"Does the Grim Reaper fish?"

If the question seems odd, the setting probably does, too.

We were standing in the rain, which was gently, slowly turning into snow. And had been for a half hour.

Not that we had to be getting wet. He was standing next to his truck, with his hand on the door handle most the time. And me? Well, he was parked in our driveway, so I could have gotten in out of the rain at any time.

But no, we stood there, enjoying the wet, and the conversation. Catching up on sons, and sharing his hunting stories.

This all started because his deer was leaner than normal, much leaner than his son's deer from the sand hills to the south. And he was worried (or his wife was... you never really know in these circumstances). After ten minutes of discussion over the phone about how dry a summer it was in the desert, and the unlikelihood of his deer having chronic wasting disease, he finally admitted he really wanted me to look at the deer.

To make sure it was alright to eat.

Oookay. Not like this is the first time I've had this kind of request.

So, twenty minutes later, the freshly dished dinner cooled on the kitchen counter while he and I stood in the rain.

But hey, that's why they invented microwave ovens, right?

Nothing unusual about his deer, or at least the parts he had left to bring me. Just kinda lean, and low on fat. But there was a trace layer of fat on the butt, and fat in the usual places between the main muscle groups.

He was just an old deer, by the mass of his antlers, and it was a crappy summer.

And then we stood and talked. A conversation prompted as much by my questions as his.

How are your boys doing?

"Hey, I shot a duck with a black head. Any idea what that was?"

And it was talk about his duck hunting that got us around to that final question. He and one son had been fishing along the river, and he looked up to see a figure standing in the middle of the river, where moments before there had been no one.

No vehicle. No boat or canoe.

Just this dark figure in the middle of the water, fishing rod in hand.

Wearing a hood.

"Does the Grim Reaper fish?"

Well, if there's a half-hour where nobody's dying...

I suppose he might.