D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“Get out!” David said in his first words above a whisper. He grabbed Chris’ shirt with both hands, pulling him so their faces were inches apart and screamed in his last dying breath, “Run!”

He let Chris go as his head snapped back, and he started to shake violently. A thick glob of deep crimson blood oozed out of his mouth and he died in a slow exhalation – eyes wide open and mouth still formed around his final word that reverberated in Chris’ mind. Run! He scurried out of the cockpit and sprinted deeper into the woods where he lay down under some brush and watched the approaching plane through the forest canopy. It passed overhead, circled, and came back again. They had spotted the downed plane.

The plane approached, low and slow. As it crossed the river, a staccato burst of machine-gun fire rose over the throttled-back growl of the engine. The spray of bullets pummeled the fuselage, sounding like heavy hail hammering the metal roof of a building.

It passed unknowingly over his head and he lay motionless, listening as the monotonous drone of the engine faded into nothingness.

He was scared. His mind spinning from the surreal experience and consumed with trying to piece together David’s bizarre words. Given what had transpired, he had to get out of the woods.

As he made his way down the river to his camp, he again heard the sound of a plane approaching. It was following the river, just like David had done. It rounded the bend and to Chris’ horror, he saw that it was the plane that had strafed David’s.

It had taken unusually long to get down the eight miles of river because the water was low. The canoe was constantly getting hung up on the river rocks because Chris was on the lookout in case the plane made another reappearance and not focused on the river. After narrowly avoiding being seen by the first two fly bys, he wasn’t taking any chances. He stowed his canoe in the woods off the river bank and hiked up to his parked car.

After driving on the main road for about ten minutes, Chris pulled into the small general store. He checked his mobile phone but knew it was futile, there was no signal here.

He grabbed a Coke from the vintage 1930 cooler and walked up to the cash register. The aged proprietor sat in her usual spot, reading a romance novel. A tattered, hand-knitted shawl draped around her frail shoulders.

“Do you have a landline I can use?” He asked as he held up his mobile phone. “I got no signal.”

“No. The line was going out every time it rained so I finally said enough. Nobody calls me anyway. I hear you can get a signal a couple of miles up the road toward Ashland.”

“Damn it,” he said as he looked at the useless phone in his hand.

“Everything ok?”

“Fine,” he said as he crammed the phone into his pocket.

“How was the fishing?”

“Okay,” Chris replied, “Caught a few this morning.”

“Water’s been just right this year. Folk’s saying the fishing hasn’t been this good since ’96.” She brushed a strand of nicotine yellowed silver hair from her craggy face, tucking it behind her ear. “Leaving early, aren’t you? Something happen out there?” She looked curiously at him.

“I’ve got to get back to Boston. Something came up.” Chris decided to avoid her questioning.

“That’s too bad.”

“I think I’ll try and get up to do some hunting this fall.”

“We sell licenses you know. Anything you need. My son says it’s going to be good bear hunting this year.”

“Thanks,” Chris replied. “You wouldn’t know where I could find a state policeman, would you?”

Her head came up. “Something happened out there, didn’t it?”

“Everything’s fine. I just saw something this morning that I think should be brought to the attention of the authorities.” Chris still hadn’t come to terms with what happened this morning – the plane crash, the bullets and the dying man had shaken him at a sensory level but David’s unbelievable words got to him at a much deeper, more visceral one.

Chris knew there was something to David’s wild story. He had no idea who this Sarah woman was, or if she even really existed, but seeing the bullet wounds and narrowly missing being riddled with machine gun shots himself by whoever was in that second plane, something very bad was going down and the only thing he could think to do was take it to the authorities. Even if he ignored David’s crazy tale, there was the plane crash and murder to be reported but how could he tell the whole story without sounding crazy? These thoughts raced through his mind as he stared at the overly curious lady. He certainly wouldn’t be telling her anything about the most eventful morning of his life. It would be local news before he had breathed a word to the police. And right now he wasn’t sure he could trust anybody with what he had seen. He manufactured a story.

“What was it?” Her aged eyes, made grotesquely large by thick glasses, locked on his.

“Poachers. Up the river. They got a moose,” he said as he tried unsuccessfully to hold her intense stare.

“Is that so?” She said glancing at her watch. “Some folks poach because they need the meat. It ain’t sport. They do it to feed their own.”

“Well, that may be but poaching is poaching in my book,” he said after contemplating the woman’s words for a moment.

“Well, if that’s how you feel about it then you’d probably want to go to the Fish and Game station up in Ashland.”

Chris wondered if maybe she was worried it was her son doing the poaching. “No, I’d rather just deal with a cop and let him talk to the game wardens. Those Fish and Game guys are always,” he paused, searching for the right word. “…difficult.”

She chuckled. The Maine Fish and Game Department were considered the enemy by most locals who wanted to be free to live off the land and fish and hunt for their dinner when they wanted without paperwork and licenses and officials.

“Well, usually about this time of day, you can find Bert Nadeau grabbing some supper up at the Wild Bear hunting lodge. He’s the local law.”

“That the big log lodge about fifteen miles that way?” Chris asked, pointing north up route 11.

She nodded, still studying him queerly as he paid for the soda, winked and said, “Thanks. See you in the fall.”

“You will,” she said dryly, “I’m always here and if I’m not I’m probably dead.”

He could sense her watching him as he left the store for the short ride to the Wild Bear.

It was almost seven when he pulled off route 11, wound down a short, crushed-stone driveway, and stopped outside the main lodge. Several other vehicles sat parked on the lawn – none manufactured after 1995, except for the shiny, light-blue Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with the state of Maine emblem stuck proudly on the side of the door.

Chris climbed out of his car and stretched. He could feel the flabby looseness of his abdomen and chest as he jogged up the stairs. Too much sitting was making him soft. He wasn’t fat, yet. It was definitely time to start working out and watching what he ate. Flabby didn’t fit his self-description.

The main door opened into a large, well-lit room with two groups of men in it – one near the bar and the other gathered around a pool table in front of a massive stone fireplace.

The smell of the fireplace accented the warmth of the room. Underneath it, he could make out the homey aroma of a country kitchen – bacon, butter, beans and bread – mixed with a rich undertone of liquor and tobacco. It combined to create an air of relaxation, better than any homeopathic concoction Karen ever brought home. He could sense the ghost echoes of cards being dealt and hunter’s tall-tales being told as he strode into the room and shut the door.