“Sure they did,” answered Liz. “They made friends with Danielle. And now this little girl they wanted to help is gone.” She paused for a second. “I feel guilty. We should have done more.”
Tye wanted to say, “What more could they have done?” but he knew that would not be the right answer at this moment. “Do you want me to come home?”
“Can you?”
Now it was Tye’s turn to take a deep breath. “Ray will kill me. He’ll have to get a replacement driver out here, and I’ll have to pay a penalty, but …”
He could practically hear her smile on the other end of the phone. “Thank you, Tye.”
The Native man, alone in a nondescript hotel room in a town he would never remember, smiled to himself. He had made his wife happy and grateful. He was not sure what he would be in a position to do for his kids, but he would try. According to rumour, that’s what a good parent does.
“I have no idea how to get home from here without the truck, but I’m on my way. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Love you, Tye.”
“Love you, too.”
Hanging up, Tye immediately began to repack his toiletries and tomorrow’s T-shirt, socks, and underwear that he’d laid out just half an hour ago. Once he had everything together, he would call the front desk about finding the best way to get out of here and back home. He also wanted to pick up the nifty T-shirt he’d seen in the lobby, something about a bass — the fish — playing a bass — the musical instrument. And there was the issue of presents for his kids. He hadn’t brought back any from the last trip, maybe something from here might cheer them up. Tye remembered seeing some stuffed animals in a big bin when he’d checked in. A giraffe, he remembered, a dog, a cat, a horse …
Tye stopped packing. No horse.
FROM THAT POINT in their lives, Danielle Gaadaw and the Horse passed into legend. Never forgotten, but hidden in the shadows. The Everything Wall, after three glorious weeks of existence, also disappeared into history. At one point, Tye tried moving the refrigerator over the bare spot on the wall in what he thought was an innocuous attempt to put behind them the events of that winter, but by the time he came home a few weeks later the appliance had been moved back to its natural home. Very little was said about the little girl they had come to know briefly. It was better to remember her kneeling in front of the Wall, excited and happy, instead of wondering what might have become of her wherever Arthur’s pickup truck had stopped.
Another family moved into the Gaadaw trailer shortly after, as housing on the reserve was a precious commodity. The Horse lived on in the camp fort for another season, but the structure stopped being a focal point for adolescent mischief. Little partying could be done while the Horse stared down on them, seemingly passing judgment. Later that fall, a fire consumed the building, and the Horse with it. It was now as if there was no trace left of Danielle.
Ralph, Shelley, and William grew up, as children tend to do. Their lives became more complicated, and thoughts of old friends, both human and equine, began taking a back seat to more current and pressing adventures. Tye and Liz grew old together, with Liz still occasionally throwing her family a curveball. One year, she bought a yurt.
Some twelve years after the incident with Danielle, Tye’s journey on Mother Earth came to an end. It was a slow death, made not too painful by modern science, but still one of anguish for the family. William and Shelley had just become engaged, and the wedding had to be postponed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE PARAMEDICS HOISTED Harry onto the portable gurney, marvelling at how light the man actually was. The layered and worn clothing gave the impression of far more substance than Harry carried on his bones. Ralph was standing beside him as they strapped him to the ambulance. People around the donut franchise looked on with curiosity.
Struggling weakly against the restraints, Harry looked at the two medical professionals as they went about their work. He could tell the woman paramedic tightening the strap around his body, someone the other one called Molly, was only weeks away from resigning her position. He was sure by the way she glowed that she was on the edge of a breakdown. Too many calls, too much stress, too much pressure was making her self-confidence ooze out — that was the best way Harry could describe it. She was leaving bits of herself on the floor of the Tim Hortons as she packed up the medical equipment. The other paramedic appeared okay. His eyes were where they were supposed to be, and he didn’t seem to be radiating anything negative. He was indeed a man who wanted to make the world a better place, and that was always a good thing.
Harry’s blood pressure was high, and his heartbeat was irregular. The paramedics kept asking him very annoying questions, none of which he wished to answer. He just needed to stop talking and thinking and he’d be okay. Yes, he knew he had made the decision to call over the police boy to talk, not thinking it would take such a toll on him. Now he just wanted to be left alone.
“Just leave me be. Take me to my grate.” Both paramedics looked at each other. They were trained to handle street people, who frequently had a different value system. Their voices were gentle but firm.
“Ah, no, sir. Can’t do that at the moment. Do you know where you are?”
Deciding not to answer, Harry let his head fall back onto the stretcher. This wasn’t his first encounter with Toronto’s medical shock troops. Every once in a while, his latent diabetes would end up giving him some unwanted attention, but today he just wasn’t in the mood.
“Look, just give me a donut and let me go!”
Ralph stepped up to the prone, anxious man. “Harry, just go with them. They’ll make you better.”
“Better than what?”
Maybe if he finished what he’d started, he might feel better, like closing the door on an unpleasant smell or getting off a bumpy plane — though Harry had never been on a plane, he felt the metaphor was just — would ease the nausea.
“Police boy, you want to know about the Horse?”
Ralph nodded.
“Don’t look. You may not find what you think you will. They change. People change. Horses change.” The paramedics tried to calm Harry down, but he barely saw them. “Go home.”
Ralph stepped up to the stretcher, despite the protestations of the medical personnel. “I can’t. I have to find out what happened. See if I can help … even all these years later.”
“Why?”
“Because. That’s why I became a cop.”
For financial reasons, Ralph had spent the morning, one of several, pacing back and forth in front of a construction site. That didn’t fit in with his reasoning at the moment, and when the time came, he would have to reassess that stone in the foundation of his life. But right now, in front of Harry, he was so close to solving a mystery that had haunted him his entire life.
“I wanted to be one of the good guys. I didn’t like being … impotent.”
Harry’s head was now throbbing. Distant memories and images of a long-ago life began to pop up. Once again, he heard the police boy’s voice.
“Tell me, Harry, where can I find Danielle?”
Focusing on the Native man’s face through the haze of his past life, with errant memories of long-forgotten people and a barely remembered language bombarding his consciousness, Harry uttered his last words.
“Where would you be if you were a horse?”
The paramedics pushed the policeman aside as the man on the stretcher suffered a seizure.
Once again, Ralph could only watch from the sidelines.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HIGH PARK IS the largest park in Canada’s largest city. Stretching several square kilometres from the Bloor subway line all the way down to Lake Ontario and across three subway stops, it provides samples of many of Canada’s landscapes, from rolling fields covered in snow to bushy areas to forested enclaves.
Somewhere near the centre
of the park sat a Native man, his back to the sun and his face to the openness of the grounds. Though it was still deep in winter’s embrace, the city was experiencing a brief warm spell, enough to feel the distant kiss of an approaching spring. Ralph did not know why he was sitting here. This was the second day he’d come to the park. Did he trust that crazy homeless man? If so, why? Perhaps that man wasn’t any crazier than anyone else he’d met in his travels. Wisdom and knowledge come with many faces. He’d read that somewhere. And, as he’d learned on the job, it didn’t hurt to investigate all possibilities.
The hot chocolate in his cardboard cup could no longer be legally called “hot.” How long he’d been sitting here, watching the population at winter play, he couldn’t say. A fair percentage of any person’s job in the police force involved doing nothing; it truly was a hurry-up-and-wait career. Spending hours watching the world pass by was pretty much second nature to Ralph. But he’d lost track of the multitude of joggers, strollers, and dogs. After two days, Ralph felt as much a part of the landscape as the park bench he sat on. He’d turned down an offer to return to the condo construction, saying he was reassessing his priorities. Instead, he sat here getting colder and colder, wondering if he should have his sanity reassessed.
Shelley and William had been amazed. Currently in the third trimester of child number four, they were unable to jump into their minivan and race into the city, as eager as they were to view the Horse. The picture Ralph had taken with his cellphone and sent didn’t do it justice, he had told them. Instead, they wished him success in his plan. All three had reminisced for a good hour when they’d finally connected on the phone, reliving every remembered moment. The two of them doubted, and to a certain extent so did Ralph, that doing what he was doing would produce any reasonable result. Still, it was better than doing nothing, and that was something he would not do anymore.
If by some miracle Danielle was around, what would he say to her? Even this he did not know. The sun was setting typically early for this time of year, casting long shadows in front of him, reminding him of winters at home. Currently the young man was trying to decide if he was an idiot for sitting here so long or if he should return to the park later in the week when he had another free day and take the opportunity to confirm his idiocy. After all, this whole situation was a long shot. Definitely a shot long enough to be measured in years. He took a sip of his drink then just as quickly spit out the half-frozen beverage. Disgusted, he placed it on the bench beside him without looking. Surprised, Ralph felt his paper cup knock something over that hadn’t been there when he had sat down.
Looking down to his right, he noticed a small figurine that had somehow materialized on one of the bench’s wooden slats. It looked like a small plaster horse. One leg was broken off, and both ears looked damaged. It was discoloured in a particular way; it was scorched. But somehow, it seemed familiar. Picking it up delicately, he rolled it over in his hands, unwilling to believe what his memory was telling him.
Looking up from the horse to the ground in front of him, Ralph noticed something else different. He now had two shadows. He was fairly sure he had arrived with one. It hovered there on the snow before him, slowly shifting weight from one foot to the other. Occasionally he’d see the head flip and long hair, almost like a mane, swirl in the air. Behind him, he could hear light breathing.
“Hey, Danielle …” His tone was husky and a little cautious.
Behind him, he heard a voice.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This story has been decades in the development. It has had many different forms: first a short story, then a one-act play for young audiences, and, finally, a novel. Since the concept first appeared to me back in the early 90s, there have been a lot of influences in its evolution, both conscious and direct and some not so conscious and direct.
Let’s start with Ms. D. Kappele, who provided me with the original concept oh so long ago. See what you caused! From a vague dinner party discussion, it grew, eventually ending up in a collection of my short stories, Fearless Warriors, published by Talon Books, originally christened “Girl Who Loved Her Horses”. Thanks to Karl Siegler and Talon Books for giving both Danielle and the Horse their first opportunity to run free.
But the story, and Danielle’s plight, wouldn’t leave me alone. One story in a collection of other stories wasn’t enough for it. It kept nagging me … if that’s the correct word. Eventually I wanted to explore the universe of the story more. Girl Who Loved Her Horses, the play, came out a few years later. For that I have to thank Theatre Direct. Thanks to those who helped me further develop the story, I’m talking about the late Larry Lewis (a personal mentor) and Richard Goldblatt, who directed the first production. The following year, the play was also published with Talon Books as part of two one-act plays, along with Boy in the Treehouse.
When asked, I would frequently say this story, in both forms, was one of my favourite things I have ever written. Every once in a while, when I would for one reason or another reread either of its forms, I would frequently say to myself, somewhat surprised, “Wow, I wrote that!” Now I get to say that again.
Danielle and the Horse lay dormant for a number of decades, but they would not leave me alone. They had more to say. At one point a few years back I said to myself, “Just write it as a novel. See what happens.” So I did. Alas for a while I thought I was alone in my enthusiasm for their unique tale. I had great difficulty finding a home for that book. Then one afternoon, in a rather lovely hotel bar, I had a conversation with Marc Côté, publisher of Cormorant Books. Actually I had meant to pitch him another story I thought might make a half decent novel, but as I settled into that first glass of wine, I found myself talking about this secret dream/project of mine lying unappreciated in both my computer and my mind. I still remember my delight when he looked me in the eye, a definite expression of immediate interest, saying “You mean there’s an unpublished Drew Hayden Taylor novel out there?” I would have married him right there. So thank you, Marc, and Cormorant Books for giving my little girl and her mighty Horse a larger pasture to explore.
And of course, a special thanks to those who have supported and encouraged all of my literary efforts for as long as I can remember: my agent, Ms Cheeseman who has guided my career through its ups and downs. Also the lovely Janine, who has always been incredibly supportive of my flights of fancy, and my mother, whose efforts in the real world provided me the opportunity to play in my make-believe world.
I thank you all, and if I have left anybody out, my apologies. The older I get the more details seem to fall between the floorboards of my mind. I blame it on the 80s.
Drew Hayden Taylor
Curve Lake First Nation
June 2019
Drew Hayden Taylor has done many things, most of which he is proud of. An Ojibway from the Curve Lake First Nations in Ontario, he has worn many hats in his literary career, from performing stand-up comedy at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., to being Artistic Director of Canada’s premiere Native theatre company, Native Earth Performing Arts. He has been an award-winning playwright (with over seventy productions of his work), a journalist/columnist (appearing regularly in several Canadian newspapers and magazines), short-story writer, novelist, television scriptwriter, and has worked on over seventeen documentaries exploring the Native experience. Most notably, he wrote and directed Redskins, Tricksters, and Puppy Stew, a documentary on Native humour for the National Film Board of Canada.
We acknowledge the sacred land on which Cormorant Books operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibway and allied nations to peaceably share and steward the resources around the Great Lakes. Today, the meeting p
lace of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.
We are also mindful of broken covenants and the need to strive to make right with all our relations.
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