Indian Horse (21 page)

“You look good.”

“You wanna kiss me now or later?”

He snorted. “Think I’d as soon kiss the north end of a southbound moose.”

“I was a Moose once.”

He spun on his skates and leaned on the boards to look at me. He was stern when he spoke. “That seems like a long fuckin’ time ago right now. I wanted to punch your lights out for leaving.”

“Still want to do that?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Depends on what you have to say for yourself. You want to get a beer and talk it out?”

“I don’t drink. Not anymore. Used to. Didn’t really work for me.”

He nodded. “All right. I’m gonna get these guys into the dressing room and talk a little strategy. Why don’t you wait for me outside? Ten minutes, tops.”

“Okay,” I said. I watched him bring the practice to a close and when he followed the players off the ice and into the walkway under the stands, he looked at me.

“Don’t disappear again,” he said.

“I won’t. I’m there. Ten minutes, tops.”

55

We settled for
sitting in the stands while the rink man cleaned the ice. There was a long silence and I struggled to find words to break it. Virgil sat with his hands cupped in front of his face, staring straight ahead. I understood then how hard years are to get a hold of, how elusive the life in them can be to capture and retell. I understood then too that time does not heal all wounds. I wanted to say it all in one brilliantly executed sentence, encompass all of it in a succinct, effortless rush. But I couldn’t. I was at a loss where to begin. In the end, he did it for me.

“You’re one of those kids, aren’t you? One of the ones the schools fucked up. My dad told me some of what he went through. When they said they wanted to bring you out of there, I guess I kinda knew why, even then. Knew it wasn’t all about the game.”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “Not for a long time. Not until just this past year.”

“Jesus.”

“Don’t think he had anything to do with it, really.”

He turned in his seat. “I know. I’m sorry. Crap choice of words.”

He stared down at the ice while I told him about Father Leboutilier. I told him about my family and how I’d come to be at St. Jerome’s. I told him about the rage that built in me that I had never understood and how it corroded everything, even the game. I told him about the road, the jobs, the towns, and then I told him about the booze.

“The ultimate device,” I said. “It lets you go on breathing but not really living. It lets you move but not remember. It lets you do but not feel. I don’t know why I fell into it so easily, why I lost myself so deep. I just thought I was crazy. But turns out I was just hurt, lonely, guilty, ashamed—and mostly just really, really sad.”

“Did you want to hunt that fucker down? Make him feel some of the same pain?” Virgil asked. He still couldn’t turn away from looking at the ice.

“At first, yeah. Then, the more we got into it at the centre the more I realized it was more than just him. I’d be hunting a long time if I lashed out at everyone. In the end, I learned the only one I could take care of was me.”

He turned to me finally. His cheeks were slick with tears. “Five minutes alone in a room with each of them. That’s what I’d wish for. For what they did to my dad, my mother, my grandparents, you. The fuckers.”

“I know. It still hurts. It will for a long time. But I know that now. I know that and I have ways to deal with it. Better ways than running, abandoning people, fighting, drinking.”

“Yeah? And what are those better ways?” He leaned back now and shunted so that he could half-face me.

“Come back here, for one thing. I always felt most like home here. Get a job. Work. There’s a lot of healing to be had by picking up a lunch pail. Then I thought maybe I’d shop around for a team to coach.

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re still young. You could play. Shit, the Miners could use you.”

“They could use that other guy, Virgil. That bag of antlers with the speed and the moves. But I’m not that other guy anymore. I want to get back to the joy of the game. That’s for sure. But if I learned anything while I was at the centre, it’s that you reclaim things the most when you give them away. I want to coach. I mean, if I could get my hands on that number fifteen, I could turn him into something.”

Virgil smiled. “That’s my son. Billy. He’s eleven, almost twelve, but he’s skating with the bantams. Reminds me a lot of another speedster I once knew. He knows about you.”

“He does? How?”

“You’re a freakin’ legend, Saul. No one ever played the game like you. Every guy who was on the Moose has told their kids about you.”

“The guys are still around?”

“Not all of them. Most of them. They’re all beer-bellied and fat now. Got a basketful of kids like I do, all married up and hog-tied, but we get together for shinny late at night sometimes when the ice is free. We talk about you.”

“Think they’d want to see me?”

“We got ice tonight. Why don’t you see for yourself?”

56

The white glory
of a rink. I found a used pair of skates at the sporting goods store and a good stick and I stood at the door to the player’s bench looking out at the ice and trembling. I told Virgil that I needed some time to get my legs under me. He knew that I meant more than getting used to skating again. So he arranged to let me have the ice to myself for an hour before the guys showed up. I dressed on the bench. My head down lacing up my skates and my nose full of the smell of a rink. Wood. Sweat. Spit. Leather. When I stood and faced the ice itself, it was dazzling. I stood at the gate and it spread out in front of me as if it were its own special world—and it was. I knew its geography. I knew its breezes. I knew the chill of it. It took me five minutes before I could push off.

When I landed I couldn’t move my feet. I glided straight across the ice to the opposite boards and gripped the top of them with my hands. Then I turned and leaned on them and just looked at the wide oval of ice. I pinched my lips together hard. I understood then that when you miss a thing it leaves a hole that only the thing you miss can fill. The feel of the rink on my face. I closed my eyes and pushed off from the boards. I turned lazily at centre and skated slowly around the red circle. Then I headed for the boards and pushed along them and around the end behind the net. When I turned up ice I pushed off harder. There was no rhythm. There was only the effort of propelling myself along.

There’d been a practice just before I’d arrived. Someone had left a wad of tape on the ice. When I reached it I scooped it up with the blade of my stick. It felt like a horse turd. I skated loosely from end to end with that ball of tape on my stick. Then I tucked it backwards between my legs and spun on one blade to pick it up and cradled it on the blade. I snapped it into the top corner of the net. I laughed then. I opened my mouth and I let myself peal off a great bray of laughter. Then I scooped up that wad of tape and began to move faster around that blazing white glory of ice.

I skated until sweat was pouring down my face. I skated until my legs became elastic and my breath was hard in my lungs. I didn’t have anywhere near the speed I used to have, but I could still skate. When I bent to scoop the tape out of the goal, a real puck caromed around the bottom bar. I turned and Virgil was at the gate with Fred and Martha.

“Even up here in the sticks, we like to use a hockey puck to play hockey,” Virgil said and pushed out onto the ice.

“Old habits,” I said when he reached me.

“New days,” he said.

“The guys here?”

“Them and more,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

He waved his arm and Fred stepped out onto the ice. Behind him were five of the original Moose, still recognizable despite the years. Behind them were some kids of assorted ages and sizes and behind them were young girls and older women. Everyone had a hockey stick. They skated toward us in a wide stream and stood in a circle around us. Martha waved from the bench.

“Best way to choose up sides is the old-fashioned way,” Stu Little Chief said with a nod to me. “Do the honours, Saul?”

“Sure,” I said.

Everyone dropped their sticks in the centre-ice circle. I skated in and began pushing sticks toward each blue line. When they were all cleared from the centre, the teams were set. Virgil was on the opposite team. He skated to the faceoff circle.

I met him there. At least eighteen of us were on the ice.

“How are we gonna do this?” I asked.

“Gotta hit the post to call it a goal. No raising the puck.”

“No, I mean with all these people. How are we gonna play the game?”

He smiled and tapped my stick with his. “Together,” he said. “Like we shoulda all along.”

I smiled. He won that first faceoff, but I didn’t care.

Acknowledgements

It takes some
doing to bring a book into the world. Despite the solitary seat at the desk or table, none of us ever really do it alone. I know I don’t. I never have. This book took an awful lot of doing, and it was helped immeasurably by the editing prowess of Barbara Pulling and the indefatigable loyalty of my agent, John Pearce of Westwood Creative Artists. Also, the Canada Council for the Arts for the helping hand, Chris Labonté at Douglas & McIntyre for believing, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for being there for the survivors of Canada’s residential schools, and Justice Murray Sinclair for the friendship and the example. To Bebo, Juke, Johnny, Star, Josephine C., Kenny O., Peter R., Hank T., I have never forgotten your stories and your experiences with the schools. Even if you’re gone now, the spirit of them, and you, are here somewhere. Miigwetch. To the Bears, Chiefs, Spirit, Wolves, Bandits and all the unnamed Native hockey teams that taught me the joy and exhilaration of the game and the shining glory of the rink, a tap on the shin pads and a whack on the fanny for the gift. To my wingers, Bob Lee, Ron Ste. Marie, Ron Tronson, Peter Mutrie and Vaughan Begg, thanks for helping me keep my stick on the ice and my feet moving toward the goal always. To Nancy Mutrie, Wanda Tronson, Jennifer Ste. Marie, Pam Lee, Blanca Schorcht and Shelagh Rogers, heartfelt gratitude for the loyalty through the slumps and the celebrations. But mostly, to my wife, Debra Powell, who shows me every day how to be a winner, you are the shining glory of my life.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Wagamese

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Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-55365-402-5 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-55365-970-9 (ebook)

Editing by Barbara PullingCopyediting by Peter NormanCover design by Jessica SullivanCover photographs: (clockwise from top left) Photography Collection, Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, the New York Public Library, Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations; iStock; Carl Iwasaki/Getty Images

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.