Killing a Cold One (30 page)

52

Tuesday, December 30

UPPER SLATE RIVER, BARAGA COUNTY

Service looked around. There were at least a dozen men, Johnstone the only woman. “Odd place for a get-together,” the conservation officer said.

“Slate blocks sound,” Johnstone said solemnly.

He knew Indians believed that most spirits hibernated in winter, which made it the only time of year the “other world” couldn't easily eavesdrop on humans. “I thought winter alone was a buffer,” he said.

“Yes, but nothing can hear through such stone. Insurance,” Johnstone said.

Right, and Kryptonite turns Superman into a ninety-pound weakling.
“I get that you're here for privacy,” he said. “What I don't get are the earlier theatrics.”

An Ojibwe named Paul Wak approached them, said, “We ain't poaching or trespassing; you got no right to be here.” Service had known Wak from the years when he had been a fire officer out of the Baraga office.

“Saw your fires, just stopped by to say hello.”

“Leave us alone. This isn't your business.”

“Public land, Paul. What kind of business are we talking about?”

Johnstone said, “We are going to go after it, hunt it, and kill it.”

“I don't think so,” Service said.

“You don't understand,” Johnstone said.

All the men were carrying rifles. Service said, “Why don't you enlighten me.”

Johnstone said nothing.

Service said, “
Any
hunting makes it my business. Am I making my point?”

“He's the one who found the girl,” Johnstone told the others.

“That true?” a huge man asked. He was obese, built low and stoop-shouldered, long-armed. Long black hairs sprouted wild from his chin, and his face was pocked.

“Sad to say,” Service said.

“Early kill,” a voice in the group said. “The spirit was beginning to cool down, exploring its potentials and needs.”

“Neat trick,” Service said to Johnstone. “Your own public suicide.”

“You didn't read me being there. I told the old violator to bring you here. You by yourself?”

Allerdyce.
He felt a flash of betrayal. “Bullshit,” he said.

Johnstone said, “Your girlfriend's sitting on some of the details we need to organize this thing.”

“Lupo was on TV.”

“Lupo's no friend of ours, Service. Lupo's about Lupo. You need to know how far this thing can go.”

“How far
can
it go?” he asked. “I'd say it's way the hell out there already.”

“You in a trading mood?” Johnstone asked.

“Try me.”

“Tell us what the police know.”

“In exchange for what?”

“What we know.”

He didn't want to turn away empty-handed, and if there was a way to prevent further violence, he wanted to know about it.

“You need to know I don't buy the whole windigo thing.”

“Food first,” Johnstone said.

“Why me?” he asked.

She touched her chest. “
Gwa-ai-ak o-de-im-a.
”

He searched his memory. “Straight something.”

“Heart,” she said. “Straight Heart.”

“Honest.”

“They may put me in a rubber room after this one.”

“One other thing,” Johnstone said. “I'm still dead.”

“I'll have to think about
that.
”

“It's essential.”

“For now,” he said.

“Indian people must think first of Indian people, you understand?”

“Yeah, I get enlightened self-interest.”

“You're a good man, Service. Fact: Whites have their ways, and we have ours.”

He lifted his 800 and said, “Chow's on,” and his three companions filtered down from the tree line.

Service pushed Allerdyce backward. “She
asked
you to bring me to her?”

The old man nodded. “I t'ink prolly youse two talk is good t'ing, eh?”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“Not nuttin' I know.”

“They got vehicles?”

“Yep.”

“Go get plate numbers, descriptions, all that.”

“Already done dat when I finded 'em 'ere. Dis iss fun, eh?”

Only Allerdyce.

Service got wild rice and chicken soup from a pot along with a couple of fire-cooked biscuits and joined Johnstone.

“Your son's around.”

“You seen him?”

“We talked. He thinks you're dead, and he wants to help find your body for the reward.”

Johnstone hung her head. “That's Dwayne,” she said sadly.

“I heard some good things about him in Detroit,” Service told her.

“I never seen no good in that one.”

“He told me Martine Lecair fled the state and her old man went to Sugar Island.”

Johnstone remained silent.

“Lecair's dead,” he said. “Suicide. I was there.”
Still no reaction.
“She intimated that one of her kids was dead and that she stashed the other one, but we don't know where.”
Still nothing.
“Wendell John Bellator—Na-bo-win-i-ke.”

“Killed by the windigo,” Johnstone said.

“It was a hit-and-run,” Service corrected her.

“Windigo guided it,” she insisted. “No matter what cops call it.”

“The driver's the windigo? I thought they ate their victims.”

She shook her head. “You don't understand. Windigo is still human—thinks, plans, feels. I brought Na-bo-win-i-ke here to lead the hunt. He was the best, very experienced in these things. Without him we have no leader. With his death, others are afraid to help, afraid they'll die, too. Killing a windigo requires an experienced hunter who knows the tricks of predators. These killings have to be stopped soon,” she said, paused, and added, “and you're the answer.”

“
Me?
Not a chance,” he said.

“Too many fears here. We need a
louvetier,
a hunt leader, to supervise and direct the others.”

“Not me.”

“When there're more dead, perhaps you will change your mind,” she said.

“Lecair's man—Sugar Island?”

“Yes, but he crossed the border. Martine was never with him.”

“One of her twins is safe?”

“We think, but like you, we don't know where, or with whom.”

He took out a cigarette and offered her the pack. They both lit up. “Let's get coffee. I'll take you through what we have,” he told her.

“Smoking is unhealthy,” Johnstone said.

“What in this life isn't?” he said. “Be quiet and listen.”

When he was done, he asked, “What's the deal with Lupo?”

“Wants to be the hero without the risk,” she said.

“He claims to know a lot.”

“This is true,” she allowed. “You must be at the meeting tomorrow.”

“What meeting?”

“About these things—in Zeba. And you should talk to Demetra Teller in Palmer.”

“Teller?”

“Curator of the Grun-Baraga collection.”

“How do I find her?”

“On the road around Palmer.”

“Address?”

“Large black-and-red sign, says
grun
.”

“Why the charade at Blood Creek?” he asked.

“To break the creature's focus, misdirect it.”

Did she say
focus?

“Are you saying you're a target?” Johnstone didn't answer, and he said, “Someone picked you up after your stunt.”

“All in good time,” she said, and headed for another campfire.

They pitched their small tents near the encampment for the night. Service got on his 800 and called Denninger. “Where are you?”

“Home, pretending I'm human. It's a real stretch.”

“Pass or duty tomorrow?”

“On.”

“I'll be on foot. Pick me up on the grade road outside the old Arvon Slate Quarry at zero seven hundred.”

“What the hell are you doing way out there?”

“I'll explain tomorrow.”

53

Wednesday, December 31

ZEBA, BARAGA COUNTY

In the old days, there had been one umbrella tribe of Ojibwe divided into bands identified with certain locations. But federal charters, treaties, and other legal actions had turned what had once been local bands and extended family groups into sovereign tribes, a purely judicial creation of convenience. Johnstone had told him to be at the Zeba Community Hall near the reservation for a 10 a.m. meeting, but the place was empty two hours before that.

Denninger said, “Uh, we on like, a mission, or is this just a pleasure drive?”

“There's a difference?”

She made a snorky sound.

“I want to take the local temperature.”

“White, red, or Martian?”

“Whatever.”

“Big Ned's will be the place,” she said. “We'll tell them we're doing our annual animal-trap survey.”

“Our
what?
”

“Pay attention,” she said. “You might learn something.”

They pulled up to Big Ned's General Store at McComb's Corner, three miles from the Marquette County line. Service knew the place, had been there with his old man, and as an officer. Big Ned opened the store after World War II and ran it until Vietnam. Son Ned Jr. had been killed in Cambodia by a sapper with a hand grenade, and Big Ned died inside, sold out to a woman named Sandy Fakir, who retained the store's original name. Ned went off to Idaho to mourn and drink, and eventually asphyxiated himself in the cab of a county snowplow. Sandy Fakir was in her late seventies now and going lame, but she sat in the store every day and barked orders at several harried grandkids, who provided unpaid labor and couldn't wait to get away to college or join the military to escape her vise grip.

They bought cups of coffee and joined the leather-faced proprietor in her corner. “Doin' my trap survey,” Denninger told her.

“And what the hell might that be?” Fakir asked with a wheeze.

“I find out how many traps are being bought from local merchants, which gives us a rough cut for year-to-year variations and animal populations. Comparing past records with trapper licenses, and the takes allowed by annual regs, with an estimate of local poaching numbers and the sheer volume of traps. It's a crude but effective measure.”

“Bollocks,” Sandy Fakir said. “Where did you come up with that lame story? You know they all violate if they think they can get away with it, eh, but to answer your fool question, I ain't sold a bloody trap all fall. Whole dang bunch is sittin' squeaky-ass tight in these parts, and you won't be findin' no redskins skulkin' their traplines neither, 'til this infernal trouble's passed on.”

“What trouble would that be?” Denninger asked.

Fakir slapped her leg. “Hell, Dani, you talk like that, local citizens will think youse're the clueless blonde youse look like.” Fakir lifted the corner of an afghan off the floor and picked up a twelve-gauge Remington with a chopped barrel. “That damn monster walks in here, he'll be leavin' here leakin' a whole heap of motor oil.”

“You believe the stuff you're hearing?” Service asked the woman.

“Damn right I do. It's damn hard to spook redskins, so when the rest of us see that they're creeping out, we pay attention. Most of my grand-uns got some Indian blood, and I won't be givin' none of 'em up easy, even if they're clueless, useless little buggers.”

“Your weapon's illegal,” Service pointed out.

Fakir tsk-tsked him. “Who turned you into the nitprick? You seen this old blaster ten years back and it ain't changed none since. What turned you chickenshit in your dotage, Grady Service?”

Yoopers like Sandy Fakir weren't intimidated by laws on paper or lawmen in the flesh. Service looked down at her. “Just no sound-shots, eh?”

The woman smiled, revealing worn-down yellow teeth. “I always knock down what I shoot at, son. 'Course, neither do I plan on traipsin' around in the bush askin' for trouble with the rest of that gang of yahoos skulking around the woods hereabouts.”

“Something we ought to know?” Denninger asked.

The store owner glared. “What is this: Let's-Play-Stupid Day? Ask your partner, girl. Ever'body knows he was up top on Arvon at the Indi'n powwow last night, and I 'speck you'll both be at the palaver over to Zeba later this morning.”

Back in Denninger's truck she said, “What powwow on Mount Arvon?”

“I'll fill you in later. Let's get back to Zeba.”

 

•••

 

They found several dozen vehicles parked along the hill and people walking toward the hall, mostly men. Several shook their hands or nodded greetings as they joined in the procession.

“The DNR with us on this?” a man asked.

“We're just looking for restrooms,” Service quipped.

“Piss outside,” somebody said. “Most of us do.”

He thought he recognized some of the men from the night before, but he wasn't sure. It had been dark, and Johnstone hadn't bothered to introduce everyone.

The meeting had already begun when Service and Denninger slid into the back of the old church. An elderly man named Nordine was talking. “This business has nothing to do with us. It's the business of the others.” Nordine was white, sank wells in the area.

A man in a black leather baseball cap turned backward stepped out of the crowd from Service's right. He had a black leather trench coat that reached to the floor and trailed like a cape: Dwayne Johnstone, Speedoboy himself.

“You're all shit,” Johnstone squawked at them, “Red men, white men—the hull damn bunchayas, old women.” He held up his hand and bent his forefinger. “
Ko-ko-min-de! Ke-na-kash!
” He spat on the floor for effect.

The crowd rose with a collective snarl. Several younger men had to be restrained by elders.

Service tried to translate while he was making sure a war didn't break out inside the old church.
Something about a bent penis. No . . . a useless penis, probably meaning less than a man. Not at all like Indians to make such direct insults. It just wasn't done. No wonder everybody's so riled.

Johnstone stood his ground. “You all flap your wings like frightened birds and jump at the sound of your own farts! Go hide, cower in your houses while I go and kill this windigo and
eat its heart.
”

This was greeted with mass silence. Service leaned left to see better. Johnstone opened his coat and produced a street sweeper, a shotgun with a rotary barrel magazine—a serious weapon, as scary as it was illegal.

Speedoboy brandished the weapon over his head. “The Ojibwe of Manitu Ridge do not fear this thing. Go hide in your houses with the women while I kill it!”

Several men with Johnstone suddenly showed their weapons and Service bumped Denninger toward the back door. “Follow my lead,” he whispered as they stepped out into the cold air.

Johnstone and his people came out, pursued by several men grumbling at them, and a couple of scuffles broke out. Service cut through the crowd and got Johnstone by his arm, slammed him against a tree, ripped apart his coat, and wrenched the street sweeper from him.

“Dammit, Dwayne, we all
get
it. If you want to lead the way, you've got to clear that with your mom.”

“My mum?”

“She's alive; I talked to her last night. She's trying to do the same thing you're doing, but you two need to talk and cooperate, not work against each other.”

“Where is she?” Dwayne asked.

“She moves around a lot. You'll have to wait for her to come to you.”

“What about my weapon?”

Grady Service smirked. “Dwayne, ordinarily I'd cuff you and haul your sorry ass off to jail just for possession, so let it go; keep your mouth shut, and let's call it a push.”

“Constitution,” Johnstone said.

“Stow that crap. By treaty, you're a separate and sovereign country.”

The dustup in the yard left a couple of broken noses and a lot of ruffled feathers.

“What the hell was that all about?” Denninger asked.

“It's about punk, freeway Indians is what it's about,” he said. “That's Kelly Johnstone's son.”

“No shit?”

He handed her the street sweeper. “Put that in the district's collection.”

“Are you going to let me in on what's going on?”

He looked at her, said, “Let's grab a bite at the Pump and Munch, and I'll bring you up to speed.”

“Johnstone's son is really big and fat,” she said.

“His street name is Speedoboy,” Service said.

“Ew,” Denninger moaned.