Vic Goochey

Vic Goochey is a lumber-camp cook whose place in Jinot Sel’s story is defined by a reversal of rescue: Jinot saves him from a forest fire, and Goochey later returns to offer Jinot work and help. First seen frozen before the flames, Goochey survives because Jinot pulls him from the shanty; afterward, he makes that debt concrete by visiting Jinot during his recovery and promising to come back for him.

Identity and Introduction

Goochey is introduced at the shanty as the camp cook, standing in its doorway with a long fork while the fire bears down on the men. Later, he identifies himself to Jinot as Vic Goochey, born Gautier, and recalls that they had been together at the fire and the river. His recollection places him among the laborers caught in the disaster, rather than apart from it: the shanty was his workplace, and he had believed it would not burn.

The Fire and the Rescue

As the fire overtakes the shanty, Goochey stands fixed in its doorway, watching the flames instead of running. Jinot sees that he cannot move, turns back, and wrenches him away, shouting for him to run. The rescue reverses the apparent roles of cook and injured laborer: at that moment, Goochey is the one who must be pulled from danger, while Jinot acts decisively despite the approaching fire.

They reach the pool where Goochey had often fished and submerge in its deep water as the blaze passes. Goochey arrives still clutching his long fork, his greasy apron smoking; Joe Wax, meanwhile, has a badly charred and blistered head and sobs as soot-stained water runs over him. The refuge holds a makeshift community of people and animals: a teamster shelters there with his oxen, and deer, a wildcat, and a black bear cub share the pool. Goochey’s survival is bound to Jinot’s intervention, but the scene also makes clear that escape does not spare everyone from injury or loss.

Debt, Recovery, and Return

Goochey later seeks out Jinot at the healing wikuom, arriving as a lanky white man on a day when Jinot is sitting outside in a special chair. Jinot does not recognize him at first; instead, he resents the visitor’s good legs, a pointed contrast with his own impaired body. Goochey identifies himself as the cook they had rescued one another alongside at the fire and river, and recounts how he and Lew Green brought Jinot away in a wagon drawn by an old black horse. The horse burned to death, and most of the crew suffered burns. Goochey also remembers a sow bear dying in the fire while her cub kept trying to suckle, a detail that makes the disaster’s losses extend beyond the men who escaped it.

Reciprocal Help and Aftermath

At the healing wikuom, Goochey asks Jinot how his legs are recovering. Jinot explains that the scar is drawing up his leg, leaving him unable to walk properly or do much. Goochey offers a practical route back to work: he asks whether Jinot will go west with him to work in the Gatineau, then answers Jinot’s objection that he cannot manage woods work by pointing out that an injured woodsman can cook. The offer does not erase Jinot’s disability; it recognizes it and proposes a way he might remain employed despite it.

Jinot says he first needs to heal and has no clothes except those Sillyboy obtained from the priest. He expects, if recovery goes well, to be walking somewhat by fall, perhaps after a couple more months. Goochey accepts that timetable rather than pressing him to leave at once: since it is nearly June and the drives are underway, he proposes returning in October to see whether Jinot is better. He also offers to take Jinot wherever he wants to go, including Manitoulin, because Jinot saved his life. His gratitude becomes a specific promise of future transport and work, offered without demanding an immediate answer.

After Goochey leaves, Jinot thinks him a good man, though he had paid him little attention before the fire. The exchange gives their relationship its lasting shape: Jinot’s split-second rescue has become Goochey’s reason to return, while Goochey’s offer gives Jinot a possible path beyond a recovery marked by pain and restricted movement. Yet Jinot remains preoccupied with his older brother Amboise, whom he believes lost to him forever. His grief for Amboise—who disliked cutting the forest but logged because the new woods seemed to him like entry into a vanished past—sets a stark limit on what Goochey’s kindness can repair.