The Poacher's Son

by Paul Doiron

  The boy glanced again up the road. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man climb from the Suburban.

  I tried a new approach. “You going fishing this morning?”

  The boy nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “Hey!” The driver of the SUV came walking up fast, holding a pair of spinning rods, one in each fist. He was dressed in a lavender polo shirt and white tennis shorts, and he wore a gold chain around one tanned wrist. His shoulders, neck, and chest were corded with muscle as if from lifting weights in a gym, but his legs looked like they belonged to a skinny teenager. “What’s going on here?”

  “Your son and I were just talking about fishing.”

  “Is that so?” The man approached within a few feet of me, his eyes on a level with my own. An invisible, aromatic cloud of aftershave hung around his head.

  “You two headed out for the day?” I asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “You’ll find some good-sized smallmouth at the south end of the lake where the creek flows in.”

  He didn’t answer at first. “You wanna see my fishing license, right?”

  It wasn’t the way I’d wanted the conversation to go, but so be it. “Thank you. Yes, I would.”

  He transferred both of the rods into one hand and reached into his back pocket. He handed me a folded piece of paper. It was a fifteen-day, nonresident fishing license issued to an Anthony De-Salle, of Revere, Massachusetts. In the summertime it seemed that the entire population of Greater Boston participated in a mass invasion of the Maine coast. You could sit along Route 1, watching the traffic crawl north to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, and for minutes at a time you wouldn’t see a Maine license plate. Tourism was the lifeblood of the local economy, and so it was probably inevitable that these summer people-with their flashy cars and fat wallets-provoked equal amounts of love and hate among my neighbors in Sennebec.

  “And your registration for the boat, too, please,” I said.

  “You gotta be kidding.”

  “No, sir. I’m not. You have no registration stickers on your boat.”

  “I just got them yesterday.”

  “You need to put them on.”

  “I haven’t even gone out onto the fucking water yet!”

  The little boy was watching us with wide eyes.

  “Watch your language, please,” I said.

  “My language? Jesus Christ.” He rummaged in his pocket for his registration. Then, realizing he didn’t have it on him, he dropped the spinning rods at my feet and turned and stormed off toward the Suburban.

  “Mr. DeSalle?” I called after him.

  “It’s in the car!”

  I watched him throw open the door and begin rummaging around inside the vehicle.

  I glanced over at the boy, who was now standing ankle-deep in the water, tightly clutching the boat line. His whole body seemed as taut as the rope.

  A moment later DeSalle came walking back. He waved a piece of paper at me. “Here it is, OK? My goddamned registration.”

  He thrust the paper with the attached validation stickers into my face.

  “Sir,” I said, “your son is watching us. You might think about the example you’re setting for him here.”

  “How I raise my son is my own fucking business, buddy.”

  “You need to cool down, Mr. DeSalle.”

  A sheen of sweat glistened along his forehead. “I’m renting a house on this lake, you know. Fifteen hundred bucks a week!”

  I glanced down at the registration. Then I handed him his papers back. “I hope you have an enjoyable vacation.”

  He jammed both documents into the front pocket of his shorts. “Yeah, I bet you do.” He brushed past me and waded out toward the floating boat, grabbing the rope away from the boy. “Pick up those fishing poles.”

  The boy approached me cautiously, with one eye on the gun at my side. I bent down and picked up the rods and handed them one by one to him. “Here you go. I hope you catch a big one.”

  “Come on, let’s go!” DeSalle stuck the new registration stickers onto the bow of the boat.

  The boy hurried out into the water. His father grabbed the rods away and threw them into the powerboat. The boy tried to scramble over the gunwale, but he lost his footing and fell back with a splash into the water. DeSalle glowered. The boy stood up quickly, his rear end soaking wet. He grabbed the gunwale and pulled himself into the boat. I could see him blinking back tears.

  “Don’t you cry,” said his father.

  I took a step toward them. “May I see your flotation devices, please?”

  DeSalle spun around. “My what?”

  “Your flotation devices.”

  “This is harassment!” He glared at me fiercely, and then, when I didn’t budge, he reached over the gunnel and held up an orange life jacket. “Here it is, OK?”

  “You’re required to have two personal flotation devices, Mr. DeSalle. Do you have another one?”

  He searched the boat with his eyes. The boy followed his gaze, as if wanting to help him find what he was looking for, but his father paid no attention to him.

  Finally, DeSalle turned back to me. “No. That’s it. So write your fucking ticket and get it over with.”

  “I need to see your driver’s license, Mr. DeSalle.”

  For a second, I think he expected me to wade out to get it, but when I didn’t budge, he splashed back to the boat ramp. I summonsed him for having insufficient personal flotation devices, wrote down the date he would need to appear at the District Court in Rockland if he wanted to contest the fine, and handed him the ticket to sign. Throughout it all, he managed to keep his mouth shut, and I began to think he had smartened up, but as he thrust my pen back at me, he said, “So what happened? Did you wash out of real cop school or something?”

  “Mr. DeSalle, you better think carefully before you say another word.”

  I tore off the summons and handed it to him, and he crumpled it into his fist. For an instant I thought he might toss the paper into the pond, but instead he shoved it deep into his pocket.

  “You’re going to have to find another PFD before I can let you onto the water,” I said.

  “You’re fucking kidding.”

  “No, sir. And I asked you to watch your language.”

  We stared at each other a long moment, his eyes looking redder and redder, and then he snapped his head around to face the boy. “Get out of the boat.”

  “Dad?” the boy said.

  “Get out of the boat! Ranger Rick says we can’t go fishing.” De-Salle swung back around on me. “Thanks for ruining my kid’s day.”

  “Don’t push your luck, sir.”

  I expected him to have a smart-mouthed answer for that, but instead he just strode off toward the parked SUV.

  The boy was standing knee-deep in the water, holding the boat line again in his fists. His mouth was clenched and his eyes were fierce. Whether his anger was directed at me, at his father, or at himself, I couldn’t say. Probably it was all three. Then the Suburban came roaring in reverse down the ramp, pushing the trailer expertly into the water.

  DeSalle hopped out of the cab of the vehicle, leaving the door open and the engine running. “Stay out of the way,” he told his son, snatching the nylon line from the boy’s hands.

  From the top of the ramp I watched while DeSalle winched the powerboat onto the trailer. It took him a few minutes to secure it in place. As he worked, he kept his eyes from drifting in my direction. He had made a decision to pretend I was no longer there. Maybe he realized how close he was dancing to the edge.

  My last look at the boy was through the window of the SUV as they pulled onto the road. DeSalle was talking to him-I could see his mouth moving, a flash of teeth. The boy was pressed down in his seat, chin tucked close to his chest, shoulders hunched against the barrage of his father’s words. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine what the rest of the day was going to be like for that kid.

  5

  Ha
lf an hour later I was parked along an ATV trail in the woods near Bud Thompson’s farm. I was waiting for Kathy Frost to show up with the culvert trap, but all I could think about was that asshole DeSalle. Every time I pictured his kid’s frightened face, I just got madder.

  My cell phone rang. It was the state police dispatch in Augusta.

  The dispatcher told me a woman had just reported a nuisance bear, this time on the Bog Road, on the far side of the Catawamkeg Bog from where I was parked. “She sounded pretty worked up about it,” said the dispatcher. “She wanted me to call in the National Guard.”

  Kathy was 10-76, or en route, when I caught up with her by phone. I told her to meet me at the address the dispatcher had just given me. She didn’t apologize for being late.

  The Catawamkeg Bog was a nearly trackless expanse of woods and wetlands, maybe ten miles in diameter, surrounded by some of the most prime real estate on the midcoast. Most people I met didn’t even know this little postage stamp of wilderness existed-which was just fine by me if discovery meant trees being cut down and new subdivisions going up. There was no direct route across the bog, except by ATV or snowmobile, so it took me longer than I’d hoped to circle around to the far side and find the address.

  It was a neat and tidy little place that reminded me of a bluebird house. White trim and shutters, bright flower beds of chrysanthemums and geraniums kept alive in the heat by the regular application of generous amounts of tap water, a perfectly edged brick walkway leading up to the front door. No one seemed to be home. The windows were all closed; the shades were drawn. And no sign of a bear anywhere.

  I knocked at the door.

  No one answered.

  I knocked again.

  “Who’s there?” whispered a woman’s voice.

  “Game warden,” I said. “You called about a bear?”

  Slowly the door opened a crack. A chain was stretched across the opening. Through it I saw half of a very small woman’s face and the darkened interior of her house.

  “It’s about time! I called nearly an hour ago.” She looked past me in the direction of my truck. “They only sent one of you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But it’s still out there! The bear!”

  “Tell me what happened, Mrs.-?”

  “Hersom.” She looked to be in her late fifties, a pale, sinewy woman, with deep-set eyes and hair like a rusted Brillo pad. She closed the door, unfastened the chain, and swung the door open again. “Come in, quick!”

  I stepped inside. Mrs. Hersom closed and locked the door behind me.

  “You don’t need to do that, Mrs. Hersom. The bear’s not going to try to get in.”

  “Ha!” Mrs. Hersom literally threw her head back when she laughed, like the villain in a Hollywood B movie. “That’s what you think. Well, take a look at this.”

  She spun around and hurried off down a darkened little hall. The inside of the house looked as spic-and-span as the outside, not a hint of dust or disorder anywhere. But an acrid odor-like burnt bacon-hung in the air.

  The smell was stronger in the kitchen where Mrs. Hersom stood waiting for me. She thrust her arm out, index finger extended at the back door.

  I didn’t notice anything.

  “Open it,” she said. “But be careful!”

  I unbolted the door and opened it. Beyond was an aluminum-frame screen door, nearly yanked off its hinges. The metal was bent, the screen shredded. “The bear did this?”

  Mrs. Hersom crossed her arms across her narrow breasts. “No, I did it. Of course the bear did it.”

  I straightened up. “Tell me what happened, Mrs. Hersom.”

  “I was cooking breakfast. I had the door open and that window there.” She pointed her chin at the window. “And suddenly I heard this noise behind me. It sounded like a knock and I thought it might be the little boy who lives down the street. He comes over for lemonade. So I said, ‘Who’s there?’ Then I heard another noise, and I turned around. And there was this huge black bear leaning against the screen door, trying to come in. I just about fainted!”

  She didn’t strike me as the fainting type. “Then what happened?”

  “I shut the door. What do you think I did? Invited it in?”

  “And the bear clawed the screen?”

  “Not at first. First it came around to that window. It stood up and stuck its head inside, like it wanted to climb in, but it couldn’t, so it went back around to the screen door and started tearing it apart. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well, my daughter had left this thing outside-what do you call it?-a Thighmaster.”

  “A Thighmaster?”

  “You know, one of those exercise thingies you squeeze between your thighs. She had left it in the backyard. I looked out the window and the bear had the Thighmaster in its teeth. It was chewing on it and clawing at it and tossing it in the air.” Mrs. Hersom’s eyes grew wide. “I kept thinking, ‘That Thighmaster could be me!’ ”

  “How long ago did this all happen?”

  “Forty-five, fifty minutes. If you hadn’t taken so long to get here, you might have been in time to shoot it. Why do you let those things run around wild?”

  “I’m sure you were scared, Mrs. Hersom, but black bears rarely harm human beings.”

  “Don’t patronize me. That thing was dangerous. If I’d had a gun, I would have shot it. My daughter has a gun, and I’m going to borrow it.”

  “That’s not a good idea, Mrs. Hersom. Believe me, you did the right thing in calling the police.”

  My pager buzzed on my belt. Kathy’s cell number showed on the display. “Excuse me. My sergeant is trying to reach me.”

  “You’re going to shoot it, right?”

  “No, ma’am. Not unless I have to.”

  “Well, what if it comes back?”

  “Excuse me just one second.”

  Kathy’s voice was full of merriment. “Guess what just ran across the road in front of me?”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “I’m at the corner of Bog and Tolman. Get over here.”

  I said, “I need to go, Mrs. Hersom. The bear was just seen up the road.”

  “What about me?”

  I backed out of the kitchen. “I’ll come back. Close your doors and windows for now, and you’ll be OK.”

  She followed me down the hall. “Who’s going to pay for my screen door?”

  “I need to go, Mrs. Hersom.”

  She called after me down the walk, “If you see that bear, shoot it!”

  I found Kathy’s new GMC parked in the shade of some trees, a mile up the road. The trailer with the culvert trap was hitched to the back of it. Kathy was nowhere to be seen, but a ticked-off red squirrel was chattering in the beeches at the side of the road.

  I pushed through some dusty roadside raspberries and found my sergeant standing underneath an old beech, looking up at the squirrel perched on a limb above her head. The little animal was scolding her as if she had given it offense.

  “I hate to tell you,” I said, “but that’s not a bear.”

  “And I was just thinking we could have used a smaller trap.”

  “So where did it go?”

  “Over there. Into the bog.”

  Kathy Frost was a tall, sun-freckled woman with a bob of sandy hair and the toned arms and legs of a basketball player. Her uniform had a huge stain over her right breast.

  She noticed where I was looking. “Breakfast burrito,” she confessed sheepishly.

  “Actually, I was checking you out.”

  “In your dreams.”

  We spread out a topo map of the area across the hood of my truck and put our heads together. Kathy’s bug repellent of choice was Avon Skin So Soft, a perfumed lotion that gave her a feminine scent that seemed at odds with her mannish body language. Sarah had used that same lotion whenever we went hiking. In spite of myself, I found myself losing focus on what Kathy was now telling me.r />
  She guessed that the bear was ranging out from a cedar swamp, roughly midway between Bud Thompson’s farm and the Bog Road. “In the winter,” she said, “that swamp’s a primo deer yard. They really bunch up under those cedars to get out of the snow. I could see your bear using it for cover from the heat.”

  On my map a dotted line indicated an old logging trail that led from the road down into the heart of the swamp. That road seemed to offer the best access into the bear’s territory.

  Getting down it with the trailer was another story. About fifty yards in, we came across a fallen tree-a storm-toppled spruce-that we had to winch out of the way before we could drive any farther. Then Kathy nearly got her truck stuck in a dry rivulet that had been carved in the road during the spring runoff.

  A few hundred yards in we found the remains of a burned house. It was just a weed- and bottle-filled cellar hole today, but once, maybe a hundred years ago, someone had built himself a house there and chopped down the cedars and hemlocks to clear a yard. Now the forest had closed back in around the foundation, and wild rhubarb and sumac grew thick and tangled around the blackened stone walls. It was as if the place had somehow managed to slide backward into the past.

  Kathy stopped her truck in front of me and got out. “Did you see those fresh claw marks on that beech back there?”

  “I guess I missed them.”

  “Let’s have a look around. I think this just might be the spot.”

  Does a bear shit in the woods? You’d better believe it. Kathy found scat in the road beyond the cellar hole. She crouched down and broke the black turd apart with a stick.

  “It looks like dog shit,” I said.

  “That’s because he’s eating meat. If he was eating berries, it would be gloppier-like a cow patty.”

  “Gloppier?”

  “See how the grass is still green under the scat? That means it’s fresh. Now you see what I mean when I say a warden really needs to know his shit.”

  I groaned.

  Her knees cracked as she straightened up again. “Let’s set that trap, Grasshopper.”

  The trap itself was a barrel-shaped tube-identical to the metal culverts that run beneath roads-three feet in diameter and about seven feet long, perforated with holes the size of tennis balls. The culvert was welded sled-like to a pair of angle-iron runners that attached to the trailer. One end of the tube was closed with a heavy grate; the other consisted of a steel door that could be propped open and then triggered to fall shut when a bear upset the bait pan inside.