Jim: Well it leaves us with no explanation of any kind. But I ask again caller, where is your proof? We need more than your word. Don’t you have a digital camera? Everyone has those now. Did you get video?

Erickson: My pa and I went back and borrowed John Lusten’s video cam he uses for the YouTube. When we got back to the tree, the moose carcass was gone.

Jim: Gone? Now you tell me how a moose carcass just disappears from a tree?

Erickson: You tell me how a moose carcass gets fifty feet in the air. You tell me.

Jim: Caller, I can tell you how a moose carcass gets fifty feet up a tree. It’s called your imagination. That’s exactly how it got there. THANK YOU Erickson for entertaining Talkland with your preposterous story tonight. Those who want facts should tune in for biologist Eggerts’ interview on Tuesday. We’ll be back with more Talkland after these words from our local sponsors . . .

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The Trapper

THE TRAPPER

Careful what you trap up here, fella. You may not like what ya catch.

— SKEET ACKERSON

After a substantial breakfast of hot cakes and hash browns, Matt made his way north on Julip Road. The graders had worked hard this year, pushing the edges back even further and smoothing the road for logging trucks. They’d pushed so hard that sometimes scarred tree roots jammed through the sandy embankment like steroidal earth worms. There was a lot of that sort of thing around here, a blatant disregard for the land and its wild inhabitants.

The clean morning air invigorated him. A couple years ago, he’d gone online and checked the EPA air quality ratings for the U.S. The reports indicated the Northwoods had a Class 1 rating, the best you could get. States with larger cities were rated the worst, especially if they were near refineries.