MOOSE!
by Rae
Fourth in the Savior series:
"You gotta be kidding me," Starsky said as they turned onto the last bit of road.
Even Hutch, who'd been warned, hadn't expected it to be this bad. "It does look more like a dry river bed than a road," he said. "At least it's a four wheel drive, and not the Torino."
"True," Starsky said. He gripped the wheel hard and navigated over an outcropping. "Actually, it's kinda fun even if we're only going ten miles an hour." And then he flung out an arm in front of Hutch's chest, hit the brakes hard, and yelled, "MOOSE!"
Hutch, disgusted, said, "You already played that one. Too jet-lagged to think of a new game?" But then he realized Starsky wasn't joking, and looked in the direction he was looking.
"Yep, that's a moose, all right. Nice big brown one. Gorgeous, isn't he?"
"Yeah, gorgeous. What do we do? Go tell it to move, why don't you? Nature boy."
"You tell it to move. You're the one with the . . ."
The moose lifted its head and stared, and Hutch decided that shutting up was his best defense. He couldn't think of anything else.
"Should I beep the horn?" He hovered his right hand over the button.
"No! Don't beep the horn!"
"Should I just keep going? Maybe he'll move." He put his hand back on the gear shift.
"Why do you keep asking me what to do?"
"You got us into this, so you're the one gets us out."
Up the road a woman appeared, waving a towel or something, and making "come on" motions with her hand. The moose looked at her, looked back at the car, and lumbered off into the woods. Hutch was sure he heard it make a rude noise. Starsky put the Jeep in gear.
"Jesus, Hutch. We could have stayed with Ma for the whole week instead of just overnight. Gone to a show, found a nice disco."
"If you hate it that much here, we can go back to New York early and stay with Ma." He figured it would be better to appear to give in than to argue.
He was beginning to have a doubt or two of his own.
Moose (©1981 D.M. Starsky)
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