Red Jacket (36 page)

98

Trimountain, Houghton County

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1913

The storm south of Houghton was much milder than to the north. Early today Bapcat had intercepted twenty hunters in the Obenhoff Lake country and checked their licenses. He wrote no citations, gave only verbal warnings.

It felt good to have been outside for nearly two days as he trudged up the trail past Trimountain Peak, toward the mining village of Trimountain down the hill to the east. Most of all he was looking forward to a fine dinner at Shewbart's Cafe in town, and a room at Vijver's Boardinghouse, which Harju had recommended in one of their conversations. Sunday and Monday he had slept in his sleeping bag and bedroll in the woods, and each morning had brushed away fluffy new snow before making his tea fire.

This morning he had found two headless deer, but he was unable to back-track the hunter or hunters because they had carefully kept to rocky areas. This was the first evidence of the siege he had come upon around here, and knowing the kill was certain and heavier east of Trimountain and Painesdale, toward Chassell, he guessed that Obenhoff was the southwestern edge of the scheme. He wondered what Zakov was discovering up north.

When he was in sight of the town's main street, four men stepped into the alley, blocking his way. All wore black coats adorned with round white buttons with
citizens' alliance
printed in red. As he walked toward them, they formed a wall. He said, “Hungry man here, gents. Make a hole, please.”

All four men wore gun belts with the small .38s issued to special mine deputies.
Buttons, not sun-star badges. Choices here: Push through, stop, retreat, or close on them, and engage
. He decided to close in order to reduce their space to maneuver, to keep their flanks tight. Harju had advised against this, warning him to keep distance in order to spot threatening actions, but Bapcat's instincts pushed him to get closer and use his presence to dictate circumstances. In a four-on-one-situation, most would assume the group would have the advantage, but he intended to crumple their leader immediately and remove whatever sass he had. As he drew closer, he reached back, slid his bayonet out of the scabbard on his pack, and snapped the blade on the barrel of the rifle. He did this while maintaining eye contact with the man to his far right.

Affixing the bayonet happened with such speed that the men didn't react until he had turned the rifle slightly. The blade gleamed and all four of them took a half stumble backward.

“Who're
you?
” the big man on the right challenged.

“Bapcat, Deputy State Game, Fish and Forestry Warden. Who're you?”

“Fed-up citizens,” the erstwhile leader barked.

“At least you're fed,” Bapcat quipped.

“Had our fill of troublemakers and damn radical socialists,” another of the men grumbled.

Bapcat moved the rifle slightly and the men pulled back again. “You don't want trouble, boys—not tonight, not with me, not here. He rolled his lapel to show his badge, asked, “Where're your badges?”

“You see our authority, sir,” the leader said pretentiously. “We are committed Alliance men.”

“That has no legal standing,” Bapcat said. “Alliance . . . does that mean you're union men?”

This garnered a group snort of derision. “We represent citizens fed up with damn unions and their radical socialist leaders.”

“So you fellas aren't socialists?”

This time they didn't step back, and he said, “Men, I'm not real sure what a radical socialist is, so step out of my path, or you and your attitudes are going to get sliced to ribbons.” He wiggled the bayonet. The men flinched. “One more warnin,' boys. Step aside.”

Their postures told him they were fixated on the bayonet and his upper body. He moved his head, and his eyes, slightly left, pausing long enough for the men to react, and then came straight up with the rifle butt under the leader's chin, crumpling him in place, pivoted, and racked a shell into the chamber. “Lead or steel, boys. Your choice. Me, I like both.”

The group's belligerence was replaced by visible fear.

“All right, hands up and on top of your heads.”

The three men complied, and he took each of their weapons and put them on the ground. The leader suddenly grabbed at his leg and Bapcat snapped a heavy punch to the man's temple and he went back down face-first and sighed. He then took the leader's sidearm.

“Take the big boy and go,” Bapcat ordered the Alliance men. “I see you again, you'll be jailed for obstructing a state officer in pursuit of his duty. That's a felony, men.”

He thought he'd read this in
Tiffany's
, but wasn't sure where. The men didn't argue, just scooped up the big man and headed for a side street.

One of the men yelled back, “You ain't real law—just a damn game warden.”

Bapcat made the bayonet flick again. “Game warden with a fang,” he called back. He dumped the loose cartridges into his pack and put the pistols on top.

•••

Othar “Old Bill” Shewbart was longtime beaver trapper, a bear-size man with a large square snout, gentle mannerisms, and a soft voice. His wife put up meals that were better than the fanciest places in Houghton or Red Jacket, and at half the price.

The owner was at the counter, but there were few customers. “Look what done crawled up out of the cedar swamps,” the bearded man greeted him.

Bapcat looked around. “Business slow, or do you just need a bath?”

“That's a worn-out joke. It's been this way since the strike came in and people hit the road. The strikers got no money to spend on good food.”

“You know anything about a so-called Alliance, Billy?”

“It's just starting up; why?”

“You belong?”

“They came and asked, but I told 'em I ain't the joinin'-up type. Truth is, Lute, lots of people in these parts have had enough of this whole mess.”

“Who asked you to join?”

“Some of the other businessmen.”

“They say who's behind it?”

“Everybody, they claim.”

“That's where they got money to print buttons—from everybody?”

“What're you sayin', Lute?”

“Mine operators, not businessmen, that's my guess.” Bapcat told his friend what had happened, and Shewbart scowled. “What's their problem with you, Lute?”

The game warden showed his badge, and Shewbart scowled even deeper. “You got to be crazy to take a job like that in normal times, never mind during a strike. What's wrong with you?”

“No beaver,” Bapcat said. “A man has to earn a living.”

Shewbart still trapped as a sideline. “You know how many beaver licenses been sold in Houghton and Keweenaw counties for this trapping season?”

Bapcat didn't know.

“Two up your way, and only thirty down here,” Shewbart said. “Beavers is disappearing, just like the copper will one day be gone, and then what?”

“Why the attitude about game wardens, Billy?”

“What's out in the woods is ours. This ain't your damn Europe with kings and potentates. You game wardens all want to take away what's rightfully ours.”

“No, Billy, we're trying to make sure everybody plays fair, and that it will still be there for your kids and grandkids.” Oates and Jones had presented it this way at the Sault meeting, and Bapcat had liked the words, the logic, and the sentiment.

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, motherland—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?