He stumbled into the knee-high orchard grass, tossed his beer, and spread his legs for balance. The sun parted the clouds, watering his eyes behind his field glasses. Sanders glanced uphill towards the leaning post. The furry fooker loped away not more than a few yards from him, squeaking and chittering. He unslung the shotgun and aimed it up slope, knees bent. Then the fisher did something no animal had ever done to him in all his years in these woods: it turned and ran at him.

What the fookin’ a Christ? he thought.

The surprise maneuver froze Sanders in his tracks. The fisher raced to his right and paused near his boot, then behind it.

What the fook? he thought. But he knew better. Only the direst of circumstances would make an animal behave in such a way. The God damned thing was using him as a shield. Before Sanders could turn and pull the trigger, the fisher leapt into the wall of lower forest, squeaking and bounding into obscurity.

Sanders sat there, gun in hands, numb. A sense of appreciation for the fisher overcame him— something he hadn’t felt before.

He outsmarted me, he thought. His wife Janie’s irritating voice shrieked in his mind. Oh, stop acting like that’s a first, eh Bob?

Then Bob heard a sound he’d never heard before in the U.P.—a sharp, obnoxious clicking. This was turning out to be a day of firsts in the shadow of the Hurons.

Sanders looked up towards the leaning post while thumbing his right flannel pocket for the slugs. He needed to feel them, to know they were there. The clicking moved closer. Then the knee-high grass parted near the leaning post.

“What the foo—”

Click! Clack! Click!

“Anyone here?” he shouted. “Hey dar, you here Matty?”

The orchard grass parted in a continuous line, right at him. Behind this line, just to the left more grass parted, and it too emitted a clicking noise. Then both rows of parting grass drew closer. Behind these, another row of grass parted.

Three, he thought.