Moose Pond
Steve Pinette
John turned the truck into a turn-out and cut the engine.
“Well,” Suzy said. “Here I go.”
“Wish I could’ve cancelled this meeting tonight and hiked in with you,” John said.
“It’s okay, I can handle it.” Suzy eyed the two forest-green pickups with the Fisheries & Wildlife emblems parked along the five-foot snow bank. “I’ll look for you mid-afternoon tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll catch some trout to fry for dinner.”
John gestured toward the trucks. “Probably state biologists checking bear dens. Maybe they’ve broken the trail to the pond.”
“That’d be my lucky day,” Suzy said as she stepped outside.
She stretched and looked around. John removed the red pack sled and two sections of aluminum tubing from the truck box.
“Hawk?” Suzy pointed to the brown bird sailing overhead.
“More likely a juvenile bald eagle. The head turns white around four years.” John smiled at her. “You’ve been away too long.”
“I haven’t heard that in a while.” Suzy knew her mother and father had been proud of her. The first girl on either side to graduate from college. But her thirty-year foray into Africa and South America as a mining geologist and two failed marriages had diminished her family currency.
JONAH magazine 