Red Jacket by Joseph Heywood Read Free Book Online Page B

into the man’s crotch. Harju staggered backward, laughing and rubbing his crotch, while Bapcat began massaging his knee, which hurt like the dickens.
    Pain in the knee momentarily ignored, Bapcat stepped toward the man, who put up his hands and said, “I surrender. Ya, you’ll do Bapcat. In this job you gotta be ready at all times. The beaver ban help make up your mind?”
    Who is this lunatic? “What beaver ban?”
    Harju groped in his trousers and pulled out a tin pot, which was dented, and tossed it to Bapcat. “Good idea to assume the worst going into any scrap. That pot’s lined with heavy felt—my late wife’s idea. She wanted me to invent armor to repel bullets, too, but I ain’t had that sort of time. Truth is, I may need to redesign the pot. I felt your knee, and that’s pretty rare. You’re the first one to ever shed that first punch.”
    â€œYou wanted me to fight?”
    â€œWell, sure—we needed to know something more about you.”
    â€œTalk isn’t good enough?”
    â€œSometimes action is far more compelling. Before we finish here, I’ll show you how to put an opponent to sleep by pinching his neck.” Harju motioned at his own neck. “The beaver ban will be announced in July. There will be no beaver trapping through 1920. Populations have crashed downstate, and they’re in damn poor condition most places up here as well. You agree?”
    â€œI don’t know about down below, but there are a lot fewer over my way.”
    â€œExcellent distinction. A game warden needs to stick with what he knows and what he’s seen. Avoid generalization when you can.”
    He’d noticed, but never thought about connecting his personal experience to a larger picture. “I’ve seen.”
    â€œSo, if the ban wasn’t the decider for you, what was?”
    â€œColonel Roosevelt.”
    â€œYou hold the man in high regard?”
    â€œThe highest.”
    â€œHe as brave as some make out, or just some reckless rich boy?”
    â€œBit of both,” Bapcat said. “Not sure how to sort out which is which.”
    Harju smiled. “Yep, I think you’ll do.”
    â€œWhat’s your job here?”
    â€œDeputy warden—like you, but for Marquette County. The chief likes for me to orient new Upper Peninsula deputies.”
    â€œLong at the job?”
    â€œTen years. Sometimes it feels longer, but with this civil service change, we’re going to be hiring more qualified men, not a bunch of cowards, hacks, and sycophants. You hearing anything about a strike looming over your way?”
    â€œThere’s been talk.”
    â€œIt could get ugly fast,” Harju said.
    â€œFor the miners.”
    â€œFor everyone except us. For us it could be a windfall. See, in this job you need to keep your eyes and ears open all the time, pay attention to everything that happens around you. Comes a strike, businesses get in trouble, can’t make payrolls, can’t pay their employees—who can’t eat—and that’s when we can expect violations to happen. Whole world is cause and effect once you adjust to thinking that way.”
    â€œAm I to be the first warden over my way?”
    â€œNo. The first was a disaster named Case Bestemand. When they sent him to me, I wired the chief in Lansing and told him I had lots of doubts. Bestemand was once a deputy for Sheriff Cruse, who continued to use him as his personal dog. Bestemand didn’t last a month. He went down to the Chassell area to look into rumors of wild fowl market-hunting in the marshes of the Sturgeon River. Trapper found him stumbling around the woods down by Pelkie a week later. He’d been severely beaten, his skull fractured. Hospital in Marquette sent him to the state mental hospital in Newberry, but he walked away from there and hasn’t been seen since. That was two years ago.”
    Harju took a breath and