Killing a Cold One (44 page)

“Up here, youses,” Allerdyce said.

They joined him. Ulupov was on the ground, facedown, a full wolf pelt stretched from his head to his waist, down his back. Service lit the man with his penlight and turned him to his side. His head was shattered like a melon. A stick protruded from his chest. Service took off a glove, checked for pulse.
None. Why's blood running down my left arm?

“You hit?” Tree asked.

“Nicked maybe, never went numb, burned like hell right away. Check for fire inside, Suit.”

Allerdyce took on a tone of voice Service had never heard before. “Put yore butt on ground, sonny!”

The old man helped him remove off his outer whites and his coat, shone a light on his shirt, then split the shirt with a knife. “Went t'ru good. Let's stop bleedin', eh.”

Treebone was working alongside the old man. They weren't arguing.

“First-aid kit in my pack,” Service told the old man.

Noonan came back. “No fire, stove confined it, mostly.” The retired detective handed Allerdyce a sterile bandage and antiseptic. The two men wrapped the arm and tied it off.
Hurts.

Treebone triggered his 800. “We have him. Twenty Five Fourteen is down. You can see our rig on AVL. Trail's a hundred yards behind the truck. Bring a snowmobile, call for EMS.”

Denninger's voice. “Bus or wagon?”

“Wagon.”

“Stay put,” Treebone's voice thundered. “Cavalry's coming.”

“Sound the bugle,” Service quipped.

Service looked at the wood protruding from Ulupov's chest. It was a foot-long sliver of two-by-four. Noonan said, “AK must've shattered it when he came through the damn wall, stuck him coming out. I didn't even need to use the ax, I bet.”

Limpy stayed beside Service, not moving, talking quietly. “Youse 'member time youse an' yore ole man stop by da bar, at Gwinn? Youses wass bellied up to bar, yore ole man knocking down beers, and somebody down way say, ‘What good's a game warden?' You come off stool like bottle rocket, smack guy right in da kisser, nose blow up blood, his buddies start punch youse up, yore old man jump in, screaming like jungle ape. I jes' walk in when all happen, jump in help youse two. Youse were mebbe twelve, I t'ink, big dumb kid. We put all dem jamokes down on floor. Yore ole man cry that night, say he so proud, you gon' be damn good man, not lush like him.”

Why the hell is he telling me that story?
“Am I dying?”

“No, sonny, jes' 'membered, is all.”

Service heard Noonan on the radio. “Better move your sorry asses,” and then it was dark and silent.

76

Monday, January 26

MARQUETTE

It was night when he was awake enough to make sense of his surroundings. He felt loopy and confused. “What the hell is going on?” he asked to no one in particular, but a second later he had Allerdyce and Noonan and Treebone in his face.

“You dumbass,” Tree said. “You kept yelling ‘flesh wound,' but you lost a
chunk
of flesh and some muscle. Damn near bled out on the way here. Fragment of bone clipped blood vessels or something. They may have to do more surgery.”

“Bullshit,” Grady Service said. “I'm good to go.”

“Not your call,” Friday said, wading in. “Your door guards here have intimidated the whole damn nursing staff and
all
your doctors. They couldn't do anything without the approval of the three musketeers.”

“I don't feel so good,” he said, slumping into his pillow.

 

•••

 

He woke up to “You've been shot
again!
” It was Vince Vilardo, his doctor and friend from Escanaba, looking down at him.

“Lucky shot,” Service mumbled.

“For him, not you,” Friday said. “Ten inches to the right and you'd be . . . not here.”

“I wore my vest,” he said.

“Hapless,” Friday told Vince Vilardo.

“When do I get out?” Service wanted to know.

“End of the week, earliest. They want healing to begin, and to make sure there's no sepsis,” Friday said. “And when you get home, you
will
rest.”

“I've heard this stupid speech before.”

“Not from me, you haven't,” she said. “This time you will do as you're told.”

Bluesuit Noonan stood at the end of the bed with a hangdog face. “My fault. Hit that motherfucker in the side of his head and he buckled, foot slipped in snow, spun him your way as he started spraying rounds. I'd hit his spine, he'da dropped right there. My fault.”

Service felt a hand on his shoulder, looked up. Tree was there, solemn, no words. Brothers didn't need them.

77

Thursday, March 5

SLIPPERY CREEK CAMP

Captain Lisette McKower came to see Service, and they sat in front of the TV.

He said, “Guess what: No smokes in forty days.”

She shook her head. “Like Lent; brag this time next year.” Lis was an old friend, lover for a very brief time, his sergeant, lieutenant, and now field captain for lower Michigan. “Easier ways to quit than getting shot, lunkhead.”

“I expected an attaboy.”

“Attaboy. I heard you mailed your badge and ID to the governor with a note.”

“What of it?”

“Quote: I refuse to be a political football again. You panicked. No governor can panic, ever. Good thing you'll be gone in a year. End quote. That's damn harsh, Grady, even for you.”

“She put me into something I didn't belong in.”

“She also sent fifty officers to help after Katrina, one-third of our whole field force, and they didn't accomplish shit. She's the governor. The people elected her. She can do these things. Listen to me, Mr. Self-Righteous: You could have told her the case was Friday's, not yours. You didn't. Don't whine now.”

“She ordered me to hunt an animal,” he said.

“And you did,” McKower said. “A felon and two retirees for partners. You call
that
a team?”

“We break any rules?”

“I probably can't count that high.”

“Lawyers got their snouts in this?”

“They tried, but Governor Timms stepped in and told them to back off. You're all cleared, even Allerdyce.”

Service looked at her. “Listen to me, Lis. Limpy was the difference in this deal. Without him—”

“Understood,” she said. “I read the reports. What was the Czech yelling when he came out shooting?”

“
Di-ben-ind-is-o-win.
Freedom. Apparently the asshole convinced himself he was Indian.”

McKower set his badge and ID on a tray table. “You'll need these things. You had a second surgery,” she added.

“Just cleanup; the cutting's done. It's all rehab from here on.”

She cocked her head. “They don't have a rehab for the likes of you. No duty until April first, light duty until the last Saturday in April, start the day after the trout opener, full steam ahead. You get the trout opener off. Think of it as a reward.” McKower held the flat of her hand to his face, turned, and marched out smiling.

Biologist Cale Pilkington visited later that day. “Krelle's coming back from Oregon, April first, here through June. She wants to track and monitor the new wolves, monitor breeding. She's guessing these aren't new. Allerdyce has signed on as her scout. Feds pay real good.”

“Wolf DNA?” Service asked.

“Gray wolf; not a crossbreed unless it's so close to
Canis lupus,
the genetic markers don't show it. Krelle hypothesizes this is a mutant: wide body, shorter legs, and with no inherent advantage, such a mutant will die out, the fruit of evolution at its starkest. Krelle wants to see it through for science. First thing Allerdyce did was hire young Donte DeJean as his assistant.”

Service smiled.
At least the kid won't be shooting deer or moose calves to feed the wolves. I hope.

78

Sunday, April 26

MOSQUITO RIVER HEADWATERS

Allerdyce had stopped by the night before, had a beer, muttered a few things, loved on Newf and Cat, and left. Yesterday had been the trout opener. Grady Service fished Slippery Creek for an hour and quit, wanting to save his energy for today.

How many years since he'd worked the Mosquito Wilderness?

At zero nine hundred, Service found the Peterson brothers, Dovey and Booby, with twenty brook trout each. The brothers were longtime violators out of Rock.

“Heard you was retired,” Dovey said when Service stepped out on them.

“You heard wrong,” he said. “Who told you that?”

“Old Man Allerdyce,” Booby said.

Service wrote tickets, explained what they had to do to pay, and took their fish, which were over limit and undersized. Back in his truck, he laughed out loud. It had been Allerdyce last night who told him where the daffy Petersons would be. The sneaky old sonuvabitch had set them up and given him a gift.

The Mosquito River ran vodka-pure and clear, light dancing in the riffle. Service lowered the tailgate, sat on it, and let the music of the river and wind through the trees engulf him.

Home,
he thought, and grinned.