Bonesetter 2 -Winter- Read online

  Woday shrugged, “I’ve never even heard of somebody being taken over by a spirit much less have any idea what it’d look like.” He paused for a moment as they walked along, thinking, “But, to me they seem completely normal. It’s hard to imagine that one of them’s being controlled by something supernatural.” He stopped and looked around, apparently wondering where he might find a flat rock.

  Yadin pointed towards an outcrop of shale, “I’d think we could find some flat chunks of shale below that crag.”

  Woday turned that way and said, “Oh, you’re right.” Feeling embarrassed that he hadn’t noticed an entire hill of flat rocks, he started that direction.

  Thinking that Woday seemed more oblivious than most of the young men he’d tried to teach to hunt, Yadin followed behind him. He reflected that the young man seemed to be very much more of a thinker than a doer. Still, Yadin liked him and had the feeling that Woday was intelligent. Yadin said, “Do you get the sense that anything evil is going on around here?”

  Woday snorted, “It seems to me like a lot of evil things have happened to these people. The flood that killed so many of Aganstribe’s people for instance. The fact that two tribes joined and still only have nine people. That one of the tribes had no stores to contribute for winter; that seems like an evil thing.” He shrugged, “But terrible things happen to people everywhere. I know for a fact that bad things happen to very good people—I’ve seen it happen far too many times. The Cold Springs people don’t seem evil to me at all. Even though they can’t have much food saved up for winter, they’re still willing to let us eat with them tonight. You’d have to have a very good heart to do that!”

  They’d reached the outcrop and, as Yadin had expected, there was quite a pile of flat shale fragments that’d fallen from it. Woday bent and started turning fragments over, looking for the perfect cooking stone. As they’d approached, Yadin had been hearing thudding sounds coming from beyond the outcrop. He said, “I’ll be right back,” and kept walking past the profusion of shale fragments.

  Wanting to see what was going on without being seen himself, as he went further Yadin quieted his steps and expanded his senses. A sharpening of the sounds told him he was about to come into line of sight of whatever was making the noises. He eased around the corner and saw a small tree shake, coincident to one of the thuds. Frowning curiously, he kept moving very slowly forward. The tree next to the one he’d first seen also shook with a thud. This time, Yadin saw a rock skitter away from it. Someone’s throwing rocks!

  As Yadin eased slowly forward, he saw tree after tree hit by rocks. It was a young stand of trees, their trunks smaller than his wrist. After a minute or so, he was astonished to realize that he’d probably seen 10 to 12 trees in the front row struck without a rock missing and hitting trees behind them. Finally, Yadin’d eased forward far enough to see the person throwing.

  Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to recognize the young man called Pell.

  He could really throw! Yadin had to admire the grace of his wind up and follow through. Sometimes he wound up, threw his left foot out and hurled the rock with the full force his body could produce. One of those throws actually broke one of the small trees. Most times he made a quick fling, as if he’d been surprised. These still hit their targets, though with less force. Yadin shook his head; the small stand of trees was taking a serious beating. Yadin slowly pulled back, then once he was out of Pell’s sight, thoughtfully turned and went back to join Woday.

  Woday had picked out a large stone, several fingers thick and perfectly flat on one surface. Rubbing some dirt off of it, he looked up at Yadin, “What do you think of this one?”

  “I think it looks fine,” Yadin said, puzzled that Woday would ask him when Woday knew Yadin had never cooked a fish. He decided Woday might be bright, but he lacked self-confidence.

  Woday stood, lifting the chunk of slate. “I guess we should try it then.” They turned to walk back to the Cold Springs cave. Woday glanced over at Yadin, “What was making the thumping noises?”

  Thinking that this seemed to be the first time that Woday had been at all observant, Yadin said, “Pell was throwing rocks. Practicing.”

  Woday frowned, “He was hitting trees?”

  Surprised that Woday had guessed the targets from the sounds, Yadin said, “Uh-huh.”

  “You think that’s his new spearless method of hunting? Throwing rocks?”

  Yadin shook his head, “That’s not new. Lots of people hunt by throwing rocks, especially at small game like rabbits.”

  Woday shrugged, “Yeah, but hardly anybody hits anything.”

  Tilting his head thoughtfully, Yadin said, “Well, you’re right. But how could anyone invent a better way to throw? Some people are a lot better at throwing, and I can tell you that Pell’s very good at it, but that’s not a ‘method’ you could teach to other people. You’re either good at it, or you’re not.”

  “The hunters in my tribe told me over and over that I’d get better if I practiced more.”

  Yadin shrugged, “I’ll grant that you can get better with practice. But some people start as good throws and practice to become very good, while other people start terrible and practice only makes them average.”

  Woday’s shoulders slumped, “That’s me. Lots of practice and not even average. That’s why I want to learn bone setting. So I’ll be of value to the tribe even if I’m not a good hunter.” They walked in silence a little farther, but as they climbed to the ledge in front of the cave Woday said, “Now I’m hoping that Pell can teach me to be a good throw.”

  Yadin said nothing, but doubted there was any chance that Pell could teach Woday how to throw better. Certainly Woday would never learn to throw as well as Pell could. Yadin had taught a lot of young men to throw over the years and Pell had a rare kind of athletic grace. Yadin himself threw better than anyone he’d ever met, but he knew he couldn’t reliably hit trees as small as the ones Pell had been practicing on, even if he took his time on every throw. A bit of a sick feeling came over him. Maybe an evil spirit is helping the boy?

  Then they were up on the ledge and Donte looked up from her basket weaving to smile at Yadin. Though her words were addressed to both of them, her eyes remained on Yadin as she said, “Did you guys find a rock to cook fish on?”

  Yadin glanced at Woday who tilted his piece of slate around for Donte to look at, “I think this one looks pretty good, do you?”

  She glanced at it and Yadin had the impression she also wondered why Woday was asking her, when he was the only one with any expertise. Nonetheless, she said, “It looks good to me, nice and flat. Are you going to start heating it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, turning and continuing into the cave.

  Donte’s eyes followed Woday for a second, then turned back to Yadin, “So, you just met him on the trail?”

  Yadin nodded, “He came from the west and I came from the east. He’d missed the turn off to Cold Springs. To tell the truth, I didn’t really know where it was either, but I’d been traveling a shorter distance and had a better count of the tributaries. We decided that he should turn back with me and we’d try this stream because he’d already noticed that it was colder than most.” Yadin shrugged, “Luckily, it turned out to be the right one.” Yadin felt a little surprised himself. He wasn’t normally talkative, but felt like he was practically burbling to this Donte woman. He thought she was pretty, and he’d already learned she’d been widowed. She was also more age appropriate for him than most of the other women he’d been meeting. However, he hadn’t expected to be feeling so eager… or whatever it was that he was feeling.

  Donte grinned up at him and patted the ground next to her, “Well, don’t loom over me, sit down. Tell me about your life.”

  Feeling oddly happy to be invited to sit down, Yadin said, “What are you thinking you could store in such a loosely woven basket?” Its shape seems so odd, longer and more slender than any basket I’ve seen.

  Donte turned her eyes down to
the structure her hands had continued to fabricate even while she’d looked up and spoken to Yadin. “It’s another of my son’s projects.” She grinned over at Yadin as he sat down next to her, “He has lots of crazy ideas.”

  “Um, your son’s Pell?” Yadin asked.

  Donte nodded, continuing to work on the loose basket. The reeds were so loosely placed, that she’d actually stopped adding new reeds and was using thin strips to bind the reeds she’d already woven so that they wouldn’t slip around. She glanced up in the direction of the outcrop of slate and smiled fondly, “Here he comes now.”

  Yadin looked that direction and saw Pell striding toward them. Something about his gait reminded Yadin of a big panther. Maybe the evil that’s taken him over is the spirit of a big cat? Perhaps that’s why he could drive a lion away from his kill? Tearing his eyes away from the young man he turned back to Donte, “Has he always been so tall?”

  Giving a little laugh, Donte said, “He’s always been tall for his age. But until recently, he was so scrawny that no one even noticed he was a little bit taller than other boys his age. He was one of those kids, so skin-and-bones, that you’d think a stiff breeze would blow him over.” She shook her head in wonder, “It’s just hard to believe how much he’s grown over this past summer.”

  “But he was always really athletic, huh?”

  Donte snorted, “No! Clumsy beyond belief!” She measured Yadin with her eyes, “I’d just as well tell you, you’re sure to learn someday. He was cast out of the Aldans for being so clumsy.” She shrugged, getting a sad and distant look in her eyes as if she were seeing something heartbreaking in her mind’s eye, “No one thought he’d be able to hunt. When he was cast out, everyone expected him to be dead in a few days.” Her voice broke, “Even… his own mother, she thought he’d surely die.”

  “He got this big, and learned to set bones, all in one summer?”

  Donte nodded and wiped at the corner of an eye, “Hi Pell,” she said, as her son walked up to them.

  Pell squatted and studied the basket Donte’d been making, “That looks really good mother!” He looked up and noticed her red eyes, “Are you okay?”

  She sniffed and wiped at her eyes again, “I’m fine. Tears of joy that you didn’t die when the Aldans cast you out.” She sniffed again and picked up some stiffer, harder reeds with points cut on their ends. She stuck them into the open end of the basket so they pointed backward into the mouth of it, “And these go like this, right?”

  With an enthusiastic nod, Pell said, “That looks good. I hope it works!” He stood, “I’m going to go learn how to cook fish.” He turned and walked toward the door of the cave.

  Yadin stared at what Donte had woven. She was sticking more of the stiff sharp reeds into its mouth. A more useless looking basket he’d never seen. “What in the world are you going to use that basket for?”

  Donte gave him a sly grin, “You’ll have to have Agan’s permission before I can tell you something like that.” She shrugged, “Besides, it might not work the way we think it will…” She gave the basket a measuring look, “In which case,” she snorted, “we’ll just be using it to keep the fire burning.” She started wrapping fiber around one of the sharp reeds, but looked at him while her fingers kept working. “So, tell me about yourself. Were you born into the Oppos?”

  “No, I fell in love with a pretty girl named Uva at a summer tribal gathering. She didn’t want to leave her family in the Oppos, so, after we mated we joined her tribe.” He shrugged, “I would have done anything to make her happy. We visited my old tribe a few times after that, but…”

  To his surprise, Yadin found himself telling Donte his life story. In fact, telling her more of it than he’d told anyone since Uva. Every time he ran down, she’d ask a question that would keep him going. A couple of times he thought he should try to learn about her life, but then she’d have another question and he’d once again find himself answering in more detail than he’d expected.

  Woday felt proud of himself. The people of Cold Springs had given him numerous compliments on the fish. He kept reminding himself that they’d never had fish before, so they really had no idea whether he’d done a good job cooking or not. They just liked the taste of the big trout. However, he did think he’d done a surprisingly good job of cooking it, especially having never done more than watch the women cook it back home.

  He’d known how to clean the fish and filet it, those were common men’s tasks among the Falls-people. As he’d done so, he’d carefully inspected the fish for evidence that they’d been speared in case he’d missed it before.

  He hadn’t found any spear wounds.

  Shaking his head wonderingly, he’d next wondered how to judge when the rock was hot enough. There he suspected he’d just gotten lucky. When he’d laid the fillets on the rock they had sizzled much the same as when the women did it back home.

  To his astonishment, the beautiful Gia had asked him if salt was good on fish. He’d only ever had fish with salt on it once in his life, but it had been wonderful. He knew it improved the flavor of most foods. When he’d nodded, she’d gone off into a corner and come back with a small leather bag full of salt! He’d spread a pinch of the precious stuff over the fish and thought the salt was a huge part of the reason everyone thought he was such a good cook.

  Back home, any man would have felt insulted to be called a cook, but the men in this tribe seem to take it in stride. Certainly, Pell had evinced intense interest in how he cooked the fish, asking question after question. Woday hadn’t really known the answers to many of the questions, but Pell had persisted, asking for Woday’s best guesses and seeming satisfied with that. The two fish hadn’t been enough for ten people, but the Springs people had prepared their rabbits into a thick stew which was better than he’d ever had before. He suspected that they’d actually put salt in the stew as well and wondered where they went to trade for the precious material. The only salt he’d ever had come up with traders from the sea.

  The Cold Springs people hadn’t stinted on the food either. At first, he’d thought it only natural to eat all the rabbit and fish; that’s what everyone did since meat went bad if you didn’t consume it. Then, he’d remembered Yadin’s claim that these people could preserve meat somehow. The mere fact that they ate all the fish and the rabbits they’d gotten suggested to him that the preservation claim must be false. Otherwise, surely they would have saved some aside to preserve for use later in the winter. They also ate more grain, roots, and apples than he’d have expected. He did see that their cave had stores of these foods in it, and more than he’d have expected considering that the six members of Aganstribe had only arrived very recently. However, they certainly didn’t look like they had enough to last the winter for nine people so he’d have been expecting them to husband those resources.

  Thinking about the cave, Woday nudged Yadin, who sat next to him. He minutely indicated the wall they’d built for the cave and whispered, “You noticed that they enclosed a shallow cave to make it into a nice deep one?”

  Yadin nodded.

  Continuing to speak at a barely audible level, Woday said, “Have you ever seen a wall made out of sticks and mud like that before?”

  Looking mildly amused, Yadin nodded again.

  Feeling surprised, Woday said, “I’ve never even heard of anything like this, and I know a lot of tribes in our area who would like to be able to close in caves like this. Is it common here in the East?”

  Yadin shook his head and also spoke quietly, “The only place I’ve seen it before was in the Aldans cave.”

  “Oh,” Woday said considering this information, “so Pell and Donte learned it from them?”

  “No,” Yadin said with an amused little snort, “Pell taught them how to do it, only a few days ago.”

  Woday drew his head back in surprise, then said, “Who taught him?!”

  With a small laugh, Yadin said, “As the Aldans told me Pell had explained it, cold breezes and blowing rain were
a problem in this cave. First he piled some brush in front of the cave to block some of the wind. That didn’t work very well, so he started leaning a row of poles against the cave opening which he held in place with mud at the top and bottom. Then mud and grass and sticks filled in the gaps—the next thing you know, he had a solid wall.”

  Woday shook his head, “Someone must’ve taught him, don’t you think?”

  Yadin chewed his lip thoughtfully, “Maybe some kind of spirit?”

  Woday looked across the fire at the Bonesetter. Pell had his arm around Gia, whispering something in her ear. Something amusing to judge from the giggle it induced. “Maybe?” He turned to Yadin, “But if a spirit taught him these things, it doesn’t seem like an evil spirit to me. I think these people seem… nice.” After a moment, he continued darkly, “I think they seem… to have fewer wicked, unpleasant people in this tribe than in the tribes I’ve known in the west…”

  Across the fire, Agan cleared her throat. “Now that we’ve eaten, we should hear some stories. Woday, will you tell us a story from the Falls-people? Or if you like,” she winked, “you can make up a tale like our Gia does.”

  “Oh,” Woday said, startled at the concept of making up a story. “I don’t think I could make up a story, but I’m good at remembering them. One of my favorites is the story of the wolf and the lion.” Woday had drawn a breath to start the story when the flap covering the mouth of the cave pushed aside and an immense wolf stepped through the opening!

  …Woday blinked his eyes open. Pell’s beautiful girlfriend, Gia, knelt over him dripping cold water on his forehead. She used her hand to smooth the cold water over his brow and down onto his cheeks. Seeing he was awake, she said, “It’s okay Woday, the wolf is Pell’s friend, Ginja. She lived with him after he was cast out of the Aldans, back when he was all alone. Now she comes and goes as she pleases, but she’s here more than she’s gone. If you’re going to spend much time with us, you’ll have to get used to her.”

  Embarrassed at having passed out, Woday rolled his eyes to the side to look across the fire and see if the wolf was still there. It was. In fact, it sat, tongue lolling and looking strangely happy as it leaned against Pell and curiously studied Woday. The Bonesetter’s fingers idly scratched behind the wolf’s ears. Woday would have sworn that the animal looked practically ecstatic about it. “Doesn’t it…”