I
The Cell Tower
It was nearly pitch black, a sliver of a crescent moon, and if it wasn’t for his cheap flashlight, he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish a necessary act. Using duct tape, he fastened the flickering flashlight to the barrel of the deer rifle so he could look sharply down the iron sight. He racked a shell into the old 30/30 rifle and pointed it at the offending red light on the cell tower. His first shot echoed in the still of that momentous evening, missing its mark, but the crack of the weapon a second time exploded the light and sent shards of glass like winter’s jagged ice crystals raining down around him onto the frozen ground. The cell tower had two red lights, and he was prepared to take the second one out just like the first—and he did. The two white lights were never on after dusk, so he would have to get those tomorrow, or someday soon when they were illuminated.
Edward picked up two of the three spent cartridges and stowed them away in his plaid hunting coat. He couldn’t find the third. He searched the ground with the flat beam of the dim flashlight but finally decided it probably didn’t matter anyway. He trudged back in heavy snow, staying on his previous track through the woods to his isolated cabin several miles away.
The log cabin lay hidden like a wary buck in a tangled cedar swamp. Ed shed the Iverson snowshoes beside the woodstove to dry out. From the cabin, on a remote site in the Huron Mountains, he could see the tower on the nearby prominence of Mt. Arvon. The tower had been erected the previous summer; immediately, Edward loathed it, a heinous, metal interloper in his life.
His camp was north of Nelson, in the western part of the Hurons. Edward Martin guessed correctly that anyone sent to repair the tower’s lights would assume that they had been shot out by a young vandal and wouldn’t suspect that a man of Edward’s age, going on thirty-two, would be so inclined. The fucking metal intrusion, kept him up at night; at least that’s what he would eventually tell Milcah. But for now, he would just savor the results in silence. “One for me and one less for the fucking National Security Agency,” he muttered to himself. The secret organization was often called upon by presidents and Congress alike to spy on the gullible populace. He should know. At one time he had worked as a government contractor, collecting and analyzing data for the NSA, till he was abruptly fired. Edward laughed out loud, almost a cackle, enjoying the notion that he had gotten one over on the bastards. That night, he’d gone straight to bed, sleeping soundly for the first time in weeks.
Milcah, nicknamed Millie, pulled out of the convenience store in her pickup and headed for Edward’s cabin. A month-old copy of the local newspaper lay on the passenger seat beside her. She glanced nervously at it, having reread the front-page article for at least the third time this past month. She had her suspicions but had held her tongue until she could talk to her brother. According to the paper, the FAA was working with Sheriff Morley, trying to pin down the actor or actors involved in shooting out the cell tower’s lights. The locals had just recently received cell service, though it remained spotty at best. But according to this article, disabling cell tower lights was a serious federal offense, as this crime endangered aviation traffic. The headline seemed to target her like a silent accusation: NEW CELL TOWER DISABLED BY GUNMAN. The paper was dated October 21, a solid month ago. She had purposely delayed a visit to Edward, partially out of concern and partially out of dread for the serious feelings she had for him.
She’d put on lipstick and tied her hair back, as Edward always wanted her to be “made up.” She’d also slipped on a pair of pastel pink thong panties. Why she went to this bother was still a question she asked herself, but never found the appropriate answer. Consulting the rearview mirror, she noticed that her long hair, though naturally blonde, was mixed prematurely with substantial grey. She didn’t think she looked too bad for an old broad of thirty-six, four years older than her brother.
Her ten-year-old rusty hulk, a much used and abused three-quarter-ton Ford pickup, jolted down the overgrown logging trail until she again found the narrow, twisting path that led back to Edward’s camp. She had pushed through some four inches or so of wet, sloppy snow, but the elevated frame and good four-wheel drivetrain were adequate for the task. She checked the rearview mirror as Edward always insis
