The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

woozy by the time Ora brought out the blackberry pie.
    “Charley gathered these berries along the dirt road that leads out here from town,” she said. “We grow or gather most of what we eat. Always have.”
    “On a warden’s pitiful salary, what else could we do?” he said. “We’re like that Ewell Gibbons feller from those old TV commercials? ‘Did you ever eat a pine tree?’ There’s just so much to eat out there if you know what to look for—fiddleheads and frog’s legs and mushrooms. Then there’s the usual game: moose, deer, rabbits, squirrels.”
    Ora patted his hand. “Charley has a stronger stomach than I do. I can do without rodents,” she said. “I do love fish, though. Trout and salmon. Pan-fried perch and bullheads.”
    “Of course, these days you can’t eat fish like you used to,” said Charley. “On account of the mercury. All that damned acid rain from the Midwest dropping down into our lakes and rivers, poisoning our fish and birds. That’s another sad development from when I was a lad. But I guess every old fart says the world has gone to hell in his lifetime.”
    “I think it really has,” I said.
    Ora looked at me with concern. “Why do you say that?”
    “There’s no wilderness left. There are roads everywhere now, and GPS receivers if you do get lost. You can make a cell-phone call from the top of a mountain or the bottom of a cave. You can go to the ends of the earth and if you look up, you’ll still see a plane flying overhead.”
    I hadn’t realized how crocked I was until I’d opened my mouth. But the more time I spent with Ora and Charley, the angrier I became at Wendigo for threatening to take away this beautiful house and this life of theirs. I thought of that heated meeting at the Dead River Inn, and part of me felt a little murderous.
    “It’s just change,” said Charley with a big grin.
    “Change for the worse.”
    “Son,” he said, shaking his head with mock sadness, “you are the youn gest old fart I’ve ever made the acquaintance of.”
     
    After Charley had washed the dishes, he said, “Let’s call some owls.”
    Outside it was dark. When we looked out through the windows all we could see were our reflections floating like ghosts on the glass. Charley lifted his green cap from its peg and put it on his head, and then Ora turned off the lights in the house, and we all went outside. In the darkness I could smell the lake and hear a rustle of breeze in the treetops. Crickets were chirping under the cabin.
    “Do you speak Owl?” Charley asked me.
    “Not fluently.” I could taste the beer on my breath.
    “I’ll teach you, then.”
    He cupped his hands around his mouth and made a shrieking noise that sounded like
“Who-cooks-for-you.”
He repeated the noise a few times, modulating it so that it was always a little different.
    “Barred owl,” I said.
    “It’s good to know they’re teaching you something in warden school.” He repeated the noise again and then we waited.
    Through the branches overhead stars were salted across the night sky.
    Far away I heard a noise:
Who-cooks-for-you
.
    “There he is,” said Charley. “Let’s see if I can draw him in.”
    Back and forth Charley and the owl called to each other, the bird moving closer and closer until finally the answering hoots were coming from a tall evergreen directly overhead.
    “Do you feel him watching us?” Charley whispered.
    “Yes.”
    “He’s up there in that big spruce looking down at us wondering, ‘Where’s that son-of-a-gun owl who’s poaching on my territory?’
Who-cooks-for-you!
”
    “Charley, don’t torture the poor bird,” said Ora.
    “We’re just having a conversation. Why don’t you give it a try?”
    I cupped my hands around my mouth and made a loud attempt.
    No response.
    “You get an A for effort,” said Charley softly, “but an F for pronunciation. Try it again but garble the sounds together more. You’re talking to an owl, not a person.”
    “Charley’s a regular Dr. Dolittle of the Maine woods,” said Ora.
    I gave the call another attempt, focusing on the actual sounds the bird was making, not the human words they reminded me of.
    This time the owl answered.
    Charley clapped me on the back. “There you go. You want to try some coyotes?” He pronounced the word
ki-otes
. “We’ve got to drive a little ways, but it’s not far. How about you, Boss? You up for a moonlight drive to Pokum Bog?”
    “No, thanks,” she said. “I want