Indian Horse (7 page)

I moved it carefully so I wouldn’t break the turd. I wanted to develop a soft touch, a deft weaving like the player Jean Beliveau, streaming up ice with the puck dangling on the blade of his stick like it was tied there on invisible twine. I made sure my stick made no sound against the ice, lest somebody discover me there. When the first turd eventually broke apart, I’d take another and I’d march up ice again with my substitute puck. I moved my feet as though I were skating, working the turd from side to side, making wider and wider sweeps. I got so I could slip it between my feet when I reached the end boards, spin around, cradle it in the middle of the blade and start back down the ice again. When all the turds were broken I’d flick the pieces over the boards with the wrist-shot motion I’d seen Dave Balon of the New York Rangers use. Then I’d stash my stick in the snow, shovel clear the evidence of my practice and head back to the building for breakfast and school.

At night in the dormitory, when all the other boys were asleep, I would get out of bed and stand in the aisle between the rows of cots, where the moonlight made the linoleum look like ice, and mimic the motion of stickhandling. I pictured myself barrelling across the blue line with the puck tucked neatly on the blade of my stick. I would throw a broad feint at the final defender and race in alone toward the goalie, who would begin to retreat slowly into the crease. I would shift my weight from foot to foot as I skated, dancing, wriggling, faking, the puck still nestled in the cradle of my blade. The space between the goalie and me would shrink and when I got about ten feet away I would draw the puck back behind my right leg. Then I would drive my weight forward onto my left leg and allow the momentum to bring the stick and puck forward. When the weight transfer was right, I’d snap my wrists and send the puck in a blur high into the right-hand corner, bulging the twine behind the helpless goaltender. Naturally, the force of my shot would take me to one knee. I would raise my arms in the hushed light of the dorm. My mouth would be open with glee and I would face the picture of Jesus hung there on the wall, my salvation coming instead through wood and rubber and ice and the dream of a game. I’d stand there, arms held high in triumph, and I would not feel lonely or afraid, deserted or abandoned, but connected to something far bigger than myself. Then I’d climb back into bed and sleep until the dawn woke me and I could walk back out to the rink again.

17

Father Leboutilier
was my ally. When the nuns and priests got too hard on me, he was there to mediate and defend me. By the second winter, when I was nine, I’d become braver. I took to stashing skates along with the stick. Father put me in charge of the equipment locker and it was my job now to keep things clean, to launder the sweaters, air out the gloves and pants and pads. I still rose before anyone else and made my way to the rink. There was always the ritual of shovelling the snow and clearing the ice, that solitary work of preparing to open the doors to a magical kingdom.

All of the skates were too big for me. So I stuffed the toes of a pair with newspaper to make them fit. Once they were laced tightly onto my feet I would grasp the edge of the boards and wobble along the length of the rink, then turn and wobble back the other way. Once I could travel the entire perimeter of the ice that way, I switched to a chair I took from the barn. I’d set it in front of me and lean on the back of it and push myself along. I always paid particular attention to the skating during
Hockey Night in Canada,
and I wanted to copy those motions. It was hard work, but I eventually got so I could push my way around the ice with that chair.

Then came the morning I let go of the chair.

I became a bird. An ungainly bird at first, but a creature of the air nonetheless. I leaned too far forward and had to save myself from falling, but I managed to propel myself along. In my mind I could see the way that I wanted my body to behave on skates and I worked toward that. For a week I practiced. Step and glide. Step. Glide. Step. Glide. I positioned my arms and concentrated on maintaining a stable posture. I’d picture the players I’d seen on TV, lock my gaze on the end boards and push myself toward them, gradually picking up speed.

I saw myself making the turn at the far end. Saw myself crossing my feet, one over the other, leaning to the inside, dropping the inside shoulder some, lifting my elbows higher and inscribing a perfect arc around the curve of the boards. Saw it as though I’d done it a hundred times. And then I did it. I cut around the net and followed the line of the boards and broke out of that long curve and lifted my hands straight up in the air as I glided into the open flare of the ice. Then I taught myself to go the other way.

I worked harder at clearing the ice to give myself more time to skate each day. I tore at that chore. I ran the width of the ice, pushing the snow into a pile along the boards. The labour made me wiry and tough. It gave my lungs a workout and cleared my mind of everything but the ice. As I laced on the skates my fingers actually trembled. Not from the cold but from the knowledge that freedom was imminent, that flight was at hand. I floated out onto a snow-white stage in a soliloquy of grace and motion. I loved it. Every time I skated I felt as though I had created the act. It was pure and new and startling.

The way I began was always the same. I would lean forward with my hands on my knees and stare at the ice, picking a spot on its surface. Then I would picture myself skating to that spot. I’d see myself making a wide circle that I’d bring in tighter and tighter before turning abruptly and skating out of the circle the other way. Then I would actually go and do it. My blades never made a sound. I couldn’t let anyone discover what I was doing, so I learned how to skate soundlessly without the
chunk-chunk
of steel on ice the other boys made when they played the game. I learned to envision myself making moves before I tried them. If I could see myself doing it, then I could do it. It worked for any move. There was no explanation for how I could do what I did. I knew it as a mystery and I honoured it that way.

My grandmother had always referred to the universe as the Great Mystery.

“What does it mean?” I asked her once.

“It means all things.”

“I don’t understand.”

She took my hand and sat me down on a rock at the water’s edge. “We need mystery,” she said. “Creator in her wisdom knew this. Mystery fills us with awe and wonder. They are the foundations of humility, and humility, grandson, is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel this. We honour it by letting it be that way forever.”

When I released myself to the mystery of the ice I became a different creature. I could slow down time, choose the tempo I needed whenever I launched myself into learning a new skill. I could hurtle down the ice at full speed and then bend time in upon itself to slow the turn, every muscle, every tendon, every sinew in my body remembering the movement, learning it, making it a part of me.

I learned to stop quickly on one skate. I learned to skate backwards, switching back and forth instantly, shifting my weight from foot to foot, making dazzling changes in direction. I set up horse turds in random patterns and learned to cut in around them from all sides. Every time, I would envision the move and then make it happen. I reached out with all the love in my heart and let it carry me deeper into the mystery.

Then I picked up the stick, using all of the skills I’d developed the winter before to stickhandle the horse turds around the ice. The turds were precious and I worked at not breaking them. I turned circles, first one way and then the other until I could make them faster and smaller. I practiced driving off one skate into high speed using as few strides as possible, balancing the turd on the blade of my stick. I shifted, I feinted, I faked. I raced across the ice with the silent swish of blades and cleared it of evidence as the turds broke with a short, sharp snap of my wrists.

I kept my discoveries to myself and I always made sure that I left the surface of the rink pristine. For the rest of the day, I’d walk through the dim hallways of the school warmed by my secret. I no longer felt the hopeless, chill air around me because I had Father Leboutilier, the ice, the mornings and the promise of a game that I would soon be old enough to play.

18

Father Leboutilier
worked the boys hard. He pushed them to do the drills and then to transfer that discipline into the scrimmage. He outlined what he wanted to see in the scrim of snow on the ice. Circles. Arrows. The math and the science of it all. Once they understood, they skated languidly back to their positions, their faces pulled into concentration. When the puck was dropped they moved deliberately, the scratchings and doodles on the ice suddenly coming to life. It was thrilling to see. They skated hard. They were big, lanky Indian boys and their angular faces were grave. As they pumped their legs and swung their arms in pursuit of the puck, zipping by me in a blur, they were warrior-like. When the whistle blew they turned as one. Some of them dropped onto the ice, legs splayed, chests heaving. Others leaned panting on the boards in front of me. Their faces burned with zeal and joy and their breathing was like the expelled air of mustangs. The clomp of their blades made me think of hoofs on frozen ground. This was the game. This gathering of brothers, of kin, joined by the exuberance of effort and challenge and strain, breathing the air that rose from the glacial face of a rink under a bleak sun.

The team was preparing for their first organized game against a town league team from White River. They practiced aggressively. Father Leboutilier whistled them down only when there was a flagrant misplay or a breach of the rules. The pace was breakneck. They poked and pulled and elbowed mightily to free the puck and send the game careering down the ice again. Then one afternoon someone screamed and a player fell to the ice clutching his leg. Father Leboutilier skated over quickly, knelt down and cradled the boy’s head in his gloved hands. After a few minutes a couple of the boys helped the injured player to his feet. He leaned on them as they skated him slowly to the boards.

“I’m okay,” he said.

“You can’t stand on that ankle,” Father Leboutilier said.

“I’m okay,” the boy repeated.

“I’m sorry. I can’t let you play when you’re hurt.”

“We ain’t got no one else. How you gonna make a team?” the boy asked.

The words were out of me before I’d thought them through. “I’ll go in for Wapoose,” I said.

The Father looked at me in surprise. “You skate, Saul?”

“Yes.”

“How did you learn?”

“By myself. In the mornings. After I cleared the ice.”

The others were watching me, their eyes glittering obsidian from beneath the rims of their helmets. I was just the ice cleaner, the Zhaunagush in their midst. They’d been content enough to just leave me alone but I was still the outsider. The Father rubbed at his chin with his glove and stared out across the field. “Well, I suppose you can fill in for the scrimmage.”

I ran to the snowbank to retrieve my stick. When Father Leboutilier handed me Wapoose’s skates, I went to the barn to get the wadding of paper I kept there and stuffed it in their toes then slipped my feet in and laced them up tight. The Father was grinning as I leaped over the boards. I skated once around the ice. Slowly. Getting my legs under me. Father Leboutilier nodded, and when I got back to where the team was, he put a hand on my shoulder and directed me to Wapoose’s place on the right wing.

I could barely breathe. My whole body was quivering. Once the puck was dropped I lagged behind the play to study it. When the players moved up ice I skated on my wing. The other boys ignored me.

I stayed at the edge of the scrimmage, the play rolling its pattern out in front of me. Then, suddenly, I saw it clearly. I saw the direction of the game before it happened and I moved to that spot. Now I bent to my skating, spreading my feet a little wider and keeping the full length of my stick blade on the ice.

There was a collision at the blue line and the puck squirted free. It spun like a small planet in a universe of white. Everyone reacted at the same time. I could hear the clomp of their blades. But I pushed hard, evenly, and I was at full speed in three strides. I scooped the puck onto my stick and cradled it as I pumped with my other arm. The goalie yelped and backed slowly toward the mouth of the net. I whisked across the blue line and there was only me, the puck and the net. I was flying, skating as fast as I could go, and then time slowed to a crawl. I could hear my breath, the yells of the other boys behind me, feel the pump of blood in my chest, see the eyes of the goalie squinting in concentration.

When I was twelve feet out I leaned back on the heels of my skates and pushed the puck out in the space between my knees. I shuffled it back and forth like Beliveau. I wriggled my shoulders and then I pulled a broad feint to my left and the goalie took it, sliding over on one padded knee with the paddle of his stick on the ice. Once he’d committed I tucked the puck back neatly between my legs, like I’d done so many mornings with the horse turds, reached back with my stick and caught the puck in the middle of my blade. I flicked my wrist and the puck slipped neatly into the right angle where the crossbar met the post.

I spun on my skates and slid backwards into the boards behind the net. I was too shocked to raise my arms.

The other players turned in a long slow curve to stare at me in amazement. Father Leboutilier stood at centre ice, a giant grin on his face.

“You taught yourself the game, Saul?”

“Yes. From books and the games on television.”

“That was a pretty snazzy move. You taught yourself that?”

“Yes. I practiced stickhandling with turds.”

He laughed. He rubbed my head with one glove and then motioned the other boys over. “Can you play centre, Saul?” Father Leboutilier asked.

“Like Beliveau?”

He grinned. “Yes. Like Beliveau.”

“I can try.”