by Paul Doiron
* * *
The road down the mountain had begun to get slick. Cars lined up behind me. Most of the traffic was heading south on Route 16, back into Rangeley. I turned north onto the stretch of highway everyone called Moose Alley.
The road deserved its name. The slow-flowing Dead River ran along one side, slithering through a lowland of swamp maples and gray birches: a landscape custom-made for moose. In all seasons, there was something good for them to eat within a few feet of the unfenced road. During warm-weather months, moose loved to hang out in the open, where the breeze could push away some of the biting flies that followed them, and they could submerge themselves in refreshing pools while dining on catkins and water lilies. When the cold weather came, the animals would switch to a diet of evergreen needles and pinecones. They also enjoyed licking up the mineral-rich salt from the asphalt itself.
On average each year, four hundred Maine drivers collide with a moose. Most humans survive the encounters (albeit with totaled vehicles and broken bones); far fewer moose do. I kept my eyes open and both hands on the steering wheel, ready for what might come crashing out of nowhere.
I hadn’t imagined Don Foss Logging would be hard to find. There was pretty much only one road through Kennebago, and I was on it, driving slowly enough that I should have been able to spot a business sign, even half-hidden behind the falling snow. But somehow I managed to miss it.
When I came to the crossroads in Bigelow half an hour later, I knew I had gone too far. I supposed I could have called Pulsifer for directions. He was the district warden, after all. When we’d spoken on the phone the day before, he had invited me to drop in the next time I was in town. Wouldn’t he be surprised to see me pull up outside his farm.
Instead, I decided to drive into the village. Bigelow was a haven for snowmobilers who raced up and down the trails to Quebec, ran shopping errands on their sleds the way people elsewhere did in their cars, and lined the streets with their parked snow machines.
I stopped at the first business that looked open, a general store with a North Woods vibe.
Most of the crowd inside consisted of sledders in snowmobile suits that made them look fat, even if they weren’t, and caused them to rustle and clomp when they walked to the registers with their bottles of sodas and bags of chips. At the lunch counter sat a couple of French-Canadian truckers coming from or going to the border crossing twenty-seven miles to the north, where my late grandfather had once worked. Beside them sat a couple of well-appointed skiers, lost on the road from Widowmaker to Sugarloaf.
To me, this scene felt like coming home. My grandparents, whom I’d never met, had lived nearby in Chain of Ponds, and I had spent an itinerant childhood living with my mom and dad in these same sorts of backwoods hamlets. The suburbs around Portland, where my mom and I later took up residence, and where I went to high school, and now worked, would always feel to me like a place of exile.
“Can you give me some directions?” I asked the very pregnant woman clearing plates behind the lunch counter.
“That depends.” She had an acne-spotted face but a pleasant way about her. “Where’re you headed?”
“I’m looking for a logging company.”
“Cabot’s? They’re over in Rangeley.”
“No. Foss’s.”
You might have thought I’d asked her to guide me to the nearest whorehouse. “Why are you asking me?”
“I thought if you worked here, you might know.”
“I never go out that way.”
“Which way?”
“Are you going to order something or not? I’m too busy to make chitchat.”
She spun away from the counter before I could place an actual order (the truth was, I was famished). I did a quick scan of the store, searching for someone else who could give directions to the local sex-offender sanctuary. Few faces looked promising. If the people who owned Widowmaker condos didn’t appreciate having convicted rapists, pedophiles, and pornographers living among them, why should I have expected their poorer neighbors to be more welcoming?
Rather than taking a seat between the truckers and the skiers, I grabbed a bottle of Moxie from the cooler, a couple of slices of pizza from the heated cabinet near the register, and a pint of Jim Beam for later. Stacey had been nagging me to cut down on the gas-station breakfast sandwiches and fried chicken that made up so many of my meals while at work.
The door blew open again and a person hurried in from the cold.
I mistook him for a boy at first, he was so short. He was dressed in an oversized lumberman’s coat, jeans, and pack boots. His shoulders were heaped with snow, and there was a layer of frost on a brown fur hat that looked like nothing so much as a sleeping mammal.
The small person hadn’t taken three steps inside before the clerk behind the register—a bearded dude who had the lordly bearing of the store owner—shouted, “Out, Mink!”
The voice that issued from his small body was shockingly deep: “But it’s snowing!”
“You know you’re not allowed in here.”
“I need a ride home.”
“So hitchhike.”
“But no one’s on the road. It’s a freaking storm out there.”
“I’m not kidding around, Mink.”
The little man let out an audible huff. It reminded me of a sound an exasperated teenager might make. Before he ventured outside again, he paused at the door to deliver one last appeal. “If I freeze to death, it’ll be on your conscience.”
“Out!”
“I’ll probably get hit by a freaking snowplow.”
As the door slammed shut, the owner rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “That guy.”
When it came my turn to pay, I asked, “What’s his story?”
“Buddy, you don’t even want to know,” he replied with amusement.
“Tell me,” I said. “What did he do?’
My interest must have made the owner suspicious, because his tone hardened. “Forget about him. He’s harmless.”
One of the things I have learned about Maine villages is that every one has its mascot (if not its idiot). He or she might be a a developmentally disabled boy who likes to greet you at the gas pump, or a brain-damaged logger who got hit by a falling tree. Some of these people are objects of great local affection and are treated with protectiveness. Others are regarded more as nuisances who might try your patience from time to time but who are ultimately, grudgingly accepted as members of the community.
Mink, whoever he was, seemed to fall into the latter category. Nothing about his speech suggested he was mentally or physically impaired in any way. But I had seen enough scenes like the one with the store owner to recognize the status the little man occupied among the good people of Bigelow.
The visibility was getting worse by the minute. It wasn’t the storm of the century; we were just being dumped on. Welcome to winter in the Maine mountains, I thought. At least the skiers and sledders would be celebrating.
I intercepted Mink a hundred yards down the road. He had his collar up against the wind and his bare hands dug into his pockets and was trudging determined in the direction of the crossroads. I rolled the window down as I pulled up beside him.
“Need a lift?”
He scrambled into the Scout so fast, I barely had a chance to clear the junk from the passenger seat.
“It’s colder than the North Pole out there.” There was not the faintest trace of a Maine accent in his speech.
“Where are you headed?”
“Kennebago Settlement.”
“That’s a long walk! Especially in this weather.”
“Usually, it’s not such a slog, you know. My mom has a place in Bigelow. I like to check in on the old bird every couple of days. She makes me dinner.”
Seen up close, his features appeared more unusual than when I’d briefly glimpsed them inside the store. Beneath his fur hat—which might well have been mink—he had jet-black hair that looked dyed, a nose that had been broken more than
once, and a nasty scar on his chin. His fragrance was also distinctive. He smelled like he’d just emerged from a vat of cologne.
“My name’s Mike,” I said.
“Mink.”
“I don’t meet many people with that name.”
“I like to stand out.”
I knew the answer to my next question. “Did you grow up around here?”
“Nah, man. I’m from Jersey. What kind of antique vehicle is this? It rides rougher than Farmer Brown’s tractor.”
“It’s an International Harvester Scout Two.” I resisted telling him how much I had paid for the custom-restored four-by-four. “Can I ask you something?”
“Why stop now?” he said with a laugh.
“I’m looking for a business around here, but I can’t seem to find it. Can you give me directions?”
“That depends. Where do you want to go?”
“Don Foss Logging,” I said. “Ever heard of it?”
He unsnapped his seat belt. “Stop the vehicle!”
I hit the brakes so hard, we began to slide. I wasn’t sure what I should focus on: keeping the Scout from crashing into a telephone pole or protecting myself from the suddenly frantic man to my right.
I steered in the direction of the skid. “Hey, man. It’s all right. Don’t get upset.”
“I want to get out.”
“I’m going to let you out—as soon as we stop sliding.”
After a few tense seconds, the Scout came to rest with the passenger side pressed against a snowbank. Mink jerked the handle up and down and threw his shoulder against the door. I heard metal scrape against ice as he tried to pry it open, and groaned internally at the thought of my damaged paint.
“Stop! Let me pull forward so you can get out.”
He whipped his furry head around. Bright tears sparkled in his eyes. His voice had risen to a higher pitch. “It’s not funny, you know? Playing jokes on people.”
“I’m not playing a joke on you.”
His mouth curled in disgust, and he slunk against the door. “I’m not going to blow you, if that’s what you’re after. I don’t go that way.”
“What?”
His nostrils flared with disgust. “I’m not a freaking pervert. I am not like those creeps who live at Foss’s.”
“Mink?”
“I’m a law-abiding citizen!”
“Mink?”
He wiped the tears from his cheeks and squared his luxuriant hat on his head. “What?”
“This is all a misunderstanding,” I said. “I just heard you needed a ride. I thought you might be able to give me directions. I don’t know anything about you, and I don’t care. I just need directions to Foss’s.”
The windshield wipers beat steadily back and forth.
“Why do you want to go to that shithole?” he asked, suddenly curious.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“Does to me.”
“I’m a game warden.” I opened my wallet and showed him my badge. “There’s someone I need to talk to at Foss’s.”
He sat up in his seat, but he could still barely see above the dash. “Is it that piece of trash Butera? Because he doesn’t live there anymore.”
“So you know where it is?”
“I know where it is.”
“Can you show me on the map?” I reached for the dog-eared DeLorme atlas under my seat. I opened to the page showing this corner of Franklin County.
Mink squinted at the coffee-stained page as if he desperately needed reading glasses. “It would be better if I guided you in person. You won’t find it on your own.”
Clearly he hoped to ride along now that he realized I was a law-enforcement officer. He wanted to know who I was looking for, because the Rangeley Lakes region was essentially one big small town, and he was one of its snoops.
“I can’t take you along with me,” I said.
He removed his fur hat and shook off some of the melted snow from the pelt. Then he ran his hand through his dyed hair, causing it to stand up. He had the face of a boxer, if there was a division below flyweight. “Why? Will it be dangerous?”
Now who is the one asking invasive questions? I thought.
“I just can’t do it,” I said firmly.
He moved his tongue around his mouth so that one cheek bulged, then the other. “All right. You can drop me at my house first. The road to Foss’s is just past that. I’ll point you where you need to go.”
He snapped his seat belt back into the latch and made himself comfortable for the ride.
15
Mink hummed to himself as we drove back down Moose Alley. I didn’t recognize the tune, but he carried it well.
“Do you know Charley Stevens?” he asked out of nowhere.
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“I figured, since you are both wardens.”
“He’s retired now.”
“That makes sense. Charley and his wife, Ora, used to have a place on Flagstaff Pond before Wendigo bought up all that land. Good people.”
It shouldn’t have been so surprising. Flagstaff Pond was just down the road from Bigelow, and Charley had been a familiar and friendly presence in the woods around here for decades. I had plenty of misgivings about this character Mink, but if he liked and respected the Stevenses, he couldn’t be too bad.
“Do you know their daughter Stacey?” I asked.
“Which one is she? The blonde or the brunette?”
“The brunette.”
“Yeah, I remember her. She’s got great eyebrows.”
Those were not the features I personally would have identified as her best, but I supposed her eyebrows might have warranted the compliment.
Now that we had gotten over our initial misunderstanding, Mink seemed eager to chat again. “What did you say your last name was again?”
“Bowditch.”
“Oh yeah, I know who you are now. Your dad was a scary guy. He used to come into the Bear’s Den when I was washing dishes, and the whole place would go quiet. Even from inside the kitchen, I could hear the dining room go dead.”
It had been a long time since I had felt so defined by my father’s reputation. But what had I expected, returning to his old hunting grounds? Jack Bowditch had been infamous, never more than in his last days.
“How did you end up in Kennebago?” I asked. “You said you were from Jersey?”
“South Orange. My dad had a hunting camp in Kennebago. He sent me up here to stay for a while. Wanted to make a man out of me. That was a long time ago. He’s dead now. Heart attack. My mom moved up a few years ago. She hates it here, the old bird. Says there’s no culture. Personally, I think she’s lonely because she’s too high-and-mighty to make friends.”
“Do you still work at the Bear’s Den?”
He let out a laugh. “That dump? No way. Don’t ever eat there. You’ll get intestinal parasites.”
I had a bad habit of always asking one question too many. “Does the name Adam Langstrom mean anything to you?”
“The kid who raped the girl at ASA?” He swung his head around, dark eyes opening wide. “Is he the creep you’re looking for at Foss’s? I’d heard he was living with that freaking crackpot since he got out.”
We drove on for another five minutes without seeing a single vehicle. At no time did my speedometer top thirty miles per hour.
“Do they call you Mink because of the hat?” I asked.
“Nah. My real name is Minkowski. Nathan Minkowski.” He leaned against the dash suddenly. “Take a left here.”
I turned down a wooded camp road, unnamed and unmarked except for two signs at the corner. One was a HOME FOR SALE notice with an arrow pointing into the forest. The other said DEAD END. My tires made a crunching noise as we left the highway and crept into the woods.
“You actually live up here?” I said.
“Yeah.”
Fortunately, the plow had recently come through. It had scattered a gritty carpet of sand across the wo
ods road to make the going easier.
“Who plows this road for you?” I asked.
“There’s a guy who does it,” my passenger said.
Sparsely populated townships like Kennebago, which were part of Maine’s Unorganized Territories, did not have public works departments. The handful of people who lived within its boundaries relied on the state to provide municipal services. Most of the North Woods consisted of remote plantations and townships whose residents were effectively serfs under the rule of distant czars.
A hundred yards in, we passed a homestead made up of a single farmhouse and assorted sheds and barns. It had seen better days—half a century earlier. There was a sign out front announcing that this was the property for sale and that the price had been reduced. But no one seemed to be at home.
“Who’s your neighbor?” I asked, slowing down.
“Just some mook.”
Densely branched evergreens closed in around us. Snow pillowed the dark boughs and clung tightly to the electric line that stretched from pole to pole overhead: the only indication that anyone else might actually be living farther up in these woods. Little by little, we made our way up a hill, heading east. So far, we had passed only that single house.
I noticed that some of the higher branches had been broken by big trucks coming through. That should have been the tip-off.
We came around a corner and saw the gate with the sign. I read the notice in the glow of my headlights.
PRIVATE PROPERTY
ACCESS BY PERMISSION ONLY
24 HR VIDEO SURVEILLENCE
The sign included a number to call if you wanted someone to come let you onto the property.
“This isn’t your house,” I said. “This is Foss’s place.”
“Yeah, I shouldn’t have fibbed.”
I found myself wishing International Harvester had put ejector seats in their Scout IIs.
