The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

coyotes called to one another, wailing like lost souls.
    “Listen to them sing,” he said. “Doesn’t the sound of it do something strange to your heart?”
    “Yes,” I said. “It does.”

 
     
    26
     
    W hen I awoke the next morning, sunlight was streaming through the window beside my bed. I lay there a long time, breathing in the warm balsam smell of the forest that drifted through the screen.
    Lying there, it was easy to fantasize about hiding out here from my life, enjoying Ora’s home cooking and Charley’s stories. But in my heart I knew it was a false dream. All I was doing in Flagstaff was interfering with a hom i cide investigation, making it less likely—not more—that the detectives would ever focus their attention on Truman Dellis, Russell Pelletier, Vern Tripp, or anybody else, for that matter. It was time I stopped playing Hardy Boys with Charley Stevens. My life back home was a mess and I needed to clean it up.
    My father was somewhere far away, maybe in Canada, maybe not. He might be caught today or next week or never. My being here would make no difference. The thought that I might somehow be able to talk him into surrendering—if the opportunity ever arose—was laughable. We were strangers. We always had been. Ora Stevens was right: I couldn’t save him.
    I found her sitting in her wheelchair on the porch with a cup of tea, reading Jane Austen’s
Emma
. She turned when she heard my footsteps and removed her bifocals and gave me a big smile.
    “Did you sleep all right, dear?”
    “Better than I have in a long time, actually.”
    “I always sleep better in the woods myself. Charley’s out with Nimrod, but he should be back soon. There are clean towels in the bathroom, and Charley left a T-shirt that should fit you.”
    Charley was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, when I came out of the bathroom. “There’s the man of the hour,” he said.
    I pretended to look over my shoulder. “Where?”
    “I hope you’re hungry because I’m making my world-famous, four-grain waffles.”
    “It’s the only meal he cooks,” said Ora from the porch.
    He gave a mock frown. “My secret’s out.”
    I sat down at the kitchen table while Charley poured me a mug of coffee.
    Ora rolled herself in from the porch. “What did you see this morning, dear? Anything unusual?”
    “Mostly thrushes and chickadees. There was a mourning warbler singing over by that new clear-cut. And Nimrod spooked a partridge.”
    “There was a red-eyed vireo outside my window,” I said.
    He raised his eyebrows.
    “My girlfriend taught me a few things,” I said. “Ex-girlfriend, I mean. She’s a hardcore birder.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “Sarah.”
    “Pretty name.”
    “She’s prettier than her name.” I smiled at the memory.
    “What’s she do for a living, dear?” asked Ora.
    “She’s a teacher’s aide, studying to be a teacher. But I think she has higher ambitions than that. She wants to change the educational system across the country.”
    “And how long were you two together?”
    “Off and on, four years. We met in college.”
    “So why aren’t you together anymore?”
    “Ora,” warned Charley.
    “It’s OK,” I said. “Sarah doesn’t like what I do—what I did—for a living.” It was a simplification, a lie, basically, but I didn’t want to get into all the things I’d done to alienate her.
    Charley turned around from the stove. “Why the hell not?”
    “She doesn’t think being a game warden is a real career. She called it ‘a small boy’s idea of a cool job.’ ”
    He laughed. “Well, of course it is! What’s wrong with that?”
     
    As we ate I thought about how I’d bad-mouthed Sarah to the Stevens. Why was I always unfair to her that way? Maybe she did have some reservations about my job, and maybe she did worry too much about money, but she’d never actually asked me to quit being a warden. What the hell was wrong with the men in my family that we forced the women in our lives to leave us?
    After breakfast, I asked to use the Stevenses’ phone. I got Sarah’s answering machine, and since she didn’t believe in screening calls—she saw it as an act of impoliteness—I knew she wasn’t home.
    “Sarah,” I said. “I owe you an apology. I’ve made a lot of mistakes lately—you have no idea—but the way I treated you is the worst. I’m up at Flagstaff now. Some things have happened. I might not be a warden for very much longer. I’m not