The Healer

by Daniel P. Mannix

  "Neither do I, but it is well to be on the safe side and believe me. Like about owls. They have short tempers and long fingernails."

  "You said I could tame that owl. How do I do it?"

  "You must find his better nature, which is difficult, as owls don't have one. But now we are looking for herbs. See, over there is Insha Duwack, Indian tobacco. We will get some of that to sell. It is not good for you but some people still smoke it."

  There were many of the thorn apples in the weed-choked ground, and when they had finished, their baskets were a quarter full of the green, spiky pods. The Indian tobacco grew along a fence, heavy with vines. In spite of the lateness of the year, a few faded blue flowers clung to it. They collected only the broad leaves and then left the field.

  "Don't you feel bad about selling people things that hurt them?" asked Billy as they trudged along.

  "Once I tried only to help people, but they come here from the city in great numbers and ruin everything. That field where we were was once a fine place with good herbs, trees, and flowers. A man tried to make a lot of money fast without changing his crops or using manure. So it is now a desert where only poisons grow. Such people are worse than Insha Duwack."

  "There are plenty of good people too."

  "The good people have no faith in me. They say I have no power, when many times I have stopped the flow of blood by laying my hands on the place and saying a prayer. They laugh when I say that animals are like humans, only thinking a little differently. Yet you will see I know how animals think, and that these people who laugh at me do not. I do not care what happens to the rest of the world. If they want to poison themselves, let them."

  They continued on, Billy pondering on what the old man had said. Although Abe Zook had spoken sneeringly, there was a note of despair in his voice that frightened the boy. He had a feeling that Zook was striking out resentfully at a world that he did not understand and that had no use for him. He was in revolt against a system that he hated and yet was powerless to change. Billy knew the feeling, but he had thought that only young people felt that way. Older people always conformed and approved of the existing system. It was young people who were rebels.

  They stopped by an ancient graveyard about the size of a tennis court, surrounded by a waist-high stone wall. Some of the tombstones bore pre-Revolutionary dates, but these had become so worn that it was almost impossible to read them. Billy looked at the place with awe, not because it was a graveyard but because it was so old, secluded, and quiet. Here they gathered the purple leaves of henbane growing along the base of the wall. Zook bruised the leaves and let the boy smell them. They smelled like tobacco.

  "To get the virtue out of the plant, soak it in alcohol," Abe Zook explained. "It makes one sleep but it is very strong. Only one who knows should handle it. Also grows here Kiehbidders—tansy." But they could find only a few of the plants with their bitter buttons. "For tansy, only one teaspoon to a quart of water. It gives dreams."

  It seemed wonderful to the boy that all these plants were growing free and cost nothing to pick. He wondered if they were really as potent as Abe Zook claimed. They still seemed like weeds to him.

  "Now is time for eating," said the old man. They finished their collecting and sat in a corner of the graveyard with their backs against the wall to eat. From the pockets of his jacket the old man produced two apples, several links of smoked sausage, part of a loaf of bread, and a wedge of cheese. He also had a metal flask of cider.

  They ate and drank in complete contentment. A black walnut tree grew in the yard, and the ground around it was covered with ping-pong sized yellowish fruit that contained the inky nuts. While they watched, a gray squirrel stole over the wall, grabbed a yellow ball and started up. He did well until he reached the top; but here, strips of slate had been laid, forming an inverted V to protect the top, and the squirrel had trouble getting a hold. At last he slipped, and refusing to drop the fruit, went head over tail, hitting the ground with a force that left him breathless. Billy considered this the funniest sight he had ever seen and laughed until Abe Zook was mildly alarmed.

  "Best we walk the smell of the cider out of your head," he remarked rising. As they left the graveyard he added, "Fall is a good time to dig roots, for now when the plant is taken the seeds fall and make new plants for next year. In spring if you dig the plant, nothing is left. Now I will show you one more plant, the king of all plants. No, do not worry. This is a good plant that only helps people. I am the only person who knows where it grows."

  They crossed the road and plunged into the deep woods on the side of a high ridge. Abe Zook told the boy to leave his basket, which he was only too glad to do, for the grade was so steep that he had to bend forward almost on his hands and knees for the climb. Abe Zook went first, watching ahead so he could lead the way around tangles of poison ivy, patches of blackberry bushes, and stands of saplings. The boy soon learned not to follow him too closely, for the branches pushed forward by the old man's body snapped back and hit him in the face, even when Abe Zook held them to break the whiplash. Billy was thoroughly exhausted when the braucher stopped.

  "See, here are hickory trees and there, beech," he said, pointing to a grove of great trees.

  "Are they the king plant?"

  "No, no. Where those trees stand like that and the land slopes away, the drainage is good and the ground rich." He bent over and picked up a handful of the rich, soft, black loam. "So here the king plant grows."

  "Is that the only name it has?"

  "It is ginseng," said the old man reverently. "There is only a little of it left."

  "What's it good for?"

  "Everything. It cures everything. The scientists do not know about ginseng but the Chinese people do."

  "The people in China?"

  "Once I sent hundreds of pounds of ginseng every year to China. Now that is not allowed, and besides, there is only a little ginseng left. People came in their cars from the city and dug up whole beds, not only the big, old, grandfather roots that were past bearing, but the young shoots as well. Only this one little bed remains because it is well hidden. I sell it to Chinese people in Philadelphia and New York."

  The trunks of the great trees rose above them like columns in a cathedral. Although there were few leaves left on the branches, the light was dim. Billy looked around him, half afraid, yet tense with excitement. "Where are those roots?" he whispered, not daring to lift his voice in this ghostly place. "I don't see anything."

  Without answering, Abe Zook led the way deep into the grove. The dead leaves carpeting the forest floor were damp and springy under their feet so they moved noiselessly. Abe Zook quartered the whole grove with Billy following eagerly behind him, not having any idea what they were looking for. At last the old man stopped and said bitterly, "They are all."

  "What do you mean, 'They are all'?"

  "They are all gone."

  "Where did they go?"

  "Some other root digger has found them."

  The old man and the young boy stood staring at the leaf-strewn ground with equally dejected expressions. Then Abe Zook took a few steps forward and bent over.

  He spoke with repressed fervor. "Blood wortzel." He pulled up a small herb. "Yah, and there is Solomon's seal." He crossed the grove in a few quick strides and jerked up another plant. "See here once. On the root is the seal of the great King Solomon." He showed the root to Billy, but the boy could see nothing except some vague marks. "Wortzel and Solomon's seal are pointers that show where the 'seng grows." Lying down on his stomach, the old man looked along the ground and gave a grunt of satisfaction. "Look there. The red berries." Getting down, Billy could see the gleam of crimson against dark green foliage. "The 'seng is under the maples over there. I had forgotten."

  In a few seconds they had left the beech grove and were among the maples. The ginseng plants were less than a foot high and except for the telltale gleam of the fruit, would have been invisible in the undergrowth.

  Billy f
ell on his knees and started pulling up the plants but Abe Zook stopped him. "The big ones only. Let the small ones grow yet." There were about a dozen of the large plants which Abe Zook carefully unearthed with his trowel, scraping off the dirt with his hands. He gave a satisfied cry and held one up. "A little man it is, say not?" Even to Billy the root did resemble a headless human. There was a body, two arms, and two legs.

  "What will you do with it?" he asked, taking the root and cradling it like a doll.

  "A man I know who lives in Chinatown in New York will give fifty dollars for this. He will keep it for a charm. The others can be made into tea, but first they must be well dried."

  They followed their own trail down the slope, retrieving Billy's basket, and hit the road again. It was growing late and the boy's legs hurt him from the long tramp. His sore hand was also aching. "Are we going back now?" he asked hopefully.

  "In a little." They cut across a meadow where cows were trying to find some of the late autumn grass and headed toward a big red barn. A score of white Leghorn chickens were scattered across the field, but Abe Zook avoided them and went to a little hill that overlooked the pasture. Here a shallow pit had been dug and filled with buckwheat chaff to make it level with the hilltop. Abe Zook knelt and examined the chaff. He chuckled.

  "Look once. The farmer here told me that a fox has been taking his chickens, so three weeks ago I dug this set. For one week, the fox walked around it but would not go in. Then mice found the grain in the chaff and began to dig in it. The fox smelt them and came here last night to dig some out. Then he rolled in the chaff. Foxes like to do that. Now he has no more fear of it, so we set the traps."

  Billy watched, revolted yet fascinated, while Zook took the three Number 2 traps from his belt and set them in different places in the pit, covering them lightly with chaff and burying the drags deeper. "If this was a fox living in the woods I would have to boil the traps so he could not smell my scent or the scent of the iron."

  "I know. Foxes are smart."

  "Well, they are afraid of anything strange. People think that a fox knows a trap will catch him so that is why he keeps away from it. That is foolish talk. You could be leaving a silver spoon in the woods and the fox would be afraid of it the same way. A fox knows nothing about a trap unless maybe he has been caught once and got away. A lot of fools set traps for foxes, but they use too light a trap or let stones get between the jaws or do not set it fine enough, so the fox gets away. Those people are not trapping foxes, they are only teaching them. A fox like that is very hard to trap. I do not think this fox has ever been caught by a trap, and as he has been much around a farm the smells of iron and people are known to him, so boiling the traps is not necessary."

  From his pocket he took a tightly sealed glass jar, opened it and poured some of the contents on the chaff, muttering, "In the name of God I set this trap. May it please God to assist me. Upon the holy assistance of God and my trap, I depend entirely. God alone be with us. Amen."

  "Does that make it work better?" asked Billy.

  "Perhaps not, but it makes me feel better—like swearing when something goes wrong. But the lure I pour on is something else yet. It is oil from dead fish I catch last summer. The fox smells that and will come to it."

  "Why? Because he wants to eat the fish?"

  "Because he wishes to know what it is. This is a lure such as all trappers use, but also every trapper has his own lure which he uses when all other lures fail. He thinks that he has found something that will bring any fox to it, but it is only that it is something so strange that a wise fox who knows and fears all the common lures does not know it and so goes to find out what the new scent is. Some trappers use glands of the African civet cat, musk ox, and the Lord only knows what. I used a perfume called One Night in Paris, but it is hard to get now. It was very good perfume, cost a dollar a pint. Maybe girls stopped using it because the foxes chased them."

  Gazing at the set, Billy wondered if many years from now, when he was a grown man, he would look back and see himself as a boy standing on this hill. He wondered if he would be able to remember how the barn looked, and the field and the set. And would he know then if Abe Zook had caught the fox?

  "Why do you have those chains with the thing like an anchor on them on the traps?"

  "You mean the drags?"

  "I suppose that's what they're called. I should think it would be better to tie the traps to a stake so the fox can't run off with them?"

  "I'll tell you about that. This farmer wants me to trap the foxes to save his chickens, and I am to get the skins to sell. But if he finds a fox caught here, he will be tempted to take the skin for himself and say the fox got away. I think it is wrong to put temptation in anyone's way, so now when the fox is caught, he will run with the trap, but sooner or later the drag will catch in the bushes and hold him there. Then we can come with Wasser and track him. The farmer does not have a tracking dog, so he cannot tell where the fox has gone."

  The whole business seemed indescribably cruel to the boy, yet he wondered how he would feel if a fox were taking his chickens.

  Someone was hailing them and Billy saw a man in work clothes coming from the barn. They went to meet him. He was a heavy-set man, clean-shaven, and looked at Billy curiously.

  "You seen Ike Yoder yet?" he asked Abe Zook.

  "Today not."

  "He's looking for you. Them wild dogs, or whatever they is, killed three of his sheep last night."

  Billy saw Abe Zook stiffen. The boy thought, the werewolffen. I'm sure lucky they didn't kill me.

  "He seen 'em. He says one is a funny looking dog gone wild, but he swears the other is a wolf. Can you trap 'em?"

  Abe Zook shook his head. "The dog maybe, but the other is too smart. I have tried, but he will not come to a trap. He is not like a fox. I knew they were about. Last night I heard them but they were afraid of Wasser."

  "Ike thinks he can run 'em down with dogs."

  Abe Zook considered. "It is possible, maybe. Tonight they could come to the dead sheep to feed, if Ike leaves the sheep where they were killed."

  "Maybe Ike can sit up over them with a gun."

  "That is no good. He can hide himself, but his scent he cannot hide. I tell you this wolf is not a fox; he is a smart one. Better let them eat the sheep, and when it makes dawn we come with the dogs. Then they will be heavy with food and cannot run good."

  "Well, you can talk to Ike about it. He'll be over to your place after dark."

  They hurried back toward the cabin, Billy wild with excitement. Conservationist though he was, the prospect of a wolf hunt was too romantic to be resisted. "Is Wasser going too?" he asked and was delighted when Abe Zook assured him that Wasser would be a very important member of the hunt. "He knows the scent of those werewolffen well. Maybe the other dogs are not sure of it and will want to go off on a fox or deer, but Wasser will not change."

  One matter puzzled Billy, yet he was afraid to mention it. Finally he blurted out, "You call them werewolffen and say you have to keep them off with wolfsbane, but then you say you can run them down with dogs. If they're really werewolffen, how can you do that?"

  Abe Zook did not answer at once and went on with such long strides that Billy had to run to keep up with him. After a time he said, "Because an animal is a werewolf is not to say that he cannot be killed. It means there is a power in him that other animals are not having. I am a braucher because there is a power in me to heal by the laying on of hands that other men are lacking, yet I can be killed or followed by dogs."

  Billy had the feeling that Abe Zook knew well that the animals were not supernatural but that he preferred to think of them as werewolves. The boy wondered if the old man practiced magic because he believed in it or wanted to believe in it. Perhaps Zook wished so desperately to feel that his mysterious art was true that he had come to live in a pretend world that was real to him, even though he knew it was all a game of make-believe.

  The familiar cackling of the guinea fow
l sounded as soon as they climbed the fence, and Wasser tore out, barking. They called to him and the dog came bounding to meet them, snuffing at the baskets and jumping on Billy. Grip was pacing up and down before the door, indignant, as it was long past his feeding time. Billy got him a piece of bread and some sausage and after examining both, the raven took the sausage and flew off with it. Thinking he did not want the bread, Billy retrieved the piece and was going back to the house with it when furious cries made him stop. Grip was flying back, the sausage still in his beak. Alighting by the boy's feet, Grip did a war dance of outrage. Then he dropped the sausage, hurriedly dug a hole with his beak, put the meat in it, covered it over, and then marched over to Billy demanding his bread. Billy gave it to him, and Grip was obviously in a quandary whether to take the bread away and hide it or stand guard over his sausage. He finally solved the problem by eating the bread on the spot and then unearthing the sausage and carrying it off to a safer spot.

  "You should go and get wood, no?" suggested Abe Zook. "Or is the hand too bad?"

  "I can do it," said Billy turning away. He hated to admit that the hand still hurt him, for he felt that the injury was the result of his own stupidity.

  "On the way, look for rats in the trap under the corncrib," Abe Zook called after him.

  "I thought you poisoned rats."

  "Not when I have an owl to feed. If he ate a poisoned rat, he would die too."

  Billy found the trap. It was a small barrel with tin nailed around the inside, sunk into the ground. A light board hung over the edge with bait fastened to the end. When a rat crept along the board, it tilted so the rat fell into the barrel and then, with the weight gone, the board swung back into place. There were three rats in the barrel, but Billy did not know how to get them out without being bitten. He got his armful of wood and reported to Abe Zook.

  "You tail them. Come, I show you." The old man got an old milk can and they went to the trap. With surprising dexterity, Zook grabbed the rats by the tails, one after another, and dropped them in the can, quickly replacing the lid. They then went to the shed where the owl, seeing them coming, bent over, clicking and hissing. Zook opened the door and tossed in a rat. Before it struck the floor, the owl was on it. Billy gasped at the big bird's speed. The rat turned over once in the iron grip and tried to bite, but the same grip that had paralyzed Billy's arm made him numb. The owl seized him by the neck with its hooked beak and finished him.