Force of Blood (20 page)

The woman had stringy gray hair as coarse as straw and the countenance of an aging wharf rat. Her skin was leathery and brown, obviously from too much time in the sun and the elements. “So this is the Big Dog,” she said, looking at Grady Service.

“Dr. Becca Ledger-Foley,” Chief Waco said. “Assistant state archaeologist.”

Assistant? Sedge never said anything about an assistant
.
No AG people, no lawyers, just the chief, Professor Shotwiff, and Ledger-Foley. Not at all what I expected. Can’t read her stone face. Better pay attention
.

“Dr. Ledger-Foley?” Chief Waco said.

“This meeting is off the record,” she began, “which is why I requested no lawyers be present. I want to make it clear that my supervisor, Dr. Flinders Yardley, resigned not because of any wrongdoing, but because he cannot emotionally deal with conflict.
Any
conflict. Flin is an honest, caring man who was appointed by Governor Bozian because Flin’s father was a major Bozian contributor. Would another governor have appointed him? I don’t know the answer to that question. His sudden departure was not meant to draw attention, but to avoid it.”

She creeps me out
, Service thought, and he saw surprise in Chief Waco’s eyes. Ledger-Foley looked dowdy, but her mind was obviously keen, and she seemed primed to fight.
The issue is why
.

“Are you familiar with Professor Toliver’s application?” Service asked.

“Yes, I am. I reviewed it for Flin and recommended approval. I reviewed
everything
for him,” she added.

Martyr complex? Trouble reading her
. “Do you know the history of the site?”

“Of course. Dr. Wingel’s discovery of a body after winter disruption and thaw, and reburying it without telling the State where—yes, I know. This happened long before Flin and I were here.”

Ducking?
“Had Wingel presented her report to you, would you have accepted it?”

“I didn’t, and I find theoretical discussion a bore at best. It happened, she filed the requisite report later, end of story.”

Eddie Waco slid a manila folder over to Service, who looked inside, opening it to a group photograph.
What am I looking at, and for?

“These from Chook Whybus?” he asked the chief.

“Yep.”

The second photograph in the folder showed a gaudy pendant that seemed to be a female body being penetrated by an erect male member while something seemed to be forming in the female figure’s uterine area. Waco motioned for him to flip back to the first photograph, which he did. There were a half-dozen people in evening dress, the men in white jackets, the women in dark gowns. Ladania Wingel was on one end, a pendant hanging from a chain. Service looked at Waco, who nodded. Service looked at the date and location on the photo.

He looked at Ledger-Foley. “Has anyone suggested that Wingel did not rebury the remains?”

“That’s presumptuous, preposterous, and outrageous,” she said, her voice sliding up.

“Why? It happened before your time. Is everyone you work with honest?” he pressed.

“
Honest
is the wrong word,” the assistant state archaeologist said. “If you asked whether all applicants push limits in seeking excavation permission, I would tell you that many of them tend to overextend themselves, which is to be expected. It’s not a question of honesty. With money so tight, professionals are sometimes ‘forced’ by their institutions to overreach. You can’t get the brass ring with your hands folded in your lap,” she added.

“I disagree,” Professor Shotwiff interjected.

“And you are?” Ledger-Foley asked.

“Ozzien Shotwiff.”

“Ah yes, I thought you looked vaguely familiar. Your reputation precedes you.”

“You have no reputation that I know of,” Shotwiff countered sharply.

The woman bristled.

“I’m too damn old for verbal fencing, Dr. Ledger-Foley. We both know there are all kinds of crooks, knuckleheads, and scoundrels in academia, even in top-shelf institutions, so let’s drop the holier-than-thou crap.”

Service grabbed the opening. “Dr. Wingel started her doctorate under Professor Cayuga Greysolon at Oregon.”

“Yes, I know of the late professor. He was a giant, a Kwakwaka’wakw art expert with a worldwide reputation for pristine scholarship.”

“When I say ‘under the professor,’ I mean just that, and not just academically.” Service let his words sink in. “A rare necklace came up missing. The professor’s wife, herself an academic heavyweight, took umbrage over the scandalous affair and accused Wingel of theft. At the time, Wingel went by the name of Ence. Wingel was naturally offended and left the program and the state. This was at the end of 1971. She subsequently earned a doctorate at McGill in Montreal under the name of Wingel.”

Ledger-Foley sighed.

Service held up the photo of the pendant. “This is the missing object,” he said. Then he held up the second photo. “This was taken at a conference in Tulsa in 1997. That’s Dr. Wingel on the end, to the left, and the pendant around her neck appears to be the one in the first photo. Let’s dispense with talk of theoreticals, Dr. Ledger-Foley. Wingel stole the necklace. She’s a dirtbag.”

“That may well be so, but you have no proof that the necklace she’s wearing is the original rather than a copy, and in any event, the statute of limitations surely has expired.”

“No argument. But if Wingel stole once, what are the chances it happened again? We know, for example, that she sued her lover’s widow and won a large out-of-court settlement. First you steal, and then you sue for being accused of stealing. That takes some big cojones. There’s nothing theoretical here, Doctor. Chief?”

“We see this all the time,” Eddie Waco said. “Past criminal behavior is a good predictor of future criminal behavior.”

“That is not an absolute,” Ledger-Foley said.

“Never said it was,” Waco said. “But I’m sure a grand jury would give me sealed warrants based on this.”

“For what—skeletal remains? The statute of limitations is gone on that as well. Are you kidding?”

“No, ma’am, that’s not my way. I talked to the FBI, and the Bureau wants to take a closer look at Dr. Wingel—you know, over time—sort of correlate X with Y and so forth, and see what pops up.”

“That’s nothing more than a fishing expedition,” Ledger-Foley said, “at the public’s expense!”

“We’re woods cops,” Chief Waco said. “The people of this state pay us to go on fishing expeditions.”

“I am leaving,” Ledger-Foley said.

“No, you’re not,” Waco said. “Sit back and listen. We are
not
your enemies and we are not trying to ruffle feathers. DEQ is going to give Dr. Toliver the green light to dig. But Toliver is first going to modify his dig plan to look at some other factors that recently have come to light. As acting state archaeologist, which I assume you are until your boss’s replacement is named, you are going to review the modified plan, and we certainly
hope
you will approve it.”

“Why do you care about this?” Ledger-Foley asked.

The chief handed her a photograph. “Know what that is?”

“Flexed remains.”

“Yes—Iroquois—and at the very site where Wingel found the body. The theory of that battle and its history are going to be challenged at this place, and perhaps settled.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Listen to me,” Shotwiff asserted. Then he laid out the Tahquamenon River village raid theory.

Service sensed that the state official was listening attentively to the professor’s every word.

When Shotwiff finished, Ledger-Foley said, “My. When will I get the modified plan to review?”

“In July,” Shotwiff said. “I would think Professor Toliver could be turning dirt by August first; most of the bugs will be gone by then. It will be clear sailing for the dig.”

“That seems reasonable to me,” Ledger-Foley said. “We may be on the cusp of a major historical discovery.”

“Indeed we might,” Shotwiff said. “Thanks in great part to this fella sitting next to me.”

David Ohgwahoh was a tiny, straight-backed man in his seventies with a shock of short white hair. His Mohawk name meant “wolf.” He sipped a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper, sitting in a tavern called Dagwood’s west of the Michigan State campus.

Shotwiff said, “David is the regional manager for USDA in central Michigan. He’s a full-blood Haudenosaunee from a family with a long and interesting history. His ancestors were at Iroquois Point.”

The man lit a cigarette and so, too, did Service. It was mid-afternoon.

“I speak the truth,” Ohgwahoh began. “My ancestor was Ayonwaehs, Mohawk war chief at the founding of
Ne Gayanesha gowa
, the Great Binding Law, what whites call the Constitution of the Five Nations. Your own constitution is in part based on ours. My people, the Agnieronnon, were the most aggressive of the five nations. Our enemies called us the man-eaters, which was true.”

“Iroquois Point,” Professor Shotwiff interjected.

“My mother and my grandmother told our family how the Agnieronnon and the Onneiochonnon had gone to La Baie des Puants to persecute the Wendat, those who some call Huron. But the Wendat had warning and fled, and our people turned back to the east where they encountered the Noquet. A battle began, which continued up a river far to the north. We pursued them until they were all dead, taken captive, or had escaped. It was decided at this time to continue north to the big lake and travel east to find a village to eat.”

“Bawating?” Service asked.

“It was well known by my ancestors that there was no longer a permanent camp there, their previous forays having driven the enemy west with fear and trepidation.”

“Despite the fact that the Saulteur had won most battles against the Haudenosaunee,” Shotwiff interrupted. He turned to Service and grinned. “David’s people find the term
Iroquois
to be an insult and are thus called Haudenosaunee. By either name, they got their asses thrashed just about every time they came up against the Ojibwa. Remember, at this time there really was no grand tribe called Ojibwa. Rather, there were multiple small bands all through the area like the Saulteur who shared language and culture and rallied to help each other when threats arose. Only later, after the Iroquois wars had concluded, did the Ojibwa become one tribe. Still, the Indians in the 1650s all moved their families west, suspecting the Iroquois would keep coming back, and of course, all parties turned out to be correct.”

The professor turned back to the Mohawk. “If your people knew Bawating was empty, why would they go east to find a village?”

“The story does not tell us this,” Ohgwahoh said.

“Some contemporary French accounts claim your people were looking for a village to give them food,” Shotwiff said, “not a village to eat.”

“Double meaning,” the Mohawk replied. “It can be translated as a threat or as a need.”

“Did they
need
food?” Service asked.

“War parties were invariably on the edge of starvation. They would be gone for as long as four years, and some were forced to turn back because they could not adequately feed their warriors.”

“Which is why your people ate captives,” Shotwiff said. “Food that walks.”

“It’s true we ate enemy warriors, but most captives were kept alive to be adopted by families into the Five Nations.”

“There were such people with them this time?” Service asked.

“Yes,” David Ohgwahoh said. “The Noquet were captured in the skirmishes going north, and some others they had harvested en route from our home country.”

Shotwiff looked like he had sent his brain elsewhere when he surprised Service. “Continuous warfare sent other tribes into flight, but the Haudenosaunee aggressors found their ranks being thinned by continuous war campaigns, and thus they were constantly taking hostages back to adopt. You couldn’t make your woman preggers if you were a thousand miles away,
so they needed replacement people to maintain tribal size. By 1670 an estimated seventy percent or so of the Iroquois war force was comprised of various adopted Algonquin and Huron. Trying to trace all this is complex, and virtually impossible, because there were—and are—no written records. What records we do have from Europeans all tend to have their own names for the same things. The name
Iroquois
comes from the words
hiro kone
, which means, ‘I have spoken.’ The first French people to hear this thought they heard Ir-o-quois.” Shotwiff looked at David Ohgwahoh. “Go ahead, please.”

“The people were moving east and decided to camp,” Ohgwahoh said. “As was the practice, they sent scouts forward from the camp. The scouts saw Saulteur, but remained hidden, hoping they had not been spotted. But they had. The scouts continued on their mission and upon return some days later, they found their camp had been attacked, leaving headless bodies and the bones of those eaten by the Saulteur attackers.

“Captives too?”

“Presumably they were dead, but it’s possible survivors were taken by the Saulteur to adopt,” Ohgwahoh replied.

“Who buried the dead?” Service asked.

“The scouts, perhaps, but the telling does not address this. Even the Saulteur would honor enemy dead.”

“You know this, or assume it?” Service asked.

“It is assumed.”

“How many in your force?” Service asked.

“One thousand warriors,” Ohgwahoh said with obvious pride.

“The accounts say one hundred,” Shotwiff countered.

The Mohawk smiled. “Then you understand.”

Service didn’t.

Shotwiff turned to him. “The Haudenosaunee in those times used the number one hundred to represent any large, undetermined number. It is like most Native American representations: more figurative and symbolic than literal and precise.”

“Then where does the thousand come from?”

“Other sources, mainly Saulteur. The scouts that day reconnoitered the main Haudenosaunee force and sent for reinforcements. Odawa, Nipissing,
Amikone, and others were in the area; all responded, even their women and children, assembling an ambush force estimated at three hundred, but not just warriors.”

“What does that tell us?” Service asked.

“The Iroquois were looking to raise hell.”

“Might the bodies have been left unburied?” Service asked the Mohawk.

“Unlikely.”

“But your scouts found them unburied, headless, all that.”

“That is true, but we do not know how many. It is more likely that most had been buried by the Saulteur to get their spirits away. Allowing spirits free run of Earth was a bad thing.”

“Your scouts saw the Saulteur and did not go back to warn the main group?”

“A calculated risk. It was only bad luck that they were seen,” the man said defensively.

Shotwiff added, “If the intent of the Haudenosaunee was a village, why did they not continue east along Lake Michigan the day they encountered the Noquet?”

The man lifted his hands. “The story does not tell us.”

“Did the scouts bring any remains with them after finding the bodies of their brothers?”

Again Ohgwahoh lifted his arms.

Service saw the professor shoot him a look suggesting the meeting was over. “Thanks for sharing with us,” Service said to the Mohawk.

“It is good to keep the past in the present,” Ohgwahoh said, standing up.

• • •

“Bloody cannibal,” Shotwiff said when the man was gone. “He has been sending me letters for years about having a story to tell. I kept telling him I was retired.”

“But you called him,” Service said.

“Long shot for us,” the professor said. “All Mohawks give me the creeps. They’re maniacs, always have been.”

“He seemed fine.”

“A diploma don’t offset genes, son. The poison in those folks is always right up to the surface.”

“Then why talk to him?”

“His family had the story of the battle. This is rare.”

“It is hearsay,” Service said.

“True, but we can compare it to other contemporary accounts and begin to develop some assumptions and theories. I think I told you that I have always harbored doubt about the Iroquois Point site. All sides then knew that the Soo site was largely abandoned, and that Mackinac was heavily populated with Saulteur, et cetera. To come up the St. Mary’s from Point Detour would require the ascending force to come up the east bank, closest to a population site, and the river at Bawating is only a half-mile wide, which makes it impossible to ascend unseen. The straits presented a five- to eight-mile gap depending on how you came at it, a much better chance to pass unseen.”

“But the Iroquois turned
north
after the Noquet.”

“Mohawks! You see, they came for blood, and the chance to get it sent them that way. That’s how they’ve always been: quick to fight, slow to think strategically. It was always my presumption they went north to seek a known Saulteur concentration, but if that had been the case, they should have gone up the Manistique to the Fox, and northeast to a place where they could portage to the Tahquamenon, then float down to the upper falls and go on the attack over land from there. The Saulteur kept camps at the lower falls and at the mouth of the river, a place once called Emerson. This route was the one the Saulteur used to go southwest on the warpath.”

“There were villages on the Tahquamenon?” Service asked.

“Yes, and no doubt that’s what the Haudenosaunee scouts were seeking. The Algonquin had villages at Whitefish Point, Shelldrake, the mouth of the river, and a rather large one further upstream. There was also at one time a concentration on Menekaunee Point, southeast of the mouth of the Tahquamenon. From your site you could hike to any of the Tahq sites. It would be less than ten miles crow-wise to the lower falls village.”

This makes some sense
. “They make base camp at our location and send out scouts. Where does that leave us?”

“The excavations will tell us.”

“
If
anything remains,” Service said.

“There is always evidence—if anyone cares to read it.”

“Why did you call David Ohgwahoh now?”

“Well, we were headed here, and his story finally interested me enough to hear it firsthand.”

“What about passed-down Saulteur accounts?”

“I’ve never encountered any. Most of what I hear are revisions of the Jesuit accounts.”

“Which means the dig is everything,” Service said.

Shotwiff grinned. “It usually is, son.”