Hard Ground

by Joseph Heywood

  “The Book don’t say them words like that,” he said. “I can read, ya know?”

  “I know, and that’s good, Arne, but how many times have you been inside now?”

  “T’ree,” the man said sullenly.

  “The deal is this,” Quirt explained, “every time inside increases your exposure to the DUPC virus. Sooner or later you’re gonna come out sayin’ fuck this and fuck that.”

  “Fuck I am!” the man thundered, paused, and his face collapsed into shock and disappointment.

  “See?” Conservation Officer Quirt said. “The virus may already be inside you.”

  “How can that be? I ain’t done nothing dirty ta get it.”

  “It’s airborne in there. You breathe it in, and, if it likes what it finds, it stays and over time takes over your body.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Gimme your hand, Arne.”

  The man held it out. It was massive, larger than a dinner plate, with broomstick-size fingers. Arne Samuelsson was a pulpie, a logger who worked in the woods, and his battered, scarred hands showed it. “All those bumps,” Quirt said, poking the huge calluses,” they’re what doctors call palmar fibromatosis. Your hands get banged up all the time, and that causes inflammation in your fascia.”

  “Feces, youse mean, like, poop?”

  Geez, she thought. “Fascia. It means stuff inside your hand.”

  “You mean logging’s doing this to me?”

  “No, but logging preconditions you as a viral host.”

  “Huh,” the man said, studying his hand as if he’d never noticed it before.

  “You’re a Swede, right?”

  “Yah sure, you betcha,” he said beaming.

  “DUPC is also called Viking disease.”

  “But I ain’t no Viking; I’m a Packers man all the way.”

  Some men were dull as dirt. “Not football, Arne. Real Vikings are no doubt somewhere in your family history. That means you have some of their genes in you. Swedish heritage, Viking genes, you work outdoors, you’re over forty, and you drink a bit too much on occasion.”

  No response. She knew she had his attention. “The good thing is you can stop Dupuytren’s disease from developing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The disease the virus causes. Eventually it will curl all your fingers until just the middle one is sticking up all the time—a permanent finger.”

  “You think I got that thing?” he asked, his eyes pleading.

  “Only a touch, but it won’t get worse if you do the right things.”

  “Such as?” Samuelsson asked.

  “Such as not go back to jail, and stop drinking. I know a program, people who can help you.”

  “I ain’t no drunk,” he muttered.

  “Never said you were, but alcohol opens pathways for the virus, any alcohol.” Every time she’d arrested Ass, he had exceeded a blood alcohol concentration of .08 and was legally intoxicated. His BAC wasn’t outrageous, but it was always over the limit.

  Arne Samuelsson squinted down at his coffee.

  Quirt sipped hers. It tasted good. “Not too bad. You want to talk?”

  “’Bout what?”

  “DUPC.”

  “I stay out of jail, I’m safe?”

  “Should be.”

  “But logging?”

  “That and booze only make it easier for the virus, but if you stay away from jail, the virus will have no way to get to you and take over. Jail is where the virus waits, Arne. If you go back, it’ll get you.”

  “Don’t want that fucking virus,” he blurted and immediately covered his mouth with his hand.

  “Your choice,” Anacota Quirt said. “Stay out of the clink and maybe your Solvig will let you move in with her. That could make your life a whole lot easier.”

  “’Cept all them church biddies she hangs with,” he complained. “Buncha clucky hens, sourpuss old women.”

  “That’s for you to work out, Arne. But you show up in that black cape outfit again, and you’re going back to jail, and the virus will pounce on you like a bear on honey.”

  “I ain’t ever going back,” the man declared.

  “You were seen over near Beaver Dam Creek last night. In your cape.”

  “I ain’t gonna do that no more.”

  “No?”

  “No, ma’am. There a cure for that Viking thing?”

  “No cure, Arne. You have to avoid the virus. Remember?”

  “Which is only in jails, right?”

  “Yah,” she said.

  Samuelsson seemed to cogitate for a long time. “You could be lyin’ ta keep me from doing God’s work,” he said.

  “I could, or I could just be trying to spare you from falling into the ranks of the infected.”

  “How I’m ta know?”

  “Get arrested again, contract the virus in jail, then you’ll know, but then it also will be too late.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You think I’m stupid?”

  “Not in the least, Arne. And I’ve got to go.”

  A mile from the man’s trailer she pulled her truck up a two-track, got out, and lit a cigarette. She had lied to the man, made it all up, but it was for his own good and to spare her wasting time with him. If he kept getting arrested, he risked being labeled a habitual offender, with lengthier prison stays. Hunter harassment was a misdemeanor, but there was no doubt in her mind that if he continued the confrontations, one of them would elevate to a felony. Sometimes it took a few small lies to encourage good behavior.

  The cigarette tasted like shit. How did I end up in this business? Quirt wondered as she got back into her truck and picked up a microphone. “Central, DNR One One Fifty is clear of the last,” meaning she was back in her truck and proceeding on patrol.

  Rampike

  Wind had reshaped the heavy snow into twenty-foot drifts in less than a day. CO George Gabriel looked at his partner, Ellis Madorski, shook his head, and said, “Anybody caught in this crap is a goner.”

  The two men had barely made it to the safety of Lemmings Corner themselves when the Lake Superior storm exploded, burying everything for miles around. In their low-slung new Plymouths, the officers knew they both would have been stuck in the bush and trapped until the storm blew itself out, which it would—eventually. Only when was the question and the answer known only by God. By pure chance the officers had arranged to meet for coffee, and that had saved them a lot of worries, troubles, and headaches.

  Most people didn’t give much thought to the time game wardens lost to being stuck, or how often they broke their backs with jack-and-jumps or by inching their vehicles out with come-alongs. Gabriel thought someone ought to figure out precisely how many hours, days, even weeks officers lost because their vehicles weren’t designed for bad-road or off-road use. Every officer knew game wardens ought to be driving four-wheel-drive Jeeps, not bloody Plymouths. What the hell good was a 350-horsepower engine on a two-track? But driving a state-owned vehicle beat the dickens out of having to use your own personal ride, which—up until 1966, just two years ago—was the way it was. Nope, this wasn’t ideal, but it was a definite step forward.

  The two officers holed up in Avro’s Roadhouse after working on nearby roads getting people unstuck and to safety. Phone lines were down from the furious ice storm that had preceded the November blizzard, and radio reception was intermittent. Avro’s didn’t have a television because Old Man Avro “didn’t want to spend money on a dang aerial for a dang toy for a bunch of dang fools.”

  Madorski looked at the world turned virginal white and said, “I’ll guess she’ll blow another twenty-four hours before she’s had her way with us.”

  Gabriel nodded. “At least, eh. Hope Avro’s got enough grub for all of us ac
cidental refugees.”

  “And blankets,” Madorski added.

  “And blankets,” Gabriel agreed. “You got snowshoes in your squad?”

  “In the trunk,” Madorski said. “With ski poles.”

  “Me, too.”

  If they had to go help someone in an emergency during this storm, it would be on foot in snowshoes, but not until the storm let up. At full blow, this storm was a stone killer to almost anyone caught outside, even experienced bushmen like the two game wardens.

  “Schnapps?” Madorski asked.

  “Vodka,” Gabriel said, “neat and cold. This storm blowing, nothing we can do outside, so might as well have us a couple of belly warmers.”

  “And eat,” Madorski said.

  “Food and a little drink,” Gabriel agreed.

  “Could be worse,” Madorski said. “We could be camping out in some darn snow cave, eh.”

  “Yah, youse got out in your cruiser some candles?”

  “Whole box, store-bought.”

  “Borrow me some, eh?” Gabriel asked, thinking about a blizzard he had endured by piling up a mound of snow, tunneling inside, making a platform, poking a hole through the top for ventilation, and setting up a candle. The lone candle and his body heat kept him alive, not warm, but alive. He’d learned the trick from a retired state trooper.

  Old Man Avro came over to jaw. “You boys pretty damn comfy, inside all toasty warm, drinkin,’ eatin,’ living high on the state tit.” Avro was forever complaining about state government and how his taxes got wasted. He could and would talk on such subjects for hours.

  Gabriel said, “We were city cops, you’d be serving free grocks. Up here, at least the state pays.”

  “With my own damn tax money,” the proprietor said.

  “Go play in the snow, Avro,” Madorski said. “Not one hour ago we towed your waitress outen a snowbank down road dere, eh? She wunt here now, you’d have to take care of all these customers alone, you ungrateful old bolt.”

  •••

  Thirty-six hours later the storm finally began to taper, and miraculously the phone began operating again and radio reception came back, sort of. The entire Upper Peninsula was pretty much closed, airports, highways, trains, even the Mackinac Bridge, which linked the state’s two large peninsulas.

  Nobody had shaved for three days, and the toilets in Avro’s were miraculously holding up, while the interior of the bar had begun to smell vaguely like a human cattle car.

  Madorski and Gabriel had fought in World War II, both in Germany, and both had helped liberate concentration camps. Neither man would ever forget what he had seen. “Cars the Nazis moved Jews in smelled a bit like this joint,” Madorski said, sniffing the air.

  “This will end better,” Gabriel said, walking toward Avro, who was holding a phone out to him.

  “Gabriel,” he answered.

  “Geez oh pete,” Justy Kona said. “Madorski with you?”

  Kona was their area law supervisor, sort of their sergeant. The two war vets compared all state matters to the military.

  “Yah, we’re nice and comfy here at Avro’s.”

  “I just talked to the troop post commander in Newberry,” Kona said. “Says some folks name of Lundquist with a camp over on Minky Lake called relatives in the Soo when the storm was starting and said they were coming out, right as the snow hit. Said the roads were closing fast, and they had to scoot. Family’s not heard nothing since, and they’re worried.”

  “We just got phones back up here, Justy. They’re probably holed up. If they stayed put, they should be fine.”

  “Family says they’re headstrong sonsaguns, in their seventies. Any way you fellas can poke east and take a look around?”

  Gabriel pulled up his mental map. Minky Lake was part of the Little Two Hearted group, about ten miles east, but there was no direct route from here to there, and with this snowfall Gabriel wasn’t confident enough to cut cross-country. They’d have to follow the roads and wend their way north, then east. “They probably tried to run down south to the Northwestern Road out to the state highway,” Gabriel told his supervisor.

  “Highway’s open some, but the Northwestern Road is shut tight and packed in, snow drifts ten feet deep. Family says the couple always goes north and loops west. They should’ve come right through Lemmings Corner, but I talked to Avro, and he ain’t seen ’em.”

  “Drifts here are as bad or worse,” Gabriel said. “Locals?”

  “No, but their local connections and relatives over to the Soo are worried. Youse guys take a look?”

  “Where are you, Justy?”

  “Town, storm caught me at home.”

  Meaning Engadine. Justy never strayed far from his hacienda or his old lady.

  “Snow bad down that way?”

  “Not like what youses got up there. US 2’s open, bridge too, traffic’s movin’ slow, but at least it’s movin’ again.”

  Gabriel took a deep breath. “Okay, Justy, we’ll see what we can do.”

  Madorski lifted an eyebrow as his partner came back. “Justy,” Gabriel explained. “Coupla Swedes from Minky Lake bailed out as storm come in, and nobody’s heard from ’em.”

  “Northwestern Road south to the state highway,” Madorski said. “Should’ve made it easy to Paradise or Newberry.”

  “Turns out these folks like to go north and come west through here. Avro hasn’t seen them.”

  “People,” Madorski said. “How come they always got to do stuff the hard way?”

  “Just how some are wired,” Gabriel said. “The name is Lundquist.”

  “Norm and Naomi,” Madorski said.

  “You know them?”

  “Yah, sure, she ferried planes during the war, and he flew B-17s against Ploesti. Headstrong and tough, da bot’ a dem.”

  “Justy wants us to go take a look.”

  “With what? Our magic carpets?”

  “Our choice of transportation,” Gabriel said. “Justy can’t make tactical decisions from home.”

  The two men laughed.

  Madorski said, “Could use one of them damn new snow machines, I t’ink.”

  “We could ask Avro if anybody hereabouts has one.”

  “Helluva long way out to Minky Lake,” Madorski pointed out.

  Gabriel said, “Guess we could strap on the racquets and tramp our way east. If they aren’t close, we’ll assume they stayed put or found safe harbor. Nothing else we can do, eh? If they came east, they’d have to come by Stumpy Shamp’s place over Pike Lake way.”

  Gabriel called over to Avro.

  “Call Stumpy Shamp, Avro, see if he’s got the Lundquist castaways at his place. Anybody around here got a snowmobile?”

  “Ain’t that kind of money out this way, George. You know that. Only goddamn state employees earn that kind of money. I know a guy in Grand Marais got one—when it works. Canadians make the damn things, and all they give us is damn snow and a buncha goofball hockey players.”

  “Call Shamp,” Gabriel told the man and went out to join his partner. “Guess we were too cozy for it to last, eh?”

  “State ain’t happy ’less we’re freezing, drowning, or burning up.”

  Avro called them over and said, “Stumpy ain’t seen ’em, says it’s real bad over his way, most roads drifted completely shut.”

  “Hooray for us,” Madorski said sourly. “We get to be the cavalry.”

  Gabriel thought, As long as we’re not Custer’s boys.

  The two men suited up, got out their snowshoes and poles, emergency packs, blankets, and sleeping bags, and looked at each other. “We few,” Gabriel said.

  “We ain’t no few,” Madorski said. “We’re just two, that’s all. A few is three.”

  Literalism, enemy
of all romantics, Gabriel thought. “Okay, Ellis, I’ll start out front. Rest every twenty to thirty minutes, and switch leads.”

  “Sounds good, partner. Shunt be no crust on dis crap. We’ll have to plow through like winter moose.”

  State the obvious, that was Madorski’s way, and Gabriel knew his partner was as nervous as he was. This was a very dangerous thing they were being asked to do.

  It took them about four hours to get no more than a mile from the start point. The snow drifts were too deep and expansive to measure depth, but at least the storm seemed to be starting to let go. The two men were sweating heavily.

  Their first big concern had been Ruthie’s Creek. In deep winter you couldn’t make out the wooden bridge from the sides, and plenty of vehicles had plowed down the little drop-off over the years. But they found big puffy drifts, like piles of divinity, at the bridge and made it across quite easily. Then the going got tough and remained that way.

  “Don’t know if my legs can take much more of this,” Madorski admitted as they rested. “Ain’t in the shape I used to be.”

  “Me neither,” Gabriel said. “This is crazy. Let’s duck into the hardwoods here, make a fire, and get us some tea with sugar, assess our situation.”

  “They’re not in a cabin somewhere,” Madorski said, “this ain’t gonna end happily ever after.”

  Gabriel knew. As fit as he and his partner were, the four hours had sapped both of them. “Let’s find us a place where a drift tapers and get down under the thick trees. Shouldn’t be as much snow under the canopy.”

  “Looks like we’re gonna spend the night in the woods, eh?” Madorski said with a flat voice.

  “Looks like. I don’t want to backtrack through this crap in the dark. Storm picks up again, we’d be screwed, blued, and tattooed.”

  Madorski exhaled a heavy breath. “She’s a tad nippy, eh.”

  “Ya, let’s get to cover.”

  They found a helpful snow contour and battled their way down and into the trees. Drifts were high along the edges, but there was much less snow underneath in the woods. “I’ll find us some dead wood, get a fire going,” Gabriel said. “See if you can find some birch bark. I usually got some in my ruck but don’t know where it got off to.”