Through Black Spruce

Will’s PTSD gets worse after the fire, and he no longer goes to town. He runs before the sun is up with his rifle on his back. Dorothy invites him to her house for a date. They get drunk on white wine and talk about Marius. She tells him, “It doesn’t add up, Will. You got to figure this one out. Something bad is going to happen” (100). Dorothy lost a son and has an ex-husband who cheated on her. Will feels that they both have experienced enough loss to relate to one another. They connect and he confides in her, but when they kiss, he “sensed the others around me, though, the lost ones, and pulled away, trying not to offend” (103). Will heads home shortly after.

Will’s parents didn’t speak English. They weren’t raised in American culture or forced to go to public schools. His mother and her eight sisters were supposed to go to a boarding school but her parents refused, “protected them with their hunting rifles […] The government gave up on them” (103). Will is still angry that his dad didn’t fight against the government like his mother’s parents did. He is angry that the white school created this anger in him toward his family, knowing it was their intention to break indigenous culture.