I should have known. I like Fargo, but I should know by now to never assume I understand him when he talks about anything more complicated than the time of day. Measure at least twice and cut once with Fargo.

But I assumed when he said something like “There’s a wolf stalking the grounds at night,” he meant there was a darned wolf, and it was stalking the grounds, actually at night. I should have asked what he meant by wolf, but I didn’t give it a second thought. Action man Dave, I fell for it and leapt into action.

Now I think about it, I’ve never before heard of a wolf in these parts. I think the nearest ones are in Canada. But I didn’t think any of that at the time I just fetched my shotgun and saw an opportunity to deploy the ‘protect’ part of ‘protect and preserve’ and keep that wolf from the visitors’ doors.

And why, why did I think hiding overnight in the toilets was a good idea? Well, from the toilet you can see out but not in, so that would give me an advantage over the wolf. But I don’t know why I didn’t expect mayhem when a bleary-eyed camper up for a nocturnal tinkle set eyes on the shotgun poking out from under the window. He was lucky; I’m not too experienced with wolves, so for all I knew the noise he made came from a wolf about to jump on a ranger.

He’s lucky I’m not too experienced with guns, either. I dropped the gun, and we both turned to run in opposite directions before we realized what had happened and began apologizing to each other. Wasn’t long before a small group appeared and, from what I heard among the shouting, there were allegations against the both of us of all sort of things from illegal mischief to at least one unnatural act.

The gun, I think, which by then I’d picked up and was holding on to, may have helped prevent anyone laying hands on us.

But why oh why hadn’t I taken a moment to think further on what Fargo was on about. Him and his flowery storytelling had caught me out and I’d been chasing a wolf that was a ghost, a product of his creative imagination; it loped out of his paranoia about outsiders again, federal comers-in sneaking onto his tribal land to steal something from his spirits or something while no-one was looking.

Never again. I will never be caught up in some sort of nonsensical yarn ever, ever again.