Jason goes to Canada

A cold corpse

They arrived at the scene, being waved in by a few men tasked with staying with the body.
Ray unmounted as carefully as he could, Magnus leaned with him to help. He patted his horse in gratitude.
"Well fellas, what do we got?"
It was a rhetorical question of course. Even from a distance he could see the odd posture of the body, which looked to be laying face down until you arrived at the actual face.
He knelt down, wiping snow from the visage carefully. It kept a gruesome look of surprise, a frozen trail of blood from one corner of the mouth.
"Any ID?"
"Uh, yeah. Gerald Gunderson. He owns a cabin not too far from here."
"You get that from his wallet?"
"Yuh. Also, Randy over there recognized him. Recognized his old truck, too."
Ray stayed on his haunches, scanning the area around the body for tracks.
No good, whatever tracks that were laid had long been filled in by the falling snow.
Shit.
"What coulda done that to him, boss? A moose maybe?"
"A what? How would a moose turn a man's head the wrong way?"
"I dunno. Maybe if it had a good run at him, kinda snagging his head with his horns..."
"I don't think so, Tom. There's no head trauma that speaks to that."
"So...a man did it?"
Ray stood, his knees popping like twin pistols.
"What man do ya know with that kind of brute strength? Which surely this act woulda took."
"Eh. One of those logging fellas maybe. They run pretty rough."
"Yeah. A logging fella."
He spat, looking around. Whoever had done this to poor Gunderson was surely long gone, partly because of the police presence but mostly because it was too damn cold to hang around.
"Well boys, load him up on the sled. We'll see what the coroner says."
Harold coughed.
"Uh, boss. We gonna...uh canvass for clues?"
Ray looked around morosely at the scene, nothing but snow and limbs and slick, cold trees.
"Whatever we get will be from the body or his old truck. Let's go before the corpse freezes solid."
"Yuh boss ok."
A few men pried Gerald from the snow like a stuck log, and laid him carefully on the sled. They then tossed a few ropes over him and tied them loosely.
Ray climbed back up on his horse, fighting to hold on as Magnus turned in a few big circles. He was distracted. Or troubled maybe. Could be the smell of the dead man, but Ray didn't think so.
Magnus paused, staring into a deep bed of trees, focused on one spot.
"What is it, big boy?"
He squinted, trying to pick out what his horse was staring at.
Nothing. Could be a fox.
Or a wolf.
He gently tugged the reins, Magnus reluctantly obeying, his lips pulled back over his big choppers.
"You're just being silly." he told his horse, but still, he couldn't help but look back over his shoulder a few times on the way back.