Paul Doiron - Massacre Pond

SOVEREIGN CITIZEN OF THE U.S.A!

WE HAVE AFRICAN LIONS IN THE ZOOS AND A LYING AFRICAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE

WARNING TO BURGLARS: THIS HOUSE IS GUARDED BY A SHOTGUN THREE DAYS A WEEK. GUESS WHICH DAYS?

The sheriff had told me that Khristian kept an underground bunker beneath his house, a combination survival shelter and shooting range. “Some day,” Rhine said, “I’m afraid he’s going to have a massive coronary on his way to Cigarette City, and we’re going to find the bodies of fifteen missing prostitutes down there.”

I didn’t think she was joking.

My own encounters with the man had been fleeting, since Khristian was one of many firearms enthusiasts who had no interest whatsoever in hunting. I had seen him behind the wheel of his camouflage-painted Dodge Ram, his small head barely visible behind the wheel, and he had scowled at me a few times in the supermarket. But I had read his venomous letters in the Machias Valley News Observer, and I seemed to recall that he had spewed considerable bile over Elizabeth Morse and her proposed national park. Coincidence that this 10–32 call would come tonight? It didn’t seem likely.

The forest flashed by my windows in a green blur. My heart was pumped so full of blood, it made my ribs ache. I tried to control my breathing and prepare myself mentally for a range of possible scenarios, from an armed standoff (likely) to a peaceful surrender (fat chance).

What I found on Jerusalem Road was the last thing I would have expected. In the failing light, I saw Billy Cronk’s truck parked before Karl Khristian’s gate. My friend stood beside it, his hands loose at his side, as still as a statue. Above the wall loomed a man with a rifle. Khristian must have constructed elevated walkways so that he could patrol his fenced property from a great height: the better to assassinate the blue-helmeted storm troopers.

Before I could even report to dispatch that I had arrived on the scene, I heard a gunshot and saw a spray of sand at my friend’s feet. Billy didn’t even flinch. He seemed utterly unafraid. Inside the walls, ferocious-sounding dogs were barking. I grabbed the Mossberg and threw open the door, using it as a body shield as I drew a bead on Khristian’s vulture head.

“Get down on the ground!” KKK was screaming in a shrill, scratchy voice.

“Police!” I said. “Drop the weapon, Khristian!”

Billy remained motionless: a six-foot-five-inch target.

“Get down on the motherfucking ground,” the little man screeched, “or I’ll blow your nut sack off!”

I had the shotgun sling wrapped around my left hand to steady it and was using the edge of the door to hold the barrel still. “I said, ‘Drop the weapon!’”

Khristian’s rifle wavered. “He’s a trespasser!”

“If you shoot him, Khristian, I swear to God I am going to shoot you next! Put the rifle down.”

“Castle doctrine! Castle doctrine!”

The castle doctrine, or the defense of habitation law, holds that a home owner has the right to use deadly force against an intruder without becoming liable to prosecution.

“He’s the one who did it, Mike,” said Billy in a calm voice. He hadn’t turned his head since I had arrived, so I didn’t know how the hell he knew it was me, unless he’d recognized my voice. “He shot the moose.”

“Goddamned liar!”

“I’m not going to say this again,” I said. “Put the rifle down, Khristian!”

Suddenly, the bald head disappeared. One second, he was there; the next, he was gone.

Oh shit. I could only imagine the secret holes in Khristian’s walls where he could aim a gun at an intruder. My spinning blue lights made me feel as if I were watching these surreal events unfold from inside a kaleidoscope.

“Billy, I want you to get down on the ground.”

“He’s not going to shoot me, Mike.”

“Yeah, well, I might shoot you if you don’t listen to me.” I scanned the fence, looking for any sign of movement behind it, anything to indicate KKK’s intentions.

“He’s the one who killed those moose,” said Billy.

“At the moment, that’s not my concern. Just get down on the ground so we can both get the hell out of here. I don’t want to tell Aimee I watched you get shot.”

His wife’s name seemed to touch a nerve. His head dipped, and he dropped to his knees in the sand. His braid swung back and forth along his shoulders.

“All the way down,” I said.

“Sorry, Mike. This is as far as I go.”

My truck belt wouldn’t stop shrieking. Inside the fence, the dogs continued their hoarse and horrible barking. I could easily imagine KKK opening his gate and unleashing his hellhounds on my friend and me.

“Goddamn it, Billy.”

“I’m not afraid of that kook.”

“Khristian!” I shouted. “I need you to step out here!”

From somewhere on the opposite side of the fence came a shout: “I claim castle doctrine!”

“That law doesn’t apply after a police officer is on the scene,” I said. “Just get your ass outside and tell me what happened.”

The next noise was that of a man yelling at a dog, followed by a canine squeal, as if it had been kicked. Then the fence gate slid open wide enough for a man to slip through the gap. KKK stepped out with a black AR-15 carbine on a sling over his shoulder. He seemed even shorter than I remembered, a beardless Rumpelstiltskin.

I trained my ghost-ring sights on his torso in case he did something stupid. “Put the rifle down, Karl,” I said.

“I am a sovereign citizen with the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

“You’re a gutless coward who shot six defenseless animals,” said Billy.

Khristian’s whole body seemed to quiver like a metronome that had been struck. “Liar!”

“Billy,” I said, “I would appreciate you shutting the fuck up now.”

Behind me, I heard the faint sound of approaching sirens. KKK squinted and cocked his head like a suspicious bird. Billy took the arrival of another police officer on the scene as a sign that he could now rise to his feet.

Khristian disagreed. “Get back on the ground!”

Two things happened next that seemed simultaneous: The old man swung the assault weapon off his shoulder as if to bring the barrel up again, and Billy Cronk sprang forward like a jungle cat. He must have covered twenty feet in a single second, because by the time I had stepped out from behind my truck door, he had thrown KKK to the ground. I came running up, aiming the shotgun at both of them, shouting for Billy to stop. Dust drifted around their struggling bodies in the headlights of my vehicle. I feared that Khristian might manage to get a shot off from the AR or produce a hidden pistol to blast a hole through my friend’s mighty heart.

I needn’t have worried. By the time I cleared the distance, Billy Cronk had the sovereign citizen pinned to the ground, flattened beneath the weight of his long body and with both of the man’s spindly arms splayed out to the sides.

“You piece of shit,” Billy snarled. “I ought to break both your arms.”

“Get off me! Get off me!” The old man could barely wheeze out the words under Cronk’s crushing weight.

The approaching siren had grown shrill, and I heard the roar of a V-8 engine and pebbles scattering beneath skidding wheels. I kept my Mossberg trained on both bodies.

“Let him go, Billy,” I said.

“Not until he says he did it.”

“Didn’t do a goddamn thing,” KKK hissed.

I heard a car door open and someone come running up. When I finally turned my head, I found myself blinded by my own headlights.

“What the hell is going on here?” said a woman with a deep, gruff voice.

I didn’t need to see her long, handsome face or black ponytail to know who she was.