Medicine Walk

Frank and Eldon find a cabin. An Indigenous woman named Becka Charlie welcomes them and gives them hot tea to drink and hot stew to eat. She tells Frank to stand up to Eldon when he demands alcohol. Becka is a traditionalist, and she leaves leftover food out for the spirits of the land. She guesses that Eldon wants to die the old warrior way, which she characterizes as giving “yourself back to the land” (79). She has no sympathy for Eldon and characterizes him as a “sorry sumbuck” (79) who isn’t “schooled in traditional ways” (79). Eldon wants to pay Becka back for her hospitality with a story he’s been holding in for a long time.

Eldon tells Frank and Becka the story of Eldon’s early life. Eldon’s father leaves to fight in World War II, and for Eldon, his father’s sudden absence is jarring, “like a tooth that falls out” (81). Eldon begins to associate his father with envelopes, as the only contact Eldon has with his father is through a series of letters from distant places. Eldon works hard in the fields to support his mother, but she suffers because of the absence of her husband. Eventually, they hear that Eldon’s father has died in the war. Eldon now works harder “like a grown man” (83). Eldon becomes friends with Jimmy Weaseltail, a half Indian like himself. They work well together and become fast friends: “What’s fired together is wired together” (86), Jimmy says of the two of them. They are “forged by steel” but “screwed by circumstance” (86). Eventually in 1948, they get jobs at a logging camp. Jimmy and Eldon become good boomers, who work the flotillas of logs downriver. Lester Jenks, the supervisor, befriends them to get closer to Eldon’s mother. Jenks turns out to be an abuser of women, and he beats Eldon’s mother. Finally, Eldon and Jimmy confront Jenks and beat him unconscious. Eldon’s mother tells Eldon and Jimmy to leave or they will get in trouble. This wounds Eldon because he feels that his mother has chosen Jenks over Eldon.

Frank is shocked that Eldon never went back to find out what happened to his own mother. Eldon once again makes excuses: “Hurt is all” (100), Eldon says to account for his failure. It hurt Eldon when his mother chose Jenks over him, but Frank asks if she really had a choice. Eldon explains that he himself had no choice because “them were tough years” (100): “I never got to be no kid neither” (100), Eldon says, comparing himself to Frank. Frank finally realizes that Eldon fled from the crime against Jenks because Eldon did not want Jimmy to go to jail; Jimmy was like family to Eldon. When Eldon is asleep, Frank and Becka talk about him: “So far it’s all stories,” Frank says (101). Becka replies, “It’s all we are in the end. Our stories” (101). As they leave, Becka gifts Frank some bottles of homemade medicine for Eldon.