No Man's Dog Read Online Free

“You were a pilot, I think you said. F-105s. Wild Weasels.”
    “Very good,” Tucker said, pleasantly. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood looking at the lake. He was not a large man, certainly a head shorter than Mulheisen. He nodded toward the ships and asked, “What ships are those?”
    Mulheisen said, “Oceangoing. Probably foreign, trading to and from Chicago, or Milwaukee, Duluth maybe. I couldn’t make out the logos or the names. I used to know all the lake boats. Cleveland Cliffs, Ford, but you don’t see them anymore. There’s an old guy comes out here once in a while, brings a chair and a notebook, binoculars. He used to keep track of all the names of the companies. That was a long time ago, come to think of it. I haven’t seen him in ages. Maybe he’s died, by now.”
    “Why would he keep track of the ships?” Tucker asked.
    “Who knows? He was interested. Maybe it’s like collecting stamps. He collected ships.”
    Tucker shook his head, as if dismissing the silliness of that. “What’s that island, way down there?”
    “You can see that?” Mulheisen asked. “You must still have pilot’s vision. That’s Peach Island. It’s at the head of the Detroit River. That’s what the locals call it, it’s on the maps, but it’s really Peche Island . . . the fish, not the fruit. There were never any peaches on that island, but they say that Pontiac, the Ottawa chief, used to hang out there in the summer. He had a fishing camp, probably. People still go out there and camp in the summer, I guess. I haven’t been out there in a long time, since I gave up my boat.”
    They chatted about boats for a bit. Tucker wasn’t too familiar with them. He was from a dry country, he said, a river country,where the idea of a boat was a canoe or a rubber fishing raft. “But imagine,” he said, “Pontiac used to hang out there. A little bit of history.”
    “See that island over there?” Mulheisen pointed to a nearby island, across the channel, not more than a few hundred yards distant. “That’s where the Chippewas ambushed Sir Robert Davers and Lieutenant Robertson and their party. They killed Davers and Robertson, and supposedly they ate Robertson.”
    “Ate him! My god!” Tucker stared across the narrow channel. “Cannibals! I had no idea that they practiced cannibalism.”
    “Well, who knows?” Mulheisen said. “His body was never found, although Davers’s rifle and Robertson’s powder horn were given to one of the French settlers in Detroit. This was in 1762, about two hundred and forty-some years ago.”
    “Who was this Davers, anyway?” the colonel asked.
    Mulheisen shrugged. “A tourist,” he said. “One of those odd Brits. He was just traveling around, apparently, learning the Indians’ language, sightseeing.”
    Tucker gazed at Mulheisen, a good-sized man with thinning, sandy hair, almost homely but attractive in a way. When he smiled, which wasn’t often, he bared rather long teeth. This was a feature that had given rise to his street cognomen, “Sergeant Fang.”
    “You seem to know quite a bit about this stuff,” Tucker said, “but I suppose it’s from living around here.”
    Mulheisen shrugged. “I’m interested in the history,” he said. “Pontiac was a crucial figure in American history. Where are you from?”
    “Me? I’m an American. Oh, you mean . . . I grew up in Montana, up near Great Falls.”
    “Great Falls? I’ve been there. Butte, too. Well, you’re from Injun Country, as they used to say in the movies. I’m surprised you’re not more interested.”
    “Who says I’m not interested?” Tucker sounded almost indignant. But, in fact, he wasn’t interested. He’d seen plenty of Indians in his youth, been to school with some. There was a Blackfeet reservation not far from his folks’ ranch. Several Blackfeet had worked on the ranch, from time to time. One of them in particular, Albert Sees Crow—or was it “Seize Crow"?—had been fairly