After we’d signed off, I pondered the matter some more.
Being a game warden means dealing daily with dying and dead animals. In the course of a shift, you might be called upon to shoot a rabid fox or kill a moose whose brain has been turned into Swiss cheese by parasitic worms. The thrash-metal band Megadeth once put out an album titled Killing Is My Business … and Business Is Good. I hated the music but thought often of the title. In the course of your career, you see hundreds of dead deer, bears, moose, geese, ducks, turkeys, coyotes. The list goes on.
Game wardens couldn’t afford to be sentimental about wild animals. Those feelings were a luxury that belonged to first-world people who no longer had to think about the cycle of predator and prey—people who could afford to remain ignorant of how life actually played out on planet Earth.
*
One of the perks of being a warden is that the department allows you to use your patrol truck on your days off, provided you reimburse the state for your mileage.
I put on civilian clothes over my long underwear—L. L. Bean boots, jeans, wool shirt, and Carhartt coat—and went out into the freezing garage.
Most days, I lived out of my patrol truck. A warden’s pickup is the closest thing he or she has to an office and supply shed. Most of the gear I carried was standard from season to season: binoculars, an old-fashioned pager to receive messages when I was miles from the nearest cell tower, a camouflage jacket and pants, a spotting scope, a first-aid kit, a Mossberg 510A1 tactical shotgun, a Windham Weaponry AR-15 rifle, boxes of all kinds of ammo, evidence bags and body bags, a come-along, multiple thicknesses of rope, a sleeping bag, a GPS, a camera, crime-scene tape, flares, safety cones, et cetera.
I didn’t normally travel with an animal carrier or catch pole, but I knew I would need the carrier at least on this trip. The department had just given us new talonproof gloves that extended up the arm to the elbow. They were comparable to the bite sleeves worn by dogcatchers. I threw my new gloves onto the passenger seat.
As I got behind the wheel, I saw my father’s dog tags dangling from the rearview mirror. I’d forgotten that I had hung them there. I could hear Amber’s last words in my head as clearly as if I were back in that smoky room again. I thought you were a good person. I thought you were loyal. But you’re just as much of a heartless bastard as Jack was. What kind of asshole son doesn’t even claim his dead father’s ashes?
A son who had been utterly betrayed by his father?
I had no idea what had become of my father’s ashes. I assumed that the state of Maine had some protocol for dealing with the unwanted remains of the indigent and outcast. I figured there must be a twenty-first-century equivalent to the old potter’s field. But I wasn’t entirely sure where to begin looking for it.
I flicked the dog tags so that they jingled, then backed out of the garage.
*
The Lakes Region Animal Shelter was located in a nondescript building along busy Route 302, which is the main road from Portland into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was one of those long, low rural structures that had probably been half a dozen things over the years—day-care center, dentist’s office, travel agency, beauty salon—but which was now the temporary home for wayward cats and dogs waiting to be returned to their owners or in need of new ones.
From the icy parking lot, I couldn’t see the pens at the back of the building, but I could hear the barking of dogs, large and small, let outside into the open air. At least the people who ran the shelter had had the courtesy to choose a headquarters far from the nearest residences. There was an auto-body shop across the highway, but otherwise nothing but white pines in either direction.
A buzzer sounded as I stepped through the door. I breathed in the earthy scent of cat litter and dog hair gone airborne. Muffled barks made their way through the walls. The entry was decorated with pictures of animals up for adoption and posters that offered veterinary tips for pet owners.
A thin, freckle-faced young woman appeared from another room. She was cradling a tabby under her arm. It had a bandage on its foot, a plastic cone around its neck, and a displeased expression on its small face.
“Hello?” she said in a stuttering voice.
“Good morning,” I said. “I’m Mike Bowditch, the game warden who rescued the wolf dog that you’re sheltering.”
Rescued seemed a cruel word under the circumstances, given Shadow’s likely death sentence.
Her eyes widened. “Really? That’s so awesome. Oh my God, he’s such a beautiful animal.”
“How is he doing?”
“Dr. Carbone said he’s actually very healthy.” She stroked the cat’s back, but to no good effect. The tabby continued to glower. “Those awful people didn’t abuse him at least.”
“That’s good to hear.” When I reached out to touch the cat’s fur, it gave a hiss. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Gremlin.”