The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

amounts of tap water, a perfectly edged brick walkway leading up to the front door. No one seemed to be home. The windows were all closed; the shades were drawn. And no sign of a bear anywhere.
    I knocked at the door.
    No one answered.
    I knocked again.
    “Who’s there?” whispered a woman’s voice.
    “Game warden,” I said. “You called about a bear?”
    Slowly the door opened a crack. A chain was stretched across the opening. Through it I saw half of a very small woman’s face and the darkened interior of her house.
    “It’s about time! I called nearly an hour ago.” She looked past me in the direction of my truck. “They only sent one of you?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “But it’s still out there! The bear!”
    “Tell me what happened, Mrs.—?”
    “Hersom.” She looked to be in her late fifties, a pale, sinewy woman, with deep-set eyes and hair like a rusted Brillo pad. She closed the door, unfastened the chain, and swung the door open again. “Come in, quick!”
    I stepped inside. Mrs. Hersom closed and locked the door behind me.
    “You don’t need to do that, Mrs. Hersom. The bear’s not going to try to get in.”
    “Ha!” Mrs. Hersom literally threw her head back when she laughed, like the villain in a Hollywood B movie. “That’s what you think. Well, take a look at this.”
    She spun around and hurried off down a darkened little hall. The inside of the house looked as spic-and-span as the outside, not a hint of dust or disorder anywhere. But an acrid odor—like burnt bacon—hung in the air.
    The smell was stronger in the kitchen where Mrs. Hersom stood waiting for me. She thrust her arm out, index finger extended at the back door.
    I didn’t notice anything.
    “Open it,” she said. “But be careful!”
    I unbolted the door and opened it. Beyond was an aluminum-frame screen door, nearly yanked off its hinges. The metal was bent, the screen shredded. “The bear did this?”
    Mrs. Hersom crossed her arms across her narrow breasts. “No, I did it. Of course the bear did it.”
    I straightened up. “Tell me what happened, Mrs. Hersom.”
    “I was cooking breakfast. I had the door open and that window there.” She pointed her chin at the window. “And suddenly I heard this noise behind me. It sounded like a knock and I thought it might be the little boy who lives down the street. He comes over for lemonade. So I said, ‘Who’s there?’ Then I heard another noise, and I turned around. And there was this huge black bear leaning against the screen door, trying to come in. I just about fainted!”
    She didn’t strike me as the fainting type. “Then what happened?”
    “I shut the door. What do you think I did? Invited it in?”
    “And the bear clawed the screen?”
    “Not at first. First it came around to that window. It stood up and stuck its head inside, like it wanted to climb in, but it couldn’t, so it went back around to the screen door and started tearing it apart. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”
    “What happened next?”
    “Well, my daughter had left this thing outside—what do you call it?—a Thighmaster.”
    “A Thighmaster?”
    “You know, one of those exercise thingies you squeeze between your thighs. She had left it in the backyard. I looked out the window and the bear had the Thighmaster in its teeth. It was chewing on it and clawing at it and tossing it in the air.” Mrs. Hersom’s eyes grew wide. “I kept thinking, ‘That Thighmaster could be me!’ ”
    “How long ago did this all happen?”
    “Forty-five, fifty minutes. If you hadn’t taken so long to get here, you might have been in time to shoot it. Why do you let those things run around wild?”
    “I’m sure you were scared, Mrs. Hersom, but black bears rarely harm human beings.”
    “Don’t patronize me. That thing was dangerous. If I’d had a gun, I would have shot it. My daughter has a gun, and I’m going to borrow it.”
    “That’s not a good idea, Mrs. Hersom. Believe me, you did the right thing in calling the police.”
    My pager buzzed on my belt. Kathy’s cell number showed on the display. “Excuse me. My sergeant is trying to reach me.”
    “You’re going to shoot it, right?”
    “No, ma’am. Not unless I have to.”
    “Well, what if it comes back?”
    “Excuse me just one second.”
    Kathy’s voice was full of merriment. “Guess what just ran across the road in front of me?”
    “You’re kidding?”
    “I’m at the corner of Bog and Tolman.