Squirm

by Carl Hiaasen

  The bears are long gone, and it should be easy for my father to locate a hiding place where Lincoln Baxter can’t find him. The sensible thing for me and Summer to do is hurry back to the road, jump in her cousin’s car, and race to the nearest ranch that has a working phone.

  Except for one thing: Dad was limping, which means he’s hurt. The question is how badly. Did he twist an ankle, which is no big deal, or did he get hit by one of the poacher’s bullets?

  This time, when Summer says we should go after him, I say, “You’re right.”

  First we backtrack to the ravine and retrieve Dad’s gear. I gather up his backpack, sunglasses, hat, and bear spray. Summer wades into the creek for the shotgun.

  “Broken,” she calls up to me.

  “Then leave it.”

  Walking through the thick pines and underbrush is a slog, because there’s no trail to follow. I blow the plastic whistle hoping Dad’s close enough to hear.

  Unfortunately for us, someone else is closer. We don’t discover this until he steps in front of us and says, “Stop right there, both of you.”

  I’ve never had a real gun pointed at me before. Judging by Summer’s expression, this is her first time, too.

  “Who are you?” barks Lincoln Chumley Baxter IV.

  He’s got the full camo thing going on—gloves, a hood, even face paint. He looks furious and jumpy at the same time, gnawing an unlit cigar. Two more are visible in his vest pocket.

  The rifle he’s carrying is a big one, but I’m sure they all look big when they’re aimed in your direction.

  Summer and I respond with first names only.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” Baxter demands.

  “Hiking” is my answer.

  “Don’t lie to me, Billy. Or whatever your real name is.”

  We’ve messed up his scheme, big-time. Now he doesn’t know what to do with us.

  “We came to find my father,” I say.

  “That guy you tried to feed to the bears,” Summer adds fearlessly.

  Baxter looks angry enough to shoot us right here and now. His bleached-white teeth are bared, giving him the appearance of a rabid poodle.

  He doesn’t pull the trigger, though. Some tiny corner of his tiny macho brain is telling him that poaching humans is way more serious than poaching grizzlies or panthers.

  “Mrs. Baxter doesn’t think much of your hobby,” I say.

  It’s not that I’m trying to piss him off. I just want him to realize that we know his name, and that we’ve also got a pipeline to his wife. If anything bad happens to us, she’ll know who did it.

  When you’re in the middle of negotiating, this is known as leverage.

  “You’ve got no idea what you’re talkin’ about,” Baxter says, without much steam.

  Summer waggles a finger at him. “Please don’t point your gun at us. I’m a Crow Indian, FYI.”

  Which is the perfect line, because it gives Baxter one more thing to worry about.

  “Trust me,” Summer says. “You don’t want the whole Crow Nation mad at you.”

  She’s guessing that his view of Native Americans comes from the movies. She wants him to think there’s an arrow in his future.

  And sure enough, he lowers the rifle.

  “I wasn’t gonna shoot anybody,” he says, “unless they gave me no choice.”

  I tell him we don’t have any weapons.

  “How do I know you’re not lying?”

  “Right. We’re gonna attack you with what—a stale granola bar?”

  “If you don’t believe us,” says Summer, “check our backpacks.”

  We drop all three of them—mine, hers, and Dad’s—on the ground. Baxter empties the contents and shrugs. “Fine. Whatever.”

  He stomps both of our cell phones and kicks them into the bushes.

  One thing he does not do is order us to empty our pockets.

  “So, your plan was to let the grizzly kill my dad,” I say. “Then you’d shoot the bear, and tell the game wardens…what exactly?”

  “That it was justified, of course,” says Baxter. “It’s completely legal to take a grizzly in self-defense. First the bear attacks your old man, then he charges after me. That was my story—and they would’ve believed it, too.”

  “But you shot a deer for bait, and it’s not even hunting season. How were you gonna explain that?”

  The poacher allows himself a smile. “There’s not a single bullet in that deer. It got hit by a car on Highway Eighty-nine, and it was dead when I found it. Now, how it got all the way out here for the bears to eat—who knows?”

  Summer cuts in: “We saw your helicopter, Mr. Baxter. Mystery solved.”

  There’s something I need to ask the guy before all this ends.

  “Why shoot a grizzly bear?” I say. “What’s the point of killing an animal that’s disappearing from the planet?”

  “That’s easy. It’s the challenge—they’re humongous and dangerous and, best of all, very rare.” Baxter clearly has no shame. “There’s barely seven hundred grizzlies left in all of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Once it’s legal to hunt ’em, they’ll get smart and super-hard to find. That’s why I’m out here now, before they catch on.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “I am, boy. And you’re too young to be judging me.”

  Summer clasps my arm but, hey, I’m not crazy enough to throw a punch at a person holding a loaded gun.

  She says, “Mr. Baxter, the bear you shot at today had two cubs.”

  “They’d be fine on their own, honey. They’re tough little hombres.”

  Summer tightens her grip. Now she’s the one who looks like she wants to jump him.

  “Besides,” he adds, “I was only trying to save your old man’s life—which I did, by the way.”

  “But you’d tied him to the ground!” I say.

  “No, here’s what really happened. I was sightseeing in my personal helicopter, minding my own business, when I spotted this dumb-ass hiker all by himself in griz country. Then I saw a huge bear start following him. So I landed the chopper, grabbed my gun, and fired two rounds to scare off that vicious beast. That’s my new official story. And if you or your daddy says otherwise, I’ll tell the game wardens he brought his drone out here to spy on the grizzlies, so he could shoot one himself. I’ll even show ’em the creek where he ‘dropped’ his gun. And, guess what—it’ll be my word against his.”

  “And ours, too,” Summer bristles.

  Baxter laughs acidly. “Kids’ll always lie to protect their father. You don’t think the authorities know that? Like I said, it would be your daddy’s word against mine, a well-respected businessman from an old, well-respected family. What they call a pillar of society. That’s me.”

  An edgy lull follows. Songbirds high in the branches remind me where we are, in the midst of a mountain forest after a hard rain. The crisp air smells sweet enough to drink. Golden rays of sunlight slant through gaps in the treetops. A place so peaceful and perfect is totally wasted on a jerk like Baxter.

  “If you two are smart,” he says, “you’ll have a long talk with your old man. Explain the situation. Make him understand that the best thing to do is forget he ever knew my name. Now, speaking of yours truly, I am outta here….”

  Then, as if somebody flipped a switch, the birds quit singing. Lincoln Baxter halts in mid-stride, turns back slowly, and pulls his gun close to his chest.

  “Hear that?” he whispers.

  How could we not?

  Something heavy is advancing toward us through the woods. It’s not trying to be sneaky, either, which indicates a total lack of fear. Branches snap, bushes thrash, and dead logs crack under the weight of whatever is coming.

  “No way that’s a deer,” Baxter murmurs anxiously.
“Or even an elk.”

  “It’s not a moose, either,” says Summer. “Moose are quiet.”

  I’d say we’ve narrowed the list.

  As the animal draws closer, it lets loose a deep chorus of nerve-wracking sounds—huffing, snorting, grunting, growling. I try to sing the go-away-bear chant, but the words die in my throat. Summer’s fingernails are digging into my arm. Crouched nearby, Baxter seems to have forgotten we’re here.

  As the oncoming uproar grows louder, the saplings and bushes begin to part in front of us. Baxter raises his rifle to his shoulder, while I reach for the pocket where I put Dad’s can of bear spray.

  At the same moment Baxter takes aims at the fierce commotion, I take aim, too.

  Blasting the poacher point-blank in the face.

  The main ingredient in bear spray is called capsaicin. It comes from hot cayenne peppers. This isn’t necessary information if you live a quiet normal life, but I did a little research. I wanted to be sure I’d be carrying enough firepower.

  Propelled by an aerosol burst, capsaicin doesn’t blind predators, but it makes their eyes and mouth burn like the devil. A faceful of pepper mist is so painful that a charging grizzly often wheels around and flees, which is the whole point.

  Bear spray won’t blind humans, either, but the experience is pure agony. Lincoln Baxter crumples to the ground screaming. The gun drops from his hands.

  With a growl and a huff, Dad lurches out of a thicket. He shakes off a few loose ropes and looks down at the writhing poacher.

  “Good shot, Billy,” he says. “But how’d you know it was me coming at you?”

  “Wild guess.”

  “You mean lucky guess.”

  Summer gasps, “You’re bleeding!”

  “Yes, I am,” Dad replies.

  He kneels beside the yowling, scarlet-faced Baxter, seizes him by the camo hood, and says, “Aren’t you sorry you didn’t take up golf?”

  Then he calmly dumps the bullets from Baxter’s rifle and hurls them downhill into a thorny thicket.

  “We should get you to a doctor,” I say. “Don’t you think?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  It was Baxter’s second shot that bounced off a rock and struck Dad in the thigh. He plugged the wound with a knotted bandanna to slow the bleeding. The team at the emergency room said that might have saved his life.

  We had rushed Dad from the Tom Miner Basin to a fire station near the Pine Creek Lodge. Summer drove faster than the speed limit. The paramedics didn’t ask to see her license. They loaded Dad into an ambulance and raced straight to Bozeman.

  Mom flew in yesterday to make sure I was okay. I got a thirty-second hug and a thirty-minute lecture. Afterward, she agreed to come to the hospital, where my father spent the rest of the afternoon apologizing to her and Lil.

  The poacher’s bullet tore through some muscles and nicked his thigh bone, but Dad’s going to be all right. A surgeon cut him open and fixed him up. The sheriff’s department is keeping the crumpled slug for evidence.

  Belinda has been texting me from Florida. She wants a photo of Dad in the hospital bed. So he poses for her, giving a halfhearted thumbs-up. His room has an amazing view of the Bridger Mountains, but he’s still in a lousy mood, mad at himself for getting captured by Lincoln Baxter in the woods.

  “Unbelievable,” he grumbles. “I thought I was smarter than that.”

  Lil and Mom restrain themselves from stating the obvious.

  “What did Baxter tell you?” I ask Dad.

  “That he was sick and tired of me hassling him with the drone. While he was tying me up, he said, ‘You like grizzly bears so much, now you’re gonna see how much they like you.’ ”

  The rope marks on his wrists are still pink and raw.

  “The cops’ll catch up with him soon,” Lil says.

  Dad stares listlessly out the window. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Of course they will,” says Mom.

  Summer kisses his forehead. “You’re still the craziest white man I ever saw.”

  Dad’s roommate is a wheat farmer who broke his hip when an ATV flipped on top of him. He’s not getting much rest, because Dad has lots of visitors.

  Sheriff’s deputies have been at the hospital two days in a row, along with officers from the Forest Service. Dad told them everything about his secret drone missions to stop Lincoln Baxter’s poaching. I don’t think they’re ready to give him a medal, but they’re acting like they believe him—at least for now. Dad is well aware that Baxter will spout a totally different story, if they find him.

  Summer and I were questioned, too. They wanted to know everything Baxter said while he held us at gunpoint. One of the Forest Service officers took us to an empty hospital room and spread a topographical map of the Tom Miner Basin on the bed.

  “Where was the last place you saw this man?” he asked.

  I pointed to the ravine and said, “Afterward, he probably ran down to the creek to wash the bear spray off his face.”

  “We’ve already searched that area. Twice.”

  “Then maybe he’s gone. All you’ve got to do is find that red helicopter.”

  “Oh, we’ve got the helicopter. It was tied down in the same place you saw it. Right there.” The officer tapped his pen on a black X that had been drawn on the map.

  “The door of the chopper was wide open,” he added, “but there was no trace of Mr. Baxter.”

  Summer acted surprised. “So he could still be out there somewhere?”

  “Possibly. We assumed he’d walk out to the dirt road and then hitchhike to the main highway, but his family in California hasn’t heard from him.”

  Summer said, “I don’t get why he didn’t use the helicopter to escape.”

  “We believe something scared him out of the cockpit.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a rattlesnake,” said the officer, “on the pilot’s seat.”

  “Whoa!” Summer widened her eyes. “Was the snake alive?”

  “Oh, extremely.” The officer capped his pen. “Coiled up inside a pillowcase. Very weird.”

  My stepsister was trying her hardest not to look at me.

  “Maybe Baxter’s a snake collector,” I said.

  “No, his wife told us he’s terrified of them.” The officer rolled up the map. “Want to hear something else? The rattler’s mouth was taped shut.”

  “Really?” I replied. “Now that is weird.”

  * * *

  —

  I know, I know.

  I said I wouldn’t do it again, but I did.

  What I put on the snake’s jaws wasn’t regular tape. It was a Steri-Strip, a sticky piece of medical fabric designed to protect stitches or small wounds. They’re available at any pharmacy, including the Western Drug store in Livingston, Montana, where Summer and I stopped on our way to Tom Miner.

  Unlike ordinary surgical tape, Steri-Strips fall off by themselves after about ten days. That’s exactly what I needed, because I didn’t want the rattler to be crawling around too long with its mouth held shut. Usually they go about two weeks between meals.

  Again, no normal person would need to know that.

  You might be wondering: How do you get a rattlesnake to hold still long enough so you can tape its mouth?

  I’m not telling. It’s too dangerous—and I mean, insanely, ridiculously dangerous.

  I’ll never do it again. This time I’m serious. And if you’re foolish enough to imagine it might be fun, I encourage you to google “rattlesnake” and check out the fangs.

  Here was the conversation that took place between me and Summer shortly after we “borrowed” her cousin’s old Subaru.

  Me: “Where can I go to catch a rattler?”

  Her: “Right now? What on earth for?”

 
Me: “For when we find Baxter’s car at Tom Miner. A big loud snake on the seat might change his travel plans.”

  Her: “You mean if he does something bad to Dennis and tries to get away?”

  Me: “I need to stop at a drugstore, too. Oh—and I borrowed a pillowcase from your house.”

  Her: “There’s a rocky bluff near the gun range north of town. It’s covered with rattlers. I hope you know what you’re doing, Billy.”

  Summer was right about the bluff. Halfway up, I caught a chunky three-footer by pinning its neck with a juniper stick. I waited for the snake to quit squirming before attempting to secure its mouth. Summer’s job was to hand me the Steri-Strip. She was also my ride to the ER, if I screwed up.

  Once inside the pillowcase, the rattler balled up and chilled out. Gently I placed the sack in my backpack and closed the zipper. During our slow stormy hike to the grizzly meadow, I heard the snake vibrate its tail only two or three times.

  As it turned out, the red helicopter presented the same opportunity as a car: an empty driver’s seat in Baxter’s getaway vehicle. No doubt he noticed the pillowcase right away, and picked it up out of curiosity. He might have even shaken it, or messed with the knot.

  Obviously the rattler woke up grumpy, making a noise that Baxter would have recognized instantly—and run away from.

  For once, what I’d hoped would happen actually did happen.

  “Where’s the snake now?” I asked the officer who was interviewing us.

  “We turned it over to State Fish and Wildlife. They let it go someplace safe.”

  Summer said, “But first they peeled the tape off its jaws, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Very carefully.” The officer put the rolled-up map under his arm. “I’ve spent my whole life in the wild, and two things I never, ever fool around with are grizzly bears and rattlesnakes. But let me tell you, there’s some crazy-ass people out there.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Scary crazy.”

  * * *

  —

  The next day, Dad was released from the hospital. They wanted him to take both crutches but he insisted he only needed one. Lil spent the afternoon making his favorite meal—lamb chops, garden veggies, and huckleberry pie. Belinda actually called to see how he was doing, which magically brightened his mood.