Red Jacket (29 page)

79

Copper Harbor

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1913

Frei Dry Goods and Outfitters sat on the town's extreme eastern perimeter and overlooked the harbor, the last commercial enterprise before Old Fort Wilkins and the wilds that stretched out to Keweenaw Point, land's end of the seventy-mile-long peninsula.

Bapcat noticed that there was a door open to Frei's icehouse, a substantial structure added to the west side of the main building by Jaquelle's late husband. Seven or eight men were gathered on the front steps of the establishment, their haircuts and clothes identifying them at first glance as foreigners.

The game warden looked down at Jordy Kluboshar, his rifle slung over his shoulder. “Your weapon unloaded?”

“How many times you gonna ask that?”

“As many times as I need to in order to feel satisfied that the rifle is safe.”

“It ain't loaded.”

“Good. Wait out here on the porch,” Bapcat said, and went inside. A bell attached to the door sounded his arrival. Jaquelle was talking to two women about a bolt of yellow cloth, but used her eyes to direct him to the tiny room she called her office.

“Good God and hallelujah, Mohammed's surely come to the mountain!” she exclaimed dramatically but quietly. She smiled seductively and looked him over. “Thought maybe you forgot how to get here.”

“Helltown,” he said.

“Good God, Lute. We women need foreplay, the music of language, songs of the heart, not just spitting out requests for information,” she said, her voice on edge.

“Ulrick Moriarty?”

“What about him?”

“You were to get information for me.”

“I have. Pinnochi's not with Moriarty and not in Wyoming,” she said. “Your informant was wrong.”

“And you know this
how?
”

“I believe I told you that I know Moriarty. I talked to him.”

“There or here?”

“What difference does
that
make?” she demanded.

Her jaw was clenched, back straight, chest heaving, chin out, fists balled, ready to argue, and he had no inkling why. “Who're those men out front?”

“Men who want honest labor.”

“Scabs?”

“I detest labels,” she said. “They demean.”

“They're foreigners,” he said.

Which drew a snicker. “Good God, Bapcat, who in the Keweenaw
ain't?
”

“The operators have trouble getting strikers back to work, so they import workers? How many of them fellas even know they're walking into a strike?”

“What business is this of yours, Trapper?”

“Technically none, but a lot of my work has been directly because of the strike, and I guess that's
made
it my business.”

“Mine are all here legally,” Frei said.

“I didn't say they weren't.”

“John Hepting made that same accusation to my attorney.”

“I'm sure John's just doing his job the way he sees it.”

“WFM people are watching trains from the East Coast, and when immigrants are recruited by personnel bureaus out east, strikers talk them out of coming. Some are threatened, and get off the train along the way. Others get to Houghton or Red Jacket and go straight to the WFM office to sign up as soon as they leave the station. It seemed to me there could be a more efficient way to handle the shortage. The mine operators asked me to look into alternatives.”

“The men out front.”

“My second group of ten. The first group's already working. The men come up the St. Lawrence to Montreal by ship, then by train to Soo, Ontario. They take a ferry to the Michigan side where Immigration checks them in and our people pick them up and bring them by boat to Copper Harbor. The WFM and their sympathizers are all looking south and back to the East. I'm bringing them in from the north—behind the lines. I also heard more are coming down from Minnesota.”

“Got your own little military operation,” he said.

“I suppose,” she said, smiling.

He wasn't sure why he said what he said next. It just sort of came out, pushed by something deep and heavy inside him. “What's Moriarty's role in your little scheme?”

Frei was smart and seldom caught short, but he saw momentary panic in her eyes. “Why would you ask such an entirely
ludicrous
question?”

“I'm not sure,” he confessed, “but whatever it is, it's also telling me to talk to Moriarty face-to-face.”

“You are an unrepentant, willfully stubborn man, Bapcat. I say again: Pinnochi's not there and never has been.”

He thought he detected a hitch in her voice. “Why're you trying to block me?”

“Not block—preempt,” she corrected him. “Perhaps I'm trying to protect you, Deputy. Has that ever occurred to you?”

“I don't need
your
protection.”

“Ordinarily I might accept your contention as true on a theoretical level, but in this case I do not. I contracted Moriarty to provide security for our new immigrants, and he's employed a number of crusty fellows.”

“You mean thugs?”

“I mean, men who do difficult, often-unwanted jobs for fair pay,” she said.

He thought for a moment. “Men with criminal records?”

“I prefer to think of them as individuals who deliver what they are contracted to deliver.”

Thugs and criminals
. “Did the operators come to you, or did you go to them?”

“That, I believe, is none of your business, Deputy.”

“Jaquelle, I understand your interest in making money, and I know you're good at it.”

She showed a sliver of a smile. “Then you will surely understand that I make such money by rendering wants into needs, and satisfying said needs.”

Some things were still gnawing at him. “Your crusty fellows wouldn't include strike-breakers, would they?”

“My contract is limited to security and escort duties for newly hired miners.”

Her contract? How many contracts were there, and between whom? “For twenty men so far.”

“Yes, so far. I think of it as a pipeline, which is now built and ready for me to turn on the flow to match demand.”

“Moriarty hires security men for you?”

“That's the arrangement.”

“And you don't want me to visit Helltown.”

“The place is a veritable hornet's nest, Lute. Why disturb the hive if it's isolated and not bothering anyone?”

“I take your point, Jaquelle. Let me show you something.”

Frei followed him to the front door, which he opened. “Boy, get in here.”

“I got a name,” the boy grumbled as he stepped inside.

“Jordy Kluboshar, meet Mrs. Frei,” Bapcat said.

“
Widow
Frei,” Jaquelle corrected him gently.

Bapcat said, “What do you say, Jordy?”

“Pleasedtameetcha,” the boy mumbled.

“Thank you for saying so, even if it's not how you really feel,” the widow told the boy.

Bapcat said, “Go back outside, Jordy.”

“Are we leaving soon?” the boy asked.

Bapcat pointed at the door and the boy stepped out. To Frei: “Zakov and I have taken him in. He's been living nearly wild. Mother's dead, father's a drunk who beats him. The boy's got good instincts and he's got courage.”

“And you and that obnoxious Russian have taken a notion you can save this boy's lost soul?”

“We don't care about his soul, just his life,” Bapcat said. “He stays with his father, sooner or later he'll turn up dead. I need your help.”

He saw she was surprised. “I don't like kids, Lute. And they don't like me.”

“This will help both of you.”

“
This?
He's carrying a ruck and a rifle. Are you intending to leave him
here
, sir?
Here?
”

“Add it to my debt, and make sure he gets to school.”

“This will cost you substantially, dearest.”

“Everything with you costs me dearly.”

“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 time 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
?