Chapter 15
15
Outside, it was now full dark, the kind of dark that could only be experienced in the wilderness. No streetlights, no porch lights, no outdoor lights of any kind. What light could be seen came from inside—mostly from propane lanterns or candles, with only a few people using electric lights after dark. Energy conservation was always important out here. Solar only went so far in the winter, with so few hours of daylight, and generators were expensive to run.
All of that was to say…nights in Firelight Ridge were intensely dark and almost eerily quiet, a constant reminder of how tiny and vulnerable any given human being actually was in relation to the vast mountains and infinite sky.
The light might be gone, but Lachlan didn’t want the day to end. “Where to now?” he asked Maura when they were both back in the truck.
“Can you take me home to Pinky’s?”
Disappointment shot through him, until she added, “I’ll make you my special meatballs. My granny’s recipe.”
“You’re on. Should we pick up Pinky on the way?”
“Pinky’s fine. He’s playing cribbage with Solomon tonight. That usually ends with them throwing cribbage pieces at each other, then crawling all over Solomon’s trailer trying to find them. I went with him once and told them never again. They didn’t seem to mind. It was a very elders-gone-wild kind of situation.”
He really enjoyed Maura’s dry sense of humor. He got the sense that it was part of how she coped with the world. There were worse ways, no doubt.
As they were driving down the dark road through town, the few lights like scattered fireflies against the velvety night, he caught sight of headlights coming toward them. One was dimmer than the other, a pattern he recognized. He flashed his brights a few times, then slowed to a halt.
“Gil,” he explained to Maura as Gil did the same, on the opposite side of the road. Ani waved to them from the passenger seat.
“You’re just going to stop in the middle of the road and have a conversation?” Maura asked.
“Sure. Anyone’s welcome to join if they’re coming through town. I once learned about Eve Dotterkind’s cancer being in remission because two trucks and three cars had stopped to chitchat.”
Gil rolled down his window. He wore a black beanie and his beard was growing in thick and dark. He’d decided to grow it out for the winter, as many men here did for extra warmth.
Lachlan preferred a neck gaiter, because his beard came in as red as a Scottish peasant’s, a nearly neon shade that made people wince on sight.
“Take a look at this and tell me what you think.” Lachlan passed his phone over to Gil, who scanned through the photos of the grenade.
“Hand grenade, military issue.”
“Ha,” said Maura softly. “Didn’t I say military?”
“Is it dangerous?”
“It could be. You didn’t get close to it, did you?”
“You mean after I threw my body on top of it to protect Gunnar’s new Arctic Cat?”
Gil snorted. “Yeah right. I know you, and you’d only do such a thing to protect a soil sample.”
Maura smothered a laugh next to him. “Remind me to carry a soil sample with me, just in case I need rescuing.”
Gil turned serious. “So where did you find this?”
“Chilkoots. I didn’t bring it to them because I wanted to see what you thought first. So what do you think?”
“I think I want to pay the Chilkoots a visit.” Gil took pictures of Lachlan’s screen, then handed his phone back. “Ani, aren’t you headed out there to check on one of the kids? I’ll come with you and see what I can find out about this.”
Lachlan didn’t like the idea of Gil and Ani going out there alone. On the other hand, that note had warned him to stay away, but it hadn’t mentioned anything about Gil. “Be careful. Something’s going on out there.”
“Something’s always going on somewhere around here. For such a small number of residents, people in this town sure get into a lot of trouble. See you back at the house?”
“I’m making him meatballs,” Maura called across him. “I’d invite you guys, but Pinky literally only has two forks. And one of them is carved from driftwood he found in Snow River.”
“I claim that one,” Lachlan said quickly.
Another car drove up behind Gil and rolled down their window. “Ahoy, strangers in the night.” Lachlan recognized Frank Stetson, who acted as the de facto town manager, although Firelight Ridge wasn’t technically a town and took pride in being utterly unmanageable. “What’d I miss?”
“I’m making meatballs,” Maura called, getting into the spirit of the mid-road convo.
“And Pinky only has two forks,” Gil added with a grin.
“Did he get another one? Big news.” Frank boomed out a laugh, his Carhartt-clad belly pushing against his steering wheel. “I’ll have to put that in the newsletter.”
“We have a newsletter?” Lachlan asked. “What’s the point of that, when no one has internet to download it?”
“I just came from printing it on my new printer. On sale at Costco.” Everyone in Firelight Ridge was obsessed with Costco, Lachlan had learned. “Got copies for anyone who wants them. And even if you don’t.” He laughed again, the kind of relaxed guffaw that made Lachlan think he might have toked up before he did his printing. “It’s so good it oughta be mandatory.”
“I’ve got to see this,” murmured Maura. She jumped out of the truck and skirted around it to approach Frank’s big Ford F-250. “I’ll take extras for my students,” she told him. “We can do a module on local news-gathering.”
“You just give me the word and I’ll come speak to the class,” he boomed. Then he lowered his voice. “Might want to check for, you know, appropriability before you let the kids read it.”
“Not a real word, but I’ll do that. Spell check, too, I’m thinking,” she added as she gave it a quick scan with her headlamp.
“Man, should have checked with you before I printed these out. Live and learn.”
Back in the truck, the gathering of vehicles having dispersed with waves and “watch the icy patches,” Maura read the newsletter more closely.
“This is really, really strange,” she told Lachlan.
“People get bored here in the winter. They get up to all kinds of unexpected things. Have you heard about the tripod someone set up on Snow River? People are making bets on exactly when the ice is going to break up and it falls in. Then there’s the outhouse competition. Paulina Volk offered to hand-carve a custom design for the overall winner, but there are multiple categories, including the stinkiest.”
“Yes, yes, all that is here in the newsletter, and it’s hilarious, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Listen to this. ‘Has someone been feeding psychedelic mushrooms to our local moose population? That’s one of the theories making the rounds after multiple reports of unusual moose behavior have circulated. If you or someone you know has a bizarre moose encounter to report, please contact the Forest Service. In other words, keep it to yourself because we all know the Forest Service would love to bust up a few things going on out here, mostly of the cannabis variety.”
She glanced up at Lachlan. “I’m thinking he was stoned when he wrote all of this. Should I keep these to myself until he looks at them after a good night’s sleep?”
“Not a bad idea. But he might be passing them out at The Fang by now.” He took the turn towards Pinky’s place. “We’ll see if Pinky comes back with one.”
A shadow danced across the road up ahead. He slowed way down and switched on his brights. “Look,” he said softly.
Maura looked up from the newsletter and caught her breath. “Moose?”
“Right on cue.”
They watched it sway and stumble across the road. The piercing headlights seemed to confuse the moose even further, so Lachlan switched back to the standard lights, then turned them off altogether. The moon had risen, and the clouds had thinned enough for some light to filter through, enough to see the moose—a bull, with nubs where his antlers would grow in the spring—drift around in an aimless circle.
“Do you think it is psychedelic mushrooms?” whispered Maura.
“It would take a lot of mushrooms to affect a moose. Their body mass is enormous. Most of them weigh over a thousand pounds. Besides, all the fungal life is buried under feet of snow this time of year. I don’t know where they would have…” He trailed off. “Unless someone is growing them and the moose got into them.”
“Do you know of anyone growing stuff like that?”
“No. Cannabis, sure. It’s always been a good place for that, and now it’s actually legal. But that’s all I know about. We could ask Bear, he hears a lot at The Fang.”
“So does Pinky, for that matter.”
The moose bent at the knees, as if performing an awkward bow, then twirled around and galloped at top speed right toward them.
Lachlan jerked the truck into reverse and slammed his foot on the accelerator. Looking back and forth from the moose to the rearview mirror, he zoomed backwards down the road. The dark trees flipped past, and he heard Maura’s sharp squeak of terror, but he couldn’t reassure her yet, he had to keep a laser focus on his steering.
Then the moose stopped dead, shook itself, and trotted off the road into the forest.
Lachlan brought the truck to a stop and shifted into park. Quiet settled around them, disturbed by the blood pounding in his ears and Maura’s “holy shit,” murmured under her breath. She slumped against the back of her seat, a hand to her heart.
“Are you okay?” He reached over and touched her knee, meaning it as a reassuring gesture. She caught his hand and held it tight.
“Yes.” She whooshed out a breath. “I think your inner race car driver just came out.”
“If they ever hold a reverse Indy 500, I’m in.”
She managed a shaky laugh as he shifted back into gear, turned on the headlights and drove cautiously down the road.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” she kept repeating. “Do you know how glad I am I wasn’t alone, and that I wasn’t the one driving. Where I come from, moose don’t just wander across the road, let alone charge right toward you.”
“It doesn’t happen a lot here, either.” To his knowledge, it had happened exactly twice, to Solomon’s friends and to them. Twice within the space of a week, in the dead of winter, when moose, like every living being in the wilderness, would normally just be trying to survive.