Indian Horse

Virgil asks why Saul doesn’t try for the NHL, given his high scoring record, but Saul insists that he just wants to play the game the way he used to. Virgil insists he’s born for more, but Saul protests.

Fred gets Saul a job on a forestry crew. He works hard and is shipped to a logging camp on Nagagami Lake. He feels at home among the bush, but not among the white crew. They call him names but he stays separate, reading and working, which they take for high-mindedness. He is then subjected to the least desirable jobs, like cleaning outhouses but “the more they tried to exhaust [him], the harder [he] worked…all without saying a word” (174). One night, a man named Jorgenson levels a cruel gesture at him and swings a fist at his face. Saul snaps, grabbing him by the throat and choking him until his eyes bug out and he drops to the floor. He finishes by punching him. No one bothers him again.

Saul brings this same violent intensity back to the Moose. “There was no lively banter on the bench…no joy in the game now, no vision…I poured out a blackness that constantly refueled itself” (176).