Paul Doiron - The Poacher's Son

“How would you describe your relationship with your father?” asked Soctomah.

“What do you mean?”

“Were you close? Distant?”

“I lived with him, on and off, until I was nine years old. But after my parents got divorced, I only saw him occasionally. I spent a couple of months with him at Rum Pond when I was sixteen, working at the camp, washing dishes, that kind of thing, but it didn’t work out.”

“What happened?”

“I was a kid. I had unrealistic expectations.”

“About what?”

“About everything,” I said. “He had his own lifestyle, and I didn’t fit in.”

“Does he have any friends in this general vicinity? Someone he might turn to if he got himself into trouble?”

“I don’t know. The only friends of his I met were Russell Pelletier and a guide named Truman Dellis. That’s a guy you should definitely talk to. He’s violent and alcoholic, and I wouldn’t put it past him to shoot a cop.”

The detective ignored my suggestion. “Anyone else?”

“There was another guy. I’m not sure he was a friend exactly. I saw my dad talking to him at the Dead River Inn. He had a shaved head and a goatee. My dad called him a ‘paranoid militia freak.’ ”

“Would your mother know about your father’s acquaintances?”

The possibility hadn’t occurred to me before. “You’re not going to drag her into this.”

“Where does she live?” asked the agitated detective, Menario.

“Scarborough. She’s remarried. And she has a different name now, Marie Turner.” I gave them her phone number. “She’s going to freak out when you call her.”

“Why’s that?”

“She’s got a new life, a new family. She doesn’t like to be associated with my dad anymore. It was a bad time in her life, and she’d rather forget it.”

“She’s an ex-wife.” Soctomah gave a knowing smile. “Mike, I understand how difficult this situation must be for you. You’ve dedicated your life to enforcing the law, and now your father’s a fugitive. But I don’t have to tell you that your dad’s a lot better off if we can find him quickly and get him to surrender. So if there’s anything else you can think of, any other piece of information that might help us, we need to know about it.”

“Only this,” I said. “He didn’t murder those men.”

Soctomah blinked, clearly taken aback. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I know what’s in his nature. He may be a son-of-abitch-I know that better than anybody-but he’s too smart to kill a cop. I don’t expect you to believe that. But the man you’re looking for is some sort of terrorist kook. He killed that V.P. from Wendigo to send a message. My father wouldn’t do that.”

“So if he’s innocent,” asked Menario, “then why’d he run?”

“I don’t know.”

A look came into Soctomah’s eyes that I didn’t recognize at first. Then I realized: He was embarrassed for me. He thought I was deluding myself, and he felt pity.

“I know it looks bad,” I said. “But you’re mistaken about him.”

Soctomah stood up in such a way as to make me stand up, too. “Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Mike,” he said, escorting me to the door. “We’ll keep you posted.”

“You know where to find me,” I said, putting on my sunglasses to face the daylight again.

The search got under way and I had nothing to do. Lieutenant Malcomb said I’d be an observer, and that’s exactly what I was: a spectator forced to watch while a platoon of heavily armed officers was deployed into the wooded hills east of the Bigelow Mountains.

When I was a teenager I used to have nightmares about being a ghost. In my dreams I’d float around like a phantom watching my family and friends, unable to speak to them, unable to interact. It was the worst thing I could imagine, and it was exactly how I felt now. Stuck in a crowded room, forced to follow the search on topographic maps, hearing the bloodhounds only in my imagination.

The dogs had picked up my dad’s trail easily enough at the crash scene. But my father was a professional trapper, and he knew about scents and how not to leave them. His boots were always rubber-bottomed because leather and canvas leave a human odor. And he knew how to zigzag across streams and find paths of bare stone more or less impervious to smell. He scrambled through bogs so choked with fallen trees-spiked branches everywhere-that the dogs cut their pads to shreds trying to follow. He knew he probably couldn’t outwit the hounds, but he could definitely exhaust their handlers and gain himself some time.

The reports came back by radio. Trail lost. Trail found again.

The tension got to people in different ways. I drank coffee until my stomach burned. The officer in charge, Major Carter, of the state police tactical team, kept checking his watch. The sheriff left the room every fifteen minutes to piss. Lieutenant Malcomb found a pack of Lucky Strikes on a desk and stepped outside.

I found him behind the building, standing beside a bubbling spillway, lighting a cigarette. “Lieutenant,” I said. “I know what we talked about before, but I’d like to be posted into the field. Let me direct traffic or something. I can’t just stand around like this, waiting.”

“We’re all waiting.”

“But you need more men out there.”

“The governor’s got the National Guard on standby.” He dropped the cigarette and crushed it beneath his boot. “I think we can spare you, Bowditch.”

There was nothing to say to that. Overhead I heard a faint drone and then saw a small airplane flash in the sun. It banked and swung westward into the deepening shadows beneath Little Bigelow and disappeared from view.

“That’s Charley Stevens,” said the lieutenant, as if identifying a species of bird. He left me staring up at the darkening peaks. In the mountains you really do run out of daylight early.

The Bigelows were named for Major Timothy Bigelow, who came through here with Colonel Benedict Arnold on his march to Quebec in 1775. It was a chapter of the Revolutionary War nobody talks about much anymore, but I remembered how jazzed I was as a kid to learn that my hometown was near a site of historic significance. My dad told me that Arnold brought a thousand men from the sea up the Kennebec River in leaky bateaux, portaging the heavy boats over Pleasant Ridge to the Dead River, then along the Chain of Ponds, heading overland again across the Height of Land that fences the border with Canada, and finally down the Chaudiere to storm the ramparts of Quebec. It was a daring plan and a complete disaster. Hundreds of soldiers deserted, drowned, starved, or froze to death along that long march. More died on the Plains of Abraham in the snow beneath of the walls of the city. It was the first major defeat of the revolution, but I was captivated by the story anyway-the courage of the men fighting their way through a wilderness of impassable forests and wild rivers-and I remembered how crestfallen I was to hear afterward about Arnold’s treason at West Point. How could my hero have become a traitor?

I watched the sun dip below the summit-the colors changed in an instant as it dropped from view-and I thought about all the lessons we fail to learn from history.

I was still outside half an hour later when officers came pouring out of the command post. Suddenly the parking lot was awash in blue lights and sirens. The sheriff made a beeline for me. Behind him were Lieutenant Malcomb and Major Carter, who was fastening on a Kevlar vest.

“We’ve got a situation,” growled the sheriff. “Your father’s gone barricade.”

“He’s taken a hostage,” explained the lieutenant.

He motioned me to come with him in his truck, and I did.