Canada Moose's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Canada Moose walked downstream with the wet pack swinging from his antler. He kept to the bank where the stones were flat. He felt smaller than when he had come up the river. He had pictured a fight and gotten a snort and a turned back. He did not know yet that two pairs of eyes had watched the whole thing from a thicket on the near side of the creek. The cougar had been crouched low behind a fallen birch. The porcupine had been wedged under a root three feet to her left. They had followed him since the blueberry bush, certain he was about to die. Instead they had seen the grizzly lift its head, look at the moose across the water, and walk away. To them it did not look like a snort. It looked like a bear that had measured a moose and decided not to risk it. The porcupine's quills had clattered when he tried to whisper. The cougar had hissed him quiet. Where the grizzly had stood, a thick clump of brown fur had caught on a low branch, torn loose when the bear pushed through the brush. The cougar padded over after Canada Moose was gone and sniffed it. The porcupine waddled up behind her. The fur was proof. A bear did not leave fur behind unless it was moving fast, and the bear had not been moving fast until it saw the moose. Canada Moose came up out of the river trail and onto the worn path that cut past an old painted bench at the edge of the clearing. He sat down hard. The bench creaked. He let the pack slide off his antler into the dirt. Mud from the river had dried in two long streaks down his shoulder, and the strap had pressed a print into the wet fabric of his jacket — two shapes, side by side, dark and clear, where the buckle and the torn flap had stamped him. He did not notice. He was thinking about going home. The porcupine reached the bench first, coming from the other side of the clearing. He climbed up onto the seat without asking and sat beside Canada Moose. The cougar came after, slower, and lay down in the grass at the moose's hooves. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then the porcupine said, "We saw it. The bear backed off. The bear backed off from you." The cougar lifted her chin once in agreement. Canada Moose stared at them. He opened his mouth to correct them and closed it. They had seen something. They believed what they had seen. He looked down at the dark twin print on his jacket and did not understand it yet, but he understood the porcupine's face, and the cougar's steady eyes. For the first time since the oak tree, an animal was looking at him like he was bigger than himself. He kept quiet. He let them keep what they thought they knew.