The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

down, it was as if he were trying to breathe her in. Not that I could blame him. Sarah was wearing a sleeveless top and hiking shorts that showed off her tanned legs. Her short blond hair was swept back behind her ears, and her heart-shaped face was shining from days in the sun.
    “Mike’s told me a lot about you,” she lied.
    “Don’t believe a word of it,” he said, taking her small hand in his rough paws.
    We found a seat at a round oak table in a dark corner of the bar. There was a little oil lamp in the center with a dancing flame that gave all our faces a golden cast. My father ordered us beers and another shot of Jim Beam for himself.
    “You want one?” he asked.
    “I’m driving.”
    He snorted. He didn’t think it was much of an excuse.
    Sarah glanced back and forth between us with a big smile. “I see where Mike gets his blue eyes.”
    “I guess the kid turned out OK,” he said with a wink. “But he didn’t get all his old man’s best parts.”
    “Mike says you work at a sporting lodge,” she said.
    “I do some guiding over to Rum Pond. I don’t suppose you like to fish.”
    “We’re headed over to Rangeley to night,” I said.
    “Yeah?” He looked over my head into the crowd.
    “We’re going to start at the Kennebago and then fish the Magalloway.”
    “Sounds good,” he said absently.
    Sarah and I turned around in our seats to see what he was looking at. At the bar a stumpy man with a shaved head and a bushy black goatee was staring at us. He wore a camouflage T-shirt stretched tight across his thick chest. There was a strange smile—almost a smirk—on his face. He raised a glass of beer in our direction.
    My father pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
    We watched him shoulder his way through a group of tie-dyed Appalachian Trail hikers waiting to be served beer. He stepped right up to the man with the shaved head and put a hand on his shoulder and said something. The man’s smile vanished. After half a minute or so with my father in his face, he put down his glass and left the room.
    “Who’s your dad talking to?” asked Sarah.
    “I have no idea.”
    “Your dad looks a little like Paul Newman—if he hadn’t had a bath in a while. He’s got that beautiful wild man quality. I bet there are a lot of women who want to tame him.”
    I didn’t know how to respond to her. I liked to think I had no illusions about my father, but it always annoyed me whenever anyone else criticized him. He could be crude and petty, but I also believed that he was a better man than anyone gave him credit for being. I knew he’d been badly scarred by the war, and so I made allowances for his drinking and his silences, consoling myself with the knowledge that I alone understood him.
    My father returned with our drinks. He’d brought me a whiskey despite what I’d said.
    “Who’s that guy you were talking to?” I asked. “The one with the shaved head?”
    “Nobody.” He downed half his whiskey in a gulp. “Just a paranoid militia freak. So, you got a job lined up or what?”
    For the past few weeks, ever since I knew we were coming here, I’d imagined him asking that question and I’d imagined myself answering it. I put my beer bottle down and took a deep breath. “I’m applying to the Maine Warden Service.”
    He looked me full in the face, his eyes glassy from the liquor. “You’re fucking kidding.”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
    He threw back his head and gave a loud laugh. “They’re not going to take
you
.”
    “Why not?”
    “You’re too smart. Why do you want to waste your education on those pricks?”
    Sarah said, “He’ll probably apply to law school after a few years.”
    I stared at her, but she avoided my eyes. Sarah still hadn’t come to terms with the financial ramifications of my decision. Her dad, back in Connecticut, had lost a fortune when the dotcom bubble burst. One of her great fears in life was remaining poor while all our college friends became successful doctors, lawyers, and bankers.
    “Law school,” my father said. “Now there’s an idea. We need a lawyer in this fucked-up family.” He reached in his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Sarah, but she waved her hand at it as if it were a hornet.
    “You can’t smoke in here,” I said, but he ignored me.
    “What about you, honey, you taking a vow of poverty, too?”
    She stiffened in her chair. It hadn’t taken my dad