Paul Doiron - The Poacher's Son

“Who’s the hostage?”

The lieutenant cranked the engine. “An old recluse named Bickford. The dogs tracked the scent to his cabin. And when troopers approached the door, they were fired at.”

“Shit.”

“I hope we can talk your old man out of there, Bowditch.”

He’s dead if we don’t, I thought.

It was like a high-speed caravan. As we raced through the woods, our emergency lights turned the roadside trees blue and red-carnival colors that had no place in the natural world.

My father had traveled far since morning, more miles than seemed possible for an injured man on foot, and not in the direction anyone expected, either. Instead of making for the major roads, he’d gone north, turning away from the village of Dead River and moving deeper into the industrial forest now owned by Wendigo Timber.

The state police tactical team had thrown up a perimeter at the end of a dirt road, beyond rifle range of the cabin. This was their show now, and if the troopers couldn’t induce my dad to give up his hostage and surrender, they would go in with tear gas and automatic weapons.

The sheriff and the others were waiting behind an improvised barricade of police cruisers.

“What’s the situation?” asked the lieutenant.

“One shot fired.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No.”

“Is he contained?”

“Completely.”

The cabin was a sorry-looking structure fashioned of red-painted boards and plywood, with silver Typar holding it all together like so much duct tape. There was only one crooked window in front, a cockeyed angle on the world. A rusty Nissan pickup was parked beneath some pines. A rutted ATV track ran up the hill into the woods.

“How do you know my father’s in there?” I asked.

“The dogs were indicating all over the place when they got here,” said Major Carter. “There’s no exiting scent trail, as far as we can tell.”

An FBI agent I hadn’t met stepped forward. He was African-American, which immediately set him apart from all the white faces around us. “What do we know about the hostage?”

“He’s a local hermit named Wallace Bickford,” said the sheriff. “I’m told he’s retarded.”

“He’s brain injured,” said Lieutenant Malcomb. “A tree fell on him ten years ago, and he lives off Social Security and worker’s comp.”

The FBI man was jotting notes onto a pad. “He’s disabled?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t stop him from poaching deer. He baits them in close to his cabin and then potshots them through an open window. Charley Stevens and I pinched him a few times over the years.”

“Are we sure it’s just the one hostage?” I asked.

“We can’t get close enough to the window to see.”

Word came that the tactical team had moved into position around the cabin. Snipers with nightscopes had all the doors and the window in their sites and were prepared to breach the building on command. Major Carter announced that he would act as tactical negotiator.

“Do we have a phone line in there?”

“No.”

“I hate these goddamned bullhorns,” said the major. He grabbed the microphone from the cruiser and snapped on the loudspeaker switch. There was an electronic crackle, and then his voice boomed out into the dusk: “John Bowditch. This is Major Jeffrey Carter. I’m with the Maine State Police. I’d like to talk to you. We are not planning an assault. You are in no danger. I repeat: We are not planning an assault.”

We waited, but there was no reply. The only sound was the static and pop of police radios from the dozen parked cruisers. A line came back to me from a video we watched at the academy: “A hostage situation is a homicide in progress.” “Call him Jack,” I said.

“What?”

“Jack, not John. He hates the name John.”

He switched on the mic again. “Jack, this is Jeff Carter again. It’s imperative that we have a conversation right now.”

I whispered to the lieutenant, “Why isn’t he asking about the hostage? Shouldn’t we find out if he’s OK in there?”

“He doesn’t want the H.T. to think the hostage has any bargaining value.”

“H.T.?”

“Hostage taker.”

The major’s voice came back over the speaker: “What I’d like to do, Jack, is give you a cell phone. That way, we won’t have to shout at each other.” He made a hand gesture to a trooper in full-combat armor to start forward. “I have a man bringing you a cell phone. This is not an assault. He’s just bringing you a phone so we can talk.”

The trooper began creeping forward, using the cover of the pines to draw close to the building.

Then came a muffled shout: “Don’t come up here!”

The trooper froze in place.

There was something about the voice that raised the hairs along my neck.

“OK, Jack,” answered the major. “Whatever you say.”

Slowly the trooper backed away from the cabin.

I grabbed the major’s shoulder. “It’s not him.”

He swung around on me. “What?”

“That’s not my father,” I said. “I don’t know who it is, but it’s not him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Could it be Bickford?” asked the FBI agent.

For the first time in hours I felt something like real hopefulness. “What if he’s not in there?”

“Somebody shot at my men,” snapped the sheriff.

“What if it’s just Bickford?”

“The dogs tracked him here, for Christ’s sake.”

Suddenly the strange voice shouted again: “I hear them outside the walls! Don’t come in here!”

Major Carter switched on the loudspeaker again: “Nobody’s coming in, Jack. You have my word on that. Jack, we’ve got your son, Mike, here.”

I knew I was there to help negotiate, but the thought of actually talking my dad into surrendering left me wondering if the major knew what he was doing.

The FBI agent wondered, too. “You can’t put a family member on the horn.”

“Under normal circumstances, I’d agree,” said the major. “But Bowditch called his son last night. We have reason to believe he trusts Mike to get him out of the situation.”

“I think it’s a big mistake,” the FBI agent said.

The major started to hand me the mic but held it back a moment. “Talk slowly and normally. You’re going to tell him that you’re here, and he’s in no danger. You can vouch for that.”

“I can?”

“Yes, you can. You’re going to say that he should let us give him a phone. That’s all. Don’t mention the hostage, don’t make any promises. Our only goal right now is to convince him to take the phone. Staying on the loudspeaker like this, forcing him to shout, just ratchets up everybody’s adrenaline. We need to take this situation down a notch.”

“What if he’s not in there? What if this is just some sort of mistake?”

“You’re going to help us find that out.”

I took up the microphone. “Dad, this is Mike. You need to take the telephone, OK?” The major motioned to me: Slow it down. “It’s just a cell phone. Will you let them bring it to you?”

The trooper inched his way up the path, looking as unthreatening as a man in full-body armor can look.

OK, I thought. Throw the phone.

But the trooper kept going. I heard one of the hounds whining behind me, then a whispered hush from the dog’s handler.

The window was totally dark. If someone inside was looking out, I couldn’t see him.

Just throw the damned phone.

The trooper was now no more than ten yards from the porch. Slowly he lowered the hand with the phone in it, getting ready to pitch it underhand in front of the door. The placement had to be perfect. If my dad was inside, he’d probably make Bickford reach for the phone, but he couldn’t risk having his hostage escape.