Skeet squinted up into the canopy, then scanned the woods as if something was traveling from tree to tree. “Be careful out here, guy. I been trapping these woods since seventy-two. They feel sick. F.I.B. or not, we all gotta survive in this economy, right guy?”

Matt thought it unusual to make peace while also serving an insult, but accepted anyway. “Yep,” he offered.

Skeet fixed his gaze on him, and for the first time in the conversation Matt sensed fear in his voice.

“Oh, and guy, stay out of the Hurons. Davey was up drinking near the wilderness boundary two weeks ago and said he saw somethin’ he never seen before . . . well, more like heard something. Said it was like an elephant moving through the edge of the clear-cut. Scared him straight out of there so bad he almost smashed two trees with his Chevy before getting back to his place. I come over and he’s got the front door barricaded. I could see his eyeball looking out a slit in the planks, blinking and the pupil darting like a tadpole. That’s how he knew it was me. I talked him into letting me in and he had all his guns on the card table, popped and ready. He was pacing back and forth, too. Never seen Davey like that. Never. I asked him if it was a big bear, he said it wasn’t nothin’ close to a bear of any kind. We seen plenty of bear up here guy, plenty. This wasn’t no bear. No bear can get past me and Davey.”

Matt didn’t care for the tone of Skeet’s voice, and he was surprised to conclude this didn’t sound like a standard booze story. Those all had a familiar theme. These were guys who drove the woods drunk and armed. They feared little. It was everyone else who feared them. For these bullies to be spooked? What would it take?

“Well guy, I got some lines to check. Watch your back and not just for the warden. These woods are running a fever, guy.”

Skeet turned his back to him and grunted his way up the eastern ravine wall. Matt was shocked at how fast he made it up, like a bear. Skeet’s silhouette appeared up on the ridge, and for a second Matt thought he saw him looking down towards the pool.

Then he was gone.

The Shack

THE SHACK

On the way back from Black Falls a porcupine ambled across Julip Road, and Matt swerved to avoid it. The porcupine sauntered across the road as if it couldn’t be bothered. Porcupines didn’t have much to fear, but he knew of one animal they don’t want to run across— a fisher. He’d read that fishers have a way of flipping porcupines and attacking their soft underbelly.