats, and bins of boots. The man had medium-length gray hair, a jowled round face, and thick black-rimmed glasses that made his eyes look bigger than they were. He also wore a green felt cap with a pin sprouting colorful feathers, and a well-tailored and crisply pressed dark green jaeger jacket. His face was flushed, his nose bulbous.

  “I am Vilhelm, quartermeister, just like za Wehrmacht,” the man said imperiously. “Ve haff only so much time, so you vill now please to stend on line and poot out arms, ja.” The man stepped forward, pointed to a piece of tape on the floor of the truck, and demonstrated with his arms. “Like zis, ja.”

  Service stepped up and extended his arms.

  “Sehr gut,” the man said extending his measuring tape. “You haff important new job, ja.” When he finished measuring he wrote down some numb
ers and said, “You are beak fellow.”

  The man went back to a rack, rattled some hangers, and brought out a long-sleeved gray DNR uniform shirt for Service. “Try on.”

  It felt a little snug. The man poked at Service’s back with a sliver of chalk. “We tuck here, unt here, ja.” When the man reached for Service’s pants, he took a step back and the man’s reaction was immediate. “You vill not moof, ja.” The man measured his waist and inseam. “Off!” he said, tugging at Service’s pants and went to another rack, coming back with a pair. “You try.”

  They were a little tight in the waist. “Okay, ja, I let zis out, no problem,” he said.

  “You were in the German army?” Service asked.

  “Ja wohl. Ve lose. I am conscripted. How old am I?”

  Service thought the man looked to be mid- to late seventies. “I’m not good at guessing ages.”

  “Zixty. Ve are trapped by Ivan from za East, Americans and Tommies in Vest. I lose leg on za Oder. I am zixteen by one month, ja. Za surgeon, he cleans and cauterizes za stump, makes bandage, and ve all retreat. Ve vill not surrender to Ivans. I valk mitt crutch and carry Mauser more zen one hundred kilometers so I can raise my hands to American GIs. Zey put me in hospital, giff me gut care, zen I am POW for more zen one year until zey investigate to make sure I am not Nazi. Ven Wehrmacht took me, I was apprentice to tailor in Munich. America welcomes Germans with a trade, unt zey let me come to America.”

  Service didn’t ask how he ended up in Michigan working for the DNR.

  “You fought in Vietnam,” the man said, staring at Service.

  “Yes.” How had he known?

  “You haff za eyes,” the man said, patting his arm. “Velcome home, velcome to DNR. You haff important job, ja? Now, you smoke, unt I vork.”

  Service lit up on the back of the truck while the man sewed. After awhile the tailor had him try on the shirt again. It fit perfectly, and the man smiled and nodded. “Ja, sehr gut! I come back one year, you need fix, I fix, you need new, I get or make.” The man reached into a box and dumped a green rucksack and equipment bag on the ground behind the truck. “I make from GI zurplus canvas tent. Two dollars each. Zey vill last forever. Za uniforms all ready in three days, ja?” Service dug out the money and paid.

  “Hey, Willie,” another CO said, coming up to the truck. “Your Kraut pension come through yet?”

  “Zere iss no pension for losers,” Wilhelm answered with a pained grin. “Stend on line, arms out, ja.”

  Another officer grabbed Service as he was putting the ruck and bag in his patrol car. “Experience counts with Willie. The older guys get all the good stuff and the best service. If you want an extra good fit, you offer him booze, venison, beer, or fresh fish. That’s why Willie comes to this district every year—for venison and wild game, just like back home in Germany.”

  “Thanks,” Service said, feeling for a moment like he was back in the marines, learning to work the system.

  Ruck on, he made sure his shotgun was unlocked behind the seat and looked at Mehegen. “All you have to do is this,” he said, taking her hand and showing her how to pull the weapon loose. “It’s Remington, twelve-gauge, semiautomatic, slug in the boiler, four more slugs behind that.”

  She got out and felt her way around to his side as he tightened the straps of his ruck. He checked his watch as she slid into his seat. “Give me at least ninety minutes to get back there and snoop around, but when I call, come fast.”

  “What if I don’t hear from you in ninety minutes?”

  “Call the county for backup.”

  He walked into the cedar swamp, angling northeast.

  There was no moon. Snow was coming and going in varying intensity, the temperature around thirty and falling. Little snow made it through the canopy filter, most of it piling up overhead. When the sun came out, it would be a frigid rain in the understory.

  He moved steadily, not hurrying. The roots of the cedars were a tangle, some of them sticking up nearly a foot, threatening to twist an ankle or break a leg. In cedars, you learned to take your time, even if you had good night vision, which he did.

  It took twenty minutes before he saw a tiny halo of light in the distance and guessed it came from the camps. He always carried a compass, but rarely needed it. If he was on course, he should be seeing the lower of the two camps. He slid more to the north to approach the upper camp first. Behind the cabin in the trees he found a trailered boat with an outboard, two Ski-Doo snowmobiles, and a vintage Indian motorcycle, all of the vehicles draped with snow-covered canvas tarps. Indians were antiques and worth a fortune to certain collectors. His old man had once owned one and used it for patrol until he fell off it and broke an arm; his supervision told him to stick to four wheels. Service wondered what happened to the old motorcycle. It had been red, and a beauty.

  The cabin was dark and there were no vehicles nearby. He moved behind the cabin and into thick willows for cover. He could see a light on the corner of the other camp, and as he moved south he saw light coming from behind the other cabin. He crouched to make a low profile and advanced steadily, stopping often to listen. When he got to the edge of a clearing, he squatted and watched. There was a sliver of glow in the clearing, and suddenly embers rose into the night and something screamed and metal slammed and he could hear pounding. What the hell? His first thought was a burn barrel.

  “Hold that fucker down,” a voice growled.

  “Damn bandit,” another voice said.

  Service saw two figures near the sliver of fire, and there was just enough light to see the silhouette of the barrel.

  Somebody began to pound the metal barrel, bellowing, “There, there, there!”

  Now what? Service thought.

  He could hear something thrashing frantically inside the barrel, but the sounds had faded from screams to moans and hisses. He snapped on his four-cell flashlight.

  “Conservation officer!” he announced. “What’s going on here?”

  “Got Bandit!” a voice said excitedly.

  “Shut up, Eugene!”

  “Gumby!” the other voice said. “Not Eugene. Gumby—not Eugene!” The tone was something between frustrated and pissed.

  Service said, “What’s in the barrel, guys?”

  “Not your business,” one of the voices said.

  “Bandit,” the first voice said. “Got ’im good!”

  “Can I see?” Service asked.

  “You got a warrant?” one of them challenged.

  “Yeah, got weren’t?” the other voice chimed in.

  “Shut up, Eugene.”

  “Gumby!” the other voice insisted.

  Service looked them over. Two males, one of them six-five with a cherubic face and an extra wide body of muscle and baby fat. The other was shorter, lean and feral in appearance, furtive in movement, with long hair hanging loose and wild.

  “Stay right there, boys,” Service said. He stepped forward and used the end of his flashlight to slide the lid off the barrel. Sparks exploded into the night and showered him as something leaped out of the barrel and began to run circles in the clearing, falling, getting up, and plunging on through the snow, its fur singed, the snow causing a hiss that blended with the animal’s keening.

  “Got Bandit!” the larger of the two men said. “Got ’im good!”

  “Step over here by the barrel,” Service said.

  “We don’t got to,” the long-haired one said.

  “Got badge?” the bigger one asked.

  Service had his radio on a strap. He kept the light on the two men and toggled his radio. “Two-one-thirty, move up, no lights no music.” Should he call for county backup? His mind was torn between keeping an eye on the two men and knowing he had to put the animal out of its misery. He glanced in the barrel and saw charred and stinking remain
s of other animals. The stench pinched his nostrils. Sickos, he told himself.

  “Okay guys, we’re gonna walk around the cabin to the road. Stay in front of me.” The larger man walked backward looking back at Service. “Gumby see badge?”

  The larger man was Gumby. “Ivan Rhino?” Service asked the other man.

  “Gumby,” the big man insisted. He looked to be late teens at the oldest.

  “Shut up, Eugene,” the other man said, ignoring Service.

  They had just reached the east side of the cabin when Gumby smacked the other man so hard he went down on his face and immediately scissored Gumby’s legs out from under him, dumping him in the snow and pummeling his face.

  Service saw vehicle lights coming up the tote road. He stepped over to the two men on the ground and jabbed the smaller one away with his boot.

  Gumby immediately clamped onto his leg and started clawing at his holster, shouting, “Get gun! Get gun!”

  Service bopped him once on the head with the butt of his flashlight and the man collapsed on his side in the snow.

  “Fucking retard,” the other man grumbled.

  Mehegen pulled up in the squad. Service had the smaller man help his partner to his feet and guided them roughly toward the vehicle. “Call the county,” he said. “Two prisoners to transport.”

  “What for?” she asked.

  “Make the call,” he said with a growl. “There’re extra cuffs on the parking brake. Toss them to me.” Mehegen did as ordered, stared at him.

  “Sit,” he told the skinny one. He cuffed the small man’s leg to the big man’s wrist, took the second set, attached it to the larger man’s wrist and the smaller man’s wrist. He could hear Mehegen on the radio, knew the county wanted a ten-code beyond a request for transport in order to assign a priority, but he still didn’t know exactly what he had. He stepped over to the patrol car and whispered, “Just say yessir to whatever I say, okay?”

  “Yessir,” she said.

  “Okay, Officer Mehegen. You’ve got the shotgun, right?”

  “Yessir.”