Summary
Chapter 10 witnesses Frank and Eldon coming off the bottom of the cliff, some time after seeing the rock paintings. Eldon is weaker at this point, and needs to rest. Frank says that he knows a deserted trapper’s cabin where they can stay the night, because Frank can feel rain coming. They walk for some time, and when they come upon the cabin there is a curl of smoke coming from the chimney. A woman steps out of the cabin with a shotgun, and Frank can tell from her features and fair complexion that she is of mixed Indigenous and white descent. The woman pauses and eyes them for a moment, then asks if Eldon is sick. Frank introduces Eldon as his father and replies that yes, he is “drink sick.” The woman invites them inside and introduces herself as Becka Charlie. The cabin is much cleaner than Frank remembers it, and Frank goes to tend to the mare. When he returns Becka has made them tea of pine gum and mint. Becka asks Frank about Eldon, telling Frank that her father also took to drink. Frank explains that Eldon didn’t raise him, and that Eldon is close to death.
Eldon is asleep, and Becka tells Frank that she gave Eldon cedar tea. Frank asks Becka if she knows cures. Becka explains that she knows some; her father was Chilcotin and her mother was Scottish, and she was raised in some of the old ways. Frank soon sleeps before the fire, when he awakens Eldon is looking at him. There is a pot of soup and fresh biscuits, and Eldon asks Frank for fresh hooch. Becka tells Frank that he can’t let a drunk push him around, and reveals that the cabin was her grandfather’s, and that Becka inherited the cabin when she brought her father to it to die. He, too, was a drunk. After eating, Becka lays a plate of food out for the ancestors. Later on, Becka asks Frank and Eldon where they’re headed. Frank motions towards the western mountains. Becka understands that this means Eldon wants to be buried in the warrior way, because Eldon is dying soon and there’s nothing westward but wilderness. Eldon tells Frank that he has to pay Frank back some of what he owes. Eldon tells Frank that he has a story that needs telling.
Chapter 11 begins with Eldon’s story. It is the story of his childhood. Eldon’s father leaves for World War II when he is 11. To Eldon, the war only means the knowledge that things can be taken away, like his father. Eldon’s father becomes envelopes in the mail, becomes the taste of glue, becomes the scratch of a pencil on paper, becomes the act of waiting. Eldon and his mother live and work on a sugar-beet farm in Taber, Alberta, for little pay. Eldon’s mother struggles in the absence of Eldon’s father, and Eldon wishes to protect her. Work becomes Eldon’s war, the means by which he can protect his mother, and he works different jobs, from picking fruit to cutting wood and digging trenches. Eldon has the look and build of a man by the age of 14 because of the work, and it is at this time that Eldon meets his best friend, Jimmy Weaseltail. Jimmy is from the Blood tribe and has four sisters, and supports his family economically just like Eldon. It comes to be that Jimmy and Eldon can together outwork most grown men on jobs, and at night they listen to Eldon’s mother read stories.
In the summer of 1948, Eldon and Jimmy are logging in the Nechako Valley. It is here that they meet a man called Lester Jenks, their foreman, and Jenks admires the fearlessness and rambunctiousness of Eldon and Jimmy. Jenks, Jimmy, and Eldon grow close over the few months of logging, and spend a long time talking. Eldon eventually tells Jenks about his mother, that his mother is how he got so strong. Eldon tells Jenks about how his mother spins words out of darkness when she reads at night, and Jenks starts coming to Eldon’s house at night, too. Jenks begins spending more time at Eldon’s home and eventually starts sleeping with Eldon’s mother, in turn changing into a demanding boss. Jimmy, to Eldon, says that Jenks “frickin’ thinks he owns us now.”
After the first month of Jenks sleeping with Eldon’s mother, Eldon notices a bruise on his mother’s throat. Her eyes are deadened and murky, and Eldon tries asking her about it, but she brushes him off. Within the next week, there are more bruises, on her shoulders and back and arms. Eldon later tells Jimmy about the bruises, that Jenks had been beating Eldon’s mother, and the two make a plan: if it happens again, or something worse occurs, they will be ready to protect Eldon’s mother. A few nights later, when both Jimmy and Eldon are smoking behind the cabin, they hear the slap of an open palm on skin. They run to the cabin and find Jenks with his hand on Eldon’s mother’s throat, one hand raised high above ready to strike. Jenks says to Jimmy and Eldon “What she need she gets.” Eldon physically attacks Jenks, and Jimmy stabs Jenks with a hunting knife. Eldon’s mother tells the two boys they have to run, because Jenks is a foreman and they will be severely punished if caught. At this moment Jenks’ eyes flutter open. Eldon asks his mother “You’d choose him over me?” Eldon’s mother replies “I’m not choosing, I’m telling you how it has to be.” Jimmy and Eldon leave the cabin, never to return.
Chapter 12 is in the present day. Frank asks Eldon if he ever went back to the cabin to see his mother. Eldon says that he and Jimmy never did, even though they wanted to. Eldon says that he didn’t even “know how to try” to go back and see his mother, because he never understood if she wanted Eldon gone or was trying to save him. Eldon says anger made walking away easy, but after time the guilt and shame of leaving his mother began to eat at him. “Love an’ shame never mix,” Eldon says, and Frank becomes angry and feels that Eldon cheated him out of having a grandmother. Eldon explained that it hurt too much to go back, that his childhood was tough and he never got to be a kid on account of all the work. Frank replies that he never got to be a kid, either, and explains the difficulties of going to school and being called racial slurs while also not knowing who he is.
Eldon explains that if he had stayed, he would’ve had to give Jimmy up to the cops. Jimmy was all Eldon had. Frank responds “You had her. You had a mother.” Eldon and Frank look at each other for a moment, and Eldon adds that he would’ve been half-killed by Jenks had he returned. Frank says “gettin’ half killed once’s gotta be better’n bein’ half alive forever.” Eldon and Frank remain at Becka’s cabin for another day, with Eldon’s condition worsening. As Eldon sleeps, Becka tells Frank that Eldon did a brave thing in telling Frank part of his story. Frank remarks that Eldon doesn’t seem like much of a warrior, and Becka says “Who’s to say how much of anythin’ we are?” and tells Frank that in the end, we are just our stories. In the morning, while sending them off, Becka gives Frank medicine to give Eldon when Eldon gets close to death.
Eldon and Frank resume their walk at the beginning of Chapter 13. The walk is deliberate, as if the mare senses the urgency and purpose of their walk. Frank feels drained from the night before and Eldon’s story, and needs to feel the land at his feet to quell the clamor in his head. Frank is contemplating all the events of the previous night when the horse snorts and rears. There is a bear, and Frank curses himself for being too deep in thought to notice the change in wind. It is a young grizzly, twenty yards away, and the bear hasn’t noticed them yet over the rush of the creek. Frank tells Eldon they can’t run, that instead Frank has to face the bear. Eldon tells Frank he’s nuts, and Frank replies “gonna have to be.” Frank travels towards the bear and makes himself as big as possible, growling. Frank makes himself bigger and edges closer to the bear, holding his pose, and finally the bear retreats.
When Frank returns Eldon is booze-sick, in pain, and Frank retrieves the medicine Becka gave him from the medicine sack. There are four glass jars, and Frank holds one up to Eldon’s mouth for him to sip. After a few moments, Eldon feels better, saying the medicine heats up his belly and makes him feel light in the head. Eldon then asks Frank how he knows what to do, saying that standing up to the grizzly took courage. Eldon asks if the old man taught him that. Frank thinks, and says that no one can really teach a person that. Courage is something you come to on your own. Eldon sleeps, and when he awakens he asks Frank to pour out the rest of his alcohol. Frank asks if he’s sure, and Eldon replies that he can get by on the “Becka juice,” the medicine. Frank pours out most of the hooch but saves some, just in case.
Analysis
The legacy of violence against First Nations and Indigenous women is a legacy that dates back to European contact. In both the United States and Canada, Native women and girls face rates of domestic violence and homicide higher than any other demographic or ethnic group. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, often abbreviated as MMIWG, is an epidemic issue of colonial genocide against Native women. According to the National Institute of Justice, 84% of Native women have experienced domestic violence in their lifetime. Wagamese’s portrayal of Eldon’s mother, along with the violence and abuse she endures at the hands of Jenks, gestures towards these staggering statistics about First Nations and Native women.
Violence against Native women often goes unreported, just as the violence against Eldon’s mother goes unreported. While Eldon and Jimmy attempt to help Eldon’s mother, they do ultimately leave her with her abuser. Eldon is angry at his mother when he leaves because Eldon feels that his mother is choosing Jenks over him; even in adult life, Eldon is unsure if his mother wanted Eldon “gone or saved.”
It is Becka who points out to Eldon that maybe his mother didn’t have a choice, given the abuse she was enduring and the power dynamics at play. Jenks is a foreman, and he is white, and so his word and testimony would be privileged over the word and testimony of Jimmy, Eldon, or Eldon’s mother. Given these power dynamics and the embedding of racialized, gendered violence, Eldon’s mother did not have a choice in making her son leave. The violence against Eldon’s mother, along with her reaction to that abuse, speaks to the legacies of violence against Indigenous people fueled by colonialism and racism in the United States and Canada. Becka subtly gestures towards this legacy in her suggestion that Eldon’s mother did not have a choice when she made Eldon leave.
Becka Chalrlie is an important character for both the medicine she gives and the advice she imparts. Becka, being of mixed Indigenous and white descent, shares a similar background to both Eldon and Frank. Becka also has experience dealing with alcoholism as her father was an alcoholic. Both Becka’s background and experience allow her to empathize with Frank, and this empathic quality helps Becka fit into the “healer” trope.
Becka knows cures; she is well-versed in Indigenous knowledge systems and epistemology, and it is for this reason that she is able to provide Frank and Eldon with cedar tea and medicine. Becka also stresses the importance of storytelling to Frank, effectively reframing Eldon’s stories in Frank’s mind by telling Frank that “what he done was brave.” Becka says that in the end, all we have are our stories: this sentiment emphasizes the power and salience of stories within the novel. For her medicine, advice, and empathy through shared experience, Becka becomes the happenstance healer who allows Frank and Eldon to continue with their journey. Without Becka’s medicine, Eldon might have died before telling Frank all of his stories. Without Becka’s reframing the importance of stories, Frank may not have understood the value of the stories Eldon told him.
Storytelling is thematically important in Medicine Walk, and Becka’s conversation with Frank elevates the purpose of stories in the novel. Becka reframes Eldon’s storytelling as a brave act because Eldon has walked through life ashamed of his past and who he was—what he calls his “bone deep shame.” Eldon’s bravery connects thematically to Frank’s courage in the following chapter, Chapter 13. Frank intimidates the grizzly bear so that it runs away, a demonstration of Frank’s courage. When Eldon asks him about learning courage, Frank says courage is something you come to on your own—much like Eldon came to the bravery of telling his story on his own. These two chapters outline a particularly resonant parallelism between father and son, where both successively demonstrate their courage and bravery.
