After taking a stab at political science and then psychology, Jerome Lupien finally found his true calling as a man of letters; he enrolled in French Literature at the Université de Montréal, and earned a B.A. that let him imagine a career in teaching, journalism, publishing, or some other related field. Upon graduating, he decided to reward himself for the remarkable feat of his having combined university studies with part-time work as a waiter in an Old Montreal café by taking a year off — the first several weeks of which he spent sleeping, living the good life, and windsurfing. He planned to top off his sabbatical year with a long hitchhiking trip through South America.

Then, towards midsummer, his uncle Raoul, who had become a partial invalid, gave Jerome his hunting equipment. As an adolescent, Jerome had gone on dozens of hunting trips with his uncle, so he was fairly familiar with guns — which, to his father, were an abomination. Jerome’s memories of those trips were filled with marvels that passing time had embellished. So, one afternoon, handling the rifles and carbines his uncle had sent him and seeing how assiduously oiled and polished they were, he was so moved that tears came to his eyes. A hunger for the hunt took hold of him and held on unrelentingly; come the night, he dreamed of going on safaris in shadowy forests in which he came face to face with herds of deer, moose, or caribou, which he would slaughter in a terrifying burst of gunfire, half blinded by the clouds of acrid smoke that made him cough and laugh at the same time.

He dedicated a weekend to courses — “Arms Management” and “An Introduction to Hunting” — in order to get his permit, which he received a month later. Yet, even with it, he felt he needed to have someone experienced with him on his first adult foray into the woods. And so, in early October, he’d surfed the Internet to look for a hunting guide, came up with Donat Pimparé, and the business was settled in no time.

It was Pimparé who suggested they get themselves to Maniwaki.

“I know it’s a bit far,” Pimparé had said, “and sure, there’ll be some expenses, but in the past five or six years I’ve found no better place for big game. I’ve never led a hunting party up there that hasn’t come back with an animal. If you don’t wanna come home empty-handed, pal, then Maniwaki’s the place to go.”

Fifty-eight-year-old Pimparé lived in Sorel and had accumulated a lot of experience as a guide. And since Jerome, two months earlier, had totalled his beloved Mazda in an accident from which he, fortunately, had escaped unharmed — other than three demerit points off his driver’s licence — Pimparé offered to drive them both up to Maniwaki in his minivan.

“If we get a moose that’s too big for the van,” he joked, “you can come back by bus.”

Which was what he would have to do, apparently. But without the moose.