A businessman pulls up to the warehouse door of one of the local soda distributors in town, in the rain, and finds me there carving on the neck of a dead moose.

And thinks nothing of it.

Grabs a cup of coffee and spends the next ten minutes chatting about the fall, hunting seasons, and the lost hiker where the search and rescue operations have now turned into a recovery operation.

When his 20 bags of ice are carted out, he helps the local staff load it up, and is on his way.

Moments later, so was I. With heeler noses pressed hard against the bloody fingers of my right hand.

Moose, I tell them, repeatedly.

Moose.