Red Jacket (10 page)

27

Centennial, Houghton County

MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1913

They turned off the Mohawk Road past the looming Centennial Number 6 Rockhouse. “If you got to work underground, Centennial Number 6 is okay,” Gipp said. “Good captains. People say they don't see Wop, Finn, or Mick, just how a man works.”

“
People
say?”

“You play ball with fellas from all over, you can learn a lot.”

“You hearing strike talk?”

Gipp grimaced. “The local boys are gonna demand a meeting with the companies and present what they call their demands. No meet, they'll strike, and the Colorado big shots won't have no choice but to pitch in.”

Gipp acted like he cared only about playing ball, but he had a good mind and was a lot deeper than most people might suspect. “Tell me about your uncle Herman.”

“Quiet little fella, works hard, got a big family—spends a lot of time out in the woods.”

“Maybe I should talk to him alone. No sense linking you to the game warden.”

Gipp laughed. “Boss, I been driving you all over. People already know. I'll go with you. Herman trusts me.”

Smart and mentally tough. Good kid, but does he trust Herman? Not the time to ask.

Uncle Herman was a bocci ball with legs and sported a white walrus mustache. Most of his hair was reduced to diaphanous strands that moved when he moved, like ghostly little worms vying to cover his ears.

“Georgie boy,” Herman warmly greeted his nephew.

“Unc, this is Deputy Bapcat, the game warden.”

Herman looked at Bapcat and winked. “I told him: Georgie, no deer for another month.”

Uncle Herman liked the role of joker, one Bapcat didn't care for. “This isn't about George,” Bapcat said. “I need help from you.”

“Like what?”
Still smiling, the grin losing some traction.

“Ice deliveries.”

“Georgie not pay his bill? Shouldn't the sheriff be here?”

“It's not about a bill,” Bapcat said.

“C'mon, Unc,” Gipp said. “He's okay.”

“Customers ain't my job,” the older Gipp said. “You need ta talk ta Ogden, da sales manager.”

“Is he in?”

“Guys who wear ties don't talk ta guys who don't wear ties.”

Celt Ogden wore a shiny grayish suit, had thinning pink hair, and what Bapcat assumed to be a perpetual smile.

Bapcat showed his badge.

“Have we met?” Ogden asked.

“I doubt it. We're trying to determine if ice deliveries have been made by your company to a certain individual,” Bapcat explained, but not amplifying the
we.

“Who?” the sales manager asked.

“Enock Hannula.”

“No,” Ogden said.

“You don't have to look at your records?”

Ogden tapped his forehead. “Records are all up here. I know every customer the company has ever had.”

Thinking quickly, Bapcat asked, “How about deliveries to the upper Black Creek area?”

Ogden crossed his arms. “Where exactly is
that?
”

“I think you know.” Bapcat pointed at his own head. “Up there.”

“We have customers everywhere up here. You'll have to be more specific.”

Stonewall
. “Thanks for your time.”

“Don't mention it,” the man said.

Uncle Herman met them at the truck. “You get what you needed?”

“No,” Bapcat said.

“Ogden's
asino buco
,” Herman said. “What you need?”

“Deliveries to Enock Hannula, or to the upper Black Creek area.”

“Hannula, da one people call Stumper?”

“That's him.”

“Everybody knows Stumper. Man's crazy. When you need ta know?”

“Anytime soon; a few days?”

“Okay, anyt'ing for my favorite nephew Georgie.”

Bapcat and George Gipp drove away and Gipp said, “I know Unc can be a little strange with all the jokes and stuff, but you can always count on him. Is this important?”

“I honestly don't know,” Bapcat admitted.

28

Bumbletown Hill

TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1913

Gipp was gone, had taken the truck to a game for the afternoon. Bapcat tore at the wood floor, finally revealing a hole with a narrow ladder. Zakov puffed up with pride. “You see, it is just as I said.”

Bapcat went outside, fetched a large bucket of birch bark into the house, and started wrapping the bark around sticks to make torches. Birch ignited gracefully and noiselessly, even in the rain.

Zakov asked the deputy as he looked into the hole, “What do you expect to find?”

“Chinamen.”

Zakov snorted. “An Occidental myth of ignorance.”

The hole under the floor had been hacked through solid rock and seemed stable, but within minutes Bapcat found his heart racing. He was having trouble catching his breath. He knew the cause and tried to fight it, but surrendered within minutes because of the terror growing inside him.

“Looks like you encountered Mongoloid ghosts instead of Chinamen,” Zakov quipped when the deputy climbed out and sat with his unsteady legs dangling in the opening.

Suddenly, a woman's voice said, “You seem to have taken complete leave of your senses, Mr. Bapcat. I do swear.” Jaquelle Frei stood at the front door, arms crossed. She was dressed in a nondescript frock and riding boots. “I'm speaking to you, Trapper; cat got your tongue?”

“Why're you here, Jaquelle?” Bapcat managed to say.

“Don't you dare use my given name in public, Mr. Bapcat. We are not familiars, you and I. Let us not misconstrue our relationship with loose etiquette.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Frei. Yes, ma'am.”

Frei smiled. “See how easy it is to keep things on the high road, which makes me wonder why on earth you are up here in a hovel on a baby hill, living with the pitiful Borzoi. I must say, I am deeply conflicted by what I see, sir. Much confounded and greatly disappointed.”

“It's not a hovel,” he said.

“There is a gaping
hole
in your floor, sir.”

Zakov stared at the front door screen and announced, “The screen is turning red.”

“The process is called oxidation,” Frei said, “you Russian baboon.”

“How do you know that?” Bapcat asked her.

“I am an educated woman, sir. I read, I think; I control my own destiny.”

“But why are you here?”

Frei glanced at the Russian. “It's in the way of a . . . private matter.”

“About?”

“A certain account in arrears.”

“Or what, you'll make an accusation as you did against Enock Hannula?”

The woman's eyes narrowed. “What do
you
know about Hannula?”

“I helped John Hepting arrest him.”

She clapped her hands together. “Finally there will be justice.” Her face hardened as quickly as it had lit up. “Hepting and you; are you his deputy, sir?”

“No, I'm a deputy state Game, Fish, and Foresty warden for Keweenaw and Houghton counties.”

“Since
when?
”

“Marquette.”

“But you went for the former president's trial.”

“That's what I thought, too, but I had no role in the trial.”

“When word came that he won, I assumed it was you who had helped him, but I never saw your name on witness lists or in newspaper accounts.”

“The summons had nothing to do with the trial.”

“It was about this so-called game warden position, and I suppose this was offered by the State on the strength of the former president's say-so?”

“It was. The colonel gave me the rifle I used in Cuba.”

“The one you used to dispatch Spaniards?”

When he remained silent, she pressed on. “Wouldn't suit a state deputy to be known as a deadbeat.” He thought he saw the hint of a smirk.

“So which part of your business am I indebted to—the wilderness outfitter, or the supplier who brings sporting houses back to life?”

“I
beg
your pardon,
sir
,” she said sharply, clearly surprised by his question.

“The thing about law enforcement, Mrs. Frei—it's a kind of brotherhood. We talk to each other, share information.”

“I have no idea what you are referring to, and I find your insinuation patently offensive.”

“I'm saying face-to-face only what others say behind your back, Mrs. Frei.”

“You will surely hear from me again,” the widow said. She gathered up her skirt and petticoats and flounced to the front door, where she stopped. “Debts left unpaid too long can become malignant.”

“Malignant?” Bapcat asked when she was gone.

“Cancer,” Zakov said. “She acted like I'm not even alive.”

“I think she pretty much decides who lives in her world, and who don't.”

“Like a czarina. Women do nothing but complicate men's lives.”

Young Gipp returned just as the widow drove away.

“Who was that? She looked real mad.”

“Mad, happy—it's impossible to sort out such emotional attributes among females,” Zakov said.

29

Traprock River, Houghton County

THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1913

George Gipp's next contest was not scheduled until Saturday, and Bapcat had him along, not certain why. The boy was his driver, not a fellow warden.

They stashed the Ford a half-mile east of the river and walked back through the woods. Gipp was quiet and appeared uneasy.

“I may need your help, George.”

“You need another lawman? What can I do?”

“You're calm, you listen, and you pay attention. You've got courage.”

“Courage in games. This doesn't feel like a game.”

“Sometimes it feels like a game to me,” Bapcat said. “But I'm still new.”
This will change
, he told himself. “Don't worry.”

“I'm not worried. I'm scared, boss.”

“Of what? You don't even know where we're going or what we're up to.”

“I gamble, boss; I know when stuff starts to turn sour.”

“You know a Bruno Geronissi?”

“Sure. Everybody calls him Birdman. He comes into Vairo's saloon.”

“Just Vairo's?”

“Other joints, too, I guess, but I don't know for sure. Why?”

“You know what he sells?”

Gipp shrugged. “Birds.”

“You think that's okay?”

“I like partridge and goose.”

“What about Keweenaw canaries?”

“Too small to eat.”

“Then why does Geronissi kill them?”

“People are different. They do stuff in countries where they're born, and then they try to do the same things here. You can't blame them.”

“Even if it's illegal?”

“How they gonna know the law, boss?”

“That's a good question,” Bapcat said.

The Traprock River was heavily wooded along the banks, and there were a few mallard ducks around, but no songbirds. Bapcat and Gipp sat on a boulder under a tree and did not speak or move. After a while, Bapcat asked, “What's wrong here, George?”

“All I hear are bugs and the river,” Gipp said. “No birds.”

“I've seen a few over the trees,” Bapcat said.

“Not close, though,” the boy said.

“When we go into the woods, we push a sort of wave of sound and scent,” Bapcat explained. “And wildlife can see us, feel our footfalls, sense our presence. But when we sit quietly like we've been doing, the wave settles, and animal life should return to normal.”

“Not today,” Gipp said.

“Right. They seem so leery the alarm doesn't wear off. Why do you suppose that is?”

“What's that tell you?” Gipp asked.

“I don't know, but let's go have us a look.”

A mile north Gipp was walking five yards to the left of Bapcat when he cursed quietly. “Damn!”

“What?”

“Not sure.”

“Stay put—don't move.”

Bapcat found the boy with a yard-long shaved stick clinging to his shirt. “I'll have to rip my shirt to get this off. What is it?”

“I don't know. Relax and stay here. I'm going to look around.”

Gipp stuck his finger on the stick. “This thing is real sticky.”

Bapcat sniffed it. “Plums?”

“Got me,” Gipp said.

“I won't be gone long.”

Bapcat wove his way through the trees and found a half-dozen more of the strange sticks, most of them with feathers on them. He managed to get one down from where it had been set as a perch between branches, wrapped it in young ferns, and checked around the ground. There were boot prints where he found the feathers.
Fresh. This morning's tracks
.

Gipp tore his shirt getting loose. They took both sticks with them back to the Ford. “Do you know what's going on now?” Gipp asked.

“I'm not certain. Let's head for Vairo's.”

Dominick was in his apartment behind the saloon. Bapcat knocked on the door and asked his friend to walk out to the Ford, where he showed him the two sticks. “You know what these are?”

“Back in the Old Country, you buy them everywhere cheap.”

“For what?”

“See feathers? Bird thinks is safe place to land, but is glue. Can't get loose, and when bird fights, he hang himself upside down. Some choke, others wait till somebody come breaka their neck.”

“Glue from what?”

“Kind of a plum.”

“We found these along the Traprock. Lots more there. Geronissi's work?”

Dominick whispered, “I pay the man. I don't watch him work. His birds never got no shot in them,
capisce?
”

“You're sweating,” Bapcat said.

“You no
capisce
what you got here, Lute. You like that damn bull in Chinese shop.”

“China shop.”

“You got piece of paper?”

Bapcat produced a pencil and a fold of thin paper and Dominick wrote
Mano Nera.
He added quietly, “You gotta swear I never said them words out loud.”

“You didn't.”

“Swear!”

“I swear.”

“On your mother's life.”

“Absolutely. What's it mean?”

“Ask Sheriff John. I gotta work.”

“Dominick.”

“I don't want to be seen with you, Lute. Not good for me, for you, for nobody.” Vairo took a step but turned back. “You be damn careful, watch the
Lupara
, okay?”

Bapcat looked at Gipp. “What do you think?”

“Only that he scared me.”

Bapcat showed Gipp the paper and the words,
Mano Nera
. “Mean anything to you?”

Gipp shook his head. “The Italians, they got their own ways, and they know how to keep secrets.”