The Shadow Trees

I'm not sure what brought me to the window at that particular time on that particular time on that particular evening. On a cool October dusk, I wandered to the living room window of my big old Maine farmhouse and looked out to the field that led down to the Morneau River. There, by a line of trees, was a group of men.

I immediately stepped aside, so that I wasn't silhouetted in the window. Except for as small light by my reading chair and the flicker from the fireplace, the room was dark. From the bookshelf, I took down a pair of 7 X 50 binoculars and brought them up to my face, then into focus.

This group of men wore camouflage gear. And all of them were armed.

I considered turning off the light and dousing the fire, but decided to leave everything alone. No need to court attention. I moved the binoculars back and forth. Five men stood in a loose circle, talking and smiling. They wore heavy boots, camouflage pants and jackets and small knapsacks, and what looked like high-power or assault rifles hung from their shoulders.

Hunters. I've always been amused at the sight of grown men blasting at dumb animals with weapons that have enough firepower to punch a hole through a cement wall. Though I have nothing against heavy firepower. So. Hunters in Maine. Nothing out of the ordinary.

They sure didn't look like hunters.

What I do know about hunting animals is that in the woods, blaze orange is the preferred color, to protect oneself from the incoming fire of fellow sportsmen. No one in this group wore orange. Also, I was pretty sure deer season hadn't started.

Another scan of the binoculars. More laughter from the men. Patches of some sort, military emblems, were stitched on the sleeves of their jackets.

National Guard on maneuvers?

I looked again and found some differences in their military clothing. They weren't identical. Not uniform.

Not hunters, and not guardsmen. I thought for a moment, and when I brought the binoculars back up to my face, they were gone.

I pulled on a thick green down jacket and went outside, carrying a flashlight. The air was crisp and teeth-achingly cold, and my boots made crunching sounds in the dead leaves as I walked to the treeline. A crescent moon had risen, sickle-white sharp against the dusk sky. Near where the men had stood were shadow trees on the frozen ground, and I waited, breathing easy, seeing tiny puffs of steam go out into the cold air. With the flashlight I saw where boots had disturbed the leaves.

Two cigarette butts had been tossed down, and I felt a faint Hush of anger at whoever had trashed my property. I put the butts in my coat pocket and switched off the flashlight. Standing motionless, looking at the light in the windows of my house, I shivered. The house stood alone, far from any neighbors, too far for a sound to carry.

I trudged back home and, cautious man that I am, locked every door and window before I went to bed.

Some time ago I gave up watching television, but I still like to know what's going on. I frequently listen to a shortwave radio in bed, earphones clamped softly about my ears, scanning through the crackly ether. Usually the droning sound of announcers from far-off cities and countries puts me to sleep, but not this night. This had been a sour year with sour news, and this evening featured missiles flashing across the desert again and gasoline prices going up. There was a truckers' strike. And something called slamming was in fashion among youth gangs, which involved going armed into crowded malls and trying to see how many civilians one could take out in 60 seconds.

After a while I turned off the radio and got out of bed to get a drink of water from the upstairs bathroom. I kept thinking about the armed men on my land. They weren't hunters and they weren't military. And apparently they weren't out to get me for my past sins either. Men out to get me would not be so blatant, so sloppy. Who were they?

Back in the bedroom I looked over the field. The moon had come up even higher, sharpening the shadows of the trees. Something moved through the trees. It looked like a dog, but the tail was too bushy. It was probably a fox or a coyote or even a damn wolf, strolling through my yard like everybody else.

My previous life included foreign travel and strange locales, and while I have adjusted to "retirement," I am never entirely comfortable. I tend to be on edge, always waiting for a slamming door or a sharp report. But I am more relaxed than I was, and I even have a few routines. One of them is a quick breakfast at Bridget's Grill in town and then a walk over to the Pinette General Store, where I have a second cup of coffee and read the Portland Press Herald and ogle Miriam Woods, the store owner, who is also the postmistress and one of the three selectmen in town.

The store is in a building that's older than most states, and while you buy your lottery ticket and a doughnut to go you can also get a fishing license and pick up your mail. Miriam is a reliable intelligence source, the best I've ever known. She came over today and refreshed my mug and said, "No mail today, Owen. Sorry."

"That's just fine," I said, smiling up at her. She has brown hair and brown eyes and, even in jeans and a patched sweatshirt, she looks wonderful. We talked a bit about the weather and the upcoming Halloween festival at the town hall, and when the two other customers in the store finally wandered out I motioned her closer.

"I have a question," I said.

"Sunday night," she said. "I'm taking Eric to a basketball game Saturday."

"Aren't we presumptuous," I said. "Maybe I have something else to ask."

"Maybe you do," Miriam said. "Go ahead."

I glanced around the empty store. "Something odd happened last night. I saw some men down by the river on my land. They wore camo gear, with weapons, and they didn't look like hunters. Do you have any idea who they might be?"

"I might," she said.

"Who are they?"

She looked up at the wall clock. "Tell you what. You lend me yourself and your pickup truck for 15 minutes, and I'll tell you everything you need to know."

"What's more important in this deal, the truck or me?"

Miriam gently slapped my hand with the towel. "Don't make me choose."

It actually took about 30 minutes, and started with my backing the truck up to the rear of the store, where we loaded cardboard boxes of canned food and paper goods into the rear. When we were done, she climbed, into the front seat and said, "Drive on, big boy, and shortly all will be revealed."

We drove for about 15 minutes, clear to the other side of town, near the border of Cardiff. We didn't leave the town proper, which was just as well, because I lived in Pinette under certain arrangements that stipulated that I never leave its boundaries without permission, something I didn't care to explain to Miriam at present.

In this part of town, a small jumble of stores and homes stood near the old B&M railroad tracks, and Miriam directed me to park in front of a small brick building with a large window opening onto the sidewalk. Fernalds Drugstore was carved in the granite over the window, but a handmade cardboard sign in the window said Community Action Network Food Bank. Emptying the truckload into the storefront took three trips, and then I helped Miriam and an older woman pile cans on shelves in the rear. In front, phones rang and children cried or ran around in circles, while another two or three women tried to keep order. Signs and posters on the walls were in both English and Spanish, and most of the people in the store--about a dozen, sitting patiently on scuffed orange plastic chairs--were black- or brown-skinned, not typical in a small Maine town.

Miriam brought me a cold orange juice, and at my raised eyebrow she said, "Welcome to the other side of Maine. The one that doesn't get reported much."

"I can see that."

We stepped outside into the surprisingly warm October sun and she said, "The secret side to this pretty state."

"Migrant workers?"

A firm nod. "The same. Mention migrant workers and people instantly think of California or Texas. Not many think of the fine and fair state of Maine. But they're here. Picking apples or potatoes or packing eggs at those mega egg farms. They don't get paid squat and their families and kids get hungry, and ... well, that's why the food bank's been set up."

I took a sip of my juice. "And this ties in with my visitors the other night?"

She motioned across the street. "Any of those folks look familiar?"

And sure enough, as she often is, Miriam was right.

The men, eight of them this time, most in camouflage pants or jackets, were lounging around three parked (continued on page 142)Shadow Trees (continued from page 114) pickups, sipping beer and looking over at us. They were laughing too loudly. Even from across the street, I didn't like the looks in their eyes. Miriam gently nudged me. "Do you feel safe?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you feel safe?"

"Not particularly."

"Well," she said, her voice dripping with scorn. "You should. That's our own Arundel County militia, here to make Pinette safe for white Christian folks who hate big government. Believe it or not, they think they're doing good."

I kept an eye on them, conscious that I could feel myself looking over the eight men. memorizing their faces, memorizing their attitudes and their smiles and whispers. "I take it they're not keen on food banks."

"Especially food banks for migrant workers."

"Not very Christian of them," I said.

Miriam sighed. "Who said any of this had to make sense? Look, I've got to get back to the store. Can we go?"

And that would have been that, except for one of the men across the way yelled something in our direction, something about a spic-loving bitch, and before I knew it. I was on their side of the road.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that," I said politely. "Care to repeat it?"

They were laughing, safe in their numbers, but one in the center looked me over and said, "I don't think you heard a damn thing." He was in his early 40s, with fair skin and a neatly trimmed black moustache. His jeans were clean and looked pressed, and his fatigue jacket was also clean. Not a speck of mud. Impressive.

The other members of the group were bulkier and had more facial hair. I kept my polite smile turned on, but my eyes were in radar mode, checking each of them, looking for holsters, looking for lumpy objects in coat pockets, looking for hands half-hidden behind a back.

"I'm sorry, but I think I did," I said, looking directly at the man in charge. "The name is Owen Taylor. Is there a problem?"

A few more laughs, but they didn't sound friendly. "And my name is Hank Marley, and we're out here practicing our constitutional rights of free and open assembly. That all right with you?"

"I'll tell you--" I began, and then from behind us a horn started honking. I turned to see Miriam in the front seat of my truck. She honked again, and I could see the look on her face.

Hank said. "Go on, friend. It looks like your woman wants you."

A few snickers, but those faded when I looked them over. "You just made a bad assumption," I said.

"Oh, that's not your woman?" Hank asked.

"Not that," I said. "Calling me your friend."

Back in the truck we went for about a block before Miriam said, "Don't."

"I'm sorry, is there the rest of a sentence there?"

"You heard me," she said. "Don't. I can handle this myself."

"I have no doubt you can handle anything tossed your way," I said. "I just went over to discuss current issues with the gentlemen, that's all."

"Hah." She looked out the window as we drove through Pinette. "Look, you know what they are? A bunch of scared little boys, that's all. Scared about their jobs, scared of anybody different, scared that the great all-powerful Them is after their rights and their guns. This week they're harassing migrant workers, next week they'll be up on Phelan Hill, looking for black helicopters. Don't worry about it."

I thought about that a moment and said, "All right, deal. But the minute they start harassing a certain store owner and selectman in this town, then it becomes a problem."

"Owen--"

"Let me be, dear, or I'll send the UN after you."

That was good for a laugh or two, until I went into town later that week to find three trucks parked across the street from Miriam's store. I parked down the street so Miriam couldn't see me, and then I walked up to the group. Same clothing, same attitude. I caught Hank Marley's eye, and a little smile danced its way across his face, like he was so damn glad to see me.

"What's going on, Hank?" I asked.

"You guys pooling your allowance so you can go in and buy the latest copy of Soldier of Fortune?"

Hank's smile remained. "I like your style, Owen. Very witty, very cocky. We could use someone like you."

"And who's we?"

He gestured to his group. "Just a few people in this county who are tired of their rights being trampled on, tired of their taxes going up and up, tired of special benefits for special groups of people, tired of crime. We're gonna be ready for the next gang who wants to break into an old couple's home and burn it down, or for the next county attorney who wants to cut plea bargains, or the next bunch of do-gooders who want to help strangers instead of helping their own."

I nodded. "I suppose you're the same group I've seen down by the river. Over by the treeline." I paused and added, "On my property."

Hank shrugged and said, "There's a right-of-way down along the river, for fishermen."

"Funny, I don't remember seeing any fishing poles."

One of his larger companions spoke up. "Collapsible fishing poles. In our packs. That's why you didn't see them."

"Oh," I said, smiling widely. "How convenient. And what's going on here today?"

Hank nodded to the store. "Just talking to people. Letting them know that by going to this store, they're helping subsidize someone who helps illegals in this county. Outsiders who take away jobs from the locals."

I looked at them, one by one. "You mean you fellows would rather be picking apples or processing eggs than having a cold beer on this fine day?"

Some mutterings from the fellows, and Hank folded his arms. "That's not the point. The point is that cheap labor drives down wages. It drives out jobs. And that's not right."

"You seem to be doing all right, Hank."

"I'm independent, just like the hunters and shopkeepers and trappers that made this country great. And I don't need the government's help for that. All we ask is to be left alone, and let us protect our own kind."

I stepped up to him and leaned in, lowering my voice. "What a coincidence, Hank. You see, I'm here to protect my own kind, too."

And I left and went across the street to the store.

Miriam was there, by herself, wiping off a very clean lunch counter. I sat down and picked up a lunch menu and then put it down, looking around the empty store. "Somebody in town offering free beer?"

"Nope," she said, folding and refolding the cloth. "Somebody outside is offering free aggravation. If you had a choice of shopping in town with plenty of hassles and stares and rude comments, or driving 15 minutes farther with no hassles and no stares, what would you pick?"

I folded my hands on the lunch counter. "My dear, I would pick you. Always."

"Too bad other good citizens of Pinette don't share your conviction. With jobs tight and everyone looking out for themselves, well...you see what happens."

I looked back out the window at the men and trucks. "This Hank Marley. He seems to be a tad brighter than his cohorts. What's the matter, did he run for selectman last spring and lose?"

"Nope, not Hank," she said. "He runs his own woodworking business, out behind his house. Wanted to expand and the zoning board wouldn't let him. Bingo. Big government in the form of his neighbors telling him what to do with his land. A few weeks later, we got our very own militia. He's a smart one, speaks well, and if it wasn't for him, I don't think they'd keep it up. But he's got them organized, he's got them spun up, and right now, he's got them outside, ruining my business."

I looked down at my hands, "I could do something, you know."

She slapped the towel on the counter and resumed her wiping. "You've had an interesting life, judging from all those scars that I've seen. But Owen, no violence. All right? Just let it be. Before you know it, it'll be deer season and those boys will be more concentrated on bucks up on Callaghan Ridge than on migrant apple pickers or me. Promise. No violence."

"Promise," I said. "No violence."

The phone rang and I picked up the menu again, wondering if I could order an expensive lunch and get away with leaving an obscenely large tip, and then Miriam came back, her eyes wide, her hands clasped before her. "The food bank. They've set fire to the food bank."

I got up and then ducked as something smashed through the front window. Miriam shrieked and I propelled myself across the counter and pulled her to the floor. I raised my head over the counter but didn't see any movement.

"Stay here," I ordered. Of course, she would have none of that and followed me to the front of the store, where the glass had been smashed by a brick lying on the faded wood. I hefted the brick in my hand and stepped outside to the porch. Nobody. The men and the trucks were gone. I could feel Miriam trembling at my side and said, "Why don't you close early, and I'll spend the night at your place."

She choked back a sob. "That...that would be nice, but my son--"

"I'll sleep on the couch," I said.

I helped her nail plywood over the shattered front window and then she locked up and got into her five-year-old Ford and drove away. I walked down the street to my pickup and found that someone had thoughtfully dumped a couple of streets' worth of trash into the front seat. I spent a few minutes cursing and cleaning it out, and when I got into the smelly cab and started the truck, I looked back up at the street, at the store, where the stark plywood stood out.

"Promise," I said. "No violence."

A couple of days later I drove up on Linden Road, up on the northern end of town, where there are lots of trees and old stone walls and not many houses. My truck clattered over a small wooden bridge, spanning Lindsey's Stream, before I found the house I was looking for, a two-story garrison with a big garage nearby and a sign hanging over the front: Marley's Woodworking: Fine American Furniture. I backed the truck up the driveway so I would have an easy out if things didn't go right, then I got out and walked up to the open garage. From inside the garage I could hear the earsplitting whine of wood being cut, and the sounds of hammers and voices, and a radio playing.

The garage had a wide door and inside was a woodworking shop with overhanging fluorescent lights. Chairs and porch swings and tables and other pieces of wood furniture in various stages of construction were scattered around the concrete floor, along with lengths of wood and piles of something out back, covered with a blue tarpaulin. There were workstands and lathes and electric saws, and two large sinks at the rear.

Three men were working inside, two at the far end, and Hank Marley was at a tall desk, standing over some paperwork. His jeans and flannel shirt were smeared with sawdust.

When he saw me he came around the desk, and I saw a small holster belted to his side holding a revolver, maybe a .32 caliber. His two bearded companions--easily recognizable from the other day--stopped their woodworking machinery and lifted up their safety goggles.

"Do something for you?" Hank asked, standing confidently, right hand casually resting on his belt.

Sure, I thought. Come one step closer and I'll pick up this piece of wood and drive it into your chest, just below your breastbone. When you're on your knees, gasping for breath, I'll grab the revolver and take care of your two buddies. And then I'll get to work on you.

Instead, I said, "Yeah, you sure can. How much?"

He cocked his head quizzically, like a hound dog hearing a strange sound out deep in the woods. "How much for what?"

"You decide," I said. "Maybe you and I could reach an agreement here. I buy some furniture. Maybe I buy a lot of furniture. Or maybe we just skip the furniture part and we work out an arrangement. Money in exchange for consideration."

His eyes narrowed a bit. "And what kind of consideration?"

"You're a smart businessman, you figure it out."

"The store owner, right?" he asked with sarcasm, making each word sound like an epithet. "Our elected government representative. The migrant lover."

"Oh, she's not that bad, so long as you ignore the black helicopter in her barn," I said, keeping my eyes on his two friends at the rear of the garage. If they started moving toward me, promise or no promise, I was picking up that length of wood.

"So says you."

"Right," I agreed. "So says me. So why not a deal?" I gestured around the garage. "What do you say I pick up a few pieces of furniture. Maybe even place an order for a few more. Hell, maybe a year's output. I wouldn't know where to put it, but that's my problem, isn't it."

He paused, then said, "You've got that kind of money?"

Blood money, some might call it. "I do," I went on. "So. What do you say, Hank? You're a businessman. This is a deal where everyone wins. You get some business, somebody I care about is left alone and you and your boys can keep on playing in the woods."

Hank rubbed his chin. "But you see, Owen, I'm more than just a businessman." He looked back at his comrades. "I'm a patriot. Someone whose values can't be bought. Someone who's independent of the system, of the corrupt rules, of the crooks pretending to be the government. So I'm not for sale. In fact, nothing in my shop is for sale to you."

His hand was at his belt, near the holster. "And if I'm not doing business with you, then you're trespassing. And I suggest you get off my property."

I looked to the rear of the garage and saw the two other men putting their tools away. At that point, the wind picked up and lifted the corner of the blue tarpaulin out back, revealing some white bags, piled neatly.

I raised my hand, tried my best smile. "All right, Hank. I'm always open for suggestions."

I walked out of the garage at an angle, so my back wouldn't be turned to them. I started my truck, then checked the rearview mirror. All three were inside. I rolled down to the end of the driveway and saw that the week's trash had been left out. Four dark green bags of trash. Moving quickly, I got out of the truck and tossed the bags in the rear, and then drove off, thinking about two things.

The first was that someone might have seen me take the trash bags.

And the other was exactly what Hank Marley--no farmer--was planning to do with several hundred pounds of fertilizer.

The next morning I spent a couple of hours shooting at tin cans and plastic bottles, keeping the old skills up, I went though my entire collection of pistols, rifles and shotguns, bringing them up from the basement, letting the booming sounds and the sharp smell of burnt gunpowder settle right through me. I figure that, retired or not, if I can take out a tin can at 50 yards, I'm still fairly lethal. That's a good feeling, one I intend to keep.

I paused in my shooting, letting a minor cramp in my trigger finger work its way out. The sky was clouding up some and there was the woodsy smell of dead leaves. This type of exercise usually leaves me in a good mood, but I had talked earlier with Miriam to make a date for tomorrow night, and she had sounded tired. She mentioned hang-up phone calls and a dead squirrel left in her mailbox. But she refused to come over and also refused my offer of coming over a day early. Stubborn woman. Thinking about what she was going through ached at me.

The grim mood was still with me later that night when it started to rain. After a meal of stew and day-old bread I made a cup of tea, and as I went back into the living room I spared a glance through the window and stopped.

They were back.

The binoculars were in my hands and I watched the men move slowly by the river's edge. The rain made their clothes look sodden and thick. There were five or six of them, moving along, weapons and knapsacks slung over their shoulders, led by Hank Marley. I saw a few smiles. Sure. Playing soldier is fun, except when someone's shooting at you. I thought of going down to the cellar and coming back up with the scoped Remington and tossing a few rounds over their heads as a community service. Can't have a poorly trained militia in the neighborhood, can we?

No violence, I thought. Promise.

I watched as they struggled through the muck and grass up the river, passing through into the trees. Legally, they were trespassing, but in this town I wouldn't get far with a complaint. So long as they stayed away from the house, they could troop up and down the river all night long. One of the many things I've learned in this little town is a flexible concept of property rights. You never can cut a couple of branches on someone else's land for firewood, but there are ridgelines and hills in Pinette and beyond where everyone hunts deer and no one pays attention to boundary markers.

I watched by the window for a while longer, and then went to bed.

With her son, Eric, away visiting friends for the night, Miriam came over to my house. Later we were in front of the fireplace, cuddled up in a large down comforter and wearing absolutely nothing. Firelight in a dark room does wonderful things to a woman's skin, and I enjoyed looking at that golden glow as we sipped Irish coffee from big thick mugs and listened to a sleet storm slap against the windows.

Miriam said, "Don't freak when I say this, because it's not a proposal of any sort, but it's nights like these I wish I could stay in here forever."

"OK. I'm not freaking. And I can see why you'd feel that way. How are you?"

"I'm fine."

Sure. "And how is the food bank?"

"It's doing better," she said. "Luckily the beer bottle broke as it hit the sidewalk, and the gasoline just splashed a little before it caught fire. Mostly scorching damage outside. They were lucky. But--"

There was a lot of weight in that last word. I started gently scratching her back. "And you were about to say?"

Her shoulders shook for a moment, and her voice was bleak. "There was a note the day after. Slid under the door. It said . . . it said the next time, it would be bigger and better. And there'd be nothing left but rubble."

I thought about my visit to Hank and said nothing. "We told Chief Gramby, but, well, you know how he is," she said. "Two years away from retirement, and there's not much he can do anyway. He said it's just idle threats, that's all, and that he would keep an eye on the place. He also said he would keep an eye on the store. Hell, the man's by himself with two part-time cops who are best friends with the guys in the militia. We even tried getting the newspapers interested, but the county paper is just a weekly for shoppers. The Portland paper said they might send over a stringer if the chief ever makes an arrest. Am I supposed to give up?"

"I don't think you'd do that, would you?" I said, looking into the fire, enjoying the sound of the sleet on the window and the smoothness of Miriam's skin.

"No, not for a moment," she said. "This is my town, damn it, and if I want to help my neighbors, even if they have dark skin and speak another language, then it damn well isn't anyone else's business. Still, donations to the food bank have dropped off the past couple of days, and so have the customers at my store. So I guess the militia is getting its way. They're winning, just like bully boys everywhere win."

I thought and looked into the fire and continued scratching her back. "Damn it," she said. "Somebody ought to do something."

I nodded. "You're absolutely right. Somebody ought to do something."

I spent a couple of days downtown, keeping an eye on the store and then driving over to keep an eye on the food bank. If Chief Gramby was joining me, he was under deep cover. On the third day, I spotted Hank Marley coming out of Paul's Hardware, and I made a U-turn on the street and pulled up to the curb. As he came up the sidewalk I rolled down the window. "Hank?"

He stopped, carrying a large paper bag. "Yes?"

"Still would like to make a deal with you," I said. "Even double my last offer."

He laughed. "Why should I deal? We're winning."

And he walked off.

The next night I was at Miriam's house for dinner, and she asked me to go upstairs to get Eric. His small room is decorated with posters of the space shuttle and basketball stars, and in one corner is an Apple computer, which he can pretty much make sing and dance on demand. Miriam's son is 14, with her brown hair and eyes but with a height that's approaching mine. In the time we've known each other, he and I have joined a mutual-respect society. I respect him for helping his mom--without an attitude--through single motherhood, and he respects me for treating him as a young adult, and not a child with glandular problems.

"Listen," I said, "your mom wants you down for dinner, but first I need to ask a favor."

He had a big grin on his face, the kind a teenager gets when asked for a favor by an adult. "Ask ahead."

From inside my sports coat I pulled out a plastic bag, and from inside that some crumpled-up pieces of paper. I smoothed them out on his desk and pointed out a name and some numbers and told him what I was thinking. He nodded.

"Think you can do something with that?"

The grin was still there. "Sure."

"OK. Think you can do something with that without getting caught?"

The grin got bigger. "Piece of cake, Owen. How far should I take it?"

"To the moon and back."

"No problem." He picked up the slips of paper and put them into the top drawer of his desk, and then sniffed the air. "Man, where did you get them from anyway, the garbage?"

"You could say that."

The next day I was at the kitchen table, working through some financial options, when the FBI came for a visit. It wasn't their first visit this year. Usually two agents come to the house, but budgetary cutbacks must have reached far and wide, for just one showed up this time.

"Special Agent Cameron," he said, opening his badge to me automatically as I let him in. He had a set of fine wrinkles about his tired eyes and his thinning white hair looked even sparser than before. I sat in the living room and kept the fire going while he went through the routine. He opened his briefcase, then a leather-bound folder, and read from some papers. He wore half-glasses, and his voice was one step above monotone.

"You realize that in exchange for past testimony we have the right to search the house to ensure that your agreement with the Department of Justice is in order," he said. "Correct?"

"Absolutely."

He put the papers back into his briefcase. "I've sometimes wondered, based on your record, how you sleep at night."

"Usually in bed, with blankets, and if I'm lucky, with something cuddly and female at my side."

The afternoon didn't improve thereafter. He searched the upstairs, the living quarters, the cellar, the barn and my truck, making sure I had the agreed-upon number of firearms, no explosives and nothing else illegal. Then he came back and put down his briefcase.

"I've been advised to tell you something," he said. "If I had my way, I wouldn't tell you a damn thing, but orders are orders."

"Haven't I heard that one before?"

He glared at me. "There's a congressional audit under way in some areas of the department. Some agreements we've had with people like yourself are being reexamined. Some are being canceled, and some people like yourself are finding themselves in prison."

Dear me. "Go on."

"Consider it a reminder," he said. "If you ever have the urge to engage in anything illegal, anything involving violence, anything at all that might prove an embarrassment to the department, well--"

"Well, what?"

He didn't blink. "Just hope those urges go away, or you might be in a concrete room next month, taking group showers with a biker gang. Understood?"

"Understood."

As Agent Cameron drove down the dirt driveway, I stood in the window for a very long time, just thinking.

I lay awake in bed that night, listening to the old farmhouse creak and groan as it settled. I had been in prison once, just before I agreed to testify in some bloody and secret matters. And then, eventually, I had ended up here, on this old farm in this township, where, within certain not-too-unreasonable limits, I could do almost anything I wanted.

In prison they tell you when to eat, what to eat and what to wear, and it is noisy, noisy all day and all night with yells, shouts, radios and TVs, and that damn clanging of metal bars. Not to mention the constant menace in the air, of men cooped up who would tear each other to pieces over an imagined insult or a stolen cigarette butt.

I rolled over and caught a scent. On the spare pillow, I caught a whiff of Miriam. Her perfume or shampoo or whatever other mysterious fragrance women use. I rolled back and laid the pillow across my chest, breathing, enjoying her scent--and then I stopped thinking and got up and went downstairs.

In the cellar there's a pegboard wall where I've hung some tools and other gardening implements, including an awl. I inserted the awl into two of the peg holes and moved the board away on well-oiled hinges. In the concrete wall was a safe, and I undid the combination, reached inside and took out some souvenirs from my previous life.

And then I got to work, using certain skills from my old life. I must admit, the activity did bring a smile to my face.

An hour later I was in the deep woods, listening and watching. There was a small knapsack on my back and a Remington Model 60 bolt-action rifle in my hands. I lay in the woods, enjoying the cold feel of the air on my hands and face, appreciating the lack of mosquitoes and other irritating things with wings. I was on a small rise among several white birch trees, watching the house and the garage below me--Hank Marley's place. It was three in the morning, a good hour for people to be in deep sleep, and also a good hour for other people to catch up on jobs to be done.

I brought the rifle up to my eye and switched on the nightscope. Everything became clear in a faint green glow. No lights were on in the house or in the garage. Nobody seemed to be outside. Everything seemed quiet enough.

I stashed the rifle among a couple of boulders and worked my way down to the garage. I used a small penlight with a red lens that gave off a faint illumination without destroying my night vision. I checked all along the side door. No apparent alarms or switches. The side door had two locks, each of which took under five minutes to pick, and then I was inside. I waited. No lights came on from inside the house. No bells tinkled and no horns blared. Quiet. I looked around the garage, holding the penlight in my mouth. To the rear I found a wood pallet and the bags of fertilizer, and I shrugged off my knapsack and went to work some more. With a folding knife I split open the bags and dumped the load on the concrete floor. From the knapsack I took out a hose and hooked it up to the rear sink, and started a slow dribble of water that, by morning, would turn the fertilizer into harmless sludge.

By the sink I noted two new 55-gallon drums. I sniffed and checked the labels. Diesel fuel. My, Hank and his boys had explosive imaginations. In the workshop I found a hand drill, and soon diesel oil was dribbling onto the floor.

And then I went outside and gently closed and locked the door behind me.

I still had work to do.

A half hour later I was in another hiding place across the road, keeping Hank's house under surveillance with the nightscope. Using the red flashlight I rummaged around in my pack till I found a silencer, which I screwed onto the end of the rifle barrel. Lying flat in the dirt, I aimed at a small square junction box on the side of the house. I breathed in and breathed out, in and out, and the third time, I breathed out just halfway, paused and squeezed the trigger. There was a cough from the rifle and the familiar recoil, and the junction box flew open, sparking in the night.

I slowly worked the bolt, catching the warm spent cartridge in my hand. I swung the rifle around to aim at a step-down transformer on a utility pole just up the street. For good measure I shot the transformer three times, and waited.

The house and the garage were dark.

Thanks to me, they would stay dark for the foreseeable future.

The next morning, yawning and tired, I had breakfast at Miriam's store. Only a few of the regulars were there, and after I was done I made a show of helping Miriam with the dishes. Along the way I stepped into the tiny room that serves as Pinette's post office and stole a form. I went home and typed it up, and when I came back to the store for lunch and a quick kiss with Miriam in the storage room, I slipped the form into her correspondence to the district office.

Eric came out to the parking lot to give me a progress report. "It's going well," he said, grinning. "In fact, it's fun."

"Cut it out," I said sharply. "It's a job. You start enjoying it too much, and you lose any sense of professionalism. And then you're explaining your life history to a lawyer. Got it?"

He nodded sheepishly. "Gotten,"

I went home and took a nap.

Being back at work was tiring.

A day later I was back in the woods.

And three shots later Hank's house darkened again.

I also took a potshot at his phone junction box, just for fun.

Two days later I repeated the pattern. And for good measure, driving away, I stopped at the little wooden bridge that was on his road. I got out of my truck and poured some gasoline on the bridge, and when I drove away, the flames of the burning bridge were quite bright indeed.

It was good to feel useful again.

I was also busy at home, which paid off a couple of weeks later. I had been spending nights up in the barn, dozing a bit at night and then sleeping for hours during the day. At the hardware store I had bought half a dozen motion-detector lamps, the ones that send out infrared light and click on a floodlight if an object of a certain size breaks the beam. I had scattered them across the perimeter of my property, disconnecting the floodlights but connecting a few other things.

At night I mostly stayed awake in the barn's large cupola, keeping watch, listening to the shortwave radio with the sound turned low. Most of the slats in the cupola had fallen away, giving me a great all-around view of the property. I sat in a comfortable chair with a blanket across my lap and watched the night go by, drinking coffee from a Thermos. I'd watch the slow, giant pinwheel of stars as they raised and lowered themselves in the black sky. I'd watch the faint streaks of meteors racing through the air and the tiny, unwavering dots of light that showed satellites cruising by on their missions hundreds of miles up.

Using my nightscope I saw deer, fattened up by the fall's acorn and apple crops, gingerly walking across the yard, perhaps knowing in some deep animal subconscious that in a few weeks, during hunting season, strange two-legged beasts would be trying to kill them. I saw raccoons and skunks lumber across my lawn, and once a coyote, who stopped halfway up my driveway and sat there for a few minutes, breathing hard, its tongue hanging out like a dog's.

And then, one night, a little red light blinked on the black box by my foot and there was a soft chime. I raised my nightscope to look down at the shapes moving through the shadow trees, and I saw that I had large visitors.

Through the scope, slowly moving in a semicircle in the barn's cupola, I spotted five of them, moving in a loose skirmish line across the field near the river.

Idiots. No cover. No reconnaissance. Just a straight walk in the woods. It made me wonder how they trained.

I shook my head and picked up my gear and started down the ladder.

Time for some training lessons.

There's a special terror to being in the woods at night, armed and advancing on the enemy, not knowing what is out there. Even among the very best troops, the most well trained in the world, advancing in the woods makes hearts race and palms sweat. Never knowing if the next step will reach a mine, or a trip wire, or a branch-covered pit with sharpened stakes at the bottom, can accelerate the heartbeat. The very best troops move slowly and alertly and with great caution through the woods, because they realize what might be out there, waiting.

The Arundel County militia was not among the most well trained troops in the world.

Even without the unfair advantage of my nightscope goggles, I could have wrapped them up in under 15 minutes, but I was working under restrictions: a promise. So the goggles balanced that out. I had a nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson Model 90 holstered at my side and a small knapsack, and when I left the barn I made a large, looping excursion to the river so I could approach my five trespassers from the rear. I watched as they advanced. Silly boys. They looked to the front, to the left, to the right, but they never looked to the rear. And why should they? Their target was up front.

Well, their target had other ideas.

My first hit of the night was an overweight straggler to the far left, huffing and puffing, carrying a deer rifle that seemed to weigh like cement in his pudgy hands. I moved quietly up behind him, hung the nightscope goggles around my chest and jumped him. I dug my forearm into his throat, choking off his breath, and with my right leg I kicked out and knocked him down. Then I inserted the end of the muzzle of the nine millimeter into the man's mewling mouth and said, "Shhh."

He quieted down. On my left wrist were several lengths of pretorn duct tape, and I freed one length and slapped it across his mouth after I pulled back my pistol. "Don't move, friend," I said, and, reaching into my knapsack, I pulled out two sets of the hard plastic restraints that cops love to use when they need to hold someone quickly. I bound his hands and ankles, rolled him over onto his back and tossed his rifle into the woods.

I snuggled up next to him, smelling fear and sweat and, yes, urine, and I said, "Listen well," tapping the end of my pistol against the side of his head. "You just stay here and don't move and look up at the stars and listen to the wind. You do anything else, anything at all--you move, you roll, you try to make a fuss--and I'll blow your head off. Nod if you understand."

A nod. He understood.

I gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Thanks," I said, and went off again.

Number two tried to put up a fight, which delayed me 90 seconds or so. Number three said, "John? Is that you, John?" and I said, "Guess again" when I got him to the ground. Number four said, "Oh Jesus, I give up," as my hands first touched him, and I gained back the time I had lost with number two.

I had saved the best for last.

Hank Marley knelt by a row of shrubbery adjacent to my driveway, whispering something loudly, no doubt to bring in his comrades. He had on fatigues and a boonie hat, and his head was sweeping back and forth, like a hunting dog trying to catch a scent. His weapon lay across his knees, and I scurried up the driveway, making enough noise for him to hear me.

"Harry, get up here," he whispered back at me. "Where's everybody else?"

"Sorry, they got tied up," I said, putting an arm to his throat.

I didn't bother with duct tape and I let him sit up, leaning against a low piece of shrubbery, his wrists and ankles bound. I let him babble as I gathered wood I had secreted earlier and built a fire. Somewhere out in my woods an owl hooted.

I wiped my face with a handkerchief and said, "Hank, what are you doing here?"

His thin, intelligent face was scowling. "You know damn well what."

I shrugged. "Care to explain it to me anyway?"

He used a few choice expletives and said, "Damn you, you've ruined my life! I haven't had power or phone in over a week, my workshop is a mess, I have to drive six miles out of the way to get to town, my mail is being forwarded to Anchorage and my credit rating's destroyed! And you did it!"

I grinned. Eric had done his job well, too. I said, "But Hank, I was doing you a favor."

Even in the firelight I could see the disbelief in his eyes. "A favor? You were doing me a favor?"

"Sure I was, militia man," I said. "You've told me you want to be a free, independent man, away from the corrupt system and the corrupt government. And that's just what I did. I freed you from both. The corrupt government isn't delivering your mail and hasn't yet repaired that bridge. And the corrupt system isn't entangling you in power, phone or credit. You are a free man, Hank. Don't you feel better now?"

"You're crazy!"

"I give you everything you've wanted in life, and you call me crazy?"

He swore again. "It's because of that woman. And the migrants, right?"

"Sure, but it's more than that," I said. "You see, Hank, you ticked me off. I've retired to this little town. It's the only home I've got. Then you and your storm troopers started raising a fuss. If all you did was shoot in the woods and write crayoned letters to your congressman, I would have left you alone. But you got my attention when you started hurting this town, scaring people, disturbing the peace. So tonight, we're going to work out a deal."

"We are?" he said, defiant though bound. "Tomorrow I'm going straight to my lawyer and by the end of this week, I'll own you and this shitty little farm."

"That presupposes I'm going to let you go, Hank."

"You wouldn't dare do anything else."

"Try me," I said, and I got up and kicked out the fire. Then I ran my garden hose out and sprayed him down, and then I went into the house and made a cup of tea and read a day-old Boston Globe. An hour later I went out in to the cold October night. He was shivering, whispering something, and I knelt down and said, "Funny thing about hypothermia, the minute it arrives you start to think you're warming up, and that's about the time you're on a slippery slope to dying. Shall we start talking again?"

He may have said yes, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and built up a fire again, and when he could talk rationally, we made a deal. The first part of the deal was that all of them would leave my property peacefully. That was readily agreed to, and, to my surprise, he quickly agreed to everything else.

Cold water tends to focus the mind.

Before he left I decided to fib a bit and said, "just in case you get any more fun ideas when you get home and warm up, remember one thing: I didn't do this alone. I have some friends who are very professional at what they do, compared to your little boys in the woods. Anything untoward happens to me or to Miriam, this night will be a picnic in the park compared to what comes next. Understood?"

His eyes were filled with fury, but he nodded. "Understood."

Back in my barn's cupola I put my rifle up to my shoulder, nightscope on and silencer attached. I watched Hank slowly move across the field, with a small flashlight and knife in his hands, finding his comrades and freeing them. They got up, rubbing their wrists and ankles, and then gathered their weapons. They formed a group and Hank talked to them, motioning with his hands. One of his comrades seemed to be raising a fuss. His arms were flailing. I could make out the harsh movements of his jaw, and then he violently shook his head, grabbed his rifle and started back to my place.

I centered my rifle and pulled the trigger. It was a great shot, one of my best. I nailed the center of his gunstock and blew the weapon out of his hands.

And within a minute or two, my property was empty of trespassers.

The next day was Saturday. I was dawdling over a second cup of coffee at the Pinette General Store and watching Eric behind the counter, helping his mom at the cash register. Then I saw him and his mother freeze as the door tinkled open. I turned to see a group of men come into the store, all wearing fatigue clothing, all members of the Arundel County militia, about a dozen of them. Hank was in the middle, and he looked at me and looked away.

I returned to my coffee.

Within ten minutes there was a line of militia men at the counter, all of them carrying groceries, and the cash register soon set up a steady roar, recording sale after sale. After they left, Miriam looked over at me and I winked. "Can Eric run the place for a while?"

"Sure, I guess," she said. "What's up?"

"Let's go for a ride."

She smiled and undid her store apron. "All right, let's."

Then we were in my pickup, parked across the street from the building that said Fernald's Drugstore and was now in its new life as the food bank. A line of militia men had formed outside, their eyes downcast and their feet shuffling in embarrassment. I held Miriam's hand and she said, "If I weren't seeing it, I wouldn't believe it."

"Then believe it," I said.

She turned to me, her eyes flashing. "You did something, now don't deny it."

"All right, I won't deny it."

She squeezed my hand tight. "I told you I didn't want anyone hurt. I didn't want any violence."

I thought it over and decided that discomfort, even for an hour, didn't equal violence, I said, "I didn't hurt a soul."

"Are you sure?"

I leaned over and kissed her nose. "My dear, I always keep my promises."

And we sat there for a while, watching our county militia do good.