Harder Ground Read online

  “Mary Lou.”

  “She’s damn good. But leprechauns?”

  “That’s what the report says. You ever seen one?” Coalwood asked.

  “No.”

  “Way I see it, we have to entertain the possibility, to be fair.”

  “Riggs?” she said.

  Her partner smiled. “Can’t dance.”

  “Find Snoopy’s caretaker?” she asked.

  “Nah, mighta been, might not, who knows. Let’s plow right in.”

  “The way Riggs does things?”

  “Sort of. We don’t have to go in shooting. I’m talking more figurative than literal Riggs.”

  “So what’s your view on Ringo, matrimony and all such?” she asked.

  “None of my business.”

  She switched topics. “What if somebody out here’s hunting leprechauns?”

  Coalwood looked over at her. “How do you cook the damn things?”

  They both laughed.

  “You think being the Missus would be this much fun?” Coalwood asked.

  “Mind on business,” Mary Vallier said.

  •••

  The area of the dells was filled with forests of old gnarled oaks and a massive acorn drop, the mast crop the best in years.

  They parked the truck about a mile from the river and hiked from there, looking for deer sign. Snoopy’s Camp was south of them, a half-mile strip with river frontage. Most of the deer would not move down into the river bottoms until later in the fall. At that time of year they should have been up grazing on acorns.

  “Fresh tracks and scat piles everywhere,” Coalwood said quietly. “Plenty of bait here.”

  Soon they came across a line of scrapes and a couple of rubs on trees with diameters of eight or ten inches, suggesting some heavily antlered bucks in the area.

  Coalwood said, “The leprechauns picked a helluva good spot to hunt. Split up? You go east here, I’ll go south and then turn east and walk Snoopy’s north property line. I should be about a half mile south of you.”

  “Meet back at the truck?” she asked.

  “Can’t dance,” he said, smiled and marched away.

  Coalwood: She loved the guy. Not in love with him, but loved him. Is this a fair distinction? She wasn’t sure, but the realization, saying the words, even in her head, made her shiver like a sixteen-year-old. She neither loved nor was in love with Ringo Atola. I’ve got to do something about this, she lectured herself as she hiked, and the terrain began to rise. She had to pick her way through dense brush and when she found an opening saw a sort of saddle above her and aimed herself for that to cross the line of hills. The long climb made her legs tired. Coalwood could move through the heaviest woods like a ghost, or he could run like some sort of four-legged creature. His speed even with a full gear load was eye-catching and had surprised a lot of violators over the years.

  She was trying to decide how to go over or around a large blowdown when she caught the faintest sound. She froze, closed her eyes, listened. Not just sound; it was . . . music? What the? Music in the dell in late morning during bowhunting season? Oh boy. Hunters taking a midday break? That might make some sense, which could mean a camp nearby. Ah, the leprechauns. The thought put a smile on her face she couldn’t will away. Sometimes whimsy was good for the soul. She stopped now and then to fix the source of the sound and made a line directly to it.

  Words rippled through the trees. Something about singing out of tune? What the? As soon as she questioned this she found herself singing, along with voices and the woods, the Beatles. The line about needing someone jarred her. Jesus, that song comes up in the woods after all that thinking about Ringo and Joe. Got to be a sign, not that I believe in such things, because I don’t, at least not publicly. What I have is an open and inquiring mind. Getting closer she heard rhythmic clapping and a group of voices and as she hit the tree line and looked down into a clearing she saw twenty or more people in a ring, all of them in green outfits, singing about getting, no, not just friends, but little friends. Extra word in the lyric, what’s that all about?

  Vallier thought, hey, that lyric’s not quite right, and she looked harder and saw the people were all tiny and as she walked into the open and they saw her they began to come up a small rise to meet her singing all the way and clapping their little hands together, and when they got to her, they enveloped her in a circle and hugged her, and each other, and kept singing, and she stood there with her brain in freeze mode and smiled and nodded and hummed, thinking, not leprechauns, Down syndrome folks.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Lunch at noon,” a man said. “No exceptions.” He wore a green felt Robin Hood hat with a turkey feather.

  “Noon-sharp,” someone added.

  She felt a tug on her trousers, “You hunting too?”

  “I’m the game warden.”

  “We’ve got licenses,” her initial greeter said. “Hunter safety too, hey everybody, show the game warden your license and hunter safety card.” Seconds later all the people were waving cards at her. She felt wonderful and could not explain why, even to herself.

  “You folks hear any gunshots over this way?”

  “Arrows don’t make gunshots,” someone said. “I’m Alvin, like the chipmunk? But he isn’t real and I am.”

  “You’re all bowhunting?”

  Alvin ordered, “Show her your bows.” They all ran and picked up their weapons.

  “You all sure follow the rules,” she said.

  “Rules are rules,” Alvin said. “We do it right the first time.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she said.

  A woman came up to her. “Would you like to hunt with us? You’ve already got on the green.”

  “Thanks, I’d love to but I’m working.”

  “Work is work,” someone said.

  “When we get paid to do a job, the job comes first,” the man called Alvin said. “Rules are rules.”

  They all said rules are rules and work is work.

  Alvin said, “But tonight we’re gonna sing and dance.”

  “And hug,” a woman said. “We love to hug!”

  And having declared this they all began to hug, openly, gloriously. 47 C-21s in their full human glory! Ringo Atola, you are such a gaping asshole! Do I, Mary Valliers, love to hug? Goddamn right I do! And Ringo doesn’t.

  She found herself hugging several people and Alvin broke up the love-fest yelling lunch lunch lunch, noon noon noon, grabbed her hand and dragged her downhill to an area where blankets were spread out, and a dozen picnic baskets serving as little tables. A woman took her hand and they sat down Indian legged on a blanket. “You wear green. We wear green. We all like green. It’s Mother Nature’s color.”

  Alvin yelled manners manners manners, and they all opened paper boxes and pulled out chicken parts and began to attack the meat.

  Her hostess said, “Cold fried chicken. Not fast food, but real food, um um good.” She held a drumstick out to Vallier who took a bite.

  “Delicious.”

  “No rifles at all?”

  “Robin Hood,” Alvin said. “Not Dan’l Boone.”

  She took another bite of chicken. Damn good.

  Alvin ripped into a breast and with a full mouth said, “Boone’s down by the river.” He was pointing in the direction of Snoopy’s Camp and Vallier began to imagine some possibilities relating to the RAP report, but before she could formulate her plan, Joe Coalwood popped out of the tree line. He was carrying a rifle over his shoulder, and was accompanied by a young man who had not shaved in a while.

  Alvin yelled, “Another green man!” Everyone cheered.

  “That’s Officer Coalwood,” she yelled to the group. “He’s my partner. His name is Joe and he loves hugs!”

  “Hi Joe!” they yelled and ran to him and surr
ounded him and hugged him and patted him and the kid with him looked like he was going to lose his mind and Vallier thought she had never seen a funnier scene ever. Joe Coalwood was grinning and smiling and hugging back and the whole thing was like a damn fairytale.

  The deer hunters in green tried to hug the young fella too, but he scowled and shoved and slapped them away, and Coalwood said with a menacing growl, “Mind your manners, asshole.”

  “Fucking little weirdo creeps!” the boy said.

  Coalwood held up the man’s rifle, pulled a silencer out of his coat pocket and showed Vallier. “Caught him over a fresh kill, his fourth.”

  “Related to Snoopy?”

  “Camp caretakers’s son, Fallon.”

  “Dude,” Vallier said. “You guys work for the great state conservationist. Guess your dad won’t be the conservationist’s caretaker much longer.”

  “Fuck Fishlock,” the boy said. “He cheats all the time.”

  “You shouldn’t use language like that,” Alvin said, piping up.

  “Fuck off, shrimp boat,” Fallon said and several men suddenly had cudgels in hand and whacked on Fallon’s lower legs, forcing him to back up and put up his hands. “Maniacs!”

  “Enough,” Vallier said. “That’s enough, Alvin. I think he’s got the message.”

  “Come back tonight and dance and hug and eat,” Alvin said, holding her hand, and she looked at Coalwood, and said, “Maybe . . . if we can.”

  Joe Coalwood gave his prisoner a hard push and the three of them began the hike back to the truck.

  •••

  They took the truck to Snoopy’s, confiscated the illegal deer carcasses, the man’s weapon and silencer, wrote citations for him, and headed for Cadillac where Coalwood’s truck was parked.

  She was quiet almost all the way to town. “I’m done with Ringo Atola.” “Just like that,” Coalwood said.

  Vallier snorted. “Can’t dance.”

  They both laughed and she said, “Ya know, Joe, we could dance.”

  “With the leprechauns?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “Why the heck not?”

  “Works for me,” Coalwood said. “Pick you up?”

  “Yah, six?”

  “Okay.”

  “Know what? If I’d gotten pregnant and Ringo knew it would be a Down kid, he’d want me to abort. Asshole.”

  “Riggs,” Coalwood said, looking straight ahead.

  “Murtaugh,” she replied. “Six sharp.”

  Reality

  Maria Costangelo was called Bada Bing by other conservation officers. They would push their noses to the side and mumble “whasamattayou, Costangelo, you got it made, all your wise guy blood, some butt-wrench draws down on you and bang he’s like disappeared.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Costangelo would say, knowing she had a secret. Guns scared the hell out of her, and though she shot and practiced incessantly and had for nine years, she was only marginally better now than when she had started out. She absolutely loathed the notion of being forced by circumstances, however remote, to fire a chunk of hot lead into another human being. If it happened, it would have to be forced. This she knew in her heart and admitted to nobody.

  Nine years and she had pulled her automatic only one time, and never discharged it. Didn’t have to. Thank God.

  Newly married, she was eager to get home to husband Hughie. It had been a fourteen-hour work day, the opening day of the firearm deer season, a daylight to way-after-dark head-bumping with fools and the clueless, lifelong cheaters, and a few folks (very few) just making honest mistakes. All in all it had been a pretty lawful crowd for this part of Dickinson County, where lawlessness reigned some deer seasons. But this looked like a calmer, more doable stint and she felt relaxed, a foreign, totally unexpected feeling for opening day.

  Hughie was making beer-butt chicken and she could hardly wait. She had not eaten all day and was famished. Okay, one measly cereal bar, but did that qualify as eating? This thought barely out of her mind, a white Honda Accord raced past her and began to weave from one side of the two-lane highway to the other, shoulder to shoulder. “Oh Shit!” she said out loud as she activated her flashing blue lights and tried to get the numbers off the plate as the vehicle slowed and pulled over and she called the county dispatcher. “Central, DNR One, One Thirty Six.”

  “Go, One, One Thirty Six.”

  “Traffic stop, run file, Wisconsin plate.” She recited the plate numbers to the county dispatcher and waited, keeping her eye on the Honda.

  “Thirty Six, Wisconsin plate comes back to a 2013 blue Honda Accord. No wants, no warrants. Want the owner’s name?”

  “Negative, Central. I’ll be out of my vehicle.”

  “Central clear.”

  Costangelo approached the stopped vehicle along the driver’s side, coming up so that the driver could not easily see her. She had an on-board camera recording everything, one of two in the state being tested. Most COs in the state made most of their contacts away from their trucks, not on roads in traffic stops, and in her own mind an on-board camera was just one more gizmo to screw with, one more thing to malfunction. But this was a classic traffic stop, the plate coming back to the vehicle, no big deal. As she got to the rear of the Honda she looked down at the trunk and bumper and saw what she thought was blood. Shit. This changed the whole deal. She was checking the blood smear again when the driver’s door suddenly swung open.

  “Stay in your vehicle!” she ordered the driver. “Repeat, do not get out of the vehicle and put your leg back inside!”

  The leg did not withdraw. In fact, a second one appeared. Oh shit, I have done this exact fucking scenario in training, good God, not this, not this, please God, don’t be a jerk! Please! I know how this shit turns out! “Get back in your vehicle!”

  The man got out. Orange sock hat pulled down, sunglasses, camo hooded sweatshirt. “Hiya,” he said.

  “Sir, raise your hands and back up toward me. Do it now!”

  “This is fun,” the man said. “Is it fun for you?”

  Goddamn. Instead of raising his hands, he leaned down and back into the front seat of the Honda, exactly the way it happened in the scenario training. “God, please not this.”

  Costangelo had already unholstered her Sig Sauer 40 semiautomatic, had it by her leg. “Sir, do not reach into the vehicle! Raise your hands! Sir! Listen to me, Sir!”

  But the man pottered around in slow motion, his body making her think he was groping for something, and he was stretched out and bent over so severely he flashed his butt-crack and then his butt started backing out. She kept her focus on the front of him, trying to see his arms and when there was a flash of something dark she yelled “Sir, goddammit!” And he began to turn.

  An instant later she was on the ground, punched in the stomach so hard it took her breath and forced her to desperately gasp for air, saw the man on the ground beside the Honda, on his knees, the acrid smell of something in the air, not gunpowder, the chemical stabilizers in the round. Stupid fact! Focus. How many shots? Had she shot? Had he? Headshot, sure I hit him in the head, but she watched in fascination and in horror as he picked up his pistol and started to get back into the Honda. Thinking fast, no damn angle from here, no angle, move, she told herself, instinctively rolling to her left one time, two times, stop. He was in the seat now, sitting up. Jesus, how could I have missed him? Pain in her guts burning like she had the sun inside her trying to get out. She exhaled, held her breath, sighted the weapon, squeezed twice and slumped face down on the asphalt, thinking no chicken tonight. Oh Hughie.

  Trooper Chet Fong was first on the scene, lights flashing, sirens screaming like burning banshees in the night, Sleet starting to come in sheets.

  So cold, hot. Cold. Hot. Oh God.

  Someone beside me, voice calm, reassuring, gentle. “It’s Chet, Maria. C
het.”

  “Did I get him?”

  “Yeah, you got him. Be still, you’re gonna be fine. I can hear the EMS three minutes, no more, hang on. You’re gonna be okay, Maria, talk to me.”

  “Head shots, Chet. He got up again.”

  “It’s okay, Maria.”

  “Head shots, right?”

  “Yes, head shots, you stopped him.”

  “Did he kill me, Chet? Tell me, please?”

  “No, he didn’t kill you.”

  “Fuck it hurts,” she said with a moan.

  “I know,” Fong said. “Pain is good right now.”

  “Did he shoot you too Chet?”

  “I’m fine Maria, EMS is here. Do what they tell you.”

  “Don’t let go of me,” she said anxiously, and Trooper Fong didn’t let go. “Call Hughie, Chet, tell him I’ll be late for supper. Tell him I love his beer-butt chicken. Tell him, Chet. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” the troop said as the EMS specialists knelt over her.

  •••

  Ten days later in the hospital, Hughie, Chet Fong, her sergeant and lieutenant all gathered around her bed. She asked, “Am I dying? If so, don’t bring my mother. She’ll just make it worse.”

  Hughie said, “You can’t make death worse.”

  “You don’t know my mother that well.”

  They all laughed. “No more major surgery,” Hughie said. “Couple of minor jobs is all that’s left.”

  She felt like she was in a fog made of fine powder. “Head shots, right? All three?”

  “All three,” her sergeant said.

  “How did he get up after the first one?”

  “You sure you’re ready for this discussion?” her lieutenant asked.

  “I’m sure. I couldn’t believe it when he crawled back into the damn car.”

  “You took out part of his brain and that caused him to jerk the trigger and the round ricocheted off the road and into your stomach below your armor and rained you with road fragments. Fifty or so small pieces.”

  “How?”

  “We don’t know,” the lieutenant said. “Nobody knows. Your last two rounds opened his head like a melon.”