A nugget of Big Medicine every day. #78 Mother moose
The hunting trips were a family tradition. Kim and his kin would head up country to shoot some moose. That year the hunting permits specified calves.
Kim set up shop in the woods. He waited until a moose calf came into range. He shot it. It was a clean kill and the big animal fell to the ground. As he made his way out to the dead moose, its mother arrived on the scene. Distraught, she turned on him and chased him back to his hunter’s shack. He said the only way he could get her to stop charging him was to hold his gun to her head and threaten to shoot.
She backed off and went back to the body of her calf where she kept vigil for hours.
Eventually Kim was able to claim the calf’s carcass.
The next day he went back to the woods to do more hunting. As he walked through the trees he felt as if something was watching him. He turned around. The mother moose was standing just behind him.
With rifle in hand he tried to get comfortable. The mother moose lay down on the ground next to him. She wouldn’t leave. He did.
The next day he made his way back to his stand. He crossed the road, went into the woods and was getting set up when a ranger approached on an ATV.
“Can I help you?” Kim asked.
“Just want to know what kind of scent you’re wearing because there’s a big ol’ cow moose following you. She followed you right across the road and into the woods.”
Kim turned around knowing what he’d see. The mother moose was laying on the ground just a few feet away with her big eyes focused right on him.
“I shot her baby. She won’t leave me alone.”
“That’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen,” said the ranger as he looked at the big moose and then at Kim.
Kim swears the mother moose was crying just before he called it quits for the day and decided to hang up his rifle forever.
She followed him to the edge of the woods and then turned back alone.
Be well. Practice big medicine.
Hal
