Moose Tracks (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage) Read online

  MOOSE TRACKS

  Other Books by Mary Casanova

  Published by the University of Minnesota Press

  Frozen

  Wolf Shadows

  MOOSE TRACKS

  MARY CASANOVA

  The Fesler–Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book Series

  Funded by the John K. and Elsie Lampert Fesler Fund and Elizabeth and the

  late David Fesler, the Fesler–Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book Series publishes

  significant books that contribute to an understanding and appreciation of Minnesota

  and the Upper Midwest.

  Originally published in 1995 by Hyperion Books for Children

  First University of Minnesota Press edition, 2013

  Copyright 1995 by Mary Casanova

  Mary Casanova asserts her right to be identified as the Proprietor of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

  a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written

  permission of the publisher.

  Published by the University of Minnesota Press

  111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290

  Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520

  http://www.upress.umn.edu

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Casanova, Mary.

  Moose tracks / Mary Casanova. — First University of Minnesota Press edition.

  (The Fesler–Lampert Minnesota Heritage Book Series)

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Seth, the son of a game warden, tries to save an

  orphaned moose calf from poachers.

  ISBN 978-0-8166-9019-0 (pb)

  [1. Moose—Fiction. 2. Poaching—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C266Mo 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013022264

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

  20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Kate

  A special thanks to Avi, Marion Dane Bauer, Lois Anne Berg, Andrea Cascardi, Pam Conrad, Jean Craighead George, Dayton O. Hyde, Ted Hall, and Jane Resh Thomas, who offered insight and encouragement along the way.

  A grateful acknowledgment to U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service specialists Doug Goseman and Dave Schad and to Department of Natural Resources game wardens Lloyd Steen and Dave Rorem.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Other boys took their shotguns out alone, why couldn’t he? Seth stared at the glass doors of the gun case, trying to see beyond his lean straw-haired reflection, which looked back, challenging him, accusing him of being a coward.

  “C’mon, open it,” Matt said, leaning against the back of the couch in his gray sweats. He passed a football back and forth between his hands, fingernails chewed short. “It’s no big deal.”

  Seth’s lungs felt compressed, his hands sweaty. Except for the grandfather clock tick-ticking in the corner, the pine-board living room was quiet, heavy with his father’s disapproval. “Easy for you to say,” he said, rolling the small brass key between his fingers. “Your dad’s not a game warden.”

  If Seth were like half the other kids in the county, he’d probably take his shotgun into the woods whenever he felt like it. He wouldn’t worry about it. Instead, he was expected to obey the law and wait two more long years before he could take his shotgun out alone, without his dad.

  It wasn’t fair!

  It was like setting a big bone between a dog’s paws and only letting the dog drool on it. Why did Dad even bother giving him a shotgun last month when he turned twelve if Seth could never use it? Seth had done his part. He’d completed firearm-safety training and was ready to go, but now Dad was always too busy. Did he think Seth could wait forever? Did he even care?

  Seth drew in a deep breath.

  Slowly, he inserted the key, turned it, and opened the cabinet doors. He pulled out his shotgun and ran his hand along the smooth polished walnut. It felt good in his grip. Weighty. Solid.

  He turned to Matt, who gave the football a spin between his hands and smiled. Without a word, the boys grabbed their jackets and headed out the back door.

  In the chill autumn air, Seth and Matt kicked wormy crab apples as they passed the faded red barn, then hiked beyond the pasture into the woods. With his gun carefully angled toward the ground, Seth felt part of something great, like an ancient ritual, a test of his strength and bravery.

  Crunching over decaying leaves of aspen, birch, and maple, the boys scanned the moss-covered forest floor as they followed a trail that wound around jagged rock outcroppings, wild-rice lakes, and stands of Norway pine.

  A mile from home, Seth spotted huge tracks.

  He squatted and touched the deep depressions, like two sets of giant teardrops, about seven inches long and cleft-shaped. He’d never seen moose tracks so close to home before. A smaller set crisscrossed the larger set.

  Seth looked up to see Matt, in his new green-and-gold jacket, already yards ahead. He’d follow the tracks with his horse tomorrow. Alone.

  He hurried to catch up.

  They neared the towering white pine, a majestic tree spared from early logging days. Once, after they’d tried to measure the tree’s girth and found it wider than two boys could wrap their arms around, they named it after the strongest of Greek heroes, Hercules.

  As they walked beneath the tree’s massive spreading branches, Seth spotted something moving in the underbrush. It stopped abruptly.

  A rabbit.

  The boys froze.

  Except for white flecks of hair on its face, the rabbit’s coat was brown, blending perfectly with the fallen leaves. Only its nose moved, twitching.

  Seth pulled off his right glove, slid his finger behind the trigger, and lined up his sight with the rabbit. He eased his shaky finger back on the cool steel.

  The rabbit didn’t budge.

  Seth waited. He wanted to make it fair.

  A twig snapped.

  The rabbit leaped.

  Squeezing the trigger, Seth felt the powerful kick of the shotgun against his shoulder. The rabbit spun in the air and let out a high-pitched scream. A penetrating scream like that of a young child in pain.

  Seth stared. His stomach felt knotted, his throat tight. The rabbit flopped against the ground, its legs moving spastically. This wasn’t like the time he’d gone partridge hunting with Dad, where bird shot exploded into a quiet puff of feathers.

  In a few seconds, the rabbit lay still.

  Seth held the gun toward the ground, but didn’t move.

  Matt elbowed him in the side. “Hey, you’re not done yet.”

  “I know,” Seth said quietly.

  From his jacket pocket, Seth pulled out his red Swiss Army knife and flipped open the silver blade. He knelt over the rabbit. Its dark eye stared out into nothing. He grasped one of the rabbit’s front paws, still warm, and quickly dropped it.

  The woods grew darker.

  He picked up the limp rabbit by its foreleg, carried it to a flat rock, and stretched its paw over the stone. As he pushed his knife down into the joint, the bones crunched and separated. The sound made him sick, but he couldn’t stop now, not with Matt standing there. Trying to look away, he sawed at the rest of the skin and tendons, and finally, cut the foot off clean.

  He’d done it. Glancing up at Hercules, Seth thought of all the great hunters who had walked these woods before him. At some point, each one had his first h
unt, an important hunt that somehow launched him from boyhood into manhood. For Seth, this was his. And it seemed fitting to have got his first rabbit here, beneath this lofty pine. And with only one shot.

  He picked up the brown furry trophy in one hand, the gun in the other, and stood. A sense of power filled him.

  “All right!” Matt said, slapping him on the back. “You did it!”

  “Yeah,” Seth said, a little uncertainly.

  The boys started down the trail, but Seth turned and walked back to the rabbit. Its eyes were already clouding.

  Lifting it by its velvety ears, he tossed it as far as he could from the trail. With the toe of his leather boot, he kicked dried leaves and dirt over the bloodstained rock and then headed home.

  He didn’t want his dad to find it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seth woke to a high-pitched scream, but it was only the wind. In his fist, he clutched the rabbit’s foot. Outside his dark window, the wind threatened to rip the cedar shakes from the farmhouse, howling low and long like wolves before a hunt.

  A rustling sound came from the kitchen.

  Seth blinked at his clock’s glaring red numbers: 4:49. His parents couldn’t be up this early.

  The paw was dry; he had baked it in the oven last night while his parents were at their childbirth class. The fur felt silky soft and the green yarn he’d wrapped around the joints had held. Sure, he could have bought a rabbit’s foot from the Cray tons’ drug-store in town, one on a key chain, but it wouldn’t have been the same. This one was his. He’d earned it.

  Pushing back his flannel sheet, Seth walked down the carpeted hallway. The glow of the kitchen light stopped him short. With the paw cupped in his hand, he peered around the corner, just far enough to see who, or what, was in his house.

  Seth flinched, nearly dropping the paw. A man with mangy black eyebrows and beard sat at the table, pulling leather boots over wool socks. “Mornin’,” the man grunted.

  It was his father.

  “I didn’t—I wasn’t sure it was you, Dad,” Seth said. Undetectable beneath the disguise were his dad’s blond hair and clear blue eyes.

  Seth slipped into an oak kitchen chair, rested his chin in one hand, and with the other hand eased the rabbit’s foot under the table, out of view.

  “I try to keep ’em guessing,” Dad said, tightening his boot laces. His tone became serious. “Got a call from Ray last night about a couple of poachers.”

  Ray, the only other game warden in the county, often joined Seth’s family for supper, especially after times when the men worked late together. Those nights, they shoveled in their food like soldiers returned from the battlefield, sharing their stories about searches, ambushes and arrests—a world Seth longed to be part of. “Don’t worry, Seth,” Dad would say. “Someday when things slow down, you and I’ll go hunting; then you’ll have a few stories of your own.”

  Seth squeezed the rabbit’s foot and reminded himself that he’d finally stopped waiting for someday.

  “We know they’ve been going after black bear,” Dad said, “but we haven’t been able to catch them red-handed yet.”

  “Matt’s dad hunts bear,” Seth said, remembering the black bear that had dragged their metal garbage can, with the handle in its teeth, all the way across the road into the ditch next to Matt’s farm. Seth often wondered if that was the same bear Matt’s dad shot this fall.

  “With a license, one bear is legal,” Dad said, “not dozens. Anyway, Ray got a lead that these poachers are after moose, too. Apparently, some wealthy Texan wants a mounting of a moose cow and calf.”

  “How’d you find out about that?”

  “Through a taxidermist that’s been helping us out. It might be just the snare we’ve been looking for.”

  Seth wanted to tell his dad about the moose tracks, but if Dad found out about the shotgun, he’d be in trouble. He chewed on his chapped lower lip.

  “Disgusting what some people will do for money,” Dad continued. “And wouldn’t you know it—this year has already been tough on moose.”

  Seth rested his head on the table, yawned, and rubbed the strands of rabbit hair between his fingers. “How so?”

  “Winter ticks—pretty strange,” Dad said, reaching for his mug. He sipped his steaming coffee. “The ticks thrived and latched on to the moose. Then, when the moose tried to rub the ticks off, they rubbed off half of their hide as well and couldn’t survive the cold.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Lost half the population in just a year—and not only here in northern Minnesota. Maine had troubles, too.”

  Strapping a leather holster with a nine-millimeter automatic pistol to his tall frame, Kevin Jacobson looked like he could handle just about anything. And as a game warden, he did. He arrested people for catching too many fish, for shooting too many deer, and for trapping without a license. It was the game warden’s job to confront them with the law, usually alone in the woods, eye to eye, gun to gun. And with his two rules, Keep honest and Never quit, Seth’s dad wasn’t the kind to ever back down from a job.

  What would his dad think about Seth’s taking out the gun yesterday? Seth slid deeper in his chair.

  His dad took another sip of coffee. “I’ve been after this feisty old snake Clancy for years. He’s living somewhere on state land. Had him cornered a few years back, but then lacked enough solid evidence to nail him. He has a way of disappearing when I get close. He can’t go against the law forever, though. Eventually it’ll catch up to him.”

  Seth closed his sweaty palm tighter around the rabbit’s foot. If his dad found out about his breaking the law and shooting the rabbit, what would he do? Ground him for a month? Throw him in jail?

  Seth stood up in his baggy plaid pajamas, his arms behind his back. Maybe, he thought, he could show his dad just how much he was changing. If his dad would just give him a chance. “Can I go with?” he asked.

  “Too dangerous,” Dad said with a laugh, then began putting on his bulletproof Point Blank vest.

  Seth felt his throat burn. His dad hadn’t even given it a second thought! He’d just brushed him away like a fly on his shoulder. Like the stepson he actually was. It had never bothered Seth before, but now with Mom expecting, it felt like everything was changing. This would be “their own” baby.

  “Dad,” Seth pleaded, hoping that maybe his dad would change his mind, maybe bend the rules, just this once. Why couldn’t he understand how important this was? “Please?”

  “Hey, Seth. I’ve gotta hustle before the roads get too icy.” He squeezed Seth’s shoulder. “Besides, you have school work. Sorry.”

  “But it’s not fair!” Seth said, pulling away. “I’m old enough!”

  “That’s not the point,” Dad said, looking straight at him. Then he spoke more slowly, as though Seth were a child who didn’t understand. “This is my work. You know I can’t just bring you out there. Besides, you could get hurt.” He zipped up his canvas jacket. “Be a help to your mom. I should be back by dark.” Then he left.

  Seth walked to the living room and sat in the bay window. A clump of bare birch trees shook like skeletons in the wind. As Seth watched his dad leave in his Ford pickup, his stomach felt tight, tight as his clenched fists.

  He understood all right. Maybe his dad didn’t come right out and say it, but he probably still thought of Seth as just a stepson, just the three year old he’d inherited when he married Seth’s mom.

  He padded back to bed, put the rabbit’s foot back under his pillow, and burrowed under his covers. The paw was more than a trophy. It symbolized something important, but what? Strength? Bravery? Certainly, it proved he wasn’t just a boy anymore. Seth knew it, and Matt knew it. Still, something about the paw nagged at him.

  He knew deep down his dad would never approve, would never understand. But then, why should Seth care? Kevin wasn’t his real dad anyway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As the hallway phone rang, Seth pulled his plaid comforter up over his head, waiting for h
is mom to answer it. It was always for her on school days.

  Two years ago, when his mom suggested his being homeschooled, the idea seemed weird. But the fifty-five-minute bus ride to school was slower than a night crawler on pavement. And in winter, when the sun merely peeked over the treetops, going to regular school meant leaving and returning in the dark. At times, he missed his friends, but at least now he could sleep in a little longer.

  The ringing stopped and a gentle knock sounded on his door. Mom peeked in, her wavy brown hair not yet brushed, her denim maternity dress looking tighter than ever across her belly. “Good morning,” she mouthed as she handed Seth the portable phone, then stepped out, closing the door behind her.

  “How’d your paw turn out?” It was Matt, but his voice sounded lower and scratchier, without its usual high energy.

  “Fine,” Seth said and reached under his pillow for the paw. He held it up and examined it. “It dried out before my mom got home,” he whispered. “She would have hit the ceiling if she’d known it was in the oven, so I made some chocolate chip cookies to disguise the smell. Anyway, all she smelled were the cookies. Especially the burnt ones.”

  Matt laughed. “Good thinkin’.”

  “Hey, what are you doing home on Friday?” Seth asked.

  “Lousy sore throat. My dad ordered me to rest up. He’ll bring me in at lunchtime on his way to the gas station so I won’t miss tonight’s game.”

  “Maybe it’ll be canceled,” Seth said, watching the wind whip snow sideways across the yard, feeling it seep in through the cracks along the old window frame.

  “I hope so, because tonight’s game is against the Hawks, and they’re tough,” Matt said. “Sick or not, my dad will make sure I’m there.”

  “What do you expect? You’re his star quarterback,” Seth said, picturing Matt’s dad standing up in the first bleacher when everyone else was sitting down, cheering full volume for the Cougars. Maybe next year, when Seth was in seventh grade like Matt, he’d go back to regular school and join the team. Maybe then Dad would show some interest.