Red Jacket

by Joseph Heywood

“Is this the end of things here?” Bapcat asked.

  “Pretty much. Tonight we’ll get you set up with report forms and law manuals, and you can head for home and get started finding a place to live.”

  “If Ahmeek’s out, what about staying at my own place?”

  “A trapper’s shack way the hell back in the woods? That won’t do, Lute. Take a deep breath here and now. Find a bloody place close to town right from the start. Get a hotel room first, and work from there. I’ll be over in a couple of weeks to look in on you.” Harju gave him a big grin and squeezed his shoulder. “All state wardens meet two or three times a year for training from the state biologist and senior deputies. It’s always interesting. Your first group session will be later this year in Sault Ste. Marie. Now, don’t you go running off like that last fella.”

  Lute Bapcat looked the man in the eye. “I don’t run. Ever.”

  12

  Laurium, Houghton County

  MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1913

  Mordella Rose DiSilvestro was Dominick Vairo’s sister-in-law. Mrs. DiSilvestro was short with alabaster skin, and wore a floor-length heavy black frock with her black hair tied back so tightly in a bun it made her face look like a red skull. Set in the middle of a narrow lot, her house was two stories, long but not very wide. The room she had shown him was on the second floor and seemed secure for his gear. If he wanted meals with their family, that would cost extra. He had told her he’d think about meals, and they shook hands on the room.

  That was yesterday afternoon. Bapcat was in Laurium now, east of Red Jacket, knocking on the front door of the house of Cornelius Nayback.

  The man who answered the door was slight, with a nervous twitch that made his nose move continuously. His handshake was like a rag doll’s, and his voice so soft and tentative that Bapcat had to strain to hear.

  This man teaches rhetoric? “Nayback?” Bapcat began.

  “Who is asking?”

  “Deputy Warden Bapcat.”

  Nayback looked at him and showed no emotion. “What is it you want, Deputy?”

  “Michigan Forest Scouts. Deputy Bestemand gave you one hundred dollars in state funds.”

  “You are misinformed, sir,” the man said firmly. “He did no such thing.”

  “The State has the record of a draft drawn in your name.”

  “His word or the bank’s?”

  “Miners Bank here in Laurium. The State sent letters asking that the money be returned to a state account.”

  “How does one return what one does not possess?” the man countered.

  Difficult to read his eyes or his tone. “Our records and the bank’s say you got state money,” Bapcat repeated.

  “They show no such thing. By your own account the records show Bestemand got money from the bank, allegedly in my name. That is not the same as giving it to me. Please go away. Your business is with Deputy Bestemand.”

  The man tried to close the door, but Bapcat blocked it with his boot. “The State says my business is with you, and the State will have its money back.”

  “I can empathize, but I don’t have said money.”

  “Because you spent it?”

  “I’m no wastrel, sir! I don’t have it because I never received said money. Please leave me alone. I find this insulting.”

  “The State will get its money back,” Bapcat said forcefully.

  “Spoken like a State puppet,” Nayback responded angrily.

  The man’s sudden vitriol surprised Bapcat. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Bapcat, you can’t even give yourself a legitimate name! You cling to the State label of shame despite achieving majority.”

  “What’re you talking about, Nayback?”

  “Bapcat . . . Let me guess. Your first name is Luther, am I right?”

  How does he know?

  “The orphanage used the same naming convention for bastards abandoned on their doorstep. Lute Bapcat—ergo, Lutheran Baptist Catholic. Think back on names at the home, man. Use your brain, if you possess one.”

  Bapcat remembered. Billy Cathtist, Paul Orthometh, a few others. Could this rodent be right? Why didn’t someone tell me any of this?

  “Never mind the name,” Bapcat said. “You owe the State money.”

  “You are speaking not to some hapless Bohunk, my good sir, but to a member in good standing of the faculty of Laurium High School, and I’ll have you know that I have friends in high places. Prove your allegations if you can, sir.” With this, Nayback closed the door and Bapcat heard the latch click.

  Pretty feisty for a mouse. Lutheran Baptist Catholic? What do you care? A name’s just a damn name.

  13

  Lake Linden, Houghton County

  FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1913

  The county’s St. Cazimer’s Orphanage was much as Bapcat remembered it from the day he had walked away, only smaller than it seemed years ago. Back then it had seemed foreboding; now, just abandoned and empty. The sign was gone, no children were in sight, the yard was bosky and overrun, the old multistory stone building in a state of disrepair. An old man with one arm gone at the shoulder sat in an unpainted chair on the porch of a small house next door.

  Bapcat approached the porch, saw the man’s glazed eyes, and guessed he was blind. “Sorry to bother you,” the deputy said.

  “My specialty to be bothered, some might say. I’m Gurden Supanich; some call me Blackie. What you call me is up to you, it being a free country and all that.”

  “Lute Bapcat.”

  “The man chuckled. “Another runaway state bastard come home to the roost, eh?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Supanich then related the same explanation Nayback had provided. “This come as a revelation to you, does it?”

  Bapcat sat on the edge of the porch. “I left when I was twelve,” he explained.

  “Stayed till sixteen, they would have explained everything, even helped you pick a new name. Run off, eh? See, patience sometimes pays, even in a shithole like St. Cazimer’s.”

  “Couldn’t tolerate the place anymore, and I had plans.”

  “Plans, eh? Soldier or sailor?”

  “Cowboy.”

  The old-timer grinned. “Good for you, son. I went to work in the bloody mine at fourteen, was there till a magazine accident took my arm and my eyesight. Had a wood fragment skewered my brain, else we wouldn’t be here making idle talk. You come back for nostalgia?”

  “Explanations,” Bapcat said. “I guess.”

  Supanich said, “I just gave you good as you’re likely to get.”

  “Mrs. Hoogstratton was head matron.”

  “Cut her wrists and died, dispatching herself with a lot more efficiency than she ever showed when she was running this place. St. Cazimer’s was abandoned for months. Vagrants used it, but now it’s too run-down even for the likes of them. Listen, Bapcat—a name’s just a damn label, and there ain’t no shame in being a bastard. Back in the day of Queen Elizabeth, bastards were considered nature’s little accidents, and kids weren’t punished for something they had no say in.”

  “You were around back then?” He had no idea when Queen Elizabeth had lived.

  Supanich laughed. “Seem old enough, don’t I? Nossir, I read till I lost my eyes, and now and then a whore named Aurey Pentoga reads to me. Says reading out loud for money beats being on her back for stinky loggers and miners, and I guess I see her point.”

  14

  Swedetown, Houghton County

  FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1913

  Rose DiSilvestro met Bapcat on the front walk and seemed irritated or confused.

  “What’s wrong?” the new game warden asked.

  Vairo’s sister took a deep breath and said, “Your wife’s here—up in your room.”

&
nbsp; “My wife? I don’t have a wife.”

  “Not my concern, you being a grown man and all.” His landlady stalked back into the house, shutting the screen door in his face.

  He saw crude crutches next to his bedroom and on the bed sat Zakov.

  “The doctor you sent is no better than a barber in the matter of medicine. The imbecile wanted to remove my leg, until I informed him that my first action as a one-legged cripple would be to kill him slowly. Your Widow Frei requested I inform you that payment on account will be expected at first opportunity. I joked to your new landlady of being your winter wife, and she became all worked up before I could explain. American women are too damn literal. Initially, I said I was your dogsbody, but she did not understand the word or the concept, and I mistakenly substituted the word wife.”

  “I don’t understand dogsbody either,” Bapcat said sourly.

  “The word refers to an officer’s personal valet.”

  “I’m not no officer. You got something against using plain words?”

  “You are far too touchy, my boy.”

  “I thought you would be in a hospital.”

  Zakov tapped a leg cast. “The latest thing. Plaster serves to immobilize bone until the bone can knit itself. I’m already a maestro on crutches.”

  “The hospital should have put that plaster on your head until your brain heals.”

  The Russian smiled thinly. “This is a poor way to address the dear wife you’ve not seen in so long.”

  “You ain’t staying with me—is that more to the point?”

  “I have nowhere else to go.”

  “That’s not my problem. You tried to steal from me, remember?”

  “Irrelevant, my friend, and moot. In Russia if you rescue a critically injured man, you are subsequently and eternally responsible for his welfare.”

  “This ain’t your goddamn Russia, and what exactly does critically mean?”

  Zakov waved a finger. “A hair of definition to be parsed, massaged verbally, and debated ad infinitum. It can mean what you wish, or not wish—your choice.”

  Bapcat slung a crutch at the man, who caught it. “Get out, thief.”

  Zakov didn’t move. “The hospital has discharged me, but I cannot return to the taiga until I heal. You are responsible for my welfare. What about this elemental situation can you not grasp and understand?”

  “I’m boarding here. Alone.”

  “The bed is solid,” Zakov said. “There’s room on the floor for you.”

  Bapcat took a step toward the Russian with the intent of administering severe bodily harm, but instantaneously decided against violence. “Why aren’t you staying with the Widow Frei?”

  “Her commercial interests extend far beyond Copper Harbor. She had no space or time for me.”

  “Let me guess: When the doctor moved you to a hospital, she told you to not come back.”

  “It was not nearly as bluntly stated as that, but certainly that’s the unquestioned gist.”

  “Where’s your place in this so-called taiga, and what’s that mean?”

  “East of Bootjack, and it translates in your vernacular as the backwoods. I was up McCallum Creek, toward Rice Lake.”

  “A lot of farm country over that way.” The area was south of Red Jacket.

  “Of course, which makes it a predictable deer magnet, which in turn, serves as a wolf magnet, my raison d’être.”

  “I’ll get some help to move you back.”

  “That won’t be possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “I appropriated a space for myself. It was run-down with no signs of habitation. Some men appeared one morning and let me know that uninhabited does not mean un-owned. They chastised and forcefully banished me.”

  “You mean they beat the tar out of you?”

  “No, I had a brace of pistols and the drop. It was a peaceable, albeit hasty departure, but I cannot go back there.”

  “They got your ammo, right?”

  “Yes, all but that in the revolvers and in my rifle at the time.”

  “You could try to legally rent or purchase the building.”

  “No money, my young companion. I am a penniless state of one.”

  “I should drag you into the woods and shoot you like a broke horse,” Bapcat said. “Put you out of your misery.”

  “I would be almost gratified for such a release from life’s sour circumstances, but you seem neither the merciful, nor the killing, type.”

  “You’re half right,” Bapcat said, and went downstairs.

  “The Russian up there is hurt and crazy. Do you have another room to let?” he asked the DiSilvestro woman.

  “Dangerous crazy?” she asked.

  “Just off kilter some due to life’s hard circumstances.”

  The woman shrugged. “That defines all of us, Mr. Bapcat.” DiSilvestro gave him a long, appraising look. “Talk to Dominick. He’s the family’s agent of commerce.”

  Bapcat nodded. “Okay if the Russian stays until we find another place?”

  “Of course. Will you and your wife dine with the other guests tonight?”

  “He’s not my wife,” the trapper said, using a tone he hoped would make it clear the joke was over.

  15

  Ahmeek Village, Keweenaw County

  SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 1913

  Dominick Vairo came with him. “It started as a basic miner’s house, but my brother-in-law Giuseppe gave it a few additions, which he just finished. The miners ’round here got no money for such things. The water closet is the latest, eh?”

  The house, unlike neighboring places, had a fresh coat of dark brown paint, a fence painted pale yellow, no grass, a small storm entry that opened into an area with the kitchen-pantry, a living room, and bathroom on the main floor. The overall dimensions of the building were eighteen by twenty-six feet. The second floor had three small bedrooms. There were kerosene lanterns, no electricity. The place looked new inside. The full basement had a concrete floor and tight stone walls.

  “How much?” Bapcat asked.

  “Six hundred an’ fifty dollar. The commode, she got runna water, yes?”

  “I’m buying for the State,” Bapcat reminded his friend.

  Vairo studied him, chewed his lower lip. “What you got to do with guvamint, Lute?”

  Bapcat explained.

  The Italian whistled and snapped his hand, making a sharp popping sound. “You gotta be crazy, game warden, Lute. Maybe house outside town be better, si? You live here, dey all watch you, know when you come and go, no?”

  “They can watch all they want, Dominick.”

  “You don’t like trappin’ no more, Lute?”

  “It doesn’t pay. Beavers are down.”

  “This game warden t’ing, I t’ink not pay enough.”

  “Five-fifty for the house,” Bapcat said. “Tops.”

  Vairo’s shoulders slumped and his hands flew up, pleading. “You put me in poorhouse! I buy this place, fix up for profit, you understand? I want to throw away my money, I do better go play pool with Georgie Gipp.”

  “The offer stands,” Bapcat insisted.

  Vairo sighed. “Okay, you my friend.”

  The two men shook hands. “I’ll bring a signed contract as soon as I get it from Lansing.”

  “No hurry. You wanna move in now, go ahead.”

  “Think I’ll wait.”

  A large sign across the street proclaimed ahmeek athletic association. The wooden building was like an arena, but open to the elements. “What’s that?”

  “Croats and my pipples, we call it Cousin Jack House. The Cornwallers, they hold big wrestling games over dere.”

  “Against all comers?”

  “No, just
dere own kind. The rest of us prob’ly too dirty for dose damn Cousin Jacks,” Vairo said sarcastically, referring to the Cornish, who still held the most powerful and lucrative positions in the mines.

  As they headed toward the electric trolley station they saw George Gipp and two pals, all of them lean, muscled, and confident.

  “Da muscatelles,” Vairo greeted them, grinning.

  “Yeah, Frenchmen like me,” the tallest one said cheerfully, and extended his hand to Bapcat. “Chubb Chaput, ball player.”

  “Bapcat,” the new deputy said.

  “This is my pal, Dolly Gray,” George Gipp said. “He’s up from Notre Dame to play some summer ball with the Aristocrats.”

  “Ball players, dey t’ink kid games is work,” Vairo muttered.

  “I’m just here warming up for the Phillies,” Chaput announced.

  Aristocrats, Phillies, Notre Dame—Bapcat had no idea what these things were. And didn’t care.

  “Just kid games,” Vairo said dismissively.

  Chubb Chaput rubbed the tavern owner’s back affectionately. “Hey, Dominick, it’s the American game, not that silly cricket the Jacks play.”

  “Cricket, she’s very old game,” Vairo said. “Like bocci.”

  “And we’re still a real young country,” Gray said.

  “You guys any good this summer?” Vairo asked Gipp.

  “I’m bettin’ on us,” the young man said.

  “You fellas help me convince your friend,” Gray said. “George here is real good, and he belongs in college at Notre Dame. With me.”

  “He ain’t finished high school,” Chaput pointed out.

  Gray dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Guy can play ball like our Georgie, Notre Dame will figure a way to get him in. I’ve talked to Coach Harper about him, and he’s a cinch. All he has to do is show up in South Bend.”

  All the talk about sport and baseball bored Bapcat. It had taken all his time and energy just to stay alive since he was twelve.

  “We should be going,” Vairo said.

  “We come up to watch the Jacks grope each other,” Gipp said. “You fellas want to join us?”

  “Not me,” Vairo said. “I get back to the saloon.”