himself against the door of the cabin and I was frozen solid in bed, one hand still glued to my privates, the other stubbornly refusing to respond to my command to grab the matches and light my bedside candle.
Becker had been right. I should have gone down to George’s for a couple of nights. Now I was about to be raped and murdered and Becker would find me first. Or George.
I stayed in that horror-movie mode for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a couple of minutes. Lug-nut was making too much noise for me to be able to hear what was outside, but I felt it—a presence, and I just sat there, hoping it would go away. I said “please” a couple of times, but I don’t know who I was addressing or if I said it aloud. When the presence went away I was too frightened to say thank you.
The dog finally moved away from the door, still whining, and I lit my candle, slipped out of bed and tiptoed into the kitchen area, lighting every candle and oil lamp I could find. No phone, eh? No electricity. No gun. “I can take care of myself,” I’d said. Well, that only applied for as long as I was certain that nobody was out to get me. I looked around the cabin. The only weapon I could find was my hatchet, a beautiful little Estwing with fine balance and a leather handle.
I picked it up and hefted it. Solid, yes, but with a reach of about eight inches. I supposed I could bonk an intruder on the head with it if he got close enough, but it would be a messy business. If I lived till morning, I resolved to ask George if I could borrow his shotgun—not that I know dick about guns, but a firearm would make me feel a hell of a lot braver than the hatchet made me feel.
I made a big fuss of Lug-nut, praising him for scaring off whoever it was—I had no illusions that it had been a raccoon.
Then I made coffee and settled in for the seige, propping myself up in the armchair next to the stove, cradling the hatchet.
When I woke up, I was stiff and sore. The hatchet had fallen to the floor and Lug-nut was guarding it with both paws, as if it might escape.
I groaned and stretched, discovering a nasty ging in my neck which prevented me from turning my head to the right. If somebody tried to sneak up on me from behind, I was dead.
I lit the burner under last night’s coffee and sat at the kitchen table, whimpering. I have never been good with pain. Aunt Susan once told me never to go into the spy business. She said that the enemy would be able to get secrets out of me just by threatening to cut my fingernails.
Lug-nut was padding around the cabin with a distressed look on his face. I finally realized that he had to go out to do the thing that dogs must do, and I hauled myself upright and opened the door, following him to get a bead on the morning.
While the dog peed against the porch steps, I examined the dead squirrel nailed to the front door.
It was a big one. It had been shot in the head with what I guessed was a pellet rifle, then its belly had been split open. The guts spilled out artistically in a nice cascade of yuck. I threw up over the railing before going back to read the note, which was stuffed into what was left of the squirrel’s mouth.
I handled the paper carefully, by the edges. “STICK TO YOUR GOATS,” was all it said. It was made with cut-out newspaper letters pasted onto a piece of lilac-motif notepaper, slick with squirrel bits. Becker, I hoped, would be able to find fingerprints and maybe even find a pack of lilac notepaper in someone’s desk.
I went back inside, poured coffee and was on my third consecutive cigarette before I noticed that my hands were shaking. It’s all right for some people, I suppose, finding a gruesome body on a Monday, meeting a bear on a Tuesday and getting a maimed squirrel tacked to your door on a Wednesday, but it was way too much for me. I went sort of crazy. First thing I did, even before breakfast, was to roll a really big joint and smoke the whole thing.
According to my herbal remedies guide, dope is an analgesic, anti-asthmatic, antibiotic, anti-epileptic, anti-spasmodic and anti-depressant. It’s a tranquillizer, an appetite stimulant, oxytocic, preventative and anodyne for neuralgia (including migraine), aid to psychotherapy and agent to ease withdrawal from alcohol and opiates. It’s also great stuff in a crisis.
When I smoke dope, the clarity is wonderful. I see the veins in the leaves, the roughness of tree bark, I smell the earth and ideas flow like blood. The negative side of dope is that whatever is uppermost in your mind assumes a paramount importance. So, when Lug-nut and I went down to the barn a little later to do the chores, I carried the image of a dead squirrel on my back like a throbbing emotional hump.
I’d removed the corpse from the door. It had been jammed onto the nail which lives there holding up a scrap of paper and a pencil on a string. When I go out, I usually scrawl a note telling where I’ve gone and when I’ll be back, just in case someone drops by. In the boonies, this is not interpreted as an invitation to burglary, but rather as a pleasant and neighbourly practice. It had been, in this case, abused.
After I pulled the squirrel off the nail, (it made a faint sucking noise which almost made me throw up again), I dumped it into a big plastic baggie and put it into the top compartment of the icebox, next to the block of ice. I put the note into another baggie and slipped it into my desk. Exhibits A and B.
In the barn I did the chores quickly, feeding the kids a bottle of warm milk stripped from Erma Bombeck's teat, in case they weren’t getting enough the regular way. I doled out hay and grain with more than half my mind on who the hell had sent me the squirrel. I was so distracted I forgot to sing while I was milking, and production was down by several ounces, which made me feel guilty.
After the barn chores, I went up to George’s place and slipped in to use the phone. George was up, bustling around the kitchen.
“Are you all right, Polly?” he said. “You look terrible.”
I told him about my night-visitor and the squirrel, then asked him if I could borrow his gun.
“You are joking, yes?” he said.
“Nope. I don’t want it loaded or anything, George. I just, you know, thought it would be a good thing to have. To wave around if I needed to. Sort of a talisman.”
“Huh. A talisman for trouble, maybe,” he said. “You don’t have a firearms certificate, for one thing. It is registered to me, and if you were caught with it, I’d get the blame. Considering that you are spending all your time with that policeman, I think you are better off without it.”
“Okay, okay, I was just asking.” It was a stupid idea anyway.
“Maybe you had better stay here for a few days,” George said, “until this mess is all settled.” It was daylight now. I wasn’t scared any more. I was angry.
“The cabin is my home, George. I’m not going to be harassed out of my home by some nutbar who likes to dismember squirrels. Besides, I’ve got Lug-nut and he did a pretty good job of scaring the guy away.”
“Well, just keep him with you all the time, then.”
“I was planning to.”
I called the police station and after I sat on hold for five minutes, Becker picked it up.
“What is it, Polly? I’m in the middle of a meeting.”
“Someone came up to the cabin last night.”
“Who?”
“They
