Northern Lights

vehicular damage." He strode to the weapon cabinet as he spoke. "I need you to come with me, see if we can herd it out."
    He unlocked the cabinet, chose a shotgun with the sincere prayer he wasn't going to have to use it.
    "I've been waiting ten minutes," Ed complained. "Your deputies are capable of handling a simple wildlife situation."
    "You can wait here, or I'll come by the bank as soon as this situation is under control."
    "As deputy mayor—"
    "You're being a real pain in the ass," Nate finished. "Otto, we'll need your car. Mine's back at The Lodge. Let's go."
    "Looked like a landed trout, gulping," Otto said when they were outside. "He's going to want to fry you for that, Nate, sure as God made little green apples. Ed doesn't take to being stonewalled."
    "He's outranked. The mayor told me to deal with the moose; I'm dealing with the moose." He climbed in Otto's car. "We're not shooting it."
    "Why do you have the shotgun?"
    "I plan to intimidate him."
    The town's schools were a connected trio of small, low-slung buildings with a pretty grove of trees on one side and a little squared-off field on the other. He knew the younger kids were allowed out into the field twice a day for a kind of recess—weather permitting.
    Since most of the kids had been born there, it took some pretty serious weather to cancel recess.
    The high schoolers liked to use the grove to hang out—maybe smoke or fool around—before and after classes.
    There was a flagpole, and at this time of day both the U.S. and the Alaskan flag should have been up and waving. Instead, they were a little under half-staff and flicking fitfully in the disinterested wind.
    "Kids must've been hoisting the flags when they spotted it," Nate muttered. "Decided to chase after it."
    "Just going to irritate it doing that."
    Nate glanced at the two smashed-up cars in the tiny lot. "Looks like."
    He spotted the moose now, at the edge of the grove, rubbing his antlers on bark. He also saw a light trail of blood. Since no one had reported an injury, he assumed it was moose blood.
    "Doesn't look like he's causing any trouble now."
    "Looks like he cut himself up bashing those cars, so he's not going to
    be in a good mood. If he decides to stay around, he'll be trouble, especially if some idiot kid slips by a teacher and decides to chase it again or runs home to get a gun and shoots at it."
    "Well, shit. Get as close as you can, and maybe it'll move off."
    "Charge, more likely."
    "I'm not shooting some moose while it's scratching itself on a tree, Otto."
    "Somebody else will, if he sticks close to town. Moose meat's a good meal."
    "It's not going to be me, and it's not going to be within town limits, damn it."
    He saw the moose turn as they edged closer and saw to his consternation a look more fierce than dumb in those dark eyes. "Hell. Shit, damn, fuck. Blast the horn."
    Moose weren't slow. Where had he gotten the idea they were? It galloped toward them, apparently more challenged by the sound of the engine and horn than intimidated. Still cursing, Nate hitched himself out of the window, aimed the gun toward the sky and fired. The moose kept coming, and adding his own oaths to the mix, Otto swerved to avoid collision.
    Nate pumped, fired into the air again.
    "Shoot the son of a bitch," Otto demanded as he whipped the wheel and nearly dumped Nate out of the window.
    "I'm not doing it." Pumping the shotgun again, Nate fired into the snowy ground, a foot in front of the moose.
    This time it was the moose that veered off and, with his ungainly trot, headed into the trees.
    Nate fired, twice more, to keep it going.
    Then he dropped back on the seat, huffed out two breaths. From be
    hind them came the sounds of hoots and cheers and laughter as kids popped out of the school doors.
    "You're crazy." Otto pulled off his cap to scrub a hand over his crew cut. "You've got to be crazy. I know you shot a man dead back in Baltimore and sent him to hell. And you can't put some buckshot into a moose?"
    Nate took another deep breath and pushed the image of the alley out of his mind. "The moose was unarmed. Let's go, Otto. I need to deal with the deputy mayor. You can come back and take the reports."
     
     
    THE DEPUTY MAYOR had not deigned to wait. In fact, Peach told Nate, he'd stormed out after a short diatribe on why it had been a mistake to hire some lazy, puffed-up Outsider.
    Taking it in stride, Nate passed the shotgun to Otto, snagged a twoway and set out to walk to the