One beautiful summer day, the tranquility was broken by the sound of gunshots ringing out across the countryside. Somehow, a pair of fugitives from Michigan had ended up in northern Maine and had a run in with police in Bridgewater, the small town directly south of us. They managed to escape the shootout unscathed and fled the scene in their vehicle. They drove right past the end of our road, with the police in hot pursuit. They abandoned their vehicle and fled into the woods directly across from the Apostolic Pentecostal Church of Mars Hill, where we were on staff at the time.
As details of these events made their way to us, my wife became extremely concerned. We lived in a beat-up nineteen sixty-something trailer that was less than secure. The frame was so off kilter that the door didn't truly close. You didn't even have to use the doorknob to open our door. A simple push was enough, even if it was locked.
"What if they come here tonight?" Stacey asked. I assured here that the police had the area where the fugitives were hiding surrounded, and that, even if they did manage to sneak past the authorities, we were miles away and had absolutely nothing to worry about. She agreed with my assessment, and that evening, we went to bed as usual.
In the early morning hours, when it was still pitch black in our corner of the woods, Stacey, who is a light sleeper anyway, woke up to the sound of activity in our kitchen at the other end of the trailer. Compelled to investigate, she quietly made her way down the narrow hallway. When she got about halfway down, she noticed the door was wide open. It was at this point that she called out to me. When she did, whoever was in the kitchen, ran out, bumping the door as they went, causing it to swing back and forth.
Being the heavy sleeper that I am, it took me a minute to get my bearings and make my way to her in the hallway, at which point she told me what she had just witnessed. I told her she was letting her imagination get the best of her. I told her that it was probably just the wind blowing the door. I told her the noise she heard was likely Zeek & Daisy, our two ferrets who had free run of the trailer. She agreed, saying that my explanation was more realistic.
With the door now wide open, we assumed our ferrets had gotten outside, so Stacey tried to coax them back by shaking their can of treats. As she made her way towards the front of our shed, I stood on the steps, not yet fully awake. The sun was not yet up, and my eyes were still adjusting to the starlight. As I stood there trying to focus my vision, I thought I saw a shadowy figure standing next to the shed, but I kept in mind how many times I had mistaken a tree stump for a moose alongside of the highway before. And since it wasn't moving, I now accused myself of letting my imagination get the best of me. That is, until the shadowy figure turned and ran into the woods without making a sound. I asked Stacey if she had seen anything, but she hadn't. At that point, our ferrets came running out from under the shed and up to Stacey.
We then returned to our kitchen and turned on the light. The kitchen had been ransacked. There were dishes everywhere, even on the floor. As mischievous as our ferrets were, they were not capable of anything on this scale. And then we saw them, the large muddy prints all over the kitchen counter. And there, on the window of the door, a distinct muddy print and the streak of mud down the door where the paw had slid as the door swung open. Our intruder was not a fugitive from Michigan, but a Maine black bear. As we began to take stock of our kitchen, we realized he had taken our can of hot chocolate powder. I was not happy about that.
Not long after that, our intruder was downed by bear hunters. He weighed in at over 400 pounds. Ever since, I have warned people not to mess with my wife, because she once scared a 400-pound bear out of our home. We had incidents with bears on our property after that, but none ever came inside again.
Oh, and as for the fugitives, they fell victim to something much more aggressive than the bear. They were attacked by a swarm of Maine mosquitoes. The next morning, they exited the woods, covered with bites, and surrendered themselves to the safety of police custody. And we all lived happily ever after. The end.
