Bad Little Falls by Paul Doiron Read Free Book Online Page B

Greenland, discovered three new bird species in the Amazon, lived for six months with cannibals in Papua New Guinea—”
    “The Asmat aren’t cannibals anymore.”
    “The New York Times wrote a whole profile on him a few years back. Tell me, Kendrick, how many nights did that pretty reporter sleep in your wigwam?”
    Kendrick didn’t take the bait. “That story made me sound like some strange hermit or survivalist because I choose to live in the woods and practice primitive ways.”
    “That’s the name of the survival school he teaches in the summer,” Doc interjected. “Primitive Ways.”
    “It’s not a ‘survival school.’ I teach basic wood skills—friction fire techniques, wildcrafting, tracking.”
    “You have to admit that you’re something of a guru,” said Doc.
    “I’m just a teacher who wants his students to question their assumptions about the so-called superiority of the modern world.”
    I remembered the story Rivard had told me earlier that morning. “Someone was telling me today that you had a drug overdose at your university last year.”
    Kendrick looked at me with a curious expression. There was something about his eyes that reminded me of a dog’s: a copper color you rarely saw in human beings. “Trinity Raye.”
    “Did you know her?”
    “Of course I did. It’s a small school.”
    The sharpness of his response caused me to let the matter drop. We sat silently for a few moments, listening to the wind shake the clapboards and shutters. Out in the dark, one of Kendrick’s own dogs was wailing like a lost soul in purgatory. Then a buzzer sounded in the kitchen.
    “I believe dinner is ready to be served,” said Doc.
    *   *   *
     
    At the table, Doc brought up the recent break-ins at Bog Pond. “You can’t see the lake in the snow,” he said, “but it’s right at the bottom of the hill. Those are my neighbors who got robbed.”
    “Do you have any idea who might have done it?” I asked, remembering the contracted pupils of Barney Beal.
    “Drug addicts,” said Kendrick. “Every crime around here is drug-related these days. I used to believe in legalization.” He didn’t elaborate. “If you want to make yourself useful, you’ll stop harassing good people like Bill Cronk and go after the real scumbags around here.”
    Something I’d said had darkened Kendrick’s mood. I resolved to steer the conversation in what I hoped was a less controversial direction. “I forgot to tell you, Doc,” I said. “After I dropped you off last night, guess what I found waiting for me at my house.”
    “A woman scorned?”
    “A coyote skin nailed to my front door. There was a note with it welcoming me to the neighborhood, signed by someone who called himself ‘George Magoon.’”
    Doc raised his eyebrows. “Is that so?”
    “I understand that George Magoon is a character out of local folklore,” I said. “Sort of like Robin Hood.”
    “Oh, he was real enough,” offered Kendrick. “Didn’t they teach you about the Down East Game War of the 1880s? When the state of Maine rebranded it as ‘poaching,’ it consigned hundreds of poor people to near starvation.”
    “That’s one interpretation of events,” I said. “But I also know that two game wardens were gunned down in this vicinity in 1886 when they tried to seize a poacher’s dog.”
    “There’s a book about it,” said Doc, rising shakily to his feet. “I’ll loan you Helen’s copy.”
    “Does this Magoon character have some connection to the murders of those wardens?” I asked Kendrick.
    “No, that was probably Calvin Graves,” he said. “Magoon never killed anyone. He preferred to use humor and embarrassment against his persecutors. Sort of like a nineteenth-century version of The Monkey Wrench Gang. ”
    The veterinarian returned from his office with a dog-eared green paperback titled George Magoon and the Down East Game War. On the cover was a pen and ink illustration of a group of men with guns