Indian Horse

Saul buses to Kenora and rents a boat to travel out to Gods Lake. On his way, he stops to camp and feels a “hollow ache” (202) in his belly. He lets out an ancient moan, and, remembering how Father Leboutilier told him he was free, flies into a rage. He wasn’t free; Father Leboutilier was “his captor, the warder of [his] innocence” (202). He kicks at roots and takes a hatchet to a stump before crashing at his camp.

He makes it to Gods Lake, which has remained unchanged. He states: “The angst in my belly disappeared. My thoughts cleared. I walked in a peace I could not recall having experienced before” (204). He closes his eyes and again hears his name whispered, only to open them to see canoes full of his family floating toward him, including his great-grandfather, Shabogeesick. He tells Saul: “‘You’ve learned to carry this place within you. The place of beginnings and endings’” (205). He hears his ancestors and family singing, and weeps, mourning.

Saul returns to the New Dawn Centre to talk, to learn to manage his sadness and rage without drink. After spending winter there, he returns to Fred Kelly’s house. Without directly addressing it at first, Fred and Martha acknowledge that they knew about Saul’s experiences and guessed the trauma he experienced at the school, as they had experienced it, too. Saul asks directly, “‘Did they rape everyone?’” (210). It’s the first time he discusses the act openly, without euphemism. He explains that he’s come back as it’s the only place he’s felt that building a life is possible. 

Saul opens up about his experiences with Father Leboutilier and talks to Fred and Martha about how the game became his means of survival. He tells them he intends to coach. They tell him that Virgil’s looking for a coach for the mine’s bantam team.

Saul shows up to a practice, watching Virgil and his team from high in the stands. He moves closer, eventually inching behind him to comment on a promising player. Virgil admits that he wanted to punch him when he ran away. They agree to meet up after practice and talk.

Saul tells Virgil about Father Leboutilier and his time as a drunk. Virgil cries, saying he wants to punish the priests and nuns for what they’ve done to his family and friend. Virgil says that the team his old teammates are on, the Miners, could use him, but Saul says he wants to coach to reclaim the joy of the game. As he says: “‘you reclaim things the most when you give them away’” (218). Virgil tells him that many of the players from the Moose get together for shinny when the ice is free, and that they’re doing so that night.

Saul spends an hour alone on the ice before everyone shows up, reacquainting himself with the game. Energized, he says, “I understood then that when you miss a thing it leaves a hole that only the thing you miss can fill” (219). Virgil, Fred, and Martha appear. Virgil says the guys are there, and then some. Five of his old teammates appear, and behind them a collection of kids, young girls, and women. They split into teams and play for the fun of it.