Indian Horse (10 page)

But one day as the team scrimmaged, I looked up to see a man standing at the boards with Father Leboutilier. He was watching me closely. He was Ojibway. I could tell that from the cut of his features and his thick upper body. I was treating that scrimmage as though it were the last game I would ever play, because I didn’t know what the next winter would bring. So I skated with all of the joy I had in me. I whirled and sped away with the puck. I yelled in jubilation. Near the end I just flew around the perimeter as fast as I could go. When Father Leboutilier whistled us to a stop he motioned me over to the boards.

“Nice game,” the man standing with him said. “Fred Kelly.”

He took off his mitt and we shook hands.

“Mr. Kelly has a tournament team, Saul. In Manitouwadge,” Father Leboutilier said.

“The Moose,” Fred said.

“What’s a tournament team?” I asked.

Fred Kelly leaned toward me. He squinted into the glare of the sun on the ice and pointed at the end boards. The chicken wire had begun to sag from errant slap shots striking it all winter. “We play Native tournaments. Every reserve across our territory has a team, and we play on outside rinks just like this one. Every weekend in the winter, right up to breakup, or to when our forwards start having to wear flippers instead of skates.”

He laughed; a big manly sound that just erupted from him. “Anyway, we love hockey. Trouble is, the mill town teams don’t want anything to do with us. They won’t play us even though we’re good enough. Our kids don’t get to play in their town leagues either.”

“Because they think it’s their game,” I said.

Kelly spat tobacco juice at the ice. He squinted at Father Leboutilier and grimaced. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s pretty much it.”

“I know about that.”

“Father told me. What I seen here, it’s no wonder they’re scared to play you.”

I waited for him to continue. There didn’t seem to be anything for me to say.

“When they’re old enough, and if they’re good enough, our kids can play with the travelling team. The Moose. Most of them are seventeen, eighteen, and they play junior-level hockey. Fast, hard hockey,” he said. “The reserves take a lot of pride in their teams. They take pride in being good hosts, too, so there’s always a warm bed and good food. We bunk with families. Even if it’s fifty below, a crowd turns out to watch. It’s tough to play in the wind and snow, but if you love the game like our guys do, you’ll play through anything. Right now, we’re down a centre on the third line. Wondered if maybe you’d wanna come and play with us?”

I was thunderstruck. All I could manage was to let my mouth hang open.

“Saul, Fred lived here at the school for eight years. So did his wife, Martha,” Father Leboutiler said. “I wrote him after the town barred you from playing. Fred wants you to go and live with his family and play hockey for the Moose, to play with a real team where the game can challenge you. Would you like that?”

I felt as though the world had slipped out of orbit. I could find no words.

“The Kellys would be your legal guardians, Saul. That means you could leave here and go to Manitouwadge, attend a regular school. You’d have a home, Saul. A real home.”

“I could play hockey?” It was all I could squeeze out.

“All you can handle,” Fred said.

“What if I’m not good enough?”

Fred laughed again and slapped me lightly on the back. “I don’t think that’s anything you ever have to worry about.”

SISTER IGNACIA WAS vehement in her disgust with the idea.

“Surrendering him to the influence of a soulless game is not what we were directed to do here,” she said.

“But the game offers him a chance at a better life. He has an amazing natural talent. It could take him far,” Father Leboutilier said.

“The game is savage. We were sent to cleave the savage from them.”

“I thought we were sent to offer counsel, and the means to a better life?”

“You are naive.”

“Perhaps. But he will have the benefit of a good home and good schooling. We will have achieved our mission.”

It was Father Quinney, in the end, who made the whole thing possible. He’d stayed silent while Sister Ignacia and Father Leboutilier sawed back and forth. Then he got up and walked to the window, standing there with his hands clasped behind his back. When he turned to face us he looked pensive.

“Our Lord works His magic in particular ways. Strange to some. Downright odd at times.” He returned to his chair to scan the guardianship papers.

“I don’t know why He chose to grace this boy with the skills he has. But I have witnessed his ability myself. That pass he made on the backhand through three sets of legs and sticks to that open winger in the last White River game? That was a minor miracle.”

He grinned at the recollection. Sister Ignacia scowled. Father Quinney set the papers down in front of him. “The boy has no family that we know of. He has shown himself to be a disciplined student, a devoted reader. To hold him back from nurturing a gift that is divine in nature would be counterproductive to what we set out to achieve. Do you want to go, Saul? Will you pay heed to what the Kellys ask of you? Will you honour their direction as you would honour ours?”

I looked around at all those adult faces, lingering on Father Leboutilier’s. I’d never been offered choice before. “All right,” I said. “I’ll go.”

I WALKED OUT of that room and back to the dormitory one last time to collect the few things I could call possessions. Already I could feel St. Jerome’s losing its hold on me. I was almost fourteen. I was being freed. But I was scared too, and I moved through those dim hallways with something akin to regret. This was the only place I’d known for the past five years. And I’d be leaving Father Leboutilier behind.

Most of the kids were working at that hour. No one was about except for one girl I did not know, wiping down the walls with a sponge. She was nine, maybe ten, but the smock sagging to her knees and her dark stockings and shapeless shoes made her look like an old woman. I coughed, and she looked for a moment. There was no recognition on her face, no expression except surrender. When I made a small wave she raised her chin an inch or so, gazed at me with dark, empty eyes and then reached down to squeeze her sponge again.

I carried my little canvas bag of belongings down the stairs and out to the foyer, where Fred Kelly and Father Leboutilier waited. “I’m ready,” I said. When we reached Fred Kelly’s car, the Father looked off toward the trees at the end of the field. I saw him swallow hard before he turned to me. I didn’t know what else to do so I stuck my hand out. Father Leboutilier gave it a firm shake, then pulled me to him. I felt his hand cradle the back of my head.

“Go with God,” he whispered.

25

Manitouwadge means
“Cave of the Great Spirit” in Ojibway. That was funny, because it was mining that gave the town its life. Everyone in Manitouwadge worked in the mines or the sawmills, and Fred Kelly had brought his family there from the Pic River reservation to join the thirty other Ojibway families who lived in a neighbourhood on the outskirts called Indian Town by the locals. Its residents called it the Rez. I’d learn fast enough that an invisible line was drawn across the intersection of Sanderson Road and Township Road Eleven that everyone regarded as part of the local geography. The town proper was populated by tough, narrow-minded men and their loyal women and their callow kids, all rough-and-tumble and rude. It was a place of Saturday night fights in the parking lot outside Merle’s Old Time Saloon, wild country dances at the Legion Hall, bass boats, snowmobiles, motorcycles and random games of Broom-a-Buck, the redneck game of leaning out the window of a car or truck to swat Indians on the sidewalk or the road. Fifty points for a head shot. Twenty for any other part of the body. I’d learn all of this later. That first day, in the late winter of 1966, all I saw was a town drenched in the seeping grey of spring breakup.

The outdoor rink behind Fred Kelly’s house was almost gone, but he showed it to me first thing. His back yard was huge, ending at an outcropping of pink granite, and the rink was full-sized. Seeing it eased the ache in my chest a little.

A tall, spare woman wearing a big smile opened the back door and stood with her arms wrapped around herself, shifting from foot to foot in the icy breeze. “Fred, for Pete’s sake. The boy needs food before he needs hockey. Bring him in and let’s meet him proper.”

Fred laughed and pushed me lightly in the direction of the house. “Ma’s first rule is food. She cooks up a storm too.”

The house was full of people. The Kellys had three sons. Garrett and Howard were married, and they were there with their wives and children. The youngest, Virgil, was a hulking seventeen year old. When Fred introduced me, Virgil squinted in a friendly way and looked me up and down.

“Kinda small,” he said as he shook my hand.

“He plays bigger,” Fred said.

“He’ll wanna.”

Virgil was the captain of the Moose. “It’s kinda like being a chief,” he said. “It’s all about family and who you know. Garrett was captain before me. Kind of went down the line. The guys? They’re not gonna take to you right away.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Couple reasons,” he said. By now we were sitting at the kitchen table with our soup and bannock, real food that I ate hungrily. “First is you’re not from here and you’re taking a spot away from someone else. Second is you’re a sawed-off little runt and they’re gonna think they have to protect you, stand up for you.”

“They won’t.” I said.

“You’ll have to prove that. My dad says you got a hell of a game, but they’ll make you prove that too. It won’t be easy.”

We ate in silence after that. When we were finished, Martha showed me to my room, and we went shopping for clothing. I’d never had anyone spend money on me, and it felt odd standing in front of mirrors with the cardboard feel of new pants against my legs, and crisp new shirts around my throat. Fred took me to the sporting goods store next and bought me my first gear. Now I had skates that fit properly. I had a stick right for my size and equipment that didn’t drape over me. I couldn’t wait to hit the ice and see how it felt to be suitably attired.

Our first scrimmage was that night. I sat in the Kellys’ kitchen and watched my new teammates, all of them huge, arrive and troop through one by one. They were boys still, but they had the air of men. Serious. Grave. Intent. Nobody looked at me. They just said their hellos to the family and moved on out the back door into the small shed that Fred had equipped with a woodstove. I walked out there with Virgil.

The rink was lit by strings of bare light bulbs. The ice ended abruptly in shadow, and the humped rocks and spindly trees created an eerie kind of backdrop. The shed was roasting inside with a wild fire in the stove. Beneath the smell of sweat and leather was the sting of liniment and a potent mix of farts, tobacco and chewing gum. The floor was covered with a thick rubber pad and gear was strewn everywhere. The players were in varying states of undress. Long johns, hockey socks, jocks, shoulder pads. I watched as they prepared. The whipping motion of hands taping knee pads to shins. Fists pounding pads into place. Grimaces as skate laces were drawn taut. The goalies prone on the floor, lying on their bellies while other players latched the pads to the backs of their legs. The Moose were like soldiers arming themselves for battle, and I stood there holding my new gear bag in my hand, unable to move at first. The feel of their energy in that tiny shack like ordnance built to explode.

“Who’s got tape?”

“Fuckin’ elbow pads. Need new ones. These won’t stay in place.”

“Nail ’em in. You’re a defenseman.”

“Five bucks first goal.”

“Easy money.”

As I pushed into a spot on a bench beside Virgil, I could see some players glancing my way. No one said a word to me, though. Instead, they spoke among themselves. Murmurs. Grumbles. Cusses. Whenever a player was ready he’d clomp across the rubber and out the door into the chill night air. When I had drawn the laces of my new skates as tight as they would go, I wrapped a few rounds of tape around the blade of my stick and then stood to test it, leaning my weight on it and bending the shaft. Fred Kelly walked in and tossed me a jersey.

“It’s mine,” he said. “Wore it when I was first with the Moose.”

He helped me pull it on over my shoulder pads. “Thanks,” I said.

“When you get out there, Saul, I want you to take it easy. Don’t jump into the play right away. Study what’s going on. Learn what you can about how these guys move, what they like to do with the puck, how they work with each other, where they’re weakest, most prone to being beat. They’ll tease you at first. They’ll make fun of you. Some of them might even make a run at you. But take the time you need. Then, when you feel ready, join in. You got it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Nervous?”

“Some.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

I stood at the rink’s open gate, awed by the size and speed of my teammates. I could feel the breeze they created push against my face as they whirled around the rink in warm-up. I glided out, too intimidated to move further. One of them clipped me as he passed and I twirled and spun and fell to one knee. Everybody laughed. I could feel the redness in my cheeks as I stood and began to skate on the inside, away from the boards. Virgil passed close to me.

“Skate,” he hissed.

I pushed off and worked my speed up gradually, watching the team like Fred suggested. The players were powerful, but it was their sheer strength that gave most of them thrust, not their ability to skate. Their blades made that tell-tale bash against the ice when they stepped up the pace. Still, they were the fastest, most fluid players I had seen. I could see who turned better to his left, who to his right. I could see who leaned too far over his knees, to make puck-handling easy. Eventually I moved to the outside and skated with the others. But I still didn’t let my speed out.

When the scrimmage started I again stood beside the boards and watched. The others shot me curious glances. I was too intent on the game to care. The team moved the puck a lot faster and harder than I’d seen before. Their organization was tight and the game flowed up ice and down with a measured, calculated crispness. But soon I was able to read the flow, to see where the play would go and how a particular player would react to it. When I finally coasted along the right wing past Fred Kelly, he smiled at me and nodded. I turned and skated into the game.