“Anna Pigeon, Rocky Mountain,” Anna said.

“It’s dead,” Robin called. While they’d introduced themselves, she’d scooted quickly and easily over the slippery surface to where the moose lay. The fourth Cro-Magnon was with her.

“Adam, would you get the camera and an ax?” Ridley asked a lanky individual wrapped in the most disreputable winter gear Anna had ever laid eyes on. His parka had at one time probably been a uniform khaki but had been smudged, drizzled, splashed and spotted by so many substances the original color showed only under the zipper flap. Ripstop nylon had proved unable to stop the incursions of sharp objects. Sleeves and body sported tears sprouting feathers, and his cuffs looked as if they had been caught in a paper shredder.

“Will do,” Adam said and loped off toward the snowmobile, joints loose, back straight, a scarecrow in an arctic Oz.

Anna, Bob and Ridley shuffled over the ice to join Robin and the remains of the windigo.

Robin was on hands and knees by the deceased animal. Ridley clapped a hand on the shoulder of the man Anna’d not yet met. “This is-”

“The only sane, and by far the handsomest, man on the island.” The man swept back his hood as if to show Anna the extent of his beauty. His hair was snow white. Awry from being smashed, it stuck out everywhere it wasn’t glued to his skull. His beard was close cropped and white to the point of iridescence. Reflections flashing off lenses in round wire-rimmed glasses obscured his eyes.

“Robin has been after me for two seasons,” the sane and handsome man went on, his smile showing small straight teeth that would have suited the face of a beatific child or a feral badger, “but the poor child has had to settle for – what’s his name, Robin?”