The atmosphere in southern Maine is grim. Schools were closed yesterday; so were many businesses and even the big local grocery store chain. I suspect many towns will close schools again today, given that the killer is still on the loose. Or he's dead, but of course nobody knows.

Maine is a tough place to implement a manhunt. Even close to the state's largest cities there's a lot of forest, a lot of water. There are abandoned mills and river islands and thousands of tiny coves folding in against the coast. The Coast Guard is patrolling up and down the Kennebec and Androscoggin, and I'm sure teams are spreading into the woods. But the territory is vast.

Meanwhile, the death toll has become clear: eighteen people killed, more than a dozen injured. It was cornhole night at the bar, youth night at the bowling alley. Wednesday's harmless pleasures.

Maine is such an odd state. It is massive in land area but also relatively unpopulated. Everyone who's lived here for a while knows someone who knows somebody else that I know . . . the links of connection are long and elastic. I don't know if I'll personally know anyone who was killed or injured in Lewiston, but I'll undoubtedly know people who know them or who know the first responders--for instance, the doctor son of a poet friend who spent all of Wednesday night triaging in the ER.

Maine is also a state that is packed with guns. In a way it's surprising that this level of bloodshed hasn't happened here earlier. But I wonder if that has to do with the kind of guns that are popular here. Deer and moose hunting is a primary activity, but for many people it's also a primary food source: there's a lot of poverty in Maine, and a deer in the freezer is no small benefit. But you can't hunt food with an assault rifle. If you're going to own a gun for hunting season, that's not the one you'd have.

This is rank speculation; I have no idea what the facts of the matter are. Still, I wonder.