Summary

Richard Wagamese's "Indian Horse" tells the story of an Ojibway First Nations boy named Saul Indian Horse. In the first chapters, Saul is with his family: his grandmother, Naomi; his mother and father, and his  great-grandfather, Slanting Sky. In the first chapter, Saul is in a rehabilitation center. He is at the rehab center for reasons you will discover later in the book. The people at the rehabilitation centre want to hear Saul's story because they think it will help him overcome the struggles of the past.

The story then switches to when Saul is young.  Saul and his grandmother, father and mother go to a place called "Lake of the Gods." This is after the return of Saul's long-time lost brother, Benjamin, who had been stolen away to go to a residential school. The family discovers that Benjamin had gotten tuberculosis at the school. When Benjamin dies later, Saul's mother wants to bury Benjamin in the "white" way, but Naomi wants to bury Benjamin in the traditional way, with his feet pointing to the sun. Naomi believes in tradition, but Saul’s mother, who was forced to go to a residential school, struggles with being a First Nations and has “white” beliefs.

Later, Saul himself is taken to a residential school called "Saint Jerome’s Indian Residential School." There, Saul is forced to witness terrible things, but soon Saul is introduced to a priest named "Father Gaston Leboutillier" who arrives at the school. The Father brings hockey with him, and Saul realizes that he wants to play when he watches hockey on Father’s television. Hockey gives Saul hope and a way to escape the horrors of the school. During his time at the school, Saul becomes a master of hockey. One day, an Ojibway man named Fred Kelly arrives at the school and takes Saul away from the school and gives him a new life on an Indian hockey team.

Once Saul is introduced to the team, called the Moose, he realizes that life can be different than when he was forced to go to the residential school. It is on the Moose that Saul realizes that he can make friends, and he makes friends with a man named Virgil, who is the Kelly’s son. Virgil helps Saul with schoolwork and hockey, and Saul begins to play games on the Moose. Later, Saul and the rest of the Moose travel to different parts of Canada, playing hockey all over the country. During one of these games, a scout for the NHL asks Saul if he wants to play in the NHL. During his time on the NHL, Saul faces racism from the opposing teams and other players. This forces Saul to fight back, even though he doesn’t really want to fight. He learns to outsmart his teammates, but they use their sticks to trip him and cut his skates out from under him with their skates. Eventually the racism gets to be too much for Saul, and he leaves the NHL. Saul later goes on to working all over the country where he faces more racism. To numb the pain of the past, he begins drinking.  

Things begin turning around for Saul near the end. Saul returns back to the Kelly’s. He rejoins the Moose and begins playing with them once again. Saul goes back to the residential school and faces the terrors of the past there. Saul learns the school has been closed for years. Saul remembers all the bad things from the school. Soon after this, Saul goes to Minaki and Kenora before he makes it back to Gods Lake. At Gods Lake, he tosses tobacco into the lake and the past is now in the past. 

Saul realizes that he needs to deal with the troubles of his past and he goes to a hospital for his drinking, and from there he gets transferred to the rehab center where he is in at the beginning of the book. He finally opens up about the struggles he had faced. When Saul leaves the rehab center, he rejoins the Moose. He faces Virgil and tells him that he wants to play again. Saul accepts the position of coaching the Moose. Saul has finally reached acceptance of his past.