Hard Ground

by Joseph Heywood

  Jesus. “Moiles couldn’t find a Percheron in a pony stall.”

  “That’s why I had the county call you,” Vilardo said.

  Thinking out loud, Service said, “Let’s hope Beany Moiles leaves her old man to home. He’ll be deep into his cups this time of day.”

  Beany was Barbara Jane Moiles, Imago’s wife, and the actual tracker-hunter-dog breeder in the family if you ignored her bigmouth husband. The peculiar couple bred special bear dogs that reputedly brought top dollar from houndsmen around the eastern US.

  “Beany shows alone, point her at me, and tell her to leave the dogs in her truck until we can talk,” said Service, who feared dogs, all sizes, all breeds, all temperaments.

  His concerns aside, Service knew that Beany had a strike dog named Stagger Lee, said to be the top bear dog in the state. But he didn’t want any dog on the scent until he and Beany could map out a plan.

  “If Imago shows up alone, play dumb. I don’t want that drooling asshole anywhere out in the woods with me.”

  “I alerted Rudi Venable, too,” Vilardo said.

  Venable was a longtime area veterinarian, a native Yooper, and someone who spent most of his spare time hunting and fishing. Service knew that the young medical examiner was thinking about what would happen after they killed the bear. Venable could perform a bush autopsy and organ necropsy to verify stomach contents. Service didn’t dwell on this aspect. He needed to find the animal and the child first.

  “Thanks, Vince,” Service said. “Good call on Rudi.”

  Service retrieved his Remington .12 gauge shotgun from the soft case in his 1973 Plymouth Fury, checked to make sure the weapon was loaded with slugs, including one in the pipe, and dumped a handful of shells into his pocket. He pulled on his rucksack, shrugged it into position on his shoulders, and headed across the small grassy backyard behind the house.

  “Hey, you,” a voice yelped. Service saw the corpulent Sheriff Swick sashaying toward him. “Just what do you think you’re doing here?” the man demanded officiously, puffing with exertion from having crossed the small backyard. Hugh Vale Swick was blockily built with blue veins spidering out to his cheeks from the bridge of the piggish snout on his booze-drenched puss. “Halt,” the sheriff wheezed.

  Service turned to face the man he considered contemptible—a cheat at worst and an unprofessional clown masquerading as a peace officer at best. Word was circulating that Swick would run for another term as sheriff, then retire to the general contracting-vacation real estate business he had built over the years, much of it on the county’s time and dime. Some of the man’s own deputies called him the Thief of Police behind his back.

  “Who’s got the track?” Service threw out gruffly.

  “Put a call in to Moiles.”

  Service grunted his displeasure. “I were you, there’d already be somebody tracking. Response time counts here.”

  “You aren’t me, and I don’t want to spoil the site or the track for the professionals.”

  “Moiles?” Service said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “I’m taking the track now.”

  “I haven’t authorized it,” the sheriff said by way of mild protest.

  “Exactly,” Service said and turned his attention to the challenge ahead.

  “Damn state, damn DNR,” Swick grumbled.

  Service tuned out the man, who had built dozens of houses in bear habitat that had once been isolated and where there had been little chance of human contact. Because of the isolation, the sheriff had bought the land parcels on the cheap, and his pals on the county zoning commission had been good-ol’-boyed into approving his housing plans and building permits.

  “Take it up with my supervision,” Service said over his shoulder to the self-serving sheriff.

  “Goddamn antiprogress obstructionists, the whole damn lot of you state people,” Swick grumped, causing Service to smile. The DNR was trying to get the county zoners to reverse their rulings where land plans disrupted animal habitat, or at least block future projects that might disrupt wildlife. Swick and his pals were not happy with what they saw as unwarranted state meddling in a purely local issue.

  Service was on the edge of the yard and moved east to west, looking down until he found two drops of blood on a fern. With this finding, he began to push everything but tracking out of his mind.

  He moved almost lazily. Not a lot of blood, no splashes. He could see where the animal appeared to have put down the child briefly, perhaps to get a more secure carrying grip. Adjustment made, it moved south toward the massive Bread Creek Swamp.

  Service’s mind churned: Three-year-old girl? Shit. Clear your mind, pal. Focus. She’s a goner. No berries this summer and a damn poor fall mast crop looming, all from a long drought. The animals need to fatten up for winter, and there’s nothing to eat. Some are going to get desperate and stupid. But you don’t know the child’s a goner, he corrected himself.

  Ten minutes later he found where the bear veered south, roughly paralleling the swamp perimeter, and minutes later he came upon a bear run used so heavily it was worn down to mineral earth. He looked back up the hill. Not 250 yards to the house, and here was a virtual bear interstate, the largest he’d ever seen in the UP.

  The houses on the hill were a disaster in waiting. Damn it, Swick!

  Blood sign remained sparse, and the CO advanced slowly, moving his eyes from just in front of him up to the terrain ahead and on all sides. Bears were like blobs of India ink in the forest, black beyond black, easy to spot. Usually.

  He tried to will himself into the animal’s head. Maybe an old bear with bad teeth, starving and desperate. Putting the girl down to get a better hold could be evidence of this. Or maybe it was a young animal cashing in on opportunity. Young bears were erratic, impulsive, and hard to read, much less predict. Young males in spring could be real pains in the ass, coming out of their dens. But this was August, not April.

  He leaned his thinking toward an old animal, whose sole focus would be on food, and Service guessed it would cache the meal in a place where it would be difficult for other animals to try to take it away. Theory was worthless, of course. He needed evidence, especially a fresh track, to help him understand what he was dealing with. When he reached a small trickle from an underground seep, he got what he wanted—a clear, fresh track in wet, black dirt. Big track, really big track. Old animal, probably desperate. Not good for the child, not at all. Service felt his heart racing, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.

  Less than a quarter mile farther along he found a splash of blood the size of the palm of his hand. It appeared that the animal had again stopped to regrip its prey. If the child had been miraculously alive before this, that seemed highly unlikely now. The blood was dark red, almost black.

  The officer increased his pace and his vigilance, crossing the stream and following the blood sign downhill to a dense copse of young gray-green popples. The sign seemed clear. The animal was heading into heavy cover to protect its prize and to not be disturbed.

  Decision time: Wait for the dogs and let them push and tree the animal, or go in and find it. Crappy choices. The kid, he thought, she’s first. What if she’s still alive? No choices here. Do your job.

  Service eased his way to the edge of the aspens and froze, using his eyes to scan, careful to not move his head and give the animal a visual clue. In heavy cover there would be no reaction time if the animal came after him. Service felt sweat beading on his face, tried to control his heart rate, his breathing, straining to summon a cold heart and the quiet nerve of the dispassionate hunter closing on prey. He saw blood on a diaphanous flap of a young paper birch, a wine-colored stain on unsullied bark. It made his stomach flip.

  Another step in, and he saw a tiny white sandal tipped on its side, like a small abandoned boat. No blood, only the orphaned shoe. Leave it for later. He sniffed the air
, breeze slight, wafting softly over his face like a gauze tail, direction in his favor. He reasoned: This bear wants food, which means it won’t be so fussy about wind and scent. Normally, bears were easily spooked creatures. Just like a human violator, this animal was locked on the prize, its tiny brain probably causing thin streams of saliva, small jolts of all-encompassing anticipation.

  One more step. Stop. Keep a tree to your front to help block a charge. Listen. Sniff. Look. Listen. Wait.

  Step again.

  There! He could smell it, the fetid stench pinching his nostrils closed. It’s damn close. Ease off the shotgun’s safety, bring barrel up. Move again, follow your nose.

  Another step, smell stronger, wind holding in his favor. And another step.

  With each step, deeper, closer.

  Heard it before he saw it—

  —a peculiar sound like a heavy boot stamped once on gravel, a crunch of quiet yet somehow epic proportion, small in volume, big in his imagination, all his alarms blasting full on. He raised the shotgun barrel toward the sound, stared ahead into a small round of grassy space buried in the trees, bright sun beaming thin devil’s smiles from above, the light angled slightly from the west.

  —found himself looking directly into gleaming, intense brown eyes set back from a rusty snout. The animal softly woofed annoyance, clacked its teeth loudly: Keep away. Mine. Just mine. Grady Service took aim, drew a deep breath, and let it out slowly. How many times had he and Treebone done this in Vietnam, but with a man on the business end of the barrel? Too many times. Don’t think about the girl, just the bear.

  He expected the animal to stand on its hind legs to get a better look, or better air, but it remained on all fours, a black blot occasionally looking at him, its jaws working silently.

  His mind was racing. In such thick cover, he second-guessed himself, momentarily wishing he had double-aught buck in the boiler. Thought: But the child’s still there. Can’t hit her, in case she’s alive. Buckshot might tear into her and leave lots of damage. He let disturbing thoughts dissolve and put the bead sight on the animal’s forehead, lining up between the eyes, but it suddenly lifted its head, presenting the top between the ears, and Service’s inner trigger whispered, “Fire.”

  He was so focused on the target, he didn’t feel the Remington’s recoil. His only focus was the bear, which rolled backward as if it had been swatted by the hand of an invisible giant, somehow recovered its feet, and bounded southward.

  Service stepped sideways with the animal, like the bear was his dance partner, and calmly pumped two more rounds just behind the animal’s front left leg. It went down onto its jaw and skidded perhaps three feet, its legs still, but the head pushed up.

  The bony time now, the waiting. Service stood with the barrel leveled at the animal. No movement, no more sound, just the stench. He stepped forward and used a stick with his left hand to touch one of the animal’s eyes, while his right hand was on the shotgun’s trigger, holding the gun on the animal. No response or reaction, no breath motion. Dead. The stink was disquieting. Fresh blood on the dead animal’s snout. The girl.

  He moved quickly to the child, felt lead gathering suddenly in his legs, but willed himself forward. Her face was unmarked, strangely white, an alabaster doll on a green bed, four ticks crossing her cheek under her right eye, looking to escape to better prospects, her blond hair spread out in a halo, sticky with her own blood and animal saliva, a flat, matted crown. Service forced himself to check for a pulse he knew wasn’t there, probably hadn’t been since the first time the animal put her down. No pulse. Shit. But you had to check, right, do your duty? Nothing. Skin still warmish. The bear was still, the child was still, the breeze stopped, all sound died all at once to create a stillness few other than the dead would ever experience. Silence was nothing, was death.

  Service left the child and returned to the animal. Back of the bear’s head gone, much of the brain with it. What had it used to move, a single cell somehow still connected to its nervous system? Weird. Shots two and three had hit where he aimed, hammering in quick succession into the heart area, leaving behind a gaping crater on the far side. When they opened the animal, its vitals would be obliterated. He hoped this wouldn’t screw up the science. The officer went over to a windfall, sat down heavily, and lit a cigarette, placing himself so he wouldn’t have to look at the child.

  “Service?” a female voice called. “You okay?”

  “Down here,” he said listlessly, his body dumping adrenaline now that it was no longer needed.

  Beany Moiles walked past him directly to the animal. “She charge youse?”

  He shook his head. “Clacked her jaws once.”

  “One more and she’da come rightachyouse,” Moiles said. The tiny woman knelt beside the bear and bent close to inspect her. “You see white star on her chest?”

  “No.” He’d seen only the eyes, the head. White star flash on the bear and white stars all over the sheriff’s gaudy station wagon. The two images merged in his mind, made his stomach sour, made him reach deep to remain focused.

  “I know this animal,” Moiles said quietly. “Ten years back she had three cubs, went four hundred pounds easy. Lived her whole life down there in the Bread Creek wilds. Shoulda died down there too, eh.” She paused. “Back in her prime dis star bear prolly push at least six hundred, eh. Now look at her: starving to death, teeth rotted and falling out, ribs showing; poor old gal. Nature’s way: Eat or die. Her and us. Doc Venable’s up to da house. Youse want him down here now?” She added, “Damn builders anyways.”

  Moiles moved over to the child, didn’t touch the body and didn’t linger. “Animal on the kill when you come upon her?”

  Grady Service nodded.

  “Got a smoke?”

  He handed her his pack and ancient Zippo, asked her, “Imago with you?”

  “Kicked his ass out a month ago, filed divorce papers. He ain’t told nobody, been sittin’ over there on a stool at the Frozen Dog since den, like ever’t’ing hunky-dory. Piece of shit, he is.”

  The Frozen Dog. Service knew what that was all about. A local watering hole favored by the hopelessly addicted, including Service’s late father, a drunk, and also a career conservation officer.

  Moiles finished her smoke, GI’d it, stuck the butt in a pocket. “I’ll fetch Doc Venable.”

  “Vince, too, but not Swick. Tell that toad we’re not yet sure what we have down here, and tell him you didn’t see anything, that I want the area preserved for the doctors.”

  “I’ll bring ’em. Youse sit tight and try to relax.” She handed the lighter and pack back to him and rubbed his upper back. “Youse done good, Grady.”

  “Hard,” he said.

  “I know,” she said and walked away, angling up the hill in the direction of the child’s home.

  Rudi Venable was white-haired, in his sixties, a hard-working, no-bullshit veterinarian who didn’t milk his clients with pet-owner complex built on ownership guilt. His hair was white-walled into a buzz cut that needed a trim. Venable knelt beside the bear, and Vilardo went to the child and stood there, slowly shaking his head, absentmindedly chewing his bottom lip, blinking hard.

  Service got off the windfall and joined the vet.

  “Old girl,” Venable remarked, his hand under the sow’s jaw, elevating it so he could look. “Find her on the kill?”

  “Yah,” Service said.

  “Her teeth are a mess. Can’t figure how’d she even chew. Probably pinched stuff off with the crushing power of her jaws.” The doctor opened a large plastic tool box, put on a rubber apron, got out a wood-handled fillet knife, honed it with a few whacks on a leather strop, and pulled on elbow-length rubber choppers. It took the combined strength of all three men to roll over all the dead weight and get the animal’s upper body slightly elevated so gravity could assist the evisceration
process.

  The veterinarian delicately punctured the abdomen, just below where ribs came together, and using two fingers, one on either side of the sharp blade, slid his hand downward, opening the cavity, moving smoothly from top to bottom. Steam spewed from the body, the stench overwhelming Service, who pretended not to notice. Game wardens were supposed to have cast-iron stomachs. His was. Mostly.

  “Not much fat,” the vet reported, pointing. “Pretty sure she wunta made it through this winter.”

  Service watched the vet remove organs and place them in black rubber bags. Venable stopped and used the back of his forearm to wipe sweat away. “Brain’s in bits. Heart, too. Whereju hit ’er first?” he asked the CO.

  “Top of the head.”

  “And she ran?”

  “Tried.”

  “Brain surge, speck she wunta gone too far. Got enough brain tissue I can run some tests, but her heart’s a lost cause,” Venable told the men. He used the knife to sever the stomach at the top and tilted it down and out, flopping it in grass in front of his knees like a bulging laundry bag, used the sharp knife to deftly slice open the sac, releasing more cloying smells, and reached inside with his gloved hand.

  “Not much in her,” he said, leaning over and fishing deep in a pool of liquids and slime. Venable looked up at his colleagues. “Check the right hand on our vic, Vince.”

  “Isn’t one,” Vilardo said quietly.

  “Okay, good. Got it here in her gut. We’ll do blood tests, but this is our killer,” Venable said.

  The three men were silent. A breeze ruffled leaves over them. Service lit a cigarette, his hand shaking slightly. Vilardo chewed on his pipe. Venable rubbed his forearm against his head again, rested his buttocks on his boot heels as he knelt.

  “I don’t think I have words for this, fellas,” the veterinarian said. He looked up at Service. “Good thing you found her, otherwise damn yahoos would be out here shootin’ every darn bear they come across.”

  “Still may,” Service said.