Blood Up North

By Fredrick Soukup

What if your survival depended on the villainy you long despised?

Sister and brother. A loyalty forged in the crucible of their tragic upbringing in the Northwoods town of Backus, Minnesota. Cass, a quiet young woman caring for the grandmother who raised them. Jack, a fugitive carrying a life-changing sum of stolen drug mo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vine Leaves Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781925965810

Fredrick Soukup

Fredrick Soukup graduated from Saint John's University in 2010. His debut novel, Bliss (Regal House Publishing), received a 2020 IPPY bronze medal in the category of Great Lakes Fiction, was a finalist for the 2020 Eric Hoffer Award, and was a finalist for the 2021 Minnesota Book Awards. Blood Up North is his second novel. Soukup lives in Saint Paul with his brilliant wife, Ashley, and delightful daughter, Clare. fredrick-soukup.com

Book preview

1

Cass stood in the dancing firelight of the basement woodstove, scowling at the square woodchute door. Above, her grandma’s feet shuffled along the kitchen linoleum. Cass centered the bologna sandwich in her hoodie pouch, zipped her faded pink coat up to her chin, quietly opened the door, and crawled into the narrow tin chute. When the metal dinned, she lay still and waited for a minute before worming her gaunt and boyish physique through the wooden double-doors and onto the front lawn, still frozen from morning dew. Minnesota’s late-autumn twilight choked the world a bloodless gray.

She brushed the dirt and twigs from her jeans, tied her long, stringy russet hair at the back of her neck with a rubber band, and tucked the ponytail into her coat. Her neck was acne-scarred, her upper body slightly concave. Her tiny syrup-brown eyes were somber and meek, and with the skin around them wrinkled from the hurt that stole her youth, she looked much older and younger than nineteen.

She snuck along the front of Tilly’s house and met her older brother near the back entrance to the garage. On one shoulder he carried a tattered black canvas backpack. On the other, a rifle. With his meaty, windburned hands he gripped a spade he’d taken from the garage. No one had seen him in several days. During that time all types of rumors had spread around Backus. She tried not to listen to them.

Tilly see you leaving? he asked, his voice hoarse.

Don’t think so.

Did she? he growled.

She glared at him. No, Jack. I snuck out the old way. What’s in the backpack?

He grunted and spat. He looked into the backyard clearing. You got your phone with you? he asked, ignoring her question.

Yeah.

Good. Don’t want her snooping while you’re out.

He was tall, broad-chested but chicken-legged. He wore black bib snow pants and a camouflage duck-hunting jacket. Chew spit was frozen to his beard. Even through the cold of dusk, she could smell on him liquor and campfire smoke. He adjusted his stocking cap and smirked down at her, his green eyes barely open.

Where you been? she asked.

Can’t even begin to tell you.

You better, Jack. And what’s the shovel for?

Digging.

Digging what?

A hole. He yawned and grinned. Ain’t for no grave, if that’s what you’re thinking.

When she stepped closer to him and handed him the sandwich, she looked his face over. His eye bags, which swept over his cheeks, were puffy and violet. Dried blood coated a gash on his brow, and flecks of vomit clung to the corners of his mouth. His eyes were so foggy and grim and fatigued he seemed to her a stuffed carcass. It’s the withdrawals, he said preemptively.

After folding the sandwich in half and devouring it in two bites, he asked her if she was ready to walk.

She replied, I ain’t going no farther if you won’t tell me what’s going on. Why does everybody got it in their heads that you’re either dead or close to it. Tilly hears the most horrible things. Every night, she’s yapping at me.

He spat again. Forget everything Tilly said, her brain’s full of worms. Say, you got any cigarettes?

You realize, don’t you, that I’ve been sitting around wondering if my brother was alive or not?

Don’t be dramatic. Anyway, hopefully everyone can just think I’m dead for now. That’d keep us all safe.

Right, I’m the dramatic one, she shot back.

You gonna help me or not, Cass? He handed her the spade and started away from the house, toward the clearing in the back acres, his boots crunching over frigid folds of grass. She crossed her arms and stayed put.

Over his shoulder he said, For now, I’ll tell you just what you need to know. I’m doing this for you. You might even thank me for it later on.

For half a minute she stood watching him walk away. She glanced back at the house, then followed him, holding the spade on her shoulder like a rifle.

They kept to the edge of the clearing, walking past firewood piles long dried out, over lazy hillocks of long grass and reeds, through mobs of stripped and scraggly oak, of serried pines. The cold numbed her face, and her nose began to run. As the wind picked up and sparse snowflakes waltzed down from the canyon of boughs above, she noticed he was limping and his shoulders were tensed up just below his ears.

When they reached the far end of the clearing and ventured into the forest of birch and poplar and red oak and spruce, she caught up to him.

How much money’s in there? she asked.

Why you figure it’s money?

Either money or mess, and you’d have shot up by now. How much?

Plenty for a long while, I figure. Quiet now. All you gotta know is where I’m putting it.

Where’s the money from?

Don’t matter. Just a little insurance, all it is, he said.

On what?

On me.

Jack …

Don’t ask me nothing, he said. Won’t tell you, anyway.

They approached the fence at the western edge of Tilly’s acres, on the other side of which was the neighbor’s field of wildflowers. The fence was three strands of barbed wire fastened from one iron post to the next. The occasional vehicle cruised down 84, which bordered the far side of Tilly’s neighbor’s land. Highway 84 was the route they took to get to Pine River. If Pine River didn’t have what they were looking for, they had to go thirty miles south to Brainerd.

Let me see your phone, he said.

What for?

Just let me see it, Cass.

She handed him the cell.

Tell Tilly you lost it, he said. He dropped it on the ground and smashed it with the butt of his rifle. I’ll get you an upgrade when this is over. Don’t want her looking over the texts is all. Nobody else, either.

Stunned, she watched him use his boot to rake the bits of plastic under some leaves. When she regained her wits, she smacked him in the back of the leg with the shovel.

Goddamnit, he cried, dropping to one knee. I told you I’ll get you a new one.

I’d hoped it wasn’t true. I fucking prayed.

What are you talking about?

Who else would be trying to look over my texts? It’s Vick, ain’t it?

Gingerly, he stood. Waste your time guessing if you wanna.

Does Vick know you’re here?

No one knows.

Does he, Jack?! she shouted.

He snorted and spat. Sneering, he replied, Don’t freak out. Vick ain’t coming for you. Anyway, he ain’t all he used to be, and I’m a lot tougher than you even know.

He turned north along the fence line, and she followed, slowing her pace to trail him. They were silent. After forty feet, he cocked his head back and held out his tongue to catch darting snowflakes, and she yelled up to him, I ain’t afraid of him.

You bring any water?

I said, I ain’t afraid.

I heard you. He cleared his throat. His voice was gruff, but he was trying to be patient.

No, I don’t got water for you, Jack.

He shook his head and said, Don’t make no difference to a bear whether or not you’re afraid of him.

On Tilly’s side of the fence, a steep slope led down to a thinly frozen-over swamp. The crest of the slope abutted the fence, so they hugged tightly to the wire, gripping it for balance, careful to avoid the barbs. After passing the swamp, they walked in silence for several minutes, their faces turned away from the shrill wind. Finally, he paused in front of a fallen jackpine. Its sprawling branches had toppled the stretch of wire between two posts. The tree was brittle and bare in death, and its branches had intertwined with the wire such that it seemed laced to the earth, ensnared.

She stood beside him and he nodded at the pine. Start counting the posts, Cass. You’ll need them when the snow comes and you can’t tell the trees apart.

He climbed over the pine and continued walking beside the fence, rubbing his eyes. As he continued his spitting, he studied the field on the other side of the fence. There, hip-high wildflowers, blackened and crisp, trembled stiffly in the wind, like everything slaughtered in the plague of near-winter.

Cass caught up to him again. I ain’t afraid of you, neither, you bastard.

Ignoring her again, he said, I’m still amazed.

"By what?" she asked.

He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. They both knew what he was referring to. Their great-grandfather, Tilly’s father-in-law, once owned both the land on which Tilly and Cass now lived, land which had transferred to Tilly’s name following her husband’s passing, and the neighboring property. The adjacent 150 acre Johnson plot was once a farmstead and cornfield. Now, the only remnant of that heritage was the wooden remains of a barn that burned down not long after their great-grandfather sold the property to the Johnson family. He’d surrendered the barn as part of the sale, but not the livestock that burned alive inside. What still amazed Jack was the story he and Cass had heard countless times growing up, that Walter Schmidt, Tilly’s deceased husband, started the fire himself. Cass was too embarrassed by her family’s criminality and poverty to believe the legend, Jack too enamored with lawlessness and rebellion not to.

As they walked, he kept looking down at her until she finally scowled up at him.

Listen close, he said. This is important. Just in case you gotta come out here and get it yourself, here’s what I want you to do with the money. Don’t be salty about this. Delilah don’t get a dime. She’d blow it at the casino, or give it away in some scheme with her sisters. Might even give it to a charity. Here’s what I want—

If I don’t know where it comes from, I ain’t taking it.

He ignored her. Give nothing to Vick or Tilly or no one. It’s yours. Whatever you do with it in the meantime, keep it quiet-like. Maybe you can put it in a bank to get some interest on it, I don’t know, but don’t put it in all at once, get people asking questions about it.

Maybe I’ll dig it up and burn it, or I’ll give it away to the first one comes calling for it.

Quit with that crazy-talk.

"You’re the one making a will."

Surprised you ain’t asked me how much is in here, yet, he said.

Don’t matter one fuck to me.

Bet it does. Two hundred thousand, Cass.

They’d been clomping over beds of crinkling oak and maple leaves. She stopped, her hands on her neck, her elbows spearing out before her, and stared at him. He turned to face her, smirking again.

Where did you get that money? she cried.

That’s not important.

Whoever you took it from don’t feel the same way, I bet.

No, they don’t, I bet, he replied. He put a finger to one nostril and blew snot out the other.

I wish you’d go, she pleaded. Take it with you. Stay gone. There ain’t nothing here for you but drugs and liquor and fighting with Vick.

Where else should I be, huh? Name one person you know been south of Brainerd. There ain’t nowhere to go. If I made a mistake, it’s gonna be here that I pay for it. Ain’t got no choice.

You always had choices. You just fucked them all up is all.

Cass—

Why does it feel like you’re about ready to die?

He stood up straight, stuck his jaw out to one side.

It’s because you been thinking about it too much, got it planned out, she answered herself.

Frightened by his sudden composure, she hushed. He walked toward her, his hands up before him as though he could no longer see her in the darkening woods, and grabbed ahold of her shoulders. In his eyes the last light of dusk revealed a faint glistening emerald. Then he let go of her shoulders and tucked his thumbs in the front pockets of his bibs.

Don’t cry, he said.

I ain’t. It’s the goddamn breeze dried out my eyes.

Don’t pull that shit now, he whispered, knuckling a tear from her cheek. You been counting?

Counting what?

Cass …

Just fucking with you, she replied humorlessly.

When he smiled at her, pressing his crooked front tooth against his bottom lip, he looked to her as he had when they were kids growing up in Tilly’s house, and when he warily slid his upper lip over his tooth, he looked, almost, ashamed. She glanced away from him. He grimaced and cleared his throat and spat.

Jack, I don’t understand why you’re out stealing that type of money.

He sat and leaned back against the bottommost strand of barbed wire. With his teeth he tore a sliver of loose cuticle from his thumb. Above him, she hugged an iron post in places rusted a leprous chartreuse. She waited for him to rise and lead them farther, but he didn’t move. Here and there, snowflakes landed on the wire and balanced there for an instant before the wind blew them away. She closed her eyes, drew the clean, cold air through her nostrils.

He said, What I’ve been thinking about out here at night is the Johnson property behind me. Back when we had the cornfields. The cows and horses and chickens and hogs and all—

You wanna be a farmer? she interrupted him, incredulous.

It ain’t about the animals or equipment or even the land so much … fuck, I don’t know … It ain’t even all about the money in this backpack. I got plans and they ain’t all terrible ones that’ll put you in danger. I’ve made mistakes, but my worst ones ain’t new. They’re from long ago.

He pulled off his hat, scratched his head with both hands, then held his hat in his lap. She could tell he was hiding something, but she chose not to push him.

He added, I don’t think nobody knows about the money, but it’s either no one or most of Backus, the way people run with rumors.

When do you suppose they’ll come looking for it? she asked.

Who?

Whoever it belongs to? she asked.

Maybe not right away.

If it was me, I’d come for it right quick, she said.

He put his hat back on and stood but didn’t move. They looked at each other.

I’m sorry to put all this on you, he said, contrite. If you really don’t want nothing to do with this, you can head back now. I’ll bury it myself. Then if somebody asks you where the money is, you don’t gotta lie.

She’d long hoped that her constant fear of his death at the hands of his own deviance would prepare her for this day, but the conversation they were having was so surreal she was helpless before her dread. They both knew that despite her clean record and docility, she would go along with his plan. Although decades of misfortune and trauma had destroyed the once-envied bonds of the Schmidt family, the two of them, having withstood much of that destruction together, loved each other steadfastly. She was the only person he would be mortified to disappoint and horrified to lose. He, she. Whether by his own actions or not, it was clear that he was in a position in which he had no recourse but to endanger the one he loved the most. She had to help him.

Still, what remained of the front she’d put up for both of their benefits, the façade of assertiveness and imperturbability, was fading. Her thoughts were muddled. Dizzy, she trained her gaze on the most upright pine she could find, drawing thick, muted lungfuls of air until her center of gravity returned. Then she clamped her tongue between her teeth and bit down hard.

He was about to start walking again when she grabbed his arm. Thirty feet away, beneath a canopy of oak limbs so heavy they torqued the trunk sidewise and wrenched its cavernous bark awry, stood a small doe. They stood directly behind it, its head owled around to gaze at them, the tufts of fur on its erect white tail twitchy in the breeze. They watched it and it watched them and she wondered if he was thinking about the night he’d again spend alone, cold, and ill, or the potential for violence in the hours and days to come. Then, in unison, they continued on their way along the fence, and the doe leapt away and vanished. Just steps behind him, Cass dutifully counted the posts.

They walked past the Johnson’s field into a stretch of ash and aspen, of pines infected with kale-like lichen and of birch dappled with blooming half-mushrooms. Crowded pines caught the fallen among them, diseased or fully uprooted by wind, blocking the pathway. The overcast evening obscured the forest such that they found themselves waist-deep in thickets before noticing them. For half a mile she stayed within arm’s reach of the wire, tapping it to keep from the barbs. Brambles and twigs and thorns covered her clothes. Her toes froze. She didn’t ask how much farther, and he didn’t tell her.

When he at last stopped, he glanced around and led them fifteen feet away from the fence, into a pocket of woods bordered on one side by a vast silver maple, the arachnid limbs of which straggled off into the indefinite black, the tree an effigy of life itself. She sat on the