The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

should have winded him.”
    “The smell,” I said. “That bad smell inside the house. Didn’t you notice it?”
    “I thought that was just Mr. Bickford’s natural aroma,” said the sheriff.
    “It’s deer lure,” I said. “Hunters make it out of the urine and tarsal glands of bucks. It’s used to cover human odors and bring deer into a tree stand.”
    “He doused himself with it,” said Lieutenant Malcomb.
    “You smelled how strong that stuff can be,” I said. “He knew it would cover his scent and throw off the dogs. He must have known Bickford had some of the stuff. That’s why he headed this way.”
    “So we’ll just key the dogs in to the deer lure,” said the sheriff. “And they’ll follow the new scent. All it does is delay us a little.”
    “Do you know how many deer are in these woods?”
    “Is there any way we can track the ATV to night?” asked the FBI agent.
    “Unless one of our planes spotted him from above, I don’t see how,” said the lieutenant. “There’s almost as many ATVs on these logging roads out there as deer. He might be ten miles away by now, and with a full tank he might get thirty more miles before he runs out of gas. We’ll take tire prints to match if we can, but unless someone spotted him, I don’t see how we follow him tonight.”
    “So why the hell did you start shooting when the troopers arrived?” the sheriff demanded of Bickford. “Do you have a death wish?”
    “I was scared,” said the old man. “I looked out my window and all I see are soldiers. You didn’t give me no chance to explain myself. I figured you was going to burn me out—like Waco. This is my property, and the Constitution says I have the Second Amendment.”
    “This isn’t your property,” said the sheriff. “This property belongs to Wendigo Timber. You’re squatting here illegally.”
    His eyes blazed. “It’s my home! They can’t take it. I won’t let them.”
    “So you agree with what Bowditch did—killing that man from Wendigo Timber? Maybe you helped him do it.”
    Bickford paused, mouth open. Then he wiped his runny nose and looked away. “I didn’t do nothing. It was an accident. Just like I said.”
     
    “What’s going to happen to him?” I asked Lieutenant Malcomb. The adrenaline had left me and I was crashing fast—I felt like the blood in my arms and legs was transmuting to lead.
    “It’s up to the attorney general, but I’d say he’s facing a mess of charges—misdemeanor and felony—from obstruction of justice to accessory to homicide after the fact. Plus we’re going to have a look in his freezer as soon as Hatch is done taking tire tracks, so that’s not counting poaching violations.”
    I shivered. “It doesn’t seem like he knows what he’s saying. The guy’s clearly brain injured.”
    “Don’t be fooled,” said the lieutenant. “He knows right from wrong. Anyway, that’s not for us to decide.”
    “Does the major know which officer fired at the cabin?”
    “One of the sheriff’s men.”
    “That second shot nearly hit me.”
    He looked at me hard. “What you did, Mike—running up like that—was the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a long time. I’d be even more pissed except for the fact you probably saved that man’s life.”
    I didn’t feel particularly noble. I’d been trying to save my father, not Wallace Bickford. I looked up at the cabin, which was lit up now from the inside as the state police evidence technicians searched it for signs of my father having been there. “I didn’t exactly follow what the sheriff was saying about Bickford being a squatter.”
    “He built this cabin without permission a de cade ago, but APP never made him move it.”
    “You mean they just let him squat here.”
    “Bickford used to work for APP. Letting him stay here was cheaper than a lawsuit. Whose fault do you think it was that a tree fell on that poor man’s head?”
    And now Wendigo Timber had bought the land from Atlantic Pulp & Paper, and like all the legal leaseholders, Wallace Bickford was facing eviction from his home. Was it possible that he killed Shipman and Brodeur for just that reason? And what did it say about my father that he sought out this brain-damaged man and basically stole his four-wheeler? It certainly didn’t look good that he’d put Bickford at risk. On the other hand, I told myself, being desperate didn’t necessarily make him a murderer. He did what he needed to do to escape.
    “I’m going to