Indian Horse

Saul returns to White Riverand the husk of St. Jerome’s. It is long closed, crumbling and vandalized. He goes to visit where the rink used to be. It’s now just a pad of earth. As he kneels to touch it, a man tells him he can’t be there and lets him know the school closed in 1969, after most of the kids had run away. The man’s name is Jim Gibney. He allows Saul to stay and take his time at the ruins of his old school. Remembering his games at the rink, he begins to cry. And suddenly, he remembers. All the times that Father Leboutilier held him close, cradled him, and kissed him. How desperate he was for love and affection. How the Father would whisper “‘You’re a glory, Saul’” (199) the nights he snuck into the dorm. How he perpetrated those “nighttime invasions” in the dark of the dorm and the barn. How he gave him the ice-cleaning job to keep him complacent and quiet. How the game kept him from remembering, from focusing on it. As Saul says: “I had run to the game. Run to it and embraced it, done anything that would allow me to get to that avenue of escape.