Mountains of the Misbegotten, page 27
“I am indeed. Apparently done similar and worse over the border in Ontario, and the Mounties would love to have him back.”
“Did you meet Deputy Mackley in the fall?”
“Can’t say I did, though I have seen quite a bit of his handsome missus flitting about town with self-importance.”
Bapcat was having a hard time following the man. “Do you think Mackley made the model traps for Archibald?”
“No reason to disbelieve that fact, Deputy. That’s the hushed word they use in Romney Archibald’s most inner sanctum.”
“You’re that far inside to know that?”
“Not me, but my superior, Mr. Nick Vedder, whom you’ve met, and who knoweth not how to keepeth a secret, secret. Pity, as he has many other fine qualities.”
“But the bear-capture-and-sell plan is real?”
“Substantial money’s been invested and expended in this undertaking, which means Mr. Archibald believes in it most fervently. The man doesn’t do anything without first gauging potential profits against inherent risks.”
“But he’s not doing anything illegal by state or federal law,” Bapcat said.
“True enough, but Red Hair’s wanted for multiple homicides and all sort of bloody barbarian behavior. The point is to get him out of circulation and take Archibald with him—conspiracy, you see?”
“Put Archibald in jail?”
“If possible, and if not, a box in the ground will surely suffice.”
“And Red Hair?”
“Jail or grave, however it turns out.”
“This is Jimjim’s view?”
“Yes, whatever the job requires. He ain’t of squeamish stock, our Fra Goodman.”
Bapcat paused to think. “Are you sending progress reports to your bosses?”
“Not I, and I can’t speak for Mr. Goodman. I have seen myself immersed in hostile waters, all alone, until encountering Jimjim, and now you, it seems. A triumvirate.”
“But you never had contact with Mackley?”
“The man was nowhere to be seen, and nobody had seen him for some time, it seems. Then you arrived, a new state game warden, and I calculated, more hoped, you might be here in the matter of bear commerce, in Mackley’s well-known and obvious prolonged absence. Very quickly you seemed to ruffle some local feathers, and were sent a lead message for your trouble.”
“I didn’t know anything about the bears—only that Mackley was missing, and I was sent to find him, or learn what happened to him. I talked to Mackley’s wife and JP Tecumseh Swoon.”
“Pitiful creature, His Honor. Self-interested, with judicial credentials to provide leverage. He belongs to Archibald, directly or indirectly. People in town doubt he makes a move without Archibald’s approval, and that includes visits to the hollyhock house.”
Bapcat smiled inwardly. Hollyhock was code for outhouse. “That’s a serious charge.”
“Knowingly repeated as speculative by his various colleagues and chums.”
“So you carry that badge with you all the time?” Bapcat asked.
“When not out like this. Here I am the exemplar of incognito. You wish to verify my credentials and identity?” Elphinstone asked, grinning.
“I guess I might,” Bapcat admitted. “For peace of mind.”
“Not being one for intuition and the like.”
“Probably not,” Bapcat admitted.
“Got nothing to offer, old boy. You think the JP or the erstwhile widow-in-waiting had a role in your being shot?”
“I’m still trying to figure out what to do about you.”
“Best way to learn to swim is to jump into the deepest water, wot.”
“Something in me says the JP and lady are directly involved, but I’m not sure exactly how.”
“That’s called the gut, Deputy. Gut’s the heart of us in this line of work. Put another way, here we are; what exactly are your options? For the record, I should be in Silver City to verify trap delivery and follow them from there.”
“After that?”
“Hope Red Hair is looming in the somewhere-soon.”
“Big if.”
“As stated before, what are your alternatives?”
“I want Jimjim with us,” Bapcat said.
Ten minutes later the dwarf stood there, smiling.
“He knows,” Elphinstone announced.
Fra Goodman’s expression did not change. “Knows what?”
“Your assignment, old boy.”
“Bloody loose-mouthed Brit,” the little man said in a hiss.
“He’s our natural ally,” Elphinstone offered.
“I work alone,” Jimjim said.
“Your boss and mine are of a different mind-set,” Elphinstone said. “Otherwise, why point us toward each other?”
“We all want the same things,” Bapcat said. “Red Hair in jail, our game warden found, the bear plan spoiled, and those behind the plan arrested and prosecuted.”
“Michigan will prosecute?” Jimjim asked.
“I’m ordered to arrest and hold all involved.”
“On what charges?”
“Attempted theft and the intention to profit from the illegal sale of State property. And I’m to arrest Red Hair and turn him over to Minnesota law enforcement.”
“Bloody brilliant,” Jimjim said. “You have warrants?”
“Telegram authorization from the state attorney general.”
The priest beamed and rubbed his hands together. “Now all we need is for Red Hair to walk into our trap.”
Bapcat thought about the valley he and Rinka Isohultamaki had seen, the dead boy lashed to the tree, the sleeping wolves, a white horse. “I don’t need Red Hair in order to discharge one part of my assignment.”
“You’d ignore some of your charge?”
“No, but I don’t quite understand how Archibald’s plan connects to Red Hair.”
“Archibald needs trappers. That’s the link,” Jimjim said. “He needs bear men, which Red Hair and his lot are.”
Bapcat stared into the woods for a long time. Their numbers were limited. Splitting would make them vulnerable, unless they pushed apart and stood ready to rush back together at the right time. A plan began to form in his mind. “We have to find Red Hair and follow him to Archibald.”
“No need to complicate it,” Jimjim said. “If we find Red Hair, we move on him. No reason to risk losing him.”
“I want to get all of them,” Bapcat said. “All of them at once.”
“That leaves your missing colleague as a loose end,” Elphinstone said.
“Possibly,” Bapcat said, “but if he made the models of those traps, he’s connected somewhere in all this. When we arrest Archibald, we may be able to trade dropped minor charges for information, for what he knows.”
“He may not know anything,” the Brit said.
“I’ll take that chance.”
Elphinstone said, “Settled, then. By your leave, I’m off to Silver City.”
“Not alone; take Scale.”
“A nigger in Silver City is as welcome as a black snake in Eden.”
“Take Isohultamaki,” Bapcat said.
“Your Russian mate?” Jimjim asked.
“Zakov stays with Jone, the German trapper, and Scale.”
“That leaves you and me for Red Hair,” Jimjim said.
Bapcat nodded grimly. It felt like he was in an all-or-nothing moment, and he did not like the feeling.
CHAPTER 53
South of White Pine
Wednesday, September 16
Bapcat waited until later in the afternoon to call them together, and even then, cognizant of the importance of their mounts, held the meeting close to the livestock. “Raise your right hands,” he told them, with an aside to the German. “You, too.”
“I just want to go home,” Pippig said.
Bapcat repeated. “Raise your right hand.” The German trapper complied with obvious reluctance.
The game warden swore them in as state deputies under the order and authority of the state attorney general, asked if there were questions, and was answered by blank stares. “Jone, Zakov, Scale, and the German will go to the trapper’s camp and sit tight.”
Still no comments.
“The General and Rinka will go to Silver City and follow the trap shipment to its final destination, then return to us here.”
More silence.
“Jimjim and I will be together.”
“To what ends?” Jone Gleann asked. “Any of this?”
“Jimjim and I will follow Red Hair,” Bapcat said. “The General and Rinka will track bear traps and stay with them to whatever destination they have.”
“And the rest of us?” Jone Gleann asked.
“Wait at the Blowdown Creek area and keep watch on the valleys over there.”
“Watch for whom?” the woman pressed. “The bears are here.”
“Whomever shows up,” Bapcat said, aping her, then looked at his partner. “Do your best to get rid of any sign we were ever here.”
“This is where they will come for bears,” Gleann said.
Bapcat had little doubt she was right. The area abounded with signs and promise, thick stands of beech and oaks laden with nuts and acorns, massive spreads of chokecherries, some with branches already broken by climbing, greedy animals. Scat piles showed berries, and there were several old bear trees where boars had marked their territories by dragging their sharp claws from a spot on the trunk above a man’s head to the ground. One set of marks reached up almost eight feet.
“I know you’re right about this place,” Bapcat told the woman, “but we want them to be busy with bears and not spooked by us. Good trappers will read ground as easily as civilized folk read the newspaper.”
“You give these people too much credit,” Jone Gleann said.
“Always overestimate the other side,” Bapcat said. “Hope for the best and plan for the worst.”
“He is right,” Zakov said, chiming in.
“We’ll never get rejoined,” Gleann complained. “Too much area.”
“Possible,” Bapcat said, “but I suspect our two lines will, as you predict, lead here, so this is where we will rendezvous when the time comes.”
“How will we know?”
“We are in pairs, one a follower and tracker, the other a messenger as needed.”
“How does this help find Deputy Mackley?” the woman pressed.
“I don’t know; maybe it doesn’t. But Red Hair is our first concern because he’s the most dangerous. If we can get the bear thing as well, that’s ideal, but arresting and stopping Red Hair is a must, the bears second, and Mackley a distant third.”
“Do we have any notion of when these so-called lines might actually connect?” Gleann asked.
“No, ma’am,” Bapcat said, “but not till after October first, if the General is right.” Bapcat turned to Phin, Rinka, and Jimjim. “Light rations for the four of us. The rest of our supplies go with Zakov and Jone.”
The Russian nodded. “You’re certain you and your companion can handle Red Hair?”
“Jimjim is a lawman from Minnesota and we are the two most directly charged with capturing the men, and, in any event, I doubt there will be much chance of a confrontation until Red Hair joins with Archibald. Until then our job is to locate, follow, watch, and learn. When it comes time to form up one group, Rinka will bring word and lay out our plan.”
Jone Gleann stared at the ground and said nothing.
“All right, let’s get to it,” Bapcat said.
Jone Gleann grabbed his arm and held it a long while. “Jimjim and you are most directly charged. Why am I just learning this?” she asked indignantly.
Bapcat undid her grip. “Talk to Jimjim about that.”
Rinka came over while he was saddling Joe. “I can trust this man you send me with?”
“He talks funny, but he’s true,” the game warden said, hoping his gut was right.
“Do you think this will end in bloodshed?” Isohultamaki asked.
Bapcat looked her in the eye. “I sure hope not,” he said, sensing by her look that this was not the kind of end she was hoping for.
Zakov pushed his hat back. “The dog you and Rinka talked about—I think I saw that animal this morning.”
Bapcat turned to his friend. “Where?”
Zakov pointed upstream from camp.
“Doing what?”
The Russian said, “It was stretched out most comfortably on a flat rock, staring west.”
“Did the dog see you?”
“Not at all. I had the wind, and the animal seemed far more focused on the other direction.”
“Describe the dog.”
Zakov told him and the coloring seemed to fit. “Missing leg?”
“Could not tell from my angle or distance. But I wonder—if by chance this is the same animal, why is it here? This is too odd for coincidence.”
Bapcat had no answer, but had reached a similar conclusion. He and Isohultamaki had last seen the animal at its master’s cabin near Norwich, a grueling twenty miles southeast of their present location.
“Proceed as we planned,” Bapcat said. “Saddle the livestock, clean away all sign.”
“Then what?” Jone Gleann asked.
“Nothing, I hope,” Bapcat said, and told them all, “We can’t safely ignore that dog.”
“Assuming the worst?” Zakov asked.
Bapcat sighed, nodded, got down from Joe, and began to assemble a figure of cloth and rags to replace him in the big mule’s saddle. He crowned the creation with his Rough Rider hat.
Zakov said, “ ‘Sui generis,’ of its own kind.”
“The dummy?” Bapcat asked as he stood beside Kukla.
“It and its maker,” the Russian said.
CHAPTER 54
Elm Creek
Wednesday, September 16
When the shot came, Bapcat lurched involuntarily and saw Jimjim gesticulating north toward a tree-covered ridge ahead of him. The head of the dummy lashed to the saddle had evaporated into a cloth mist when the bullet crashed through it, and Joe had bucked ahead with the effigy flopping around on top of him.
Scale, the General, Rinka, and Zakov were quickly converging on the hill the priest had pointed to after the report.
Zakov’s sighting of the dog had weighed on Bapcat so much that he’d gathered them all together. It took very little time to conclude that while they didn’t know why, the dog’s owner might very well be following him, or them, he wasn’t sure which; he had no idea why this might be so, but it seemed prudent to assume Nixon was near, armed, and up to no good. Was he on his own, or part of something else? Once again, so many questions.
Jone Gleann had thrown his own words back at him: “Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”
The dummy had been a sop to the worst, and the rifle shot, which he supposed he had half expected, confirmed the reality. A second rifle report included a ricochet that sounded nearly musical, and with this the dog had come scampering to the game warden’s feet, where it curled up, shivering, staring at the hill the priest was pointing to.
“Not sure I should thank you, or kick your behind,” Bapcat told the dog.
Thirty minutes later a bloody-faced man stood before him, propped up by Rinka and the Russian.
Zakov said, “There should be a sign around this woman’s neck declaring her dangerous. Mr. Nixon initiated fisticuffs, and you see before you the result. No contest.”
“I have brothers,” Rinka Isohultamaki said sheepishly. “Fists before words.”
“You’re certain this is Ernst Nixon?” Bapcat asked. He had gotten only one look at the man when he was checking a trap, and the view had not been all that clear.
Rinka said, “This is the man I saw in Tula. There is no doubt.”
“Nixon?” Bapcat said to the man.
“I have nothing to say to the likes of you,” the man mumbled.
Zakov leaned over the man. “We are an army in the field, sir. Justice is here with us, the process ours, followed by sentencing, and immediate punishment, including execution. You have attempted murder here in front of all these witnesses,” the Russian added. “This is the same as murder under such conditions.”
“You can’t prove nothing,” the man said.
“We don’t have to. We are not the State. Are you not listening? Your life and fate now reside in our hands, not with a jury in a town. We are the judge and the jury.”
“There is no capital punishment here,” the man said officiously. “It ain’t allowed.”
Bapcat said, “True enough if we were in a town, but as Deputy Zakov says, we aren’t. What we are is a moving unit of law in pursuit of known felons.”
“We take no prisoners,” Zakov added, “and we have you in custody. Thus, what happens next is almost entirely up to you. I advise you to do your best to please us.”
“I don’t understand,” the man said with a whine.
Rinka slapped his face. “You are a lying, bushwhacking pig.”
Zakov said with a smile, “This is simple. Sing like a nightingale or die.”
“I kill nobody here.”
“You tried,” Bapcat said. “Twice.”
The man glared at Bapcat, and Jone Gleann said, “I know this Nixon. He does all the dirty work for a mine captain at Norwich, name of Eustice Pled. He was deputized by the mines during the strike.”
“Honest man, honest work; I follow the damn rules,” Ernst Nixon insisted. “And orders.”
“Rules?” Zakov said.
“I am a man of law and order,” Nixon said. “God’s rules, the mine’s rules, this great country’s rules—all of them.”
“You were shooting at me today,” Bapcat said, “and back in June.”
A morose Nixon said, “I got nothing to say.”
