Bonesetter 2 -Winter- Read online

  The young man nodded and turned his gaze to Woday, though he addressed Yadin, “And your companion? Is he simply traveling with you?”

  Woday spoke for himself, “I’ve heard of the Bonesetter who lives at Cold Springs. I’ve traveled many hands of days to meet him and to ask him if he will take me on as his apprentice. From the tales I’ve been told, this bonesetter has powers that no other bonesetter has ever had.” Woday shrugged, “I’ve always wanted to be able to do something for the people in my tribe who’ve been crippled by broken bones. If he’ll teach me, perhaps I can.”

  To Woday’s dismay the girl started giggling. The young man’s face turned red and Woday worried he might be angry. Woday quickly went through what he just said in his own mind, but couldn’t think of anything he’d said that would make someone mad. Then his eyes narrowed, he thought maybe the boy was blushing with embarrassment. Perhaps the lovely young lady was laughing at something the boy had done? Though he was worried that the young couple was laughing at him, Woday decided to simply wait until they got themselves in control. He even tried to be polite by looking off toward the cave so they wouldn’t feel his eyes on them.

  In his peripheral vision he saw that the girl was laughing even harder. She appeared to be trying to control it, but had bent over and put her hand over her mouth in an attempt to hold in her snickers. She had a hand on the young man’s back and was patting it.

  Finally, Woday said, “I’m sorry. Did I say something funny? Or perhaps my accent is odd?” He thought to himself that since their accent didn’t sound all that different to him, it seemed unlikely that they would think the way he talked was funny.

  “No!” The girl said with a small squeak of laughter. “I’m laughing at Pell.”

  “Pell!” Woday said, recognizing the Bonesetter’s name and turning to sweep his eyes around the nearby area. “Is he near?!”

  This question pulled a peal of laughter out of the girl. “Yes! Very near!” she choked out.

  Embarrassed at his inability to see the man he’d come so far to find and fully cognizant of the fact that, without Yadin’s superior woods-lore he wouldn’t have seen these two in the first place, Woday swept the area again with his eyes. Still seeing no one, he turned to look at Yadin.

  Yadin’s eyes were twinkling. Obviously he also found Woday’s inability to find the Bonesetter quite amusing. Blushing, Woday turned back to the girl and spoke as politely as he could, “I’m sorry. Either the Bonesetter’s well-hidden or I’ve just gone blind. Can you tell me where he is?”

  The girl had just gotten her laughter in control and had been trying to hold it by gently pressing a finger to her lips. At Woday’s request she hooted again, leaning on the young man to steady herself and wiping tears from her eyes.

  Yadin stepped up beside Woday and said quietly, “I believe that this young man here is the bonesetter.”

  Not comprehending Yadin’s meaning, Woday turned to see where Yadin’s eyes were pointed, thinking that he’d find Yadin looking back over his shoulder or something. Instead, Yadin was looking at the tall young man with the girl. Woday blinked and looked at the young man himself, “But…” Woday turned to Yadin and lowered his voice to a whisper, “he’s practically a boy!”

  Still blushing, the boy stepped forward and extended his hand, “I’m sorry you’ve traveled all this way for nothing. Some have called me a bonesetter because I’ve put a few bones back in place, but I’m hardly the kind of expert who would be teaching others.”

  Woday goggled at the boy for a moment, then belatedly put his hand out to shake. “You’re Pell?”

  Shaking his hand, Pell gave an embarrassed shrug, “Yes… sorry.”

  “How old are you?!”

  “Um, I guess, now that I’ve lived through this past summer, I have fifteen summers.”

  Woday turned wide-eyed to Yadin, “Did you know he was so young?!”

  Yadin gave a little shrug, “I’d heard he was young, but not exactly how young.”

  Woday blinked a couple of times, trying to take in this revelation. Then he remembered what Yadin had said when they first met Pell and the girl. With a frown he spoke to Yadin again, “And what kind of ‘wonderful secrets’ are you trying to learn from the Cold Springs tribe?” Suddenly Woday remembered the search for evil spirits that Yadin had given Woday as the reason for his trip. He realized that Yadin might be dissembling. Yadin would certainly want to conceal his true quest until he was certain about whether any evil spirit was present. He might be hiding his search for an evil spirit behind some nebulous desire for nonexistent secrets. Woday wanted to take his words back, but it was too late.

  Yadin cut his eyes from Woday to Pell and said, “I’ve been told that you have a way to preserve meat.”

  Astonished at this preposterous claim, Woday turned to Pell to see what he’d say.

  Pell nodded slowly, “We,” he said, emphasizing the plural, “do have a way to preserve meat.” He shrugged, “We might be willing to share it with you.”

  Yadin chewed his lip for a moment, then said, “I heard you’re the one who invented the method.”

  Woday turned to see what Pell would say and saw the girl nodding beside him as if she were affirming the statement. Pell however, gave a minute shrug and said, “It’s the tribe’s secret.”

  Yadin said, “I hear you also devised a new way to hunt.”

  Pell looked more embarrassed, “Also a tribe secret.”

  Woday realized that Pell had neither confirmed nor denied Yadin’s claim that he’d invented meat preservation and a new method of hunting. On the other hand, Pell hadn’t denied the possibility that there was a way to preserve meat and a new way to hunt. In fact, adding to Woday’s confusion by claiming that the methods were secrets belonging to the tribe, Pell didn’t necessarily confirm that they actually existed. He wondered whether the boy hadn’t actually invented the methods… or whether he was surprisingly humble.

  Most likely, Woday decided, there weren’t any new ways to hunt or methods to preserve meat.

  He hoped that didn’t mean that the whole “bone setting” thing was a myth as well. Feeling terribly disappointed, Woday plaintively asked, “Why do people think you’re such an amazing bonesetter then?”

  The girl hotly said, “Because he is!”

  “But,” Woday said weakly, “he said…”

  She interrupted him, “He said he’d only set a few bones, right? Make that five different people! Much more important than the fact that he set some bones, is how they turned out! The people whose bones he’s put back in place hardly have any deformity! They’re not crippled! That’s what matters!” she said, her eyes flashing.

  Pell touched her on the shoulder, “But Gia, if he wants to learn bone setting, he’s going to want to learn it from an older and more experienced bonesetter than I am. I’ve just got the one trick…”

  “You have more than one trick! Don’t forget what you did for Panute! She’d have died!”

  Pell pursed his lips, looking uncertain, “I didn’t know that it would work. I just guessed…”

  Woday blinked, “What was wrong with Panute?”

  Pell looked like he was about to speak, but Gia rode over whatever he’d been about to say, “Panute’s fingers had been crushed by a tree in the river and she’d developed the wound fever. She was already listless and weak when we brought her to Pell. She’d have died in a few more days.”

  Frowning, Woday said, “A bone setting wouldn’t help wound fever… would it?”

  Gia arched an elegant eyebrow, “He didn’t do a bone setting.”

  “What did he do? Some special kind of poultice? A ceremony?” Woday felt disappointed, he’d learned herbal lore and magical ceremonies from the medicine men in his area, but hadn’t been able to convince himself that they did much good.

  Gia leaned forward and practically whispered, “He cut the fingers off!”

  Woday rocked back, shocked to his very core. “What!” he gasped.


  “Why not?” Gia said. “The fingers were crushed. Even if they’d healed they would’ve been useless. And, they were killing her! It seems so obvious now, but Pell was the only one who saw the solution was to cut them off.”

  Still horrified, Woday said doubtfully, “And you’re saying it worked?”

  “Come with me,” Gia said turning toward the meadow, “you can meet her.”

  Pell glanced curiously at Yadin and Woday, as if wondering whether they would follow, then started after Gia himself. Woday suddenly realized that Pell had a pair of large trout hanging by their gills from the fingers of his left hand. He turned to Yadin and whispered, “He’s got a couple of fish!”

  Yadin nodded without evidencing surprise, evidently having already seen the fish.

  Woday realized that Pell must’ve been holding the fish the entire time and chided himself for not noticing them until now. “Do you suppose that’s what they were doing down at the stream?”

  Yadin nodded again.

  Woday said, “But they don’t have anything to spear the fish with!” Though it was difficult, men in Woday’s tribe did quite a bit of spearfishing. Woday loved the taste of trout. He turned his eyes back to the fish, looking for spear wounds and not seeing any. He turned his eyes back to Yadin, “I don’t think those fish’ve been speared!”

  Crinkles appeared around Yadin’s eyes as he nodded one more time. Woday suspected that Yadin found Woday’s slow and stumbling cognizance of the situation amusing. This time though, Yadin spoke, “Perhaps Pell’s new hunting method extends to fish.”

  Woday’s eyes turned back to the fish. How can you hunt fish without a spear? He knew some people could throw rocks accurately enough to kill small animals, but he felt certain that no one could throw a rock hard enough to kill a fish while it was underwater. Maybe these fish were right under the surface?

  As they crossed the meadow, Woday saw a young boy carrying an arm-load of wood lift the section of animal skins and enter where Woday had thought there might be a cave. Moments later he stepped back outside. Gia called out, “Falin, we have visitors. Come show them your ankle.”

  The boy turned and ran toward them, Woday wondering why he’d want to see a boy’s ankle, then noting a faint limp. Could this be the boy we heard about?! The boy with the broken leg that was so badly deformed? The boy ran up, grinning, then stopped and held his foot up in the air. Proudly, he wiggled the ankle up and down.

  Gia turned to Woday and said, “This is my brother, Falin. He broke his ankle badly in mid-summer and it was terribly deformed. We’d heard what Pell could do, and after several others had tried to straighten his leg we brought him to Pell. We’d thought Falin would never walk, but, as you’ve just seen, he even runs with barely a limp!”

  This could be the boy with the broken leg that we heard about! Woday thought. If so, I guess he doesn’t run better than he did before he broke his leg, but he runs awfully well! To Gia, Woday said, “Are you from Aganstribe?”

  She nodded, “We were, but now we’ve moved here and joined the Cold Springs tribe.” She resumed walking and waved ahead, “That’s Panute sitting on the ledge in front of our cave.”

  Woday saw the person with the gray hair he’d noted from afar and realized it was a woman. He wondered if she could be Panute. He tried to look at her hands, but the woman was still far enough away that he couldn’t tell if any fingers were missing. As they continued to approach, Woday could see better and realized that all ten of the woman’s fingers were present. He looked at the woman next to her, a pretty woman that looked like someone… then he realized she looked like Pell. He turned to look at Pell then back at the woman. This must be his mother!

  Pell’s mother also had all of her fingers, so now Woday’s eyes glanced at the third woman’s hands. The index and long fingers on one hand were missing! Woday saw that they were gone from about the mid-palm onward, a large scar showing that she hadn’t been born that way, they’d actually been cut off. Woday gingerly felt his own hand and realized they’d been cut off through the bones of the palm! How could that have been done? Woday wondered. Cutting through bone was difficult. Despite the missing fingers, Woday realized that Panute was dexterously using the remaining fingers to weave a basket. He thought she was doing about as well as any basket weaver he’d ever watched!

  They’d all stopped in front of the three women and Gia now said somewhat formally, “Agan, I present to you two strangers, come to visit the Cold Springs tribe. I would tell you their names, but they haven’t given them. One,” she indicated Yadin, “is interested in our secrets for preserving meat and hunting without spears. The other,” she flipped a hand at Woday, “has come to apprentice himself to the Bonesetter.” Evidently, she still found Woday’s aspirations humorous as she appeared to be stifling a grin.

  Also apparently suppressing a smile, the old woman said, “Welcome, nameless ones.”

  Yadin said, “I deeply apologize. I certainly didn’t intend to withhold my name.” He placed a hand on his chest, “I’m Yadin, of the Oppos, to the east.”

  Agan glanced at Pell,” I thought the Aldans were east of us?”

  Yadin said, “Even further east. The next tribe beyond the Aldans.”

  “Ah,” Agan said, “thank you for introducing yourself.” She turned her eyes to Woday.

  Woday straightened and placed a hand on his own chest. “I also apologize for not introducing myself. I’m Woday of the Falls-people,” he waved toward the descending sun, “far west of here. Beyond even Aganstribe. Are you Agan of Aganstribe?” Woday had heard of a very old woman who led that tribe and wondered if Agan could be her.

  The old woman nodded, “Though, now, I’m Agan of the Cold Springs tribe. A terrible flood came to Aganstribe and there were few survivors. Those of us who remain have joined with the people here at Cold Springs.” She waved to her left, “I make Donte and Panute known to you.” She waved at the boy, “I believe you’ve already met Falin.”

  Woday looked at Falin, saying, “Yes, Falin is why I came here. Rumors of how well he did after breaking his leg made their way to us at the Falls. We were told that his leg was twisted and badly bent?”

  Agan nodded solemnly, “Several medicine men in our area tried unsuccessfully to straighten it.” Her eyes flicked momentarily to Pell, but then back to Woday, “The Bonesetter straightened it on his first try. As you can see it’s healed so well you can hardly tell there was a problem.” Her eyes went to Panute’s leg, “Panute also broke her leg when our tribe was devastated by a flood. The Bonesetter applied those healing sticks to it. It seems to be doing very well, though it’s not fully healed yet.”

  Woday’s eyes shot to Panute’s leg. He hadn’t really looked at the leg. He’d been trying to take in her hand injury without staring and hadn’t even noticed the wooden splints that were tied to her leg. Why, he wondered, would you tie sticks to a broken leg? “We of the Falls-people had heard that something bad had happened to Aganstribe, but I didn’t know what it was. I’m sorry to hear that many of your people died.”

  “It was awful,” the old woman said, her voice trembling with sadness. “Of our entire tribe, only six are left.”

  Woday felt horrified. Six was far too few to form a reasonable tribe. “No wonder you joined with the people here at Cold Springs! It’s a good thing their tribe was small enough to accept new members.” Woday didn’t say it, but he found it hard to believe that any tribe would accept six new members just before winter. Six new mouths to feed at the beginning of the hungry times!

  Donte laughed, “Our tribe was certainly small enough to accept new members. There were only three of us! Having new members from Aganstribe is a boon.”

  Wide-eyed, Woday turned to Agan, “Did those of you from Aganstribe manage to salvage your winter supplies and bring them here?”

  Agan barked a laugh, “No.”

  Woday’s heart sank. If a ravaged tribe of six with a dearth of supplies had joined with a tribe of three just before winter,
they’d be very lucky to make it through the starving months alive, much less willing to take on an apprentice who’d brought only knowledge and some shell jewelry as compensation for his training. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

  “So,” Agan said with a smile, “would you like to take your evening meal with us?”

  “We would,” Yadin shrugged, then made it obvious he was thinking along the same lines as Woday, “but I’m afraid we don’t have any food to contribute and I’m sure you have little to spare.”

  Woday’s stomach grumbled. He hadn’t had any food since early that morning and had little prospect of getting any this evening. However, he agreed with Yadin, they shouldn’t take any food.

  Agan laughed, “Don’t worry, we have food. You can see that Pell’s got a couple of big, fine-looking trout. Deltin and Manute are coming up behind you, bringing some rabbits.” She looked at Woday, “If you’ve lived at the Falls, I’ll bet you can teach us how to cook the fish, can’t you?”

  Woday turned to see a couple of young men walking across the clearing toward them carrying rabbits. He glanced hungrily at the trout and said, “I haven’t cooked them myself, but I’ve watched our women cooking them.” He licked his lips, “They’re really good.”

  “Well then, stay, tell us how to cook fish, we have no experience.” Agan gave a broad smile, “You’ll tell us stories; we’ll tell you stories; and we’ll all become fast friends.”

  Yadin and Woday went out to find a flat stone to cook the fish on. Woday had described the method which involved leaning a flat stone up next to the fire until it became very hot. Then you would tip it onto its back and lay the filleted fish on it to cook. He’d looked at the stones that surrounded the Cold Spring’s hearth and decided that none of them looked very good for this purpose. When he said he was going to go look for a better one, Yadin volunteered to go along.

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Yadin said, “These people seem very normal to me. What do you think? Could they be in the thrall of a spirit?”