Oh he knew some things. Had some guesses. But good science isn’t about guessing. It’s about finding. He knew most of the U.P. was second-and third-generation forest. Less than one percent of the original forest remained—most of it in the Huron Mountains. The loggers had taken the old trees, building the cities of Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit. He knew that severe habitat alteration drove out native animals and ushered in non-native species like raccoon and possum. Eggerts thought it possible their special moose hunter might be doing the same thing— moving into the new growth forests of the upper Midwest because it preferred the habitat.

His Chevy pickup rolled up the steep pitch at the beginning of Julip Road, pulling away from the Lake Superior lowlands and into the higher country. The woods had begun to turn, the yellows and reds bright through his windshield.

Need some rain, he thought. He also needed to ditch this bug. Eggerts put his hand to his mouth and coughed. Swine flu was a pain in the ass, although the last week was better than the previous two. He still didn’t feel right and figured he might need antibiotics. On the passenger seat was a bottle of Vitamin C. He shook out two five-hundred-milligram tabs, fine powder from the jar caking his palm. He popped them into his mouth in one smooth motion and wiped his hand on the seat bench. Within seconds energy seeped up his spine and the tickling in his lungs receded. Sucking away, he watched the colorful woods with a skeptical eye.

What does that to moose? Reveal yourself, hombre. Show me the goods, he thought. Their special hunter had shown him some goods, in the form of tracks. BIG tracks . . . the biggest he’d ever seen. But these tracks were of such enormous size that the human mind instantly triggered denial. At first Eggerts and his peers thought the flattened vegetation was a moose bedding area, but upon careful examination there were actual claw marks, or at least toenail marks. They had thought about sending in some of the keratin samples and puzzling fluids to the downstate lab, but that would arouse more questions from people they didn’t want asking questions. Next thing you know every media outlet and conspiracy theorist blogger would be tramping the woods and scaring the thing off, if such a thing could be scared. And worse, the more people in the woods, the more this thing could take a swipe at. He and the five peers who knew wanted none of that. This was their responsibility, and they’d handle it as they saw fit.