Slinger
On reading and then rereading the letter, Yale Templeton felt a chill. It was a chill of excitement, the excitement of knowing that he would soon have access to a most rare set of historical documents. It was a chill of anxiety, anxiety born of the fact that he had never completely erased from his memory the conversation between Curly and the cook at the diner in Hawk Junction. It was a chill of relief that he would now be able to acquire the evidence Felicia Butter worth wanted. And it was a chill of apprehension about what she would say or do when he confessed that the document he had given her some weeks earlier—the letter from Lincoln to John Hay—was in reality a forgery.
For her part, Bobbi Jo Jackson had a much less complicated reaction to the communication from Slinger. “Awesome!” she exclaimed. “When do we leave?”
He had not actually worked out that particular detail yet. He had classes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Even if Section 9, Paragraph 7 of the collective agreement had not mandated a reprimand for any professor who skipped a class “without just cause,” he still would have been disinclined to cancel a lecture. It was, as far as he was concerned, a question of duty. Not, as you might think, his duty to his students. Rather, his duty to the participants in the Civil War. How could he possibly leave out a single fact or statistic without committing an injustice against some or other of those soldiers and civilians whose lives had been tightly intertwined with his own for so many years?
“Not to worry,” said Bobbi Jo Jackson. “We’ll leave after your lecture Friday morning. It’s over at ten, right? I can have us in Hawk Junction by late afternoon. We’ll meet up with Slinger the next day, get the briefs, and be back home Sunday night. You won’t miss any classes.”
“I’m afraid to say,” Yale Templeton replied, “that is somewhat unrealistic. Slinger keeps the briefs in the cave where he lives, deep in the woods. As I recall, he told me that it would take perhaps a week to get there from Hawk Junction.”
She thought for a moment. “Then I tell you what. We’ll drive up Friday and see him Saturday. You can introduce us and then catch the bus back to Toronto. I’ll go with Slinger to the cave, get the briefs, and have them back here in a couple of weeks. No problem, really. I love canoe trips. He travels by canoe, right? I don’t know whether I ever told you about it, but the CIA sent me on a whitewater rafting course down in Costa Rica one winter. It was really cool, especially after the volcano erupted.”
So it was settled. They would leave following his lecture Friday morning. But first, Yale Templeton decided, there was something he would have to do. Something he would keep secret from Bobbi Jo Jackson. That something was this: He would write a note to Felicia Butterworth explaining that the document he had given her a few weeks earlier had been a forgery. He wanted to apologize for that, the note would say. The truth was, her insistence that he turn over the evidence he had uncovered about Lincoln—turn it over without delay—had led him to an act of desperation. But now he had the means to rectify his misdeed. The individual who had the legal records proving that Lincoln had faked his assassination and moved to Canada had contacted him by mail. “I will be leaving immediately after my lecture on Friday to meet with him.” He added as a postscript that Felicia Butterworth need not worry: He was cognizant of his teaching obligations under the collective agreement and would not miss any of his scheduled classes.
All that remained for him was to deliver the note. He was disinclined to give it to her directly. That, after all, was the reason for putting his thoughts into writing, so that he could avoid dealing with her in person. The best thing, he reasoned, would be to leave the note on her desk, just as he had left the forgery on her desk. And he would not do it until late Thursday. That way, by the time she got around to reading the note, he would be in the middle of his Friday lecture, or maybe, if luck was on his side, already on his way north.
Thursday night he followed the same circuitous route through the darker corners of the campus to the back of Graves Hall that he and Bobbi Jo Jackson had taken several weeks earlier. He accessed the building through a basement window with a crowbar, and used the set of CIA-issue keys to open the door to Felicia Butterworth’s office. (“I need your keys to get into the History department,” he had told Bobbi Jo Jackson. “I accidentally locked my own keys in a carrel at the library.”) Once inside, he lay the envelope containing the note—it had “for President Butterworth” and “CONFIDENTIAL!” printed neatly across the front—gently on top of the stack of papers on her desk. Then he slipped away into the night. He fairly flew all the way home, he was so elated. It was not just that he had unburdened himself of his deep feelings of guilt over participating in the forging of a historical document. There was the thrill of knowing that he had planned and carried out a guerrilla operation, and entirely on his own. “I was just like one of Quantrill’s raiders,” he said proudly to Bobbi Jo Jackson when he arrived home and confessed what he had done. She smiled the kind of smile that could temporarily make him forget about the proper punctuation for footnotes.
LXVI
The shriek carried along the corridors of Graves Hall, all the way down into the basement, and up to the roof. Deans, vice-presidents, the registrar, administrative staff, everyone went running for cover. Only the Dean Responsible for Relations with the Mafia remained calm. He walked directly to the room where the shriek had originated, the Office of the President and CEO.
Felicia Butterworth was slumped in her chair, staring at a piece of paper. Her face was ghostly, reminiscent of the ghostliness of the Great White Moose at the moment of his resurrection. Or perhaps, to make an arguably more appropriate comparison (since, like Elizabeth I, she had flaming red hair), reminiscent of the chalky whiteness Elizabeth used to apply to her face to reveal her inner purity. Not that the whiteness of Felicia Butterworth’s face betokened purity, inner or otherwise. It was a product of fright, the kind of fright that the Dean Responsible for Relations with the Mafia had never previously seen on her face through all their years together.
She held the piece of paper out to him. It was, as you probably have guessed, the note that Yale Templeton had left for her.
The dean read the note and shook his head. “So the letter was a forgery,” was his only comment.
“A forgery,” Felicia Butterworth repeated, her voice now drained of all emotion. “I’m a dead man.”
They stood there, the two of them, staring at the note without exchanging a word. There was nothing to be said, really. The situation in which she now found herself was painfully apparent to both of them: A powerful mafia don had ordered her to get the evidence Yale Templeton had uncovered about Abraham Lincoln. Furthermore, the Don apparently had close ties with the White House. And what had she given him? (Or, perhaps, given them, the Don and the President both.) Why, a forgery! A piece of sheer historical fabrication! How long would it be before the Don … before the President! … discovered the truth?
It was the dean who broke the silence. “This may not be the catastrophe it appears to be,” he said, making an effort to sound reassuring.
She did not respond, just exhaled deeply, blowing out her cheeks.
“Well,” he continued, “it’s been some time now since the Don sent his godsons to collect the letter, right?”
“Yes, more than a month.”
“And you haven’t heard anything from Chicago to suggest there’s a problem?”
“I haven’t heard anything at all.”
“Okay, then let’s assume the Don doesn’t know the letter is forged.”
She shrugged.
“That means we have time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to get our hands on the real evidence. Look, Templeton says …” He handed the note back to her. “He says he’s going to meet with the man who has the records we need. ‘Legal records,’ he says. He’ll be meeting with him today, it sounds like. If we get possession of the records, you may be able to convince the Don to forget about the pho
ny letter. Hell, if we’re lucky, the letter says pretty much the same thing as the legal records. In that case the Don may never even realize the letter is phony.”
The colour began to return to her face. “So you’re saying I should tell Templeton, ‘You get me the real evidence this time or else!!’” And she picked up two bags of Doritos and slammed them together, resorting to her favourite method of showing that she meant business.
“No! No! No threats! That’s why he gave you the forgery. He panicked.” She sagged. “So what do you suggest?”
“I say we follow him.”
“Follow him?”
“After his lecture. We follow him to the meeting. Then we deal directly with his contact. Hey, we can offer a lot more for the records than Templeton can. Or if necessary”—and here he took the brass knuckles out of his pocket and polished them against his sleeve—“we use a less negotiable form of persuasion.”
Felicia Butterworth smiled. “As usual, Bugsy, your advice is impeccable. I knew there was a reason I keep you around.”
The dean averted his eyes in embarrassment. “What we need to know,” he said, still looking away, “is when Templeton gives his lecture.”
Felicia Butterworth hit the intercom. “Dolores,” she called. But her secretary was nowhere to be found. Or rather, she was to be found in a broom closet, where she was still in hiding. So the Dean Responsible for Relations with the Mafia went into her office and located the course calendar himself. As it turned out, all lectures for History 393, The American Civil War, were between nine and ten in the morning.
“What time is it now?” asked Felicia Butterworth, starting to turn pale again.
The dean looked at his watch. “Exactly 9:48,” he replied.
“Then we may already be too late,” she said, pushing past him.
“I doubt it,” the dean replied coolly. “Templeton lectures right next door and I’m parked out front.”
LXVII
The dean’s watch must have been running slow because by the time they got outside, students were already filing out of the Lyceum. Or perhaps, excited by the prospect of seeing the legal briefs, Yale Templeton had rushed through his lecture. Then again it was not uncommon for students to leave his classes early. In any case, Felicia Butterworth and the dean concealed themselves in the shadows of Graves Hall to watch and wait.
It was just after ten when he emerged. But then he did something that they could hardly have anticipated. He got into a waiting car, a black Toyota Corolla driven by a blonde in sunglasses (who reminded the dean of Marilyn Monroe, only better looking). “Hurry!” the dean shouted to Felicia Butterworth, and he raced across Regency Circle toward his El Dorado. Just then, however, a silver Mercedes convertible swung wildly out from behind the Lyceum, slammed into the dean, sending him cartwheeling across the pavement, and raced off in what appeared to be pursuit of the Toyota. Witnesses would testify that the driver was cleverly disguised as a faceless bureaucrat. Next to him was a very handsome if somewhat masculine-looking woman who had been a touch heavy-handed with her makeup. She was wearing a chic, perfectly tailored purple cocktail dress and had a pink boa around her neck, which flapped seductively in the wind.
Felicia Butterworth ran over to the dean and knelt down beside him. His legs were pointing in four directions and his eyes had glazed over. Groans struggled up from somewhere deep in his chest. She snatched the keys out of his hand and flew toward the El Dorado. She grabbed the first student she saw and cried, “Can you drive this thing?!” The benumbed student nodded mechanically. She shoved him behind the steering wheel, then flung herself across him headfirst into the passenger seat. “Follow those cars!” she screamed. And as he turned the key in the ignition, Joel fell hopelessly, unreservedly, abjectly in love.
LXVIII
Like all mammals, moose are fond of salt.
SAMUEL MERRILL, THE MOOSE BOOK
But now we must turn our attention from the three cars careening through the streets of Toronto and step back into history. Just about a week back, mind you. By the sort of extraordinary coincidence that usually happens only in third-rate novels, the Great White Moose arrived at the cave of Slinger the Trapper just minutes after Slinger had set off on that fateful trip to Hawk Junction where he would learn that Yale Templeton had been appointed the Abraham Lincoln Distinguished Professor of the American Civil War.
It is Manifest Destiny that has brought the Great White Moose to this secluded corner of the Canadian wilderness. Of course, whether or not his destiny was in fact “manifest” to the moose himself might be open to debate. Who among us can claim true insight into the trajectory of his or her own life? So often what seems manifest (to the individual, to a generation, to a nation, to an age) is shown, with the passage of time, to have been mere delusion. That, I would respectfully submit, is why historians have always been a necessity. To expose the fantasies of the past. Not that Yale Templeton thought himself in the business of exposing fantasies. Nor, perhaps, do I mean to suggest that we should consider his existence a “necessity.” But even the incremental compiling of seemingly trivial bits of information (with properly annotated footnotes) has its value. Or so, at least, goes the theory.
In any event, that the Great White Moose has arrived at the cave of Slinger the Trapper is a fact beyond dispute, whatever meaning the Great White Moose himself may attribute to it. He seems curiously undisturbed by evidence of recent human activity: water dripping off the charred logs of an extinguished campfire; the smell of roasted duck. Still, he is suitably cautious. He hesitates at the opening in the rock face and peers inside. The cave extends some distance back but is neither wide nor high. The single kerosene lamp Slinger keeps on hand is unlit, and so everything is shrouded in darkness. Just as well, because the trappings of the cave are hardly of a sort to encourage feelings of security in the moose or, indeed, any woodland creature. On the ground lies a large black bearskin, faded and torn from years of use as a rug. One wall of the cave is festooned with animal pelts—beaver mostly, but also deer and rabbits. No moosehides, though. Not currently. And no antlers, either. A small consolation for the Great White Moose, perhaps. But on a second wall, directly opposite, metal traps of different sizes and shapes are arrayed. Most are mottled with dried blood. So are the winter coat and snowshoes hanging on pegs nearby.
Slinger had chiselled four pine shelves into the granite at the far end of the cave. Here he kept a variety of canned goods for those days when he was disinclined or unable to go in search of fresh game. The truth is, as he admitted reluctantly to himself, he no longer had the energy or the enthusiasm for those extended hunting trips that had dominated his earlier years. As he did not admit to himself, he had also developed a taste for Chef Boyardee products, in particular Beefaroni, which he liberally spiced with garlic powder, Tabasco, and Worcestershire sauce. On the top shelf he kept several jars of Strub’s kosher dill pickles. Old dills, not the newer ones, which he complained lacked bite. He had the cook at the diner in Hawk Junction order them in specially for him from Pancer’s Delicatessen in Toronto.
The only items of furniture in the cave were a table and chair, which he had crafted out of cedar. He of course took most of his cooking utensils with him on his journeys, but near the table sat a large, empty pot. Next to the pot was a barrel filled with water. However, his principal source of liquid sustenance was (as you might have guessed) whiskey, many bottles of which—some filled, more than a few half-consumed—could be found in two cases pushed up against the wall where the pelts were hanging. (The remaining cases he stored in a root cellar outside.) There were empties as well, most lying on their sides close to the pile of twigs, maple leaves, and moss that served as his bed on those winter nights when storms raged and it was too dangerous to sleep outside.
I said there were only two items of furniture, the table and chair. That actually is a bit misleading. There was, of course, a cedar chest, more than fifty years old. It sat at the back of the cave, just below the shelves
. There was a lock on the chest, although if the Great White Moose had been able to see in the dark and somehow overcome his colour-blindness, he would have noticed that it was thickly encrusted with rust.
“The moose’s superiority in his sense of smell and hearing,” Samuel Merrill writes, “much more than offsets his deficiency of vision.” There were no sounds, so the Great White Moose effectively had to rely on his nose to navigate the cave. One smell overwhelmed all others: the bouquet of whiskey, which the moose found … well … intoxicating. But eventually (even as he was growing somewhat light-headed) he detected a faint fragrance of moss. And to quote Samuel Merrill yet again, “moss and lichen too are on his menu.” The moose started toward what he assumed would be a delightful lunch. Who knows, perhaps at that moment he began to suspect that his Manifest Destiny was nothing more than to enjoy a carefully harvested and arranged helping of moss. However, as he moved forward, he stepped on one of the empty bottles of whiskey. The glass shattered, and while he suffered no injury, the noise startled him. Jumping backward, he bumped into the wall where the traps were suspended, knocking several loose. The largest one, when it hit the ground, snapped violently shut, sending a jagged reverberation bouncing back and forth off the walls and ceiling.
Unnerved, the Great White Moose started to shamble toward the faint light at the entrance to the cave. However, he caught a hoof on the large pot, lost his balance, and collapsed onto the chair and table. He jerked himself up and bolted forward, but stumbled into the barrel of water. Swivelling sideways now, he stumbled again, landing heavily on the cases of whiskey. This time the shattering glass left him with cuts and scratches.
You might expect that here he would surrender to panic. But, drawing on the internal resources he had somehow developed over the previous few months, he collected himself and, like a Civil War general who has discovered his adversary holds an impregnable position, prudently halted his advance. The farthest recesses of the cave offered the best hope for safety—or so it seemed to the Great White Moose at the time—and he started a strategic retreat. He had to rely largely on instinct now. Still, he managed to reach the very back of the cave without further misadventure. Or I should say, almost reach the very back of the cave. His last step turned out to be an unfortunate one, since his hoof came crashing down through the top of the cedar chest. As he struggled to free himself, the rusted lock tore loose, and the old wood split apart, laying bare the priceless legal records that the chest had sheltered for more than half a century.
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