Chapter 9: Assault With Intent to Kill

Late February the damnedest thing happened. Someone tried to shoot me! They were pretty stupid about it, I must say. I heard the reports and 'spang' noises off the front of the house. I wasn't about to stick my head out there and get it shot off. I looked through the window and spotted a boat out on the water, a few hundred feet away. I'm not Johnny Rambo. I didn't go all ghillie suit and try to sneak up on 'em. I called the Coast Guard to come and arrest their asses. Well, I tried to. The cell tower was down. This was getting serious!

I'd been fooling around with internet phones before I moved. I'd purchased a Skype account and had a headset with a microphone on my computer. I started calling around to get bloody anyone to answer. I got a fish market to pick up, just down the coast in Belfast. I asked him to call the Coasties as someone was trying to shoot my ass. He took down my Skype number and promised to call it in right away. Pretty soon I got an incoming call. It wasn't the Coast Guard, but it was the next best thing—the State Police. I described what was happening, including the fact that my cell phone service was down. They wanted to know the registration numbers on the boat. I had a spotting scope (that had seen better days) in my office. I laid it on the window casing for stability and took a look. I got 'ME-ARJ' then the trees blocked the rest. I told the nice man what I'd seen and verified that they were still shooting at my place. They thanked me and said someone would be right out.

Not forty minutes later a Coastie smuggling interceptor laid a line of machine gun bullets before the bow of the boat. The one that had been using my place for target practice. I wandered down to the beach and yelled out, "Don't kill the bastards yet! They haven't paid to have the bullet holes in my house fixed!" I got a wave and watched some guys get handcuffed. I wrote down the full boat registration number when I got back to the house. I called the fish market that had helped me out and told him what happened, and then thanked him again. Guess where I was going to buy my fresh fish from then on?

It turned out that the guys that were shooting at me were worried that I'd catch 'em brewing their moonshine on my place and turn 'em in. Hell, they got in more trouble for disabling the cell tower than for shooting at me. I took the bill for fixing the bullet holes—all four thousand-odd dollars of it—and turned it over to a lawyer. I didn't care what he made, I just wanted my four grand back out of it. He took it on.

If this was what life in Maine was like the next time I was going to be able to shoot back, by God.

I paid a visit to a gun shop where I looked over his stock-in-trade. I bought a brand spanking new Savage deer rifle in 30.06, a very good low-light scope that cost half as much as the rifle and six hundred rounds of new ammunition. I spent a thousand dollars for the rifle, scope and ammunition.

To address the issue of intruders inside the house or barn I bought a Remington pump-action shotgun and had a laser mounted under the barrel. If I could see it, I could hit it.

I took to wandering around the property, looking for old foundations. I knew that sooner or later I'd find their damned still. I mapped out all the open foundations and cellars. I wanted to get them filled in all over the island, not just in my part. They were dangerous, not only from falls but they'd make great nests for snakes. Falling into a writhing nest of cottonmouths or rattlesnakes would be a pretty hard way to go.

I found the still. It was a pretty sweet set-up and I could see why they'd been put out about having to abandon it. They'd found a stream and followed it up the flow in a flat-bottomed boat until they found the remains of a collapsed house.

The old farmers had been pretty smart. They didn't build near the beach because the winter weather would tear up their homes. Instead they followed the creeks upstream and used them as their driveways. They'd have good sweet water and an easy egress.

The creek gave the moonshiners an easy way to get the grain and sugar in, and the finished product out. I practiced a bit on their still with my new shotgun then took a picture for the newspaper. I'd accompany that photo with a short note, a photocopy of the repair bill and a picture of my shot-up house. If I had my say about things the Sandersons' name was mud. I may have pissed off a few of the older gentlemen around the area with my 'restraint of trade' but tough shit. When somebody shoots at me the gloves come off.