The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

all about heartbreak, booze, and betrayal.
    “Dale Carnegie,” he said with a snort. “Can you believe that shit? There’s probably some guy down there in that class that she likes. We should go down there and check up on her. Wouldn’t she be surprised? She doesn’t know what I’d do for her. That’s her problem.”
    We forged on, checking more sets, wading through rushing streams and clambering up steep banks. I wanted to stop, wanted to go home, but I didn’t dare say so.
    “What does she want me to do?” my father said, but I don’t think he was talking to me at this point. “Does she want me to cut my fucking heart out and serve it to her on a golden platter? Is that what it’s going to take?”
    I can scarcely remember crossing the withered cornfield where we found the fox. All I remember is standing at the edge of a field beneath an overcast sky, clouds pressing down overhead and the smell of snow in the air, while my father advanced on the trapped animal with a crowbar.
    The fox was a rust-orange blur. It jumped and jerked at the end of its chain, the trap digging deep into its leg as my dad came up. Torn between fight and flight, it growled and snapped at us. Then it bounded away, leaping high into the air, only to be pulled violently to earth by the chain. That was when my father stepped in with the crowbar. He tapped the animal once, sharply, above the muzzle. And the fox flipped onto its side, shaking and foaming at the mouth as if gripped by a seizure. Then, in disbelief, I watched my dad kneel on its spine and grip its nose with one big hand. Firmly, he pulled the head back until there was a loud snap and the fox stopped moving.
    As we walked back across the frozen cornfield, I turned my head so I didn’t have to see him cradling the beautiful, limp body.
    “Dad, why didn’t you just shoot it?”
    “A bloodstain will ruin a fox fur,” he explained. “You have to kill it with your hands. There’s no other way.”
    My eyes were wet, so I squeezed them shut. “I wish you’d shot it.”
    I could feel him looking hard at me. “You asked to come along,”he said. “This is the last time I take you trapping with me.”
    For the rest of that day I remained in the frigid cab of the pickup while my father ventured down embankments and off into stands of second-growth spruce and tamarack. My body ached, and I was colder than I’d ever been. I curled up into a ball on the cracked vinyl seat.
     
    I was awakened by my dad shaking my shoulder roughly. Darkness had fallen and snow was swirling in the headlights. We were back home, outside the trailer, and my mom was standing in the dooryard in front of the truck. She was lit up by the glow of the headlights. Snow dusted the top of her hair.
    I remember my mom gathering me up in her arms. I remember drifting through the long ride to the hospital in Skowhegan. Then the bright lights of the examination room, a nurse taking my temperature. I don’t remember anyone ever telling me I had pneumonia, but that’s what it was.
    My next memory is of waking up in the night to find my father seated beside my hospital bed, watching me in the half-dark. In my memory his bearded face looms over me like a grotesque mask of itself. Tears are streaming down his cheeks—the first tears I’ve ever seen him shed. I ask him where I am and what has happened to me, but he just turns his head away so I won’t see him cry. After a minute he gets up and leaves, and I am alone again in my strange bed.

 
     
    13
     
    I came home to a bunch of messages. There were the usual game warden calls: questions about obscure boating regulations and which fishing spots I’d recommend. And a message from Kathy Frost telling me she checked the culvert trap earlier that eve ning and it was empty. She’d check it again in the morning unless she heard from me. Bud Thompson called, drunk, wanting to know about the “status of my investigation concerning the bear.”
    And then there was a message from Sarah. I was startled to hear her voice after weeks of not hearing it at all. “Mike, I heard about your dad—it’s so horrible, I still can’t believe it. I don’t know if you want to talk about it. But I was thinking of you there alone and . . . it’s all right to call me, if you want.”
    I did want to, very much. But what was I going to say? That I missed her more than I’d ever imagined? She’d probably come over, if I asked. But what kind of prick would I be to take