Chapter 25
King Muldoon
A steel-gray winter sky lay over the snowy December landscape. Ingman Loken and Blackie Jackson crossed the lake in one of the Namakagon Timber Company’s cutters and headed west to the dam. With a snap of the reins Ingman urged the horse up the bank. He pulled alongside the dam tender’s building.
Two other rigs were tied in front of the fieldstone structure. One was an enclosed cutter, fashionably trimmed. Hitched to it were two handsome white stallions sporting black harnesses with silver trim. Through the building’s frost-covered windows Ingman could see two oil lamps glowing. He stepped out of the Loken cutter, wrapped the reins around a nearby post, and entered the office. Blackie followed.
“Good afternoon. I’m Ingman Loken, woods boss from across the lake.”
The three men there, two standing and one seated at a roll-top desk, turned. One spoke. “Who did you say you are?”
“Ingman. Ingman Loken. I’m with the Namakagon Timber Company. This here is Blackie. We got wind that somebody bought up the dam and we came to bid you folks a welcome.”
“Well, well,” muttered the short, white-haired man seated at the desk, “so you are Ingman Loken, are you? Hmm. My name is Muldoon, King Muldoon. I own this dam. There! Now we know who we are, don’t we.”
He peered at Ingman and Blackie. His neatly pressed business suit looked out of place this far back in the woods. “So then, you have bid us your welcome. Now, Ingman Loken, say goodbye.” He turned back to his desk.
Ingman and Blackie stood silent for a moment before Ingman spoke. “Me and Olaf, my brother, would like to invite you to our camp for a glass of brandy and some neighborly talk, Phineas. We’re not ten minutes by sleigh.”
“Not interested,” said Muldoon, studying his ledger. “And you would do well to call me King. King Muldoon is how I am regarded, Loken. I have no time to waste talking with you or your brother. Now get off my property.”
“Phineas, we have better than two million board feet of pine layin’ on the ice and we expect to put up three times that by ice out. We want your word that our logs will make it over the dam. Why not come to the camp and we can talk things over like good neighbors, eh, Phineas?”
“Good neighbors? Now you see here, Loken, you and that cripple on the other side of the lake hoodwinked me out of those six sections of timber north of here. I know you did and you’d be a fool to deny it. Now, you come here, asking me to sit by your fire sipping brandy with you like we are dear friends. Just who the hell do you think you’re dealing with? I—am—King—Muldoon. I buy and sell outfits like yours just for my amusement. You want to meet, Loken? Well, fine! Bring along the deed to your camp. Now, get out.”
“We bought legal claim to those six sections by outbidding you. We didn’t do anything you haven’t done a hundred times before. No reason our two businesses can’t show some mutual respect, Phineas.”
“Mutual respect, indeed. There is not one damn thing mutual about our businesses. I am King Muldoon. I own more lumber camps than you have shanty boys. I own four mills, two boom companies on the St. Croix and, now, Ingman Loken, I–own–this–dam. You want to talk business, neighbor, well here it is. You can float your pine down this river. I won’t stand in your way. In fact, I welcome you, just like a good neighbor should. Bring your pine, Loken. Bring it across the lake, down the narrows and over the dam. I’ll show you what a good neighbor I can be. But I will also show you just what a good businessman I am. Each log will cost you forty … no, fifty cents, Loken. So bring your pine and bring your money or, if you want to be put out of your misery like the lame horses you Lokens are, just bring me your damn deed. Now get off my property or I’ll have you arrested for trespass.”
“Ya, ya, ya—King Muldoon. You’re a big businessman with a lot of land and mills and camps, and now a dam. But you don’t own the water. Nobody owns the water—King. And, as big as your outfit is, it ain’t never gonna be bigger than the government of the State of Wisconsin—King. You yust go right ahead and try to wring a quarter, even a penny out of us for our saw logs and you will find yourself in an arm-wrestle you can’t win. Mind my words—King, the only arm that’s gonna get broke is yours. Ya, sure, you own a lot, but you got it off the sweat and blood and backs of others. You cheated your way to fortune. Well—King, you ain’t gonna increase your winnings by bilkin’ us, you puny, slicked-up swindler.”
Muldoon turned back to the desk. The old man opened a drawer and pulled out a large revolver. His two men dashed to the far corners of the room. Blackie stepped closer to the door and pulled it open.
“What do you think you’re gonna do with that, Phineas?” said Ingman.
“King!” the old man screamed. “You–will–call–me–King!”
Bang! Bang! Muldoon shot into the wall behind Ingman.
Blackie dove through the open doorway, over the steps, into the snow.
Bang! A third shot rang out, the bullet ricocheting off the ceiling and shattering a window.
Ingman stood his ground. “Looks to me like you’re one of them businessmen who can’t succeed without the help of a revolver. ’Round here, we have a name for them, King, we call them outlaws. You shoot me and you’ll be in prison until you die.”
Muldoon stepped closer, pointing the pistol at Ingman’s chest and shaking with rage. “Get off my property, Loken. Next time I see any of your shanty boys on my land I swear to God I will have them shot dead for trespass.”
Ingman turned, calmly walked out, then turned again. “We’re not done, Phineas. You don’t own the gol dang water and you will not levy the Namakagon Timber Company a tariff for floating our pine over the dam.”
Bang! Bang! King Muldoon shot twice more into the ceiling as Ingman walked out, leaving the door wide open.
As they crossed the lake toward the camp again, Blackie turned to Ingman. “That ol’ fool damn near shot you, Boss.”
“Wrong on both counts, Blackie. First, he had no intention of goin’ to yail for shootin’ a competitor. And, second, Phineas Muldoon is no fool. No siree, my friend, Muldoon is no fool.”