Almost Midnight

by Paul Doiron

  Shadow, Billy, Dani—untangling the threads of my life was daunting. Too daunting to be done while driving along a shadow-draped road. What I needed was a chair beside a fire.

  Not that long ago cell phones had played a small part in my day-to-day life. Maine seemed to be one giant dead zone. (Sometimes it still did.) Back then, I hadn’t appreciated what it meant to be inaccessible. I mourned that lost epoch now. It had been easier to think, and think clearly, in those long lost silences.

  * * *

  The gate was bolted when I came to the end of the Tantrattle Road. I found Ronette’s spare keys where I had tossed them in the center console, got out, knelt in mud becoming gritty with ice crystals, and unsnapped the padlock. The steel arm swung open with the faintest creak. Peter Landry had even greased the pivot for me.

  On the final stretch, my high beams lit up the eyes of some fast-moving critter as it disappeared into the trees. It was too large to be a mink, too upright to be an otter, too dark to be a fox. Most likely it was a fisher, which many people thought was a kind of cat when really it was a supersized weasel. The fearsome hunter was on the prowl for sleeping porcupines.

  The dooryard of the cabin was so heavily matted with sawdust and wood shavings it seemed to give off an ochre glow in the darkness. When my headlights touched the cabin itself, my jaw nearly dropped. That morning it had been a vandalized wreck. Now it was a perfect little cottage.

  As cold as it was, the constellations told me that winter was coming to an end. For the past months I had seen Orion in the east. Now he and his two hunting dogs had crossed the sky to the west, where they would eventually disappear altogether, come summer. Orion always made me think of Billy Cronk, the best tracker of deer I had met since my father died.

  I pulled my duffel from the back seat and hauled it with me up the steps. Peter Landry had replaced the propane tank and left the lines open to the glass lanterns hanging from the ceilings. I waved a match under the mantle of the nearest one until the silk mesh caught fire.

  Peter had left me a dusty box of Sears, Roebuck–brand shotshells atop a stack of even older-looking flesh magazines. The periodicals had names such as Oui and Nugget and Black Busters, and the copious pubic hair on the nude models was a testament to the decades that had passed since their publication.

  The accompanying note was brief and to the point:

  Found these in the walls. Thought you might have some use for them if you get lonely.;-)

  I did have a use for the magazines. I tore them into shreds and wadded them between two pine logs, sprinkled some wood shavings over it, and built a pyramid of kindling over the naked ladies.

  The ancient porn magazines caught easily, then the edges of the kindling began to turn orange, and when I could see that I wouldn’t need to return my fire-starting merit badge, I arranged three logs crosswise over the leaping flames. It was an old stove, this rusted Ranger, but it drew well, and I sat back on my haunches for a minute to take pleasure in what I had built.

  I put a match to every lantern in the cabin. I filled the place with light. No doubt the homey glow could be seen across the half-frozen pond, maybe even from the top of the nearest hill.

  I found an old pail by the door. I trudged through the ankle-deep snow behind the cabin down to Tantrattle Pond. The ice hadn’t entirely refrozen along the edges after a day in the sun. A haze was beginning to settle in over the valley. When I looked at the sky now, it seemed as if a sheet of gauze were stretched between the mountains, and only the brightest stars and planets showed as dull blurs through the canopy of clouds. Mars appeared as a small red stain.

  I broke through the crust and dipped the pail into the inky water and hauled it back with me to set on the stove to boil. I spent five minutes listening for owls or coyotes, but the night was quiet, except for the wind sighing in the boughs. I might have tried calling them, but it would have been an act of profanity: like shouting in a cathedral.

  The builders hadn’t had time to sweep the floors, but they had left me a broom. Before I brought my sleeping bag and pillow inside, along with the rest of my gear, I busied myself brushing out the rooms. The last time I had felt this kind of childish delight was on some Christmas morning long ago.

  I filtered the steaming water through a triple layer of coffee filters to catch the sediment and used it to cook some spaghetti. I stirred the tomato sauce in with the drained pasta and sprinkled on hot-pepper flakes. When I was done with dinner, I refilled the pail to wash my dishes. Then I added a couple of maple logs that would burn all night to the fire. I brushed my teeth with strained water from the pond and climbed, fully dressed, into my sleeping bag. After a minute I got up to open the window above my bed so I could listen to the wind in the trees.

  I was settled. Nothing could touch me. It was a good place to camp.

  * * *

  I awoke to the sound of howling. I sat up with a start. The room was pitch-black. I checked my watch, but the luminous hands had faded. I reached for the little flashlight I had hidden under my pillow alongside my pistol and shone the beam on the dial and saw that it was five minutes until midnight.

  I waited, unsure. Then the howling started again, and it was, without question, a wolf. I had listened to too many recordings—in the event I ever heard Shadow calling again—to be fooled by a dog or coyote. The noise was coming from somewhere high above and far away. It echoed across the natural bowl that contained the pond.

  All of my life I have fought the urge to attribute human thoughts and emotions to animals, not only because I view anthropomorphism as a childish stage of brain development. It is my heartfelt belief that ascribing human traits to other species denies them their uniqueness and dignity as sentient beings. Why can’t we just let wolves be wolves?

  Despite these hardened opinions, the thought came to me as I listened to the eerie, searching sound that this wolf, presumably the female, was calling for her lost packmate. She howled and waited for a response, but the reply did not—and would never—come.

  Let it go.

  I laced my boots and went outside, where I was surprised to find luminous flakes of snow falling silently. The wolf continued to howl. My internal compass placed her somewhere in the general direction of Mount Blue. The night was calm except for those distant wails.

  Feeling my own heart starting to break, I lifted my face to the sky, letting the flakes melt as they landed on warm skin, admitted my own arrogance and ignorance, and surrendered to the mysteries of a universe I knew I could never comprehend.

  In time the female stopped or moved higher up the icy slopes where I could no longer hear her laments. The foolishness of my obsession to capture her overwhelmed me. By the time I returned with a culvert trap, she could be a hundred miles from here. I could only pray that providence would lead her north, farther and farther away from men with guns and bows and snares, and that she would lead a long if lonely life. These were presumptuous prayers, I realized. The wolf was free, and that meant her fate was also beyond my ability to control.

  Too wired to sleep, I returned to the cabin.

  As I was squatting beside the stove, I glanced into the woodbox. To assist me in fire building, Peter had brought over some newspapers along with kindling and firewood from his barn. I had presumed the papers had been old editions, but there was the front page of that morning’s Lewiston Sun Journal.

  In a photograph the Penguin stood at a podium looking flushed, sweaty, and full of rage.

  GOVERNOR PROMISES “TOTAL ENEMA” AT MAINE STATE PRISON

  Always a class act, our chief executive.

  The Penguin had uttered these words in a speech at a breakfast meeting of some chamber of commerce. He said, “While it would be premature to place blame on senior prison officials,” he seemed eager to do just that. Why wait for an investigation when there were political points to be scored?

  I thought of Deputy Warden Angelo Donato, and the concerns he had expressed about his job being in danger in that oddly solicit
ous email. It seemed to me that his boss, the prison warden, would be more likely to take the fall. But the governor didn’t seem to rule out slaughtering a whole herd of scapegoats.

  A sidebar article dealt with the process by which the governor could unconditionally pardon any individual convicted of having committed a state crime. A lawyer on the chief executive’s staff would need to draw up a pardon warrant for submission to the Maine secretary of state. In the case of a person who was still imprisoned, such as Billy, a second document—a warrant of commutation—also needed to be drafted and certified. Copies of those two official documents would then be forwarded to the warden of the institution in which the pardoned person was incarcerated, at which point the door would open and Billy Cronk, in this case, would walk free.

  I was curious to learn how soon that might happen, but the story jumped to another section of the newspaper. I rummaged through the stack, but the pages were missing. I tried to find the answer on my smartphone, but there was no signal.

  In choosing this cabin over lodging with modern amenities, I had hoped to escape the digitized, interconnected world and find some old-fashioned solitude.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  34

  Despite the adrenaline in my bloodstream, I drifted off again and awoke at first light.

  The new snow had reset the calendar and returned the forest to winter, or so it seemed from inside the cabin. When I ventured outside to visit the privy, I was surprised by the mildness of the air upon my skin.

  The temperature was already climbing—into the forties, if I had to guess—and a mist was rising from the layer of slush underfoot and drifting off between the trees. The fog obscured the far side of the pond, but I could hear the otherworldly sounds the ice made as it began melting in the morning heat.

  On the cast-iron skillet I made pancakes from a mix only to realize I had forgotten to bring syrup. Considering the hundreds of sugar maples I had seen nearby—from Mary Gowdie’s operation to the more humble efforts of the Amish—my absentmindedness seemed all the more inexcusable. I had to content myself with a lather of butter.

  Paul Panagore’s voice mail had been tossing and turning in my brain all night. The bolt that had pierced Shadow’s lung had been purchased individually and not as part of a pack. Someone had applied a price tag to the fletching. The only friction ridges on the shaft had been left by a person with small fingers.

  Using water I heated atop the stove, I washed my crucial areas but didn’t bother shaving. I put on a green chamois shirt over an oatmeal Henley, tin-cloth logging pants, and the L.L. Bean boots I wore every day during Mud Season. I attached my holstered P239 and badge to my belt along with my handcuffs in their clip-on case. Then I buttoned over everything the last gift my mom had given me before she died: an expensive Fjällräven trekking jacket I would never have purchased on my own. I wore the raincoat as a reminder of her, just as I wore my father’s dog tags on a chain around my neck in bittersweet remembrance of a man I had both loved and hated.

  If anything, the fog had grown even thicker since I’d last ventured out. When I reached the gate, I realized I should have checked the woods around the cabin for new game cameras. Knowing Ronette Landry, she had installed a full complement, hidden in spots even a squirrel would be hard-pressed to find.

  By the time I turned south onto the Rangeley Road, the morning commute—such as it was—had begun. The residents of Phillips, Avon, Intervale, and the upriver townships were headed into Farmington and perhaps as far away as Waterville and Augusta. It was Friday, I realized.

  I arrived at Fairbanks Firearms mere minutes after my uncle Denis had opened the store for the day. As before, a buzzer went off when I pulled open the door. This morning, the shop smelled of dead fish.

  I found my uncle in the corner using a broken-off pool skimmer to ladle dozens of dead shiners from one of the bait tanks.

  “Did the aerator give out?”

  “Either that or these fish committed mass suicide.” He was wearing glasses this morning, shooting-style yellow specs. “What do you want now?”

  “Just browsing again. Don’t mind me.”

  “I have always minded you.”

  I made my way down the aisle with the bucket of arrows and the plastic containers of broadheads. The same model arrowhead Ronette had found in Peaslee’s truck was on sale. I removed a three-pack for purchase. I did the same with three Spider-Bite X2s. Each of the carbon fiber bolts had price tags on the fletching. The stickers said the arrows retailed for five dollars apiece.

  I called to my uncle from across the store. “Do you ever get the Amish in here?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do they purchase?”

  “Oh, you know, GPS receivers, fish finders, night-vision scopes—they’re into all those high-tech electronic devices.”

  I brought my purchases to the counter and laid them down beside the register.

  Denis was too sharp not to understand that my shopping trip was bad news for him. He wandered over, still clutching the skimmer, which now had a coating of slime on the netting.

  “You’re not going to let this go?” he said with a sigh.

  I motioned to the bows and crossbows strung together on a bike chain, hanging off a rack. “I’d like one of those crossbows, too.”

  Without a word he unlocked the cable. I reached for the crossbow I’d handled on my prior visit. It had a black synthetic stock, an aluminum frame, cheap sights, and no mounting rail for a scope. The tag identified the piece of junk as a Blood Eagle Tactical.

  “So what makes this a tactical model?”

  “It’s painted black. And it costs ten bucks more than the nontactical version.”

  “Ring me up.”

  The total bill came to less than a hundred dollars.

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to sign up for our rewards program?”

  “Only if you tell me who you sold these items to recently.”

  “I already told you I don’t rat on my customers. I’m not sure why you thought buying this shit would entice me to open my mouth.”

  “I took that bolt to the Maine State Crime Lab to have it tested, Uncle Denis. I know it came from your store.”

  “Is that what passes for CSI work with you wardens?”

  I felt the skin beneath my collar grow warm. “Look, I know you resent me—”

  “Don’t think that makes you special. There are lots of people in the world I hate.”

  “Including my mom?”

  I expected a cruel remark, but he let out a gasp instead. “I never hated your mother.”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t scoff at me. Marie was my baby sister. I would have done anything for her. That’s God’s honest truth. We were raised by my parents to believe there was nothing—nothing—more important than family.” He pushed his shooting glasses up his nose. Smoothed the corners of his mustache. “Your mother broke our hearts. Not just mine but all of ours. You might not remember the little VW I fixed up for her when things were going to hell with your old man. But I bet you remember going to stay with your aunt Michelle in Portland when your parents split. How long did you two live in that apartment? Six months? Eight months? And your mom never paid her sister a dime for room or board. Instead, after she married your asshat stepfather, she treated us like dog shit she couldn’t wipe off her shoe fast enough. Your mom was a selfish, spoiled person when she was a baby, and she was a selfish, spoiled person the day she died. If you have a problem with me saying that, we can go outside so you can kick my ass, like your dad used to do.”

  Whatever I had expected coming through the door, it hadn’t been a cri de coeur. Now I was the one unable to sustain eye contact.

  “Gorman Peaslee said he came in here yesterday,” I mumbled.

  “That’s how you’re going to respond? Have it your way. Yeah, Gorman is one of my best customers. He knows you’re my nephew. Gave me no end of shit about it, too. He called me last night about
the Amish guy crashing his buggy and your blaming Gorman for it. He said you nearly broke his wrist arresting him.”

  “News travels fast.”

  “Gorman Peaslee has a lot of friends around here, me included. Some of them are cops. Another is the commissioner who granted him bail.”

  So the sociopath is on the loose again to terrorize his neighbors or even come looking for me.

  I felt that I should warn the Stolls until I realized that they would have seen and heard him as he returned home.

  The buzzer sounded as the door opened.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting a family reunion,” said a familiar voice.

  Gary Pulsifer stood inside the door in his usual posture: thumbs tucked under his heavy ballistic vest.

  “Two wardens in one day,” said Denis. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  “I was passing by and happened to notice Mike’s ride outside. There aren’t too many rebuilt 1970 Scouts cruising around Maine.”

  I suspect that both my uncle and I were grateful for the interruption.

  Pulsifer gestured toward the crossbow in my hand. “Are you taking up a new hobby?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Ronette told me you’re staying at the cabin on Tantrattle Pond,” said Pulsifer.

  “I spent the night there.”

  “It’s a pretty spot. Hard to get a signal, if I recall. You probably haven’t been keeping up with current events.”

  His unspoken message couldn’t have been clearer. Something had happened. Something he didn’t want to talk about in front of my uncle.

  “I was just leaving.” I turned to the small man behind the register. The sad self-pity was gone from his expression, replaced by the familiar dyspepsia. “Goodbye, Denis.”