The ice screamed under the weight of fifteen hundred pounds of panicked muscle. We had to move.
The air conditioning in the patrol truck was dead. It had been dead since May, but now it was the second week of July, and the Northern Ontario heat was a physical weight pressing against the windshield. I wiped a line of sweat from my temple with the back of my thumb. The steering wheel felt sticky.
"Try hitting the vent," I said.
Dev leaned forward in the passenger seat and smacked the plastic dashboard with the heel of his hand. Dust puffed out of the vent, followed by a pathetic wheeze of lukewarm air. He sighed, leaning back against the cracked vinyl. He was new to the district, freshly relocated from Toronto, and still wore his uniform shirt fully buttoned despite the suffocating humidity.
"I think it is permanently broken, Elsie," Dev said.
"Everything the ministry issues us is permanently broken," I said. I downshifted as the gravel road turned into a steep, rutted decline. "Just roll the window down."
"The blackflies," he objected.
"It is either the bugs or heatstroke. Pick your poison."
He cracked the window an inch. The smell of the forest flooded the cab. It was a thick, organic smell. Hot pine needles, drying mud, and the metallic tang of standing water. We were heading toward Black Sturgeon Lake. The geography out here was a mess. A freak microclimate basin meant that while the rest of the province was sweltering in mid-summer heat, the deep waters of Black Sturgeon still held a stubborn, rotting layer of winter ice in the shaded coves. The sun baked the shoreline, but the water itself was a hazard zone of slush and fractured shelves.
The radio on the dash hissed, breaking the static. "Unit Four, update on the 10-81. Caller states the animal is still out there. About fifty yards off the north point."
I grabbed the mic. "Copy that, dispatch. We are two minutes out. Have they identified the animal?"
"Caller said it is a bull. A big one."
I clipped the mic back. A bull moose on rotting ice. My stomach tightened. It was the worst-case scenario. A deer you could sometimes drag. A wolf would figure it out. But a full-grown bull moose weighed as much as a compact car, and when they panicked, they became a thrashing machine of hooves and antlers that could easily kill a person.
I hit the brakes as the tree line broke, revealing the north point of the lake. The glare off the water was blinding. The summer sun was beating down, reflecting off the open patches of dark blue water and the sprawling, gray expanse of decaying ice near the shore.
I put the truck in park and killed the engine. The silence of the forest rushed in, immediately broken by a low, guttural groan echoing off the tree line. It sounded like a massive wooden door swinging on rusted hinges.
"What was that?" Dev asked. His hand paused on the door handle.
"That is the ice shifting," I said. "And him."
We got out. The heat hit me instantly. My boots sank into the muddy shoreline. I grabbed my binoculars from the back seat and walked to the edge of the rocky beach. Dev followed, carrying the heavy emergency kit.
I raised the binoculars. The glare was harsh, but I found him. Fifty yards out.
He was massive. A dark, hulking silhouette against the flat gray ice. His front legs had punched through the crust, and his chest was resting on the jagged edge of the hole. His rear legs were splayed out, trying to find purchase on the slippery surface. Every time he moved, the ice around him spider-webbed with loud, cracking snaps.
"He is huge," Dev said, squinting against the sun.
"Fifteen hundred pounds, easily," I muttered, adjusting the focus dial. I scanned the area around the moose. Something felt wrong. Moose were not stupid. They generally avoided wide open stretches of rotting ice, especially in July when there was plenty of forage in the brush.
I tracked the binoculars back toward the shoreline, tracing the path the bull must have taken. That was when I saw the branches.
"Dev," I said. "Look at the shore to your right. By the birch trees."
Dev pulled his own compact binoculars from his belt. It took him a second to find the spot. "I see it. Cedar branches."
"Do they look natural to you?"
"No," Dev said. His voice dropped. "They are arranged. Like a funnel. Pointing directly toward the ice."
I lowered my binoculars. He was right. Someone had dragged massive boughs of cedar and piled them up, creating an artificial corridor leading straight from the dense woods out onto the unstable ice shelf.
"Look at the rocks at the end of the funnel," I said.
Dev adjusted his stance. "They are painted. Orange. Neon orange."
My jaw tightened. "This is not an accident. Someone drove him out there."
"A trap?" Dev asked. "Poachers?"
"Poachers do not use neon paint," I said. "And they do not leave a trophy bull to sink in freezing water. This is something else."
The moose let out a desperate, echoing bellow. It was a sound that vibrated right through my ribcage. He thrashed his front legs, trying to hook his massive hooves onto the solid ice, but the edge just crumbled, plunging him deeper into the black water.
"We need to get him out," Dev said. He dropped the med kit and started toward the back of the truck.
"We need the hovercraft," I said.
We unlatched the trailer. The ministry had given us a small, battered hovercraft three years ago. It was loud, temperamental, and smelled constantly of mixed fuel, but it was the only way to navigate the deadly mix of open water, slush, and weak ice.
Dev helped me push it off the trailer ramps. The skirt dragged in the mud. I checked the fuel line, primed the engine, and yanked the pull cord. It coughed, sputtered, and died.
"Come on," I muttered.
I yanked it again. The engine roared to life. The massive fan on the back spun up, and the black rubber skirt inflated, lifting the craft off the mud. The noise was deafening. I gestured for Dev to get in. He climbed onto the passenger saddle, gripping the side handles tight.
I throttled up and steered us off the shoreline onto the ice. The transition was rough. The hovercraft bounced over a shelf of frozen shore-pack and slid onto the gray expanse.
The heat of the sun was melting the top layer, creating a frictionless surface of water over ice. We glided fast. Too fast. I eased off the throttle, trying to maintain control as we approached the struggling animal.
The moose saw us coming. His eyes rolled back, showing white. He panicked. He lunged forward, throwing his entire weight against the ice shelf.
The sound was like a shotgun going off.
CRACK.
A fissure shot out from the moose's hole, racing across the ice directly toward the hovercraft. The line jagged left, then right, moving faster than I could steer.
"Hold on," I yelled over the engine.
The ice beneath the hovercraft groaned. A massive slab tilted. The skirt lost its seal, and the craft slammed down onto the hard surface, throwing Dev forward. He caught himself on the console. The ice beneath us began to sink.
Water rushed over the gray surface, soaking my boots.
"We are too heavy," Dev shouted. "The shelf is compromised."
I hit the throttle hard, spinning the handlebars. The engine screamed, the skirt inflated just enough to catch the edge of the tilting slab, and we rocketed backward, sliding wildly out of the danger zone. We spun twice before I managed to kill the momentum about twenty yards closer to the shore.
I cut the engine. The silence slammed back down, heavy and thick.
My heart was hammering against my ribs. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. I gripped the handlebars until my knuckles turned white, forcing the tremor to stop.
"Are you okay?" I asked, looking back at Dev.
He nodded, his face pale. "That was close."
"Too close," I said. "The ice around him is completely rotten. We cannot get the craft close enough to lasso him. The moment we add our weight, the whole shelf goes, and he drowns."
We sat there for a moment, the heat of the summer sun baking our shoulders while the freezing water pooled around the deflated skirt of the craft. The moose had stopped thrashing. He was just breathing heavily, his giant head resting on the ice edge, exhaustion setting in.
"If we cannot reach him," Dev said quietly, "what do we do?"
I looked back at the shoreline. At the arranged cedar branches. At the neon orange rocks.
"We find out who put him there," I said. "And we make them help us pull him out."
We secured the hovercraft on the stable shore-pack and waded through the mud back to the tree line. The heat inside the woods was stifling. The canopy trapped the humidity, and the mosquitoes were immediately on us, buzzing in a frantic, hungry cloud.
I swatted the back of my neck. My hand came away smeared with blood and crushed bugs.
"Keep moving," I told Dev. "They only swarm when you stop."
We stood at the top of the funnel. The cedar branches had been freshly cut. The sap was still bleeding from the severed ends, sticky and fragrant. I knelt by one of the rocks. The neon orange paint was thick, sloppy.
"This is intentional," I said. "It is a blind. They pushed him out of the deep woods, funneled him down this path, and used the rocks as a visual barrier. Moose have poor eyesight, but they react to bright, unnatural contrast. The orange forced him forward, straight onto the ice."
Dev was scanning the ground. "Elsie. Over here."
I stood and walked over to him. He was pointing at a patch of soft, dark mud near the base of a massive pine tree.
Footprints.
I crouched down. There were multiple sets. Deep treads.
"Vibram soles," I said, tracing the edge of the print with my finger. "Hiking boots. Brand new by the depth of the tread. And over here, a different set. Flatter. Like a heavy work boot."
"Where do they go?" Dev asked.
I stood up and followed the trajectory of the work boot tracks. They cut away from the funnel, heading north along the ridge, parallel to the shoreline.
"I know those work boots," I said. My stomach sank with a familiar, exhausted dread. "They belong to Arthur Tremblay."
"The squatter?" Dev asked. He had read the district files. Everyone knew about Tremblay.
"He prefers the term 'off-grid sovereign'," I said. "But yes. He has a dilapidated cabin about a half-mile from here. If anyone knows what happened, it is him."
We followed the tracks. The hike was brutal. The underbrush was thick with thorny raspberry bushes and deadfall from the winter storms. Sweat dripped down my back, soaking my shirt. I could hear Dev panting behind me, but he did not complain. He just kept pushing through the branches, his eyes scanning the woods.
The smell hit us before we saw the cabin. It was a potent mix of burning plastic, rotting fish, and wet dog.
We broke through a cluster of birch trees and stepped into a small clearing. Tremblay's cabin looked like it had been built by dropping a hardware store out of a helicopter and nailing together whatever survived the crash. The roof was a patchwork of rusted corrugated tin and blue plastic tarps. The walls were uneven logs stuffed with pink fiberglass insulation that was bleeding out of the cracks like cotton candy.
In the center of the yard, a rusted oil drum was smoldering. Black smoke drifted lazily into the heavy summer air.
"Tremblay," I yelled, stopping at the edge of the clearing. I rested my hand casually on my belt, not on my weapon, but near my radio. You never knew with him.
The door of the cabin creaked open. Arthur Tremblay stepped out. He was a small, wiry man who looked like he was carved out of beef jerky. His beard was a tangled gray mess, and he was wearing a heavy flannel shirt despite the eighty-degree heat. He held a stained ceramic mug in one hand and a piece of kindling in the other.
"You are trespassing, Elsie," he rasped. His voice sounded like rocks in a blender.
"I am conducting an investigation on Crown land, Arthur," I said, stepping closer to the fire barrel. The heat radiating from it was obnoxious. "And you are burning plastic again. I can smell the hydro wires from here."
He spat into the dirt. "Keeps the blackflies away."
"There is a fifteen-hundred-pound bull moose drowning in the lake," I said, cutting straight to it. "About half a mile south of here. Trapped on the rotting ice."
Tremblay did not blink. He took a slow sip from his mug. "Ice is bad this year. Summer came too fast. Things fall in. Nature takes its toll."
"Nature did not arrange fresh-cut cedar branches into a funnel," I said. I took another step forward. "Nature did not paint rocks neon orange to spook him onto the shelf. But I saw your boot prints right next to those rocks, Arthur."
Tremblay lowered the mug. His eyes narrowed. "You accusing me of baiting a bull?"
"I am asking why your tracks are at the scene of an illegal animal trap."
"I did not trap that beast," he snapped, suddenly defensive. He tossed the kindling onto the dirt. "I saw the funnel. I saw the rocks. I went down there to see what idiot was messing with the woods."
"And the paint?" Dev asked, speaking up for the first time.
Tremblay looked at Dev, sizing him up. "The paint was already there, city boy. I added the rocks. To ward off the spring thaw spirits. Bad medicine to trap a king of the forest like that. I was trying to break the funnel."
I stared at him. "You expect me to believe you were doing feng shui in the woods to save a moose?"
"I do not care what you believe," Tremblay grunted. "I know the woods. I know when something is wrong. I heard the engine of that fancy truck they drove. Heard it two days ago. They parked up on the logging road and hauled their gear down."
"They?" I asked.
"Kids," Tremblay spat. "City kids. Dressed like they were going to climb Everest. Had those fancy boots. Vibram soles. Stepping all over my ridge."
"Where did they go?" I asked.
Tremblay pointed a crooked finger back the way we came, but angled higher up the ridge. "They have a camp. Dragged one of the old ice-fishing shacks off the public launch and hauled it into the trees. Hiding out in it."
I looked at Dev. He nodded.
"If that moose dies, Arthur, and I find out you had anything to do with it, I will personally drag you down to the detachment," I said.
"Worry about the kids, Elsie," Tremblay said, turning back toward his cabin. "They had cameras. Dozens of them. Strapping them to the trees. They wanted that moose on the ice."
The door slammed shut behind him.
I stood in the sweltering yard for a second, processing it. Cameras.
"He is lying about the spirits," Dev said quietly.
"He is lying about everything," I said. "But he is right about the cameras. Let's go find that shack."
We hiked back toward the funnel, cutting a higher path along the ridge. The heat was relentless. The air was so thick with humidity it felt like breathing through a wet wool blanket. My uniform shirt clung to my ribs, completely soaked.
"Keep your eyes on the trees," I told Dev, stepping over a rotting log. "Look for anything black strapped to the bark. Trail cams usually have a matte finish, but the lenses can catch the light."
We moved silently for ten minutes. The only sound was the crunch of our boots on the dry pine needles and the distant, agonizing crack of the ice shelf down on the lake. Every time I heard the ice groan, my chest tightened. We were running out of time.
"Stop," Dev whispered.
I froze. I turned slowly.
Dev was pointing up ahead. About twenty yards away, strapped to the trunk of a massive white pine, was a small, camouflage-patterned box. A trail camera.
We approached it carefully. I checked the ground around the tree. The Vibram boot prints were everywhere, overlapping and deeply pressed into the soil. They had spent a lot of time here.
I reached up and unlatched the camera housing. It was a high-end model. Expensive. Not the cheap plastic junk the local hunters used. I popped the battery compartment and slid out the tiny black SD card.
"Do you have your tablet?" I asked.
Dev unzipped his tactical pouch and pulled out the ministry-issued rugged tablet. He had bought a multi-card reader with his own money his first week on the job. He plugged it into the charging port and held out his hand. I dropped the SD card into his palm.
He slotted it in. The screen lit up, reflecting the green canopy overhead.
"Let's see what we have," he muttered, tapping the screen. A grid of video thumbnails appeared.
"Open the most recent one," I said, leaning over his shoulder.
Dev tapped the thumbnail. The video started playing. There was no audio, just sharp, high-definition 4K footage.
The frame showed the cedar funnel we had just investigated. But in the video, the rocks were not orange yet. Three people walked into the frame. Two guys and a girl. They looked like they were in their early twenties. Tremblay was right—they were dressed in pristine, expensive outdoor gear. Arc'teryx jackets tied around their waists, clean hiking pants, immaculate boots.
One of the guys, tall with a messy bun, was holding a large plastic bucket. The girl was holding a can of neon orange spray paint.
"Look at what he is dumping," Dev said, zooming in on the screen.
The tall guy tipped the bucket. A cascade of white crystals poured out onto the ground, creating a thick trail leading directly toward the ice shelf.
"Rock salt," I said. My blood boiled. "They are salt-baiting him. Moose are desperate for sodium in the early summer. They will walk through fire for it."
The video showed the girl spraying the rocks, laughing as she did it. The third guy was adjusting a different camera on a tripod.
Dev swiped to the next video.
This one was time-stamped from early this morning. The shadows were long. The bull moose walked into the frame. He was massive, cautious, sniffing the ground. He found the salt trail. He started licking it, moving slowly down the funnel.
Suddenly, the three kids leaped out from behind the brush. They were waving their arms, throwing sticks. The tall guy blew a loud air horn—I could not hear it, but I saw the moose flinch violently.
The animal panicked. Blinded by the sudden movement and the bright orange rocks on either side, he bolted forward, straight out onto the rotting ice. The video cut off as he crashed through the surface.
"They did it on purpose," Dev said. His voice was shaking with anger. "They drove him onto the ice."
"But why?" I asked. "Poachers shoot them. They don't just strand them."
Dev swiped back to the main gallery and tapped a different file. It was a pre-recorded monologue. The tall guy was standing in front of the camera, looking deadly serious.
Dev managed to get the audio to play through the tablet's tinny speaker.
"...and this is what happens when the Northern Pipeline expansion goes through," the guy on the screen said, staring into the lens. "This is the reality. The ministry cares more about corporate profit than the ecosystem. They let these animals drown in the toxic runoff of a warming climate. We are here at Black Sturgeon Lake to show you the truth. Share this video. Stop the expansion. Save the north."
Dev paused the video. He looked up at me.
"They are eco-saboteurs," he said. "They trapped the moose to create a viral video. To make it look like a climate tragedy."
I stared at the frozen frame of the kid's face. The sheer, narcissistic arrogance of it. They were willing to torture a fifteen-hundred-pound animal to death just to get clicks for a pipeline protest.
"Pack it up," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "We are finding that shack."
We moved fast. Anger is a great motivator. We tracked the Vibram prints up the steepest part of the ridge. The trees thinned out, revealing a small, rocky plateau hidden from the main trail.
Sitting in the middle of the plateau was a faded blue ice-fishing shack. It was mounted on wooden skids, clearly dragged up here by an ATV. A small solar panel was propped against the roof, and a tangle of charging cables spilled out of the half-open window.
I did not knock.
I stepped up to the flimsy plywood door and kicked it open with the flat of my boot. It slammed against the interior wall with a crack like a gunshot.
"Ministry of Natural Resources!" I yelled, stepping into the cramped space. "Hands where I can see them!"
The inside of the shack was a mess of sleeping bags, energy drink cans, and laptops. The three kids from the video scrambled backward, terrified. The girl knocked over a camp stove. The tall guy with the messy bun threw his hands up, his eyes wide.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he shouted. "We are unarmed! We are just camping!"
"Shut up," I snapped. I stepped entirely into the room. Dev stood in the doorway, blocking the exit, his hand resting on his radio.
I looked at the tall guy. His name tag on his expensive jacket said 'Liam'.
"You are Liam," I said.
He blinked, trying to recover his bravado. "Yeah. And you have no right to bust in here. We have a permit to camp on Crown land."
"I do not care about your camping permit," I said, stepping right up into his personal space. I could smell the stale sweat and expensive deodorant on him. "I care about the bull moose you chased onto the ice this morning."
Liam's jaw tightened. He glanced at the girl, then back at me. "I do not know what you are talking about. We are documenting climate change."
I pulled the SD card out of my pocket and held it up between two fingers.
"I watched the 4K footage, Liam," I said. "I watched you dump the rock salt. I watched you blow the air horn. You are not documenting anything. You are manufacturing a crisis for clout."
The girl spoke up, her voice trembling but defiant. "You do not understand! The pipeline is going to destroy this entire basin! People need to see the reality of what is happening to the animals!"
"The reality?" I yelled, losing my temper. "The reality is that an innocent animal is freezing to death right now because you needed a dramatic backdrop for your TikTok!"
"It is for the greater good!" Liam argued, stepping forward. "Sometimes you have to break eggs to make an omelet. That moose is a symbol!"
Before I could respond, a sound ripped through the air.
It was not a groan. It was a massive, echoing boom. It sounded like dynamite going off under the water. The ground beneath the shack literally vibrated.
Dev spun around, looking out the door toward the lake.
"Elsie," Dev said, his voice stripped of all panic, replaced by cold terror. "The main shelf just broke."
I shoved past Liam and bolted out the door. Dev was already running down the ridge. I sprinted after him, my boots slipping on the dry pine needles, branches whipping against my face and arms. I didn't feel the scratches. I only heard the sound of the water.
We hit the tree line and skidded to a halt in the mud.
The lake had changed entirely. The massive, solid-looking gray expanse of ice was gone. In its place was a chaotic jigsaw puzzle of floating white slabs, bobbing violently in the dark, freezing water.
The moose was in the center of the chaos. He had lost his footing completely. Only his massive head and the top of his shoulders were visible above the water. He was thrashing wildly, his front hooves striking the floating slabs of ice, trying to climb up, but the slabs just flipped under his weight, dunking him under.
He was drowning.
"The hovercraft is useless now!" Dev yelled over the sound of the splashing water. "There is no flat surface left!"
He was right. The skirt would tear instantly on the jagged edges of the floating ice chunks.
I heard footsteps behind us. Liam and his two friends had followed us down. They stood at the edge of the mud, staring at the lake. The girl had her hands clamped over her mouth. Liam looked pale, the reality of his "symbol" finally hitting him in the face.
"Do something!" the girl screamed at me. "You have to save him!"
I spun around and grabbed Liam by the front of his expensive jacket. I yanked him forward so hard he stumbled.
"You want to save him?" I screamed in his face. "Then you are going to work. Dev! Go to the truck. Get the winch cable loose and spool it out as far as it will go."
Dev nodded and took off running down the shoreline.
I let go of Liam and pointed at the other guy. "You. Run to Tremblay's cabin. The squatter up the ridge. Tell him Elsie needs his heavy logging ropes. Do not argue with him, just grab them and run back. Go!"
The kid hesitated for a second, then took off sprinting into the woods.
I looked at Liam and the girl. "You two are with me. We are going to drag the hovercraft to the edge of the shore-pack. I am going to use it as a floating pontoon to get close enough to rope his antlers."
"You cannot go out there," Liam stammered. "The ice is crushing together. It will kill you."
"If I die, it is on your camera," I said bluntly. "Move."
We waded into the mud and grabbed the tow handles of the deflated hovercraft. It was dead weight, but with the three of us pulling, we managed to drag it off the stable shore and push it into the slushy, shallow water at the edge of the drop-off.
Dev came running back, dragging the heavy steel hook of the truck's winch cable. He was covered in mud and gasping for breath.
"Got it!" he panted. "It is spooled out entirely."
Seconds later, Tremblay emerged from the tree line. He wasn't running, but he was moving with a terrifying, purposeful stride. He carried a massive coil of thick, braided yellow logging rope over his shoulder. He threw it down at my feet.
"You are an idiot, Elsie," Tremblay rasped, looking at the churning water. "That beast is going to pull you under."
"Tie a slipknot," I told him, ignoring the insult. "A big loop. Something that will not choke him but will catch the antlers."
Tremblay's hands moved with practiced speed. He fashioned a massive, heavy loop and handed it to me. I clipped the other end of the yellow rope to the steel hook of the winch cable.
"Dev," I said. "You run the winch control. When I yell, you pull. Liam, you and your friends grab the rope and pull with the winch. Give it everything you have."
I climbed onto the flat deck of the hovercraft. I didn't start the engine. I used an emergency paddle to push off the shore-pack.
The water was freezing. It splashed over the side, soaking my boots and pants instantly. The cold was a physical shock, stealing the breath from my lungs. I paddled hard, navigating between the crushing slabs of ice.
The moose was twenty yards out. He was failing. His head dipped under the water, came up snorting spray, and dipped again. His eyes were wide, rolling in panic.
"Hey!" I yelled, slapping the paddle against the side of the craft. "Hey! Look at me!"
He turned his massive head toward the sound.
I drifted closer. Ten yards. Five. The smell of the wet animal was overpowering. It smelled like mud, musk, and fear.
A slab of ice shifted, pinning the front of the hovercraft. I stumbled, dropping to my knees on the hard deck. The water sloshed over my legs. I was three feet away from his antlers.
If he thrashed now, a single strike from his hoof would cave my chest in.
I stood up slowly, balancing on the rocking deck. I held the heavy yellow loop in both hands.
"Easy," I whispered. I don't know if I was talking to him or myself.
I threw the loop.
It sailed through the air and landed perfectly over his right antler, sliding down to the thick base near his skull.
"Got it!" I screamed, turning back toward the shore. "Pull! PULL!"
On the shore, Dev hit the winch control. The electric motor on the front of the truck whined a high-pitched scream. The steel cable snapped taut, lifting out of the water, pulling the yellow rope with it.
Liam, his friends, and even Tremblay grabbed the rope behind the winch hook, digging their boots into the mud, pulling with all their combined weight.
The moose resisted at first. He panicked at the tension, thrashing wildly. But the winch was relentless. It dragged him forward, forcing his chest up onto a submerged shelf of ice.
"Keep pulling!" I yelled, paddling furiously to keep the hovercraft from being crushed between the animal and the floating ice.
The winch groaned. The truck tires skidded slightly in the mud, but Dev held the button down.
Slowly, agonizingly, the moose was dragged through the slush. The water grew shallower. His front hooves finally found solid ground.
He surged upward. With a massive heave of his hind legs, he lunged out of the black water and collapsed onto the muddy shoreline.
Dev released the winch. The tension snapped.
For ten seconds, nobody moved. The only sound was the heavy, wet breathing of the moose and the gentle clinking of the ice out on the lake.
The moose lay on his side, his ribs heaving. Then, slowly, he gathered his legs under him. He stood up. He was enormous, towering over Liam and the others. Water poured off his dark coat in sheets.
He shook his massive head. The yellow rope slipped off his antler and fell into the mud.
He turned and looked at us. He stared directly at me for a long, silent moment. Then, without a sound, he turned and vanished into the thick green wall of the summer forest.
I slumped down onto the deck of the hovercraft, letting out a breath I felt like I had been holding for an hour. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't grip the paddle.
Dev waded out into the shallow water, grabbed the tow rope of the craft, and hauled me the rest of the way to shore.
I stepped off onto the mud. My legs felt like lead.
Liam was standing near the truck, staring at his hands. They were blistered and bleeding from pulling the rope.
I walked up to him. I didn't yell this time. I didn't have the energy.
"Turn around," I said quietly.
He looked up, confused. "What?"
"Turn around and put your hands behind your back."
"But... we helped," he protested weakly.
"You helped clean up a mess you made," I said, unclipping the cuffs from my belt. "You are under arrest for animal cruelty, reckless endangerment, and destruction of Crown property."
I cuffed him. He didn't fight. The other two kids stood there, terrified.
"Pack up your camp," I told them. "Leave the cameras. If I see you in this district again, I will arrest you too. Go."
They ran.
Tremblay walked over, picked up his yellow rope from the mud, and began coiling it over his shoulder.
"Not bad, Elsie," he grunted. "For a government hack."
"Burn less plastic, Arthur," I said.
He smirked, turned, and disappeared back up the ridge.
Two hours later, after handing Liam off to the OPP transport at the highway junction, Dev and I sat in a booth at the local diner. The AC was blasting, freezing the sweat to my skin, but I didn't care.
I held a ceramic mug of black coffee in both hands, letting the heat sink into my numb fingers.
Dev was looking out the window. From our booth, you could see the southern edge of Black Sturgeon Lake. The morning sun was high now, burning bright and relentless. The last of the ice shelves were visibly breaking apart, turning into harmless slush in the open blue water.
"Do you think he will make it?" Dev asked quietly.
I took a sip of the bitter coffee. "The moose?"
Dev nodded.
"He is a survivor," I said, staring out at the water. "He knows how to endure the cold. It is the people he has to worry about."
Dev smiled faintly and raised his mug. "To surviving the summer."
"To surviving," I echoed, tapping my mug against his. We sat in silence, watching the last remnants of winter finally surrender to the heat.
“We sat in silence, watching the last remnants of winter finally surrender to the heat.”
