‘Are you hurt?’

Anouk shook her head. Laughed or made a sound that was almost a laugh.

‘Are you hurt?’ Nora asked again.

‘No.’

Red unbuckled his seat belt and got out, left the door gaping.

‘We hit a tree. You’re sure you’re not hurt?’ Nora leaned further over, and felt up and down the length of Anouk.

Anouk, cumbersome in the sleeping bag, shuffled herself back on to the seat. ‘We hit a tree?’

Nora turned back to the front and watched Red through the window. No tree. Red leaned over, inspecting the grille, something on the ground. He came back to the passenger side and got his coat.

‘What did we hit?’

‘A buck.’

‘We didn’t.’

He punched his arms through the sleeves of his coat, dug into the pockets for his gloves and hat. Without looking at her, ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. Are you okay?’

‘I’m okay.’

‘Wrap yourself up,’ Nora said to Anouk. She shimmied into her own coat and turned the engine on again for the heat. As soon as she stepped out of the truck there was the smell of animal, the bitter, rank rustiness of blood and the musk of fear. First thing she saw, a spray of blood in the snow, and then there it was, forelegs bent and contorted under its body, hind legs spread out behind. Still alive, hot breath rising from its nostrils and gasping mouth. A low, tuneless moan. One antler, seasoned and woody, was caught in the grille, forcing the buck’s head to hang awkwardly. It was trying to break loose, digging trenches in the snow with its hind hooves. Blood dripped thickly from its mouth and nose and its eyes rolled towards the bush, the road, towards Nora, not seeing her, and up to the falling snow.

‘We’re lucky we’re not dead,’ said Red. ‘If that had been a moose.’

‘What the fuck do we do?’

Red knelt in the snow behind the deer’s head. He reached for the antler that was stuck in the grille, wrapped his gloved fingers around the thickness of it and tried to pull it away from the metal. The deer screamed and kicked, dark eyes rolling. The front hooves jerked, palsied, and the air filled with a strong snort of urine. Nothing ever sounded so loud as this animal’s laboured breath, its dissonant moan. There was a break in the metal where the antler met the grille, and Red tried to pry back the jagged piece of steel but it wouldn’t bend.

‘Can he feel it?’ she asked.

‘Course he can feel it.’

‘No. I mean, does he have feeling in the antlers? Can’t we saw them off or something?’

Red sat back on his haunches and rubbed his beard. He touched the deer’s shoulder, as if to calm it, and the animal tried to rear back, its movements weak and distorted. ‘I don’t have any tools,’ he said. ‘Fuck.’ He put his hand on the back of the buck’s head and gripped the antler again and tried to manoeuvre it one way, then another, but the antler had become even more wedged in the grille.