Hard Ground

by Joseph Heywood

  Thirty minutes later they had a fire and a wood supply, made tea, and cut some boughs to put under their sleeping bags and blankets. “You ever use a fart sack in the war?” Madorski asked his partner.

  “Once maybe,” Gabriel said. “We slept in the dirt most of the time.”

  “Mud for my outfit,” Madorski said. “Snow mixed with mud.”

  “No mud here,” Gabriel said. “Good luck for once.”

  “I’ll keep the fire,” Madorski volunteered. “You sleep. Wake you in a couple hours, eh. We got plenty smokes?”

  “I got three packs,” Gabriel said.

  “Me, too, we’re good. Bring Boy Scouts out in this shit, they’d never camp again.”

  “I just might not either,” Gabriel said, laughing.

  •••

  No dreams, but Gabriel thought he felt the ground shake and wondered if it was an earthquake or blast from a new blizzard. End of the world, maybe. Could be anything out here in this Lake Superior country.

  “Wake up, Gabriel.”

  Gabriel peeked out, tried to push away sleep. “My watch?”

  “First light, you’d better have a look.”

  Gabriel used a finger pad to dig sleep out of his left eye and Madorski handed him a cup of tea and said. “She’s hot. Look over dere, eh?”

  The snow seemed finally to be done, though flakes continued to flutter like confetti out of the trees. They were in blue-gray twilight. Gabriel saw a snowy silhouette, looked like the remains of a tree that had been struck by lightning, maybe. “That a rampike?”

  “Let’s go look,” Madorski said.

  “Oh, God.”

  The rampike turned out to be two people intertwined, frozen solid, a macabre sculpture, dusted and caked with snow.

  “Had same idea as us,” Madorski said.

  “Where’s their car?”

  “Hard to say. May not know till there’s a thaw. Could be forty feet or four miles from here.”

  “You check them?” Gabriel asked.

  “Gone,” Madorski said. “Pretty sad, clinging on each other that way.”

  “Never should have left their camp,” Gabriel said.

  “Or their damn vehicle,” Madorski added. “Pilots should know better. Stay with the damn plane. You think we ought to dig them out, cut a travois?”

  “No point. I’m sure coroner will want see this one as it is. Make tea, eat some breakfast, snowshoe out, report it, let others clean this up,” Gabriel said. Avro had given them hunter sandwiches, peanut butter, jelly, honey, dry oats, big energy smeared between two thick bread slices. They ate in silence, hung some ribbons on tree branches by the road edge to mark the location, adjusted each other’s packs, put ski pole straps over their wrists, and looked back at the couple.

  “Hardheaded Swedes,” Madorski said in a flat voice.

  “Damn pilots,” Gabriel said with a grunt. “Think they’re bulletproof. Same as in the war.”

  The Fifth Ace

  Sitting beside three gut piles in a Drummond Island clearing, the game warden came as close to tears as he ever had, but the feeling quickly turned to cold rage. Sandy Macbeth vowed that he’d bide his time and find a way to bring down Francis Brush, longtime scourge of the Gem of the Huron.

  Several years passed, no opportunity came, and Sandy Macbeth eventually guessed that someone on the ferry boat crews was letting islanders know when he crossed. At first he thought it could be the owner of the Star Queen Tavern right next to the ferry dock in Detour but then decided a crewman made more sense.

  Early September in their garden patio, his wife, Glamis, was reading the newspaper. “Says here Astel Balcers died down to Drummond.”

  Glamis read every word in every newspaper every day, saving Macbeth the trouble and time. As she read, he watched their cat Thumbprint crawling through empty boxes and jumping out on their older cat Lardass. He’d watched the two cats do this for years, and the older one never seemed to figure it out. Ambushed once, Macbeth could understand, but to be fooled years on end? Glamis insisted cats were among God’s most clever creatures, while he had his doubts. But he kept his own counsel because Glamis, undoubtedly a fine wife, insisted on being right about all things, small and large, every time. Never wrong, but she kept a clean house, spent money frugally, took good care of their kids. . . . What more could he want in a spouse?

  “You think Brush will pay his respects?” she asked.

  “Not a chance. Balcers stole Brush’s wife, and they hated each other.”

  “So Brush will be glad to be shed of competition,” Glamis said.

  Sandy Macbeth looked from the cats to his wife. “When and where’s the service?”

  Glamis rattled the newspaper. “Says Friday at Saint Filippo NeriFillipo’s.”

  “Which funeral home?”

  “There’s only one out to the island,” she reminded him.

  “That one belongs to Sepanu,” he reminded her. “He’s married to one of Brush’s daughters. The Balcers clan won’t turn to Sepanu.”

  Glamis scanned the paper. “Payment out of Cedarville,” she said. “You think this is an opportunity to get Brush? I don’t think so.”

  Sandy Macbeth said nothing. His mind was in overdrive with possibilities.

  •••

  The hardwoods had a lot of beech trees, and the ground was littered with nuts down toward the old fort ruins. This time of year the area was overrun with deer, including some big bucks that moved out of thick cedar swamps just for this annual feed.

  Macbeth headed for a major intersection of deer runs he knew Brush sometimes frequented and stashed himself in a pile of browned ferns, pulling a lightweight camouflage tarp over top. The cover was made of material that let him see out but kept anyone from seeing inside, and it had cost him a small fortune from a military catalog outfit. Glamis had made him a lunch and dinner and gave him two thermoses, one containing coffee, the other soup. If Brush didn’t show, Macbeth had decided to turn in his badge and retire. Going on twenty years he’d chased this scoundrel, and this night he was going to nail him. Been oh so close lots of times, but not one arrest. Until now. He was almost certain.

  Peak full moon would leave the woods nicely lit, not quite as bright as a sunny day, but as good as some cloudy days and better than most twilights. The trip from Cedarville had been made in total darkness and stale air that left him nauseous. His eyes were still trying to adjust, but he was damn proud of his ingenuity and hoped it would pay off. If not, it was just another stupid trick wrought by desperation, old ground revisited, and maybe it was time to call it quits.

  Sandy Macbeth ordered himself to not dwell on the past, only on the present, only on tonight. He was fairly certain Brush would work alone; it was his MO, and he knew to keep his yap shut when deeds were done.

  A few moments before midnight Macbeth heard four spaced shots. There was one brief flash of light before each discharge. He also thought he heard at least one animal crash to the ground and thrash momentarily. No sign of Brush, of course. He’d killed, would come back later to collect his meat, no doubt from a different direction.

  Macbeth found the deer, three does and a June fawn, still spotted but putting on weight. Each animal was missing an eye. Small caliber, .222 or .22 Hornet, Brush’s caliber. Macbeth made a new hide for himself and crawled inside, pulling the camo cover over the top. He ate a chicken sandwich and sipped coffee, told himself Brush would come back around zero four hundred when most people were in their deepest sleep. Brush played odds. No way it would be earlier than that.

  Macbeth settled into the half-awake, half-sleep mode all game wardens and combat soldiers came to rely upon. He’d fought in Korea and nearly frozen to death, but he knew the trick of suspended animation and slowed metabolism, like a snake. That trancelike awareness and luck ha
d kept him alive. Now here he was, seventy-three years old, forty years as a game warden, conqueror of every violator he’d ever gone up against. Except one.

  Macbeth debated what to do with Brush if he pinched him. Were this not the island where the man had a few friends, he might thrash the tar out of him and leave it at that, but this case needed to get to the JP and into the paper. The game warden prayed Brush would want a jury trial so the whole thing would be known by everyone.

  Unsure whether such thoughts qualified as dreams or nightmares, Macbeth’s meditative state brought familiar, disturbing images. T.J. Fowler sitting next to him in North Korean snow, an airburst ripping nearby trees, and T.J. still sitting there, minus his head, which had somehow been vaporized, covering Macbeth with tissue and blood, and there he’d sat all night until someone brought hot soup at daybreak.

  This was not the sort of thing he shared with Glamis. Dirty work was dirty work. Soldiers went to war. Game wardens found the lost and the dead. No need to plant seeds of distress in those who were fortunate not to have to deal with such ugliness.

  Macbeth desperately wanted a cigarette, but in the still night air Brush would smell it a hundred yards out and not come in to collect his prizes. Game wardens and violators alike learned that noses and ears were better than eyes after nightfall, and Brush was a cut above most violators in his woodcraft.

  Given other circumstances, Macbeth thought, their roles might have been reversed. In fact, Macbeth believed ardently that as many game wardens as possible should come from the ranks of violators, and because of his outspokenness Lansing had left him where he started. He told himself he didn’t care: Promotion in this outfit was a curse.

  •••

  Brush came in much later than the warden expected, oh-six-thirty, just morning twilight, pushing a wheelbarrowlike contraption with a box built up so he could carry bigger loads, and with two larger than normal front tires to make the thing go better through the woods. Damn clever, he thought begrudgingly. The man could patent it and make a lot of money and not have to poach. But then, Brush’s violating wasn’t about food or survival or profit, it was just about flaunting the rules and never getting caught.

  Macbeth let the man eviscerate all four animals before stepping out from cover and grasping his arm. “You’re under arrest, Mr. Brush.”

  The man stood mute, staring before mumbling, “Okay I light up, Sandy?”

  “Suit yourself,” the officer said magnanimously, and when the poacher held out the pack, Macbeth took one and also lit up.

  “Clever as the devil,” Brush allowed after a few puffs. “I’ll give youse that.”

  “Long time coming,” Macbeth said.

  “Guess it was,” the violator said, chuckling softly.

  “You didn’t look the least bit surprised when I stepped out.”

  “Always assumed it would happen. You’ve been close too dang many times to count. Saw me shoot these, did youse?”

  Macbeth said nothing.

  “I figured it would happen the time I was certain you couldn’t be here. Last night I had one of dem feelings and almost stayed home.”

  “Probably should have.”

  “Care to tell me how you pulled it off?”

  “When the time’s right, Francis.”

  “I’d offer a trade. Name my crow.”

  Macbeth heard in the man’s voice an anger over someone failing him. “You first,” the conservation officer said.

  “Take out my wallet?”

  The warden nodded. Brush dug a faded photo out of the billfold, held it for the game warden to look at.

  Macbeth’s heart juddered and sank. He stepped toward Brush with malice, but Brush stepped back and held up his hands. “You wanted to know, Sandy. Now youse do, and it’s your turn.”

  “No deal,” the game warden said through clenched teeth.

  “You started coming out here, what ten years back? Nobody even knew who the hell you were, eh? Think about it, Sandy.”

  Macbeth was visibly shaking. How could this be?

  “Grew up together, neighboring farms. You probably never heard dat fum ’er, I’d bet. I got tagged as the black sheep early on, was encouraged to get on with life on my own, which I done, I guess. Your turn, Officer Macbeth.”

  “Astel’s coffin,” Macbeth said. “Nobody knew.”

  Brush showed a toothless grin. “Coffin, eh. That musta been one creepy ride, eh?”

  “Not one I’d recommend.”

  “Pinched me, though.”

  “I suppose.” A major arrest and a major, crushing revelation. It wasn’t supposed to feel this way.

  “We gonna go see Essie?” Brush asked.

  Esther Magnum was the island’s longtime justice of the peace. “Got to.”

  “Help me move dis meat?” Francis Brush asked.

  “You won’t be keeping any of it.”

  “I know dat. Essie’ll give it to folks can use it.”

  “No shenanigans,” the game warden said.

  “Nope, I guess you got me good, unfair and unsquare. I even thought about coffins, Sandy, and I called Sepanu. Payment couldn’t bury nobody widout having rep on the island. He said he meet the ferry hisself, and I told him make sure he meet dat Payment out in the open and keep his eyes open.”

  “Was a crowd of cars,” Macbeth said. “Payment pulled over to the woods to be courteous. I was out of the truck quick and gone while Payment talked to your son-in-law.”

  “Young’uns, dey just don’t listen,” Francis Brush said, adding, “Pretty darn smart of you. Gotta give you dat, by gott.”

  •••

  Home, late afternoon, Macbeth stormed inside, shooed the cats away, got out a suitcase, began pulling out drawers, and began packing haphazardly. Glamis came out of the bathroom in her ratty terrycloth robe. “What’s going on in here, Sandy?”

  “I got that sonovabitch!” he said angrily.

  “Brush?”

  He glared at her. “No thanks to you.”

  Glamis’s face tightened. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I went across in an empty coffin. Never told nobody, even you. Was there when he put down four animals, pinched him at first light. No thanks to you.”

  Her eyes widened, then slowly closed. “That damn Francis,” she said. “Let me guess. You pinched him, and he hauled out an old photo of me.”

  “All these years you knew him and never said a bloody word!”

  “There was nothing to say a word about, Sandy. He was a neighbor boy, nothing more. Mothers in those days gave class photos to other families. I hardly knew him before his family gave him the heave-ho.”

  Sandy Macbeth sort of wanted to believe his wife, but he couldn’t—at least not now.

  “You realize,” Glamis said, “he’s beaten you again. You arrested him, and he showed you an old photo he’s been carrying like a fifth ace for God knows how many years. You undo him, and now he tries to undo us. What kind of husband throws away his wife on the words of a known violator?”

  She had a point, but he couldn’t stand the thought of her being right again.

  •••

  Things were never again the same between the couple, and a year later Macbeth came home to find Glamis moved out, cats and all. She left a note: “You swim in filth with vermin, and think it’s real, but it’s not, Sandy. I pity you.”

  •••

  One year after that, Sandy Macbeth retired quietly, sour and wounded.

  To the exact day, one year after retirement, he died of a brain aneurysm. By then the old game warden had alienated everyone in his personal and professional life, and only one person came to the graveyard.

  Francis Brush watched dirt thump on the casket lid and nodded. “It’s poker, Sandy,
” he said out loud. “Got to always think two lay-downs ahead. You, of all people, should have known that.”

  Dancing for the Dead

  Night, black as the inside of a cow, and Conservation Officer Joseph “Shaky” Jolstaad had his truck aimed down a grassy two-track so tight that jack pine branches clawed at the truck and scraped the windshield as he motored slowly along, running dark, an invisible steel creature prowling silently. Jolstaad liked being alone, even if he was afraid most of the time, which he was. Petrified sometimes.

  His last-phase field training officer had been the legendary Army Kelley, murdered six weeks ago. First phase, recruits watched their FTO do the job. Second phase, the recruit did the job and was coached daily by the partner. In phase three it was up to the recruit to do the job, the FTO there solely to evaluate the recruit’s ability to cut it. When Jolstaad’s last patrol in phase three ended, Kelley looked at him and grinned. “You pass,” the experienced officer said. “You done damn good.”

  Kelley then drove them to a stream with a six-pack of beer and some small cigars. “I think you’re gonna be great CO, Joey. I know you’re afraid, and sometimes that shows when we’re alone, but you never let the public see it. That’s good, really good. Don’t worry about the shakiness. We each prepare and funnel adrenaline and nerves in our own way. You did good, Joey. You could be my partner any day, any time. I’d damn well go to war with you.”

  They each took a slug of PBR and puffed a Swisher Sweet cigar. Kelley pointed up at the night sky. “Belt of Orion, those three stars up there in a line. Orion was a hunter, according to the Greeks. That belt holds him together. Every morning you put on your duty belt, think about Orion. We’re the hunters, Joey. That’s our job.”

  Jolstaad said, “I can’t shoot for beans. I struggle every time on the range.”

  “Practice shooting, practice drawing, make the weapon part of you so you don’t have to think about it. It’s a tool, like a hammer, nothing more. You’ll get better. Trust me.”