Red Jacket (37 page)

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 confirm, 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.”

“He goes by the name of Frank Fisher, but his real name is Frankus Fish. He was a Rough Rider, a sergeant with a foul temper and a taste for torturing his own men.”

“And you think he's here why?”

“I
know
he's here, not why. He came in as an Ascher detective, but that may be only a story. I don't know. I saw him once coming out of Moriarty's at night.”

“You were at Moriarty's?”

“Not exactly there, but we talked.”

“Where?”

“In his privy.”

Hepting grinned. “Talk about taking away a man's dignity.”

“I talked to Moriarty early last month, not long after Fisher is supposed to have shown up asking questions about Pinnochi.”

“Why?”

“I don't know that. Could be he's looking for me.”

“Why you?”

“Bad blood.”

“Man with a grudge?”

“Could be.”

“Why?”

“I stopped him from doing what he liked to do.”

“What happened to ‘forgive and forget'?”

“Some men never forget anything. Zakov and I are going to put the heat on Cap'n Hedyn.”

Hepting cringed visibly. “Not a good idea to bite the bulldog.”

“Depends on how hard you bite,” Bapcat said. “Alone, he's less than inspiring. I already met with MacNaughton.”

“How?” Hepting looked surprised.

“My take on the book.”

“What book do we refer to?” Zakov asked.

John Hepting said, “The one everyone quotes and few read. You want my help, Lute?”

“Your hands are full with the strike. Just keep an ear out for Fisher.”

En route to the hill, Zakov said, “You are an exceedingly complex man.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Much of both, I think.”

“The days ahead could get intense and messy.”

“There is no revelation in these words you choose. When you killed the Spaniards in Cuba, how did you feel when it was done?”

“Unhappy; happy; sad, maybe; glad; a little sick to my stomach.”

“When I dispatched my general, I felt nothing but elation,” Zakov said. “Then and now.”

“You mean, for walking him toward the enemy troops?”

“I don't like leaving critical things to chance, wife. It was coincidence only to those back in our lines. The shell exploded a split second after I put a bullet in the back of the monster's head.”

“You left your escape to chance.”

“My personal survival was never the point,” Zakov said, “only his death.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The Russian took his hands off the steering wheel and the truck began to slide wildly around before he took control again. “I like staring into the unknown and unpredictable,” he said. “This is no doubt a serious character flaw.”

103

Redridge, Houghton County

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1913

Rollie Echo called John Hepting, who called Petermann's store in Allouez. Petermann sent a messenger up to the hill, telling Bapcat to call Echo as soon as he could. They called from Petermann's and immediately raced to Houghton to meet the assistant prosecuting attorney.

“Solid but unverified information,” Echo told them in his office in the county courthouse. “Your Davidov is allegedly holed up in Redridge. I have detailed directions.”

“You're coming with us?”

“It behooves one to occasionally leave the confines of his office and mingle.”

No idea why the back-office man suddenly wanted outside, but so be it.
“Where in Redridge?”

“There's a backwater off the dam pond, a cranberry bog off the backwater on the northeast side, an abandoned cabin on the property, and a barn.”

“Who owns the property?”

“Champion Mining sold it to Philamon Hedyn.”

This stopped Bapcat in his tracks. “The captain's brother?”

“So it appears. The purchase was completed this past summer, in June.”

“Is there a connection between Davidov and Hedyn?”

“Unknown,” the assistant prosecutor said.

It was midafternoon when Zakov bounced the truck through a stump field along a rutted wagon track off the main road from Houghton. The stump field connected to the cranberry marsh, and the house and barn sat atop a slight rise above the bog, which was covered with a layer of thin black ice over black muck, making the footing look secure, which it wasn't.

The log house was two floors with a cedar-shingle roof and a chimney. A ladder had been affixed to the roof to allow for snow removal.

“Apparently we're about a quarter-mile due east of the village,” Echo announced.

“You've been out here before?” Zakov asked.

The prosecutor said, “My point is that this place is not nearly as isolated and remote as it appears from this vantage. How will you gentlemen go about this?”

Bapcat looked at Zakov. “House first, then the barn. I'll take the front, you take the back. Mr. Echo, place yourself down that way so that you can see the barn, but stay close to the truck. Are you armed?”

“Some people rely on prayer,” Echo said. “My personal preference is to run when danger looms.” There was almost a smile.

Zakov and Echo nodded at Bapcat's plan, and the game wardens headed for the unpainted building. Vigorous knocking brought no response from inside the house. Bapcat tested the front door, pushed it inward, and peeked inside.
Dark, little light
. He walked through to the kitchen to the back stoop and waved for Zakov to join him in searching the house. Bapcat saw that Echo was positioned to watch the barn.

The game wardens searched methodically.

“Someone's been here,” the Russian said. “Tobacco on the kitchen floor, bread crusts in the snow off the back stoop. Some kind soul likes to feed small carnivores.”

They heard Echo yelling, and ran outside to see him gesturing north.

“A man came running out of the barn,” Echo shouted excitedly.

“Shall we lose the packs?” Zakov asked, smiling.

“Your leg up to this?”

“It seems strong enough most of the time. We shall see.”

Snow was dusting the frozen ground, and they ran parallel to the fleeing man's prints, which showed his gait getting longer, suggesting he was taking longer strides and tiring.
Afraid, confused, not used to running, looking for a hide
, Bapcat told himself, and signaled for the Russian to stop and kneel.

“Let us hope he finds no second wind,” Zakov said, his chest heaving.

“You all right?”

“At the moment, but the future is at issue. My style is more plodding than fire-eating pursuit.”

They sat quietly, scanning the area ahead of them, a broad field and a tree line. They could smell smoke from the town's mill and feel the dull thud of mill presses crushing tons of rock hauled in from the Baltic Mine.

Rumbling ground was such a common thing in mining towns that it was rarely acknowledged, but this time something about the vibration nipped at Bapcat's subconscious.
Sound beneath the stamp-mill vibrations, softer, more rhythmic, thut-thut-thut.

Train?

Before he could say anything, the Russian was running forward, yelling, “Train—hear it?”

He did.

“Trainman on the run,” the Russian said over his shoulder. “He doesn't have the patience to sit. The train means distance, safety.” The Russian pointed at the rail bed ahead and the running figure. “He's making for the train.”

They pursued across a swale and through a maple tree line into an expanse of barren fields with several small wooden houses. They could see the elevated track bed and a train chuffing westward, a black locomotive, coal tender, four cars, and a caboose.

Bapcat stopped, looked left, and saw a stick figure running hard, two hundred yards in the lead, on an intercept course for the train at a place where the tracks seemed to dip, which would make it easier for a man to board, especially a tired man.

Bapcat tore past Zakov. “Get back to Echo and the truck. Get into Redridge, fast!”

The Russian immediately peeled off and headed back toward the house while Bapcat fixed his mind on the run and nothing else. Lungs burning, he tried to empty his mind and keep pounding forward. Impossible to gauge how long he had been running when he realized the runner would catch the front part of the train before him, and rifle in hand, he put his head down and tried to run without thinking, to glide until he began to approach the train. Only then did he turn his attention to the challenge.

The last car had platforms front and back. He thought he had a chance at the front platform of the last car, and if he missed, there was an outside chance he could recover sufficiently to grab the back of the caboose as it passed by. He knew if he put all his effort at the tail end, a miss would mean he'd lost the man, which was all he could think about.

Closing on the train, he picked a place on the front step and platform of the last coach car, ran up the incline, and leapt, banging his shoulder on a rail and going down hard on his knee on a metal step. He was immediately up and moving to the third car, where he shouldered open the door and entered in a low crouch, rifle up and ready.

What he saw were rows of small pink faces looking back at him, mouths agape, eyes wide.
Children.
He flashed his badge, said “Game warden,” and all the children's arms and hands pointed forward in unison.

“What is this train, girl?” he asked a child as he advanced.

“School train, sir, Atlantic Mine, Redridge, Beacon Hill.”

Easing his way into the next car, he held up his badge and all the children again pointed. He ran forward and found Davidov facedown on the platform of the second coach, his left arm bent in an unnatural position, his head covered with blood.

Bapcat pulled the man inside the coach, propped him in a seat. The children stampeded when the man shrieked in pain, and Bapcat told him, “Shut up. These children have more courage than you.”

The game warden said to a little girl nearby, “Scarf.”

She immediately handed him a yellow bandanna. The game warden used the cloth to fashion a sling to immobilize Davidov's injured arm, and told the man to stop whining.

The girl came over to him. “Mister, did you hurt him 'cause he was naughty?”

“He hurt himself.”

“Why?”

“I don't know, kid.”

When the train jerked and chugged to a stop at the Redridge station, Zakov came hurtling aboard and helped him get the injured man down to the ground.

“Who are all the brats?” the Russian asked.

“School train. They helped me.”

Zakov stopped and dramatically held out his hands. “Thank you, our dear friends. You are now all hereby appointed honorary Michigan Forest Scouts, the first in county history.”

The children had spilled out of all the cars to watch what was happening, and when Zakov spoke, they all began to cheer and clap, and wave their hats.

“I am a regular Pied Pipersky,” the Russian proclaimed.

“I had no choice; they gave me no choice,” Davidov cried.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Echo studied the man and said, “You will have choices from us, sir, but you may not find them to your liking.”

“My arm hurts
bad
,” Davidov said, and Zakov immediately slapped the arm hard, making the man scream and wince with pain.

“Was that necessary?” Bapcat asked his partner.

“For him, no. For me, yes, of course.”

A schoolboy approached. “Is that the man who cuts off deer's heads?”

Bapcat looked at the boy. “What did you just say?”

“Is that the man who cuts off deer's heads?”

“Does that happen around here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

“Behind our school.”

“Where might that be?”

The boy pointed east. “Painesdale.”

“What's your name?”

“Johnny Haluska.”

“You live near here?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know how to use a telephone, John?”

“They got one at Redridge Co-op.”

Bapcat gave him Vairo's and Petermann's phone numbers. “You see people with deer, call either of those numbers and tell whoever answers what you saw, who, and when.”

The game warden led the boy outside. “Show me your house.”

The kid pointed. “Third one on left, over there.”

“Let's quick go see your ma.”

“My ma don't speak good English. Am I a good Forest Scout now?”

“Our top scout, John.”

“Do I get a badge?”

“You bet, but not today.”

Bapcat told Echo, “We need to make a stop before we go back.”

“I want to lodge him and charge him as soon as possible. Get him in a cell, see if it helps his memory.”

“We've got to get him medical attention first,” Bapcat reminded the assistant prosecutor.

“Is it always this exciting?”

“This is quite uneventful, actually. He didn't even want to fight,” Zakov said.

•••

The clapboard Redridge dispensary sat along the road between the steel dam on the Salmon Trout River impoundment and Lake Superior, both of which could be seen in the distance, great hulking gray presences. There was a greeting station just inside the front entrance, next to a waiting room for ambulatory patients, and a hallway with treatment rooms reaching off to the left.

Having Rollie Echo along helped get Davidov seen to quickly by a wizened doctor named Venelaste, who set the arm break, splinted it, sewed twelve stitches in the man's head cut, and bandaged him.

“What about pain?” Davidov asked through clenched teeth.

“Endure it the way our savior endured it on the cross,” the enigmatic doctor said.

Bapcat could smell alcohol on the doctor.
A lot of alcohol
. “All right to talk to the patient?” he asked the doctor, who belched, shrugged, and shambled away.

“I had no choice,” Davidov said immediately.

“No choice in what?” Bapcat countered.

Davidov looked up at him. “The boxes.”

“What boxes?”

The man looked befuddled, and Bapcat could see him laboring to sort pain from his thoughts, his answer a heavy sigh. “Why am I here?”

“Trespass,” Bapcat said.

“But you and your partner were on the train from Marquette,” Davidov said, obviously still trying to clarify earlier exchanges.

“Yes, we were. Why were you hiding in the barn?”

“
Barn?
”

“I saw you come out and run,” Rollie Echo said. “Why were you in the barn, and why did you run?”

“I didn't run,” Davidov insisted.

“I was right behind you,” Bapcat said.

“I was late for my train.”

“The
school
train?”

“I ride it to Beacon Hill and take it back to Painesdale.”

“Why would you go to Beacon Hill when you could wait right here for the train to return?”

“This is just how I like to do it,” the man said vaguely, his eyes darting.

“You do this regularly, do you?”

“I've done it.”

“Prevarication provokes,” the assistant prosecutor said menacingly.

“It's the truth, I've caught this train before.”

“By jumping aboard as it passed.”

“I'm a railroad man; we develop certain skills.”

“You broke your arm and cut your damn head.
Those
skills?”

“You don't understand,” Davidov said.

“Have you caught the train after previous episodes of trespass?” Echo asked.

“I did not trespass.”

“You have permission to be on that property?”

“Of course. I'm a law-abiding citizen.”

“Written permission?” Bapcat asked.

“Verbal.”

“From the owner?” Echo asked.

“Yes, from the owner,” the trainman insisted.

“Gerlach?” Bapcat asked.

“Who is Gerlach?”

“The owner. You said you had permission.”

“I do. Reverend Philamon Hedyn's the owner, not someone called Gerlach.”

Bapcat watched the man's expression and saw it change to one of deep concern as he replayed the exchanges and suddenly seemed to suspect he had given up something he shouldn't have.

Bapcat said, “You said you had no choice, and they gave you no choice. Do you remember those words from the train?”

“I was in pain,” the man said.

“No choice but trespass, or something more serious?”

“I'm not saying any more,” the man said, lifting his chin defiantly. “I want my lawyer.”