The Healer

by Daniel P. Mannix

  "All right, you know how you felt, so why do you want to make animals feel the same way?"

  "Animals and plants were put here for man to use. You eat meat, ain't? To provide the meat, something had to die."

  The boy hesitated. "Those are domestic animals and they're raised for food. Wild animals are different."

  "The wild animals are my domestic animals and the wild plants my vegetables. I gather them as the farmer gathers his crops."

  "You mean you eat all those weeds?"

  "What is a weed? A weed is only a name for a plant you don't like." He walked to the beam nearest the boy and ran his hand lovingly along the line of drying herbs. "These are the grasses. Fimffinger Graut—five-finger grass. Here is Geils Schwantz, which in English you call shave grass. This is Deshligraut—peppergrass—for the stomach. All have their uses. People come from all over and elsewhere to buy my herbs."

  "Aren't some herbs poisonous?"

  "Yes, but they have their uses. Sometimes people are foolish about certain herbs. John Stoltzfus used to smoke certain herbs and dream. Finally he could not tell the dreams from the real world. Still he smoked more and more. He always said that it did not do him any harm, which it did not, except to make his teeth fall out, his eyes collapse, and his skin look green. I guess that was good when he was hunting woodchucks; he made one with the grass. I am not that fond of woodchuck meat."

  "I know kids in school who smoke pot and they say it doesn't hurt them."

  "So? I am glad to know that there are so many fools in the world. Also that children have the money to spend on such things. It is good for business. How wise you are to know that pot does not harm and that hunting and trapping are wicked."

  Billy moved uncomfortably. Like all children, he hated sarcasm and did not know how to reply to it. He was beginning to dislike the old man and even to be a little afraid of him, even though the room fascinated him and he wanted to see more of Wasser and Grip.

  Abe Zook seemed to notice his reaction for he said gently, "When I was a boy, I dreamed enough without the herbs. Perhaps children today are too wise. They know everything early so they must look for things which no one knows."

  "What do the other herbs do?"

  "As many things as there are herbs. This is Schpitza Wedderick or plantain. It makes bleeding stop. With this I cured a woman for whom the doctors could do nothing. Here is Biskata Graut. Smell already!" The boy smelt, choked, and turned away. Zook laughed. "Skunk cabbage, say not? It is good for the kidneys. See the leaves, they look like a kidney. All the herbs, they have the signature that God put on them, if you can only read."

  To Billy, all the herbs looked alike. He began to examine the other objects in the room, going from one to another as though opening a Christmas stocking, asking constantly "What's this for? What does this do? How come you have that?" and hardly staying for the answer. He saw muskrat skins on stretching boards, wild honey as black as ink, pine cones which would be sold to florists, eggs so carefully blown that they had only a minute hole on one side, making them valuable to egg collectors; a wooden pail of maple syrup, a rock with fossil trilobites and a handfull of garnets, bottles of scents for trappers, homemade turkey calls, and fishing flies.

  "I can't understand why you want to kill things," he said at length. "Is it just to make money? When I grow up I want to be a scientist and learn how to preserve animals and plants. Couldn't you learn to be a scientist?"

  Zook turned away. "I am too old for books. I have the knowledge that men put into books—when they can understand it."

  Billy looked around him wistfully. He wanted to learn the old man's lore, yet Abe Zook frightened him. Although the braucher understood nature, he seemed hard and cruel. Billy could understand now why the two children they had met on the road were terrified of the old man. It was coming on toward evening and Billy disliked the thought of spending the night in this weird place.

  He looked up and saw Abe Zook watching him. Billy turned away in embarrassment at the steady stare.

  Abe Zook said softly: "You are not feeling for your new father, no?"

  "I liked my real father best."

  "How is that?"

  "Well, father used to fool around with me and play games and he didn't pick on me all the time. All this man cares about is how I'm dressed—I always have to wear a coat and tie—and what marks I get at school. And he won't let me keep any pets. Father never minded pets."

  "You are strong for animals—so strong you do not like to see one hurt. Why is this?"

  "I've always liked animals and now they're the only friends I have. I used to have friends at the other school I went to, but after mother married again we had to go live in the city in an apartment because that's what her new husband wanted. The kids there don't like me and I don't like them, so I spend most of my time with the animals in Mr. Bryant's laboratory. He's got some cool animals there from all over the world and he lets me clean the cages and feed them. I can handle some of them that even Mr. Bryant can't, like the big capybara who bites and a spider monkey called Snoopy who won't let anyone else come near him. Mr. Bryant doesn't let most of the kids stay with the animals by themselves because they tease them."

  "Why should they do this?"

  "They're just mean, I guess. They like to hurt things. They keep picking on me all the time, too."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know, they just don't like me, I guess." Billy paused to think. "I don't like other kids too much anyhow. I like to be by myself. I read a lot and I'm not good at sports. Mother took me to a doctor and he said I'd outgrown my strength or something, but in a few years I'd be all right. I'm just different. That's why they like to pick on animals, because the animals are different."

  "And you are making one with the animals?"

  "Well, animals don't pick on me, and I know how they feel when people want to tease them and hurt them."

  "I am seeing a little." Abe Zook stood silent for a minute, thinking. Then he glanced out of the window. "The cows come by the barn, so it is late. Come, and I show you how to milk."

  Wasser was waiting for them by the door. He was a little more responsive to Billy's advances, and Zook watched them smiling. "Wasser is perhaps too old for boys. Maybe later I get you a puppy of your own."

  "A dog of my own?" Billy's voice went up to a high squeak of excitement. "I've never been allowed to have a dog. When can I get him?"

  "When I hear of a litter of puppies with good hunting blood. It will not be long, for I know all the dog men. Now we go to the milking."

  They crossed the yard, Wasser falling in beside them. Billy looked into the tree for Grip, but the raven was gone. "He has gone to roost," said Abe Zook, following the boy's eyes. "He sleeps in a big hemlock. Sometime I will show you." They walked beside a privet hedge, now gone completely wild, that served as a windbreak along one side of the barnyard and was full of sparrows and starlings noisily preparing to go to roost. The chickens were flying into the hedge also, taking the preferred spots under the overshoot of the barn that stood supported by huge, concrete, cone-shaped pillars. The two cows were standing by the barred gate and mooed restlessly when they saw the man, for their bags had begun to hurt. Billy looked at them in surprise. He had never seen a cow before and had no idea that they were so big or had such long horns.

  Abe Zook threw open the double doors into the stalls and the cows trooped in, each going to her accustomed place. There was a drumming of hooves and a big white horse came tearing into the barnyard at full gallop, scattering some wildly honking geese by the gate, and rushed up to his stall to stand impatiently until Zook opened the door. Then the old man led the way through what seemed to Billy to be a maze of dark, tunnel-like passages to the milking shed, where the pails hung. The barn was old, much older than the house, and like most Pennsylvania Dutch barns was built into the side of a hill, so that a team of horses could drag the heavy hay wagons into the loft above the stalls. Before milking, Zook dusted off the cows with an herb he
took from one of the deep windows.

  "This is Gruddabalsen. It keeps away flies. Children call it mosquito plant. All things have two names, one for calling and one for friendly talk. So all things are really two."

  The boy looked at him. "I don't know what you mean by that."

  "That you are two people. One person your stepfather and I see. Another is you, yourself. Mostly the two stay together, like different sides of a coin, but sometimes they separate. Has that happened to you?"

  Billy said nothing. He felt embarrassed. Ever since his stepfather had left the highway and driven between the two big trees he felt as though he were a different person, as though he were in a dream. The boy was naturally a daydreamer—another trait that irritated his stepfather—and often his daydreams seemed more real to him than the world itself. In his dreams he was a very different sort of person than in real life, and he felt his dream self was more really he than his waking self. Yet he was ashamed of his dreaming and resented the question.

  Abe Zook did not require an answer. He took a milking stool and pail from the wooden pegs studding the wall and said over his shoulder, "Go to the loft and for the cows throw down some hay."

  He pointed with the stool and Billy climbed the steep, broad, whitewashed stairs until he emerged in the loft. To him, it seemed a huge place. Pigeons exploded from under the eaves and whirled around with a thunder of wings, magnified by the high-peaked roof. The boy started a little and then waded through the hay to the chute, wondering at how soft the timothy was under his feet. He peered down the chute and called, "I'm starting to throw it down now. You tell me when to stop."

  A pitchfork was standing in the corner, but he did not know its use and flung armfuls of hay down the chute until he heard Abe Zook's voice telling him, "Enough now." Before returning, he stopped to look around. The pigeons had gone back to their nests and it was very quiet in the loft. Below him he could hear the cows and the horse beginning to munch on the hay, the sound of Abe Zook moving about, and the occasional clang of a milk pail. He was tired from the long journey, the strain of being jerked out of his accustomed life, and the oxygen-rich country air was making him a little dizzy. His head began to swim and he sat down abruptly on the soft hay.

  Suddenly he felt as though he had left his body and was standing looking down at himself. He saw a scrawny, freckled-faced boy with a sullen, stupid face, to whom he took an instant dislike. At the same time, he was still himself and knew that although this was how he appeared to other people, his mind was full of strange thoughts which no outsider could understand. He wondered if Abe Zook was right, and there were really two of him, and only one was real and that one was not the boy chained to his body. Then, with a shudder, the strange sensation passed and he was again Billy, who had been rejected by his parents and sent to live with a crazy old man because no one else wanted him.

  Shaken, he went down the steps and found Abe Zook, with his forehead braced against the flank of a cow, sending alternate streams of milk into the tilted pail. Billy watched with wonder, amazed that the cow would permit such a liberty. Then he asked, "Is that hard to do?"

  "You try," said Zook, leaning back. Billy took the soft, rubbery teats in his hands and after a few failures managed to produce a squirt of milk. The feel and smell of the living animal gave him a strange pleasure and he felt that he was being initiated into an almost magical rite, but his hands soon grew tired and Abe Zook had to finish the milking.

  After both cows had been milked and the horse fed, he followed the old man to the springhouse, carrying one of the pails. Inside was a long, cement pool full of water so clear that it was almost invisible. He watched while Abe Zook lowered the pails onto concrete blocks placed so the tops of the pails were scarcely an inch above the surface. The old man took up a tin dipper, filled it from a pail, and offered it to him. The milk was so warm and rich that he could drink only a few swallows. "How about some water?" he asked apologetically. The water was sweet, without any trace of chlorine, and he drank far more than he needed, simply for the delightful taste.

  "A full moon it gives," said Zook as they left the springhouse. Billy stared with joy at the mottled silver disk that seemed so much bigger and brighter than any moon he had seen in the city. While he was watching, from behind him came a hard clicking noise, instantly followed by a savage hiss.

  Billy swung around. To one side of the springhouse stood a small shed, the front covered with chicken wire. A perch ran down the center and on the perch was sitting a giant ball of soft brown feathers, puffed up and glaring at the boy with two great yellow eyes that seemed the size of saucers. While Billy watched, the huge bird opened its wings like a fan, leaned forward, and the hooked, black beak vibrated rapidly, making the ominous clicking noise he had heard.

  Zook laughed. "An owl. A great horned owl. He will take no more chickens."

  Billy approached the shed cautiously. He could see now that the owl had two feathered turfs like horns protruding from the top of his head. The bird hissed again so savagely that Billy drew back. Not even Wasser or Grip so charmed him as did this fierce bird. It seemed so brave, so defiant, so wild.

  "What are you going to do with it?" he asked.

  "Sell him to hunters for a crow decoy. They will chain him on a pole and when the crows see him, they will come in to drive him away. Then the hunters shoot the crows."

  "That's a terrible thing to do," the boy burst out. "Why don't you let the poor thing go?"

  "To kill more chickens? No, he is worth ten dollars to me."

  "I'll give you ten dollars for him," pleaded Billy. "I haven't got it but I'll earn it somehow. He can't spend the rest of his life chained to a pole just so hunters can kill crows."

  "No, boy. It is better so. You will have enough to do here working for your board and keep without buying owls. Come to the house now."

  Billy saw there was a small door on the side of the shed, fastened only by a hasp held with a piece of wood. He turned away to follow Abe Zook toward the house. When they entered the cluttered room, he turned to the old man and said with terrible intensity, "Please let him go. I can't stand thinking of him being tortured like that. I promise you I'll get the money. I don't know how, but I'll get it someway."

  The braucher shook his head. "I cannot let him go. He will come back to kill more chickens."

  Billy said no more. He sat on a bench by the fireplace while Abe Zook cooked supper over the big, wood-burning stove.

  "Here, eat yourself full," said the old man cheerfully, putting two blue-and-white plates on the table. "Tonight we have Boova Shenkel—beef stew. There is still some Kasha Kuchen for the finish. That is cherry cake."

  "I'm not hungry," said Billy without looking up.

  "I could wish that we will be friends," said the old man slowly. "But to let the owl go is not reasonable. You are from the city and do not understand these things."

  Billy made no answer. The old man finished his meal and then took up a tin dishpan.

  "Still, it is not right that I work and you do nothing. Take the dishes to where the water runs from the springhouse and wash them. Here is the soap."

  Billy rose and put the dishes in the pan without a word. Zook opened the door for him and he started toward the ghostly white springhouse. The moon was bright, throwing the skeleton shadows of the trees on the lawn. Wasser had appeared and trotted along beside him.

  As he approached the shed, he heard the owl clicking its beak. Billy put down the dishpan and looked around him. There was no sign of Zook. Only Wasser was with him.

  Billy walked quietly to the shed and after a little fumbling, opened the door. The owl was only a dim shape in the darkness but he could hear the clicking of the beak and knew that the bird was crouched down and fluffed up, watching him with its yellow, saucer eyes. He whispered, "It's all right, you can come out. Come on, old fellow."

  The bird continued to click but made no motion. Billy was puzzled. He had expected the owl to fly out the door immediately.
He called to it again and then decided that the bird was afraid of him. Leaving the door open, he went back to the dishpan and began washing the dishes.

  He rinsed them off and then returned to the shed. The owl was still in the same position. Billy patted the chicken wire to make him fly, but the bird hissed so savagely and clicked so loudly that he was afraid Abe Zook would hear. He would have to drive the owl out.

  He entered the shed and edged along the back to get the bird between him and the open door. He could see the owl against the sky now and saw the bird turn its head as though on a swivel to watch him as he inched past. It seemed incredible that the owl would not twist its own neck off. Once on the other side, he waved his hands whispering, "Shoo! Shoo!" as loudly as he dared.

  The owl still refused to move. It had twisted its head around so it was looking full at him. It was crouched nearly flat on the bar, its wings open in a great arc, its head weaving up and down and the beak going like a pair of castanets.

  "Move, you stupid fool!" said the boy and made a motion as if to push the bird toward the door. Suddenly one of the owl's long legs shot out like an extended lazy tongs. So swift was the motion and so great was the reach that Billy was utterly unprepared for it. The owl seized him by the hand, plunged its inch long talons into him with a force so terrible that his whole arm went numb. Billy screamed with fear and pain.

  He tried to tear himself loose but the owl clung to him with one leg and to the bar with the other. The grip was so powerful that Billy sank down on his knees, sobbing with agony, holding the owl's leg with his other hand and trying to pull it loose. Outside he heard Wasser barking frantically. "Wasser, help me!" he shouted, straining at the bird's great rear talon that had gone nearly through his hand. Clicking and hissing, the owl spread its wings so they filled the narrow shed from side to side. Regardless of the pain, Billy tore the bird free from the bar while the owl thrashed about with his broad pinions, striking at him with the other foot which was now free for action.