The Adventures of Ranger Ramona Ch. 02

A quarter mile down the slope, she spotted the first red ribbon. She noted that it was just uphill from a large cluster of boulders. The second one was about a hundred yards further on, in front of a stand of birches. She continued downhill and spotted and noted six more ribbons. Along the way, she made a point of looping and veering, and at one point, she sped under the lines and turned back uphill, crisscrossing Piney's tracks several times before switching back over to her own side and completing her run.

Piney was waiting for her at the edge of the road, smoking a cigarette.

"I spotted eight traps plus the two from the other day, that makes ten total."

"Good job. And some nice ridin', by the way."

Ramona laughed. "Thanks."

"Didn't see any on my side," he told her. She nodded and grinned. He had been right, but it was not like him to mention that fact.

"So, now," he continued, "We'll ride up side by side and you can point them out to me. I've got three cameras. I'll stop and place them where it seems best."

They headed up the slope. Piney stopped near the second trap and attached one of the game cams to a sturdy shrub.

"Should we mark it somehow so I can find it?" Ramona shouted, but Piney could not hear her over their roaring engines. He shut his off, and she followed suit. When she repeated her question, he grinned and explained that the cameras were equipped with tracking software.

"You young folks ain't the only ones who know how to use technology," he said.

Piney found suitable spots to position all three cameras. While he was attaching them, Ramona rode up and down the slope on both sides of the power lines, in part to confuse anyone looking at their tracks, in part because she was having fun.

They finished setting the cameras and rode back up to where they had parked. They loaded the snowmobiles on the trailer, then sat in the jeep with the heater on high and sipped paper cups of hot coffee from Piney's thermos.

"So, when do we check the cameras?" Ramona asked, "Or do you have them uploading to the cloud or something?"

Piney laughed. "They have bluetooth, but the range is limited. They are predicting snow for the weekend. He will want to empty his traps before then, so if we ride out and check them on Friday, we will likely see something."

They drove back to the ranger station and put the snowmobiles away in the garage. When they went inside, Lt. Bebb shouted from his office.

"Greentree! Get in here."

Ramona rolled her eyes and muttered, "What now?"

Lt. Bebb looked up from behind his desk.

"What's up, chief?" she asked.

"Second week of February, we are supposed to send someone down to Augusta for two days to a damn conference. They do this every couple of years, making sure everyone is up on changes to the rules and regulations and stuff."

"And you want me to go?'

"Well, yeah."

"I kind of think that's an honor, sir. Thank you."

"Good, because I don't care about it and Piney would flat out refuse if I ask him."

So much for feeling honored, Ramona thought.

"Martha will have the papers for you," he said, picking up a copy of Field and Stream from his desk. He glanced at the cover, then looked back up at Ramona.

"Go. I know it's January, but find something to do."

Martha not only had the papers, she held them up for Ramona as she stepped out of the office.

"Just sign, honey," she said, "It's all filled out. They will send you all the info on the conference, your accommodations and all that. Even give you meal vouchers. The chief sent me one year. Kind of boring, but nice to get out of town. I spent more time shopping than I did at the conference."

Well, it's Augusta, not Montreal, but at least it will be a change of pace, Ramona thought as she signed the papers.

Friday morning was clear and bright, and the temperature was hovering around thirty degrees as Ramona checked in at the station. Piney was sitting at the break table sipping coffee and eating a doughnut when she walked in.

"You need help loading the snowmobile?" he asked her.

"I was thinking I would put on some snowshoes and go out there. That way, there won't be another set of tracks."

"You sure? It's a four mile hike, half of it uphill."

Ramona shrugged and Piney scratched his head and chuckled.

"Yeah," he said, "I reckon that's what I'd have done thirty years ago."

"You can come with me."

"No thanks, darlin', you have already carried one old ranger on your back, you don't need to do it again. But listen, Ramona, take a long gun out of the locker."

"You don't really think I'll need it, do you?"

"Better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it."

"That's what my mom told me about birth control."

Piney winced. "I didn't need to hear that."

Ramona took a rifle and a box of ammo from the locker. Suddenly, what they were doing seemed deadly serious. They were not the tree police, they were real law enforcement officers, and she was going out, alone, to gather evidence against someone who had broken, and continued to break, the law.

She went to the storage closet and got out a pair of snow shoes.

"Okay, I'm good to go," she said.

Piney frowned. "You know, I wasn't trying to scare you."

"That's alright, I'm not scared."

"Just want you to be careful, that's all."

"Thanks, Piney, I will."

She loaded her jeep and headed to Blackshaw Hill. She'd been thinking that she was going to have an enjoyable walk in the good weather, but her mood was much more somber now.

She parked at the downhill end of the power corridor. She knew that by the time she finished four miles in the snowshoes, her legs would be tired, and it made more sense to do the uphill stretch first.

She loaded the rifle and felt glad that she had it. After putting on the snowshoes, she began her trek up the slope.

Above the first trap, she saw a bald eagle perched on the branch of a dead oak. When it did not fly off at her approach, but paced back and forth on the branch, she knew it was guarding a meal. There was something dead in the trap. She felt the same flush of anger as she had when she had seen the other animals that had been snared, this time with an added sense of helplessness. She couldn't even go to the trap and check. I hope to hell we got him on camera, she thought.

Ramona easily found the first camera. It took her a couple of tries to get her phone's bluetooth to connect with it, but as soon as it did, a long list of photos appeared. She hit the download button, and a minute or two later, when it had completed the task, opened the file. There were seventy two pictures.

Squinting in the bright glare of the sun on the snow, she could make out the first picture. A porcupine was passing in front of the camera. She couldn't make out any living creatures in the second or third pictures; perhaps the motion sensors had just captured the trees moving in the wind.

She flipped forward and looked at the twentieth, the thirty second, the forty fifth pictures, and saw a moose, a pair of coyotes, and a very nasty looking fisher staring straight into the lens from only a few feet away. It was not until she flipped to the fifty third picture that she made out a human form.

Shielding her eyes with her hand, she examined the picture closely. It looked like a large, burly man. He was wearing a jacket with some sort of logo on the back. It looked to be that of some sports team, but she couldn't make it out. She checked the rest of the pictures. There were five shots of him. In the last one, the camera had caught a pretty good view of his face.

Ramona reset the camera. Her spirits had lifted. We are going to get this bastard, she thought.

She trotted, as best she could in the snow shoes, to the second camera. There were more pictures of the culprit, and when she checked the third one, he was caught on it as well. She tried to radio Piney to give him the news, but all she could get was static. She wondered if it was from standing so close to the power lines. She checked her phone, and couldn't get a signal on it, either.

When she returned to her jeep, she checked the phone again and saw that she had two bars. She called Piney and told him that they'd gotten pictures of the trapper.

"You want me to email them to you?" she asked.

"Nope, just meet me at the station and I'll look at them on Martha's computer. I can't make out squat on them little phone screens."

"Okay, be there as soon as I can."

She beat Piney to the station, and by the time he had arrived, she had uploaded all the pictures to Martha's desktop computer. When he came in, she had just finished sorting the shots of the trapper from those of the animals.

She stood and let Piney sit in the desk chair. She and Martha crowded behind him. He leaned close to the screen, and scrolled through the pictures, then went back to the one that had the clearest view of the back of the man's jacket.

"How do I blow this up?" he asked.

"That little plus sign at the top of the picture," Martha told him.

He enlarged the picture. "Lewiston Mainiacs," he and Ramona said in unison.

"Lot of hockey fans in Maine," Martha shrugged.

"Not many that wear jackets from defunct minor league teams, though," Piney said. He found a picture with a fairly good three quarter view of the trapper's face, and enlarged it.

"Uh huh," he muttered. "Martha, can you print that out?"

"Sure can," she said, reaching over his shoulder.

"You know this guy?"Ramona asked.

"Believe I do," Piney said. When the picture came out of the printer, Martha handed it to him. He stared at it for a minute, sighed, then stood up and and took it into Lt. Bebb's office, closing the door behind him.

Ramona frowned, feeling shut out. "What do you think that's about?" she asked Martha.

"Don't know honey. But it looks like he's taking this wicked seriously."

Piney came out of the office a few minutes later. He folded the picture and put it in the pocket of his coat.

"Alright, Ramona," he said, "Let's ride."

Ramona tossed on her parka and followed him out.

They got into Piney's jeep. "So, where are we going?" Ramona asked.

Piney grimaced and said, "Beartown."

"The guy is Wabanaki?"

"Yep."

"And that's a problem."

"That's a problem," he nodded.

Ramona wanted to call him out for going in to speak to the chief without her. She had begun to think of this as "her case." But watching Piney as he drove toward Beartown, she decided to leave that issue alone. He was obviously troubled enough.

"So, who is this guy?" she asked.

"His name is Jimmy Little. I knew it was him when I saw that jacket. Jimmy played a couple seasons in Lewiston. When they moved the team to Canada, they didn't think he was worth keeping. He ain't a bad sort. Been in a bit of trouble now and then. Nothing too terrible."

"Okay, but I don't understand. He broke the law, we caught him. It's a civil violation, what's the big deal?"

"Well, five hundred dollar fine on ten traps...five grand is kind of a big deal. Especially for a guy like Jimmy."

"But what does him being Wabanaki have to do with it?"

Piney thought for a minute. "You said a minute ago, he violated the law. Well, he violated our law. The Wabanaki don't necessarily believe in that."

"The law is the law."

"Ramona, look at it from their perspective. They are good folks, most of them, and good citizens. If Jimmy had robbed somebody or something like that, they'd toss his ass to the sheriff in a jiffy. But hunting and fishing laws? Trapping laws? They were hunting and trapping in these woods before the state of Maine existed. They claim the right to follow their own laws on those matters."

"I guess I can see that, but we can't just ignore it."

"No, we can not."

"So, we are going to go issue citations to him?"

"Nope."

"What then?"

"We are going to go talk to Simone Laurent."

They reached Beartown and pulled into the parking lot of the Social Lodge.

"How do you know she'll be here?" Ramona asked.

"It's Friday. They'll be setting up for the Saturday flea market."

Ramona had driven past the Social Lodge many times, but had never gone inside. It was just a big rust pocked quonset hut, but it was the center of the Native American community, and she didn't feel right about barging in uninvited. But this was different. This was important ranger business, and besides, Piney outranked her and she trusted his judgment. She followed him inside.

They entered a small foyer. A small kitchen was on their right, a pair of bathrooms on the left. In front of them was a long, open area, lined with tables and stacks of folding chairs. Cardboard boxes or piles of clothing covered most of the tables. At the far end, near a small stage and a dangling bingo scoreboard, a group of women were sitting, sipping coffee.

Piney and Ramona had started toward the women, when they heard a door open behind them, and turned to look.

A woman was coming out of the bathroom. She looked to be about Ramona's age, or at most, a few years older. She was very pretty, full figured with honey skin and piercing dark eyes. Her long black hair was draped over her shoulder in a ponytail. She smiled at Piney and her face seemed to light up.

"Well, if it isn't my old pal, Ranger Martin." she said.

"Jeezum crow," Piney said, grinning at her, "Sarah Laurent, how the hell are you? Didn't know you were back in town."

"Yep. Come in last week." She looked at Ramona with raised eyebrows.

"And who the hell is this?" she asked.

Ramona held out her hand. "Ramona Greentree," she said.

"Oh, yeah," Sarah said, shaking with her,"My mom told me there was a new female ranger. I expected, like Brianne of Tarth or something. Me and your partner here go way back. He used to roust me all the time for smoking weed in the state park."

"You ain't doing that anymore, I hope," Piney said.

"Of course not," She said with a laugh, "I'm a grown up. I can smoke it at home now."

Piney shook his head and chuckled. "Not my business then I guess."

"So you've come to talk to my mother, I assume."

"Yep, but nice to see you."

"Back at you, Piney. And nice to meet you, Ramona."

"Likewise."

As they walked toward the women at the far table, Ramona glanced over her shoulder. Sarah had gone to one of the piles of clothing and was sorting it, but she was watching her. When their eyes met, she flashed that bright smile again.

"Well, here comes the cavalry," Simone Laurent said when they neared the table. One of the women sitting with her snorted loudly.

Piney nodded and made a gesture as if he were tipping his hat, although he had left it in the jeep.

"Hoping for a few minutes of your time, Simone," he said.

"Official visit, or did you come to make a donation to the heating assistance fund?"

"Why, I can do both."

"But you needed your sidekick?"

"It concerns Ranger Greentree, too."

"Alright, well, take a load off." She looked at her friends. "Why don't you guys help Sarah with the clothing donations?"

They both stood without a word and left the table. Piney and Ramona sat down.

Simone took a long sip of her coffee. Ramona noticed that she didn't offer them any.

"So what's up, Piney?" she asked.

"Last month, when the lights went out in that nor'easter, the lineworkers up on Blackshaw showed Ranger Greentree some traps they had seen along the power corridor."

"The corridor is public land."

"That's true."

"And it was trapping season."

"That's true as well. But she checked again a few days back and the traps were still out."

Simone looked at Ramona for the first time, but addressed Piney. "Why did she do that?"

"I was just looking to see if they'd been removed at the end of the season," Ramona said.

Simone ignored her. "So, you figured you'd come out here and blame it on some Indian?" she asked Piney.

Piney pulled the folded picture from his pocket and flattened it on the table.

"We put out cameras," he said as he pushed it toward Simone.

She glanced at it for a second, then looked back at him.

"Kind of fuzzy," she said.

"The digital is sharper."

"Could be anybody."

"It's Jimmy."

"Could be, I suppose."

"We've got lots more pictures. Some you can make out his Mainiacs jacket."

Simone glanced at the picture again. After a moment, she said, "Okay."

"You got this?" Piney asked.

"We got it."

"Do me a favor, and look at Ranger Greentree and tell her you got it."

Simone stared at Ramona and said, "We got it."

"Okay," Piney said, "Nice to see you, Simone. And nice to see Sarah back in town."

He stood and held out his hand to Simone. As they shook, Ramona looked back and forth between them.

"Let's go, Ramona," Piney said, turning away.

Ramona hesitated a second before standing and following him.

The other women were still sorting and folding clothes. "So long, rangers," Sarah called as they walked by, but Ramona was too perplexed by what had happened at the table to pay much attention.

As soon as they were out of the building, she spoke up. "Piney, what the hell was that about? That's it? That's all we are doing?"

Piney didn't answer until they were both in the jeep.

"Ramona, you are an excellent woodsman, or wood person or whatever I'm supposed to call it. You got all the makings of a ranger except one, and you will learn that in time."

"And what's that?"

"The people part of it. The politics, if you want to call it that."

"Giving special favors?"

Piney had pulled out of the parking area, but stopped the jeep. "It's not about special favors, it's about doing what works."

"And how does this work, exactly?"

He chuckled. "Exactly? I don't know, but Simone and the other elders will make sure that Jimmy Little doesn't set any more illegal traps."

"That's our job."

"Well, yes. So, we can go looking for him, but I'm betting we won't find him. And if we do, then, well, we've got Indian troubles."

Ramona rolled her eyes. "They aren't going to scalp you, Piney."

"Nope, they won't. This ain't 1880. What they will do is send their lawyers after us and tie the whole department up in lawsuits about native rights on public lands. They ain't going to like that down to the capitol and they sure ain't going to look too kindly on a pair of rangers who stirred that pot."

"It still doesn't sit right with me."

"Look at it this way. There's just two of us patrolling this whole damn valley. Sometimes we got to deputize help."

Ramona thought about what Piney said, all the way back to Saw Whet. She understood his reasoning, but she still kept thinking about the sounds that fox made as it was slowly dying in Jimmy Little's trap.

The next morning, she took a snowmobile up Blackshaw Hill, and rode along the treeline, picking up the traps. Most were still set. One held the carcass of a turkey, another had snapped, but there was nothing in it. Looking around, Ramona saw a tuft of fur in the snow. She picked it up and examined it. It appeared to be the tip of a raccoon's tail. "It took a nip at you, but you got away didn't you, little buddy," she muttered with a grin.

After loading the traps in the back of her jeep, Ramona decided to drive down to the Reed's Corner General Store for lunch. There were a half dozen snowmobiles parked out in front. Inside, the narrow aisles were crowded with middle aged couples wearing jackets identifying them as members of the Skowhegan Sno-Hawks Snowmobile Club. Several of them smiled and greeted her as she squeezed past.

Pascal, the cook, waved to her when she reached the food counter.

"A cheeseburger basket for you, Ranger Greentree?"

"You know it," she said with a smile. It gave her a good feeling to be treated as a member of the community after less than a year in town. She went to the cooler to get a Coke and heard someone call her name.