Bapcat knew his friend’s feelings were far from rare, here or out west, and such views had to get changed if game wardens were going to make a difference.
“Give me the benefit of the doubt, Billy, and ask the wife to whip up a chicken dinner for your old pal.”
“You miss trapping, Lute?”
“Sometimes, Bill. Sometimes.” But less and less. More and more he found himself thinking and wondering about, and missing, Jaquelle Frei and the boy. The feelings seemed foreign and he had no idea how to sort them out, only that he felt them, and powerfully.
“You read any papers or been out to the woods?” Shewbart asked.
“Woods.”
“Papers say this storm, she sink two ships in Superior, eight in Huron, maybe two hundred and fifty hands lost. Dozens of ships run aground, probably more lost in Lake Michigan, but I ain’t heard on that yet. Had a ship founder out by Gull Rock. The lifesaving boys from the Portage and Copper Harbor stations banged their way north in boats and got all hands to safety. I guess it was tough business, but you live up here, you learn weather can kill you,” Shewbart said, snapping his fingers. “Like that. You’d think sailors would learn to read the weather better.”
It occurred to Bapcat that up in Copper Harbor, Jaquelle and Jordy had probably been clobbered worse than anywhere. He found his heart racing, wondering how they were.
99
Bumbletown Hill
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1913
Bapcat needed uninterrupted sleep—a lot of it. He had been resting poorly when he did, and slept little in the cold and sleeting onditions. Deer hunters were out, but most had had the required licenses. He had seen only two headless deer carcasses anywhere west of Trimountain and Painesdale, despite covering a lot of ground on foot, several miles a day along streams and in what looked to be good deer country.
Storm gone, the daytime temperatures were hovering in the low twenties, and he guessed this sustained cold had put the deer into the annual rut, which made male deer stupid. With it happening now instead of earlier, hunters should be doing quite well. Even so, Bapcat had heard almost no shots, and seen few deer on poles at hunting camps. Next year the law was likely to be for bucks only, and for a lot shorter season, and in Harju’s opinion, “It’ll be real messy the first time around.”
Trekking up the hill he saw the truck and another automobile and arrived to find Zakov in conversation with a lanky man with a prominent Adam’s apple and a thin nose.
“Here he is,” Zakov said, “entering stage left on cue, fresh from policing Coxey’s bloody army.”
What the hell was the Russian talking about: Coxey’s Army? Before Cuba, he sort of remembered talk about a bunch of unemployed workers who had marched on Washington to demand that the government create jobs, but this was all he could recall.
Zakov, always in love with the sound of his own voice, continued. “This fine individual is one August Beck of Calumet and Hecla.”
“Responsible for company security,” the man said. “Mr. MacNaughton asked me to look into certain allegations you made after illegally intruding upon a private assembly you were unauthorized to attend.”
“Whole lot of words for what amounts to bear crap,” Bapcat said. “What gets you fellas most, me at your meeting? Or what you people are doing to make life impossible for strikers and their families? Or me calling you out on it?”
The direct questions seemed to take the man off guard. Clearly the type who likes to deal from power.
“Mr. MacNaughton is unaware of any alleged illegal and immoral activities.”
“Not anymore he ain’t, because I told him. And we’ll be glad to walk him out to any of his properties and show him the evidence. Tell him to open his damn eyes and take a look around. Even a child can see what’s going on.”
“There’s no call for that tone,” Beck countered.
“The world looks different from my boots,” Bapcat said. “What the hell do you want here, Beck?”
“Civil discourse.”
Zakov said, “I have volunteered to give the gentleman a tour. There are ample things to see close to here.”
Bapcat set down his rifle, opened his pack, and took out the confiscated revolvers.
“I prefer my Colt,” Zakov said.
Bapcat looked at Beck. “I encountered something called the Citizens’ Alliance, over in Trimountain. You know anything about these vigilantes?”
Beck wouldn’t look at him. “Sorry.”
“For a security man, you seem a far piece out of the picture, Beck, both big and small.”
“Professionals work rationally, on facts, not conjecture.”
“What people like you prefer is to bully from behind a thin shield of law.”
“We are a nation of laws.”
“We’re a nation of people who make and change the laws,” Bapcat countered. “We make the laws, not the other way around. Hell, you’ve already got too damn many special deputies all over the place, and they’re all armed. Now, about this so-called Citizens’ Alliance: Who runs the outfit?”
“As previously stated, I have never heard of this group.”
“I took those four revolvers off deputies who appeared to have replaced their badges with Alliance buttons, and tried to act like this so-called Alliance has the force of law.”
“These men threatened you?”
Bapcat smiled. “They tried. Is that your intention, too?”
“I am employed solely to gather facts and report back.”
“Good; tell your boss that most people around here are sure nobody can take a shit unless C and H says so, and C and H means MacNaughton. We all know this because we see it every day.”
“There is no point to continuing this conversation,” Beck said.
“Let us dispense with meaningless banter” Zakov said.
“Can’t continue what isn’t,” Bapcat said. “Go out to the damn mines and see for yourself, if you really don’t know.”
“Mr. MacNaughton wishes me to inform you that he is a law-abiding citizen of the highest moral character, and he abhors all questionable actions.”
“That’s a pretty good joke,” Bapcat said. “Really—all questionable actions, even if they make a profit for the men back in Boston, or crush a union forever, along with its families?”
“I have never worked for a finer man,” Beck said.
Zakov stepped in. “How banal. That only attests to your limited experience or to pathetic values, Mr. Beck, not to MacNaughton’s quality.”
Beck didn’t linger, and hurried away.
“I guess he doesn’t want the tour,” Zakov said.
“MacNaughton sent him to cover himself and the company politically. Beck not taking the tour suggests he already knows what’s going on.”
“Which means MacNaughton knows,” Zakov said.
“Not necessarily. You ever have a boss you couldn’t tell bad news to?”
“I walked one such man out to meet the Japanese.”
“How was your patrol?”
“Very few deer, even fewer hunters. Word seems to be widespread that there are no deer up here.”
“The mine owners are succeeding,” Bapcat said.
The Russian looked deep in thought. “Mother Nature has a role, I believe. In our discussions in Sault Ste. Marie, it was suggested that hunting practices have significant effect, and deer up here have been overhunted since before the strikes.”
“We are our own worst enemies?”
“An inescapable conclusion.”
“And I made it worse.”
“We did,” the Russian said.
“Russians know Mother Nature?”
“Rodina, we say, and this serious word means motherland, but Mother Nature, Mother Russia, mot
herland—it is all the same, da.”
Bapcat didn’t understand the point, but nodded to be polite. His mistake in judgment had hurt the situation. How does a man atone for ignorance and poor judgment?
100
Copper Harbor
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1913
Zakov agreed to join Bapcat on his Thanksgiving trip, and they drove up to Copper Harbor, cursing the road the whole way, which was little better than a widened wagon trail, and so rocky it relentlessly pounded the vehicle, causing a flat tire as light snow fell. The ground, where it wasn’t rock, was frozen from two weeks of below-freezing nights.
“It will be a considerable challenge to drive this road in spring when the mud comes,” the Russian said, adding, “it was mud that stopped Napoleon.”
“I thought it was your army.”
“Only after the rasputitsa mired his army and allowed us to slaughter them like animals in a pen.”
•••
Widow Frei was waiting for them. She wore a long black skirt, a diaphanous white blouse with a frilly collar, and a long string of raw agates. She had cut her hair since Bapcat had last seen her, and it took him by surprise. The boy looked uncomfortable in an obviously new white shirt, tie, and jacket, with black knickers and the ends of his spindly legs tucked into polished boots.
“Do those hurt your feet, boy?” Zakov asked, pointing at Jordy Kluboshar’s new boots.
“Only when I walk in them,” the boy said.
“A lame and likely excuse to help him escape chores,” Frei said. She gave Bapcat a peck on the cheek.
“How’d you like the storm?” Zakov asked the boy.
“I guess I seen my share of snow blowing around before this one,” the boy retorted.
“You heard about Moriarty?” the widow asked.
“No,” Bapcat said.
“He hanged himself behind his establishment.”
“Suicide?”
“Moriarty wasn’t the kind of man to be strung up by others. They were far too fearful. Damn few would have had that kind of nerve,” she said. “Much less ability.”
“When?”
“Ten days ago, or so,” she said.
“Who found him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did the county medical examiner come up?”
“I run my own business, and mind it, too.”
Bapcat laughed. “You also know every damn thing that goes on up here.”
“Wyoming is hardly Copper Harbor,” she said.
“Jaquelle.”
“Yes, he and the sheriff came up and took care of the remains.”
Bapcat tried to remember the last time he’d talked to Hepting, but couldn’t.
After dinner they sat on the apartment’s side porch. The sun was out, temperature in the forties.
“Indian summer,” Frei said. “My knees say we’re in for more snow soon.”
Bapcat set his slouch hat on the floor, rolled a cigarette, smoked slowly, and dozed off. When had he seen the colonel—May? It felt like years ago. His mind drifted back to Marquette. At their first meeting, Oates and Jones had asked about Cruse and Hepting and Captain Hedyn, but not about MacNaughton. And now, six months had passed.
Bapcat suddenly sat up.
“What is it?” Jaquelle Frei asked.
They had laid out his target in the first five minutes, and somehow he had missed the signal. He felt like a fool. Apparently, they were seeing Hedyn as a market hunter, but they were obviously operating on incomplete information, because nobody had ever seen what was actually happening in Copper County.
Did they expect me to go right at Hedyn from the beginning, and if so, why didn’t they say anything? Good God!
Bapcat pulled the Russian aside. “Stay tonight. We’ll take the boy hunting and stay the night.”
“What’s changed?”
“My memory,” Bapcat said.
He used Frei’s telephone to place calls to both Oates and Jones. Neither man answered.
The men and boy hunted in the afternoon, and Jordy Kluboshar shot a large buck with almost black fur, and Bapcat and the Russian shot smaller animals. There was wolf sign in the area, and they got home long after dark, having to drag three carcasses out of the woods and along steep ridges to where the truck was parked.
Bapcat fell asleep with Jaquelle’s head on his shoulder. “I won’t ask when you’re coming back,” she whispered. “I can see in your eyes you are on a crusade.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say that,” he protested.
“Honey, you don’t have to see a fire to know it’s burning.”
101
Wyoming (Helltown)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1913
The next morning, they drove up the hills to Mandan, where the train line from Houghton terminated, and used the railroad phone to call Oates and Jones. Their secretaries said both men were in meetings. Bapcat said he would call Jones around 3 p.m., from Sheriff Hepting’s office in Eagle River.
Bapcat had never been in Helltown in daylight, but he had often smelled it from concealment in the forest. Today he sensed a new air, one with less edge and easier breathing—if you ignored the floozy on the sidewalk coughing blood into the snow. Where Moriarty’s place once stood was a squat black cairn.
The owner of the Coppertown Tavern told them Moriarty’s body had been taken by Hepting and the coroner to Eagle River. There seemed to be no sorrow or remorse over the Irishman’s demise.
“There was a man named Fisher around town,” Bapcat said.
“Never heard of him,” the barman said.
“I saw him come into your place one night,” Bapcat countered.
“That don’t make him special. I can’t remember everyone.”
“Especially someone you’d rather forget?”
“Your words, not mine,” the man said.
“How about Pinnochi?”
“Why would I know him?”
Odd response. “Most people would say they don’t know him.”
“Well, I don’t know nobody,” the man said.
“Not even your good customers?”
“If they got cash in hand, I know ’em. If not, I don’t.”
“This Fisher you never heard of—maybe he couldn’t be heard of after Moriarty killed himself.”
“Could be like that,” the man said. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Who takes over Moriarty’s place now that he’s gone?”
“Nobody. Help yourself to what’s left. It burned to the ground that very night.”
“Act of God?” the Russian asked.
“Everybody seems to have an opinion.”
“What’s yours?” Zakov asked.
“Act of God’s as good as any.”
“Makes one embrace fate,” Zakov said.
“Especially in this hole in the woods,” the man said.
“Anyone knows anything that relates, we call that material in the law,” Zakov said. “Expect a visit from Sheriff Hepting.”
“People in this town got a lot worse things to worry about than Johnny Hepting,” the man said.
“Name one,” Zakov said.
“Winter.”
“I suggest you add us to your short list,” Bapcat told the man, and turned away.
102
Eagle River
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1913
Jones answered his own phone immediately, and Bapcat launched directly at him.
“When you talked to me about the job in May, you asked me about a certain captain, and about my hands. I think you knew about the fight. You’ve got someone inside.”
“I can’t go into that,” Bapcat’s boss said. “Neither co
nfirm, nor deny.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means telephones have many ears.”
Bapcat went silent. “How do we talk?”
“Not like this,” Jones said.
To hell with it. “There’s no market-hunting here. It’s something different—a lot different.”
“Not on the telephone, Deputy.”
“I intend to put the heat on the man we talked about. A lot of heat.”
Long pause. “Keep us apprised of your progress and needs, and be careful.”
“While we’re talking, you might want to find out what you can about an Ascher deputy named Fisher.”
“No names, Lute.”
“Just check on him, sir,” Bapcat said, and hung up. “Maybe we don’t need a damn telephone,” he told the Russian.
“I don’t understand,” Zakov said.
“Party lines,” Hepting said from the side of the room. “Each line serves many, and all can listen to each other.”
God, Bapcat thought. “We came through Helltown. They say you picked up Moriarty after the suicide.”
“Well, it’s true enough he was hanged, but it’s hard to string yourself up with half your head gone and no pistol on the ground where you’re hanging,” Hepting said.
“Murder?”
“No point in making it public. Better to keep it quiet, let rumor and gossip reign, see what speculations percolate.”
“This is an established investigative procedure?” Zakov asked.
“More my take on such things,” the sheriff admitted. “If we tried to chase every wrong, we’d have no time to take care of important things.”
“They burned his building,” Bapcat said.
“It was still standing the day we retrieved the body.”
“Not anymore. You hear the name Fisher while you were up there?”
“Should I have?”
“Just wondering.”
Hepting cracked his knuckles. “The thing about being a small county sheriff is, you’re damn limited in everything you do, or can do.”
Red Jacket Page 37
