“Stay there!” I said. “We’ll come to you.”
He kept scrambling as if he hadn’t heard me.
Pulsifer shook his red head. “The fool is going to impale himself trying to climb through the blowdowns.”
“Better get a rope.” I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Stay there, Zane!”
But the bloody man would not be deterred. From above, I saw that he was a little guy, so skinny that even dressed in a hooded work coat, farmer’s overalls, and steel-toed logging boots, he looked like a kid wearing his father’s clothes. He seemed to have modeled his hairstyle and beard on Jesus as depicted on the covers of books aimed at teenaged Christian girls.
Pulsifer’s truck was a mess, and he was having trouble finding a belaying line. Unwilling to wait, I began picking my way down the obstacle course of logs. Sheets of ice were hidden under the dead leaves. I slid and skinned my knee on the first log in the path.
By then, Zane Wilson had almost reached my position. Even banged up and bleeding, he had clambered up that incline with the energy and sure-footedness of a goat.
Behind me, I heard Pulsifer return and utter an all-purpose curse, probably at having had to fetch a rope that was not needed, but perhaps out of exasperation with the morning in general.
“Take it easy, Zane,” I said as he drew near my position.
It was almost as if he hadn’t been aware of me before. He stopped short, wiped blood from his eyes, and shook his head the way a wet dog might.
“Are you all right?”
He tapped his head behind his ear and opened and closed his mouth.
“Zane?”
“Sorry, I’m on the fritz,” he said in the blunted syllables of someone partially deaf. “Hearing aid’s not working right.”
“What the hell were you running for?” Pulsifer shouted from above. He’d raised his voice even louder hoping it would penetrate Zane’s damaged eardrums.
The guy had enormous blue eyes like those of a cartoon rabbit drawn by Walt Disney. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“That depends.” I tried to move my lips so that he could read them. “Did you commit a crime?”
I sat him down on the tailgate and checked his pulse. It was rapid-fire, but no more than one would have expected. Most of the blood was flowing from a horizontal cut along his forehead that resembled the initial incision a mad scientist would have made before attempting a brain transplant. Wounds to the skull bleed copiously and often appear worse than they are. This seemed true in the case of Zane Wilson, who, aside from his malfunctioning hearing aid, showed no signs of a concussion, broken bones, or internal injuries.
“Can you read lips, Zane?” I said as I applied a compression bandage to his dripping forehead.
“I haven’t had to in a while, but yes.”
I’d given Pulsifer the injured man’s wallet to call in his driver’s license to see if he had outstanding warrants or a criminal record that explained his escape attempt.
“What happened here? Why did you take off like that?”
“I came up the hill and saw the police and figured you were here to bust Mary.”
“For bootlegging?”
“She’s always said the law was after her and would drag her off to prison someday.”
Standing this close to him, I became aware of how dirty his clothes were and how badly he reeked of body odor. But his teeth were so white and perfectly aligned that a skilled orthodontist had to have played a starring role in his dental history.
“Bootleggers aren’t my concern. I’m Warden Investigator Bowditch and my partner is Warden Pulsifer. The reason we’re here is that Mary discovered an injured wolf near her woodpile last night. Someone had shot the animal with a crossbow bolt. Would you know anything about that?”
He paused so long I thought he hadn’t understood. “Is it dead?”
“Not yet.”
“And it’s an actual wolf, not someone’s dog or something?”
“Mary told us you saw an animal that fit its description. Is that true?”
It was a simple enough question, but I noted how his gaze shifted from mine.
“I saw it in my headlights the other night as I was driving home. I didn’t see it well.”
“When was this?”
“Two, three nights ago.”
“And did it look wounded? Like it might have been in pain?”
He fiddled with his malfunctioning hearing aid.
Pulsifer reappeared, waving Zane’s driver’s license between two fingers. “It’s no mystery why he hightailed it. His license is expired. Also his truck hasn’t been inspected in two years. Plus, he’s got three arrests on his sheet for possession.”
The injured man finally piped up, but his tone was respectful. “I shouldn’t have run like that, but I panicked because of my history with the police. I’ve been apprenticing with Mary because my girlfriend and I want to open a legal craft distillery. Cannabis has caused me too much trouble, and it’s only going to get taken over by agribusiness anyway, so what’s the point?”
Despite the grime and cloud of funk that hung about him, he spoke like a man who had received an excellent education.
Pulsifer leaned close to my ear. “What do you want to do with this character?”
I rubbed my unshaven jaw. “I think totaling his truck and losing a pint of blood is worse punishment than being arrested.”
“I feel like a doc should have a look at him.”
Where had this kindly man come from? Whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t the Gary Pulsifer I remembered. “You’re probably right.”
“What do you say, Zane?” Pulsifer said. “How about I drive you to the hospital in Farmington. A doctor needs to stitch up that head wound.”
“No, thank you.”
“We can’t make you go, but take it from me, you need a professional to treat that cut.”
Zane produced an oil-stained bandanna from his pocket. With horror we watched him tie the dirty cloth over the gauze bandage I’d taped to his skull.
“It’s just a scrape. I’m not worried about it. Besides, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do about
