-- Maine wilderness, snowplowing, prison, and Lycanthropy --
1
-- Blacky knew someone had come looking for him before he ever got to his place; he followed tire-tracks past the junkyard, past Willie's, past the Finch place; that left only his trailer another mile down, and these new tracks went on that way carving up the mud. When he came to the turn-in to his trailer, the tracks went beyond to the house-high loam piles that signaled the end of the road: kids parked at the loam all the time, (beers, doobies, trying to get past third base - and not just on weekends!), but these tracks had come and gone at least four times since Dooley Black, (Blacky to his friends), had left at sunset for the bowling alley, and his weekly cribbage tournament.
-- As Blacky pulled the GMC into the yard he thought: Someone is looking for me.
-- As he staggered from the truck to the front stoop he thought: It's the kid.
-- As he reached his key to the Schlage deadbolt he installed three years ago when he moved down here from up Aroostook way his flaky pompadour took a whack from the ass-end of a pistol.
2
-- The Kid sat at the rickety card table where Blacky took meals; Blacky was on the couch.
-- "I got you." The Kid said. He had hundred dollar sneakers, and dirty hair.
-- "You got shit."
-- "I snuck up on you."
-- "Kid, your about as stealthy as a gay vacationing in Oquonquit."
-- The Kid held the pistol up, a compact Ruger.
-- "Chambered for Nine?" Blacky asked.
-- "Who do you think I am, Dooley?"
-- "I know who you are: your Tom Weinke's son out of prison -- you got the same goat-face he had."
-- "Had? What's Had mean?"
-- "Sorry?"
-- "There's a choice here. I want you to know it's your choice how to play, Dooley."
-- "Yeah, yeah."
-- "Where's my Dad?"
-- "Say what now?"
-- Then the Kid was coming up over the card table, and then the Ruger was pressing against Blacky's leg.
-- "Here first. Your hands next. Then I'm gonna get creative."
-- "I s'pose you're inferr'n my balls would come after."
-- "Just tell me, man."
-- "Kid. Those homespuns up north who gave you my name -- they threw a party when your Daddy disappeared. Think on that. I'll tell you what you want to know, but Kiddo, you're gonna wish you'd walked out of prison, gone to the ocean, and sailed away. You're gonna wish you let this alone."
-- "Yeah, whatever. I'm scared."
-- Finally Blacky said, "Boundary Mountain."
-- The Kid lit a cigarette. Waved his gun for more.
-- "That's a few miles from here. Last time I saw Tom Weinke was up Boundary."
-- "What were you doing there?"
-- How'bout I begin not at the end, how bout? Hey Kid..."
-- "What?"
-- "I think your ride's here."
-- Before the Kid could reply a truck engine noised from up the road; then came headlights, shining into the trailer window. The lights went out; the engine stayed.
-- "That's some good hearing you got, Dool." The truck coming back seemed to put the Kid at ease, "Go on, start talking."
-- "I worked for your Uncle Jimmy. Ran truck for him, this was four years ago, I guess; it was come and go until Tommy, your dad, comes to me with the proposition; according to him there's a crew he met in Bangor, been partying with them; a bunch of Habs; sportsmen s'posedly, with cash behind them; they hunt, fish, party, and that's all they do, this club's a full time thing. Well these guys tell Tom, and 'course Tom tells me, they got land they own here --"
-- "What land's this?"
-- "Six sites. A farm northwest of Eustice; they got a hundred acres of woods way up there near St. Francis, west of Fort Kent; there's North Amity, off Rt. One, east of Baxter; A touch of land in Hancock you could barely drive a truck into between some Indian ponds; there's a lodge in Dover-Crotchrot; last but not least there's Boundary Mountain, right down the road from here."
-- "And?"
-- "Clubhouses. If you looked at a map, Kid, these sites are a friggin necklace draped'round the state's neck. I guess their thing was motorcycling from site to site, hunting, and partying, before going south in the winter. But, in case a club member needs to get to a club house, they wanted the roads plowed. Every storm. Being your Dad is a greedy son of a gun, he's smart to bring me in, because he was such a lazy bastard, he's not really up for even that work. So I take the work, I go site to the sites with a dozer on a trailer, and a plow on my truck."
-- "Dooley."
-- "Yeah?"
-- "Is he alive?"
-- "Can I continue my story?"
-- "What does it have to do with anything?!"
-- "It has everything to do with it. Everything. Spring of '87 your Dad shows up with ten grand for me. I'm shocked, being your Dad is such a cheapskate. If he gave me ten what do you think those Canucks gave him and Uncle Jimmy?"
-- "Get to it!"
-- "Kid, are you the maestro of this tale? Christ. So, shit, I don't work all Summer, ten grand is a lot of Miller High Life; come November I run up to your Uncle's shop looking for him or Dad to see about plowing; jackpot; everyone's down with the same arrangement for year two. Only now Tom, your Dad, he takes me aside, he says the Canucks been working these sites all year, and when I get plowing them this year I keep my eyes on the road; don't get nosy, and no matter what, even if I gotta pee my pants, don't ever get out of your truck until you're off the site."
-- The Kid smashed his fist down on the card table, busting the leg loose. He lifted the pistol, but did not aim it; instead held it at eye level, and examined it all around.
-- You're not scared of this gun, are you, Dool."
---- "I'm scared fine by it."
------ "No, no. If you were you wouldn't be messing with me."
-------- "Kid, I'm trying to tell you..."
-- There was quiet breathing from the kid. A film of tears on his eyes.
-- Blacky said, "I didn't listen. Third lap around the sites, this the second winter of plowing; Amity site, deep woods most of it - I got out the truck to pee. Can I have a cigarette?"
-- The Kid gave him one. Lit it. Blacky smoked.
-- "I saw them coming through deep snow like black dolphins. But these were beasts. Black bears with dog tails. As if an alarm had sounded when my boots crunched down on the hard pack, they heard me. Three of them at first. I reached for the open door of my truck to pull myself to and into the cab, and I see another one through the passenger window, coming from the other side of the road; then a fifth dog, bigger than the others, ambling down the road. I was trying to comprehend all this even as they came. I almost didn't get into the truck in time, and even as I slammed the door, and dropped a fist down on the locks, the first dog leapt to frame, and slammed it's skull against the window. Kid, you listening?"
-- Yeah, Dool."
-- The thing snapped the window clean where it come up from inside the door, and thank God the window fell in on me, for about the same time the next dog was up and in, it's jaw opened so far it looked like a python trying to swallow a pack mule; it smacked the window so hard it knocked my shoulder outta joint. That gave me the time and adrenaline to yank my truck backwards. I wound'er round, and I kept my eyes on the rear view, but in that just out of the way blur edge of your vision I saw their blackness in the snow; loping along beside me; seeing me back the way I come. I left the trailer and dozer there, and got my truck off the site. I got down the road as fast as I dared, no window, my nose frozen, but I was alive."
-- The Kid once again said, "Yeah, Dool." But this time it was timid, raspy: the croak of a stepped on frog.
-- Those wolves, what I remember most, they didn't have yellow dog eyes like all those Indian paintings at the casino; these I saw, they had the whote, blue, and then black; they had lashes."
-- "I'm going to shoot you, Dool." The Kid said so calmly it was a sniveling whisper. Speaking to himself, "I'm going to shoot you in the head. Those headlights are going to signal me at the hour mark -- that's when it'll happen. My uncle.."
-- "Your uncle?"
-- "He came looking for you."
-- "Your uncle?"
-- "It's time, Dool. Shit or get off the pot time."
-- Blacky sighed, "Come on, Kid."
-- "It's time."
-- "Kid, I've been trying to tell you.. Don't you see?"
-- Give me something real! Do it now!"
-- "There's a Russian. It's his crew. He's the one hired your dad and me. His name's Demidov. Okay?"
-- "A Russian werewolf, Dool? Fine: where can I find him?"
-- "No way."
-- Suddenly headlights came in through the blinds like twin sunsets in a sci-fi movie.
-- "There's our cue, Dooley."
-- "Kid, you'll never get to him."
-- "Because of werewolves? You washed up lying coot!"
-- The Kid put the pistol to Blacky again, and kicked in the legs until he tired. Then he dragged Blacky off the couch, to the floor, where he put his face to carpet, like he was rubbing a puppy's nose in shit."
-- "Here's what I do to werewolves." The Kid said.
-- The Ruger when inescapably live and narrow-minded: Dooley was it's dance partner; Blacky was it's valentine, and he knew he would be dead in moments, sure as he knew when he had lied to the kid, and when he had told the truth. So he gave it up.
-- "They're up there right now. Kid! They're up Boundary Mountain at the lodge, right now. I saw their bikes come through last week!"
-- "Dooley."
-- "Yes?"
-- "Take me there."
-- "Kid. We'll never get through them to the guy you want. You'll never see Demidov."
-- "Blacky. You don't know what I got out in the truck."
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