Medicine Walk

by Richard Wagamese

Wow!  What an incredible book.  This was one of the most beautifully written books I have read in a long time.

The author is from Kamloops.

The story is about a young native man who doesn't do well in school.  He is teased for being a native and a loner.  He is living on a farm with an older man.  He really likes the hard work of the farm life and enjoys going out into nature to wander or to hunt.  He has learned how to read the signs of nature and survive in the wild.

Occasionally his father shows up on the farm, or asks the boy to come to visit him in the town in which he is living.  These are always traumatic events for the boy as his father is most often drunk.  One time the boy goes to visit his father and he is drunk and has a woman in his room.  They are so drunk they don't even remember the boy is in the room and have sex in front of him.  He is disappointed and disgusted by his father's behaviour.  He does of course wonder why his father abandoned him.

Then one day his father tells him that he is dying and he wants the boy to take him out into the woods to die.  The boy reluctantly agrees.  He doesn't like his father or feel he owes him anything but he agrees to do it.

As they travel in the woods his father finally tells the boy his life story.  How he lived with his mother but had to leave her when he and a friend attacked her boyfriend who was beating her.  Then the father and his best friend signed up to fight in the Korean war.  His friend gets wounded and the boy's father kills him to put him out of his misery.  The father is devastated by what he did and takes to drinking.   He wanders around doing work when he can find it just to feed his alcohol habit.

Then one day he meets a beautiful indian woman.  Later he is called to the farm where she is living with a man and asked to install a section of fence.  He and the woman fall in love.  The man she is living with is furious at the betrayal and they are chased off.  The father then stays sober for a while but when the woman gets pregnant he starts drinking again and he isn't there when she goes into labour.  He does get her to hospital but she dies in childbirth.  The father knows he cannot look after the boy and takes him to the farmer the woman was living with.  That man agrees to raise the child.

The boy has thus learned why is father is so haunted and he learns who his mother was and why he is being raised by the farmer.

When the father dies the boy buries him in the hills and hopes his father is at peace.  He returns to the farm a more knowledgeable and probably less angry young man.

This was a sad story but a very powerful and beautifully written story.  The author has a subtle, gentle, very vivid way of telling the story.  It was an incredible tale, well told.  The father had a lot of hurt in his life and chose to drown himself/kill himself with booze.  The boy was obviously very hurt at being abandoned by his father and with no knowledge of his mother.  However, he chose a way of peace and caring and this probably brought him the peace he sought. 

I had had the book for a while and had planned to read it several times.  I am so glad I finally got to do it.