From time to time he wondered, partly with expectation, but more with amusement, about this mysterious, great thing he was destined to do. Because, it had long been obvious, he’d never had the talent to play hockey in the NHL, a fact he’d accepted long before he graduated from high school. The truth was he liked helping people, and his dream was to become a Mountie, a federal cop with the most recognized police force in the world.

He wanted to follow his old man’s path into law enforcement.

Maybe this is my great, good thing?

He wondered about it now as he stared into the night.

-Chapter 3-

The rain had intensified and Fortin adjusted his wipers.

Their rhythmic slapping evoked the beat of marching drills and he remembered how his heart had raced that first day he arrived at the RCMP Training Academy in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Welcome to Depot.

It was exciting and overwhelming meeting his other troop-mates who had come from across the country and every background you could imagine. The quarters they shared had no privacy, it was all military-barracks-style living. There was the stress of those first classes, contending with information overload and the pressure to succeed, to not buckle or let his troop down in what was an exhaustive twenty-six-week basic training course.

Week after grueling week of drilling and courses encompassing hands-on scenarios, firearms training, officer safety, defensive tactics, take downs, removing suspects from vehicles, stances, grappling, handcuffing and searching suspects, and using weapons. Among them, use of the taser. Fortin had volunteered to receive 50,000-volts of electricity experiencing the pain and loss of muscle control for several seconds.

More pain came with the dreaded pepper-spray training where each troop member was subjected to a stream to the face. The spray is made of capsaicin, which is drawn from pepper plants. The burning sensation was akin to having your head in blast furnace, creating a firestorm on your skin with the pain webbing into your eyes, your nose and down your throat. While troop members were enduring the excruciating agony of being pepper-sprayed they had to complete the task of subduing an attacker.

Fortin succeeded.

There was driving instruction, swimming, hours of classroom study of the law and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, cultural training, drilling, marching, and rules after rule to ensure tradition, tasks and duties were completed the RCMP way.

There was so much more.

Not everyone made it. People who could not sustain the level of success needed to become a Mountie were sent home. People who failed their mid-term exam were sent home. The people who just couldn’t take it, were sent home.