B. Haywood - Town in a Wild Moose Chase

For James and Soren, as always

Thanks to the many readers and fans who have embraced the residents of Cape Willington, Maine, and provided nu-merous creative ideas and suggestions. As you’ll see, a few of those suggestions have been incorporated into this book. Special acknowledgment to Bill Hall of B&G Blueberries, who shared buckets of fresh-picked blueberries, provided valuable details about blueberry farming, and opened up his barn for a quick peek (even though he said it was too messy). Thanks to Sandre Swails and Jeanine Douphinett for their fabulous recipes and friendship, to Kae and Jon for lunch and career advice, and to Rock, Diane, and Laura Lee for continued support and good wishes. Finally, Leis Pederson’s keen storytelling instincts helped make this a better book. For more information about Cape Willington, Maine, and details on current and future books, visit www.hollidaysblueberryacres.com.

He found the body at the bottom of a gully, lying on its side, half buried in the snow.

The white moose had led him to the spot.

It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d expected to see when he set out from his fishing camp on English Pond that morning. If he’d had the good sense to let the moose be, or if he’d turned back at the edge of his property, or if he’d just stayed inside and worked on his carvings, he’d never have gotten himself mixed up in the whole blasted affair. But he walked right into it, all right. And he couldn’t really blame himself, could he? The day was too nice, too welcoming, and he couldn’t let the opportunity pass him by. They’d had some warmer weather lately, but it was coming to an end. Colder air and flurries were moving in, according to the almanac, which was accurate seventy percent of the time. Best get the chores done quickly while the nice weather lasted.

He’d laid up plenty of firewood for the season, but he liked to keep a good supply of kindling and lighter stock on hand too, and it needed replenishing. So he’d pulled on his light winter gear, stepped into his insulated boots, yanked the slat-sided sledge out from under the lean-to next to the woodshed, and headed out into the snowy woods, dragging the sledge behind him.

The sun was out, slanting through bare branches and wet-trunked trees, and the snow crust was freeing up, loosening from the bottom and softening at the top. As he trudged across the winter landscape, he unhooked the top two buttons of his flannel shirt, and the ones at the wrists as well. He’d worn only the shirt and an insulated undershirt with his old down vest, which had flattened considerably over the years. It was warm out for a morning in late January, so the heavier stuff wasn’t required. He might have worn too much as it was. The mercury had touched forty-three degrees a couple of days ago, and had inched above forty yesterday. Temperatures were supposed to drop this afternoon, but the warmer air lingered, a few degrees above the freezing mark, continuing its gentle assault on the fringe of ice and snow that had tightly encased every single living and nonliving thing around Cape Willington for the better part of six weeks.

They’d had a couple of blizzards in early and mid-December, and a doozy of a sea storm right after the new year that left nearly twenty inches behind. The snowpack had thickened, and piles of snow driven by the hard winds had grown to chest height and beyond. But the January thaw of the past few days had cleared out some of it—enough so he could maneuver his way through the woods, going about his business.

A few birds sang high in the branches, and he looked up. A mild burst of wind brushed past his face, and he smelled the life hidden beneath the snow, aching to burst free. He looked down and swallowed. Not for the first time he missed Abby, his retriever. She’d loved days like this. She’d be in her glory if she were out here with him today. He’d had her for nearly fourteen years, but she was gone now, and he hadn’t had the heart to replace her yet. He didn’t know if he ever would.

So nowadays he devoted most of his attention to the animals in the woods around his camp. He knew some of them by sight and could recognize their tracks. The forest creatures had been busy over the past few days, given the warmer weather. As he headed off in his usual direction, following a narrow path that looped around the west side of the pond, he spotted their familiar marks.

Just up ahead, bird tracks circled a low berry bush. Obviously they’d found a few remnants of interest. Off to his right, he could see the bony footprints of a gray squirrel, which had ventured out from its nest in a weathered old oak. Farther on, in a grove of thick pines, he came across the tracks of a lone chipmunk, out foraging while it could. While crossing a low, reedy spot he spotted a few faint footprints with webbing between the toes—the hind feet of a beaver, which had a place nearby, on one of the streams feeding the pond. Another half mile on he spotted the five-toed footprints of a red fox, probably made sometime during the night or early morning hours. It seemed to have spent some time through here, sniffing out vole tunnels beneath the melting snow.

As he approached the stream he noticed how busy it sounded, its waters rushing under a shelf of ice that had broken open in a few places. Here he saw more tracks—a raccoon, whose prints looked like small, elongated human hands, and a thin weasel.

He found a good place to pull the sledge across the icy stream and headed up toward Cooper’s Ridge, picking up kindling as he went. The weather of the past few weeks had knocked down quite a bit, and the work went quickly through the morning. Twice he returned to the camp, the sledge piled high with wood, which he stored away in the shed before heading out again, going out farther each time.

He’d inherited the camp from his uncle twenty-seven seasons ago. It had been a beat-down place when he took it over, but he’d fixed it up over the years and made it livable. The camp consisted of a one-room, open-beamed cabin right on the bank of the pond, plus a shed, chicken coop, makeshift boat shed, and a few other outbuildings. For nearly a decade he’d spent his summers here, only a few months at first, but it seemed as the years went by he was always arriving earlier in the spring and leaving later in the fall, until finally he’d just moved in full-time. He’d had two propane tanks, a hundred pounds each, installed at the back of the place, which gave him hot water, a few lights, and heat when he needed it. He made his dinners on a wood-burning cookstove, and usually warmed the place with that and a smaller woodstove he’d had for fifteen years. It was an efficient operation, though he needed six or seven cords of wood in a season, plus all the kindling he could gather.

He’d decided to make the third trip his last, but the moose tracks caught his eye. They were easy to spot—larger than the deer tracks he often saw around his place. Deer frequently overnighted in sheltered areas on the other side of a hillock behind the cabin, but moose weren’t as common around here. They tended to stay farther north, but a few wandered down on occasion to explore the woods around Cape Willington. They were shy, quiet, distant creatures, who preferred to stay pretty much on their own. They didn’t seem to mind his presence, though, when he came upon them in the woods.

From the prints, this one looked like a newcomer; it had a V-shaped wedge cut out of one hoof, something he didn’t recognize. The tracks were fairly fresh, headed southeast. Proceeding in a straight line that cut right between the trees.