Memoir
One Eternal Summer
An Officer Meets More than a Gentleman by Graeme Hunter
In linden-time the heart is high
For pride of summer passing by
—Swinburne
The finest job I ever had, probably the most delightful any fifteen-year-old was ever permitted to enjoy, was that of Officer of Her Majesty's (Victoria's, that is) Cavalry at Fort Kawandag, which was in the District of Parry Sound beside Muskoka Township in Ontario. Kawandag was the name of a magnificent lakeside estate which, like Glen Rocks, had at one time belonged to the Eaton family. Located near the head of Lake Rosseau, on the south side of the Village of Rosseau, Kawandag had formerly consisted of an elegant house with tasteful outbuildings and facilities in a matchless natural setting of many acres. Placed among the trees so as to be invisible from the house were clay tennis courts (once reputed to be among the best in the country) and stylish stables. The house itself was a structure of pink stone, full of large bright rooms with rich wooden trim, its two floors linked by carved wooden staircases. The many-windowed conservatory on the north side of the building opened to the west through multiple French doors onto an outdoor marble stairway sweeping grandly down to lakeshore gardens.
I have never seen a place where I would rather have lived. But when the Eatons moved on, the property was sold and resold, ultimately coming into the hands of men who saw in its graceful house and property the makings of a stately resort, in keeping with Muskoka's elegant tradition. And yet, for reasons no one ever understood, one after another of their enterprises failed.
East's Innovation
They went on failing until an experienced resort owner, Maurice East, bought the property with a new idea in mind. His innovation was to make the estate serve a dual purpose. The house would provide rooms for paying guests from the carriage trade, while doubling as the gubernatorial residence in a fantasy world aimed at the common tourist. In its first summer of operation, the rejuvenated Kawandag was definitely on the map. East created the necessary atmosphere without much expense, I think, but with lots of pizzazz.
For the most part, he simply used the outbuildings that were available. His principal innovation was to build upon a vacant piece of the property a primitive stockade, which would be called "Fort Kawandag." It reflected the building style of an imaginary age when a smallish fenced enclosure, with no place for stores, no barracks, and no stables, would house a garrison. The fort was, however, well equipped with interior walkways near the top of the ramparts, from which vantage point children could look between the conically pointed stakes and over them.
For the price of admission, six days a week, these children could participate as actor-spectators in a gripping pageant that absorbed them in its unfolding drama. Once admitted, they became settlers from the territory gathered in the fort that day to witness the signing of an important treaty with the Indians. The high point came when the fort was suddenly attacked by renegade Indians and the children, clutching their standard-issue popgun rifles, mounted to the rampart walkways to help repel the attack. The attack came punctually each afternoon at 4:30 p.m. and was successfully repelled by 5:15, in order that the heroes of the campaign could be reunited with their parents and home in time for dinner.
The Pageant
The routine was simple enough. At about 3:30, a flock of paying tourists with children in tow gathered at the lakeshore to see the friendly Indians arrive in their war canoe. As they tied up at the dock, the Governor would leave his mansion and descend the marble steps to the lakeshore to meet them. Once the Indians were safely landed and ceremoniously received, the Chief and the Governor would lead a colourful procession of infantry and Indians (followed by tourists and children) up to the fort, where the solemn peace-pipe ceremony would take place, its pomp enhanced by the cavalry guard, of which I was a member, looking on.
Just as that ceremony was successfully concluded, however, soul-harrowing war-whoops would be heard from renegade Indians outside the walls. There would be a general call to arms, and all the children, now cast as young settlers, would hasten to the ramparts brandishing the popguns newly issued to them from the armoury. In the confusion caused by getting one hundred or more little warriors into position, the friendly Indians disappeared through a door in the side of the wall nearest the woods, soon to return on horseback as Indian braves on the warpath. It was probably my first exposure to dramatic economy, the only kind of economy I have ever properly understood.
That was also the point in the drama where I came in. The gates would swing open and I and a half-dozen other cavalry officers would ride out with drawn swords into battle. Round and round the walls we would go, hacking at the Redskins until, at the height of the battle, one of them leapt off his horse onto the back of mine. Now the two of us circled the fort locked in deadly combat whose every vicissitude was greeted with shouts and gasps from the entranced young settlers. Our battle continued until the Brave could catch his own riderless horse again and jump back on.
That happy resolution to the combat was sometimes delayed when the horse wandered off to graze in a nearby clearing, or when the Indian in question was too drunk to remember what he was supposed to do. When finally he had been literally "gotten off my back," however, the Indians would surrender and new peace ceremonies would be concluded. These accomplished, the fearless cavalry, Indians, and foot soldiers would stand around for tourist pictures before leading their horses away to the stables.
Pleasant Terms
The terms of my employment were simple. Mr. East told me on the first day, "Look after your horse well and be dressed and ready for showtime by 4. If you do that, nothing more will be asked of you." I liked the terms and never missed a day. To care for a horse hardly seemed like work, and the hours of free riding time over many scenic acres were blessings that were new every morning. I also enjoyed doing the show and the adulation it brought me afterward from little children. The summer seemed to be without horizon: I saw myself forever in my bright red uniform, like a horseman of the apocalypse, and riding as to war.
1966 was only the second year of operation of Fort Kawandag after its tremendously successful opening in 1965. None of us foresaw its folding at the end of that summer. The jinx of Kawandag visited itself even on the clever Maurice East. The weather was bad (we even had snow one day in July); tastes were fickle; we were no longer news. Explain it as you will, time that tires of everyone discarded Fort Kawandag, and it vanished away. But time was unable to erase that summer from my memory or to make what occurred there insignificant.
The white boys, who constituted the army and cavalry, lived together in an old wooden outbuilding that had once housed the servants on the original Eaton estate. The Indians roomed above the stables. There was little friendly association between the races except at showtime and meals. We ate together at a couple of big tables in the dining hall next to the stable. Though most of us white boys were 15–17 years old, the average age of the Indians was probably nearer 30. They were tough. Many of them were alcoholics, and they kept to themselves.
Tex
One Indian in particular was a figure of fascination to all of us. He gave his name as Jim Johnson, though we all called him "Tex." He stood about 5'10" and probably weighed about 160 pounds. His expressionless, cigar-store Indian face was deeply lined, making him look older than the 37 years attributed to him by the grapevine.
There were several reasons to respect him. He was head of the stables. No horses went out or in without his permission. And he knew everything about them. I never saw a problem arise concerning horses that he was unable to solve. He also kept the fastest, most ornery, and skittish horse for himself, and he rode it well, even on the frequent occasions when he was drunk.
But the chief reason to respect him was his reputation as a fighter. Two stories were told to illustrate his prowess. The first simply stated that he had nearly killed a man with whom he had fought. The second told how a large and powerful man had thrown Tex into the air and how, before landing again, Tex had reduced him to a prone and
bloody pulp.
I myself witnessed him airborne and can vouch for his catlike coordination. I was the only one of the white boys who succeeded in befriending Tex a little, and one morning he invited me to come along with him on his morning ride. As we got to a straight part of the path, we let our horses go at a gallop, and at one point I cut in just before him. My horse, a grumpy mare, kicked out at his as she cut in, knocking Tex's horse off balance. When I felt her kick, I jerked back in the saddle to see what would happen, dreading the wrath of Tex.
In mid-gallop, his horse's forelegs buckled, sliding forward toward what looked to be an inevitable and probably injurious crash. But Tex intervened. In one fluid motion he slipped the reins above the galloping horse's head and glided from the saddle, landing on his feet as easily as if his mount had been standing still. Holding the reins above the stumbling horse's head, and gently supporting it, he enabled it to recover its balance. "Don't cut me off again," was his only comment as he floated back up into the saddle and we continued our ride.
Another telltale sign about Tex was the way he walked. He gave every sign of superb coordination and power. As he did the chores around the stable, sweeping, mucking out, rubbing down horses, the stringy muscles played in tune over his lithe frame in ways that discouraged anyone who saw him from taking him lightly.
Incident at the Truck Stop
I also witnessed one striking example of the awe in which Tex was held by local people. One night I caught up with him walking into Rosseau. It was payday and we were both going to blow a little at the only restaurant in town. Not being on a significant highway, the Lakeside Restaurant was not a truck stop, but truckers who were passing through nevertheless were likely to stop there, often leaving their big rigs idling outside while they had dinner and coffee. Truck drivers in those days still had a reputation as mean characters. Driving rigs with standard steering and unloading vans without pneumatic assistance either solicited or created men of bear-like strength and rock-like -endurance. And they often had personalities to match. Such a one was the sole customer in the Lakeside Restaurant when we came in.
We arrived too late to see what the driver was angry about, but he was shouting at the waitress from his table. She must have been frightened. Customers were few in the evening. No one would have heard if she had been noisily murdered, and there were no police for fifty miles. Her harasser was a man of over six feet, probably 250 pounds, coarse-looking and coarser-sounding. I was glad to be with Tex, who took the scene in as soon as he opened the door. I wondered what he would do, if anything.
He was not long in answering my unvoiced question, and I had to admire his direct way of mediating disputes. Before he was halfway to the take-out counter, he called over to the belligerent driver: "You there. Shut up!" and he turned his expressionless face toward him. The driver looked up first in astonishment, then in recognition. "Sorry, Tex," was the only reply he made. Tex got his takeout order and left the Lakeside Restaurant silent as a tomb. I stayed, eating my sundae, but the truck driver no longer seemed in the mood for talking.
The Bully
In his personal life, Tex was quiet. He did not try to impress the other Indians or the whites, as long as it was clear that he was boss. This left a wide field of discretion open to other power-seekers. Of course, among adolescents and uneducated Indians, there is never a shortage of them. One of the white boys was able to fill most of the vacuum on our side.
Cliff Hake was older than most of us—I think he was 17 or 18—and a body-builder. His type of meaty, chiselled body was not as common then as now. Most of us had only seen its like on the backs of comic books, in advertisements for the Charles Atlas muscle-building course or Joe Weider weights. And the rest of us white boys looked more like the "Before" picture in those ads, hapless scrawny kids, perpetually having sand kicked in their faces and losing their girlfriends to slabular beach bums.
Cliff had worked hard to look intimidating and had succeeded. He was also learning to drink at this stage of his life and was particularly frightening when he'd had too much. A born bully, he enjoyed tyrannizing the rest of us and measured himself by the fear he could inspire.
His particular delight was to torment a young French Canadian boy named Joseph Leroux. Joe was 15, underdeveloped, and with limited English, but he got along with the rest of us pretty well. He was my roommate, but he was too timid to speak French with me, except late at night when no one else would hear. And my French was so bad, and my eagerness to speak it so weirdly intense, almost erotic, that he could never stand it for long even
then.
Mum and Dad's cottage was just a couple of miles from Kawandag, and I would often go home for Sunday dinner, sometimes staying overnight. On one such Sunday when I was away from Kawandag, Cliff got very drunk and herded all the other boys in the residence together. He had bullying on his mind. He experimented with different ways of humiliating the boys until his sodden brain lit on a special plan for Joe. Cliff forced him to go out to the stable, collect bags of manure and put them in his bed. Then he had to strip naked in front of them all and lie in it. The rest of the boys were forced to watch. No one could leave. They were sick at heart, but no one crossed the mighty Cliff.
I wasn't there or I am pretty certain I would have been among the silent lookers-on. But I heard all about it early Monday morning when I got back to Kawandag. Eventually Cliff had grown tired of the fun, or, more likely, had passed out from his drinking. Joseph had been inconsolable. So the rest of the lads, not knowing what to do, had simply gone to bed, full of bitter feelings about Cliff and about themselves, nursing wounds that sleep would not cure.
After hearing the story I went to look for Joseph and was alarmed at not finding him. I was hoping that because I hadn't seen his humiliation I might be able to cheer him up a bit. But no one knew where he had gone.
A Tense Confrontation
Desperation can give even the meekest lad courage. After Cliff finally left him, Joseph had cleaned himself up and done the unheard-of. He went over to the stable in the middle of the night, rousing Tex out of his own drunken slumber, to lay the whole evening's misery tearfully before him.
I would sooner have pelted Cliff with horse manure than have roused Tex, but Joseph survived it. Probably the tears helped. I don't know what Tex said to him, but Joseph just kept out of sight until lunchtime. At noon, I was relieved to see him at his usual place at the refectory table, giving no sign of what had transpired. Cliff was there, too, looking little the worse for his hangover, and hanging very tough, with an I-dare-you-to-mention-yesterday look that kept most heads facing some other way.
The Indians were present, mainly at their own table, talking among themselves as usual. When everyone had been served and was seated, Tex slowly got up from his place and walked over to stand beside Cliff. As usual, his brown face looked as if it were carved out of wood. He appeared unhurried, unruffled, but also unstoppable. He stood perhaps for fifteen or twenty seconds beside Cliff's chair saying nothing. It could have been as many minutes or hours. The tension was excruciating, and everyone but Tex seemed caught up in it. Cliff was concentrating on not losing face, but somehow he didn't quite have the nerve to turn and look at Tex. So he just kept eating, staring at his plate, finding much to think about in mashed potatoes.
Finally Tex spoke: "I heard what you did to Joseph." Tex's voice was its usual guttural rumble. "Yeah," Cliff -answered, not looking up, and putting on a strange expression of desperate nonchalance. Already a victory for Tex, we thought, but will he have the nerve to continue? How little we understood him at the time.
"If I hear of anything like that again, I'll kill you," Tex rumbled a second time. Cliff's heavy muscular frame grew tense. Tex looked like a matchstick up beside him, though a sinuous one. And there was that impassive wooden face and gravelly voice. Tense silence waited for Cliff's reply. When it came, however, it was inaudible. I thought he said, "We'll see about that"; others said it was "What about that?" But whatever it was, Tex didn't like it. "Get up," he said. "Go outside. I'm going to kill you right here."
Another eternity seemed to pass, and then the tension faded from Cliff's body as the colour drained from his face. "I'm sorry, Tex," he blubbered. "I won't do it again."
"Get up," Tex repeated. More blubbering from Cliff. I doubted that Cliff's muscular legs would have supported him even if he had wanted to get up. I was fairly sure of that, because I doubted that mine would have either, even though neither party had so much as looked at me. It was as if Tex had absorbed the strength of the whole room, so much power seemed to radiate from his whip-like body. And yet he was the only one who didn't seem disappointed when no fight came. He sat down again, finished his lunch and went back to the stable. Cliff, as soon as his legs were working again, slunk away.
Later that afternoon, by his account, he fell and received an injury that caused him to limp badly. It was a freakish accident and very slow to heal. The old wound would flare up in the presence of anyone who had witnessed his interview with Tex, and it would become completely crippling when Tex himself was present. The only respite granted him seemed to be during periods when he thought himself alone. Cliff limped along this way until the end of the summer and bullied no one.
A Picture of Justice
That summer faded in the ordinary meaning of the term. Kawandag closed—forever, as it turned out. The Indians returned to the reserve, and I went back to school. But something also remained for which that summer's pleasant routines, its rhythms and wild surprises, among the treasures of my adolescence, were only a frame. Like a frame, they exist in my memory mainly to set off the picture at the center: Tex rampant; Cliff recumbent.
I have often thought about that story in the fifty years since it occurred, and about the stereotypical terms in which I feel I ought to tell it. Would any judicious hearer not find my story more full of cowboy cliché than authentic experience?
I have reconciled myself to that criticism, however. Those were probably the only categories available to my boyish mind by which to understand the few suspenseful seconds at the heart of the event. Nor does admitting that in any way diminish what I saw, at least not in my eyes. For it was no mere triumph of wills, not a clash of race with race, not the victory of an underdog. It was Justice we saw, her eternal light briefly illuminating Tex's stony features and Cliff's ineffectual strength.
Epilogue
More than ten years later I heard that Tex was working as head lad at the stable of Maurice East's Muskoka Sands Inn in Gravenhurst. Passing through town that autumn,
I went out to the stable to look him up. As I walked into the cool building, I was thrown back a decade by the earthy smell of hay and horse and manure, and looked down the corridor between the rows of stalls to the stable's end. No one seemed to be about. I saw only what appeared to be a pile of rags at the far end.
On walking down, however, I found that it was Tex. He was sleeping on the bare floor, smaller, thinner, and drunker than I had ever seen him before. Thinking I was a customer, he roused himself a little, but he did not seem to recognize me, or to remember Kawandag when I tried to talk to him about it. I gave up after a minute or two and let him go back to sleep.
In the summer of 1999 I passed through Gravenhurst again with my son Glenn. There were no horses in the stable then; the stalls were gone and the building was being used for storage. My son and I walked in just as I had done twenty years earlier, and again, strangely, at the far end, I spied a pile of rags. Closer inspection this time, however, would not resolve them into a man. I walked down to where they lay and kicked them aside. They were just rags. Tex was gone.
Graeme Hunter is a contributing editor to Touchstone and Research Professor of Philosophy at Dominican University College in Ottawa. He is the author of Radical Protestantism in Spinoza's Thought (Ashgate).
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