North Country Detective by Tom Brennan

Author:Tom Brennan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

In October, Rick Albert, George Tallent and Hank Rosenthal caught a series of flights to the remote village of Kiana on the Kobuk River in Northern Alaska. Their reservations were at a hunting lodge owned by a friend of George’s on the west bank of the Kobuk, a popular spot for hunting both moose and caribou. They arrived in mid-day and shook hands with the lodge owner, Lorry Anderson, a jovial Alaskan Eskimo with a magnetic personality.

Rick and his friends were planning to go in search of moose or caribou early the next morning. After a few short hikes to familiarize themselves with the area and its terrain they returned to the lodge. On the way into the building they passed a guest who was standing on the deck with host Lorry, waving binoculars and pointing to a four-legged figure with antlers near the riverbank below them. It was a bull moose, a large one.

Rick, George and Hank were not ready to hunt and the distance between the lodge and the riverbank was large and open. If they tried to sneak up on the big animal it would surely see them and be spooked. It seemed just an invitation to a lot of fruitless work. The man with the binoculars pulled a moose call from his pocket and began making noises that sounded more like a sheep’s bleat to the three men from Anchorage. The noise is supposed to sound like a female moose in heat, one that will attract an ardent male.

The three men were seated in an alcove off the dining room drinking bourbon when the guest with the binoculars and moose call wandered in and joined them. He told them Lorry was outside loading a wheelbarrow with firewood from a stack behind the lodge.The four in the alcove got along well and were sharing one of their many stories while awaiting their host’s return.

After a half-hour another hunter rushed into the alcove and pointed to the fourth man. “Hey,” he said, “your calling brought that moose into the back yard and he’s all worked up. You better get out there and shoot him before he screws Lorry.” Rick Albert and his friends laughed uproariously while the man scrambled to fetch his rifle from a rack and then slipped out the door to the deck. A few minutes later they heard a shot, followed by the fourth hunter racing back into the lodge to gather the tools he would need to butcher the dead moose.

Over the next four days all three of the Anchorage friends managed to harvest a moose and performed the laborious procedure for cleaning and cutting their animals into steaks and roasts. They packed the meat into coolers brought for the purpose and waited for their pilot’s return.

On their return flight to Anchorage, Rosenthal mentioned in passing that his company, Humble Oil, was changing its name to Exxon.

“What’s that all about?” Rick asked. The change was a surprise since Humble Oil had long been a name known throughout Alaska.

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