Opening paragraphs......

In Westwood Brown Dog recognized a cloud as one he had seen several years before over two thousand miles to the east out near Fayette on Big Bay de Noc.  The cloud was sure enough the same one, no question about it.  The question was what route did it take to California, to Westwood in particular?  This cloud sighting was not remarkable in itself.  In a lifetime in the woods he had witnessed three different birds (a raven, a red-tailed hawk, and a lowly robin) drop dead off their separate perches, and once while illegally pillaging a shipwreck in Lake Superior at a depth of a hundred feet or so, a very large passing lake trout had picked that moment to drop, wobbling slow and lifeless to the lake's floor.  There was a moment's temptation to pluck it up and stow It in his diving bag with some brass fittings from the sunken ship, but then it occurred to him that the fish had achieved a peaceful death and it wouldn't be quite right to fry it up, douse it with hot sauce, and eventually turn it into a turd.  As a child his grandfather was wont to say when B.D. was sullen or depressed, "Keep your chin up, Bucko. We all end up as worm turds.
-Jim Harrison, Westward Ho