Red Jacket (20 page)

55

Bumbletown Hill

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1913

Deer continued to be killed and found headless, the meat left to rot. Bapcat, Zakov, and the two state deputies staked out likely areas and some nights chased after shots, but they caught no violators and made no arrests. The hours were long and sour, the payoff nil, prospects for success never high.

A weary and concerned Sheriff John Hepting dropped by the house on the hill and railed under stress. Citizens of Keweenaw County, he insisted, sympathized with the strikers, including his worthless force of goddamn deputies, all of whom had relatives on the strike lines.

“I told Cruse when he asked the governor to send the Guard, not to send them here, that we would be just fine, that bivouacs close to the county line would suffice, but some of the county board forged my signature and requested our mousy governor send troops into Ahmeek, Mohawk, and Allouez. I'll be goddamned if this is not going to blow up on us. I
told
the bastards! The air's full of blind hatred now. I've got locals and soldiers yelling at each other and making fists and threats, all that schoolboy crap, and the Finns and Italians are by damn far the most militant.”

“Such behavior in these circumstances is
de rigueur
,” Zakov observed, and the others stared at him.

A meat market at Centennial had been burned, and there was daily violence in Wolverine, arrests made. Two groups of businessmen had petitioned Governor Ferris, one group demanding guardsmen be removed, the opposing groups insisting they remain, despite the army deployment costing Michigan citizens more than ten thousand dollars a day.

Some stability from the army's presence had made it possible for the mines to deploy small workforces. Pumps were going again, water levels dropping, and the tens of thousands of rats first driven aboveground by rising water and no human food scraps to sustain them had begun to disappear back into the deep holes in the earth. It was also being whispered that at least two thousand miners and their families had fled the Keweenaw for safer pastures.

Hepting's opinion: The fighting and rock-throwing would turn to shooting, and then the real massacres would begin. Hepting had no word on Hannula, but promised to visit his wife again to check on her.

Early that day George Gipp showed up, smoking a cigarette and looking for coffee.

“You lost, George?” Bapcat asked.

“No, sir.” He handed a small envelope to Bapcat. It read, “
The Widow Frei requests the presence of Trapper Bapcat's company, Noon, August 2, 1913.
”

“You read the note, George?”

“No, sir. She called the cab company, asked for me, and told me to hand you that note personally. She's at the Hotel Perrault on the top floor.”

The note inside also said, “Make a payment; ask for me by name.”

Gipp said, “I drove all the way up here from Lake Linden on her orders, my meter running the whole way. She said she'll double it if I fetch you back by noon. She said to fetch you right back, Deputy Bapcat,” he said, holding open the door.

The Russian said, “The flamboyant wood tick Norma Polo, who resides in a railcar, rejects Pinkhus Sergeyevich Zakov, and the stunning Widow Frei summons you, and you wonder why I doubt the existence of a supreme being?”

“Maybe he's got a good sense of humor,” Bapcat said, picking up his coat and .30-40 Krag. “Or maybe it's simply justice for former colonials.”

“Mr. Zakov doesn't believe in
God?
” Gipp asked, his mouth agape.

56

Lake Linden

SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1913

The Hotel Perrault was a solid brick building on a corner from which you could see Lake Linden, which was no more than the upper end of Torch Lake, itself connected to Portage Lake, which led past the Dreamland Resort to Torch Bay. A turn south from there took you into Keweenaw Bay and Lake Superior.

“How's your team doing?” Bapcat had asked Gipp as they drove.

“Deputy, sir, I need to concentrate on driving if we're going to make it by noon,” his young driver said. “No offense.”

“Loosen up, George. You'll get your pay.”

“I'm not tight, but a man has debts.”

Man?
“You're how old?”

“Eighteen,” Gipp said.

“Stop gambling.”

Gipp gawked at him like he was crazy, and when they pulled up to the hotel he shadowed Bapcat to the front desk, where a sleazy man with a bow-tie stood, arms crossed.

“Mrs. Frei,” Bapcat said quietly.

“Whom may I say is calling?” the man asked.

“Deputy Bapcat.” He plunked his rifle on the front desk and the man took a step backward. “I doubt you'll need that in this establishment,” the clerk said.

“It goes where I go. What room's she in?”

“Please just go upstairs, sir.”

“The fare,” Bapcat said, but the officious desk man said, “Tut-tut,” waved at the stairs, and held an envelope out to Gipp.

“Want me to wait?” Gipp asked Bapcat.

“The gentleman will notify your employer if and when your services are needed,” the desk clerk said.

The last thing Bapcat noticed was a huge grin on Gipp's youthful face.

Standing at the top of the stairs was Jaquelle Frei, dressed in a silk frock, open to just above her navel and hanging precipitously at each shoulder, a long necklace of red stones, sparkling in the light, her hair pulled back and glistening, a red ribbon woven into her hair. “How fortunate, Mr. Bapcat. You are one minute early. I like men early in most of life's endeavors. Cat got your tongue, sir?”

The widow, he knew, favored plain clothes that covered as much skin as possible and almost reached the floor. Or no clothes at all. He had never before seen her dressed so . . . memorably. Zakov had once called her stunning, but even that word now seemed inadequate.

“I asked which room,” was the best he managed to say.

“Not a room, sir. A floor, all of it just for us, each room as long as it pleases us, and pleasing us surely is on the agenda,
n'est-ce pas?
”

“I reckon,” he said.

She smiled. “So quaint, so Western, so cowboy,” she said, holding her hand out to him. “Come hither, sir.”

Which he did.

•••

One of the rooms had been configured as a parlor. The widow lay unclothed on a divan, a glass of red wine in hand, her hair ruffled and disordered, the red ribbon long gone.

“Ah,” she said, offering him a cheroot, “I swear, you do know how to sink a woman into ecstasy. You have the mystic powers of the great Dionysus himself.”

He did not like being compared to anyone, especially somebody he'd never heard of. “You were gone a long time,” he noted.

“Thanks to you, but a settling smoke and my good Madeira will bring me back until we descend into our incandescent coupling fires again.”

“I just meant you were out of town a long time.”

“Nineteen days at the Palmer House,” she said, “Not a stinky miner in sight, or smell. Did you miss me?”

“I was busy.”

“Yes, the strike has been predictably ugly, and will no doubt be more so in the future, I fear. My God, Lute, were we ever in the Palmer House together, I am certain we would ignite another conflagration sufficient to raze that great city again.”

He had no idea what she was talking about, other than the tone of her voice, which rarely changed when the mood for love swept over her.

“Your Russian's the real thing,” she added, abruptly changing mood, voice, and direction.

“He told me he was a soldier in some war with the Japanese.”

“More than a mere soldier, my dear. He was a colonel, a much decorated and celebrated officer with a reputation for high intelligence, refinement, and concern for his men—the latter, I'm told, being a particularly un-Russian viewpoint. Officers above looked down on him with suspicion; those below held him in awe.”

“Claims he ran away.”

“Perhaps, but only after his commanding general ordered a needless suicidal frontal attack, and Colonel Zakov calmly walked said general across the field at gunpoint until an enemy bullet killed the general and wounded him. His men then spirited Zakov away from the field to safety, and eventually out of Manchuria. He was known as king of the army.”

“
Our
Zakov?”

“One and the same.”

“How could you know this, Jaquelle?”

“I know a certain charming Russian
chargé d'affaires
in the Chicago consulate, who shared information with me.” She took his chin in her hand. “Look at me, Lute. I am not that simple widow of Copper Harbor. I have connections, know things, can make many things happen.”

“I see,” he said.

“But you surely don't, dear Lute. The WFM didn't want the locals to strike. Not enough money in the national treasury, wrong time of year, nothing was right about it. They wanted to wait for a year to build the union war chest, but the locals had no patience. Fools! Calumet and Hecla by itself has more than a million dollars in ready cash, not to mention other deep and easily disposable assets. The owners wanted this strike, Lute. They schemed for it, had inside information and sources, urged it forward. They wanted it, and now they have it.”

A million dollars?
His mind couldn't process that many zeros. “Sources here?”

She nodded solemnly. “Here, Denver, everywhere. The miners can't make a move the operators don't know about before it happens.”

“You mean they have paid . . . spies?”

She smiled. “What's money for if not to advantage one in life's great struggles. The mining scene looks crude and messy, but it's a money factory for a small number of East Coast investors, and everyone involved plays to win.”

Bapcat considered what he'd heard and thought a long time before speaking. “And you have your own sources.”

Her answer was a come-hither smile. “I tire so quickly of commercial banter,” she whispered. “A woman of means requires diversions. Care to divert me, Trapper?”

Bapcat wasn't entirely sure what
divert
meant, but her look and tone of voice were unmistakable. “I'm looking for someone,” he ventured, wanting to tell her his feelings for her were deepening, but unable to find the right words. Their relationship had begun as a convenience, but it was changing in ways he could not explain.

“You've found me, dearest Lute. Now shush and come hither.”

57

>Bumbletown Hill

MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1913

“All hell's loosed,” Zakov exclaimed when Bapcat returned from Lake Linden, depleted, certain that one more call to action by Jaquelle Frei would have crippled him. During one of the interludes between their spells of ardor he explained what was going on: Hannula missing, the link of Arven Lammie to Captain Hedyn, Jerko Skander the rat killer, how they'd roughed up Lammie in the night, the Italians and their birds, the attack on the house—everything.

Despite all this, Frei had evinced little interest in his business until he was dressing to leave. “Enock Hannula?”

“Yes.”

She then dismissed him without further comment or discussion, and he had no idea what she was thinking.

Harju and Sandheim were with Zakov when he returned.

“Deputies had a hellacious fight at a Hunky boardinghouse,” Zakov reported. “One General Abbey summoned operators to a meeting with union representatives, but they refused to come; said they wouldn't meet with the WFM under any circumstances. MacNaughton is supposed to have told a newspaperman he'd see grass growing in the streets before he'd meet anyone from the WFM, but you know how your newspapermen are with hyperbole.”

Hyperbole.
How can someone foreign-born know so many words in English?

Harju said, “Army patrols go out every two hours in Red Jacket, but from what we hear, the real frictions and troubles are here in the far north, and down in the far south ends of the copper range. Hell, the union's got some old woman named Mother Jones coming in today to stir the cesspool. Calumet and Laurium and Red Jacket have all put commercial enterprises on half-days, and local businessmen are in evil moods. Yesterday there was an anonymous threat that the Calumet Dam would be dynamited. The Guard deployed troops, but nothing happened except some rifle and pistol shots.”

“
You
heard shots?” Bapcat asked.

“Me and Sandheim sat on different fields,” said Harju. “The shots were mostly in daylight, and pretty much all around us. The Russian stayed here.”

“I heard shots as well,” Zakov said. “It's better, I think, to hear gunshots by day than by night.”

“A bullet's a bullet,” Sandheim countered.

“But in daylight you can intentionally hit or miss your target. At night, without light, every shot becomes random, and therefore uncontrolled.”

Bapcat understood. “I would think most daytime shots are meant to scare.”

“Or annoy,” Zakov said. “In the light, they avoid killing. In the dark, they don't care.”

“As when you were visited at night,” Bapcat said.

“There was intent to kill that time,” Zakov said through gritted teeth.

“We saw Sheriff Hepting near Mohawk,” Harju said. “He said he directly wired the governor to demand troop removal from his county, but he doubts he'll even get the courtesy of a reply. What did you hear where you were?”

“I heard the operators have spies everywhere, paid informants.”

Zakov perked up. “Just as I predicted. Did you hear shots where you were?”

Bapcat said, “No,” which struck him as odd. Was Lake Linden exempt from the violence happening elsewhere, and if so, why?

“Hepting said he visited Hannula's wife. She's still not seen him; she's afraid, and packing up to leave the state,” Harju reported.

“Without knowing her husband's fate?”

“She appears to be assuming the worst.”

Hannula had now been free for twenty-eight days. “We're also going to assume he's dead and out of the picture,” Bapcat told the others.

They all looked at him. “Hannula told Hepting and me that deer heads got dumped in a mine hole that attracts bats. He said a man called Cornelio Mangione paid him, but a Captain Tristan Shunk of Copper Falls visited Hannula in jail at Eagle River and warned him to keep his mouth shut.”

No questions. He continued. “Shunk's a Kearsarge man, tough as hell, but Chilly Taylor claims Shunk walks in Captain Madog Hedyn's shadow.”

Zakov's eyes flared. “I should have known,” he said. “Everything seems to point to this Hedyn, Knight of St. George, madman of the worst kind, he who looks respectable but is despicable.”

“
You
know Hedyn?” Bapcat asked the Russian.

“Only in whispered stories.”

“If there's a bat hole, we should be able to find it,” Sandheim offered.

“Better bet when the snows fly, if they keep dumping heads. I'd rather follow and catch someone with evidence in hand,” Bapcat said.

Harju said, “One disposal site for so much activity has to be noticed by someone.”

Bapcat suspected Harju was right. “I don't want us caught. I want us to find this place and appear there out of thin air.”

“Abracadabra,” Sandheim said.

“There are Arabs who are true magicians,” Zakov said.

“Thank you, Colonel, that will be quite enough,” Bapcat said.

The Russian smirked. “A colonel once, but no more. May I guess your source? More importantly, you might want to consider that bats hibernate in winter and don't come out again until spring,” Zakov pointed out.

“You didn't know that?” Bapcat asked Harju, who nodded.

“Forgot.”

“I never knew,” Bapcat said, shaking his head and taking a deep breath.

“Something we need to know?” Harju asked.

“I want to hire Zakov as a deputy. Who needs to approve it?”

“I can do it, and swear him in. I'm comfortable with him.”

“You've not asked me,” Zakov said to Bapcat.

“
Would
you serve as deputy alongside me?”

“Will it be dangerous and poorly paid?”

“Yes,” Harju and Sandheim said in unison.

“Is there a badge, and can we forgo any nonsense with a Bible?”

Bapcat nodded, and handed him his own badge. “Until we can get you your own,” he added. Badges were not issued by the state of Michigan. Deputies could purchase their own, if they wished. Roosevelt had given Bapcat a badge as a gift and now that Zakov was a deputy they would need a second badge and Bapcat had in his mind to have the person who made his badge in Marquette make one for his colleague—at Bapcat's expense, and to give it to the Russian as a gift. Until he could make the arrangements, they would have to share and make due with one.

“Do we remain married?” the Russian asked Bapcat, who nodded.

“We do.”

The Russian smiled and raised his right hand. “I do.”