I threw my bags in the back of my personal vehicle, a restored 1980 International Harvester Scout. It was only the last week of June, but the air had the heaviness of hurricane season. I had traveled two thousand miles and still hadn’t escaped the hot, wet grip of the Everglades.
* * *
I’d been away for just a week, and yet somehow, I’d missed the end of spring and the beginning of summer. The lupines along Route 1 had faded. By contrast, the birches, maples, and beeches were fully leafed out. If anything, Maine looked even more verdant than Florida.
It was greener in more ways than one. The state had recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Every few miles, a new dispensary had arisen along the coastal road:
Ye Olde Toke Shoppe
Merry Jane’s
Medicinal Mart
Cannabis Rex
Herbal Nirvana
Like the gold rush of the nineteenth country, I suspected the dope rush of the twenty-first would end in tears and bankruptcies. The real winners would be the same transnational corporations who peddled tobacco and needed a new drug to sell.
I hadn’t warned Logan Cronk that I was coming. The sight that greeted me, as I pulled into my pine-shaded dooryard, nearly made my eyes pop from my skull.
Shadow’s fenced pen was littered with small bones, piles of feathers, and tatters of fur. A trio of crows perched in the high branches of the poplars within the acre-plus enclosure, waiting for a chance to pick at the gnawed carcasses without being devoured themselves.
The recumbent wolf opened one golden eye when he heard me drive up. He recognized the telltale sound of my engine but waited for me to approach the fence to rouse himself. He gave a shake that raised a cloud of hair, dander, and pollen, then trotted down to the gate to greet me.
“What have you been eating?”
He yawned, revealing two-inch-long teeth.
“Seriously, dude, what is all this crap?”
He sniffed the wire as a signal he wanted me to offer my hand. When I did, he licked my fingertips. Maybe it was a gesture of affection, but more likely he wanted to taste the residual grease from the pizza slice I’d grabbed at a convenience store.
I heard a bicycle behind me and, turning, saw Logan Cronk pedaling hard down my long drive. His blue eyes were bright with excitement; his blond hair was so long and feathery he looked like a pop star from the last days of disco. One half of his face was crimson with a rash, as vivid as a port-wine birthmark.
“Uncle Mike! How come you didn’t tell me you were home?”
“Logan, what happened to your face?”
“It’s them caterpillars,” he said, scratching. “The ones with the poison hairs.”
He was talking about the larvae of brown-tail moths, I realized. On the drive home, I had spotted some of their webs in the branches of oak trees. The caterpillars had bristles—or setae—that they shed, which caused allergic reactions, not unlike those caused by poison ivy. In recent years, the moth infestations had spread northeast along the coast. It was hard for me not to see the warmth-loving pests as harbingers of a worse future.
“What’s with all the bones? You told me Shadow killed a turkey that landed inside his pen, but from the looks of things, a whole flock got in there. Plus God knows what else.”
The boy’s grin showed a crooked set of teeth. His parents lacked the money to have them straightened. “It’s roadkill.”
“What?”
“I was reading that wolves are super hungry all the time and prefer fresh meat and stuff, and I’ve been riding around with a trash bag picking up the dead animals along the side of the road.”
“You’d better not have gone inside the fence, Logan.”
“Heck no! I would never have broken the rules.” He scratched an inflamed ear. “Even though I think Shadow kind of likes me.”
I had only recently dared enter the animal’s compound myself—and that was with a can of pepper spray that I doubted would have kept the black beast from ripping out my throat.
“That’s a dangerous way of thinking,” I said. “You look into his eyes, and it feels like you know what’s going on inside his head. But that’s just a way we fool ourselves, Logan. Even with regular dogs, we need to remember that their minds work differently from ours. People are really good at convincing themselves that the things they want to believe are true.”
“Yeah, but he really likes you.”
The kid hadn’t heard a word I’d said. He was only ten. What had I expected?
“Thank you for giving him that roadkill. It added some variety to his diet. He looks big and healthy again.”
The wolf had come into my care after having been shot by a crossbow bolt that had collapsed one of his lungs and permanently damaged ligaments that he needed to chase down prey. His convalescence had lasted many months.
“Do you think he’ll ever live in the house with you?”
“It’s tough to make predictions, Logan, especially about the future.”
The wit and wisdom of Yogi Berra was lost on the ten-year-old.
“Listen,” I said, “I have to take a trip north—I’m not sure for how long. Would you consider watching him a few more days? Of course, I’ll pay you for the work you’ve already done.”
“Really?”
I opened my wallet and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill for every day I had been away, 140 dollars in all. His father had said Logan was saving for his first .22 rifle, and this windfall would be more than enough to finance the purchase. The joy in his inflamed face produced an unexpected emotion in me. I became keenly aware of not having a family of my own, nor even the prospect of one. Dani had made it clear that she had no interest in becoming a mother.
After Logan had ridden off, I looked into the eyes of the wolf and said, “I missed you, pal.”
And despite everything I’d just told the boy about the unknowability of animal minds, I could have sworn Shadow understood me.
8
I had made the mistake of closing all the windows before I’d left, not having anticipated that Maine would experience its first ever monsoon season. The trapped air had a damp, mildewed smell that brought to mind an antebellum mansion rotting away at the edge of some dismal swamp. When I turned on the light in the kitchen, a wolf spider the size of a half-dollar skittered across the floor and disappeared into a crack beneath the baseboard.
My plan was to clean myself up, pack a duffel with clothes appropriate to the bug-ridden month of June, and head for the North Woods. Charley and Ora lived alongside a remote, unspoiled pond in easternmost Maine where their only neighbors were black bears and moose. Maybe by the time I returned, the wolf spider would have moved on to happier hunting grounds and the wallpaper would’ve stopped peeling in strips from the bathroom wall.
I had accrued three days of comp time while investigating Wheelwright. The state required me to take it in lieu of cash. God forbid that I should ever be paid for the actual hours I worked. I sent messages to inform my coworkers that I would be away. I assured my supervisor, Captain Jock DeFord, that I was ready, willing, and able to return to duty should the need arise.
I put my service weapon in the gun safe and removed my personal handgun and three magazines. It was a Beretta PX4 Storm Compact. With regret, I had retired my beloved Walther PPK/S that had seen me through so many adventures. The little .380 lacked the stopping power I needed when dealing with charging moose and charged-up men. The Beretta was harder to conceal but I rarely missed with it.