Here Be Monsters (Tyler Cunningham)

by Sheffield, Jamie

  Piercefield Flow, 4:45a.m., 9/12/2012

  Sleeping on someone else's pattern and schedule was a new experience for me, and when Hope started tunneling up from the bottom of my sleeping bag, I woke with a start; her faced poked through the opening, right by my face, a second later, and she gave me a casual/ embarrassed/'say nothing' look that let me know that what happens in Piercefield Flow, stays in Piercefield Flow.

  We had gotten up a few times during the night, either she or I initiating it, but in each case we'd both head out to pee and walk the perimeter of our camp to look and listen and smell. There was enough light spread by the dome light of my Element to move around and get some breakfast started for both of us. I cranked up my alky-stove on the tailgate of the Honda so that Hope wouldn't knock it over and burn the Park, put her on a super-long lead to explore a bit, took down my mostly un-used hammock, and was just setting up our food when the water started to steam in the way that it does just before boiling.

  I made a big bowl of oatmeal for myself, and enjoyed it with a coke; Hope had a bowl of kibble that I gravified with some leftover hot water, and lapped some cool water from the Flow. I talked about my plans for the day with Hope, she wasn't listening very hard, but I normally talk things over with a parallel (and fully non-corporeal) me, so the occasional eye contact and sigh or burp provided a nice counterpoint to my discourse. With her (imagined) guiding questions and responses, I tightened up our schedule a bit, worked through some possible bumps in the road ahead, and improved the plan for how I was going to inform Frank about the positives and the possibles. We were close enough to Tupper Lake still for Hope's sad eyes to make a convincing argument for going back and waiting for Gert to get to the Washboard and make us some donuts. But I used my veto power, and we headed northwest and away from Tupper, stopping at the gas station at Sevey Corners to fill up my gas tank, and load up on some crappy road food for the two of us.

  Sevey Corners, 5:58a.m., 9/12/2012

  From Sevey Corners we had to drive north on Route 56 for a bit until we got to a wide spot in the road called Stark.

  Stark is most notable for a sign announcing it to be Stark. It is also known (by me… now) for a gravel track that leads away from the road to the north, above and behind the Stark Falls and Crary Falls Reservoirs. This track breaks off into a series of less and less serious/navigable tracks. I kept one eye on the GPS (for direction of travel only, it didn’t show anything but blank green screen where we were driving) and one eye on the graveled tire ruts that we were following; they weren't nearly big enough for names or to make it onto Garmin's mapping software, but could eat my muffler for lunch if I wasn’t careful in straddling the biggest ruts.

  Hope sat up as tall as she could, and was just barely able to see over the dashboard, loving the view and smells and bounces. Around one turn we surprised a pair of young deer that showed no reaction to our presence beyond briefly lifting, and then returning, their heads to some sweet clover they were enjoying. Hope assumed, or pretended, that they were big dogs, and did nothing more than wag and give a near-silent woof in their direction. I took about two dozen turns on the way in and was incredibly glad that I'd marked the point where we had left the road with my GPS leaving an electronic trail of breadcrumbs that we could follow back to Route 56. I couldn't have told you with any certainty whether or not we were on public or private land by the time we got to the blocked road, but we hadn't passed a camp or cabin for a while.

  We were exploring this area for a few reasons: first, it seemed the perfect spot for George to hide one of his labs, based on isolation and empty space and few attractions for tourists; second, I'd talked to a trio of businesses that each remembered having recent cash dealings that were enough outside of the ordinary to be notable (a cargo van needing a tow, a huge purchase of propane and supplies every few weeks by the same guys, and weekly blow-out dinners at a tiny locals' only diner), all within a few miles of where I was driving right now; third, Cynthia had emails mentioning Stark as a place; fourth, it was the closest likely circle on my map to where Hope and I had camped last night. I was exploring my way through a fair amount of gas and dirt-road miles, hoping not to be wasting my time, when I drove around a turn and saw a downed tree blocking the road. I had to force myself not to nudge Hope and point, with an 'I told you so'.

  There was a big pine down and across the road, with some evidence of recent truck traffic on both sides of the trunk. In my mind's eye, I could see supplies of all sorts being slid from the truck on my side to the truck on the inside of the blockade. I looked for, and found, the marks where a chain had been attached to the tree to pull it down and across the road. My GPS indicated that Whitney Pond was just back through the woods a few hundred yards. I looked over at Hope, who seemed excited to get to work after the bumpy drive, but I wasn't sure that the things that had made her perfect for yesterday's subterfuge wouldn't work against us today. In fact, I was nearly certain that she'd bark and sink us in the spy business (and I had no desire to get shot again), so I turned around, took a nearby T-junction turn, and headed down and away from the downed tree, following a track leading south that I hoped would lead to what my paper map called Thirty-Five Pond.

  I found a smaller track off the already tiny trail that looked as though it would curve up to the pond I wanted to find. I took it and was rewarded by a pretty little body of water that looked worth returning to for fishing and camping sometime (despite the fact that I was reasonably sure that I was on the private holding of some massive paper company).

  Hope and I got out to stretch and pee, and sniff around the clearing by the water; it appeared not to have been visited in a year or more, judging by the grass in the fire pit. I backed the truck most of the way down to the water, tied the extra-long lead to the bumper, and got out my fishing pole.

  I had two reasons to do this: first I wanted to spend a bit of time with Hope in this new spot before heading out and leaving her, and second, I wanted to establish some cover if anybody up at the presumed drug-lab had heard/seen us go by and followed us down. I didn't think it very likely that anyone had noted our passing; but it was a pretty morning, and I had fun fishing while Hope chased frogs and grasshoppers along the shore. I caught a couple of sunnies and a perch for her to gnaw on while I was gone (I killed them first this time; she seemed to like them as well as the live one yesterday afternoon, and I felt better about it).

  Whitney Pond, 8:42a.m., 9/12/2012

  I walked north from the oddly named Thirty-Five Pond, leaving Hope close enough to the pond to drink, with adequate fish to stuff her belly, and shade under the truck if the day got hot. I debated walking a straight line between her and where I assumed a drug lab was hidden up at Whitney Pond (using my handheld GPS, it'd be easy) but I figured that it would be quicker and quieter sticking to the road.

  I walked at a good pace, stopping to listen for a full minute every 200-300 yards. I couldn't hear a thing beside bugs and birds until I was almost to the downed tree across the Whitney Pond offshoot. I stopped at the log to drink from my hydration pack's hose, and eat a handful of GORP; the sound was a fairly constant buzz, punctuated every minute or two by a thunk or clunk. I tried to place it, and eventually got an image of a handsaw and a growing woodpile; nights must be getting cold up in 'meth-camp' for the chemists, and they were supplementing whatever heat they had with wood.

  I listened for another five minutes before heading up into the woods, eschewing the road at this point in case I was unlucky enough to be there when a re-supply meet-up was scheduled. I worried briefly about a lookout, but after stalking and listening through the woods like a ninja for a bit, I reasoned that even if they had posted a sentry at first, months of nothing happening would make it hard to maintain discipline. I bet myself that if there was a lookout, he had fallen back to the camp months ago. I crept through the woods, keeping it slow and stealthy enough that the birds and squirrels didn't stop their workdays to worry about, or scold, me. Once I got close to the camp, I
could hear a radio from inside the trailer, but didn't sweat it (although I still tried to keep my noise down and stay low). They, and their camp, looked exactly as I had thought they would, and it occurred to me that I didn’t need to go closer. I had confirmed their location, and the fact that they were secreted behind a blockade was enough for me to draw conclusions about what was going on in the trailer.

  I thought about Hope, waiting for me down at the oddly named pond, and Dorothy and Frank, and Cynthia's spirit, languishing in the lake; I turned around and crept back down through the woods towards safety. I had been having fun being clever and stealthy and wood-crafty, but it wasn't necessary for the completion of my appointed task, and in fact it might prove dangerous and hinder or halt my investigations (and/or life). Dorothy and Frank would be ok if I didn't make it back, and would likely be motivated to find and persecute (if not prosecute) the people that had hurt me, but Hope was tied to my bumper, and suddenly the image of her stranded there, alone in the woods, made me sad and homesick for Thirty-Five Pond.

  I walked a bit faster as I got away from what I was starting to think of as 'meth-camp B'. I let me feet do their thing while my brain worked on retooling my mission protocol to more effectively minimize risk and maximize effect. In addition to re-writing my mission orders, I distracted myself from the foolish desire to hurry through the last bit of my journey by playing with the number 35 in my head; the silly pond name bothered me on some level. Thirty-five is the product of two primes, the highest that one can count on their fingers in a base-six system, and the fifth pentagonal number. I ended up assuming that the surveyor had only been capable of coming up with thirty-four creative pond names before the Adirondacks’ endless supply of bodies of water had exasperated him.

  By the time I was down the road and closing in on Thirty-Five Pond (cutting one leg off of the triangle by bushwhacking a bit), I had some ideas about closing down my end of the investigation more quickly (and safely). I got to the clearing, saw Hope sleeping in the sun by the truck, and lay down with her by the water after shedding my pack. She woke up and came over to share two careful fishy kisses on my right ear before curling up along my side, settling down with an exaggerated sigh.

  Sevey Corners, 12:53p.m., 9/12/2012

  We swung up past the downed tree and meth-camp as we were leaving; and I had a tense few seconds as we confronted a big truck, with two hard looking guys in it, driving towards us.

  They pulled half-off and I did the same, so we could pass each other, single lane fashion. I had no way of knowing if they were coming back from a supply run for the meth-camp, or just looking for a spot to fish and drink some beers. The occupants were staring at me and Hope (who had climbed into my lap to give me driving advice and growl a bit of trash-talk and stay safe from the uglies in the red truck), perhaps because my Element was not the kind of vehicle generally seen on these back roads. When Hope paused for a second in her low toned growling and woofing, my nerves got in the way, and I couldn't help commenting, “I don't know. Fly casual.” I drove past them at a distance of about eighteen inches, and then it was over. I watched them recede in my rearview (without anyone tapping brakes) until Hope and I rounded a turn, at which point I drove thirteen percent faster than was absolutely safe to get us back to the main road.

  With the GPS breadcrumb trail, it was about seventeen times easier finding our way back to the main road from Thirty-Five Pond than it had been finding our way in. Once we were back on Route 5, heading south, we stopped in at the 'Gas 'n' Sip' at Sevey Corners, again, to top up the tank (I've never worried that I had too much gas in my vehicle).

  When I went in to pay, I grabbed four questionable hotdogs off of the roller, loaded all of them with chili and cheese, and went out to feast at the picnic table with Hope. She gobbled both of hers down, once they had cooled, as though they were the best chili-cheese dogs she'd ever had. I opened a liter of water, pouring half into Hope's bowl, to help us wash down the roadside perfection. The sun was shining, we were eating junk food in the only place with lights and electricity for miles around, and we were setting up bad guys operating in my backyard for a fall... for things to be any better, I'd have to be in my hammock eating bacon and drinking an ice-cold coke.

  I used walking Hope as an excuse to walk out of view of the gas station windows to pee at the border where the Gas 'n' Sip parking lot stopped fighting the wilderness; ten feet from the edge of the pavement were deer paths that men had never walked. It made me happy to think that the Park would swallow this place whole in about 50 years if mankind disappeared.

  We headed westwards on Route 3, towards Watertown, with the sun slightly behind and to our left, burning the arm I hung out the driver's side window in a pleasant way. Once we left Sevey Corners, there were only trees on both sides of the road until we got a bit past Cranberry Lake; at which point we headed back off of the main road, to look for a nice place to spend the afternoon and evening; hopefully finishing up the meth-hunt tomorrow.

  Wanakena, 2:47p.m., 9/12/2012

  We drove past Cranberry Lake, turned off Route 3 and down towards the tiny group of houses that make up the town of Wanakena; which grew up around logging, and nowadays has a symbiotic relationship with the ranger school run by the State University of New York. There's no gas station in town, but they have a general store on River Street which multi-tasks as post office, town offices and the 'tourism' center. Hope walked in with me after I got the nod from the old man behind the counter, and we picked up some stew meat, root veggies, a stick of butter, and as a reward for hard work (someone, somewhere, must have done some) a pint of Perry's coffee ice cream. We grabbed our goodies and drove down to the end of Main Street, which abruptly changes into a hiking trail, with a turnaround to let people looking for the rest of town (which doesn't exist) get back out to the main road. I parked off the shoulder and left Hope in the passenger seat while I loaded my pack with what we'd need for the night. Before heading out, we split the pint of ice cream; dessert-first makes sense when lacking a freezer.

  We walked about 500 yards down the path and found a perfect spot near the bottom (or top, depending on where you started) of a lake formed by a beaver dammed (and possibly damned) creek. There was a campsite that was well-kept by the rangers-in-training, so I took a risk and let Hope off her lead for a bit while I set up my hammock and found some firewood. She seemed happy to be free and went for a swim, and then wandered off into the woods after all of the things that beagles smell and chase. She kept coming back to check on me from time to time, and I gave her treats and praise and an ear-rub each time. When the afternoon sounds started changing into the precursors of the Adirondack night songs, I remembered/worried about how she had reacted to night sounds the previous evening, and during one of her check-ins, I re-attached her to the long lead and got started on our supper.

  I had enough wood for about an hour of campfire, and got it going while I prepared our suppers. I put unfair halves (meaning I got more) of the stew meat cubes onto the foil, rough chopped the root veggies, cut up half the butter on top of each, then dusted the mixture with the same seasoning premix I had used the night before. Next, I folded the packets closed and wrapped another layer of foil around each, then laid it over the fire using the grill someone had left next to the fire pit (it looked like a rack from a refrigerator, but it worked fine). After about five minutes of sizzling and tantalizing smells, I flipped the packets over and gave it another five minutes before pulling them off (and onto the ground for Hope) and onto a log for me, using a Leatherman to grip the hot foil. I slit open the top of Hope’s and warned her to wait, but she had to test it and gave herself a little burn (like I do every time in restaurants when they warn me about hot plates). The foil stew was great, and by the time we were done, we both had full bellies and grease all the way back to our ears. I was ready for a swim and some serious thinking and map work; Hope joined me for the swim, but then just took a nap while I worked.

  I got the headlamp out of my p
ack, along with my map and notes, and thought about shutting down George's operation for good. I wanted to give Frank the directions to as many functioning meth-camps as possible. I figured four to six camps would allow him (and me) to be reasonably certain that those running the operation wouldn't shut down or get away before the cops could grab them up; and with a bunch of arrested felons, there was a good chance of getting one or more to give up the locations of any other camps for reduced prison-time. I already had one definite location, identified by Cynthia, and confirmed by me during my earlier fishing trip; now I had a second location. I hoped to find as many as four additional camps in the next day or two.

  Looking at, and plotting, the distribution of possible meth-camps on my big map of the Park gave me a mental picture of a rough semi-circle of camps with the Tri-Lakes at the center(ish); the meth-camp near Tupper Lake, Cynthia’s find, was too close to a city to fit in with the rest of the pattern, so I took a leap, and assumed that it had been the first meth-camp, and that later iterations had been planned further into the backcountry (small camps in the back of beyond made for lower profile meth production, or so I assumed George had figured). Sticking to my idea that George (or whoever worked the maps for him) wouldn't have gone north, northeast or east, that still left some huge tracts of land (both public and private) in which he could have set up a couple more meth-camps. The place I found today fit that pattern, so I looked at the empty spots on the map, trying to get a feel for the pattern of the meth-camps so far; using the occurrences of unusual/repeated cash outlays close to appetizing chunks of wilderness gave me a couple more ideas about where to look, as long as Hope and I were in this part of the Park. Looking at an optimized mental map, I envisioned a total of eight meth camps, spread throughout the quieter places in the Park.