Here Be Monsters (Tyler Cunningham)

by Sheffield, Jamie

  My trip took longer than it would have in daylight, or even with my headlamp on the whole way, but it was sort of cool to fade into the night a bit. During my run and wait cycles, I had heard nothing in the woods, until more than four minutes into each wait; at which point animals all around me would 'forget' that I had stomped through, and upset, their world with light and sound. Once I started dark-walking, the forest sounds came up pretty quickly; I was walking slowing and quietly, and not advertising my position with the light. The tenor of my interactions with the night, and its animals, changed. Instead of scaring them, I was surprising them; sometimes getting to within yards before I would hear them scamper or bound or fly off in a hurry.

  I reached the ginormous rock that the cache I was looking for lived under, and poked into the dog-sized hole with a long stick before reaching in. I had once been scared most of the way to death while geocaching, when I reached into a hollow stump and grabbed a garter snake instead of the Tupperware container that I was hoping for. We were both equally scared, but I was bigger, so the snake bit me and also let loose with its nasty-smelling musk. Since then, I poke/rattle sticks into dark places before I put my fleshy bits inside them. In this case, it was wasted energy and time, but I don't begrudge the delay; I still have a tiny scar on my hand from the bite, which got infected. I grabbed the ammo-can, pulled it out, and moved back a bit to open it and transfer the papers and notebooks to my backpack before putting the cache back in place for future use.

  I snacked up with some jerky-enhanced GORP, drank a slightly shaken and warm coke, and leaned back into the hill to doze a bit until the sun lit the woods for my walk out. I was working on a few ideas to incorporate the information that I already had on George's Meth-production (from Cynthia's snooping) with some investigation of my own, involving a combination of time spent in the backwoods, on the computer or phone, and maybe mooching some law enforcement resources from Frank (since I was, to some degree, on his dime). By the time I woke up, and could see my way through the forest back towards my Element, I had some solid plans on how to spend my day.

  Smart Pig Thneedery, 9:29a.m., 9/11/2012

  On my walk out from the info-cache near Second Pond, I thought about what criteria George and his chemists would likely use in site selection for their meth-labs. I had Cyn's info, and my notes from last week in my pack, but I wanted to give my brain free-rein with the problem now, and compare that to her info later.

  He'd want (would have wanted) big chunks of public or private land far away from the few population centers that we have in the Park, but still serviced by passable roads, to allow for the passage of supplies in and drugs out. Thinking of Tri-Lakes as the epicenter of their activity, I would avoid land to the north, northeast, southeast, and south, as generally being too populous for what they wanted to use it for, especially when compared to the big tracts of empty public and private (mostly timber company) wilderness to the southwest, west, and northwest of George's base in the Tri-Lakes.

  There are only 38 forest rangers in the whole Adirondack Park, and they mostly patrol the places where lots of people go; so if you could get deep into the backcountry, away from the touristy hotspots, and pull a tree down across your access point once you were in and supplied for a production-run, you could work hassle-free for weeks (maybe even months) before moving. When they had to move they could just back up a resupply truck to the downed tree, and pass food and propane and other supplies to the other truck across a tailgate bridge. Alternately, there were plenty of huge private landholdings (paper companies, Rockefellers and their ilk, mining companies, the Nature Conservancy, etc.) that didn't use or visit their land for years at a time, and you'd be free from worry about rangers bothering you; if the land was managed by a local for the owner, they'd likely be happy to lease a few acres to you for ‘hunting or camping’ for a couple hundred or thousand dollars a year.

  I reached my Element with a picture of the Adirondack Park in my head, all of the land with major tourism or cities marked off, the same with entirely roadless areas; it left a lot of ground to cover, but some phone work later in the morning would hopefully give me some leads, and then I could hit the road, hunting for meth-labs (be vewwy, vewwy quiet!).

  The McDonald's Sausage McMuffin, two for $3 deal, is an incredible bargain if you're in the market for a ginormous dose of fat and protein and carbs, which I was. I got four of them at the drive-through on my way to Smart Pig to look at GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth, and read Cynthia's notes again.

  Cynthia had identified spots where she thought the meth labs could be. George's guys had done a pretty good job of site selection, but they (or Cynthia) had missed some sweet spots that I would have chosen over a couple of theirs, so I printed some maps, marked them up and waited for businesses to open in waves; first at 9a.m., and then at 10a.m. To supplement Cynthia’s list I focused on areas I thought would be good locations and then called towing services and garages in or near my favorite spots (thanks Google), looking for people who had paid for tows or off-road type repairs/upgrades (broken axles, knobbly ties, etc.) with cash since April (since the backcountry meth season was likely limited to April through October). I got a couple of hits, and marked the service location or garage on my maps. I also called restaurants and camping gear stores in the tiny towns I thought that George's people might pass through for frequent or outsized cash purchases. George's crew would be paying for everything in cash, which would keep them below the law enforcement radar, but might be memorable in tiny, poor towns in those parts of the Adirondacks. I got a few more possibles after dozens of phone calls, and marked the second tier places on the maps where I should look if all of my primary leads didn’t pan out (and just before I started driving around with my head out the window calling out, “Yoo Hoo, Meth-Labs!”). By the time I was done, I had a list of possibles, in a probable descending order of likely payoff starting with the list from Cynthia’s notes and supplemented with my list of promising sites.

  I wanted to start checking them out as soon as I grabbed a quick nap and could load my weeklong tripping gear into the Element. I called Frank, made a lunch date with him at Tail o' the Pup in Raybrook to talk shop a bit, then I put together the stuff that I would need for a week of car-camping (sleeping setup, cooking setup, gear bag, electronics and chargers and inverter, clothes for 20 degrees, dehydrated food for a week, and two cases of Canadian Coke from my strategic reserve in the basement of the Smart Pig building). I hoped that I wouldn't be out that long, but didn't want run out or have to resupply. I lay down on the couch, excited and nervous and happy at the prospect of the next few days; thought of one final tweak, called Dorothy to arrange it, and went to sleep with an alarm set to wake me in time for the late-lunch meeting with Frank and to eat some fried pickles at Tail o' the Pup on the SLPD's dime if I was lucky.

  It was a great lunch, I let Frank know that I’d be out of town for a few days, snooping around the Park a bit; then I stopped off to see Dot at the TLAS.

  Washboard, Tupper Lake, 3:04p.m., 9/11/2012

  I throw dirty clothes in my car almost every time I drive through Tupper Lake so that I can stop at the Washboard, my third favorite multi-business in the world. The Washboard offers laundry machines, and full or self-service laundry, as well as homemade donuts that you can watch being fried (and spread with the best maple cream on Earth, if you'll let them), and Native American Art (including paintings and jewelry and carvings and rugs). I ran in and waved at Gert, the ancient woman who has been in the Washboard every single time I've stopped in no matter what day or time. I threw two loads into the huge machines on the end; one a pair of sleeping bags that I was probably done with for the season, the other with three weeks of clothes (I don't own clothes that need dry cleaning or separating).

  “Hi Tyson!” Gert screeched. “Get you a box of maple creams?”

  “Hi Gert,” I have no idea why she thinks my name is Tyson, but after about eight tries at clearing up the mystery of my name, it didn't seem to be a
point worth pushing on. “Yup, sounds good, but you better make it four maple creams and two plain.”

  Gert gave me a funny look, but nodded and waddled off to make my donuts. She looks to be a thousand years old, and as though a light breeze would blow her off her feet and break her, but she barehands the donuts out of the oil and into the flat box that holds six; holding the box always burns my hands on the way out to my car (although I try not to let her see it hurting me). By the time I had loaded and soaped and quartered my machines, she came back with a box that was hot enough to blister stone, and, as always, I traded her a box for a $20 bill and told her to keep it, but asked if she'd move my stuff into the dryers if the wash finished before I got back (it would, I timed it so that it always did... it was a thing that we did). I waved on my way out, concentrating hard, so as not to whine or cry from the pain of carrying the box before I got out the main door. I got back into the Element to explain the rest of my road trip rules to my new passenger (and partner in crime fighting).

  FLASHBACK, TLAS, 2:03p.m., 9/11/2012

  Hope had been visibly terrified of me when I picked her up from Dorothy at the shelter, and I almost called the whole thing off, but was talked out of it by Dorothy.

  “Nah, she seems to like you more than any of us, and it will do her good to get out of here and away from the noise and stress... speaking of which, can I come along?” She was only half joking, and I could both see and hear some concern in her. “This isn't gonna be like that other stuff is it?” she asked looking over her shoulder at the nearby shelter staff members, “You're going to bring her back in one piece, right? She doesn't need to get more messed up, and neither do you.”

  “Nope, she'll be fine. I will seem more like a vacationer and less like a cop if I have a dog like Hope with me. We'll have a fun time. She'll eat some human food, maybe some raw fish if I can catch anything, and she’ll help me navigate, like dogs are supposed to... it'll be great!”

  “Just you remember that neither of you is named Turner or Hooch or Thelma or Louise... come back and tell me all about it.” She had leaned over and surprised both Hope and me with kisses on the tops of our heads, before turning quickly and heading back into the depths of the shelter to take care of some important work. Hope and I headed out to the Element with a bag of food, a pair of bowls, and a fleece blanket wrapped around a couple of toys and some chewies. I put the food and bowls in the way back with my gear, and arranged her blanket and toys on the front passenger seat. She let me lift her into the Element without snapping, but I could feel her shaking all over until I put her down; she rolled into a tight ball with her nose tucked under her back legs and eyes facing away from me as we headed south to Tupper and the closest of the dots (Cynthia's precise locations) and the larger circles (my hunches, backed by paid-in-cash garage calls and/or large cash expenditures) on my map.

  Route 30S, 3:37p.m., 9/11/2012

  I balanced the box of donuts on the dashboard, made a few cop jokes about myself, took one of the ones with maple cream spread on it, and waited. Hope was doing her best imitation of a grumpy round rock, but she wasn't made of stone, and the smell of the hot dough and oil got to her before long. She groaned and grunted and rotated and adjusted her balled up shape so that her head was now resting on her butt, facing me. I could see her small brown eyes watching my right hand bring the donut up to my mouth for each bite, and after a few times, she swallowed loudly, then sighed delicately. I finished my first donut, and reached into the box for one of the plain ones. I felt it to make sure that it wasn't magma hot, and then broke off half and put it on the edge of her blanket (and the passenger seat), as far as was possible from her balled up form.

  She was concentrating so intently on the donut that she didn't have time to react when I reached down and put it on the chair. After the fact, she seemed to want to move, but the donut was already there and my hand was back on the wheel. She watched the donut and sniffed it hard, either in an attempt to draw it closer by vacuum power, or to detect whatever subtle poisons I had clearly loaded the Trojan donut with. A minute later, when I grabbed my next maple cream donut, and with my other hand full of steering wheel, she felt confident enough to stretch her neck out, until she could pick her donut up gently with just the tips of her teeth. She dropped it again in the center of the ball that she had made of herself, and appraised the thing for five long seconds, before inhaling it. When she was done, she looked back towards me and sighed contentedly, but with hunger and desire, not the hatred and fear that her looks had contained before. I tried not to let the gloating reach my eyes or mouth, and handed her the next half donut.

  By the time we had reached the turnoff at Rock Island Bay, to head off the big road and onto a series of bumpy little ones, Hope had finished both of her donuts, and was licking the maple cream off of a piece of one of mine.

  We bounced and jounced around a half-assed gate that might stop people from Massachusetts from getting their Priuses back onto the old logging trails, but barely slowed down Hope and me in the nimble Element. We could hear some branches scratching along both sides; I made a mental note to ask Frank about reimbursement, and then made a further note reminding myself that this was fun, and that I didn't care about the scratches.

  When we went by a small pond dotted with geese chattering at each other, and sounding for all the world like a cocktail party where everyone had had too much to drink, Hope sat up nice and tall to check out the birds, and gave a couple of off-duty woofs. We drove away from the road and around Mt. Morris, towards Little Simon Pond, closing in on Cynthia's first set of coordinates minute by minute.

  I passed the tiny, almost invisible, side road heading up beside a creek that came down off the back of Mt. Morris, and while I couldn't see a trailer, I could see reasonably fresh tire tracks leading both up and down the steep, but passable, jeep trail. I recognized the approach and jeep-trail heading uphill from the meth-camp pictures that Cynthia had foolishly shot. I kept driving along the road for a few hundred more yards until I had made a couple of turns along the shore of Little Simon Pond, to a pull-off next to the water, looking out at the single island on this backcountry pond. I grabbed the donuts off the dashboard, and a couple cokes and my un-serious fishing gear, then went around to let Hope jump down and walked her (via the long lead) down to the water's edge.

  I clipped a carabineer to her leash and to a belt loop on my shorts and let go of her. I put the donuts in my tackle-box, cracked a coke, and walked out into the water to do a bit of casting into some weeds a ways down the shore from Hope and me, where a tiny creek dumped into the pond by some boulders. Hope turned a few circles and lay down to watch.

  Over the next hour, I got a few bites, and hooked a couple of nice bass, which we would enjoy for dinner later; along with a feisty sunfish that swallowed my treble-hook so completely that I injured it removing the hooks; so I decided to give it to Hope to snack on. Once I'd ripped the hooks out of the poor fish, I chucked it up on shore near Hope. She sniffed at it until it jumped, scaring her mightily; she then scooped it up and gave a quick crunch to kill it, before spending the next 15 minutes eating it and making happy noises behind me while I kept fishing as the sun moved further and further behind me, lengthening my shadow across the water.

  Hope and I were enjoying the fading afternoon, together, but each in our own way; I'd say something to her every few minutes; she'd ignore me. When I went back to grab a coke and a donut, I gave her the maple cream one that she'd started back on Route 30S (she didn't wag or smile, but it was a close call). Around 5:10p.m., I heard a truck high-center and clang off of a rock down about where the creek-trail to Mt. Morris must have been (Cynthia's closest marked point on the map). I forced myself not to turn around, even when I heard the truck slow to swing out around the Element. Hope growled, and stood up to bark a few times, which grated my nerves, but made for perfect 'hide in plain site' cover. The truck kept going to a wide spot further down the pond, and then turned around to return to their hidin
g place; I heard it clang off the same spot going back up the hill, and fished for another forty minutes before packing it in for the night, reasonably certain that the truck belonged to George's drug-production machinery.

  As the sun was dipping behind Mt. Morris, I drove straight through on the road to Simon Pond, so that Hope and I didn't have to double back past the meth-lab (I hadn't seen any meth, but it was exactly where emails between George and one of his guys had said that it would be, so I wasn't much in doubt, and certainly didn't want to check it out more closely). We swung around and pointed the Element back into town to pick up my laundry, thanking Gert, and heading back out and mostly northwest, towards Canton and Potsdam. I found a nice spot to pull off into a chunk of State Forest Preserve just north of the Piercefield Flow, where Hope and I could enjoy the sound of running water, and set up camp.

  I hung a hammock and threw my bag inside it, cooked both bass in foil with butter and a spice premix that I make once a year in a huge batch from sea salt, cracked-peppercorns, dried/minced garlic, and a bit of brown sugar; Hope loved it! The night sounds and dark and cool seemed to make her a little uncomfortable. She balanced her diminishing fear of me with her growing fear of the woods at night, and curled up between my feet and the stones of the fire pit as I sat cross-legged. When it was time for bed, she protested being left alone in the nest I'd made in the back of the Element (I'd taken the rear seats out for this trip) for so long that I eventually caved in, and joined her, trading a comfy night's sleep for a quiet one. She made a warm pressure behind my knees and at some point in the night was scared by loons on the Flow. She whimpered her way into the opening of my bag and crawled down to sleep by/on/amongst my feet at the closed end. I fell asleep smiling (no number, this one was actually mine).