“Why, Mr. Bapcat, you are manipulating us into having a family, and you have not even had the decency to ask for my hand in marriage.”
“Do you think you can manipulate everyone in your life all the time?” he shot back.
She smiled. “Actually, yes, and I can hear acceptance of the family concept in your heart,” she said. “I shall look forward to your proposal for my hand. Does the boy have good hygiene?”
“I’m sure he will when you’re done with him.”
She put her hands on her hips and swayed. “Agreed. It goes on the tab. You want to make partial payment now?”
“There’s no time, Jaquelle.”
He could see her mulling something over. “Lute, there’s a man hanging around Moriarty’s, Frank Fisher.”
“Just one?”
“Dammit, you listen to me. Fisher is dangerous. Even Moriarty’s petrified of him.”
“He can fire him.”
“Apparently Fisher’s not the kind you can fire, and he doesn’t work for Moriarty, he just seems to always be there.”
“What about Pinnochi, Jaquelle?”
“Moriarty says he was never there, and he started to amend his statement with something about Fisher, but came up mute. This is why I don’t want you to go to Helltown. Something’s dreadfully wrong out there.”
“I can take care of myself,” he said.
“I know that, but a little insurance never hurts,” she said, and stepped over and kissed him. “You’re going to Helltown, aren’t you?”
“Probably not,” he allowed. “Fisher come in with your first group?”
“Just before that. On his own.”
“But he’s not one of Moriarty’s security hires?”
“No, he’s an Ascher Agency dick from out east.”
Bapcat opened the door and called the boy inside. “Jordy, you’re staying with Widow Frei. Do what she asks you to do and mind your manners. And before you whine, I know this isn’t fair.”
“It sure as hell ain’t,” the boy said.
“Is that rifle loaded?” Jaquelle Frei asked the boy.
“He asks me that all the time,” the boy complained.
“Answer me,” she said. “Is it?”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No, it ain’t loaded.”
“No, ma’am, it isn’t loaded.”
“I just said it ain’t loaded,” Kluboshar insisted.
“You’ll learn to say it better. Do you have anything you need to tell Deputy Bapcat?”
“Yeah, them’s all Croats outside and they don’t speak no American . . . and Goddammit, please don’t leave me with her!”
“This is for your own good, Jordy,” Bapcat said, brushing his hand against Frei’s thigh and stepping past the sputtering boy into the day.
80
Wyoming (Helltown), Keweenaw County
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1913
The town of Wyoming had been built in a clear field a mile or so south of the village of Delaware, on the south bank of the Montreal River. Bapcat had trapped all through and around the area for years. Wyoming had been one of the Keweenaw’s original mines, established halfway through the previous century, but had been long since closed. All that remained were the rusted remains and stone walls of an old stamp mill and a half-dozen buildings, including a small general store and four taverns, which operated all day, every day, and attracted so many miners from nearby communities that it became known locally as Helltown. There was no law.
The first draw in the village was alcohol, followed closely by loose women—sporting girls called tumble-downs, meaning they had tumbled from sporting house to sporting house, each time descending to more-demeaning circumstances. Helltown was as low as a woman could fall. Does Jaquelle supply women for Moriarty and the other bar owners there? Bapcat wondered.
Some nights and days the town was wild with drunks and brawls and shooting. You could always gauge the mood by sitting in the woods and listening a quarter-mile out.
Moriarty’s place was reputed to be the most depraved in town, and had held that distinction for as long as Bapcat could recall. Rather than frightening him, Jaquelle’s worries about one Frank Fisher only served to make Bapcat curious.
Assuming Fisher might be as dangerous as Frei thought he was, Bapcat knew he should get Moriarty alone so there could be no interference. Such an opportunity might be rare, but Bapcat knew it was just a matter of patience and caution on his part, and the call of Mother Nature on Moriarty’s part. When Bapcat got Moriarty alone, the man would not be happy to see him.
Late that night, the big Irishman came outside to his private privy, and when he opened the door to go in, Bapcat stepped up behind him, put the rifle barrel on the man’s skull, and said calmly, “Don’t even think of moving, Moriarty. Step inside.”
“I’ll be the picture of compliance. Who are ye?”
“Speak only when I tell you to speak.”
“Yer fookin horse’s arse.”
Bapcat smacked the man’s head with a short thrust of the rifle barrel. “Only when I tell you to speak, otherwise listen.”
Moriarty whispered, “Mother of God, I know that fookin’ voice.”
“Pinnochi.”
“Why’re people so interested in a bloody guinea?”
“He was here.”
“Yer mother’s arse.”
“I have it on good authority.”
“Bollocks, who’d be spoutin’ such shite?”
The strain in the man’s voice said fear, lots of fear, torrents of it just under the surface. “Remember the lesson you got about poaching another man’s trapline?”
“Swear to God, I don’t even trap no more.”
“I find out Pinnochi was here—ever—you know what will happen.”
“I don’t want your kind of problem, and now word’s going around about how the Trapper’s acquired a state badge.”
“Who else asked about Pinnochi?”
“Widow Frei,” Moriarty said.
Bapcat prodded him with the Krag. “And?”
“Not sure. I got patrons, they all talk shite and ask questions, you know, bar talk.”
Switch direction. “Who around here carries a .30-40 Krag?”
Long delay in response. “Only one I seen.”
“Name?”
“Frank.”
“Frank Fisher?”
“Could be. Just Frank is all I know.”
Bapcat slowly chambered a round. “Say your prayers if you know any.”
“Yes, yes, Frank Fisher—Jaysus!”
“He works for you.”
“More shite. He don’t work for me. He come in here one night and that’s all I know.”
“Who’s he work for?”
“Not me.”
“He around tonight?”
“Ain’t seen ’im.”
“Why’s he come to your place?”
“Best girls in town.”
“Not much of a claim there, Ulrich.”
“I think he’s looking for someone.”
“He mention names?”
“Not much of a talker.”
“And no idea where he is now, or where he hangs out?”
“Nah, no talker, that bugger.”
Bapcat made Moriarty squeeze around him and face the door.
“I ain’t shat yet,” the man complained. He was sweating heavily and shaking.
“Find another place to leave your brains,” Bapcat said.
Silence again, more trembling.
“Someone out there, Ulrick?” a voice called.
“I don’t know.”
“Step out. It’s ti
me for you to depart the premises.”
Moriarty put up his hands up, cried “Don’t shoot!,” kicked open the door, and stumbled outside.
Bapcat rolled out behind the man but immediately moved right into the dark and belly-crawled to a pile of wood for cover. He was prepared for a shot, but none came.
The game warden moved to another location near the river and settled in to watch Moriarty’s place of business. Just as dawn began to suggest itself in the eastern sky, a figure in a dark shirt came out of Moriarty’s and quickly walked to another establishment, where he opened the door and glanced back. For a split second Lute Bapcat could clearly make out the man’s features, and sucked in a deep breath.
He was thinner and all gray and it had been seventeen years, but there was no mistaking Sergeant Frankus Fish. He was carrying a Krag carbine, and wearing a Rough Rider slouch hat. What the hell is happening here?
81
Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1913
Michigan game wardens had been in the town that locals called the Soo for a week to train, get acquainted, and compete. For Bapcat and Zakov, who walked away with the two-man shooting competition, most of the rest of the week had been a strain, beginning last Sunday with a strange scolding by some mealymouthed lawyer from Lansing about them illegally subverting the laws of the state legislature in the suspension of the deer season, while Oates and Jones looked on without comment. As soon as the lawyer left the room, the diminutive chief deputy Jones put them in a brace, and gave them an ass-chewing “for being too damn involved in strike politics,” a dressing-down Zakov later characterized as “legendary in tone, proportion, and duration.”
Despite the heavy daily schedule, the two men got down to the St. Mary’s River and found a sloop called Angel Wind, whose master said he had been contracted to carry immigrant miners to Copper Harbor. So far there had been but two deliveries, with no more scheduled. Further, the captain remembered a passenger named Frank Fisher, who had gone to Copper Harbor in July and whom he had not seen since. There was also another passenger slated for that trip, the man’s name Rudyard Riordan, but the man had not shown up for departure, and had been left behind.
The two game wardens also learned from Deputy Harold Barothy of Schoolcraft County that a man by the name of Riordan had arrived in town sometime in July, and caught on with a logging company about eight miles north of town in the Little Fox River country.
“You’re sure the man’s name is Riordan?” Bapcat asked.
“ ’Tis indeed,” Barothy reported.
When the weeklong meeting broke up, Bapcat and Zakov intended to locate Riordan and question him.
Three full days of grinding through statutes and procedures in Chase’s Duties for Game Wardens and Tiffany’s Criminal Law left most of the wardens with headaches, and it hadn’t helped that the presenting lawyer for the Tiffany’s work had all the dramatic effect of stagnant pond water.
The night before there had been a group dinner at the old Fort Brady’s officers’ mess. The fort had been built to house soldiers guarding the Soo locks. Last night’s speaker was an army colonel from Pittsburgh, who talked about the implications and safety issues involved in the shooting of antlered deer. After dinner, and clearly in his cups, the man lamented what he called the absolute certainty of a war in Europe within two years, a war, he said, which would draw in the entire civilized world. Bapcat had only a vague notion of Europe, but Zakov seemed quite grim all night after hearing the speaker.
At final assembly this morning after breakfast, Bapcat and Zakov received medals for their shooting triumph and kudos for their Italian bird case. Chief Deputy Jones asked Bapcat to get up and tell the other officers about the case, an order which made Bapcat’s knees shake and heart palpitate. Talking publicly was a nightmare for him, one he had pretty much avoided his entire life.
Afterward, Horri Harju laughed and congratulated him. “Nearly canned, decorated, and complimented, all in the same week, Bapcat. Well done. They tell you to enforce the new law?”
“No, just chewed us out.”
“They were both covering their potentially exposed political posteriors. Jones and Oates are both real good at that.”
“Meaning, we just keep on?”
“Yessir, and if it comes up again down the road, our supervisors can claim honestly that they chewed your ass once before, and that will be that. Unless they decide to discharge you.”
“Because it will then be my fault.”
“Attaboy. That’s how this business works, but neither Oates nor Jones has yet hung any of us out to dry.”
“This sort of thing is worthy of the czar’s convoluted court,” Zakov said with a groan.
Bapcat said, “I never expected this job to be so—”
“Vague?” Harju said, finishing the sentence for him.
“Right.”
“There are times when none of this seems real,” Bapcat said.
“Stop and think. People have died because of the strike, and there have been mass violations of fish and game laws. That’s as real as it gets, but even if it wasn’t, who cares? Lansing has one reality and we have another. Lansing, where A can’t ever relate to B. You going to need me back over your way?”
“We’re not sure yet.”
“Let me know.”
That night in the barracks Zakov said, “I think I have a superb aptitude for the law.”
“Most of us would prefer you mute,” Bapcat said.
Zakov laughed and pointed a finger. “Touché, mon ami. Did you understand the significance of what we heard about Europe?”
“No,” Bapcat admitted.
“It means that small political missteps could create a conflagration.”
“Europe’s across an ocean, right?”
Zakov rolled his eyes and sighed.
“Then what do we care about a war thousands of miles from us?”
“Because, gospodin, America’s days of isolation from the world ended when you and your comrades fought the Spaniards.”
Bapcat didn’t understand how Cuba related to Europe, and didn’t care. “Seney tomorrow,” he said, and Zakov grinned.
“The reputation of Seney is the equal to Siberia,” Zakov said.
“Siberia?”
“Across the Bering Straits from Seward’s Folly.”
“Seward?”
“Your secretary of war under your great slave-freer Abraham Lincoln, and his successor, President Andrew Johnson. Seward negotiated an obscenely small price for a land mass from Russia that is twice the size of your state of Texas. Another example of a czar being incompetent at things he should be strong at.”
Bapcat knew about Lincoln, and even Johnson, but who was this Seward, and what land was the Russian talking about?
82
Seney, Schoolcraft County
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1913
Zakov, Bapcat, and Harold Barothy got off the train with their packs and rifles and headed straight across the main dirt road to the Grondin Hotel, a white, three-story building that stuck out among all the other buildings painted in dark colors and tones.
Barothy’s wife and kids lived in Manistique, in the far south of the county, and when he worked this part of the county he always took a room at the Grondin. The proprietor had once been a famous cook at a logging camp, had saved his pay and opened this business. He was successful right from the start because of his fabled kitchen.
Barothy guided them into the bar and pointed at a man at a side table. “Riordan.”
“I thought he was a logger?” Bapcat said.
“I said he caught on with a camp, not that he lasted. He busted his leg real bad in the second week and now he’s here for the winter.”
Riordan was manhandling an oversize
spoon in a large bowl of fragrant brown liquid with vegetables floating on top.
“Mr. Riordan?” Bapcat ventured.
Riordan kept eating, said nothing—did not even look up from his bowl.
“Are you Riordan?” Bapcat repeated.
“I am indeed, and who might be inquiring?”
“Why didn’t you answer the first time?”
“Needed to know you were serious about talking. Phil Grondin himself makes this Mulligan, and there ain’t a stew on Earth can match its flavor. Do yourselves a favor and grab a bowl—while it’s still available.”
“Not hungry,” Bapcat said. “How’s the leg?”
“A doc here wanted to whack it off like a dead branch, and I told him if he did, I’d put a bullet in his head.”
“Is that how you settle things—with a gun?”
“At times,” Riordan said, shoving more stew into his already-full mouth.
“Word is that strike-breaking left a bad taste in your mouth.”
Riordan stared at him. “You some kind of law?”
Bapcat showed him the badge he shared with Zakov.
“Game warden? Why you sticking your nose in?”
“I heard you lost your nerve.”
“More like I recovered my brain when I found out Frank Fisher was going to be my boss.”
“Who’s he?” Bapcat asked, playing dumb.
“Count your blessings you don’t know,” Riordan said. “The man stinks of hellfire.”
Zakov sat down on the other side of the man. “A metaphoric fantasy I would like very much to witness as a phenomenon.”
“Who the hell are you?” Riordan challenged.
“Zakov,” the Russian said, and pointed to their badge, on the table. “Tell us about this remarkable fellow redolent of hellfire.”
“One of J. J.’s lone operators.”
“J. J.?” Bapcat asked.
“J. J. Ascher, president of the Ascher Detective Agency.”
“Never heard of them,” Bapcat said.
“I have,” Zakov said. “Waddie competitors. I heard Cruse also hired some Ascher men.”
“Your friend’s right,” Riordan said.
Red Jacket Page 30
