The kid heard him leave in the darkness. There was a huff of breath, a short jolt, and then quiet. He lay there awake and looked out at the night and felt the stillness. It was heavy as a thick blanket, and in the depth of that quiet he was afraid to move, afraid to break it, of sacrilege, of piercing something that settled over him seamlessly, attached him to his dead father, who lay in silhouette against the glint of the moon.
The climax of Medicine Walk occurs when Frank dreams of a man and a woman sitting on a porch—a dream that parallels Eldon’s earlier story about building a home with Angie—right before Eldon passes away. The above quote describes Eldon dying in the night, directly after Frank’s dream about mother and father. In this way, Wagamese creates a kind of connection between the dream-world and reality. Frank senses his father’s passing before it actually happens; this premonition is, in a way, made possible through the stories Eldon told Frank, because Frank’s dream mimics Eldon’s story.
The stillness that surrounds Frank “like a thick blanket” echoes the thick mackinaw that Frank continually wrapped around Eldon as Eldon's illness progressed on their journey. In this moment of loss, Eldon and Frank become connected both physically and mentally, where the blanket is the physical connection and the dream-dying sequence is the mental connection. “Sacrilege” signals the breaking of something that is sacred, and so there is a quality about the connection that Frank and Eldon share that is sacred. Frank is attached to his father at the time of Eldon’s death, and this attachment is important because Frank has felt largely detached from his father throughout his life.
He gazed upward. The stars arranged themselves into shapes and suggestions and he felt the pull of them like a calling away and he looked deeper into the beaded bowl of the night and saw a multitude of possible worlds hung there, suspended against time itself, and he closed his eyes and tried to feel them inside of himself but all he felt was empty.
The stars “arranging themselves into shapes and suggestions” alludes to the meaning of Frank’s last name “Starlight” and the story Jimmy told Eldon. According to Jimmy, “Starlight” was given as a last name to those who were storytellers, who received stories from the star people. Frank feels the significance of his last name while looking at the stars, as he can feel “the pull of them” and sees the “possible worlds hung there.” The possibility of Frank connecting to his past therefore exists at this point in the novel. Frank struggles only when he attempts to bring the connection to the past back to self; though Frank tries to feel the resonance of the past—the stars—inside himself, Frank only feels empty. Frank’s emptiness is symbolic of his feeling disconnected from his past: the stories Eldon has told Frank do not create an immediate bridge to family and hidden histories. At this point in the novel, Eldon’s stories only spell emptiness for Frank.
"Who’s to say how much of anythin’ we are?" Becka said. "Seems to me the truth of us is where it can’t be seen. Comes to dyin’, I guess we all got a right to what we believe."
"I can’t know what he believes. He talks a lot, but I still got no sense of him. So far it’s all been stories."
She only nodded. "It’s all we are in the end. Our stories.”
Storytelling, and the importance of one’s story, is a major theme throughout Medicine Walk. Once Eldon falls asleep in the cabin, Becka tells Frank that Eldon was brave for sharing his story. Originally, Frank was angry with Eldon after learning that Eldon abandoned his mother, and therefore deprived Frank of a grandmother. Becka reframes Eldon’s story for Frank; Eldon might not seem like much of a warrior on the outside, but the content of his story is what matters. The telling of the story is also what matters, because there is a bravery in being able to disclose pain and shame. This aspect of bravery is especially true for Eldon, who has walked through life unable to share his truths because he was so ashamed of his past and who he was. That Eldon is able to tell Frank of his shame in walking away from his abused mother is a brave act, and a testament to the power of stories. For Frank, Eldon’s story reveals more of the man Frank has not really known until now.
Then he stooped and prowled around for wood he wouldn’t need to chop and thought about his father scavenging breakable wood and trundling it about for the few cents it would bring, the potatoes, carrots, or onions it would add to the pot, maybe even a rabbit if he were lucky, and he had an idea of him as a small kid, and when he stood finally with his arms full and made his way back to the camp he understood that he bore more than wood in his arms.
Frank hears the first of Eldon's stories at the beginning of their journey. It is a small anecdote, one where Eldon describes how he and his parents survived by scavenging for wood and selling it. This quote is an important one because Frank attempts to assume Eldon's point of view, an endeavor at empathy towards his father. In doing so, Frank imagines the difficulty of his father's life, which differs from Frank's usual disappointment and anger towards Eldon. After this attempt at empathy, Frank understands that Eldon's stories carry a weight to them. Frank saying that "he bore more than wood in his arms" makes the wood he carries both literal and figurative, whereby the wood comes to symbolize the pain Frank will now carry after hearing these shared histories.
Without drink he felt as though he occupied his body for the first time in a long time and each day of work slaked the hard punch of craving in his gut.
Eldon begins drinking heavily after having to kill his friend Jimmy during the war. The burden of Jimmy's death is a difficult one to bear, and Eldon drinks to ease that burden. Eldon's drinking often connects to the personal shame he feels, but he sobers up after meeting Angie and Bunky. Eldon occupies his body for the first time after he stops drinking because he is fully there, mentally and physically. Bunky, after finding Eldon in the bar Charlie's, is the first person who sees a good man in Eldon since Eldon began abusing alcohol. The second person to see good in Eldon is Angie, and it is Eldon's love for Angie and his commitment to her that gives Eldon the strength to be sober for most of their relationship. This quote is important because it begins to explain the dissociation of alcoholism, and how a recovering alcoholic comes to be more present as they sober up.
It was the feel of the land at his back when he slept and the hearty, moist promise of it rising from everything. It was the feeling of the hackles rising slowly on the back of your neck when there was a bear yards away in the bush and the catch in the throat at the sudden explosion of an eagle from a tree. It was also the feel of water from a mountain spring. Ice like light splashed over your face. The old man brought him to all of that.
The land is an immensely important theme in Medicine Walk. Wagamese provides an abundance of descriptive imagery when writing about the land through Frank's eyes. Particularly important in this quote is the concept of "promise" rising from the land, and the idea of what is made possible through land. It is when engaged deeply with the land that Frank has always felt most at home, and it is while traveling through the land that Frank receives Eldon's stories during Eldon's final days; this is the land presenting the opportunity of Frank knowing his father, and so a demonstration of what is made possible on the land. The repetition of "it was" at the beginning of the three sentences creates anaphora; there is a deliberate succession of "it was" to emphasize Frank's articulation of the land, of all it means to him. The effect of the anaphora present in this quote is an emotional appeal to the audience, wherein readers can begin to understand the multiplicity of meanings the land holds for Frank. "Ice like light splashed over your face" includes a simile, a comparison of ice and light, two phenomena of nature. The old man brings Frank "to all of that" because the old man is the one to teach Frank about the land, about how to exist on and through the land. Combined with the emotional appeal the anaphora creates, Wagamese crafts an emotional bond between Frank, the old man, and the land.
His eyes were wide, the whites of them like twin moons. Panicked. He took the knife and held it under his ribcage and Jimmy stopped, his body going perfectly still as he stared at him over the rim of his hand. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again there was peace there and he nodded at him. The knife went in almost on its own and he twisted it like he was trained to do and leaned forward cheek to cheek with Jimmy and heard his last breath ease out of him.
After Eldon and Jimmy are sent on a special reconnaissance to gather information about the enemy's whereabouts, Jimmy is shot through the chest. Jimmy is dying, and Eldon is forced to stab Jimmy so as not to give up their position to the enemy. As Eldon and Jimmy make a silent agreement, their eyes meet, and Jimmy's body goes perfectly still. This passage includes an abundance of ambiguous pronoun use, where "he" might refer to either Jimmy or Eldon. While the reader can track what movements belong to which character given the broader literary context, the ambiguous "he" creates a melding of motion where either Jimmy or Eldon could be twisting the knife. The image of Eldon putting his cheek to Jimmy's cheek also creates a mirror image. It is a scene that is both violent and intimate. Jimmy was all Eldon had, and so being forced to kill Jimmy might be read as Eldon being forced to kill a part of himself, too.
She sat back in the rocker and folded her hands under her chin and looked upward and away to the far corner of the room. The two of them watched her and the flicker of the firelight on her face lent it a wavering cast as if she were a shaman or a spell-caster. When she closed her eyes he could feel her go somewhere like stepping through a curtain. He was captivated before she said a word.
The first night Eldon arrives at Bunky's farm, Eldon hears one of Angie's stories. Angie makes the stories up every night, seeming to weave and create her tales out of thin air. Angie is captivating in her storytelling, and there exists a parallel between Angie's capacity for storytelling and Eldon's mother's capacity for storytelling. Although Eldon's mother read aloud as opposed to crafting her own stories, both she and Angie have superior skills of oration. Wagamese describes Angie's storytelling as having an otherwordly quality, where Angie is likened to a spell-caster or shaman. Angie seems to be in another place entirely when she tells stories, and so Wagamese introduces a kind of mysticism into the novel's larger theme of storytelling. Angie is better-versed in the "old ways" than is Eldon, and so the mysticism around storytelling might be a rememberance or honoring of older forms of storytelling.
“At first he brung me out all the time when I was small. Showed me plants and how to gather them. Everything a guy would need is here if you want it and know how to look for it, he said. You gotta spend time gatherin’ what you need. What you need to keep you strong. He called it a medicine walk.”
When Eldon asks Frank how Frank knows so much about the land and how to survive off it, Frank responds "what the old man didn't teach me I taught myself." Frank explains what the old man taught him about gathering and surviving off of what one finds on the land. The old man termed this kind of gathering a "medicine walk." Given that the phrase also gives the novel its title, readers might extrapolate this kind of gathering to the journey Frank makes with his father. Frank gathers information about his father and, in turn, gathers information about himself through the stories Eldon tells on their journey. For Frank, learning about his past through Eldon's stories is a kind of medicine. His father's stories are raw and carry weight to them, but they also have the capacity to heal a fragmented relationship between father and son.
The sun sat blood red near the lip of the world and in that rose and canted light he sat there filled with wonder and a welling sorrow. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand and he stared down across the valley. Soon the light nudged down deeper into shadow and it was like he existed in a dream world, hung there above that peaceful space where the wind ruled, and he could feel it push against him.
Wagamese uses color as a literary device often in Medicine Walk, especially when providing descriptive imagery about the land. At the close of the novel, Frank returns to the farm where the old man is waiting for him. Frank has just buried his father and absorbed all of Eldon's stories, and as Frank goes out to look on the land he is filled with "a welling sorrow." The sun is setting, and is "blood red near the lip of the world." The sun in this passage might be interpreted as a representation of Eldon's life, where the inclusion of the word "blood" alludes to humanity and life. The sun's setting, in conjunction with Frank's welling sorrow, becomes a figurative act for Eldon's passing: the light goes out of Eldon just as it goes out of the sky. As the light on the land becomes more shadow-like, it is as if Frank "existed in a dream world." The light changes and so, too, does Frank's perception of the world—just as Frank's perception of the world changed after Eldon's passing. Immediately following this passage, Eldon sees his ancestors in the trees, riding horses, gathering food. Upon reflecting on Eldon's passing and his stories, Frank sees the land anew.
