BONESETTER 2
—winter—
By
Laurence Dahners
Copyright 2016
Laurence E Dahners
Kindle Edition
Author’s Note
Though this book can “stand alone” it will be much easier to understand if read after the story “Bonesetter.” I have minimized the repetition of explanations that would be redundant to that book in order to provide a better reading experience for those who are reading the books in order.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
Author’s Afterword
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Yadin rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them. A cold day like this wasn’t ideal for knapping flint, but it wasn’t particularly good for anything else either. He studied the knife blade he’d been working on and tried to decide whether he could make it any better. The notch he’d worked into it for strapping it to the handle wasn’t very deep. However, he worried that if he tried to chip it a little deeper, the blade would break the rest of the way across.
Which would be infuriating.
Aidu, the old man who’d taught Yadin flint knapping, had often said, “Just keep working on that good blade and eventually you’ll have a useless blade.”
With a sigh, Yadin decided that what he had was good enough. He tried fitting it into the deer antler handle he’d made for it. It fit pretty well. Picking up a small shard of flint, he scraped the slot in the deer antler to make it a tiny bit wider and fit the blade back in. That’ll have to do, he thought to himself. I’ll need to heat some pitch, then bind the blade into the handle.
He looked up. His eyes narrowed. A couple of strangers were walking up the valley. He squinted and thought that he was seeing a man and a woman, though if so, the woman was taller than the man. “Caltas,” he called out, “come out here.”
A minute or so later the boy appeared at the narrow mouth of the cave, blinking in the bright sunlight. Rubbing his arms, he walked down the little slope to Yadin and said, “It’s cold out here!”
This young pup has no idea what cold really is, Yadin thought. Young people nowadays are so soft! He said, “Do you recognize those people coming up the valley?”
Caltas held a hand up to shade his eyes and looked where Yadin had pointed. “Strangers!”
Yadin said, “Tell Jalgon.” The boy trotted back up to the cave. Yadin wondered what strangers were doing out traveling this close to winter. Most people were getting ready to hunker down for the long cold months ahead. They might be planning a big hunt before the freeze, but they wouldn’t be traveling. Yadin looked to the north. Dark clouds were gathering. He hoped it wasn’t going to snow already.
By the time the strangers arrived at the Oppos’ cave, Jalgon had come down with four more hunters, all carrying spears. They’d brought a spear for Yadin as well.
The six men stood waiting, leaning on their spears. They weren’t particularly trying to look threatening, but Jalgon wanted to make sure the strangers knew they were prepared.
Yadin’d been right, the man was shorter than the woman, with skinny bowed legs. The woman was good-looking and had a regal bearing, as if she was used to having people do what she told them.
Yadin decided he didn’t like either of them.
The man said, “Hello, I’m Pont, a medicine man. Is my good friend Nosset here?”
Now Yadin knew he didn’t like this guy. Nosset was a useless, pompous jerk. If this guy was his friend, he was probably an asshole too.
Jalgon said, “How do you know Nosset?”
“We’ve met several times at the big tribal meetings on the plain. We’ve traded medicine secrets.” Pont surveyed the Oppos who’d come out to greet him, “It’s possible that some of you have been helped by secrets I’ve passed on to Nosset.”
Yadin raised a doubtful eyebrow. That could only be true if Nosset had ever helped anybody! Yadin’s mate, Uva, had died the previous winter and Yadin didn’t think Nosset had done anything for her. In fact, he suspected Nosset’s treatments had hastened her death.
Jalgon turned and looked back toward the cave. “Caltas,” he called out to the boy hanging around the cave’s mouth, “Get Nosset up. Tell him there’s someone here that claims to be his friend.”
They all stood around looking at one another, though no one said much until Nosset wandered down to them. Yadin thought the medicine man looked like he’d been chewing hemp again.
“Hello Pont,” Nosset said, scratching his buttocks and looking mildly curious. “What’re you doing here?”
“There’ve been some wicked goings-on west of here. An evil spirit took over one of our young boys in the Aldans’ tribe. We cast the boy out last spring, but he quickly enthralled a number of others, some from our tribe and some from other tribes. Once he’d gathered strength, the demon began corrupting our hunts and causing us to fight amongst ourselves.” Pont waved a hand to indicate himself and the woman with him, “As you can see, we in the Aldans haven’t been eating well, a terrible situation to be in shortly before winter.”
Yadin saw the woman with Pont glance at him in some surprise. Yadin didn’t think she viewed events in exactly the same light as Pont did. However, the Oppos’ hunters looked nervously at one another. Evil spirits were talked about in tales around the campfire on long winter evenings, but no one in the Oppo tribe had actually heard of a real one in the area.
Nosset narrowed his eyes, “You left your tribe?”
“I had to,” Pont said. “The evil spirit killed our headman and his son, leaving us directionless. It took over a couple of our hunters. Now the spirit, still inhabiting that boy we cast out, has returned. It’s made the boy huge and powerful, so now he’s dangerous to stand against.” Pont shook his head sorrowfully. Indicating the woman with him, he said, “Fellax and I fled for our lives. She’s the headman’s widow and the only other member of the Aldans whose mind hasn’t been at least partially taken over by the demon.” Pont looked at the woman as if he were sympathetic, “I think that her sorrow protected her from the spirit’s influence.”
“What’re you going to do now?” Jalgon asked.
“Because the demon started in the West and keeps moving east, I thought to come warn my friend Nosset and you Oppos. I fear that the spirit will be coming for you next.” Pont shrugged, “I must be honest and tell you that I hoped that if Nosset and I joined forces, perhaps together we might have the strength to thwart the demon.”
Yadin looked at Nosset, trying to gauge whether the Oppos’ medicine man believed the load of crap this Pont was feeding them. Nosset looked uncomfortable, but Yadin couldn’t decide whether Nosset thought Pont was lying, or feared the demon. Or maybe Nosset worried that Pont would show him up. Certainly, since Nosset was no great shakes as a medicine man, it wouldn’t be hard for a real medicine man from somewhere else to come in and make him look bad.
After studying Pont for a few moments, Nosset turned to Jalgon and said, “We should invite these refugees in. They at least need a good meal and in return they can tell us what we might be facing from this demon.” He turned to Pont, “What did you say the demon’s name was?”
“Pell.”
A snowflake landed on Yadin’s cheek.
Chapter One
Yadin held a wet stick with a blob of pitch on it so that the pitch was in one of the steady flames in the Oppos’ fire. He glanced down to make sure o
f the location of the flint blade. He still held the deer antler handle for the new knife in his left hand. Pulling the blob of pitch out of the flame he looked at it. It was getting pretty soft but still wasn’t ready. He put it back in the flame.
This visiting medicine man, Pont, was still talking about what had happened to his tribe. He’d described a clumsy young boy, born and grown up in the Aldans. Even though this child, his father having died when he was a child, depended on the tribe for everything, he wasn’t “respectful.”
Yadin pulled the pitch out of the flame, decided it was soft enough, and wiped it into the hole in the end of the deer antler. He picked up his flint blade and shoved it into the pitch, then tried to hold it as motionlessly as possible while the resin hardened.
Pont continued, “Toward the end of last winter, the boy fell and dislocated his finger.” Pont glanced at Nosset, the Oppos’ medicine man, and said, “You know how difficult those can be.”
Nosset gave a knowing nod, though Yadin doubted that Nosset had ever dealt with a dislocated finger himself.
Pont said, “But this boy made it even worse. First he refused medication. Then he refused a poultice. Then he immediately jerked away when I tried to put it back in place, not even letting me have a good try.” Pont shrugged and sighed, “Still, I did my best for him, intervening with the spirits, giving him medicine and making prayers. When the boy tugged on it himself, the spirits finally acceded to my requests and the finger slipped right back into place!” Pont cast his gaze over the people surrounding the fire. “So, you’d expect the boy to be grateful, wouldn’t you? But no! He decided that he’d put the finger back in place so he owed me no gratitude, no payment, not even thanks.”
Nosset tut-tutted in disgust, “Young people today!”
Pont said, “I know! It’s shameful, and it’s the same everywhere. Anyway, the spirits were angered by his lack of gratitude. Soon, another one of our hunters fell and injured his finger. It took days of prayer to the animal spirits before his finger also slipped back into place. Still the boy wasn’t grateful! Next the spirits broke the wrist of our best hunter! This time the spirits made it obvious that it was the boy’s fault—that hunter tripped over the boy’s poorly-thrown spear shaft.”
Nosset shook his head, “What did you do then?!”
“Fortunately, I didn’t have to do much. All the hunters recognized the trouble he’d brought us. Our headman moved to cast him out and everyone agreed. He was a weak and scrawny thing so everyone felt sure he’d soon be dead.” Pont shook his head in regret and said bitterly, “We should’ve killed him!” Pont looked around the group and spoke in an ominous tone, “I think the evil spirit may already have subsumed his soul by then.”
Yadin, little disposed to believing the tales of medicine men, was horrified that this visitor thought they should have killed a young boy for little more than rudeness or clumsiness. If they did that, they’d have to kill every young man Yadin had ever known! He looked around the group, expecting their expressions to show similar revulsion. Instead, to his dismay, they all appeared to be intently listening. Could they be agreeing with this man?!
Yadin surveyed the group again. In fact, they looked apprehensive.
Nosset said, “What happened next?”
“We didn’t see the boy for a long time. But our hunts started going badly. Time after time, the animals we were hunting were spooked before we could get close to them. Despite all my strongest prayers to the spirits and the most powerful magic I could bring to bear, our hunts brought nothing!” Pont spoke as if disgusted, “We were reduced to eating what the women gathered! We lived, but not as men should. Even in summertime, we were going hungry!” Pont glanced around as if to be sure his audience’s grasped the gravity of the situation. “It was terrible. We decided to go to a summer trading place. I hoped that I could meet with another medicine man who might have had experience with such an evil ghost. To our dismay, our hunts having been so bad, we also hoped to trade some of our goods for some roasted meats like some tribes sell at trading places. Believe me, our mouths watered when we arrived on that first day and found one of the tribes roasting a boar and selling slabs!”
“Did any of the medicine men have any wisdom?” Nosset asked.
“No! A few had heard of such a spirit, but none knew what to do about it. And…” Pont stopped talking.
“And, what?” Nosset asked
“And the boy was there! At the trading place. Much bigger than he had been.”
“Bigger?” someone asked.
“Taller, more muscular. He hardly seemed like the same boy! He attacked our headman’s son on a remote path. The headman’s son, Denit, was a sturdy sort and fought back valiantly, but when Denit seemed to be winning the fight, the evil spirit called a huge wolf out of the woods to attack Denit.” Pont shook his head, “The wolf’s bite caused a dreadful wound on the young man’s arm. It took all my efforts to keep it from going bad.”
Yadin looked around to see how the Oppos were taking this story. A story that was ridiculous on the face of it. Surely no one believes that a boy controlled a wolf through some spirit!
Unfortunately, Yadin could see that many of them did believe.
Yadin liked a good tale as much as anyone else, but he could tell the difference between a made up story and a true telling. After surveying the faces of his fellow Oppos, it seemed to Yadin that they couldn’t recognize fiction when they heard it.
My fellow Oppos. Yadin pondered this thought for a moment. He’d lived with these people since he’d mated Uva, oh so many summers ago. Yadin had long thought of them as his friends, but after Uva’s death, he’d slowly grown more and more distant from them. He still lived with them, and shared food with them, and contributed the gifts of his flint knapper’s skill to the tribe’s use and trading.
But, Yadin realized that he no longer cared as much about the Oppos as he had in the past. He wondered if he should try to go back to the Kala tribe he’d grown up in. He hadn’t been there for many summers and couldn’t know whether any of his old friends or relatives would still be alive, but if they were it would be good to see them.
Yadin turned his attention back to Pont’s story. The medicine man was saying, “… so I gathered the Aldans’ hunters and we went to the cave at Cold Springs, where Pell and his evil spirit live now. Denit, the headman’s son, had injured Pell with a knife in the fight they’d had at the River Fork trading site, so we knew the boy wasn’t invincible. We had six brave hunters and I thought they would be enough…” Pont shook his head, then continued, “I did what I could to weaken the spirit inhabiting the boy and then Denit called him out. However…” Pont stopped, his throat working.
Yadin rolled his eyes. Storytellers used those kinds of dramatic pauses. However, in a hushed tone, Nosset said, “What?”
Hoarsely, Pont said, “When the boy came out of the cave he was huge and… the wolf accompanied him!”
Yadin snorted aloud, “Come on! A wolf in a cave? You expect us to believe this?!”
Nosset turned angry eyes on Yadin, “If Pont says it, it’s true! I’ve never known him to lie!” He turned back to Pont, “Go on with your story. Yadin’s just a crotchety old man. He doesn’t even believe in the spirits!”
Pont also gave Yadin an irritated look, “Well then, he won’t believe what happened next. We were shocked of course, but then Pell uttered some strange words we couldn’t understand and a giant hand jerked young Denit up into the air. It ripped the life from the young man’s body and slammed him against the cliffside. Then it cast boulders down from the cliffside at us. One of the huge stones killed our headman and another rock grievously injured one of our hunters. Hit on the head, another man converted immediately to Pell’s cause. ” Pont held up six fingers, “So of the six of us who’d gone, the headman and his son were both dead, one hunter was injured so badly he peed blood for days and the fourth was taken over by the power of the evil spirit.” Pont shook his head, a dismayed look on h
is face. “Only I, and one of the other young hunters escaped to return to the Aldans’ cave.”
“That’s awful!” Nosset said. “Then, the spirit pursued you even back to your home?”
“Yes,” Pont said bleakly. “The next day Pell showed up at the Aldans’ cave with the hunter he’d enthralled. He brought a boar. Apparently he’d enspelled the pig like he had the wolf, then had it stand still so he could kill it. As you can imagine, the hungry women and children of the Aldans enthusiastically ate the poisoned beast despite my warnings. Soon they’d been taken over by the evil spirit as well. Realizing that it was too late for me to save my people, I recognized that I must leave.” He indicated the woman with him, “Fellax here, because of her deep sorrow over the death of her husband, had resisted the curse of the spirit. She was able to leave with me.”
Yadin looked around at his fellow Oppos. These people he’d known for so many years sat staring, open-mouthed, apparently gobsmacked by this ridiculous story. Some looked angry; many looked fearful.
Nosset said, “What if this spirit comes to us next? Will we be able to resist it?”
Pont shrugged, “Perhaps? I thought perhaps if you and I worked together to control the spirit, the hunters could kill the merely human body of this Pell?” He shook his head wearily, “Or maybe it’d be better if you fled like Fellax and I are doing.” He looked around, “I’m sure you don’t want to give up this fine cave and your hunting grounds, but perhaps it’d be safest. After all you don’t want to risk the lives of your women and children.”
Yadin found it hard to believe, but a few moments later the Oppos were seriously discussing whether to mount an expedition to kill this Pell and his wolf or to try to run away.
Quidea, the headman Jalgon’s mate, pointed out that if they tried to move to another area, the tribe that currently claimed that territory might object.
Bonesetter 2 -Winter- Page 1
