Bonesetter

by Laurence Dahners

  Too embarrassed to say he had had no idea that touching it would squeeze pus out, Pell had shrugged and massaged it to squeeze out a little more. When Gia put the new poultice in place she held it with one hand, then put Pell’s hand on top of hers and her other hand on top of his. She mumbled a short chant while Pell stared at their hands. Her hands were so warm! Entranced, Pell had felt goosebumps going up his arm.

  This had became their routine, Pell taking off the dressing and massaging Panyte’s hand, Gia putting on the new and their sitting with their hands entertwined for a few moments while Gia chanted. It had been the highlight of Pell’s days.

  Days passed and stretched into weeks. Panute’s sickness faded and her leg began to hurt less. The wound where her fingers had been cut off turned bright red and became fragile, bleeding easily when it was disturbed. This worried Pell, but with time the wound slowly contracted, becoming smaller and smaller.

  Panute began using her remaining two fingers and thumb and soon became remarkably facile with them, weaving light baskets and sewing leather into winter clothing. Saying that she preferred to stay busy, as long as someone brought her materials with which to work, she made what she could. The swelling in her leg slowly went down and Pell took out the fur padding a little at a time, gradually snugging up the straps around the splints. The leg appeared to be straight, though it was a little shorter than the other leg. It also continued to be turned outward a little at the foot. This twisted, shortened state worried Pell a great deal, but Panute was becoming more and more ecstatic, because as time passed her leg hurt so much less. Rather than being concerned about the remaining deformity, she enthused regularly about how much straighter it was than Rasad’s. Rasad, a man from her old tribe, had broken his leg and had simply lain unsplinted in his bedding until eventually it had healed. Healed, yes, but twisted and bowed, it rendered him a cripple for the rest of his life. He apparently had been reduced to performing menial tasks about the cave and staying home to defend their stores from animals while the tribe foraged. Pell thought such a life seemed sad but much better than how such a person would have fared in the Aldans—lucky if he weren’t cast out while the leg was healing—certainly cast out when his twisted leg rendered him a cripple.

  Panute began to sit up more and more, resting her back against a large bole of wood the men rolled in for her. One day Pell came in and, to his surprise, found her perched on top of the bole, feet resting on the ground. Pell had rarely seen anyone sit anywhere other than on the ground, but she began to sit up there most of the day, saying that her leg was more comfortable upright than laid out on the ground. Not long after that she began to hop from place to place about the cave—and hopping outside to urinate and move her bowels. She had hated going in the clay pot that they had made for her and having to have someone else carry it away.

  Tando and Pell continued to check the trap lines by themselves so that the others wouldn’t learn the snaring secret unless they joined the tribe. They also went on group hunts with Manute and Deltin, occasionally making another kill but the occasional large bounty from those hunts couldn’t match the steady stream of small game provided by the snares. The profusion of small game was dropping off as the weather steadily grew cooler but remained high enough that they were still smoking extra meat more often than they took any out of storage.

  Panute asked Pell when she could begin walking on her leg; already she was resting its own weight on the ground without pain. Pell took off her splints and felt the bones. The leg was nothing like the floppy bag of bones he had felt at first. Though swollen, the bones seemed immobile to him. As he had for Falin, he recommended that she put as much weight on her leg as she could without pain. She immediately began carrying some weight on each step, though her gait remained mostly a hop.

  In the evenings they sat around the fire and told stories. Agan had a talent for storytelling. Many of her stories were of true experiences from her long life but some were stories she had heard from travelers.

  Gia told stories as well and Pell hung on her every word. Her stories, she said, were “pretend.” They featured young lovers, meeting for the first time and being swept away. These young lovers often met at trading places and, remembering that he had met Gia at the River Fork trading area his heart leapt when those types of stories were told.

  At Tando’s urging, Agan at last agreed to another discussion of the subject of the joining of the tribes. In a good mood after a successful group hunt that had procured a small boar, they discussed it one evening over a spicy boar and grain stew. The group discussed it cheerfully, bantering back and forth. It soon appeared that everyone was comfortable making up a combined tribe and contented with the rules of governance that Aganstribe had used. However, there was disagreement about where they should live. The Cold Springs site provided the best cave, good hunting (though Pell and Tando realized that their snares would probably work as well anywhere—perhaps better in a new location, much as they always worked better when moved to new sites in the Cold Springs area) and excellent water. It was also ready to be lived in, whereas a lot of work would be necessary at the cave where Aganstribe wintered. However, at the Aganstribe winter site, the neighbors were well known and friendly, while at Cold Springs, the Aldans or other raiders were a major concern.

  They went through the baskets and pebbles routine to decide who would be their leader. Gia, Tando, Donte and Deltin assigned the initial pebbles to decide worth. Pell was greatly relieved to find his basket did not contain tiny pebbles. In fact, he realized with surprise, his basket contained four of the largest pebbles in the initial pile! The next night when they redistributed the pebbles to decide leadership Pell was again surprised to find some pebbles in his basket but he quickly passed them on, giving half to Tando and half to Agan, just as he had his original pebbles. Soon Tando and Agan had most of the pebbles.

  Pell thought that Agan had more than Tando but before he could really see who had the most, Tando stood and carrying his basket over, poured its contents into Agan’s. “I thank those of you who gave me pebbles, but in the short time we have been together I have come to recognize Agan’s wisdom. That first night when she admitted that she was wrong about Pell and the treatment of Panute, I was startled. I had never been around a leader who admitted to being wrong and I thought it a sign of weakness. I have come to recognize it, not as a sign of weakness, but of wisdom. She will make a better leader than I.” Though Pell had, out of loyalty, felt compelled to give half of his pebbles to Tando, secretly he agreed that Agan would make the better leader.

  Chapter Six

  Over the next few days, Agan talked with everyone, everyone, even including Falin, about whether or not to move. Gradually the sentiment shifted towards a move to the Aganstribe winter cave for safety’s sake. Pell began to realize that he really wanted to stay at the Cold Springs site, as he considered it “his” but by the time he began to muster strong arguments for staying, talk had shifted from “whether to move,” into “how to move.” They had a lot of smoked meat and other stored food to move, as well as Panute and Agan. It appeared that it would take several trips. In fact, as they talked about it, it began to look so difficult that Pell commenced hoping that they would abandon the move. Manute suggested making a stretcher for the move, to carry supplies if not the invalids. Deltin made an excellent one from two spear shafts, between which he stretched some skins, sewn together where necessary. While trying it out, Pell stumbled, dropping the back end. Apologizing, he reached down to pick up his poles again but Manute jokingly pulled the poles ahead, just out of his reach. When Manute had done this several times, Pell suddenly realized that a person could drag a litter by himself, without needing two people to each carry an end. With excitement, he explained his idea. They tried loading the litter. When loaded, without someone holding the back ends of the poles apart, they slid closer together so that the leather between the poles dragged on the ground. Deltin solved this problem by lashing a short pole between them to hold t
hem apart. In no time, they had a one-person stretcher-travois that they could load with a large quantity of supplies.

  Eventually they worked out a plan to take the two invalids and some food on one trip, returning for more of their stores later. Falin would stay at the new camp to help the invalids while the adults returned on their second trip. Anything at the Cold Springs cave that they couldn’t move, they planned to hide for a possible third trip later in the winter. The third trip could be made if they ran low on supplies but otherwise might not be necessary.

  While they were eating dinner the evening before they planned to begin the move, Ginja began growling and rose up from her place beside the fire. Bristling, she stalked toward the opening of the cave/shelter where Manute had hung a patchwork cover of large skins to keep the cold late autumn breezes out. Looking at each other the men quickly rose and got their spears. Tando unlashed the stack of spears near the door and took a second spear in his left hand. He offered a second spear to the other men but only Manute took a second. Tando whispered to Donte and she and Gia lifted the quilt of small animal furs off Panute’s bed and held it between the fire and the door to cast the cave opening in darkness. After all their talk, Pell felt in his bones that raiders must be coming to attack. With some embarrassment, he realized that he was shaking in trepidation. After his eyes had adjusted to the dark, Tando moved to the edge of the door and carefully peered out through one of the gaps between the opening and the hanging leather. After a moment he said, “Boro?”

  “Tando?”

  Sure enough, it was Pell’s former friend Boro. When they let him in Pell was shocked at his appearance. The boy shuffled in, emaciated, shivering and foul smelling.

  As well, Boro remained small, especially in comparison to Pell whose adolescent growth spurt had been enormous, fueled by his ability to eat all he wanted this past summer. They had some difficulty getting Ginja to let Boro into the cave and more difficulty convincing the boy that it was OK to come into a dwelling with a growling, angry looking wolf. Eventually they got him settled in front of the fire. They fed him the remnants of their “moving feast.” They had cooked up all of their unpreserved meat as well as all the odd bits of food that hadn’t fit into the big moving baskets packed earlier that day. They had been trying unsuccessfully to eat it all before the move. Boro’s eyes were ravenous and gleamed at the food laid out before him, roast boar, boiled roots, Gia’s bread cakes and a little stewed grain. Though Agan advised him to eat slowly, he wolfed the food down—then bolted for the cave mouth to vomit. When he returned, he ate a smaller quantity at a slower pace under Agan’s watchful eye.

  Once Boro had some food in him, they began to ply him with questions. His story was grim but as it unfolded it made them all, even Pell, glad that they had decided to move from the area for the winter.

  Boro’s father Bonat had been killed in a hunting accident, his arm mangled on the tusks of a boar the Aldans had chased into a small ravine. Boro attributed his father’s death to cowardice on Denit’s part. The boar had been cornered by Bonat and Denit but had turned the tables on them, trapping Bonat instead when his spearpoint broke. Denit had a good angle of attack as the boar focused on Bonat but had been frightened by the boar’s rage and timidly held back. He only surged in to spear the boar as Gontra arrived to spear it as well. Before Denit got up his courage, the boar had severely tusked Bonat’s arm. Bonat hadn’t died immediately, instead lingering for several days while the tusk lacerations developed wound fever. Delirious at the end, he had openly and repeatedly accused Denit of cowardice before he died.

  Roley had become morose upon hearing someone describing his son’s attributes honestly for the first time. So morose that for some time he practically stopped taking the band out on hunts. They had eaten fairly well, on what the women gathered, but everyone was nervous because it was the “fat” part of the summer when they customarily gorged themselves on kills, building up their stores of fat for the long hard winter. When they did begin hunting regularly again, Roley’s detachment resulted in more disorganized hunts with disastrous outcomes. Roley lost his sure command of the group. Hunt after hunt was unsuccessful. When someone had timidly suggested that, to change their luck, someone else should lead a hunt, Denit had volunteered and Roley had acquiesced! Astonishment engulfed the Aldans’ hunters at finding themselves led out on an important hunt by such a young and inexperienced hunter. However, as they had all feared that Roley would refuse to let anyone else lead a hunt, it was initially viewed as somewhat of a success.

  However, Denit’s hunt strategies were unusual, confusing and poorly understood by the other hunters. Something always seemed to bolt the animals before anyone even came close to getting a spear into one. Frustration mounted as, unexpectedly, their bellies growled in the summer. Frustrated, Denit acted even more arrogantly than usual and never even considered letting someone else lead a hunt. Roley backed Denit’s decisions with his formidable strength. So, as much as the other hunters would have liked to choose another hunt leader, their fear of Roley prevented it.

  After Pell had been cast out, Denit had turned on Boro, making him the new brunt of the ill-tempered teasing and bullying that had been his lifelong inclination. As Denit’s mood darkened through hunt after ill-considered hunt, he began to deride Boro, blaming him for each thing that went wrong. One day Denit had accused him of alerting a small herd of antelope. In anger, Boro made the ultimate mistake of repeating his father’s accusations regarding Denit’s cowardice.

  By that time Denit seemed only to be bullying rather than leading the hunters, and this only under the threat of his increasingly irrational father’s violence.

  Upon Boro’s explosion Denit had cast him out. No one had had the courage to take Boro’s side. This had occurred several hands of days ago. Boro, cast out at the difficult beginning of winter, rather than the beginning of spring as Pell had been, had not had a boar’s carcass to start his isolation with. He had unearthed a few fat tubers on occasion but didn’t really have a clue as to how he should find them or other plant foods. The tubers alone made a poor diet, even when mixed with the relatively abundant wild onions. Boro had hung around the periphery of the Aldan’s camp, hoping that they would take him back. But after a bit, Denit had organized stone throwing parties to chase him away, accusing him of bringing bad luck.

  Boro’s mother had covertly taken some grain out to him once or twice, but that was a dangerous undertaking in Roley’s unstable state of mind. Especially with the vindictive Denit steering Roley’s actions. The last time Boro’s mother contacted him, she passed on a suggestion made by one of the other women, “Go to Cold Springs Ravine, where it is said that Tando and Donte went to find Pell. Maybe Boro would be able to join them?”

  Pell, whose emotions had been mixed on first seeing Boro, virtually exploded. “You! You come to my camp asking for help! Did you help me when Roley was casting me out? No! You chanted ‘ginja’ alongside the others! I ‘set’ Gontra’s finger— you and he should have stood by me! But you should have especially! We swore an oath! You were supposed to leave with me.”

  Boro blanched with terror. Pell realized with a sick feeling that Boro’s life surely hung in the balance—if they didn’t take him in, he would, certainly starve to death before long. Boro dropped, scrabbling, at Pell’s feet, begging piteously for Pell’s forgiveness. Dismayed, Pell looked up at the other members of their newly formed tribe. He saw expressions ranging from mild distaste over the emotional outbursts, to the outright horror that registered on Gia’s face. Pell wasn’t sure whether Gia’s dismay emanated from what Boro had done to Pell or from Boro’s fate as she contemplated Pell’s driving the boy out. As Pell stood looking at the other members of his new tribe, he recognized that they would leave Boro to whatever fate Pell decided. But, at the same time, Pell realized that he would lose the admiration his new tribe had for him.

  He realized then, that he would lose respect for himself. “Oh, for spirit’s sake! Boro, get up. I
won’t turn you aside just because you didn’t prevent Roley from casting me out—you couldn’t have kept me in the tribe anyway.” Gasping, Boro rose to his knees, clasping his arms about Pell’s thighs and thanking him repeatedly. Pell couldn’t believe how small his old friend’s wasted arms felt as they wrapped about his own legs. He still loathed Boro for chanting “ginja” with the others, but felt glad that the boy’s starvation would not rest on his conscience.

  Boro’s tale made the group even more determined to move out of the area. Unfortunately, the boy’s addition to the tribe posed a problem in that he was not in very good shape for the move. It wasn’t just his poor health, though they could ill afford to move the two invalids they already had, much less three. For one thing, Boro had no moccasins. It was getting colder and colder and the boy had no warm clothing. He had made it this far by only traveling during the warmest part of the day. The rest of the time he spent dug into drifts of fallen leaves. The leaves at least insulated, and in some cases actually heated him through decomposition. The group decided to hold the move at least another day while Manute made him some moccasins and the others patched him together a makeshift cloak/wrap.

  The next day they fed Boro three good meals. The abundance of food put some energy back into him. Manute made him a good pair of moccasins while everyone else contributed some labor to a patchwork of furs for the cloak. It was ill made, as they didn’t want to cut the skins until Manute could work out a final cutting for a good coat. They just roughly stitched many overlapping layers into an approximate shape. It didn’t leave him much use of his arms but it was thick and warm and, with it, they were ready to leave the next day. Boro wouldn’t be able to move very fast, but neither would they, as each of the able bodied pulled a travois loaded either with stores or an invalid.

  The morning they were to leave, Tando brought up another problem. From Boro’s arrival, it appeared that people in the Aldans must know where they lived. They were leaving many of their important stores behind during the first trip, planning to come back for them in a second trip. “What if Denit comes to raid us while we are gone? We still have many important goods stored openly here in the cave awaiting our second trip. We could lose almost everything—without even a chance to defend ourselves or our possessions!” After some discussion and a little argument, they began moving supplies to locations up the Cold Springs Ravine from the area of the cave. They found crevices in the sandstone up there and hid their goods in them, packing rocks and thorn brush in on top to conceal the hoards. They left the food that was already hidden under the floor of the cave where it was, as it seemed unlikely that Denit would think to look under there.