“No,” the boy said, “but I seen where he went.”
Bapcat yelled for Zakov and the other game wardens and they piled into the truck with the boy. It was nearly eight miles north to Clifton, and the sheer four-hundred-foot-high bluff that had been the site of the first profitable copper mine in the Keweenaw. It had been abandoned thirty years ago.
“How did you get down here?” Bapcat asked the boy as the truck jounced along.
“Hiked over to Mohawk and took the ’lectric to Allouez.”
“You carried the head on the trolley?”
“Conductor wanted to throw me off, but the other passengers wouldn’t let him, and he let me ride in back.”
“Why come to us, boy?” Zakov asked.
“People talk.”
“Make sense, boy,” the Russian said.
“People say how you game wardens are lettin’ people kill deer to eat, but you’re after those who kill deer and leave ’em to rot.”
“People are saying that?” Zakov asked.
“I ain’t saying who,” the boy said defensively.
Zakov and Bapcat exchanged glances.
When they reached the abandoned mining village of Clifton there were few trees left from the mining days, the slopes denuded by the ravenous hunger for timber shoring underground. The ruins of an old stamp mill still stood, some of the old log miner cabins, and the frame of an old Methodist church.
“The deer was shot down here?” Bapcat asked. There were several old farms in the area with fruit trees, mainly apples, and the fields that sometimes attracted deer. Even so, the old mining town was now inhabited mostly by ghosts. There were only a few farm families doggedly hanging on, trying to grow root vegetables. More failed than succeeded.
“Up top,” the boy said, pointing.
“Show us,” Bapcat said. “What were you doing way up there?”
“Same thing he was—looking for meat.”
The remains of the animal were a long mile north of the old mine site, the trail twisting along edges of natural canyons and drop-offs made from poor-rock piles from mining days.
Pausing at the body, Jordy Kluboshar pointed. “That way.”
Harju and Sandheim stayed with the animal to look around the area, while Zakov and Bapcat followed the boy, who moved along steep trails like a mountain goat. After two hours they advanced up the spine of the Cliff Range past the old Robbins and Phoenix mine to where the steep hills dropped abruptly down to a rough road that cut north, the Eagle River flowing in a narrow chasm beside it.
Pointing at the river, the boy said, “He went down here. I couldn’t see where he crossed, but this is where he climbed down.” The boy showed them some disturbed ground and Bapcat saw that the boy was right.
“You followed him a long way,” Bapcat told the boy, “especially after he shot at you. Where did that happen?”
The boy held out two brass cartridges. “Back up in the hills, but I picked these up.”
Bapcat looked at them. “Thirty-forties; not many of these around here,” he said, sliding them into a pocket.
“You carry one,” the boy countered.
“Indeed I do.” The boy seems observant and reliable. “We want you to go home now.”
“My old man’s a souse, my ma’s dead, my sister’s a whore, and I live on my own schedule.”
“You go to school?”
“Only when the damn truant officer can catch me, which ain’t that often, or when there ain’t nothing to hunt or fish.”
“You’re supposed to be in school.”
“Out here is where I belong.”
“Go back to Harju and stay with him and Sandheim. Tell them to stay where they are until we get back.”
“I can keep up,” the boy said.
“I’m not saying you can’t, but we need to keep our minds on what’s ahead, not on your safety.”
“I can take care of myself,” the boy protested as he turned away. They watched him cross the road and reluctantly climb a path back the way they had come. Bapcat looked down at the Eagle River, which was as low as he had ever seen it. The two men descended to the riverbed, where Zakov went downstream, and Bapcat up, careful to maintain visual contact with each other.
It was Zakov who found something and waved for Bapcat. The Russian showed him faint scuffings on three rocks about six feet apart. “He’s jumping from rock to rock, using the butt of his rifle for balance.”
Bapcat studied the sign, saw Zakov was right, and also recognized that the boulder trail led to lava formations miners called traps on the other side. Bapcat began nodding. “He started climbing up here. You can stay on the traps for a long, long way. I used to hunt float copper over this way in summer. You can follow this lava ledge all the way to the Central Cutover Road, and if you drift north you’ll strike Cedar Creek Canyon and you can follow the rim from there. Easy going either way, little soil to leave signs, firm footing for speed, and easy dragging if you’ve got a deer.”
“Are we going to pursue?” Zakov asked.
“We know the man came across here yesterday. I’ll follow. You get Harju, Sandheim, and the boy, and drive the truck up to Central Location.”
Central was a largely abandoned mining community that had once been a stronghold for Cousin Jacks. There was a general store there where they all could meet up. “I’ll stay on the track and meet all of you tonight at Stugo’s.”
Zakov said, “The ratting grounds are north of Central.”
“Ratting grounds?”
“Old mine-shaft entrances and pits that connect underground in the area of Copper Falls Pond. In summer the area teems with rats, and wolf packs sometimes take their pups there to teach them to hunt.”
“Wolves hunt beaves in summer,” Bapcat pointed out.
“There are no beavers up there, just rats, and the wolves adapt, almost as well as humans. Bears, too. They take their cubs there for the same reason. I had some fair hunting up there. When snow comes, the area also seems to attract deer, though I have no idea why.”
Ratting grounds. What else don’t I know about this territory I’m supposed to protect?
Zakov took off and Bapcat readjusted his pack straps. Two summers ago he had worked his way along the confines of Cedar Creek Canyon, which lay ahead and north. He had fished holes all day, camped at the headwaters spring hole, eaten until he was full of fresh trout, and fished his way out the next morning. He had discovered Cedar Creek accidentally, and it reminded him that in the Keweenaw there were always surprises waiting for you if you got off the beaten path.
The deer killer had shot twice to warn the boy. Strange behavior.
No time to daydream; eyes down, move uphill, and don’t stop until you are on top and have covered some distance.
Approaching the crossover wagon trail, Bapcat sensed again that he wasn’t alone. He’d been feeling something dogging him for going on an hour. He saw a pit ahead and noticed that it ran like a trench up into some boulders to his right, through an outcrop of brown basalt. He jumped down, scuttled right as quickly as he could, climbed out, and circled back to behind where he had come from.
Just as he stopped to rest, a shadow passed him, and he reached out and grabbed Jordy Kluboshar off his feet. The boy was startled and dropped his Winchester, which discharged, sending a bullet snapping around the stony surrounds. The boy tried to flail, but Bapcat held firm. “What the hell are you doing, boy?”
“I told you I ain’t afraid.”
“You’re supposed to be with the others.”
“Well, I ain’t,” the boy said defiantly. “You made me drop my goddamn rifle.”
“You’re the one dropped it, and I ought to wash your mouth out with soap. That bullet could have hit one of us.”
“Well, it didn’t, did i
t? And I ain’t afraid.”
Bapcat released the boy. “Climb down, get your rifle, unload it, and bring the bullets to me.”
“They’re my bullets.”
“If I give them back. Boy can’t keep hold of a loaded rifle shouldn’t have it loaded.”
“It ain’t much good unloaded,” Kluboshar said.
“That’s the point here, boy. I don’t want to get shot because you got spooked.”
“Goddammit, you’re the one who spooked me!” the boy protested.
“Get the rifle, Jordy, and shut up.”
The boy shook his head.
“You follow the track all this way?”
“Didn’t you?”
The boy hung his head.
“Fetch the cartridges.”
Jordy Kluboshar did as he was told and handed the rounds to Bapcat. “It ain’t fair.”
“It ain’t supposed to be,” Bapcat said.
“I thought lawmen had to play fair,” the boy complained.
“Not game wardens,” Bapcat said. “We play to win, whatever it takes.”
“We going to keep tracking?” the boy asked.
“Sure, if you can show me where the trail is.”
The boy hung his head again.
“We’re going to meet the others,” Bapcat said.
“All the way back there?”
“They’re waiting for us in Central,” the game warden said.
“I’ll just go on home,” the boy said.
Bapcat pushed down a laugh. “From now on you’ll be going where we take you, boy, until I can figure out what the story is with you.”
“You ain’t even gonna thank me for bringing that deer head?”
“What did it lead to?”
“I don’t like you,” the boy said.
Bapcat told him, “I ain’t too sure about you, either.”
76
Ratting Grounds, Keweenaw County
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1913
They slept all night on the ground behind Stugo’s. Harju said in the morning, “Sandheim and I have to get back to our counties. This thing feels like it’s slowing. I can jump back over here if you need me.”
“Leave the truck back at the hill,” Bapcat said.
“What about you two?”
“Hepting’s not that far away. Take the boy with you.”
“Where?”
“To his home.”
The boy sulked. “You have my bullets.”
“And your rifle. You’ll get everything back if you behave, and before you start whining, I know—it’s not fair.”
Zakov and Bapcat watched as Harju and Sandheim drove away in the truck, Jordy Kluboshar their unwilling passenger. They bought food and tobacco plugs in the store and hiked north up the cutover trail.
“You didn’t notice the boy wasn’t with Harju?” Bapcat said sharply to the Russian.
“I saw the little sneak in the forest and knew he was shadowing you. That boy is trouble, I think.”
Bapcat had similar concerns. “He has backbone.”
“As do all vertebrates.”
“Philosophy again?”
“Where are we going?”
“I found six or seven spots on the traprock formations—old blood.”
“I don’t understand why one would haul trophies across such a difficult path.”
“Impossible to know. I want to get up to the top of the crossover and cut northeast.”
“Small lakes and high swamps.”
“I know. And the ratting grounds.”
“That has nothing to do with what we are doing.”
Technically, his partner was correct. “Still, I want to see.”
“The wolves will be gone by now,” Zakov said. “Wrong time of year.”
“How long to get there?”
“Three hard uphill miles, then northeast to just this side of Madison Gap. Two hours, perhaps three. Are we working off the previous trail?”
“I’ll take us to the last blood spot and we’ll work from there, see how far we can follow it. Like you, I keep thinking if you need to get things up here somewhere, why not up the main road to the cutoff?”
“Secrecy,” Zakov ventured.
•••
They paused later at Indian Dog Cut, where legend had it a dog had once led some stranded redmen down to safety from a killer blizzard. Bapcat had found two more blood spatters, tiny specks on the traprock, but the formation had suddenly dipped underground and disappeared. Bapcat walked along, looking upward at rocky promontories and overhangs.
“The blood is on the ground,” Zakov said.
Late in the afternoon they climbed up to a stone-and-grass benchland. On top they found scrub oaks and dozens of holes in a layer of blue-gray sand, the ground littered with countless piles of wolf scat and bear feces, dotted with fur and bone remnants.
“Here?” Bapcat asked.
The Russian nodded. “The rats come out to hunt at night. Our brothers in darkness.”
They sat on a pile of rocks by some pin oaks to wait. A bear came out within twenty minutes and likewise took a seat to wait, ignoring them, its focus exclusively on the area with the holes. After dark they heard rats squealing in terror and running and the sound of the grunting bear cavorting in front of them, but only the one bear came, and after a few moments of noise, the night settled back to silence.
Zakov made a fire at first light and heated a can of beans for them to share. After eating and extinguishing the tiny fire, they continued hiking northeast.
Bapcat felt all day they were being watched, but the watcher was skilled, and careful, left little sign, allowed no glimpses.
As they circled around the area in expanding clockwise laps they came to an unexpected stand of giant white oaks. On the southern perimeter a hundred or more dyed squirrel tails had been affixed to the branches of a mature ironwood tree, hanging in languor until zephyrs from Lake Superior a few short miles away swirled up the bluff and animated the colorful tails like battle pennants.
The Russian looked around with only his eyes. “We are under surveillance.”
“For some time,” Bapcat said.
“I suspected as much,” Zakov said. “Would you like to flush him out?”
“No,” Bapcat said. “It’s time we went back. The squirrel tails—you’ve seen these before?”
“Never, and I have no idea what they signify.”
“That makes two of us,” Bapcat said, turning back to the southwest.
77
Bumbletown Hill
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1913
Bapcat and Zakov threw their gear in a corner and collapsed onto the floor, both sighing deeply. “We’ll worry about grub later,” Bapcat said.
“Da, stop talking.”
Bapcat’s mind refused to shut off. Colored squirrel tails fluttered from tree branches near the ratting grounds. Who else is carrying a .30-40 Krag? Where’s the disposal site?
Unable to sleep, Bapcat sat up and rolled a cigarette. The Russian was snoring a low buzz. Why no word from Jaquelle about Helltown? Summer gone, no wood yet made for winter. We will need to see to that for a few days. Will be welcome, mindless work. So many questions, no answers.
Suddenly and silently, Zakov got to his feet, shuffled over to the trapdoor, leaned over to listen, yanked it open, and reached down to haul up Jordy Kluboshar by the scruff of his neck.
“Boy!” Zakov said with a snarl, shaking him.
“Leggo!” the boy shouted.
Bapcat saw that the boy’s face was red and swollen, with puffing around his eyes and a cut near one ear. “Pinkhus Sergeyevich,” Bapcat said softly. “Release our guest.”
The frightened boy tried to compose himself.
Zakov examined his face. “You’ve taken up pugilism since we last saw you?” the Russian asked.
“I’m Catholic, not whatever you said,” Kluboshar said defensively.
“You’re supposed to be home,” Bapcat said.
“Them wardens took me there, but my old man didn’t like it.”
Bapcat went closer to the boy, looked at his face. “Your father did this?”
“If I wasn’t so quick, it would be a lot worse,” the boy said.
“Where do you live, boy?” Zakov asked.
“I ain’t going back,” the child said defiantly. “I want my rifle.”
“Show us your house,” Bapcat said.
The boy crossed his arms and set his jaw. “To hell with you.”
“Stay with him,” Bapcat told the Russian.
•••
They had found the boy in the Centennial Mine area, two and a half miles south of the hill. Assuming the boy lived nearby, it could be Kearsarge, Wolverine, Centennial, Centennial Heights, or any of several other small mining villages. They had first seen him near the Centennial mine pump house, and this would be Bapcat’s starting point again.
Few people seemed to be out and around, including strikers, though they seemed most active at shift-change times. Saturdays were workdays for miners. Smoke spewed from stacks, pumps ran noisily, chains and cables in lift houses clanked and squealed. Hoses still stretched from the pump house to animal dens, and the nearest creek oozed a malodorous yellow-white fluid.
The few people he found were in no mood to talk to him and brushed right by, even when he tried to show his badge.
He was close to giving up when he stopped on the edge of Kearsarge at a blacksmith shop run by a tall man with eyebrows so bushy they looked like woolly bears. “What you want?” the man asked.
“A boy,” Bapcat said. “Information, on Jordy Kluboshar.”
“Croatian, very spunky boy; we call him Little Nomad. He in trouble again?”
“I want to talk to his father.”
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