Writing Exercise 1 - Lance A. Twitchell

“Kill the Indian, save the man”

- Captain Richard H. Pratt

* *

The quote hangs above a small mirror next to a black iron woodstove, atop which a white basin contains steaming water and a small washcloth bleached spotless. Wooden plank walls are scarcely decorated, a mounted King George VI coronation medal, an education degree from the University of Victoria, and a short newspaper article mounted on a rectangular cedar plank. In the clean damp room of Lieutenant Colonel Harris, everything is in its right place.

“Our world must reflect everything that is not the mind of the savage,” Harris would often say. “We must, if we are to save them from themselves, be what we know of perfection.”

Everything in its right place. A small wooden shelf is mounted below the mirror, with grooming items lined like a row standing guard, distinctly organized from tallest to shortest. The floor, cool and damp, is free of lose dirt and debris. Near the front door two shoes and two boots are neatly paired below a black wool trenchcoat that hangs from a single peg. The left shoe and boot are a size seven, with a worn down back heel, and the rights a size nine with scuff marks on the insides where the left foot has blemished an otherwise perfect surface.

The room itself is built according to military officer housing, each home a clone of the last or the next. There is nothing out of order. There are four rooms of the house – kitchen, living, dining, bedroom – each identical in size and proportion. In the bedroom, sheets and blankets press tight to the bed, their tops overturned at an exact crease.

There is no clock in the bedroom, and the only decoration on the unpainted walls is a single, blurred photograph. There is only darkness in the image. A close examination reveals thick smoke, black acrid, a barely visible treeline in the distance, and on the right-hand side the silhouette of a mounted soldier on a muscled horse. Beneath the photo is a small piece of paper, its edges torn by a soot covered thumbprint. One this paper, which is the size of a man’s palm, it is written – “mercy or victory?”

The kitchen is tightly regimented. One tin percolator, one cast iron dutch oven, one tin cup, one tin plate, one fork, spoon, knife. They are used and then immediately scoured, dried, and returned to their place on the counter. In the dining room there is a small wooden chair and round-top table. On it is a single book, a ledger, each page titled with the date, location, officer’s name and rank. The leather binding of the book is stamped “His Majesty’s Government in Canada” and the cover “Aboriginal Cultural Reclamation Plan.”

The floor is made of long wooden planks, staggered tongue and groove, unfinished straight pine. Each plank is eight inches wide and two feet long. Where two of these planks meet, beneath the top left-hand side of the bed, there is a loose section, a rebellion. A small brown floor mat, the lazy concealant, lies aside at a casual angle. This loose section is a plank cut in half and lies with one corner slightly higher than the level floor and its opposite just below. Uneven. The wood on this section is a slightly darker hue than the others. On an edge near the corner, where it meets the uniform planks, there is a single dried drop of blood that threatens the order, integrity.

* *

Harris walks with the slightest shuffle, favoring at times his left leg. His determined gait is actually a drifting in and out of consciousness, awareness of the asymmetry of steps. In times of intense focus, like this very moment, the concentration drifts and the smaller left foot resumes its natural half-drag step with the toe turned stubbornly inward. The toe of the smaller boot, a rhythmic click and scrape, transforms a soldier’s resolute stride to the song of disfigurement.

Order must be commenced, restored, constricted into being and place, regardless of the cost. There is one, today, who would not accept cleansing, fled into the thick cedar and spruce like a frightened mink. The snowflake will not begin the avalanche, and order must come with the swiftness of flames over a sundried log.

Harris’ thick brow is flexed and furrowed beneath a black military hat that pools steady rain upon its crown in the dreary gray light of morning. He has a square face that perfectly frames a long-term scowl, eighth-inch hair the dusty yellow of late spring skunk cabbage. He pushes through the rain without a jacket, only a waterlogged light blue button-up shirt, black slacks, and black tie. All questions shall submit. All doubts surrender. And all that shall reside are pointed answers.