I watch the two fish dart within the shallow pool. I try to visualize a pattern to their movement. Patterns are my bread and butter; they are how I make my living. So-and-so stock did this for ten years. How will this pattern in this entirely different market affect so-and-so stock two years in the future? It was all about forecasting tomorrow. But if Silver or Red have any method to their madness, I don’t have the cognitive dexterity to discern it.

“Okay, fish,” I whisper. “One of you is going to be dinner.”

I take two more breaths, cock my spear back a foot, and tomahawk it down into the water.

I pull it out.

“HOLY SHIT!” I scream.

Silver flaps wildly at the end of the spear.

“I GOT ‘EM!”

The last thing I want is for the fish to wiggle his way off the spear and back into the river. I slowly raise the stick. The spear has gone through the meat of his belly and pokes out three inches on the opposite site.

I turn around and proudly showcase my catch to Lassie.

He stands up on his back paws.

The fish isn’t as big as he appeared underwater, but he is still close to eight inches and weighs a pound or more. He will be a fine meal.

Meow.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, settle down.” I still have to get off the rock and trudge through thirty feet of knee-high river. I gingerly ease myself down to my nylon boxers, half sitting on the rock.

I smile at Lassie. He is so excited he’s hobbled to the edge of the river.

Meow.

“What’s amoose? Is that the type of fish?”

Meow.

“Amoose, I know, I get it, you know your fish names. Good for you.” I slide my feet into the water.

Meow.

“A moose?”

Meow.

I turn.

Twenty feet behind me, half submerged in the river, is a giant fucking moose.

He is massive, a thousand pounds of Alaskan bull. His antlers are five-foot clamshells with spikes. He is staring directly at me.

I splash into the water, trudge three feet, then ten.

I am halfway to the bank when I turn and peek over my shoulder.

The entire moose’s torso is now above water. He is fifteen feet behind me. And gaining. There is no way I will make it to the sandbar. He is going to impale me on his giant antlers, then flip me around like pizza dough.

I trip.

I feel myself falling and then I am underwater. My left elbow sinks into the soft silt of the river bottom. The water is only a foot deep and I bear crawl forward using my left hand, the stick and fish still held firmly in my right.

It isn’t the moose, but the shadow of his giant antlers moving over me and onto the sandbar that hint I only have seconds remaining.