Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese Page A

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.

8
    HE REMEMBERED THE FIRST TIME HE SAW HIM . He must have been five, near on to six. It was dusk. Summer. The hens were roosting and he was tacking up an extra skein of wire at the base of the hutch. There’d been a fox or a weasel taking hens. They’d lost three already and the old man was angered by it. So the kid had asked how they could fix it. It was a small task and the old man wasn’t prone to babying. Instead, he listened when the kid asked questions and he took time to show him how to do things. Then, rather than hover over his shoulder, he left the kid to whichever chore he’d shown interest in. If he needed a hand or the chore needed fixing once he was done, the old man would help him through it so he could learn. But for the jobs themselves, he was left to work. So the kid was hunkered down at the base of the hen hutch busy with arranging the wire. He’d dug down a good foot or so and set the wire in the ground before covering it and getting to the task of tacking staples around the upper section to the wood frame. He liked the hens. He liked their bobbing, pecking scurry and the old lady sort of attitude they took about their roosts. He liked eggs too, so it didn’t feel like a chore to him.
    He was aware of the man before he saw him. When he turned his head there was the shadowed outline of a man in the doorway. The kid never moved. He squinted against the light and then turned back to the hutch.
    “Varmint?” the man said.
    “Yeah. Got three hens already,” the kid said.
    “Shame. You could shoot it.”
    “Have to be up all night waitin’.”
    “Suppose. You all right there?”
    “I just got to tack up this wire.”
    “See you up to the house then.”
    The kid focused on the frame and tapped in a staple. When he turned his head again the man was gone. When he had the wire up he headed for the house with his tools.
    He heard them as soon as he entered. Man talk. Deep, rumbled voices that had no pitch or sway, just a long rollout of words that left him knowing that what they discussed had weight to it. The kid put the smaller tools on the metal toolbox by the back door and hung the wire snips and the hammer on hooks set in a peg board nailed to the mudroom wall. He banged the hammer some when he hung it and then stomped his feet on the rubber mat to let them know he was there and the talk dropped off then started in again as he hung his jacket.
    They sat at the kitchen table. The old man eyed him as he walked to the refrigerator. He was pouring whisky into mugs. When the kid turned with a glass of milk the old man nodded to him and he pulled a chair up to the table and sat.
    “This here’s Eldon,” the old man told him.
    “Sir,” the kid said and nodded. He spat on his hand, slid it along the thigh of his pants to dry it and then reached it out across the table.
    Eldon shook hands with him. “You get that wire hung good?”
    “That varmint’ll let me know how good I done.”
    Eldon laughed. “Ain’t that a fact,” he said. “Them varmints are a smart bunch.”
    “Not near as smart as me.”
    The old man reached out and rubbed his hair. The kid beamedat him. The three of them sat through a moment of silence and the kid looked back and forth at the men and sipped at his milk.
    “You look up Seth Minor like I told ya?” the old man asked.
    Eldon swallowed some of the whisky and sat back in his chair with his hands folded around the mug. They were pale and the kid could see the blue veins clearly like tiny rivers through his skin. He fished a smoke out of the chest pocket of his shirt and fumbled with a lighter. When he got it going he took a draw and then exhaled across the table and the kid had to wave the cloud of smoke away from his face. Eldon