The Essential W. P. Kinsella by W. P. Kinsella

Author:W. P. Kinsella [Kinsella, W. P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781616961879
Amazon: 1616961872
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2015-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

Dr. Don

“How come you don’t mind?” I ask Mad Etta our medicine lady.

“Hey, when you’re young like you, Silas, you don’t like nobody move in on your territory. But when you get old as me, you look forward to all the help you can get.”

Who and what I been asking about is Dr. Don. His whole name is Dr. Donald Morninglight. He is an Indian and a doctor who come to the reserve about three months ago.

“He ain’t as good as me. Never will be,” say Mad Etta, as she laugh and laugh, shake on the tree-trunk chair in her cabin.

Must be ten years since we had a full-time doctor here on the Ermine-skin Reserve. Maybe three times a year the Department of Indian Affairs doctors come around but they is all white and wear coats white as bathroom fixtures, smell of disinfectant, and to see them work remind me of a film I seen of assembly line workers who put cars together. Them doctors treat people as if they was cars need a new bolt or screw to be whole again.

But Dr. Don don’t be like that. Guess being an Indian helps. One reason we never been able to keep a doctor here is they never like to live on the reserve. Even Indian Affairs can’t get for them a fancy enough place to live. But Dr. Don when he come, just move into a vacant house near to Blue Quills Hall. He don’t act like doctors we know, except that he make sick people better, and, as I say, even Mad Etta like him. And you got to be liked by Mad Etta if you is to get any respect around the reserve.

“Dr. Don he know which side his medical practice be buttered on,” says my friend Frank Fencepost. And I guess Frank is right. Quite a few times in the first month Dr. Don was here, he come over to Etta’s place in the evening, have a beer with her and tell her about patients he having trouble curing. Etta give him her advice. I don’t know if he ever take it but it sure make Etta feel good. So good, that right now she would do just about anything for Dr. Don.

It is easy to tell by looking at Dr. Don that he is some kind of Indian. But he never say which kind.

“I’m a mongrel,” he say when asked, and laugh. “If you went far enough back you’d find Cree blood in me.”

Dr. Don ain’t a handsome man at all. He is about 40, got short legs and a little pot belly. His hair be thin on top and what he got stand out like it never seen a comb. His eyes is dark and deep-set, his nose too big, and he got a thick black moustache that droop over his top lip. But he got such a friendly way about him that everybody like him. He ask a lot of questions and he already know how to make a good try at speaking Cree.

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