Medicine Walk: Chapter 26 Summary & Analysis

It takes two days to get back from the farm. He puts the mare in the barn and stands watching the old man work for a while. He’s repairing some of the horse stalls, so intent on his work that he doesn’t notice Frank. He looks aged, but his work has a familiar, comfortable rhythm. The kid sees himself in the old man—the respect for work he’s taught him. He quietly puts on his tool belt and goes to help. The old man looks surprised for just a second, then smiles faintly. They finish repairing the stalls and get ready to repaint them.

Finally the kid tells him, “He’s gone.” The old man isn’t surprised. He says he hopes it wasn’t too hard for Frank, and the kid just says, “Yeah.” They work hard and quickly, and soon the painting is done, so they wash up for lunch. Inside, their routine feels comfortingly familiar. After they’ve eaten, the kid finally says, “He told me, ya know.” The old man says he’d always hoped Eldon would. He sees Angie in the kid every day, and it’s like watching her take her place in the world. He says that Eldon never told him the whole story of his life, though.

After the meal, they sit on the porch and smoke. The kid starts telling the story of his journey with his father. Then the old man suggests they take a walk. As he looks around the familiar farm, the kid reflects that he doesn’t know if his father ever got what he wanted. Maybe it was forgiveness, but he doesn’t know if he can face that yet. The old man says it’s okay if the kid is upset with him for not telling him everything, but the kid says there’s nothing to forgive—the old man was his father over the years. The old man’s eyes shine at this.

The kid brought a stone back from the grave for the old man, and the old man thanks him and says they’ll keep it on the hearth and talk about it if they need to. The kid isn’t sure what to feel, and the old man says that when things are taken away from a person, sometimes it feels like there’s a hole inside that the wind blows through. All you can do then is follow the wind. He knows it isn’t much of an answer, but being out on the land always made him feel better. He pulls the kid into a long embrace, and the kid breathes the familiar scent of the old man.

At sunset, the kid goes out to the pasture and gets onto the old man’s grey mare. He rides her out to the edge of the trees and looks back at the farm. Looking toward the back acres his father fenced, he thinks about the time when his father had almost been happy. Then he rides the mare up the ridge and watches the shape of the land change in the fading light, feeling like he’s entered a dream world and can see ghostly people among the trees—men riding ponies, singing women, and children chasing dogs. He thinks he can hear them shouting to him happily. He raises a hand to them, thinking of the line of people he’s never known. Then he rides home to the old man who’s waiting for him.