Despite their improved storage, they were soon sleeping outside for lack of room, now that they were trying to get all they could get rather than just what they could eat that day. They didn’t understand it, but in addition to their industriousness in gathering, their traps’ harvest of smaller animals had decreased the competition for edible fruits and vegetables in their area. As the harvest season dropped off, they began enlarging their cave again. Now they began searching for edible roots. Again relating the rotten roots at the bottom of the stack in previous winters to moisture, they looked for ways to stack the roots so that air could circulate through. More dead treetops were dragged in and fitted with large shallow baskets.
As they wove baskets in the evenings, they talked about their old friends in the Aldans, whom they missed, and their old enemies in the tribe, whom they were glad to be separated from. They wondered bleakly what would happen to the tribe when Roley grew old and Denit tried to take over as leader. Though sons often followed in their father’s footsteps, even in leadership roles, it was by no means an assured thing. The consensus among the three of them was that Denit would simply assume that he should be the Aldans’ leader. They felt that Roley would try to hand over the leadership to his son. If, like Pell, Donte and Tando, many members of the tribe felt that Denit was a poor leader there could be a fight. The tribe might split however, some going off to follow their own chosen leader or to join another tribe. Two small tribes could have have it rough at small size they would be if the Aldans splintered.
Pell laughed, “Here we are thinking that a splinter off of the Aldans would be too small to make a go of it—we, the ‘tribe of three!’”
The other two laughed as well. Tando shook his head wonderingly. “You’re right Pell; I’m not as worried about the three of us surviving this coming winter as I am of the Aldans, making it through, big as they are. These new ideas of yours, Pell, ‘snaring’ and ‘smoking’, have changed our lives. Even if illness strikes, we wouldn’t have to declare the sickly one ‘ginja’ for quite some time with all the food we have stored up!”
The next afternoon Tando strode back into camp with a following. There was a young man who carried a child “pig-a-back” and a young woman following them. Pell sat transfixed upon recognizing the young woman as the “medicine girl” who, with the old hag, had bested him while trading medicines with him back at the market area. Pell stared at her from his seat where he had been making baskets. She was obviously distraught. The “amused at the world” look had vanished from her countenance. As she approached, her expression became appraising. As before, Pell felt that her gaze penetrated to his very core. He wondered what they were doing in the area. It didn’t seem that Cold Springs Ravine was likely to be on their way from one place to another. If it were, Pell thought he would have met them before in some other chance meetings between passing tribes. Pell started to ask why they were there but the words seemed to stick in his throat. Who was the young man? Was he her mate?! Was that their child?
“Pell! Get a grip on Ginja!” Tando’s words broke through Pell’s reverie. Ginja had arisen from the bushes where she had been lying and stalked into the small clearing between the creek and the front of their cave. She bristled, snarled, and curled her lips back.
The wolf had come to accept Tando and Donte’s comings and goings without challenge over the past weeks.
Evidently, Pell thought, this acceptance didn’t apply to strangers.
Pell scrambled to his feet saying “Ginja! No!” He strode over, grasped her by the ruff of her neck and pulled her back. The newcomers stared with undisguised amazement as Pell manhandled the wolf. As the wolf settled down to a low-pitched rumbling growl, Pell became embarrassed that he had as yet made no greeting to the visitors.
Before Pell could say anything, the medicine girl held her hand up, palm forward, saying, “Hello ‘Bonesetter’, I am ‘Gia’ and I greet you in the name of my grandmother Agan. These are my brothers, Manute and Falin. Falin, as you can see, has broken his ankle and it is badly deformed. Having seen the evidence of your skill in the wrist of Tando, we have come to ask that you perform a “bonesetting” on Falin’s ankle.” Through the entirety of her little speech her eyes never left the wolf, still bristling at Pell’s side. Amazement riffled through her to see the wolf not only letting Pell touch her, but even grasp the skin of the Wolf’s neck in a way that appeared as if it might be painful! Though Pell hadn’t really noticed, the growing young wolf, well fed by Pell’s traps, had become larger than almost any wolf out in the wild. To the young medicine girl, his control of the big wolf stood as formidable evidence of his awesome power.
Not noticing her fixation on the wolf, Pell’s eyes dropped to Falin’s ankle. Twisted and swollen it was a vitriolic purple. Embarrassment flushed over him. His inner voice questioned the skill of a “bonesetter” who could have overlooked the grotesque deformity in a boy carried on the back of his brother. A boy who had such a pale, taut face! Embarrassment abruptly gave way to dismay as he recognized the enormity of the task that had just been thrust upon him, as well as the high probability of his failure.
Without noticing Pell’s consternation, Tando forged excitedly ahead. “Pell, I’ve been telling them all about your finger and Gontra’s, as well as my wrist. As you can see, this boy will never walk again without the benefit of your ‘bonesetting’ gift. Thank the Spirits that we saw his sister and grandmother at the trading area so that they knew to bring him to you! How will you begin? What should I get for you? Should Falin start chewing hemp now?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Pell ventured lamely, his eyes darting from Tando to the medicine girl and back to Falin’s ankle. He looked back at the medicine girl whose eyes, he realized, had opened wider at Tando’s suggestion of the hemp. “She knows much more about medicines than we do Tando, we should let her decide what to use to relieve the pain.”
“Oh, yes, yes of course. Gia, what should we use?” Tando asked brightly. He was obviously excited and blithely expecting a triumphant conclusion to the “simple” problem of Falin’s ankle, whereas Pell felt a gnawing ache in his stomach over the likely prospect of failure.
For her part, Gia pursed her lips in consideration. She seemed to have forgotten the wolf while thinking about a problem posed in her own field. “It depends on how long until Pell is ready to set Falin’s bone.” Upon these words, Falin began sobbing. Though he did so quietly, agonizing fear made itself evident upon his face and tears began to roll down his cheeks.
Tando spoke up brightly, “Falin’s frightened because someone in his home tribe already tried to set his ankle several times and, even after bearing terrible pain from the attempts, his leg isn’t any straighter. I told him not to worry. After all the same thing happened to me and you fixed my wrist just fine.” Tando brandished his wrist about to emphasize his point.
Falin hardly looked reassured.
Pell’s gaze was again drawn to Falin’s grossly deformed ankle and he moved closer to see it better. Manute carefully lowered Falin to the ground while Falin grasped the shin of his injured extremity with both hands to keep it from striking the earth. Pell saw that Falin’s left foot was twisted outward as well as bent almost perpendicularly to the side. He would never be able to walk on it, even with a limp, in its current position. Purplish bruising was all about the ankle, in the foot all the way to the toes and in the back of the leg all the way up to the mid calf area. The leg was swollen from the knee to the toes so that the toes looked like little sausages. Glumly, Pell thought to himself that this ankle looked much worse than the fingers he’d reduced, or even Tando’s wrist. He reached out a tentative finger to touch, but Falin drew the deformed limb back with a cry. “No! Medicine first!” he wailed.
Gia rushed to his side. “Falin, it’s OK, of course you can have some medicine first!” she said, then glared at Pell.
Pell had jerked the offending finger back as if burned. “Oh, yes, sorry,” he mumbled. Thinking back to the splint he had
used to reduce and then hold Tando’s arm straight, he said, “I’ll need to make wooden splints for your ankle in case I’m able to reduce it. Your sister Gia can give you the medicine while I’m doing that.” Pell tried to beat a retreat.
Pell, better take Ginja with you. I don’t think they’re very comfortable with her here.”
Pell turned back to see Ginja still bristling, with a ridge of hair standing up on her back. “Ginja, come.” The three visitors appeared even more astonished when he walked away and the wolf turned slowly and stalked away with him. As he departed, Pell heard Tando begin to regale them with tales of Pell’s “powers over animals.” This embarrassed Pell, but simultaneously flushed him with pride.
Once out of their sight, Pell’s mind whirled with images of Falin screaming in agony during the bonesetting, then of Falin’s ankle reduced and Gia grateful to him. Perhaps she would even throw her arms about him?
Then his vision metamorphosed—Falin’s bone bursting through the skin during Pell’s attempt to force it back in place—the boy dying slowly in the same tortured throes that Kana had died in after her crushed finger became infected, Gia’s growing resentment and loathing. He took a deep breath and tried to calm the dizzying speed of his own thought processes. Eventually he found some pieces of driftwood that he thought were about the right size to make into splints and headed back to camp.
Ginja seemed more accepting of the visitors when she and Pell arrived back in camp. In addition, the newcomers seemed to have been calmed by Tando’s stories of Pell’s powers over the young wolf. After measuring the branches that he had chosen against Falin’s good limb, Pell chose one that was almost the right length and began to trim it with a hand axe. As he worked, Pell worried about the extensive swelling in Falin’s ankle. He remembered how the swelling in his own finger had diminished after he had begun propping it high in the air to diminish the throbbing pain. He suggested that they prop Falin’s ankle up also. Manute carried Falin to the edge of the clearing by the creek, where they supported his leg on an inverted basket covered with some furs. This held his ankle fairly high in the air and the boy even said it felt better.
Pell continued work on his splints. The boy’s ankle was so deformed that Pell had to guess at its reduced shape from the shape of his other leg while imagining it quite swollen. The inner surfaces of the two pieces he had chosen were rough, so Pell scraped them smooth with one of the new scrapers they had obtained at the trading area. When they were smooth, he returned to hold them up against Falin’s good leg, one against the inner or medial side of the leg and the other against the outer or lateral side. Though they were about the right length, they didn’t fit very well against Falin’s leg. They laid nicely up against the calf but then gapped away over the lower shin and rested hard on the point of the malleolar bones that stuck out on either side of the ankle itself. Pell went back to work with his scraper to make hollows in the splints for the Falin’s malleolar bones to fit into. Donte had arrived back in the area and, once apprised of the situation, asked what she could do. Pell set her to cutting soft leather strips with which to bind the splints to Falin’s leg.
Meanwhile Gia brewed a concoction that emanated sharp odors. Pell could identify hemp leaves and willow bark, both of which he knew that Pont used, though it seemed that Pont’s major ingredient was hemp. Hemp, or as it would later become known, marijuana, mostly produced a feeling of euphoria and well-being and was not a powerful pain reliever. Pell had heard that many healers used willow bark tea to relieve minor pains. Aspirin would one day be derived from the bark of that tree. Pell’s respect for the Medicine girl went up a notch when he saw her working with a fine, black sand that he thought must be poppy seeds. Poppy seeds contained a very powerful pain reliever and euphoric had to be harvested at just the right time and prepared with great care or they could be very dangerous. Garlic and the leaves, stems, seeds and roots of several other plants also went into Gia’s concoction but Pell couldn’t identify most of them.
Towards evening Pell had splints shaped that looked like they would fit Falin’s leg if he could reduce it. Gia had pronounced her medication ready and Donte had not only prepared straps to tie the splints in place but also had prepared some soft furred skins to pad the splints. After anguishing about whether any other preparations should be made first, Pell told Gia to go ahead and medicate the boy. She carefully measured out a quantity into a bowl and had Falin scoop it up and swallow it. They waited briefly, Pell growing more and more nervous. All too soon, Falin visibly drooped. Pell had Manute carry him down to the stream.
Pell tested the water and found it icy cold as usual. Remembering some of the difficulties he had had in gripping Tando’s wrist during that reduction, Pell laid the inside or medial side splint in place against the surface of his ankle and foot. Because the foot was twisted externally and bent outward, away from the other leg, the long part of the splint stood away from the medial side of the calf when the distal part was pressed against the foot and ankle. Pell began securing the medial splint to the foot and ankle with the straps. He tightened them, especially at the ankle where they would have to pull hard to bend the bone back. This would be necessary in order to angulate the ankle even farther and so “increase the deformity”, as he had had to do in all of his other bonesettings so far. Pell was pleased that these manipulations did not seem to affect the boy much in his drugged state, though Falin did moan some while Pell was tightening the straps. Pell placed the boy’s leg in the icy water up to the knee and Falin awoke with a small cry from the shock of it. After a brief struggle to pull the leg back out of the water, Falin dozed off again.
Pell began to worry about how best to apply the tremendous amount of force that he was sure would be required to reduce an ankle. Reducing Tando’s wrist had required most of his strength, so he felt certain that an ankle, even a boy’s ankle, would be even more difficult. He looked up to see Tando, Donte, Gia and Manute looking at him expectantly.
Gia and Manute appeared to be hoping against hope, but still expecting an almost certain failure.
Unfortunately, this anticipation closely matched Pell’s own expectations. Donte’s expression held a mother’s pride tinged with a fear of her son’s failure. Tando’s blasé countenance evinced someone awaiting a routine miracle.
Pell found Tando’s nonchalant expectation irritating and, in a pique, asked Tando to step down into the stream to hold Falin’s leg under water while Pell considered the best method for putting the bone back in place. Tando grumbled briefly but stepped down into the icy water to do so.
Trying to imagine how best to place his hands to pull on the boy’s ankle, Pell found himself wishing for a model. Gia’s leg was closest in size to Falin’s, so he turned to her asking, “Can I have your help? I’ve never done this on an ankle before. I need to determine how to position Falin and how to place my hands so that I might have the best chance of doing it in one try. Since your leg is closest in size to his, I would like to use yours to try out some different ways to position it.” She agreed readily, but was obviously puzzled as to his intent. She became even more puzzled when he asked her to lie down, nonetheless she did so. He knelt down at her feet and grasped her ankle but even a mildly strong pull on her ankle simply scooted her butt along the ground. With both hands on her ankle in order to provide a grip capable of great force, he had no other hand to apply counterforce at her knee. He asked Manute to grasp her knee and pull so that he would have something to pull against. Unfortunately, Manute could not get much of a grip, so his hands simply slid up onto her thigh causing Gia to complain about the friction burn. Next Pell had Manute bend her knee up to a right angle and pull against the back of her thigh while Pell pulled in the opposite direction. This had some potential, but he and Manute had difficulty coordinating their efforts. They wound up tugging her leg back and forth between themselves, rather than applying the powerful traction Pell knew would be necessary. Thinking that he had to find a way to apply both force and counte
rforce himself, Pell sat on his buttocks at her feet and grasping her ankle, began to reach out with his own feet looking for a place to put them in order to achieve purchase for application of such a counterforce. Her crotch was an obvious stirrup in which to place his foot. Thinking hard about the problem and its solution, he began to slide his foot in that direction. Suddenly he saw her watching his foot with wide eyes. He realized what he had been about to do and his hormones burst onto the scene. Suddenly both embarrassed and sexually stimulated he jerked his foot back and scrambled to his feet. Not realizing that they couldn’t see either his red face or his erection in the twilight, he turned away.
“Have you figured it out yet?” Gia asked curiously.
Hardly trusting himself to speak, Pell choked out, “Not yet.” After a moment, when he judged that he had control of his voice again he asked her to turn on her stomach. Pell backed up a little to stand over her knee and then, bending her knee, brought her foot up behind her so that her calf stood straight in the air. Placing his foot on the less arousing back of her thigh, he judged that he could obtain a powerful grip on her foot and ankle. “OK this will work,” he said staring off into the distance. “Manute, help Tando roll Falin onto his stomach.”
Bonesetter Page 15