Three Day Road Quotes
"I have paddled by myself against the big river’s current for many days to get here. No mind. My one living relation died in a faraway place, and I am here to greet his friend Elijah. Elijah Whiskeyjack is as close to a relation as I still have, and I will paddle him home."
"Serial No. 6711. Deeply regret to inform you, Private First Class Xavier Bird, infantry, officially reported died of wounds in the field, November 3, 1918. Director of Records."
"I was told you were dead, Auntie," he whispers. "And I was told you were, too," I say.
"We do not get far before the sun lets me know that it is time to prepare a camp. No rush. It is summer."
"I have many questions for Xavier, and I am like a child inside, waiting to ask them. But I am patient. I am good at waiting."
"The urge to admit that I want to be home and not in this ugly place hovers close, but I must push the thought away."
"To have men cheer as they march off to the front is not an easy accomplishment. This army orders itself very carefully, I see."
"For a time this was almost what I pictured it to be from all the stories the others told. Green fields and pretty girls waving to us from windows and doors in the towns we marched through."
"I listen to myself breathe, and I close my eyes. After a time I can hear others breathing heavy all around me."
"It’s as if I’m dreaming, staring up at this painted sky, shells whizzing above my head and once in a while crashing around me."
"I am a Cree Indian from Moose Factory, and I have come to kill Germans."
"We both find it better not to talk at all if we don’t have to."
"I wonder what they would think of such a place."
"The soldier's Ross is the soldier's best friend."
"Marry it, man! Marry it! Cherish your rifle for she's your very own!"
"It's simple. You place matches in the ground and each man takes a turn. Whoever can light the match by touching the tip with a bullet wins."
"I've never seen a stretch with so few casualties."
"I have been walking around you all night and didn’t wake you until now. I will try not to make any more mistakes, Xavier."
"When matches are placed in the ground... Elijah shoots first, and his match disappears."
"I breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and lift my rifle to my shoulder. If I can do this I will no longer be so much the outsider."
"None of these who are here today can call me a useless bush Indian ever again."
"Maybe Elijah is still over there, Auntie. Maybe the army has kept him there longer."
"We ran out of bullets that day. How many did we kill? A dozen?"
"I begin to adopt Elijah’s ways. I try to think like the Hun, particularly the very good one who killed Sean Patrick."
"Grey Eyes has the glassy look of the medicine in his veins and he is not paying close enough attention."
"He’s a good shot, Elijah continues. To be able to hit a man through the neck with such a short window of opportunity."
"I am glad not to be in the trenches. McCaan is angry that Sean Patrick died so needlessly."
"I must remember what he has done to Sean Patrick next time Grey Eyes asks for something."
"There’s always more of it somewhere."
"Behind the Somme we make camp at a place called The Brickfields, a miserable landscape of rubble in which, like rats, we dig holes to sleep in."
"The only sight at The Brickfields that is not depressing is straight up in the air. Despite the wreck of the world below, the birds continue to fly above it as if nothing has changed."
"A little over a year ago Elijah and I were very different from the soldiers we are now. But Elijah is still daring, still talkative. He still wants to fly."
"You must realize once more, Nephew, that in this world of hardship we must grasp the moments that are offered to us."
"It was a good summer. I’d visit my mother and she saw the difference in me, knew what I was discovering."
"The autumn called us away from each other, he to hunt moose for his town for winter, me for a very different reason."
"I walked out of my shaking tent with no answers to what was coming, and the not-knowing was a strange relief."
"Winter came upon us again, and I kept my own dwelling now, having made sure that my mother was safe and living with other awawatuk."
"As long as she stands the Allies will not lose this town."
"We are entering the place that has devastated the British all summer, the place of the thundering artillery that echoed in our ears for months."
"I was not sure if it was me or some other force that carried me back to that school and the tall peak of the church, but I found myself standing in the same place I’d been in the morning, looking for Rabbit."
"I walked down the dirt road of the big street, staring into the trading post, the livery, the butcher shop, the pub."
"I crouched and sobbed, afraid that his magic had killed my family’s fire inside of me, and it was only then that I realized he was a spell-caster of some kind and he’d stolen my strength."
"I slept long and deep as soon as my head touched the floor of my lodge."
"I could just be normal, suffer the sweet pains that came with my young age."
"I was happy to see her. I heated up water for tea and warmed moosemeat over a fire and we sat comfortably with one another for a time."
"Elijah, he feels the same thing, I see. He goes to a corner of the room and lets himself slide down the wall so that he’s sitting on his haunches, eyes closed and head swaying with the sound."
"Making it to the troops’ sleeping area is difficult. I only bother to go once."
"We spent the rest of the daylight hours peering through our scopes at this place, Elijah working out in his head all the possible scenarios."
"And so I wait. Elijah tells how he runs along the stalls and to the stairs that lead up."
"My only conversations were with the sky and the forest animals."
"The one thing I did know was that their return meant some change was coming."
"I would know a fit was coming by the change in light."
"My loneliness combined with my fear in the year after my mother’s death so that a plan began to form in my mind."
"That winter was especially long and cold, and in the nights that seemed to stretch on forever, I convinced myself of what I needed to do."
"I travelled for three days, paddling from first to last light."
"The months that followed were the happiest in my life."
"Don’t worry, when you are old enough I will explain."
"One afternoon in late autumn, when the frost in the morning was heavy on the ground and the last of the geese were flying south high on the currents of air, the familiar tingling in my toes and fingers came to me."
"The sun is warm on the river, and I no longer feel guilty that I do not help paddle."
"But then the world seems to erupt once more."
"The whole earth is on fire in front of me, exploding in huge fountains of mud and fire."
"Elijah turns to his rifle, sliding open the bolt and checking the action, pushing a round back into the chamber."
"I reach down to my belt and feel for my bayonet, pull it from its sheath and slide it onto the barrel, clicking it into place."
"I am sick of this army and want to go back to Mushkegowuk."
"The craziest thing we have found was in a bunker thirty or forty feet below the earth. Behind a red velvet curtain are comfortable couches and chairs and candles everywhere and even electric lighting. And in the middle of the room is a grand piano."
"To try and ease him a little, I start talking again."
"No wemistikoshiw can catch me, Auntie. I do not want to live in town, just close enough that I can find my old friend who will come out into the bush with me to hunt."
"Although I didn’t like to admit it, living back near other humans again felt good."
"What does a nun need with a gun, anyway? I’ve seen her shoot it, too. She is the worst shot I have ever seen."
"I must figure out what happened to Elijah. If Elijah can come back to me, he will help me."
"I think of him as a sure way to get me out of the funk I’d been in since my trip to see Lisette."
"It was not said meanly. I could tell from his voice that the boy was simply trying to understand."
"I am trained not to hesitate in situations of danger."
"It’s true! X, how many have I killed?" he asks in Cree."
"I am sorry, I am sorry," I repeat over and over, to the child, to the mother.
"Go easy with the wood," I say. "You’ll have Fritz spotting it and shelling us."
"I need you to read the bone," Elijah says, staring at me.
"We stop talking for a while and stare into the fire."
"The war is over," she mouths. "The war is over."
"You have gone mad. There is no coming back from where you’ve traveled."
"Don’t be so literal, X," he says. "I have found the one thing I am truly talented at, and that is killing men."
"Are we not best friends, Xavier?" he asks. "Are we not best friends and great hunters?"
"The world is warm and close with the medicine surrounding me."