Lincoln's Briefs

by Wayne, Michael

  It was settled, then. In early July Yale Templeton would travel to Espanola and book a room in the Campo de los Alces Motel, just on the edge of town. He would step outside at the break of dawn each morning and listen for a moose call. “You will know it,” Charlie advised, “by its remarkable similarity to the sound of a kazoo. Follow the call until you come to a clearing.” Joseph Brant Lookalike would be waiting for him there.

  “And now,” said Charlie solemnly, “we must seal the agreement.” And so in keeping with sacred Ojibwa tradition, they exchanged clothes.

  VIII

  The hair of moose is coarse and brittle, the color assuming various shades of brown, brownish black, and gray. Albino moose are unknown.

  SAMUEL MERRILL, THE MOOSE BOOK

  For the first two hours of the bus ride from Toronto, Yale Templeton spent his time alternately flipping back and forth through the pages of The Moose Book revisiting those passages he found particularly interesting, and musing about the appropriate demeanour to adopt when face to face with a moose. Once the bus passed over the Severn River, however, and he caught sight of the rocky outcroppings of the Canadian Shield for the first time, he experienced what can only be described as an awakening. He had seen very little natural landscape in his life. Just Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire, which he had visited several times with his science class at Robinson-Fallis Academy, and which he found spare and forbidding. But the grandeur of the Shield, its more than three-billion-year history, filled him with reverence. And it was at that moment, unconscious as it may have been, that he first began to imagine himself a Canadian.

  He watched with increasing enchantment as the forests, lakes, and waterfalls slipped past his window. He had heard about “cottage country” from colleagues, but now, seeing the odd assortment of structures for which it was named, he delighted in the contrary images they projected. He wondered about the people who flocked to the region on summer weekends. He saw some of them, driving their station wagons and vans, congregating at stores along the highway, packing supplies into boats at marinas. As the bus pressed north, he silently mouthed the names he saw on exit signs: Go Home Lake. Moon River. Handley Hawkins. Killbear Provincial Park. Pointe au Baril. Shawanaga. Magnetawan.

  Outside Sudbury, in the shadow of the nickel mines, the old man in the seat next to him tapped him on the shoulder. “You see over there?” he chuckled, pointing to a barren ridge rising above the stripped, pockmarked landscape. “That’s the very spot.” Yale Templeton looked at him blankly.

  “You know. Where they staged the moon landing.”

  Bewilderment.

  “With Neil Armstrong? ‘One giant leap for mankind’?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I see,” snorted the man. “You think it really happened.” And he blew dismissively through his lips and snapped his newspaper in front of his face.

  The bus reached Espanola, about sixty kilometres west of Sudbury, just before sunset. From a tourist guidebook to Ontario, Yale Templeton knew that the town had a population of five thousand. The book also told him that it got its name from the days when the Spanish claimed title to much of the land in central North America. But that, Charlie Lookalike had informed him, was a common white misconception. “Espanola is really an Ojibwa word meaning ‘where the moose gather.’”

  As instructed, Yale Templeton checked into the Loon Lake Motel a few kilometres north of town. (“That’s just the name the whites use,” Charlie had confided. “We call it Campo de los Alces Motel, which has no exact translation in English but roughly speaking means ‘A good place to hang around waiting for moose to come by.’”) The next morning he stepped outside into a northern dawn for the first time. He had slept little and was simmering with anticipation.

  The first thing that struck him was the cacophony of unfamiliar sounds: the chirks, tweeps, zzimmms, yodels. The second to strike him was a blackfly. So was the third, fourth, and fifth. The sixth would have been a blackfly as well, but before it could attack he escaped into his room and slammed the door behind him. Vigorously rubbing his arms and legs he considered his alternatives. The eight-page Globe and Mail Comprehensive Guide to Survival in the North, which Charlie had sold him at only slightly above cost, had inexplicably failed to mention blackflies. It had, however, led to his purchase of a number of items (again from Charlie, again at only slightly above cost) that could, he determined with uncharacteristic resourcefulness, be adapted to the situation at hand.

  And so a few minutes later he emerged from his room once again, this time encased in mukluks, ski pants, a parka, and an orange balaclava. He walked to the edge of the parking lot and listened for the call Charlie had told him to expect. “It’s much warmer up north than I realized,” he mused, shifting the balaclava so he could breathe more easily. Just at that moment the air was shattered by a loud guttural r-r-r-a-a-ah. The kind of roar The Moose Book identified as the call of a moose in distress. Another common misconception of whites, Charlie had noted. “Just listen for a sound like a kazoo.”

  He heard it quite distinctly only seconds later. A high-pitched burr, but not at all unpleasant. Ironically, given the time of day, it momentarily had him humming “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” He pushed his way into the woods, tracking the melody. A few minutes of fighting through brambles and branches led him to the edge of a clearing. There, as Charlie had promised, sat Joseph Brant Lookalike. He immediately noticed the family resemblance. Indeed, he said to himself, were it not for the grey hair, he would have thought he was looking at Charlie.

  Yale Templeton adopted a rather formal pose, in keeping with the dignity he attached to the occasion. Joseph Brant Lookalike hailed him warmly, however. “I am told by my grandnephew that you are respected as a man of great learning among your people. I also understand that you have travelled all these many miles because you wish to know the ways of the moose. That is a most worthy undertaking.” Then he clasped Yale Templeton by the shoulders and looked him over closely from head to foot. “I greet you as I would a family member. And for that reason I think we can dispense with the traditional exchanging of clothes.” Buried deep inside his parka, Yale Templeton gave a sigh of relief.

  “Our journey will be long and our way difficult,” warned Joseph Brant Lookalike. “Remain close to me at all times. Your safety depends on it.” And at that he set off purposefully, leaving Yale Templeton, in his mukluks, to struggle along behind.

  After a few minutes they found themselves on a dirt path. “An ancient Ojibwa trail,” Joseph Brant Lookalike disclosed. “It follows the course of the moose migration.” Moments later a middle-aged man in jogging shorts and a Chicago Bulls T-shirt loped into view. He momentarily stumbled when he caught sight of Yale Templeton, then regained his balance and gave a friendly wave. “The village healer,” Joseph Brant Lookalike explained. “He must be on his rounds.”

  They plunged back into the woods, periodically emerging to join the trail again. Their direction seemed impossibly confusing. The fallen logs, the rocky creeks, the abandoned blue Oldsmobiles: All appeared identical from one stretch of the journey to the next. “It just shows how hard it is to read the signs of nature,” Yale Templeton thought.

  At one point Joseph Brant Lookalike pointed to some marks trailing down to a pond. “Moose tracks,” he noted. They got down on their haunches to examine them more closely. The depressions made by the front hooves looked like small hands, each with five extended fingers; those for the back hooves were twice as large, with webbing between the digits. Not at all what Yale Templeton had expected, considering that The Moose Book said a print of the animal resembled “two large toes.” “Ah,” Joseph Brant Lookalike commented with a knowing nod, “most of the time, yes. But moose in this part of the country have learned to disguise their tracks during the hunting season.” “How remarkable!” thought Yale Templeton, only now fully beginning to appreciate the ingenuity of the species.

  When they had been travelling for perhaps two hours and
had arrived at a place that Yale Templeton was unable to distinguish from a dozen other places they had passed, Joseph Brant Lookalike stopped and announced with great solemnity, “We are now approaching our destination. Just beyond this stand of firs is the sacred Campo de los Alces.” He then lay flat on his stomach and placed his right ear to the ground. He remained in that position for five minutes, at intervals tapping the dirt with his index finger, raising his head and sniffing, then placing his ear to the ground and tapping once again. Finally he stood up, brushed himself off, lifted his hand to his mouth, and gave the same call he had used earlier to announce his presence to Yale Templeton. From beyond the firs, they heard the sound of something stamping, as if in response. “You’re in luck,” Joseph Brant Lookalike said. “It seems there’s a bull moose on the lek. I will take you to see him. But remain behind me at all times. And be very quiet. When angered, moose become man-eaters.” Another fact not mentioned in The Moose Book.

  Joseph Brant Lookalike dropped to his knees and began to creep. Yale Templeton dropped to his knees and began to creep, too. They breached the forest slowly and cautiously. Then suddenly, he saw it. A magnificent bull moose, and not fifteen metres away. Yale Templeton gave a start. The moose, on seeing Yale Templeton, gave a start, too, then snapped back as if yanked by some supernatural force. “A characteristic gesture of friendship,” Joseph Brant Lookalike noted, patting him on the shoulder. “He likes you.”

  The animal was a deep brown colour, almost black, over six-and-a-half feet high at the shoulders. Like the numerous moose whose photographs Yale Templeton had studied so closely in The Moose Book, it had an enormous head, broad muzzle, dewlap, pointed ears, thick neck, and short body, high at the shoulders and low in the quarters. Its massive, palmate antlers were almost five feet across. The external edge of the left antler had ten points, reaching out like tapered fingers; the right antler had eleven points. “Surely the moose can lay little claim to beauty,” Samuel Merrill had written in The Moose Book. But to Yale Templeton the moose was the most magnificent creature he had ever seen, a statement that, admittedly, would have carried more weight had he not spent his entire life in East Anglia and downtown Toronto.

  As he was reflecting on the drama of the moment, Joseph Brant Lookalike commented, “You know, our people have a legend about how the moose got its appearance. The great god Manitou created men and all the animals. He made the moose as tall as the tallest trees. Then he asked the moose, ‘What would you do if you saw a man coming?’ And the moose replied, ‘Why, I would tear down the trees on him.’ Then Manitou saw that the moose was too strong and made him smaller, so that man could kill him. The short body, humped back, and bulging nose of the moose are due to the awful squeeze he received when Manitou reduced him to his present size.” It was just the sort of anecdote that made history come alive for Yale Templeton. And he wondered if he might be able to work it into his next paper on the Civil War, maybe in a footnote.

  The two men stood there staring at the moose for perhaps twenty minutes, the moose staring back impassively. Then Joseph Brant Lookalike touched Yale Templeton on the shoulder and indicated it was time to leave. “Even mild-mannered moose are notoriously changeable in temperament,” he explained. “We don’t want to strain his patience.”

  The way back seemed much shorter than the journey out, a matter of mere minutes, in fact. “Time and direction have such an elusive quality in the North,” Yale Templeton sighed. When they reached the Campo de los Alces Motel, he pulled out his wallet, intending to pay Joseph Brant Lookalike the customary fee for his services.

  “No, no,” Joseph Brant Lookalike objected. “We will deal with that later. Tomorrow I will take you by canoe to the sacred Campo de los Peces. We will catch bass and pike, and I will prepare for you a traditional Ojibwa meal of fish and potatoes fried in a pail of lard.” But Yale Templeton politely declined, having had a pronounced distaste for fish ever since his days at the Robinson-Fallis Academy, where lunch every second Wednesday had been kippers.

  “Well then, birds,” said Joseph Brant Lookalike. “We’re in the last weeks of the migration now. Warblers, thrushes, penguins. I can take you to the sacred Campo de las Aves. We will bring some chicken, and I will prepare you a traditional Ojibwa meal of chicken and potatoes fried in a pail of lard.” But the birdwatchers Yale Templeton had occasionally encountered growing up in England were lower class and notoriously ill-mannered, or so his mother had cautioned him. Another reason why he had viewed school trips to Wicken Fen with alarm.

  They stood there for a moment in silence, Yale Templeton smiling amiably inside his balaclava. Joseph Brant Lookalike closed his eyes, placed his hands over his ears, and dropped his chin on his chest. His lips moved in some silent incantation. He continued in that way for several minutes. Finally he looked at Yale Templeton and spoke: “You are obviously a man of extraordinary honour, courage, and purity. Indeed, you have all the qualities of a great Ojibwa warrior. The spirits of my ancestors have instructed me to extend to you, at only slightly above the normal daily rate for my services, one of the greatest privileges known to my people. I am to take you to see the Great White Moose.”

  “The Great White Moose?” said Yale Templeton.

  “Yes, the most proud, the most fierce, yet also the most venerated creature in all the North.”

  “But I thought all moose were brown.”

  “All moose known to the white man, yes. You will be the first of your people to bear witness to the majesty of the Great White Moose.”

  Yale Templeton was rendered speechless. Which prompted Joseph Brant Lookalike to offer to throw in, at no additional cost, a dream catcher, and miniature birchbark canoe and teepee, all made by his niece’s youngest daughter at summer camp.

  The expedition would take place, he told Yale Templeton, “on the morning when the sun has risen on the wings of the raven. Or, as your people would put it, the day after tomorrow. That will allow me time to make the necessary ritual preparations.”

  “Oh, and be sure to wear your balaclava,” he added. “I don’t know how the Great White Moose will react to the sight of a white man.”

  IX

  A moose is easily tamed. If captured as a calf he shows little fear of man … But deer of all species, including the moose, are more dangerous when domesticated than when wild, for the fear of man, which is man’s safeguard in the woods, is then lost.

  SAMUEL MERRILL, THE MOOSE BOOK

  The man sat on a stool. He had never tried something like this before, painting a moose. There were so many difficult decisions to make. What sort of paint to use? Watercolour was out of the question. It might rain. But acrylic or oil-based? And what sort of finish? Gloss, semigloss, satin, flat? And how to apply it? With a roller, spray gun, or brush? A spray gun for the first coat, surely. But a brush would be needed to get at the more hidden places. And finally, what colour? There were so many different shades of white: Ivory White, Almond, Cream, Sand White, Pearl. The choices at the Canadian Tire outlet seemed endless. His first choice was Ice White; the name had such a chill, pure ring to it. But in the end he decided that Winter White was more appropriate. A Glidden Cold Weather Exterior Latex Flat Winter White, specially formulated for temperatures as low as forty degrees below zero Celsius and with a mildew-resistant coating.

  As he had anticipated, the moose barely reacted when he started to spray. Still, he felt a touch of relief. While he was applying the first coat, there were moments when he questioned his decision not to use a primer. But now, with just a little bit of brushwork left to do, he was pleased with the result. Nice and even. No patches. He had debated about whether to paint the antlers but in the end decided that, for aesthetic purposes, he should leave them their natural tan. They would provide a stark contrast to the ghostliness of the face.

  Indeed, everything had gone very well, better than he had expected. Until. Unaware of the tender sensibilities of moose—or at least of this particular moose—he reached between the animal’
s hind legs to finish the job. Suddenly, and without warning, the moose—the Great White Moose—gave a loud guttural r-r-r-a-a-ah (the very cry of distress described so precisely in The Moose Book) and kicked out its hind legs with all the savage force it could muster. It bucked and twisted furiously until it had yanked the tether out of the ground, crashed through the row of firs, surged out onto the ancient Ojibwa jogging trail looking frantically from left to right and back again, then tore off on its way to no predetermined destination. Face down on the ground, entirely still, Joseph Brant Lookalike would never have the opportunity to explain to the young children on the reserve why there would be no moose ride at this year’s Canada Day celebration.

  X

  Moose Steak in Chafing Dish—Take steak for three. Melt a piece of butter the size of an egg in a chafing dish. Put in the steak, and season it; when it is seared on the outside turn it over. Cook ten minutes, keeping the dish covered. Add a tablespoonful of port or sherry for each person, and a little currant jelly. Serve hot.

  SAMUEL MERRILL, THE MOOSE BOOK

  Each morning for a week Yale Templeton climbed into his mukluks, ski pants, parka, and balaclava and waited outside the Campo de los Alces Motel. But when it finally became apparent that the expected signal was not going to come, he packed his bags and took the bus back to Toronto. He was filled with disappointment. Nonetheless in that disappointment we may see the beginning of the grand new mission in his life.