That was when I heard the plane.
It was flying in low across the lake getting louder and louder until we heard the splash of the pontoons setting down on the water’s surface. I glanced through the window.
“It’s coming up to the beach!”
My father blew out the gas lamp, plunging the cabin into darkness. “Go down there,” he said to me. “Don’t let him come up here.”
“What am I going to say?”
“Just stall him.”
I slipped outside and paused for a moment on the plank deck looking down at the small floatplane as it taxied into the shallows. The door popped open and a man dressed in a darkish uniform climbed out and stood on one of the floats. Then he splashed into the water and waded to shore. It was my first look at Charley Stevens.
“Hey!” I said, and jumped barefoot down the plank steps to meet him.
He squinted up at the dark figure hurtling toward him. “Good evening.”
“Hi!” I said. “Hello.”
“Now who might you be?”
“Mike Bowditch.”
“Bowditch, you say? You’re Jack’s son, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Could you tell him that Charley Stevens would like a word.”
“He’s busy.”
He paused and gave me an appraising look up and down. “Mike,” he said finally, “I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you to answer with the truth. If I go up to that cabin there, what am I going to find?”
A jacklighted deer, I wanted to blurt out. The words were literally at the tip of my tongue. But when I spoke, it came out as, “Nothing.”
He shook his head and let out a sigh, and I realized the expression on his face wasn’t displeasure so much as disappointment. Even though we had never met, he had expected better of me. “I’m afraid I’ll have to have a look, anyway.”
He brushed past me and had taken two steps up the stairs when my father’s voice sounded above us in the darkness: “Kind of late for flying, isn’t it?”
Charley squinted up at the moonlit silhouette looming at the top of the stairs. “Is that you, Jack?”
“What’s going on?”
“I thought we might sit down and have a cup of coffee.”
“I’m all out of coffee, Charley.”
The warden smiled. “Maybe you can help me with some detective work.”
My father laughed. “Is that so?”
“You see, I’ve been flying tonight and-maybe you saw my plane earlier?”
“I saw it.”
“The thing of it is, we’ve had a bad problem with night hunters out this way. So I thought I’d fly around a bit, what with the moon so bright, and see what I could see. And wouldn’t you know about a half hour ago I saw a pair of headlights over on the King and Bartlett Road. The funny thing about them, though, was that they weren’t moving. In fact, it looked to me like maybe what was going on was that somebody was jacking a deer over there. You know what also gave me that impression? The minute I swung over in that direction, those lights just snapped off all of a sudden.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Well,” said Charley. “The coincidence is that the truck I saw bore a resemblance to that old Ford you drive.”
“That’s quite a coincidence.”
“It occurred to me it might actually be your truck, in fact.”
“I’ve been here all night. Ask the boy.”
The warden looked at me. “Is that true, son?”
I nodded.
“You mind if I have a look at your truck, anyway? Just so in the future I can learn to tell it from the other one.”
“How about showing me a warrant first?”
“What do you say I just have a look around so we can clear up any misunderstanding.” The warden took another step up.
“Don’t come up here!” said another voice.
Charley froze. I saw his hand drop down near his holstered sidearm. “Now who would that be?”
“Truman Dellis,” I said.
“I’d like a look around, Jack,” Charley said. 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 whatever 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.
