Through Black Spruce

Annie goes to see Will, but Dorothy is already there reading poetry to him. Annie feels uncomfortable being there with someone else and leaves. She’s waiting for the elevator when a scream comes from Will’s room. Her uncle has had a heart attack. The doctors stabilize him and ask her and Dorothy to leave the room. The two of them go drink tea in the hospital cafeteria. They have a short conversation, both worried about Will and whether he will recover.

Will, Joe, and Gregor are laying in the snow with Marius and a friend, who turns out to be Danny. Will thinks, “We are so scared. We are going to die […] I focus on the tangle of spruce boughs fanned above me” (330). They yell at Will to tell him where Suzanne is. Marius and Danny are beating the three friends with a golf club, but they stop to argue over whether to kill them. Will instigates them to keep arguing, seeing Antoine in the distance, behind some trees with their father’s rifle. As the two argue over who gets to kill Will, they decide that Marius will shoot and Danny will hit with the club. Meanwhile, Antoine shoots and kills Marius and then Danny. Marius and Will lay on the ground; “we stare into each other’s eyes. I understand that he is dying. He understands that I am close, too” (338).

Annie and Gordon continue their romantic relationship. Annie admits, “We give ourselves to each other. This part consumes me” (340). Eva calls Annie at home and tells her that Uncle Will woke up and said a few slurry lines, thinking she was Dorothy, but then fell back asleep. When Annie arrives at the hospital, she is disappointed to find that her uncle is still sleeping. The whole family comes, and the doctor tells them that “Will’s making his decision” (344). Annie decides to spend the night after everyone else has left.

Annie tells Will the story of her first goose hunt when she was a little girl. Her uncle and her grandfather, Moshum, took her hunting one morning. The experience intimidated her, but she also recounts pleasant memories of bonding with her grandfather, learning from him, watching him sew. Annie falls asleep but awakens to her uncle patting her head and telling her, “I was dreaming of roasting a goose” (349). By the time Annie gets the nurse, her uncle is asleep again.

Will is allowed out of the hospital for a few hours, but he has short-term memory loss, blurred speech, and a lot of recovery left ahead. In his time out of the hospital, his friends take him across the river, and he and Dorothy go driving. He doesn’t tell Dorothy where they are going until they arrive at an old house foundation; “‘This is where I lost my family’, I finally say. I want the words to say more” (351). Will wants to tell Dorothy that he has moved on, that he has his wife’s blessing and is ready to start a life with her, but he has trouble with speech due to his head trauma.

Antoine calls his brother from jail. He doesn’t know when he will be released, but the guards are treating him well; they are glad he killed Marius. The government took the rifle. Antoine says, “Me, I don’t think they know what they have there. The gun, it will eventually start talking. And when it does, someone’s going to have to start listening” (355).

Will and his family and friends gather at his cabin for a reunion get-together. During the trip there in the canoe, we learn that Annie’s father murdered several white men, angry that they were stealing from the Indian population. When Will arrives at the cabin, he is greeted by his two nieces, Annie and Suzanne.