These Silent Woods: A Novel(27)

She nods.

I set the lens cap on the shelf above the woodstove. Her discovery confirms a suspicion I’ve had, which is that Scotland has been in our woods. Not just on his way to visit the cabin, but other times, too. The footprints at our hunting blind, now this, even closer. Closer to us, farther from his place. And I don’t like it one bit.

Maybe this seems like a small transgression—trespassing—but with Scotland, it’s more than that. Because, of course, he could’ve just asked, if what he wanted was to hunt. Not like I’m in a position to tell him no, him having me pinned down the way he does, knowing who we are and why we’re here. He could’ve said, Cooper, I’ll be hunting in your valley. But that’s not his way. He wouldn’t ask because it’s not in his nature to ask. He’d rather sneak. Heck, for all I know, he’s been using our woods the whole time we’ve been out here, maybe even before, and he’s just now made a mistake, leaving the lens cap.

Plus now he’s got me wondering if maybe all along he hasn’t only been keeping tabs on us here at the cabin. Maybe he tracks everything we do in the valley, too. Hunt, fish. Tap maples. Maybe he’s always done that, watched us, nestled himself in that blind and I just never noticed, it being on the far end of the valley, where if he had his spotting scope, he could be tucked down in there and see us, but we wouldn’t know to look for him. If that’s how it’s been, he could be watching us leave the cabin, then scuttling down there quick and hiding until we arrive.

But if the lens cap was at Old Mister, he’s infringing beyond where I thought.

Well, frankly, I’ve had enough. Sure, I could just say, Hey, we found something that belongs to you. Saw you’ve been using the hunting blind, too. Let him know we know. But when I think back to the way he brought that stack of newspapers with all the articles about me, I decide there’s a more fitting way to communicate our discovery. Besides, the thing is, I don’t want him just to know. The man needs to learn a lesson about minding his own business. About boundaries.

So, for once, I’ll be a step ahead of him.

Scotland knows we need a deer, and he’ll be watching; I can count on that. I head back to the bedroom and pull the .243 from the gun rack.

On the porch, I sling the rifle over my shoulder and tuck a bullet in my pocket.

“You’re taking your rifle?” Finch asks.

The plan is I’ll hunt with the bow, but if Scotland happens to be in that little blind of ours, I’ll be able to see him through the scope. And if he’s there, I’m gonna fire off a round. Just one, not at him, but off to his left and into the bank. That ought to send a message. The message being: I know you’re there. Quit it.

“Won’t use it unless I have to,” I say.

We set off.

Finch is quiet and savvy in the woods, feet soft, lips pressed, and by that I mean she has a certain look where her lips are pulled taut and she is trying to keep the words from coming out. But also the way she moves, almost animal-like, and the way she is watching everything and listening and feeling it all. It’s in her blood, something inherent and primordial, instinctual, whereas I had to learn all of that. How to be quiet, how to move undetected, how to watch and see it all and also to wait. I remember Lincoln taking me out hunting for turkeys when I was a kid, the woods dark and still, and you had to be so quiet if you wanted to stand a chance, but I just couldn’t. Couldn’t be still or quiet. Too much to see and smell and take in, and I would pitch and shift, roll my ankles, anything to move. Not so with Finch.

Maybe it’s because she has been in the woods her whole life. In the beginning, I took a sheet and made a sort of sling to carry her around because there was work to do—food to get, wood to cut—and she had to be with me. Hunting, fishing, scouting, hoeing the garden, planting. She was there for all of it, strapped to my front at first, then to my back. When we were hunting I’d get a piece of birch, cut the bark off with my pocketknife, give it to her to chew on. That would keep her quiet, and it was probably healthier than those plastic things you see kids chewing on. Pacifiers. Cruel practice, if you ask me, shoving something into a kid’s mouth like that, just to keep them quiet.

Finch leads. It’s a bit of a haul to the valley, but knowing her, she could probably find her way in the dark, if she had to. We wind our way through a copse of jack pines, tall and spindly. A wind rushes through: an ocean sound. The trees lean, one creaks. There are no deciduous trees here, no leaves on the forest floor, an easy place to walk without noise. I nock my arrow, just in case we sneak up on something. A deer bedded down, a flock of turkeys, drumming into the air.

We step out of the pines and pause at Old Mister, Finch running her hand along the bark. I circle the tree, looking for any additional sign. Nothing. We head to a hollow, sparse and steep and punctuated by tall outcroppings of sandstone towering along the top of the ridge, gray and covered in lichen. Finch veers off course and scrambles up on one of the rocks before we descend. She spreads her arms wide and tilts her head, sun on her face. She does this every time, just looks, takes in the view. I wait, scanning the rocks for movement. There are dens all along the rocks, some small, some big. No doubt in my mind this place is full of critters, once the snow starts.

Finch slithers down off the rock, taking up the lead again. We descend, sliding a bit: it’s steep and in this part of the woods the ground is thick with leaves. At the bottom of the ravine, a stream, a trickle year-round because there’s a spring, higher up. Near there, a swath of walnuts. No other trees because they leach their toxins into the soil. Finch leaps across the stream and I follow her up the other side of the ravine toward the next hollow over. The valley. We slide along the top of the ridge before heading back down again. The river runs through this part of the property, so it draws in the animals and provides good hunting. Farther upriver are the maples, so in the spring, we’re there tapping the trees.