Paul Doiron - Massacre Pond

The sparkling blue waters of the lake and the distant line of evergreens along Peter Dana Point seemed fraudulent in their bright beauty. I had entered a hall of mirrors in which I could no longer distinguish what was real from what was false.

North of the rez, I took a left off Route 1 onto the tributary roads that would bring me, eventually, to the mobile home where Pelkey and Beam lived. The woods crowded closer and closer around me as I drove up into the hills.

I slowed the truck half a mile from the trailer. My loose belt was wailing like a banshee again, and I had the strong feeling it might be better not to announce my arrival in such strident terms. Better to scope out the scene first. I removed my orange safety vest and unearthed the camouflage coat I kept behind the seat, then swapped my black baseball cap for one with a Realtree pattern. I hung my new Nikon binoculars around my neck. For a minute, I considered taking the shotgun, too, but I didn’t want to appear unduly provocative. Pelkey and Beam were already wary of me.

I closed the truck door until it clicked and started on foot up the dirt road. With most of the leaves down, I could see far into the gray-brown forest on either side of me. Whatever color that remained was near the ground now: yellow carpets of leaves beneath the maples, bloody sumacs turning to rust, the same way drying blood does. Of the hardwoods, only the oaks had retained their shabby foliage. It felt comforting to have so much visibility.

As I neared the mobile home and caught the first flash of metal, I raised my binoculars. I adjusted the dial on the top until a vehicle sprang into focus. It was a blue F150 pickup.

I knew, without having to read the plate, that the truck belonged to Billy Cronk.

I felt my lungs almost fully deflate. I had resisted the idea that I might find him here. Now the only remaining question was why.

I raised the binoculars again and zoomed in on the yard. Two identical Nissan Titans were parked on the other side of Billy’s truck. I didn’t see Tiffany’s crappy little Cavalier. Evidently, she hadn’t yet come down with her boyfriends’ malady.

For a split second, I considered returning to my truck for the shotgun. I would have felt more confident having the pump-action Mossberg in my hands, but I wasn’t sure what I was even witnessing. No crime was being committed, not unless lying to your wife or playing hooky from your job had been reclassified as misdemeanors. My suspicion that Pelkey and Beam were very bad men didn’t give me cause to go stomping onto their property loaded for bear.

Still, I needed to sort this out. I stepped off the road and began carefully picking my way through the naked trees. The openness in the forest understory now put me at a disadvantage. I had almost no cover, except to crouch behind the Christmas tree-size balsams or the trunks of the larger oaks. The curled and drying leaves under my boots turned every step into an overloud rustle. What had Charley told me? Heel first and then toe. I wished the expert woodsman was with me right now.

When you stalk a deer, the trick is to imagine the slowest you can move-and then force yourself to move even slower than that. Breathe evenly. Pause with every step. Will yourself to become invisible.

Foot by foot, I drew closer to the ancient trailer. It was roughly the shape and size of a boxcar. Over the years, the sun had faded the orange paint until it was the color of human skin. It might have taken me twenty minutes-maybe longer-to cover a hundred yards. I tried to approach from an angle that didn’t put me in the line of sight of any of the windows or doors, so that only someone pressing their nose to the glass could have spotted me.

Pelkey and Beam had stacked about four cords of hardwood neatly behind the mobile home. The pile provided me with excellent cover when I was finally able to reach it. Peering over the logs, I saw one of those teardrop trailers you use to haul snowmobiles. Beside it, an overturned bass boat had been chained to a tree trunk to protect it from thieves. Two Polaris ATVs sat under an elevated crossbeam the hunters utilized to hoist dead carcasses into the air so that the blood would run out onto the ground. Pelkey and Beam must have been saving their pennies to buy those new Nissans, I thought, because everything else on their property was a piece of shit.

There were blankets and towels over the windows of the trailer. The occupants were either too poor or too cheap to buy actual curtains. The place reminded me of a cave. The thought of two men living inside with a young girl turned my stomach. I wondered whether Bard’s cousin Tiffany had chosen her role as their shared playmate or whether she had been cajoled by her boyfriend into sucking his buddy’s cock and then one thing led to another.

I crawled forward on my elbows and knees until I could hide behind the snowmobile hauler. As I was sitting against it, with my legs drawn up to keep them from jutting into view, I noticed a white cigarette butt lying in the dirt beside me. I reached into a leather holster on my belt and removed a single latex glove. I slid it onto my right hand. The cigarette butt came from a Salem, the same brand we’d recovered from the kill sites on Morse’s estate. I wrapped the glove carefully around the filter to protect whatever trace DNA might still be on it and slid the wad into my pocket.

If I poked around the grounds, what else was I likely to find? Some Starburst candy wrappers? An empty bottle of Miller Genuine Draft? I already knew where to find the.22 rifles.

A gunshot sounded in the distance, followed by three more.

The echoes told me that someone was firing in the gravel pit at the end of the road. Four shots usually meant target practice.

I darted from the snowmobile trailer back to the woodpile and ducked behind the peeling birch logs. In all likelihood, the mobile home was unoccupied. Billy and the two creeps were firing guns together at the pit. But it seemed prudent to sneak out of the yard as quietly as I could.

I remembered what a mess the road to the pit was. Erosion had made it close to impassable. There was also the chance I would meet the armed men on their way back down the hill. I was willing to bet my life that Pelkey and Beam had been the men who’d slaughtered those moose. The lingering questions were why and what Billy’s connection to them was. The best place to start searching for answers was the gravel pit. I plotted a cross-country course that would bring me to the rim of the excavated amphitheater. I wanted a balcony seat to watch the show from above.

Knowing where Pelkey and Beam presumably were, I could move faster now. I leaped over toppled trees and scratched my hands pushing through a tangle of raspberry bushes. Branches snapped beneath my feet. The binoculars bounced around on their strap and kept whacking me in the sternum. At one point, I surprised a grouse, which rocketed up from his covert and flapped heavily away through a cone of sunlight.

As I ran up the hill, I made a semicircle away from the road and then began to loop back, hoping I’d judged the distances right.

Three more shots sounded. My ears told me it was a high-powered rifle and not a shotgun or pistol.

I began to second-guess my decision not to return to my truck for the Mossberg.

The gunshots informed me that I’d gone too far, that I’d circled all the way around the pit and was now well above it. I slowed my pace to a steady walk and ducked my head. The last thing I needed was to find myself standing suddenly at the cliff’s edge, in full view of the armed men below.

Up ahead, I saw a curtain of light where the trees abruptly ended and the ground fell away into the pit. I dropped to my hands and knees again and began to crawl like an animal through the forest. The dangling binoculars kept snagging on branches, so I removed them and left them on a flat, mossy stone where I could find them again. I’d run too fast up the hill and my pulse was overloud in my ears. I worried that my labored breathing might give me away. I paused, closed my eyes, and focused on my breath, trying to bring down my heart rate.