I leaned forward too, peering in the direction he’d indicated. At first I thought he might be hallucinating—it was to be expected for someone awake this stupid fucking early—but then I saw it. Near the clump of trees, some of the mist was moving in a way the rest of it wasn’t. Rising in little tendrils.
“You think that’s a moose?” I asked.
“Could be. Or it could—oh! There!” He pointed a few degrees to the left of the steam, and it only took a second to see what had caught his eye.
An enormous shape rose, then shook, its long ears flopping while steam rose off its body. Then it looked around, ears up as if listening to its surroundings.
“That’s a girl, right?” I asked. “No antlers?”
Eric nodded. “Yep.”
I squinted, trying to see her better through the mist. “Man, they’re weird-looking.”
He chuckled. “I know, right? There’s a reason they call them lumbering swamp donkeys.”
As if on cue, the moose started walking, and yes, she was definitely lumbering. Moose had always seemed bizarre in photos, and they were no less weird in person. The wonky head. The huge ears. The clunky gait of those long, knobby legs.
Another moose rose a few yards away. Then another. One had antlers, but they looked more like a normal deer’s antlers—like sticks with little branches on them instead of the huge rack I expected to see on a moose.
“That’s all they get for antlers?” I asked. “Are the ones in Alaska the only ones who get the big ones?”
Eric shook his head. “No, the big ones are here, too.” He gestured with his coffee cup at the bull. “He’s young.”
“Oh. So the big ones are older. Makes sense.”
“That’s usually how it works, isn’t it?”
I flipped him off. He just chuckled.
As we watched, another cow rose and shook herself off. A moment later, there was some movement beside her, and a pair of ears poked up from behind a bush.
“Oh my God.” I leaned forward in my seat and squinted out the windshield. “Is that a baby?”
“Where?” Eric peered around.
I pointed toward the ears. “By that big rock, a few feet to the left.”
“I don’t see—oh! Okay, yeah, I see it!”
As we watched, the mother lumbered up a small hill, and the baby wandered fully into view. It was like a small and even more comically leggy creature than its mother.
Eric took out his phone and snapped a few pictures. So did I. As Mom and baby lumbered through the field, I took a few more, then switched to a video.
“Oh, hey.” Eric gestured toward the left. “There’s another.”
I turned my head and panned the camera, and I found where he was pointing just in time to watch a huge moose push to its feet. It shook, sending up a small cloud of dust and steam. When it swung its head around, I was mildly disappointed not to see a big rack, but it did have slightly bigger antlers than the other bull.
I stopped the video and lowered my phone, grinning like an idiot. “That is so fucking cool.”
“Worth getting out of bed early?”
I pursed my lips, then wobbled my hand. “Maybe.”
He tsked. “Maybe?” Flailing toward the windshield, he said, “You’ve gotten to see, what, five moose? Including a baby? What more do you want?”
“I was promised a bull with a huge rack.”
“You were promised nothing. I said wemightsee one.”
