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Becka Charlie
Jimmy is Eldon Starlight’s childhood best friend. He and Eldon took jobs together and worked seamlessly side-by-side, driving one another to accomplish more. Jimmy is fond of Eldon’s mother and becomes like part of the family, listening to Eldon’s mother’s storytelling each night. When Jenks starts abusing Eldon’s mother, Jimmy attacks Jenks, stunning and nearly killing him. Then he and Eldon run away. Later, he and Eldon enlist in the Canadian army to fight in the Korean War, becoming skilled reconnaissance scouts. On a nighttime mission, Jimmy gets severely wounded and signals to Eldon to kill him so they won’t be captured. Eldon never lives down the guilt.
Jimmy Weaseltail Quotes in Medicine Walk
The Medicine Walk quotes below are all either spoken by Jimmy Weaseltail or refer to Jimmy Weaseltail. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 15 Quotes
"Jimmy used to say we're a Great Mystery. Everything. Said the things they done, those old-time Indians, was all about learnin' to live with that mystery. Not solving it, not comin' to grips with it, not even tryin' to guess it out. Just bein' with it. I guess I wish I'da learned the secret to doing that. […] I never belonged nowhere, Frank. Never belonged nowhere or to nobody," he said.
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Chapter 17 Quotes
He took the knife and held it under his ribcage and Jimmy stopped, his body going perfectly still as he stared at him over the rim of his hand. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again there was peace there and he nodded at him. The knife went in almost on its own and he twisted it like he was trained to do and leaned forward cheek to cheek with Jimmy and heard his last breath ease out of him.
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Jimmy Weaseltail Character Timeline in Medicine Walk
The timeline below shows where the character Jimmy Weaseltail appears in Medicine Walk. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 11
...his mother would read to him from classic literature at night. He made one friend, Jimmy Weaseltail, who was half-blood. They worked hard, driving one another, and soon gained a reputation...
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...of 1948, they wound up in the Nechako Valley in British Columbia where Eldon and Jimmy corralled flotillas of logs downriver to the sawmill. The work was like a game to...
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Jimmy and Eldon worked together spinning timbers, an elegant dance. Jimmy told Jenks that his father...
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...unclenching his fists and wishing he could hit both of them. That night, he and Jimmy smoke out back in the moonless night. Eldon says that if this happens again, or...
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Four nights later, Eldon is out in the trees. Neither he nor Jimmy can stand listening to his mother read anymore, not with Jenks sitting there. Now Eldon...
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...realizes he’s bleeding, and then he closes his eyes and goes limp. Eldon looks at Jimmy; he’s holding a hunting knife and a club. His mother crawls to Jenks and cries....
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...mother she has a man to provide for her now and heads for the door. Jimmy says that he hopes Jenks makes it, but if he does, he’ll have to watch...
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Chapter 12
...Eldon is trembling. His face looks more shadowed and lined. He explains that he and Jimmy were too proud to return; they found whatever work they could, traveling, enjoying money and...
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Chapter 15
...pieces of grouse. Following another doze, his father speaks in a monotone. He says that Jimmy used to tell him that human beings are a “Great Mystery” and that the old...
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Chapter 16
Jumping back to the years after he abandoned his mother, Eldon says that he and Jimmy had never heard of Korea, but in the bunkhouses in 1951, it’s all anyone could...
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...the hardest work Eldon has ever done, but he loved the exertion, and he and Jimmy pushed one another as they’d always done before. The two of them could disappear into...
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Chapter 17
...of the war. When his father speaks again, he says that “Starlight” is a teacher’s name—Jimmy told him that one night in the war, saying that a man should know why...
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...starts talking about the war again. Waiting in the trench one night he tells Frank, Jimmy told Eldon that Ojibways used to bury warriors sitting upright, facing east toward the sunrise,...
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Jimmy told Eldon that, if he got killed, he wanted Eldon to swear to make sure...
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The lieutenant crawled through the trench and told Jimmy and Eldon that every company was sending out volunteers for advance reconnaissance. He needed to...
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...they could see was dark. When they heard voices, Eldon trembled and felt like crying. Jimmy rested a hand on his back. Then a shell hit behind them, close to their...
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Hearing the broken English of the Chinese soldiers, Eldon tried to move Jimmy more securely under cover, but Jimmy screamed and started thrashing, driven wild by the pain....
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...to die. When he had gotten back to the trenches, he’d lied and claimed that Jimmy was killed by a Chinese patrol. His body was never found. Soon afterwards, Eldon started...
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...stars inside himself, but he just feels empty. After a while, the kid says that Jimmy probably would have died anyway, but his father says there’s no way of knowing that....
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Chapter 22
...“couldn’t be what I never was.” He’d always been too ashamed to tell Angie about Jimmy and his mother. He wanted to be strong for her, but thinking about his weakness...
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