Medicine Walk

Eldon tells Frank about Frank’s mother, Angie Pratt. By the time Eldon met Angie, he had become a drunk and part-time laborer. One day in a bar, a man named Bunky sat down across from Eldon. They both notice a beautiful Indigenous woman who is dancing with some lumberjacks. A man named Everett Eames enters the bar wanting to celebrate, but the lumberjacks pour beer over him, and Angie begs them to stop. Bunky stands up to the lumberjacks, and they back down. Both Angie and Eldon congratulate Bunky on his courage: “That was the bravest thing” (182), Angie says to Bunky.

Bunky and Angie (who is now living with Bunky) pick up Eldon and take him back to Bunky’s farm, where Bunky wants Eldon to fence in a field. Angie brings Eldon lunch and talks to him. She tells Eldon she is Cree and discusses her life as a cook working in logging camps. Eldon feels incapable of talking to her and expressing how he feels. That evening, she tells a story to Eldon and Bunky about a mermaid, and it makes Eldon cry. The next day, she comes to bring Eldon lunch again in the field.