Holy Track Character Analysis

Asiginak and Cuthbert suddenly burst out singing. They began high—Cuthbert’s voice a wild falsetto that cut the air. Asiginak joined him and Holy Track felt almost good, hearing the strength and power of their voices. And the words in the old language.

These white men are nothing

What they do cannot harm me

I will see the face of mystery

[…] The boy was too light for death to give him an easy time of it. He slowly choked as he kicked air and spun. He heard it when Cuthbert, then his uncle, stopped singing and gurgling. Behind his shut eyes, he was seized by black fear, until he heard his mother say, Open your eyes, and he stared into the dusty blue. Then it was better. The little wisps of clouds, way up high, had resolved into wings and they swept across the sky now, faster and faster.

I do think of how I have grown up in the certainty of my parents’ love, and how that is a rare thing and how, given that they love me, my breakdown is my own fault and shameful. I think of how history works itself out in the living. The Buckendorfs, the other Wildstrands, the Peace family, all of these people whose backgrounds tangled in the hanging.

I think of all the men who hanged Corwin’s great-uncle Cuthbert, Asiginak, and Holy Track. I see Wildstrand’s strained whipsaw body, and Gostlin walk off slapping his hat on his thigh. Now that some of us have mixed in the spring of our existence both guilt and victim, there is no unraveling the rope.

[…] Sometimes doves seem to hover in this room. At night, when I can’t sleep, I hear the flutter of their wings.

Mooshum knotted the laces, handed the boots to me. I threw them up. It took three times to catch them on a branch.

“This is sentiment instead of justice,” I said to Mooshum.

The truth is, all the way there I’d thought about saying just this thing.

Mooshum nodded, peering into the film of green on the black twigs, blinking, “Awee, my girl. The doves are still up there.”

I stared up and didn’t have anything to say about the doves, but I hated the gentle swaying of those boots.

Asiginak and Cuthbert suddenly burst out singing. They began high—Cuthbert’s voice a wild falsetto that cut the air. Asiginak joined him and Holy Track felt almost good, hearing the strength and power of their voices. And the words in the old language.

These white men are nothing

What they do cannot harm me

I will see the face of mystery

[…] The boy was too light for death to give him an easy time of it. He slowly choked as he kicked air and spun. He heard it when Cuthbert, then his uncle, stopped singing and gurgling. Behind his shut eyes, he was seized by black fear, until he heard his mother say, Open your eyes, and he stared into the dusty blue. Then it was better. The little wisps of clouds, way up high, had resolved into wings and they swept across the sky now, faster and faster.

I do think of how I have grown up in the certainty of my parents’ love, and how that is a rare thing and how, given that they love me, my breakdown is my own fault and shameful. I think of how history works itself out in the living. The Buckendorfs, the other Wildstrands, the Peace family, all of these people whose backgrounds tangled in the hanging.

I think of all the men who hanged Corwin’s great-uncle Cuthbert, Asiginak, and Holy Track. I see Wildstrand’s strained whipsaw body, and Gostlin walk off slapping his hat on his thigh. Now that some of us have mixed in the spring of our existence both guilt and victim, there is no unraveling the rope.

[…] Sometimes doves seem to hover in this room. At night, when I can’t sleep, I hear the flutter of their wings.

Mooshum knotted the laces, handed the boots to me. I threw them up. It took three times to catch them on a branch.

“This is sentiment instead of justice,” I said to Mooshum.

The truth is, all the way there I’d thought about saying just this thing.

Mooshum nodded, peering into the film of green on the black twigs, blinking, “Awee, my girl. The doves are still up there.”

I stared up and didn’t have anything to say about the doves, but I hated the gentle swaying of those boots.