The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

There was a new hard edge to the warden’s voice.
    “Not without a warrant,” said my father.
    “Go away!” shouted Truman.
    I heard my father hiss, “Put it down. What’s wrong with you?“
    “What’s going on up there, Jack?”
    “Nothing. It’s just too late for this bullshit, Charley. Why don’t you just get out of here?”
    “Please.” I wasn’t even aware that I had spoken, but Charley Stevens turned to me. Something in my eyes must have told him of the danger he was in.
    “All right,” he said after a long moment. “I’ll come back in the morning.”
    “Bring a warrant!” shouted Truman.
    Charley smiled but didn’t answer him. Instead, he turned to me. “I’ll see you later, Mike.”
    Standing rigid as a statue, I watched the warden pilot descend the remaining stairs and wade back out into the shallows to his plane. He tapped his forehead, a gesture of good-bye to me, and then climbed into the tiny cockpit. Moments later, the propeller began to turn and the plane taxied off to deeper water. I watched it take off until its shadow passed across the moon.
    Only then did I realize that I had been holding the bullet the whole time. I opened my fist and saw it gleaming there in the moonlight. Quick as I could, I tossed it into the lake.
     
    Later I learned that Truman Dellis had been aiming a rifle at Charley Stevens while he stood on the stairs.
    My father chewed him out about it. “What were you going to do? Kill him over a damned deer, you fucking idiot? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
    I was unimpressed by this sudden show of conscience or rationality or what ever it was, especially since we spent the rest of the night getting rid of the deer parts. Truman and my father carted the meat and bones away to bury in some secret spot in the forest while I scrubbed the kitchen clean.
    The next morning, while I was working at the sporting camp, Charley Stevens returned with another game warden to inspect my father’s camp and truck. Russell Pelletier was pissed about it, but he told me they didn’t find so much as a deer hair. Truman Dellis spent the next day with a smug grin on his face, but I knew my father had been humiliated by having the wardens search his cabin. And he hadn’t even been able to keep the deer.
    A few days later, I told him that I wanted to go home.
    “It’s about the other night, isn’t it?”
    “No.”
    “That Truman is a crazy son of a bitch when he’s drinking. I don’t know what the hell got into him.”
    “That’s not it.”
    Color rose to his face. “So what is it, then?”
    “This isn’t what I expected it would be.”
    “I’m not driving you to Waterville.”
    “That’s all right. I’ll hitchhike.”
    He thought it over a bit, then said, “Pelletier’s going to Augusta tomorrow. Maybe you can get a ride out with him.”
    “I’d appreciate it.”
    “I never promised you anything,” he said.
    “No,” I said. “You didn’t.”

 
     
    19
     
    D riving home from my mother’s house, I remembered that the funeral of Deputy Bill Brodeur was scheduled for sometime that afternoon at the Colby College gymnasium in Waterville. On my cell phone I punched in Kathy Frost’s number. “I want to apologize for last night.”
    “Save it, Mike.”
    “So what did you do with the bear?”
    “I sent the head to Augusta for a rabies test and buried the rest just to be safe. Look, I can’t talk now. We’re all getting ready for Brodeur’s memorial service.”
    “What time is that, anyway?”
    “Noon.” There was a pause on her end. “I hope you’re not thinking of showing up. Malcomb would throw a shit fit if he saw you there.”
    “I just want to pay my respects.”
    “Then stay home. Nobody wants to see you there, Mike. You might not like it, but that’s just the way it is.”
    “I’ll think about it,” I said, hanging up and turning off my phone before she could slip another word in.
    If I hurried, I might still make the service. I stopped at a gas station and bought a razor and shaved quickly in the restroom, cleaning myself up as best I could. Then I put on the spare field uniform I kept in my Jeep for emergencies.
    When Kathy first told me about the Flagstaff hom i cides, I’d assumed I’d be part of the formal retinue of uniformed officers—game wardens, municipal and state police, sheriff’s deputies, firefighters—who always attend the memorial services of a fallen law officer in Maine. But after my father lit out for