Force of Blood (26 page)

Things had been hectic and complex, like the gods were frowning and thumbing their noses on the area and the project, though Service didn’t believe literally in higher powers. DEQ sent the signed permit to Toliver in Paradise, but the messenger had a heart attack, wrecked his government vehicle near Gaylord, and ended up in the hospital in Traverse City. Sometime during the emergency and resulting chaos, the permit had disappeared, causing a new one to be issued and signed and sent, the second messenger finally delivering the goods, which served to finally settle a seriously rattled Toliver.

No word from Marquette on the soil sample from the war club box. Service had not shown the weapon to Toliver and did not plan to do so.

Shark Wetelainen again fetched Professor Ozzien Shotwiff from Silver City and promptly disappeared to secret brook trout water allegedly somewhere south of Newberry, which might or might not be the truth. Shark was a master of misdirection in his outdoor forays; when hunting he would walk a mile the opposite way of his blind, then double back two miles just so it would be a chore for anyone to follow him. His ways made Service shake his head.

Toliver’s people had erected a giant new Cabela’s wall tent at the dig site, and ten smaller three-man shelters around it, reminding Service of a goose and her goslings. His team was comprised of college kids, happy to be, in Toliver’s words, “on the verge of trying to bring clarity to history.”

Limpy had gone who knew where. Katsu was being polite and attentive to Toliver. Tomorrow the archaeologist would begin organizing the excavation grid. “We should be sifting sand by Monday,” he’d announced officiously to Sedge.

On the surface the whole scene was one of peace, organization, and purpose. Toliver and Shotwiff were even talking to each other like respectful colleagues.

Service plopped down on a driftwood log by the edge of an uncharacteristically quiet Lake Superior. Sedge came down and stood beside him as he lit a cigarette and took a hit.

“Careful with those ashes,” she cautioned.

“Everything okay at camp?” he asked her.

“For the moment. Jane Rain and I talked.”

“She reveal she’s a fed?”

“Too professional for that. Right now, everyone seems to be playing nice.”

“Then why does it feel like a tsunami of shit is rolling our way?” Service retorted.

• • •

The dig team wanted a campfire at dusk, but Sedge told them no. They had small butane stoves to cook with. The land was too dry for open fires. The college kids weren’t happy, but accepted her declaration.

Right at dusk Service saw a figure in the gloaming to the southeast.
Allerdyce
. Where the hell had he come in from?

“Scary dry out here,” the poacher greeted him through tight lips. “You know dis Lost Boy Point, eh?”

“Who calls it that?”

“Nobody knows trute,” Allerdyce said. “Is real name, Lost Boy Point.”

Service was confused. “This is the halfway house area,” he said.

“You know you-pee, eh. Lost Bay on some old county maps never got fixed back up. ’Pose to be Lost Boy. Long time back Indi’n pipples lost some kid, come here find ’im, but come up on dere enemas an’ shit hit fan.”

Enemas?
“Right, this is the place.” Service pointed at the camp area.

“Dis place, sonny? Geez oh Pete, who tole dat?”

“It was here, not at Iroquois Point.”

“Dat lighthouse tourshit place? Not dere eder. Ain’t near no water. Bad guys leff canoes here mebbe, but da fight was back in woods over dat hill I just walk down.”

Oh God. Crazy old fart
.

“You tink Limpy don’t know trute?”

“You’re the only one who thinks this.”

“Bullpucks. Pipples out here woods long time, dey all know trute.”

“You’re telling me this is common knowledge?”

“Old clans, sure.”

“Your chum from Raco an old clanner, as in Ku Klux?”

Allerdyce grinned. “You funny, sonny. My chum, he knows. We all know trute. You want to see?”

“You can take me to it?”

“Not dat far, just over hill dere.”

Service debated a cigarette and felt lightheaded. “Tell me your fairy tale again.”

“Not my story—trute,” Allercyce insisted, and repeated the story of the lost boy and the alleged chance encounter that led to a battle.

“Wait here,” Service said, and went to fetch Professor Shotwiff. “Got a few minutes?”

“Got forever,” the old professor said with a grin, and Service led him out of the camp to the woods. “Limpy Allerdyce, Professor Ozzien Shotwiff.”

“Ding Dong Disney, bear-man?” Allerdyce said, grinning widely.

Shotwiff’s face darkened. “Ding Dong Disney?”

“Don’t mean spittley-spot,” Allerdyce said. “Glad to meet youse. Youse teacher man?”

“Retired.”

“Me too,” Allerdyce said, causing Service to choke.

“Tell the professor your story.”

“Local kittle gone missin’. Chips here look for him, see bad boys, set up ambush, kill all their asses.”

“Right,” Shotwiff said, “This was probably the place.”

Allerdyce jerked his thumb toward the hill. “Not down here. Up
dere
.”

Service and Shotwiff exchanged glances. “He says he can take us to the location,” Service said.

“Might as well look,” the professor said. “Nothing to lose, eh?”

“What’re the chances?”

“In my time I’ve learned not to overlook any reasonable possibilities.”

“I’m not sure I’d call this one reasonable,” Service said.

“How far to the place?” Shotwiff asked Allerdyce.

“Not far, just over hill.”

“You’ve seen the place?”

“Go now?”

Shotwiff laughed out loud. “How about we wait for daylight?”

Service said, “Shall we let Toliver know?”

“Would you?” Shotwiff asked. “The man’s a horse’s ass.”

• • •

Service later pulled Sedge aside and told her what was going on. “Jesus,” was her mumbled response. “Let’s talk to Katsu,” she said.

“Why?”

“He seems so sure about this site, and Ladania Wingel pinpointed it too.”

“
If
she told the truth,” Service said. “Let’s hold off on Katsu until we see what Allerdyce has.”

“You think he could be right?”

“It’s taken a lot of years, but I’ve grudgingly learned not to bet against him.”

Service had had enough experiences with the old man to know he probably knew more about the physical U.P. and its detail history than anyone he had ever met.

“Ironic,” Sedge whispered.

“It’s always ironic with this guy,” Service said.

“Where’s Allerdyce?”

“God knows,” he said.

“God or the devil?” she came back.

“Take your pick,” he said.

First light and no sign of Allerdyce. Service looked at Professor Shotwiff and shook his head. “Coffee?”

The professor smiled. “If the man’s not here, what was last night all about?”

Service had no answer. Limpy’s mind was not like others, and he was entirely unpredictable. The two men watched Toliver assemble his youthful worker-bee team. Toliver talked while the others made breakfast on small backpacking stoves. One of them offered their leader a cup of coffee and he tasted it, made a sour face, and threw the liquid on the ground. “The plan is a walk-across survey. Flags are already set at the corners of the perimeter. We’ll record all visualizations and graph each on the master and section charts. Georgie will do the sketches for the record.” Toliver pointed to a small redhaired woman nearby. “I have marked twenty shovel test pits, which after gridding will be our initial tasks. Five teams of pairs, each with four shovel sites. Questions?”

The young people looked eager, if half-asleep and a bit droopy-eyed. One of them asked, “If we go blank on all twenty shovel sites, what then?”

“We won’t,” Toliver said confidently. “But if that happened, we would declare the site sterile, pack up, and go home. I doubt that will be the case here. Artifacts can be seen on the sand’s surface. Other questions?”

He looked around. No takers. “Let us remember our cardinal rules, people, the main commandments of professional field work: First, everything is important at this juncture. Second, we work from the surface down, top to bottom, known to unknown. Third, our eyes are our primary tools; don’t just look, you must
see!
Questions?”

Silence still reigned. Toliver pointed to a canvas tarp on the ground, went over and pulled off the cover. “Grid materials. We will lay out five-foot squares. Once the grid is strung and pegged we will begin shovel tests. From
that point on it will be full trenches, which I will demarcate at the time. Everyone knows their job for gridding, yes?”

They all nodded obediently as he looked around and adjusted his stained, worn Tilley hat. “Here we will uncover the past, dear colleagues,” he said solemnly. “Bear this in mind with every task. Nothing you do here is unimportant.”

Service watched an impassive Katsu squatting off to the side and wondered what was going through his head. The sand is bleeding, Santinaw had exhorted him. If Allerdyce was right, the bleeding wasn’t here.

Toliver clapped his hands loudly. “Go to it, people!”

“Where the hell is Allerdyce?” Sedge whispered.

Service shrugged and said nothing. “Everything look right here?” he asked the professor.

Shotwiff stifled a yawn. “Blowhole epizootics aside, this is all standard fare in my business. Toliver is obviously experienced and confident, a dangerous mix with being a pompous ass.”

Allerdyce drifted toward the edge of the grid just after lunch. Service looked at his watch.

“You’re late.”

“Went ta talk ta my chum.”

“The mystery man in Raco?”

“No mystery me, sonnyboy. I know dat bird long time, eh. He tell me, ‘
Naa-din esh-pen-eaag-wak
’—you know dere singy-songy-jibberingo lingo?”

“Some.”

“Me I know pert good. Dis means get back what dey tink important.”

“Your Raco bud is tribal?”

“Never said
dat
,” Allerdyce chirped. “He said stay back from hill dere. I show youse dat place, gone rain bad luck from sky above.”

Shotwiff looked at Service and said to Allerdyce, “If you believe that, we’ll stay away. Time has probably eroded and destroyed the site. It usually does.”

“Da place right dere all right, skulks, all dat stuff.”

“If that’s true, our knowing where it is can help us to protect the site.”

“Dose Shinob tink dere gods do dat for dem pert good, I tink.”

“They’re probably right,” Shotwiff said.

Allerdyce cackled. “No dey ain’t. Shinobs don’t know shit! I’ll show youse, but just youse two.”

“Is two the critical mass for the tipping point on bad luck?” Service asked.

Allerdyce gave him a sour look. “Sometimes youse ain’t funny, sonnyboy. We gone go, les get went, eh.”

• • •

The site was in shallow swale at the bottom of a fairly large and eroded hill, with remarkably little sand on top. Through the swale there was a trail sunk in bedrock, an enfilade in military terms, a sort of shallow draw that would let you move unseen, or create a death trap for those unaware that you were on their flanks. As soon as Service saw the lay of the land his gut tightened. This was the perfect place for a lethal ambush, today or three and a half centuries ago. Some things don’t change.

Shotwiff looked around, hardly moving his head. What had Toliver told his young team—the eyes were the primary tool?

Allerdyce picked up a four-foot-long stick and poked in the sand. “Here,” the old poacher said, his voice barely a whisper, and difficult to hear.

Service saw the skull top and nudged Shotwiff, who said, “I can see parts of four of them from here.”

“He’s right, then?”

“We’d have to excavate carefully to know for sure.”

“Toliver can’t move his dig to here. His permit won’t cover this site.”

“When I was doing this business, this is the sort of site I’d walk away from, make notes in my journal and leave it be unless sometime in the future there would be a reason to reveal it.”

Allerdyce whispered, “We need ta skedaddle. Ain’t good stand in graveyard, piss off ghosts.”

“People been helping themselves to things from here?” Service asked as they climbed back up the hill.

“Dunno,” Allerdyce said, nervously glancing back at the place where the skulls lay in the sand.

• • •

Sedge caught his eye back at the dig site, but he ignored her.

The site of the grid was sheltered by trees, the air hot but not humid. The young people had stripped down to the bare minimum in clothing. “We weren’t here, they’d dig buck-naked and smoke their junk at night,” Sedge said with a chuckle.

She was undoubtedly right. Many CO stops of anyone under forty produced dope and/or alcohol violations, often both. It made him wonder if today’s dope was akin to Prohibition’s booze.

The grid had grown steadily since morning. Toliver worked tirelessly and patiently with his diggers, carrying a handheld GPS and now and then getting on his knees with a measuring tape and a plumb bob. The sound of mallets pounding metal pegs sounded like muted cymbals in the forest.

Service lacked the knowledge to judge, but to his untrained eye it looked like Toliver knew his business.

Service looked around for Allerdyce, but he was gone again, and Service had no interest in knowing where to.

Late lunches were passed around in boxes. Peanut butter on fresh limpa rye bread from the North Star Brick Oven Bakery on M-123. In Service’s mind it was a sin to put peanut butter on such great bread, but it wasn’t his call. He had enough to think about. He rejected a sandwich offered by Sedge.

“There’s another site,” he whispered to Sedge when they drifted away from the group with Shotwiff. “Just over this hill. We found skulls.”

“And?”

“Toliver’s only permitted to dig here.”

“Katsu’s wrong?” she said.

“Time will tell,” the professor said quietly. “But Toliver’s correct; he won’t come up empty at this site. He thinks this was some kind of temporary refuge and fishing village, and he’s probably right.”

“I’ve got other things to do,” Service told the professor. “You can head out with me or stay here with Sedge. I’ll be back.”

“Always liked field work,” the old man said. “I miss it. So I’ll stay and watch.”

“Where are Toliver’s vehicles?” Service asked Sedge.

“One mile due south,” she said. “There’s a forty-acre landlocked state parcel inside a Little Traverse Conservancy half-section. I remembered this, and that there was an old two-track to the state land. I called the conservancy and they gave Toliver permission to cross their land to stage from the other location. It’s a lot closer than where you and I parked.”

“This is north of LOL?”

“Yeah. It took two phone calls to get permission. Where you going?”

“I want to swap my private ride for the Tahoe. I’ll call Friday. She can drive the Tahoe over here and take my truck back.”

“Want to meet her at the Bomb Shelter? It’s private,” Sedge said, raising an eyebrow.

“What’s this week’s exhibit, Pocahunkus?”

She laughed. “Cinder blocks only. When are you leaving?”

“I’ll spend the night, take off first light, come back the next day to give you a break.”

Service pitched tents for himself and the professor, away from Toliver’s tent city but with a low ridge between the two shelters and the lake, to prevent them from being sloshed if the lake got exuberant.

“I adore the sound of Superior,” Shotwiff said.

“This time of year it should be fine, but when the
Edmund Fitz
went down in seventy-five, a friend of mine had a place west of Deer Park, thirty feet above the beach. The waves broke over the cliff in his yard and pushed his kids’ bikes fifty yards south up his driveway. This is not the place to be when Superior gets into a snit.”

“That doesn’t change my feelings for the sound,” the professor countered.

The area was parched the whole forest a bed of tinder, and the professor was, until recently, someone who thought nothing of feeding large predators. Service studied the sky. Yellowish thunder-bumpers had been building since late morning. “We might get a shower,” he told the professor. “Let’s recheck the tents, make sure they’re secure and that the rain-flies won’t blow away.”

• • •

It drizzled for twenty minutes around 4 p.m. Thirty minutes later the sky turned black and exploded with rumbling thunder crashing in all directions. Service watched as the sky turned dark, variegated blue and white lightning columns arcing downward, leaving the air sizzling and the taste of iron in his mouth. Two strikes were close, the interval between flash and thunder less than a second. Both strikes made him jump. The professor just stared up at the sky with his mouth hanging open.

Sedge trotted down from the big camp. “Jesus, one of those was less than a mile away by my count.” Her eyes were wide, chest heaving, but her voice was calm and controlled. “We’re bone-dry out here,” she said.

“You fix the loke?”

“Close, and south southwest,” she said.

“That’s toward my truck. Get on the radio, call Station Twenty, ask them to alert the county.”

“My 800’s not working out here,” she said. When the DNR had gotten the 800-megahertz system, officers were promised the radios would work everywhere, under all conditions. It turned out to be just another semi-empty promise. “We are so damn isolated here, a fire could get a big head south of us and push up here, and we wouldn’t know it until it was on us.”

“I’ll check the closest strike,” Service said. “Stay with the group. Professor, go with Officer Sedge.”

She held out a family band radio, Motorola, red. “Ten-mile range, Channel One, backup on Ten. Let me know about the strike before you head for your truck.”

“Channel One,” he said, nodding. “Or Ten.” The term, number
ten,
had meant everything bad and evil in his Southeast Asia days.

Sedge didn’t need to provide directions. Following the course line he could smell smoke, and soon came upon an ancient eight-foot black stump, sluffing fresh smoke. It was surrounded by black swamp water. Even if it fell over, it couldn’t reach dry fuel. Still, he waded out thigh-deep through the muck and used his hat to scoop as much water and sludge on the smoldering wood as he could manage. He called Sedge on the radio. “Found it. An old stump in a little marsh. I put it out but it’s still smoldering. Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place?”

“Should I think about evacuating the group?”

“Not yet, but tell Toliver what’s going on, and that he may have to leave everything and bug out PDQ. If you end up having to go, don’t even try for your vehicles. Just foot-boogie due east down the beach to Vermilion and set yourselves up there. You got spare radio batts?”

“Yes.”

“Good; conserve them. Save them for Vermilion if you need to go that route.”

“You talk to your woman yet?”

“No bars here,” he said of his cell phone.

It was 6 p.m. when he reached his truck and saw a Hummer coming through the woods at a pretty good clip. It stopped and Allerdyce jumped out.

“I just come up One Twinnytree. Youse see all dose lightens up dis way?”

“All around us.”

“Bunches down south, too. I stop truck, take sniff. Got heavy smoke up dere norta One Twinnytree. Murp’y Crick. I tink youses mebbe got a burn goin’.”

“There was one small smoker north of here.”

Allerdyce looked him over. “You wade swamp?”

“Tried to douse the stump. It should be okay.”

“Where you want me go, sonnyboy?”

“Do you know where the others’ vehicles are parked?”

“Yeah, mile nort’easta here.”

“Park your vehicle with theirs and report to Sedge. Help her if she has to evacuate. I told her if she has to go, to hotfoot it east to Vermilion.” Service handed the family band radio to the man. “Reach her on this: Channel One primary, Ten the backup. Be careful, old man.”

“Youse too, sonnyboy. Looks like da Indi’n god done send us whole kick yer caboola!”

• • •

Service made his way south. The forest roads felt strange under the dark sky. Eventually he crawled down CR 500 to M-123 and turned southeast toward where Limpy had smelled smoke. The Bomb Shelter was in the other direction, but not far.

Down the road he thought about the area, which he knew as intimately as any in the U.P. If there was fire north of M-123 and west of Murphy Creek, it would be the middle of nowhere and impossible to handle easily. He turned off M-123 and skirted Chesbrough Lake to where the road dead-ended into a massive Nature Conservancy peat marsh. South of him were the headquarters of the East Branch of the Two-Hearted, and Sleeper Lake, both less than two miles southeast of his position.

He could smell the smoke and feel the wind in his face. There looked to be a little ash in the air, but not much yet.
Bad
, he told himself.

He toggled his 800 and was surprised when it blooped to life. “Twenty, this is Twenty Four Fourteen. I’m on Chesbrough Road at the Nature Conservancy property, Luce County. There’s a fire southwest of my position somewhere in the direction of Sleeper Lake. Twenty Four Fourteen clear.”

“Twenty Four Fourteen, we just had another call on the same event. The alert is going now. You close to the fire?”

“No.”

“Be careful out there, Chief Master Sergeant. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Thanks,” he said.

• • •

By the time he got to M-123, smoke snakes were slithering across the highway. He met a Troop and a dep both rolling with their gumballs tinting the rolling gray smoke. Service pulled alongside the Troop, rolled down his window, and showed his badge.

“Looks like a bad boy,” the Troop said. “Be careful—the gawkers are already rolling, and I damn near clipped a big bear just south of here.”

Service tried to reach Sedge on the 800, but she was not answering. Instead he called Sergeant Bryan on his cell phone, which miraculously had two quivering and questionable bars. “Sedge is up at the dig site. Where are you?” Service asked.

“Home.”

“There’s a fire near Sleeper Lake, and I’m headed to the district office.”

“Roger that, I’m rolling.”

Service passed multiple law enforcement vehicles as he sped south toward town. He called Friday on her cell phone.

“Finally,” she greeted him.

“We have a fire over here. Can you drive my Tahoe to the district office and swap for my personal truck?” Even with Service obviously speeding, the eyes of the officers were all to the north.

“Now?”

“If you can.”

“Meet at the district office?”

“Right.”

“Be couple of hours,” she said. “My sis can watch Shigun. They’re just starting to talk about your fire on the radio here.”

Great
. There had been no cell phones or Internet during the Seney fire in ’76. He wondered what effect such devices would have this time. Everyone up here feared fire.

God, don’t let it be like Seney.
That fire had been a monster, burning 75,000 acres, and everyone who’d fought it or been anywhere near it knew for certain it was a
real
monster, not some slick trick conjured by Hollywood special effects people.