It’s her collapsing into the snow, her legs and arms kicking and reaching, twisting and creaking. Finally her right leg kicks through its human skin, is coarse brown hair underneath. Then an arm pushes through, has a clean black hoof at the end of it. An elk cow stands up from the snow and lowers her face to her calf, licks its face until it wobbles up, finds its feet, and that’s the last anyone ever sees of those two, walking off into the grass, mother and calf, the herd out there waiting to fold them back in, walk with them through the seasons.
