Stranger in the Woods

Chapter 4

I could tell that Milo was perplexed.  He looked at the animal’s carcass that was laid out on a large blanket on the floor of his backroom stable.  After the boys had unloaded the creature and had left, Milo pulled down the sliding door and turned on the large overhead lights.  It was cold in the room, and the concrete under our feet made it feel even colder.  Our breath billowed in large clouds.  I stood by a table where I had quietly placed the horn as the carcass was being unloaded.  The tip of the horn peaked out from under a horse blanket that I had laid over it.  There was no doubt in my mind that the horn belonged to the animal that was now before us on the floor, and I doubted if Milo would come to that same conclusion after he examined it. 

I stood, silently, as Milo examined the carcass, frequently making notes on some pages he had on a nearby clipboard.  I helped him left a leg or handed him some tool or examination device as he requested it, but otherwise there was no sound apart from that over movement.  Finally, Milo rose and rubbed his hand through his sparse hair and exhaled.

“I don’t know what to say Frank.”  Milo said.

“Before you say anything, there is one more thing that I want you to examine.”  Milo turned toward me as I pulled back the horse blanket from the horn.  As if in synchronization with the revelation of the horn from beneath the blanket, Milo’s expression changed.  His head moved forward as he saw the horn and as his eyes focused on it his brows slowly furrowed.  When the horn was fully uncovered, Milo stepped forward and leaned over to examine it closely.

I watched him as he gingerly touched the horn, his finger initially recoiling as if shocked by an electric spark.  Then, as he moved in to look at it he would occasionally exhale with sighs of wonder.  

He lifted the horn up from the table, and turned slightly to look at the carcass on the floor and then slowly back to the horn in his hands.  He took the horn and aligned it to the front of the horse’s head.  A few times he would stop his examination to close his eyes and lift his head toward the ceiling of the room and then return to his examination.  After a number of minutes, he rose and laid the horn back on to the table.

Milo stood motionless, staring at the horn.  Without turning toward me he spoke.  “I don’t know what to say Frank. What can I say?  It’s astounding.  I mean, who would have ever thought to see anything like it?”  Milo rubbed his chin and blew out a long breath.  And then he chuckled quietly to himself.

“Are you sure it's a unicorn?”  I asked.

“I didn’t say it was a unicorn.”  Milo replied.  He paused and then knelt near the animal's hindquarters.  "Help me lift this leg up."

As I held the heavy hind leg aloft while Mile checked the animal's genitalia with a small flashlight, I thought of my old hernia operation.  When Milo rose and I let the leg go, he silently walked over to a cabinet and opened it. He took out a pack of cigarettes and held it toward me after removing one and placing it between his lips.  I shook my head, denying the offer.

"It could just be an anomaly.”  I said.

“I guess so.”  Milo grunted as he tried numerous times to light his cigarette with an old match.  He threw the unlit match down with apparent frustration and pulled another out of the box.  It lit on the first strike and he quickly lit his cigarette.  He took a deep puff and exhaled a large plume of smoke.  He looked into the distance, past the walls of his clinic's stable.

“If it is just an anomaly then it is one of the most amazing ones that ever walked the planet.  It has no reproductive organs that I am able to detect, male or female.”  Milo looked intently at me and then back at the animal on the floor.  He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes.  Tendrils of smoke rising from the cigarette loosely held in his hand.  “I don’t know what to do.”

“Should we report this?”  I asked.

“I don’t know.  There are some who will know that the animal was brought here, but obviously nobody is going to claim it.”

“That we know.”  I said.

“Yeah, but I just don’t know if we should put the word out about it without precaution.  Can you picture it?  Within hours there will be reporters here recording every moment.  And who knows if the government or military would be interested in something like this?”  Milo began to pace the floor, obviously becoming nervous.

“Milo, there is no reason to make a decision right now.  I mean, for all we know this is just a mutated horse, or, or, I don’t know...something explainable.”  

“Yeah, Frank, it is explainable.  It is a Unicorn.”  

We both stood, breathing heavy.  Milo turned his attention to the horn on the table.  

“You said that the other ear was up there still?”  Milo asked.

“Yeah.  I foolishly didn’t take it.  It still should be on the side of the road.  I know exactly where.  I’m planning on driving back up there.  I did get ahold of the project manager for the logging company and they said that the driver and truck were still up at the site.”

“The one that hit this creature?”

“Yes.  I want to talk to the driver, and I want to have a look at the truck.  I doubt I’ll learn anything, but I would just like to see if he saw it before he hit it.”  I said.

“Let me give you a cooler with some ice packs to store the ear.  I’ll think about what to do with the carcass while you’re gone.  I don’t know if I should perform an autopsy or not? “

“Can you hold off on that?”  I asked.

“I will...for today.  I’ll make sure I take a ton of pictures and some video of it.”  Milo said and then smiled nervously.  I think I saw a tear drop from his eye when he turned away from me to get another cigarette.