Bonesetter 2 -Winter-

by Laurence E. Dahners

  Yadin looked at Gontra, seeing a man in the prime of life… but thin. Yadin realized when he’d followed Exen up to the cave opening he hadn’t really looked at the other members of the Aldans. He glanced quickly at them and saw that Pont had told the truth about that at least. They all looked underfed. He didn’t comment on this. Instead he said, “Hello Gontra.”

  Gontra had been staring at Yadin’s spear heads, “You do nice work.” He grinned slyly, “The Aldans could use a good flint worker if you’re tired of the Oppos.”

  Yadin thought of saying that he was tired of the Oppos, but he didn’t want to intimate that he was ready to jump from one tribe to the other right now. Instead, he glanced up at the spearheads and said, “Thank you. I think these two are some of my best work.”

  Gontra said, “So, why are you traveling after the first snow?”

  “I think it was an early snow, and that winter won’t really be here for a while yet.”

  “Still, why travel?”

  Having already told Exen, it seemed silly not to tell Gontra. “Your medicine man, Pont, came to us at our cave.” Yadin glanced around to be sure no one was very close, then continued quietly, “I don’t want to offend, but Pont said some bad things have been happening here to you Aldans. Our headman suggested I come see what was going on.” Yadin didn’t say he was supposed to be scouting for a possible attack.

  Gontra grimaced, “I’ll tell you not to trust anything that Pont says before I even hear what he told you.” Then he gave Yadin a dubious look, “But if he told you bad things, why did you come?”

  Yadin lifted his chin, “Pont claims that evil came here from the west and took over your tribe. He says that because we’re east of here, the evil will soon come to us in the Oppos. My headman wanted me to come to see if it was true.”

  Gontra smiled, “So, do you see any evil here?”

  Yadin made a show of glancing around, “I see many people looking hungry.”

  Looking around himself, Gontra said, “That’s true. And hunger is an evil in its own way. An evil which can cause men to do bad things. But hunger didn’t spread here from the west. The people in the west have been eating much better than we have.”

  Yadin gave him a dubious look, “How do you know that?”

  Gontra gave a long unhappy sigh, “Our previous headman, Roley… something went wrong with him. He started letting his son lead us and the boy took us on bad hunt after bad hunt. That’s why we were so hungry. Then the boy got it in his head that our bad luck was somehow because of a boy we’d cast out of our tribe at the end of last winter. Somehow he thought this boy was still bringing us bad luck, even after he’d been gone all summer.” Gontra shrugged, “And, we’d encountered the boy at a trading place where he was selling, of all things, meat that he said wouldn’t spoil. We weren’t sure we believed that the meat wouldn’t spoil, but if he was selling meat, we thought he must have a lot of it. One of our best hunters had joined him and we thought that Tando must have been having very lucky hunts. Denit, the headman’s son, claimed that Tando had taken all our luck with him when he’d gone to join this boy.” Gontra dropped his eyes, looking embarrassed, “Denit wanted to kill the boy to get our luck back, taking Tando and any meat they had stored up.”

  “Pont said that the boy had an evil spirit drop rocks on your heads?” Yadin asked.

  “Pont!” Gontra said in a disgusted tone, “He was talking to Denit all the time, and I’ll bet he was filling Denit’s head with these terrible ideas.” Gontra shrugged, “Yes, rocks fell down from the cliff, killing Denit and our headman Roley. I think they deserved to die and the boy claims no spirit was involved, only a trick he thought up.”

  “A trick?” Yadin asked dubiously.

  “Yes, a trick, or an invention, or a new idea. Whatever you want to call it. He knows how to do a lot of things that no one else knows how to do, but no spirits are required to do them. He could teach you to do them if he wanted. No fancy chanting or rattles like Pont uses.” Gontra shook his head, “Though I’m not sure any of Pont’s chanting and rattling ever does any good.” Gontra paused and looked off into the distance. Then he shrugged and said, “Most of the boy’s ideas seem simple once you’ve seen how they work, but I’ll confess I don’t know how one boy could have thought of all these things by himself!” He shrugged again, “Perhaps a spirit is involved. Maybe it teaches him how to do his ‘tricks.’”

  “So you don’t think this Pell is evil?”

  Gontra gave Yadin a penetrating glance, “So, Pont told you the boy’s name, huh? No, I don’t think the boy’s evil. I think he’s taught us things that are going to keep our tribe alive this winter when I surely thought most of us would die! In my thinking, that’s not evil.”

  Yadin glanced at Exen, then turned back to Gontra. “Your son tells me that Pell taught you a new way to hunt. Is it a different kind of spear, or a way to hide yourself from the animals?”

  “No,” Gontra said with a laugh, “you don’t even use a spear!”

  “What do you do,” Yadin said, feeling a little stab of worry since his beautiful spear points earned him a lot of status, “jump directly on the animal with a knife?!”

  “Well now,” Gontra said, giving Yadin a mysterious grin, “that’s not for me to say. You’ll have to ask Pell if he’ll teach you. That is,” Gontra lifted an eyebrow challengingly, “if you’re willing to approach a boy that Pont says is evil?”

  ***

  When Gia and Pell arrived in the little meadow below the Cold Springs cave, Falin shouted, “Gia and Pell are back!” He ran to hug Gia, but then greeted Pell with a formal little bow. “Bonesetter, my ankle is feeling so good that I’ve started running again. I hope that’s okay?”

  Surprised, Pell said “Um, sure.” He knew that Falin wouldn’t want to hear that Pell didn’t know whether running on his healing ankle was okay or not, but it did worry him.

  Since the day was relatively warm, Agan and Panute were sitting in front of the cave weaving baskets. Pell and Gia walked up to them and Gia hugged them affectionately. “Did anything happen here while we were gone?”

  “It snowed!” Panute exclaimed, “I thought winter was here, but Agan said that it was just an early snow and it’d melt.” Panute gave Agan an admiring glance. “She was right as always!”

  Pell had often wondered how Agan came to be so wise. This time he decided to ask, “How did you know it was going to melt Agan?”

  She sighed, “I’ve lived so long. After a while, you just come to know these things. You’ve seen so many winters, and so many springs, you can tell when winter has tried to come early, but won’t be able to stay.”

  Pell frowned, “How many summers do you have Agan?” He’d never seen anyone who looked as old as Agan, but really didn’t have any idea how old she might be.

  A little wearily, Agan said, “Too many I think. So many that I’ve outlived my daughter, and my daughter’s daughter… and my knees.”

  Pell’s eyes widened, “I thought Gia was your granddaughter?”

  Agan shook her head sadly, “Gia is my granddaughter’s daughter. I keep outliving the people I love… Now it seems I’ve outlived almost everyone in my tribe.”

  Awed, Pell asked almost reverently, “How have you come to live so long? Is it your medicines?”

  “Maybe,” Agan said a distant look in her eyes, “but mostly, I think…”

  Agan didn’t finish her thought, so Pell said, “You think… what?”

  Her voice croaked, “Mostly, I think it’s been luck. It’s not that I’ve had many illnesses and recovered from them, it’s that I haven’t even had the sicknesses that kill. When my knees got so bad that I could no longer gather food for myself…” She paused and wiped at an eye, “the people of my tribe were kind enough to feed me anyway. When the flood came, they’d already moved me to the high cave.” She shook her head and said bitterly, “They should’ve let me drown and saved some of the others.”

  Gia knelt to put her ar
ms around her great-grandmother and lean their heads together, “Your wisdom has saved us so many times Agan, of course your tribe takes care of you.”

  Pell felt a lump in his throat. He’d merely been curious about how old Agan was and had no idea of the distress his question might cause. He wanted to apologize, but didn’t really know how to say he was sorry for asking a question.

  Gia quickly improved their moods by beginning to tell Agan, Panute, and Falin about the trip to the Aldans’ cave.

  Surreptitiously, Pell studied Panute’s leg which he thought was much less swollen. It looked pretty straight with only a slight bow. The foot was turned out to the side a little bit, but Pell thought she’d be able to walk pretty well on it. The amazing thing was the way she used her thumb and the remaining two fingers on her hand to deftly weave the reeds in her basket.

  Panute was making a deep basket. Pell stared at it as she twined the weaver around the “stakes.” There was something about the un-woven pointed ends of the stakes sticking out of the top of the partially finished basket that reminded him of something, but he couldn’t think what it was.

  Suddenly Pell realized everyone was staring at him, “What?”

  An awed tone in his voice, Falin said, “You chased away a lion?!”

  Embarrassed, Pell said, “With fire.” He shrugged, “They’re afraid of fire. That’s why we’re usually safe at night next to a fire.” He said a little contritely, “It probably wasn’t very smart to chase a lion with it though.”

  “I can’t wait to tell Manute and Deltin!”

  Pell looked around, “Where are they?” He frowned, “And where’s my mother?”

  “Donte said she found some grapes! She said they were damaged by the cold when it snowed, but she’s gone to get as many as she can. She hopes she can dry them like the apple slices. Deltin’s looking for wood for spearshafts. I’m pretty sure Boro and Manute went with him.”

  “Did Donte say where the grapes were?” Pell asked, “I could go help her.”

  Falin was able to describe the location of the grapes in relation to one of the ‘escape sites’ where they’d stored some food. Pell went in to get a basket to carry grapes. The first basket on their stack was so loosely woven that grapes would fall through. The next one was tight enough. He picked it up and started on his way to help Donte, but found himself thinking about the loosely woven basket. It was as if something was tickling his mind, but he couldn’t think what it was.

  As Pell walked up the ravine towards his mother’s location, he realized that he was alone for a change. Making good on his resolution, he picked up some stones and began throwing. To his surprise, even though he hadn’t been practicing, he suddenly found himself to be much better than he’d been in the past. He hit close to his marks every time and actually struck what he’d been throwing at a good third of the time.

  This was such a huge improvement that Pell could hardly believe it. He wondered what had happened. It certainly wasn’t because he’d been putting in effort, he hadn’t. He remembered being told when he was younger that he’d become more coordinated when he got to a certain age. He’d always thought people were just trying to make him feel better, but now he wondered if it might be true.

  Even if it were true, he’d always had the impression people were talking about a small improvement. Whatever had happened with him had made an enormous difference. He could tell that, not only was he throwing rocks where he intended, he was also throwing them much harder than he had before.

  Pell wondered if he might actually be able to hunt without using a snare. He looked around, hoping to see a rabbit or a squirrel.

  There! A grouse.

  Pell hefted the last stone he had in his hand, lifted his left foot and cast it forward, following through with the stone. He finished with his hand pointing right at the grouse like he’d been taught.

  To Pell’s stunned amazement, the grouse had barely lifted its wings to beat into the air when the stone hit. The bird exploded in a burst of feathers! He walked slowly over and picked up his prey, noticing that it felt like a bag of broken bones.

  I guess that’s one advantage of snares, he thought, they don’t do so much damage.

  He dropped the bird into his basket and continued up the ravine to find his mother.

  Pell found Donte where Falin had said she’d be. She greeted him enthusiastically, then said, “Look at this, Pell! These grapevines are visible from our escape site down the hill. I can’t believe I didn’t see them when we were bringing food out here to store it. The vines have been picked over by the birds and the remaining grapes were damaged by the cold when it snowed.” She glanced at Pell, “Did it snow at the Aldans’ cave?”

  Pell nodded.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “we could have gotten quite a few good grapes if I’d seen them back then. Now we’re left with these damaged ones, but I noticed that a lot of the ones the birds pecked at have kind of dried up. I tasted some of them and they reminded me of dried apple slices!” She shrugged, “So, I decided to harvest as many as I could and cut them up and dry them.” She frowned, “Though we’ll need to pick the seeds out of them before we dry them. I think it’d probably be hard to remove the seeds once they’re really dry.”

  Pell pitched in and helped her pick grapes until they’d filled his basket too. He tasted a few of the ones that the birds had pecked open so that the remainder had dried on the vine. They were different from Donte’s dried apple slices, but he still liked them. Grapes were better, but he had no doubt that he’d love these in the middle of winter.

  As they picked, and on the walk back, Donte plied him with questions about her old friends in the Aldans. She was glad that Pont was gone and not surprised that Fellax had gone with him. Fellax had always had the attitude that, because she was the headman’s first wife, she should be able to boss the other women around.

  The women apparently hadn’t felt the same way.

  Especially because Fellax didn’t think she should have to work as hard as the other women either. “I think the rest of the Aldans will be better off without her. Do you think they’ll be able to survive the winter with only three hunters?”

  Pell shrugged, “It depends on whether trapping works well in the winter or not. None of them have much fat on them, so if they aren’t successful at hunting, some of them will probably starve.” He tilted his head, considering, “Though the women worked hard at gathering roots and grains this past summer and they have a lot, so that should help. Especially if using shallow baskets and turning the grain and roots to keep them dry keeps the vegetables from spoiling.”

  Donte shook her head, “You can’t stay strong eating only grains and tubers.” She peered up at her son out of the corner of her eye, “Will you let them have some spirit meat?”

  “Tando said it was okay to teach them how to make spirit meat. He even cut them a tree that holds the meat strips up by the smoke hole in the new wall we built for their cave. We had good luck trapping while we were there, small animals like we get here, as well as a deer and two goats.” He shifted his basket to his other arm, “If they keep working hard at trapping and stay lucky, I think they’ll be okay.”

  “Good…” Donte trailed off. Then she asked, as if dreading the answer, “But, if they do go hungry, will you give them some of our spirit meat?”

  “I don’t think it’s up to me. It’s up to us.” Pell looked a little mulish, “If they worked hard and still don’t have enough food and we’ve got plenty, my vote would be to share some. If they don’t work hard and just count on us to take care of them, I think it should be their problem.”

  “You’d let the children go hungry?”

  Pell sighed and his shoulders drooped a little, “No.”

  Donte sympathetically patted Pell on the shoulder, “Yeah, that’s the problem… Well,” she said, trying for a brighter tone of voice, “did anything else interesting happen while you were there visiting?”

  “Um…” then Pell c
ontinued uncertainly, almost in a whisper, “Gia said she wanted to be mated to me.”

  Donte gasped, almost dropping her basket of grapes. Then she set the basket down so hard it bounced. She turned to clasp her arms around her son. He held his basket off to the side to give her room, “Oh! Pell! Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you saw me?!” She pushed him back out to arm’s length and narrowed her eyes, “I assume you said yes?”

  Pell nodded, unable to speak around a sudden frog in his throat. A flush rose in his face. He wasn’t sure why he felt so emotional.

  Donte hugged him hard again, overcome with reaction to the recent changes in her son’s status. It seemed hard to believe that, less than a year ago, he’d been the clumsy, bullied son of a club-footed flint worker who’d died while Pell was young. A boy who’d been cast out of his tribe because his poor judgment and inaccurate spear throwing had resulted in an injury to their best hunter. A boy who no one had thought could possibly feed himself and who everyone had expected to die soon after being cast out. Her son, who against all odds, had not only survived, but thrived. Who’d learned a new way to hunt, and hunted so successfully that he actually had too much meat.

  Extra meat that he’d found a way to preserve!

  Her son who’d eaten so well during the summer of his growth spurt that he was now taller than anyone she’d ever known. Tall, muscular… dare she say handsome? Even though she was his mother, Donte felt sure that Pell’s looks were striking. In everyone’s eyes, not just his mother’s. A feeling now confirmed by the fact that Gia wanted to mate with him. Gia was the most beautiful young woman Donte’d ever seen.

  Though, Donte had to admit, with Pell’s recent accomplishments, he could look like a mangy, half-dead, three-legged boar and girls would still be looking favorably on him.

  Donte leaned away again to look up at her son through tear rimmed eyes. “When will you have the mating ceremony?”

  “Gia wants to have it next summer,” Pell said, worried that it might indicate some reluctance on Gia’s part.