Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou, and Other Elk Stories

In the beginning there was heaven and earth; and the earth was without form and void and little tow-headed boys wandered around barefoot with hands in their pockets because there was nothing upon the land to catch their imagination. And God looked upon His work and was it was not yet good that no thing existed to challenge those boys. And so an autumn came to pass when eerie whistlings drifted into the valleys from distant mountainsides and the by-then lanky teenage boys threw away their toys and accepted the wapiti challenge that would make them men! And God and girls saw that it was good. If you've heard a different version of this story, that's your problem. I heard it but once--this way. And so I became an elk hunter. Then I became infatuated with all God's creatures, and eventually a believer that God's handiwork is composed of such intracacies that a quest to understand has taken the rest of my life. The Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou is about that quest.