Red Jacket

by Joseph Heywood

  “I may need your help, George.”

  “You need another lawman? What can I do?”

  “You’re calm, you listen, and you pay attention. You’ve got courage.”

  “Courage in games. This doesn’t feel like a game.”

  “Sometimes it feels like a game to me,” Bapcat said. “But I’m still new.” This will change, he told himself. “Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried. I’m scared, boss.”

  “Of what? You don’t even know where we’re going or what we’re up to.”

  “I gamble, boss; I know when stuff starts to turn sour.”

  “You know a Bruno Geronissi?”

  “Sure. Everybody calls him Birdman. He comes into Vairo’s saloon.”

  “Just Vairo’s?”

  “Other joints, too, I guess, but I don’t know for sure. Why?”

  “You know what he sells?”

  Gipp shrugged. “Birds.”

  “You think that’s okay?”

  “I like partridge and goose.”

  “What about Keweenaw canaries?”

  “Too small to eat.”

  “Then why does Geronissi kill them?”

  “People are different. They do stuff in countries where they’re born, and then they try to do the same things here. You can’t blame them.”

  “Even if it’s illegal?”

  “How they gonna know the law, boss?”

  “That’s a good question,” Bapcat said.

  The Traprock River was heavily wooded along the banks, and there were a few mallard ducks around, but no songbirds. Bapcat and Gipp sat on a boulder under a tree and did not speak or move. After a while, Bapcat asked, “What’s wrong here, George?”

  “All I hear are bugs and the river,” Gipp said. “No birds.”

  “I’ve seen a few over the trees,” Bapcat said.

  “Not close, though,” the boy said.

  “When we go into the woods, we push a sort of wave of sound and scent,” Bapcat explained. “And wildlife can see us, feel our footfalls, sense our presence. But when we sit quietly like we’ve been doing, the wave settles, and animal life should return to normal.”

  “Not today,” Gipp said.

  “Right. They seem so leery the alarm doesn’t wear off. Why do you suppose that is?”

  “What’s that tell you?” Gipp asked.

  “I don’t know, but let’s go have us a look.”

  A mile north Gipp was walking five yards to the left of Bapcat when he cursed quietly. “Damn!”

  “What?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Stay put—don’t move.”

  Bapcat found the boy with a yard-long shaved stick clinging to his shirt. “I’ll have to rip my shirt to get this off. What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Relax and stay here. I’m going to look around.”

  Gipp stuck his finger on the stick. “This thing is real sticky.”

  Bapcat sniffed it. “Plums?”

  “Got me,” Gipp said.

  “I won’t be gone long.”

  Bapcat wove his way through the trees and found a half-dozen more of the strange sticks, most of them with feathers on them. He managed to get one down from where it had been set as a perch between branches, wrapped it in young ferns, and checked around the ground. There were boot prints where he found the feathers. Fresh. This morning’s tracks.

  Gipp tore his shirt getting loose. They took both sticks with them back to the Ford. “Do you know what’s going on now?” Gipp asked.

  “I’m not certain. Let’s head for Vairo’s.”

  Dominick was in his apartment behind the saloon. Bapcat knocked on the door and asked his friend to walk out to the Ford, where he showed him the two sticks. “You know what these are?”

  “Back in the Old Country, you buy them everywhere cheap.”

  “For what?”

  “See feathers? Bird thinks is safe place to land, but is glue. Can’t get loose, and when bird fights, he hang himself upside down. Some choke, others wait till somebody come breaka their neck.”

  “Glue from what?”

  “Kind of a plum.”

  “We found these along the Traprock. Lots more there. Geronissi’s work?”

  Dominick whispered, “I pay the man. I don’t watch him work. His birds never got no shot in them, capisce?”

  “You’re sweating,” Bapcat said.

  “You no capisce what you got here, Lute. You like that damn bull in Chinese shop.”

  “China shop.”

  “You got piece of paper?”

  Bapcat produced a pencil and a fold of thin paper and Dominick wrote Mano Nera. He added quietly, “You gotta swear I never said them words out loud.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Swear!”

  “I swear.”

  “On your mother’s life.”

  “Absolutely. What’s it mean?”

  “Ask Sheriff John. I gotta work.”

  “Dominick.”

  “I don’t want to be seen with you, Lute. Not good for me, for you, for nobody.” Vairo took a step but turned back. “You be damn careful, watch the Lupara, okay?”

  Bapcat looked at Gipp. “What do you think?”

  “Only that he scared me.”

  Bapcat showed Gipp the paper and the words, Mano Nera. “Mean anything to you?”

  Gipp shook his head. “The Italians, they got their own ways, and they know how to keep secrets.”

  30

  Eagle River

  FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1913

  Gipp and Bapcat drove to John Hepting’s house, which was across the road from the county courthouse and its one-cell jail. It was midmorning; it had rained all night, and the roads were all rough and pitted and slippery. But it had been dry in the traprock River country.

  “Lute,” the sheriff said, opening the door.

  Bapcat handed him the paper Vairo had written on. “Know what this means, John?”

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “Like hell it ain’t. Any Italian says them words out loud pretty much signs his own death warrant.”

  “Nobody said nothing. I found it.”

  “I doubt that. It says ‘Black Hand.’ ”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “We ain’t Italian, so we have to guess, but it seems to refer to an Italian organization that sort of keeps watch on other Italians.”

  “Like police?”

  “Not quite. They force every Italian to belong. You object, you get hurt or dead. Once you belong, the groups needs something, you fork it over and keep your mouth shut. If you need something, these people, they get it for you. It’s like a series of continuous favors and obligations.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  “Byzantine, secret, complex, and deadly. No Italian dares talk about it.”

  “The word Lupara—you heard that one?”

  “Something to do with wolves, and how guinea wolfers used to refer to the sawed-off shotguns they use to kill wolves in traps. What’s going on, Lute?”

  Bapcat explained it all: bird sales, the glue sticks. He left Vairo out of the telling.

  “You think Geronissi has himself a little business?”

  “It feels like something more.”

  “Couple of sticks and two words on paper aren’t what a judge would call evidence, Lute.”

  “I know. Has Widow Frei been here?”

  “Was she supposed to?”

  “Heard she might, is all.”

  “Haven’t seen her. You want to know if she does?”

  “No, just curiou
s.”

  “Your mind sometimes wanders,” Hepting said.

  “I know,” Bapcat said, wishing it didn’t.

  “You talk to Mayme Hannula?” the sheriff asked.

  “She said Enock’s getting ready for the strike, and that I should talk to the Laurium Ice Company.”

  Hepting grunted. “Who?”

  “Fella named Ogden. He wasn’t real helpful.”

  “A worm, that one,” Hepting said.

  “Is the strike thing real?” Bapcat asked.

  “All rumors say so.”

  “You’d think the mine owners would want to stop it.”

  “Yes, if they thought short-term profits were more important than crushing a union.”

  “You mean they want a strike?”

  “More like both sides want it.”

  “Sounds like trouble.”

  Hepting said, “Sounds more like war, and that’s exactly what it could turn into. These miners are tough customers, but so are the operators, and they have resources . . . deep resources.”

  “You ready for a strike?” Bapcat asked.

  “Hell no, not even close. Most of my deputies aren’t suited to breaking up dogfights, much less normal police work, never mind a strike that could blow up into a civil war.”

  “What about Cruse?”

  “Fat Jim’s less competent than his men, but he’s in the owners’ pockets. Whatever they want, he makes sure they get, but he won’t take any personal risks. You can bet on that.”

  “Aren’t we lawmen not supposed to take sides?” Bapcat asked.

  “In theory. The practice is different,” Hepting said.

  “Is that a joke, John?”

  “Attempted. If your man Geronissi’s in Cruse’s county, you’ll get no help from Cruse with whatever you plan. You’re on your own.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “Some more than others,” Hepting said, “Especially you game wardens. When you make your move there’s likely to be nasty backlash. Change ain’t welcome here unless the powers that be sanction it.”

  “Meaning I should back away?”

  “Didn’t say that. Just know there’s a lot goes on around here that’s not strictly by Hoyle. Most of your laws have never been enforced around here. It will be a rough adjustment for a lot of people who don’t like change they don’t pick.”

  “But I can count on you?”

  “Me, certainly. My men, not a chance. You want some lunch?”

  “Thanks. I sort of lost my appetite.”

  31

  Traprock River

  SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 1913

  Horri Harju had a hard-to-decipher look, and deputy warden Aldrick Tassone looked half asleep as they dragged into the cabin on Bumbletown Hill. Bapcat suspected trouble from the illegal birders, and had telegraphed Harju for advice. Instead of advice, Harju and Tassone had shown up yesterday.

  The three game wardens left Gipp at the cabin with Zakov, and headed southeast long before sunrise.

  Bapcat picked a new location to hide the Ford and the three walked briskly cross-country to the river through black spruce swamp and hardwood forests, staying way clear of the road bridge over the river. Tassone had explained the night before how he had engaged songbird hunters in the Ishpeming area, but that time the hunters had carried shotguns and made drives through heavy bird areas to flush the quarry to shooters on stands. Glue sticks were new to Tassone, who admitted he had been hired in part because he spoke Italian and could deal with the large Italian population in Marquette County. “Some of the Wops, I heard them talk about lime sticks, but I never knew what they meant,” he said. “Maybe these?”

  Tassone had been a deputy warden for three years and seemed pleased to come along with Harju to help.

  At the river, which angled northeast, Bapcat left Harju and Tassone on the east bank, made his way down the rocky wall to the river bottom, and crossed the river to find the area he and George had seen Thursday. It didn’t take long to locate the spot and get back to the others, who were waiting on the riverbank. Last night Bapcat had visited Vairo, who told him reluctantly that Geronissi had been in again. Geronissi had suggested the saloon owner place another order before the birds dispersed more than they already had, forcing the hunter and his people to the mode they called caccia vagrante, which Vairo translated as wandering the woods with a shotgun.

  “Geronissi says I get the birds fresh Sunday afternoon,” Vairo explained. “They always work mornings, first light.”

  “You placed the order?”

  “Would look bad, I didn’t. Capisce?”

  The first thing the wardens noticed were birds skittering nervously through the trees. Only a few, but clearly spooked. Very quickly they heard some sort of tinny pounding, and hundreds upon hundreds of birds swarmed through the trees and shrubs, endlessly fleeing the noise. Bapcat could hear the birds’ wings hitting leaves as they fled, and when they got tired and landed on lime sticks he could hear them begin the frantic sounds of entrapment as they struggled without hope to free themselves from the glue.

  Over the next thirty minutes they heard human voices and saw men in the wake of the fleeing birds. They watched as they picked frantic birds off the glue sticks, squeezed their heads with a crisp snapping sound, and dropped them into cloth bags they carried.

  Harju touched Bapcat’s arm and nodded. “Follow them?”

  Bapcat nudged Tassone. “There’s a clear area south of us. Stay on this bank, and work your way south. If you see them gathering, cross the river; if they don’t gather, keep going until you hit the road and the bridge. We’ll follow and flank them on the other side.”

  Tassone nodded once and slid away. Bapcat and Harju crossed the gravelly river and angled into the brush. Harju kept on the man they had watched. Bapcat angled west before turning south, and soon saw men ahead of him passing a wine skin back and forth. All of them carried shotguns slung across their backs. Three of them stopped to strip birds off capture sticks and drop them in burlap sacks, all the time talking softly and animatedly, laughing, nudging each other.

  As the terrain began to open up Bapcat saw more men, as many as twenty.

  Harju looked over at him and Bapcat hand-signaled that they should sit down. Three against twenty, all of them armed, most of them drinking—not the best situation. Bapcat assumed Geronissi was somewhere in the group, and though all the men were involved in the hunt, he had in mind that Geronissi was the boss and organizer, the man in charge.

  Bapcat tried to think. They were at least six miles from Allouez, eleven or twelve from Swedetown where Geronissi lived. It would be safer to confront the leader when he was alone, but the truck was at least a mile away, and it was a two-man job to start the damn thing. Bad planning, he chastised himself. An option was to intercept Geronissi at Vairo’s saloon, but that might implicate his friend and reduce the number of birds he could charge Geronissi with. Better confront them here with the full take in their possession. Harju and Tassone were here and ready. The course was clear: It was time to act.

  Bapcat waved Harju left to the river and signaled he would move right to the edge of the river plain and keep moving south. He assumed Tassone had seen the hunters congregate and had crossed to this side of the river.

  The group eventually emerged into a clearing. They showed no anxiety, seemed quite relaxed—like getting birds was as easy as collecting eggs from a chicken coop.

  Bapcat saw a line of tag alders that reached close to the gathering and slid his way through as quickly and quietly as he could manage, now and then pausing to see what was happening in the clearing, where more men continued to filter in and gather. They were piling their cloth bags on the ground. Standing next to the pile was Bruno Geronissi, gesturing animatedly with a black cheroot in hand, a prince holding court.
/>
  Reaching the end of his cover, Bapcat unslung his rifle, quietly slid a round into the chamber, and walked quickly to Geronissi before anyone could react. As he moved, he saw Harju and Tassone converging from the south side.

  “Bruno Geronissi, you’re under arrest for illegally killing songbirds.” Bapcat firmly grasped the man’s arm to signify arrest. Geronissi leered at him.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  “Deputy State Game, Fish and Forestry Warden.”

  “I don’t hear no fucking nothing about birds in them words.”

  “Trust me, Bruno. It’s there.”

  Harju moved close to the main gathering and Tassone hung back. “I want every shotgun on the ground right here!” Harju ordered, pointing. “Do it slowly, one at a time. When your weapon is on the ground, step back and put your hands on your head. Now!”

  The men all looked at Geronissi, who nodded when Bapcat nudged the leader’s chest with his Krag to start the process. Geronissi complied meekly and the others followed suit.

  “This here’s okay, boys,” Geronissi said theatrically, putting his hands on his head. “Just a little misunderstanding. There no need you game wardens do this thing. All legal, by the book, you Americans say, si?”

  “Legal?” Bapcat said.

  “Law, she don’t apply to guys collect birds for prelievo, take for science, si?”

  “Si, si, raccogliendo raccoglundo campioni scientifici,” someone shouted.

  Geronissi said confidently, “What we do here perfect legal, Quello che stiamo facendo qui, so perfettamente legale.”

  A man growled, “Non potete arrestore perquesto!”

  Bapcat said, “Tell your people to shut up!”

  All talk stopped.

  “We’re confiscating the birds and taking you up to the JP in Copper City.”

  “You waste your time,” Geronissi said. “How much your damn fine? Quanto e al tuo bene maledetto?”

  “Five dollars a bird,” Bapcat said. The forest became still and silent, the words met with a collective gulp.

  “Malle detto qioco operai!” one of them shouted angrily.

  Another man asked, “A vete sentito della Mano Nera?”

  Mano Nera. Bapcat knew these words, which were never to be spoken aloud, but they had been spoken and everyone had heard them and stiffened like statues.