McCants arrived two minutes later. They sat at a picnic table, which had been chained to a tree, and enjoyed the silence.
“They flew the Garden two nights ago,” he said, “Plucked six violets. How’s the Mosquito been?”
The Mosquito Wilderness would always be his baby.
“Quiet. I think you scared everybody away, you big meanie. This last week has been quiet everywhere,” she added. After a look at his face she said, “Almost everywhere . . .”
“This too shall pass,” he said. “Just keep your feet in the dirt.”
He remembered a Sunday of nearly twenty years before. It was snowing and raining and miserable outside and he had just pulled out his workbag when Sergeant Peter Slater had called.
“What’re you up to today?” Slater had asked.
“Paperwork. You?”
“Thought I’d take a ride in the woods. Want to come along?”
The weather was beyond miserable, but Slater was a subtle man with a wry sense of humor, and he agreed to join his supervisor. By day’s end they had written eighteen tickets for an unimaginable array of violations and problems, and the experience had taught him better than any lecture that the only way to enforce laws was to be out where they were being broken. After that he did paperwork at night or in little snatches of time.
He had known McCants so long that they were content to simply sit and drink in the sounds and scents of the changing seasons.
Service was pouring more coffee when McCants said, “Swans.” He looked up to see four of the huge birds flying high above the creek descending toward the area where beaver dams formed several small ponds.
McCants lit up and stared at the creek glissading over gray and black rocks. “I still can’t believe we get paid to do this,” she said, adding, “I heard that sergeants and detectives are going back to the field to fill gaps after the first of the year.”
“I heard that too,” he said, leaving it at that.
“You think you’ll work the Mosquito?”
“I doubt I’ll get to choose.”
McCants smiled. “You want to work it with me, I’d like that. Is Captain Grant going to be okay?”
“I hope so,” he said. LeBlanc probably was right about it being another stroke, but if the captain said it wasn’t, he would stick by his captain.
“What do you think of the senator’s chances?” she asked.
“What is this, Twenty Questions?”
“I think she’s a great choice,” McCants said. “Be good to have a woman running the show. If she wins, you think Tenni’s out?”
“After his contract expires,” he said. “It will depend on the makeup of the commission.”
“His departure alone will be a plus for all of us.”
They were walking to their respective trucks when two shots popped over the hill toward the beaver ponds north of them. Instinct stopped both of them as they listened. The swans came back down the creek, lower now, flapping frantically to gain altitude.
Service counted three.
“One unaccounted for,” McCants said.
He ran along behind her as she raced through the trees up a hill, pausing by a downed white pine and putting her binoculars up. They both scanned the ponds through the trees. There was no wind and the air was heavy, promising rain. Somewhere below they heard snippets of voices.
“There,” McCants said, pointing. “Just inside that little peninsula. The blind’s on the far shore and there’s a camo johnboat against the bank.”
Service glassed the area, saw what she saw.
“They must be parked on the other side of the creek,” she said. “Up on the hill line.” She pointed. “We can get in east of the ponds, curve our way in from the south, and come up behind them. They’re probably parked further north. Got your waders?” she asked.
They’d been in the back of the Yukon at one time and maybe they still were—somewhere in the clutter. In his old patrol truck he had been pathologically neat and orderly because there was so little room, but in the Yukon he was becoming a slob.
They took both trucks and looked for and located a little-used twotrack that led up to the hill where they wanted to be. The roads were pitted deep and rough, the frames bottoming out. After they had found a place to stash the trucks he rooted around for his waders, found them, kicked off his leather boots and slid into the waders. He strapped his gun belt over them.
McCants was ready before him. “Search first, confront second,” she said.
He remembered the shy probie she had been, smiled at her confidence now.
It took twenty-five minutes to get down to the pond, its edge overgrown with tag alders, the bottom of the pond deep in black silt. They crawled through the dense cover, slithering along, easing over blowdowns, trying to avoid stumps left by beavers.