Indian Horse (12 page)

My second winter in Manitouwadge, I took to rising early just as I did at St. Jerome’s, clearing the ice and then practicing until it was time to leave for school. I was almost fifteen. Virgil would join me on the ice when he had a later shift at the mine. I would practice escaping his clutches and holds and the snare of his stick as he leaned into me, using his size and girth to slow me down. He was fast for a big man. By that second winter I had almost reached my full height and size, five-foot-nine and one hundred and forty pounds. So I was still small. Virgil had showed me how to work with weights the summer before, and I was lean and wiry. Still, he outweighed me by almost seventy pounds.

“Don’t get caught along the boards. Use the ice. Use as much as they give you,” he’d say. “Use your speed to give yourself more.”

During our team practices Fred would sometimes send me out against three of the other players. They would chase me, hit me, grab me. Every time I touched the puck in those sessions, a body was there. Every time I turned, someone was right up against me. It took a lot of work to find my rhythm under this kind of pressure, but I did it. Those three-on-ones taught me to activate my vision as if it had a switch. When the bumping and the holding impeded me, I’d coast, let the game go, watch it flow around me, just breathing until the vision descended like a cloud of light again. I would see the ice, the players, the destination of the puck as clearly as if the action were on a movie screen. But I had to call my vision forward with emotion; with longing for that purity of motion, the freedom that the game gave me.

“You go somewhere when you’re on the ice,” Virgil said to me after one practice. “It’s like watching you walk into a secret place that no one else knows how to get to.”

28

We won ten
out of the fifteen tournaments we played that second year. We scored goals by the bucketful. Fred Kelly called us “a war party on skates.” He usually put me out on each of our three lines. That meant I played almost forty minutes of every game, but I never lost focus. None of the other players on the team complained. How could they? They would find themselves with the puck suddenly appearing on their stick out of nowhere. They learned to head for open ice at every opportunity. We became a team of skilled passers. Instead of letting the puck lead us around by the nose, as so many other teams did, the Moose began to go where the puck wasn’t, trusting that a teammate would send it there, and they would pick it up with another golden chance to score.

Father Leboutilier showed up at a game in Pic River that winter. It was late November, and we’d been playing for a month already. I didn’t notice him in the crowd, but when we clumped up the ramp to the shack he called to me from the side. I was surprised to see him. He looked different in his civilian clothes. Not like a priest at all. He smiled as if he knew what I was thinking. After I had changed I met him by the boards, and we walked together to his old battered car. We talked about the game and I settled into the remembered feeling of our friendship.

“You make the other players better, Saul,” he said.

“They make me work harder too.”

“That’s what I hoped when I sent you to the Kellys. That the game would lift you higher.”

“They treat me good.”

“The Kellys?”

“And the Moose. The people around the circuit. It feels great.”

We wound our way along the highway and back toward the community hall. “I hope I was able to help you when you were with us at the school,” he said.

“You did,” I said.

“I’m proud of you, Saul.” We were parked in the hall’s lot by then and he grabbed me and pulled me across the seat to hold me close. I could hear his breathing. When he let me go I could feel his eyes on me. “I don’t know when I will see you again.”

“I know,” I said.

“You’re free now, Saul. Free to let the game take you where it will.”

I got out without another word and stood in the snow and watched his old car disappear around the bend. His leaving was an ache that stayed with me for days. I would never see him again.

29

By February
of that year, the Northern winter was at its deepest. The Moose kept winning and news of our success travelled beyond the confines of the reservation circuit. We were playing at a tournament in Longlac when Virgil poked me in the ribs with his stick as we stood by the boards.

“White guys,” he said. They stood behind the chicken wire at the end of the rink, far away from the regular crowd. Six of them. They wore identical team jackets and they were big, but clearly nervous to be on the reserve.

“What are they doing here?” I asked.

“Gonna find out,” Virgil said.

After the game, I left the shack to find Virgil talking to them, his arms crossed over his chest. When he saw me he waved me over.

“These guys wanna play us,” he said. “Exhibition game. In Kapuskasing.”

“You play a hell of a game,” the tallest one said. “Your team’s too good for these other guys here.”

“We do okay,” I said.

“The thing is, we wonder if you can win at another level. Against us. We want to challenge you.”

Virgil hooked a thumb at me and the two of us moved off to the side,

They were from the Kapuskasing Chiefs, a Senior A team comprised of mill and mine workers. They played in the Northern Hockey Association against teams from Schreiber, Terrace, Geraldton, Marathon and Hearst. They were good—more than good—and the town of Kapuskasing was proud of them.

“One game,” Virgil said. “They were league champions last year. I figure, why not?”

“We never played in town before,” I said.

“Rink’s a rink.”

“Maybe,” I said, remembering White River.

“These Kapuskasing guys would give us a good game,” Virgil said

“We already play good games.”

“Yeah. We do. But these other teams aren’t exactly pushing us. Maybe we could be even better. There’s only one way to find out.”

We stared at each other. I could see the hunger in him. He wanted this game.

“We’ll pay your gas. Give you food money,” the tall player called over to us. “It’d be worth it to us.”

“Hear that, Saul? Can’t get a better deal than that.”

“I don’t want to play in town. I did that. It was no good.”

“You weren’t a Moose then.” Virgil looked at me hard. “If the other guys on the team want to do it, we’re going. That’s how it’s gonna be.”

They’d decided before we went on the ice for our next game. The idea of the challenge excited my teammates and nothing I said could curb their enthusiasm. All they could think about was an indoor arena with manufactured ice and a dressing room we wouldn’t need to share and showers and toilets. So the game was booked and we began to practice harder than ever before. Fred Kelly was determined to ice a competitive squad and he drove us to excel. We did the same passing drills over and over again. He worked us on clearing the puck from our own end, freeing it in the corner for faceoffs and using the sixty feet between blue lines to gather momentum and arrange ourselves for attack. The players changed. Our practices, usually marked by good-natured yelps and shouts, became solemn, with everyone bearing down. The silence was disturbing.

“We’re not the same team,” I said to Virgil one night.

“What’s the problem with that? We’re better.”

“It doesn’t feel better.”

“You’re just scared.”

“I’m not scared. I just want it back the way it used to be.”

“We’ve never had a chance to be great before.”

“We were great.”

“Against teams that couldn’t push us.”

“Great’s great.”

“Easy enough for you to say, Saul. But none of us have your gift. Think about us guys. Think about how much we’d like a shot at playing at a higher level. Think about that.”

So I did. In the end that was the only reason I decided to skate against Kapuskasing. I didn’t want the Moose to fail. I didn’t want them coming back defeated, bearing the memory of a battle they’d never had a chance to win. If there was anything that I could do to prevent that I would. I’d bring my best game. I would bring my entire focus. I’d bring every ounce of my will. My team needed me to play my best and that’s the only reason I decided to play that game.

30

The Kapuskasing arena
was new. The town had spent a lot of money on it and when we walked into the lobby the first thing we saw were glass cabinets along the walls filled with trophies and photographs. It was like a shrine to their home team. We stood there with our gear bags in our hands, studying the display. There were no awards in our bush league. The winners were celebrated with feasts and parties but there was no money for trophies. It was Virgil who finally broke off our reverie and led us to the dressing room.

“Shiny things,” he said. “You guys are like a bunch of crows.”

The dressing room was warm and well lit. Each player had a small cubicle and we all had room to sprawl out and stretch on the floor while we dressed. I could see the nerves working on the Moose. These were Indian boys. They may have been lumberjacks and mine workers when they weren’t playing the game, but concrete arenas and carpeted dressing rooms intimidated them. Fred Kelly hadn’t been able to make the trip. That unnerved them even more. Because of the Chiefs’ regular league schedule, the game could only be booked in mid-week and no one could pick up Fred’s shifts at the mine. We’d made the nearly three-hundred-mile trip in a strange, nervous quiet. Virgil did his best to assure the team that he had Fred’s game plan memorized, but my teammates were still anxious. None of them said a thing, and the quiet of our preparations was unnerving. We could hear the noisy crowd wending its way along the corridor and up into the seats. It sounded like a few thousand people. Their voices were shrill and excited. There was a knock at the door, and Virgil stumped over to answer it.

“Need your lineup card,” someone said.

“Our what?” Virgil asked.

“Your lineup card. For the refs and the announcer.”

“We don’t got one.”

“You need one.”

I took a few minutes to write our names and numbers on a card. When I handed it to the older man who stood waiting, the man looked at it and smiled. “You got some pretty weird names here,” he said. “Indian Horse. Black Wolf. Ear. You’re kidding, right?”

Virgil just looked at him steadily.

When we were ready, we stood up, waiting for someone to make the first move. “It’s just an exhibition game,” Virgil said. “It’s just another game so don’t make it bigger in your heads. Play it like you always do. Be Moose. Be Indians.”

He led us to the ice. The building was like a great cavern. Flags and pennants hung from the rafters. The bright lights gave the ice the look of cotton. The red and blue lines were stark against it. The goalposts glared from each end and behind them the sparkling glass reached tall above the boards. The seats stretched back to form a shallow bowl around the rink, and the place was packed. As soon as we pushed out onto the ice the crowd began to shout at us. People laughed when they saw me, and I could hear them heckle as I skated around to loosen up.

“Thirteen must be the mascot!”

“No, no. That’s papoose. Thirteen’s their papoose!”

“Hey, thirteen! You got a note from your mom to play?”

The announcer cut in to introduce our lineup. We’d never heard our names over a loudspeaker before, and our guys raised their heads to listen. The crowd reacted whenever he read out a particularly Indian-sounding name, shouting out jibes and taunts. When the Chiefs skated out onto the ice, the people in the stands rose and erupted in foot stomping, hand clapping, whistles and cheers. The Chiefs circled in their end. They skated really well in their flashy uniforms and gear. We went through our warm-ups and gathered on our bench to prepare.

“Just like we always do,” Virgil said. “If my dad was here, he’d be telling you the same thing. We just need to play our game. Our game. No matter what.”

I was astonished at the skill and precision of the Chiefs. They were awesome to watch. I’d never seen a team that good play in person. Everybody knew exactly where the others were at all times, and passes that seemed aimed for open ice were gobbled up by their players streaking into it. They seemed programmed to aim for our net and they worked the puck effortlessly back and forth. They potted four goals against us in the first eight minutes. I hung back and watched them as I usually did. The score was five to nothing before I got that feeling of space behind my eyes, the clarity I was so familiar with. I signalled to Virgil, who was taking a breather near the gate to our bench, and he nodded.

“Little Chief,” he yelled and pounded on the boards. On his next pass Stu Little Chief headed for the bench. When he was three feet away I hurtled over the boards and into the game.

As soon as my skates hit the ice I knew exactly what to do. I burst down the right side and followed the puck deep into their end. Their defenseman scooped the puck off the boards and cut behind their net. The rest of them banked like fighter planes. That’s what I was counting on. I could see that the Chiefs’ first pass would be a hard flat one to their other defender halfway to the blue line. From there it was supposed to go across ice behind our retreating forwards, to their left-winger, who would tap it directly into open ice. Their centre would pick it up at full speed and head up ice. But they never got that chance. I was out of the defenseman’s range of vision, and when he sent out the first pass I cut in off the wing, where I coasted. I was blazing when the cross-ice pass was made and I snared it at their blue line. I heard the defenders yelp and they both jumped up to counter. I turned hard on the outside edge of my blades, pulled the puck around on my backhand and cut straight across in front of them. Fast. They had to come together, and when they did I cut the other way and swept into clear ice near the far faceoff circle. They couldn’t catch me. I straightened up fifteen feet in front of the net, dipped my shoulders, wriggled my hips and changed direction three times before lifting the puck over the sprawled goalie. Five to one.