38 pages • 1 hour read

Brian's Return

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1999

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-18

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 16-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 16 Summary

When Brian returns to the canoe and sees the sun going down, he worries that he is behind schedule before realizing that he has no schedule. His purpose for being in the woods is to learn and know, not to follow time constraints. He sets up camp, taking extra precautions after learning from his mistakes with the storm. Then, he leaves to hunt for grouse (a type of bird) or rabbit. Although he sees several animals as he moves quietly through the forest, his desire to see and appreciate the environment outweighs his desire to kill an animal. After a few hours, he feels it is time to end the hunt and he shoots a grouse with a clean shot on his bow. As he makes his way back to camp, he smells smoke and realizes another person must be there. He approaches quietly and sees a middle-aged man with a well-worn canoe boiling water by the fire. Although the man’s back is turned, he knows Brian is there. Brian is tempted to ask the man several questions, but after thinking a moment, Brian realizes he can answer many of them without asking. The man’s skin and worn but well-maintained gear suggests that he has lived in the woods for a long time. The man introduces himself as Billy, and he and Brian share a meal together but exchange few words. As night falls, Billy comments that Brian hunts with a bow, rather than a gun, and expresses approval of this method, saying that guns are “Bad medicine” (99). Brian shares about the deer he saw but didn’t kill, and Billy responds that it was Brian’s medicine deer, guiding him. Billy’s medicine animal is a crow. The men go to bed, with Brian in his tent and Billy under his canoe.

Chapters 17 Summary

In the morning, Billy is gone when Brian wakes, but he left a necklace for Brian made from the tail of a whitetail deer and a crow feather. Brian slips the necklace, another kind of medicine, around his neck and thinks about Billy as he packs his gear. He makes good progress in his canoe that day and repeats the routine of making camp that night. The next day, while Brian wades alongside the canoe in shallow water, he sees a bear. Brian avoids eye contact and backs away slowly, but the bear lunges toward him and heads off his movement. Every time Brian moves, the bear blocks his path; Brian soon grows angry that the bear is playing with him like prey. He shouts and quickly grabs his bow and arrow, pointing it at the bear. He makes eye contact, engaging in a standoff with the bear, until the bear turns and walks away. Brian feels relieved and notes that his “medicine is strong” (106).

Chapters 18 Summary

After the incident with the bear, Brian feels like his old life is completely gone. He is part of the woods now and where he is meant to be. He keeps paddling towards the Smallhorns’ location and makes good progress. In the evening, he reads Shakespeare aloud to two otters along the shore. He dreams about Billy, who points at things in the woods and seems to be telling Brian something. When Brian wakes up, he thinks about the dream and realizes that Billy, along with the deer, is his medicine. Billy is the kind of person Brian will be in the future. As he starts out once again on the canoe, he expects to make it to the Smallhorns by the end of the day. However, he soon decides that he won’t go to see them yet; he will find them eventually, but until then, he will keep moving, keep looking for his life, keep following his medicine.

Chapters 16-18 Analysis

The novel winds to a close in these chapters, but Brian’s journey is just beginning. Meeting Billy teaches Brian about himself. They are similar in several ways, including their keen observation skills, simple lifestyle, and their preference for hunting with a bow rather than a gun. Billy’s ideas about hunting echo Brian’s—that killing an animal should be done with gratitude and respect. Billy also teaches Brian a new way to describe the connection he feels with nature: medicine. Billy suggests that nature can act as a guide giving signs about what to do and where to go, a concept that Brian understands based on his experiences. Brian recognizes that Billy represents who Brian will be in the future: a quiet man with a simple life, sun-worn skin, and wise words.

The more Brian spends time in the woods, the more he loses the self-centered mentality that pervades his experience of human nature in civilization. When he looks ahead to the future, he sees the world, and he sees himself moving through it, but he doesn’t focus on the world revolving around him. His run-in with the bear shows the balance Brian has found between himself and his environment. He is a part of nature, but he is only one small part. He recognizes the reciprocal relationship of respect that he has achieved between himself and the natural world. Brian sees the bear and both fears and respects it; the bear sees Brian and respects him in return. His experiences with Billy and with the bear allow Brian to release the last pieces of himself that were tied to his old life. He is now “even” with himself and with the woods (107).

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The novel closes with Brian’s realization that the schedules and goals that dictate life in civilization need not control his life in the wilderness. He isn’t in the woods to reach the Smallhorns or any other destination; he is there “to learn, to seek, to find, to know” (93), and this is a lifelong process. The final chapter indicates that Brian will continue to spend his life in the wilderness, pursuing both self-discovery and world discovery.