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“Well, next time then, sweetie. Nice looking at you,” Gar said with a lecherous smile.
Gar then left the Grill and jumped into his Lincoln for his last meeting of the day. On the way to his car, he thought that old coot Cyrus had become a pain in the ass. He’d be glad when he no longer had to deal with his shit.
As Gar exited, Maggie arrived for her 2:30 shift. Parking in the rear, she entered through the restaurant’s back door, marked Employees Only. In the kitchen, her co-worker, Paula, remarked, “You just missed an old slimeball who asked about you.” Maggie shuddered. “Did he go by the name of Gar and try to grab your ass?”
Paula barked, “That’s him. But I kept my ass out of reach. Hey, now that you’re here, can you make up four side salads for table five?”
“Sure.”
As Maggie made up the salads, a voice she recognized came through the vent above her head. Maggie smiled and paused. Fast Eddie Koehler was telling someone he’d just come from a lawyer's office, and the news wasn’t promising. Kitchen noises made hearing the rest of his conversation difficult, but she did pick up phrases she didn’t quite understand, like partitioning property, mineral rights, and buybacks. As she picked up her salads, she heard Eddie’s voice say, “Grant is my biggest roadblock.”
Leaving the kitchen, Maggie glanced at the back booth but couldn’t distinguish who sat across from Eddie. By the time she delivered her salads and took the drink orders from a new table of five, the people in the back booth were gone.
Chapter twelve
The weeks passed quickly, and Grant sat 20 ft up in his treestand bowhunting on a brisk mid-October day. The ferns had turned brown, and the oak and maple trees had shed most of their gorgeous colors. Grant heard flocks of geese passing overhead, along with the rustling of squirrels as they scampered in the dry leaves hustling for food for the upcoming winter. He sat in a treestand they called the Shadow that overlooked a small clover field on the extreme western edge of the property. A big doe had wandered out into the food plot just moments ago. Grant released his arrow at just the right time to ensure a successful and humane kill.
The day was so fantastic he almost didn’t want to leave the treestand despite the fact he could see the doe lying dead a mere 30 yards off the field. Finally, he stood up and hoisted his bow down to the ground using the rope he hauled it up with. Then he stepped onto the ladder to descend. He felt confident with his safety protocol because Jeff had double-checked all the blinds following his accident.
When he reached the bottom of the ladder, Grant grabbed his backpack and removed surgical gloves and his fixed-blade hunting knife to dress out the doe. Later he would enlist the help of Jeff or Chet to retrieve the doe with the camp’s John Deere Gator. Grant had almost reached the deer when suddenly he heard the loud crack of a rifle shot ring out. Somebody must have taken a shot at him! Grant immediately screamed, “Stop shooting, there’s a hunter over here,” but he heard no reply from the quiet woods around him. Grant wondered if he should jump up to see who fired or stay down in case someone actually shot at him. Ultimately, he compromised and stayed still for about 5 minutes before standing up and scanning the woods around him. The shot came from the Silver Lake Lodge’s property. Grant’s stand sat only 50 yards from the boundary. Perhaps a poacher saw the deer without noticing the hunter in full camouflage. In any case, this was a serious matter, and Grant could have been killed. He also wondered where the shooter had disappeared to. Suddenly, he heard footsteps and whirled around, only to see Chet coming up beside him.
“I heard the shot,” Chet said. “I knew you were hunting with a bow, so I figured I better come to investigate.” Chet had his 30-06 deer rifle because he liked hunting during the early doe season, which only ran for one weekend in October. The bow season in Michigan starts October 1 and runs until the end of the year. The regulations allow hunters to use a firearm or bow on private land during the 3rd weekend in October to reduce the deer herd. Hunters were allowed to shoot only antlerless deer if hunting with a gun.
Chet and Grant then walked toward the neighboring property, crossed under the wire, and looked for a person or some sign of what had happened. They found absolutely nothing. Whoever took that shot disappeared, and they neither saw nor heard anything suspicious. Grant and Chet returned to where Grant stood when the shot rang out. They began re-inspecting the area. Embedded in a tree nearby, Grant found a bullet hole from the shot. He pulled out his knife and extracted the bullet from the giant oak. They then returned to camp, met Jeff, and headed to the Silver Lake Lodge to see if they could get some answers.
The owner of the lodge, Jack Perkins, was a huge man weighing well over 300 lbs and standing 6ft 2in tall. He had a full beard and a beer gut that spilled over his pants. Standing outside the lodge, Jack said things were slow, and he had no hunters in the area where the shot occurred. Grant asked him if he would give them a list of all the employees and guests currently staying or working at the lodge. Jack refused, saying this would violate their privacy. They asked Jack for permission to search the area on his property more thoroughly the next day to look for evidence. Jack wouldn’t allow that because he planned to station hunters in that section the following evening. He said allowing a search would scare the deer and ruin the hunt for his paying customers.
“Look, I’ve got work to do, and I’m losing my patience,” Jack stated. He wheeled away and started heading back to the lodge. Stooping down to retrieve his work gloves from the ground, Jack lost more than his patience. As his jeans slipped down, the trio had an unfortunate view of “the land down under,” a picture none of them ever wanted to see.
Grant reported the shooting incident at the county sheriff’s office the next day. He wrote a report and spoke to a Sargent Clements, regarding the incident. When Jeff produced the bullet, Clements said, “I’ll send it into the lab, but I’m certain this came from a 30-06 rifle. I’ve seen enough of these in my time.”
Sergeant Clements then asked a series of questions to which Grant had no answers. “Do you know anyone who might want to harm you, Grant?”
“No”
“Did you see anyone in the area when you heard the shot?”
“No,”
Officer Clements kept returning to the fact that Grant had not observed anyone and admitted it would be difficult to find out what happened. He seemed skeptical about the whole incident. Grant left the police station with little expectation they intended to conduct a robust investigation.
***
Jeff left for home immediately because he had to prepare for a presentation the next morning. He had volunteered to give a talk to the Granite Cove Middle School 7th grade class. In all the turmoil, he almost forgot about it until Connie Defaux, who taught the 7th-grade class, called to remind him of the commitment. Connie brought in speakers weekly to discuss their business and teach the kids about different career options. She was an old friend of Jeff’s from high school. He always liked her because she returned to Granite Cove after college instead of leaving for higher pay in a big city. Jeff prepared to give a half-hour presentation allowing 15 minutes for questions. Connie warned that the last two presentations had not gone very well. Peter McHenry, the local bank president, explained what a banker does. Within minutes, she said he lost the entire class because the only interesting thing they found about a bank was how much money they kept in the vault. The second guy, Rick Newhouse, owned an auto repair shop outside Granite Cove. Rick had never spoken to a group and got stage fright as soon as he stepped in front of the class. He stammered and stuttered through a presentation about how to replace brake pads. Again, the kids were bored almost instantly. Connie said she knew Jeff could do better and he wouldn’t bore the class like the two previous speakers.
Despite not having children, Jeff always hit it off with kids. He jokingly said that’s because he’s just a kid himself. After a brief introduction from Mrs. Defaux, Jeff found himself in front of a classroom of eighteen 7th graders waiting to hear what a wildlife photographer really did. Jeff had no plans to talk about the intricacies of photography with these children. If he started talking about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and balance, he would lose them quicker than the banker. He knew what would hold their interest, and he started his presentation there. “How many of you in this class like animals? Please raise your hands if you do.” Instantaneously, every hand in the classroom went up.
From that point on, Jeff held the class in the palm of his hand. He explained that as a wildlife photographer, he took pictures of animals. Lots of different animals. Jeff told them about his many exciting encounters with deer, bear, moose, beaver, elk, etc. The class hung on his every word. Some of the kids couldn’t resist blurting out questions despite the fact Mrs. Defaux had instructed them to wait until the end. “What’s the closest you ever came to a coyote?” “Have you ever been bitten by a bobcat?” Have you photographed a buck bigger than the 10-pointer my dad shot two years ago?” “Are beavers dangerous?” “Can porcupines actually throw their quills?” These were just some of the questions hurled at him by the class. Jeff even went into stories of events when he worked out West in Wyoming and Montana. These experiences yielded stories of risky situations, and animal encounters that the kids enjoyed. Jeff brought photographs to pass around as he spoke. He even gave each student a brochure he developed featuring his famous squirrel/hawk photo. It would be an understatement to say he hit a home run with the class. Mrs. Defaux had to finally cut off the question and answer session, or it may have continued for hours. She asked the class to give Mr. Koeher a hand as he readied to leave. To Jeff’s surprise, the whole class stood up and gave him a standing ovation. The children started filing out of the classroom for their next class. One tall boy hung back and shyly approached Jeff as he put his photos away.
“Hi, Mr. Koehler. My name is Tyler. I really loved hearing about all the animals. “Have you ever been bitten by a bear?”
“No, Tyler, fortunately not. In Michigan, the only bears are black bears. They’re not all that aggressive unless you get between a mother and her cubs. I’ve been as close as 10 yards from a black bear during a photo shoot, but they usually have no interest in people. Now out West, there are grizzlies, and in the Arctic, polar bears. They are a whole different story. I always bring bear spray with me when photographing out there. I only had to use it once, but I was sure glad I had it. Are you particularly interested in bears?”
“Yes, sir, I really like bears. I think my mom is a little afraid of them, but I would love to see one someday.”
Something in the back of his head dawned on Jeff, and he immediately asked Tyler a question. “Tyler, your name sounds familiar, is your last name Cunningham?”
“Yes, it is. How did you know? Are you a patient of my mom? She’s a doctor in town.”
