Bonesetter 2 -Winter-

by Laurence E. Dahners

  Yadin didn’t hear much of Boro’s story as he continued picking his way over to where Gia and Panute were working. When he got to them, they looked up at him and he would have sworn they looked a bit furtive and slightly embarrassed.

  Perhaps as if they didn’t want him to know just how successful the hunts had been that day?! He glanced behind himself and saw several people watching him. Some of them also looked like they’d rather he hadn’t seen. A couple of others, however, had knowing grins as if they knew how astonished he must feel.

  Yadin squatted down next to the two women and, not wanting to interrupt Boro’s story, quietly said, “Why are you cutting up the meat?”

  Gia looked up at him and grinned. He closed his eyes in frustration, knowing what was coming before she said, “You’ll have to ask Agan if we can tell you that.”

  Yadin snorted, shook his head, opened his eyes, and smiled at Gia. “I guess I’m going to have to. I tried a few nights ago, you know. But then Pell went off on his project to make that new axe!”

  Gia smiled sweetly at him, then whispered, “Then you’re just going to have to try again, aren’t you?” She glanced over at Boro, then back at Yadin, “Now shhh, I want to hear Boro’s story.”

  When Boro’s story was done, Yadin had found it heart-wrenching. Boro’s father dying after being tusked in a hunt. Being tusked, according to Boro, because of the cowardice of the chieftain’s son who was too frightened to spear a boar that had focused all of its attention on Boro’s father. When Boro accused the son of cowardice, the son had him cast out of the tribe.

  There was no doubt in Yadin’s mind that there had been evil in the Aldans then, but it didn’t escape his notice that Pell wasn’t a part of the Aldans clan during the time that evil reigned.

  Cast out of his tribe, with winter bearing down, already thin because the Aldans tribe as a whole had been eating badly, Boro’s chances of survival appeared nonexistent. Everyone thought he’d die, but his mother advised him to travel to Cold Springs and see if he could join Pell, who’d been cast out earlier in the year. Though on the face of it, this sounded like a terrible idea, Boro had made the trip in a bout of desperate last-ditch hope.

  Tears streaming down his face, Boro talked about arriving at the Cold Springs cave. Arriving and finding not, as he expected, another group of hungry individuals loathe to take him in, but a small tribe of healthy, well fed people.

  While telling how they’d agreed to take him in, Boro became so choked up that he couldn’t continue. Gurix and Pell, friends from his childhood stood up and both hugged him. They patted and consoled him, taking him over to one side and sitting with him as he tried to get himself back in control.

  Everyone sat silently for a while, as if in respect for Boro’s emotional distress. Yadin found himself thinking about how Lessa had told essentially the same story regarding the evil affecting the Aldans. Evil yes, but not coming from Pell. Rather it came from the chieftain’s son and much of it directed at Pell. A pernicious evil, spreading from the chieftain’s bully of a son to ruin the lives of Pell, then Boro’s father, then Boro. Insidiously it seemed to have nearly destroyed the entire tribe.

  A tribe which was then rescued, not harmed, by Pell!

  Most notably for Yadin, Boro’s story several times counted Pont culpable for some horrible things that had happened.

  Pell’s not the source of the evil, but Pont might be…

  Agan broke the silence. “That’s a heartrending story you’ve told Boro. I hope we all take the lessons it contains into our own hearts.” She turned her head slowly about, surveying her small, but growing tribe. “Now, before we all go to our beds, I’d like to resume a conversation Yadin and I were having a few nights ago.” She looked at Yadin, “I believe we were interrupted when someone…” she glanced at Pell, “had an idea about an axe.”

  Apparently everyone had heard about the success of Pell’s axe idea, because most of the tribe laughed, then began hooting excitedly. Yadin stood back up. Uncertainly, he said, “Would you like me to get out my flint tools again?”

  Agan smiled, “No, I’d like to ask the Cold Springs people if anyone would object to having you join our tribe.” She winked at him, “Selfishly, we want even more flint than you have in your bundle, so we want you to stay and make more tools. Besides, then you can learn the answers to all those questions you’ve been asking.”

  To Yadin’s relief, the people around him began hooting excitedly about this idea as well. No one ventured an objection. For just a brief moment, he wondered whether he should accept. Should he go back and visit the Oppo tribe in order to be sure he really wanted to leave? In good conscience, shouldn’t he spend the winter with the Oppos rather than adding another mouth to a tribe that wasn’t prepared for the hungry months to come? But he so wanted to learn their secrets!

  He looked around and his eyes caught on Donte. A feeling of certainty swept over him and he turned back to Agan, “I’d…” he swallowed around a sudden frog in his throat, “be honored, to become a member, of this tribe,” he managed to choke out. Another round of hooting, stomping, and slapping the ground broke out. Donte stood to walk around and give him his first welcoming hug…

  Though Donte had been first to welcome him into the Cold Springs tribe, one by one, each of the others came around to embrace him as well. He found himself uncharacteristically emotional at this enthusiastic reception, unable to speak more than an occasional croak and frequently having to pretend to scratch a welling eye.

  When at last the last of the well-wishers had spoken to him he found Gia smiling at his elbow, “Now, shall I tell you why we cut the meat up into such small pieces?”

  Though he felt as exhausted as if he’d chased and speared a bison by himself, Yadin couldn’t pass up a chance to get the first answer to one of his many questions. “Yes! Yes, please.”

  Gia knelt and put a splinter in the fire. Once it’d caught, she held it over a rock she held in her other hand. To Yadin’s astonishment, when she took the burning splinter away, a small flame persisted above the rock. In the light of that flame he was able to see that a twist of some material sank into something that had congealed in a cavity on the upper surface of the rock. “What’s that?!”

  “This?” She said lifting the rock a little and focusing her gaze on it. “We call it a lamp.” She shrugged, “It’s nothing but a piece of limestone with a cavity pecked out on the upper surface. The cavity’s filled with marrow fat and a wick of juniper fibers is dipped into the grease. The fat climbs up the wick to burn in this steady little flame.” She turned and knelt, picking up one of the rabbit skins that had all the cut up meat lying on it. Standing, she started picking her way through some of the bedding toward the very back of the cave.

  Yadin followed. He’d never been to the back of the cave, partly because it was so dim back there away from the cave mouth, and partly because the floor and the ceiling rose in the region Gia was heading towards. Though most of the smoke from the fire neatly exited from the hole in the wall above the hearth, some of it always seeped back into this particular back region of the cave. The farther back one walked, the smokier it got, so Yadin had avoided the area.

  Part way back, Gia stopped and knelt which had the advantage of lowering their heads out of the worst of the smoke. She set her lamp on the ground where its light made evident a frame of lightweight straight shafts of wood all bound together. Gia proved it wasn’t fastened down by turning it a little towards herself. Then she began deftly picking up strips of meat hanging them over the wooden shafts.

  Yadin restrained himself from asking what she was doing. Instead, he said, “Would you like me to hang some strips of meat as well?”

  Her head turned toward him, and in the dim light from the lamp he saw a gleam from her teeth suggesting a smile. “Yes, thank you. That would be very helpful.”

  Yadin picked up a handful of the meat and began picking off strips and draping them over the shafts on his side of the frame. It didn
’t take them too long before all the meat, even from five rabbits, had been hung over the frame.

  Gia turned to him and said, “Would you carry the lamp?”

  Yadin gingerly picked it up as Gia took a deep breath and lifted the frame in both hands. Now she walked quickly even further back and higher up into the cave. The smoke got thicker and Yadin soon wished he’d taken a deep breath as well.

  Gia set the frame on a high spot in a niche at the very upper back of the cave and quickly turned to begin walking toward the front. “I hate breathing that smoke,” she said and coughed.

  Eyes tearing up and coughing himself, Yadin said, “So do I! Are you going to tell me why in the world we did it?”

  She placed a hand on his arm and said, “Yes, it’s finally time for some answers.” She fished in her pouch and held something out to him. In the dim light, Yadin couldn’t see what it was, but it felt like a stick. He only felt puzzled for a moment, then suspicion dawned. He lifted the stick and licked it. “Spirit meat!” he exclaimed. He turned to look behind him, then back to Gia, “Is that how you do it?! Hanging little pieces of meat up in that smoky recess?”

  Smiling, Gia nodded at him.

  Suspiciously, Yadin said, “And, does someone have to pray to a spirit?”

  Gia gave a small laugh, “No. Apparently Tando had the idea to call it ‘spirit meat’ when they first sold it at a trading area. He wanted people to think that something special had to be done. Something different from just hanging the meat in a smoky area. So, we call it spirit meat when we’re talking to other people, but really, nothing special needs to be done. If you leave it in the smoke for a few hours, it adds flavor and makes it so it keeps for a few days. Usually, however, we leave it back there for days and then it seems to keep… well…” she shrugged, “we don’t know how long it keeps. We do have pieces of it that Pell smoked early this summer that still seem to be good though.” She glanced up at Yadin with a smile, “So, we hope we’ll have meat to eat all winter long, even if our hunting’s poor after snow covers the land.”

  Chapter Six

  In the morning, having eaten, Yadin was about to leave the cave when he heard Donte squeal. For a moment, he thought she’d been hurt, then thought it sounded like a squeal of delight. He turned to see what had happened and saw her carrying one of the odd baskets she’d been making the other day. Cylinders, approximately as big around and as long as his upper arm, the baskets were woven loosely enough that he thought whatever things were to be put in the baskets had to be bigger than grain or they’d fall out the holes. Since he’d first seen her making one of the little baskets he’d wondered several times what they’d be able to store in them. Certainly grain or small beans would just fall out the holes in the weave. Now he found himself wondering what could have happened to whatever she kept in the basket to make her so happy.

  She kept coming his direction, so he held open the flap over the mouth of the cave so she could go out. As soon as she stepped out into the light she held the odd little basket up and peered through the weave. Yadin looked as well.

  The basket had mice in it! Four or five, he thought, though he couldn’t quite see how many. Questions tumbled through his mind. Why would anyone keep mice in a basket? How had she caught mice to put them in there in the first place? What’d happened to them to make her so happy? He blinked a couple of times, then said, “What…?” He closed his mouth, not knowing what the remainder of his question should be.

  Donte looked up at him, delight sparkling in her eyes. “Mice! They’ve been eating our grain!” She arched an eyebrow, “Now we’re going to eat them!”

  Yadin blinked a couple more times, then said slowly, “Why… are you,” he frowned, “keeping mice in a basket?”

  Grinning, she nudged him, “We’re not keeping them! We’re catching them in a basket.” She turned one end of the cylinder toward him so he could see sharp little reeds pointing into the cylinder. They left a tiny space in the center…

  Realization dawned in Yadin’s mind. The mice could climb in through that hole, but wouldn’t be able to climb back out! They’d get stuck on the spikes. He lifted his eyes to hers, “I see… they can get in, but they can’t get back out.” His eyes turned back to the trap for a moment, then back to hers. “But why do they want to get in in the first place?!”

  “Aha, we rolled some grain in marrow fat and dropped the little balls inside. They love fat and grain! So, they climbed in to eat it,” she lifted an eyebrow, “five of them, but now they’re stuck.”

  “Oh!” Yadin said, suddenly understanding. He turned and looked down the stream where he’d seen Woday coming and going—first with a cylindrical basket, then later, carrying only a covered basket full of crayfish. He turned back to Donte, eyes wide, “Is a basket like this how Woday catches his crayfish?!”

  Eyes twinkling, she nodded. “And the fish too.”

  “Spirits!” Yadin swore admiringly. That’s how he caught crayfish on a day that was too cold to wade around. Suddenly Yadin realized that, because of the cold springs, the stream out front was too cold to wade around in even on warm days. I’ll bet he’s never once waded around in the stream catching crayfish! He’s always been using that basket! He turned to Donte, “So I’m guessing the Falls-people use these kind of basket traps to catch fish and Woday taught you guys how to do that. Then you had the bright idea to make a smaller basket trap to catch mice?”

  Donte grinned at him, “You’ve almost got it. Actually, Pell came up with the basket traps to catch grouse,” She glanced at Gia who’d just walked by, then winked at Yadin before saying quietly, “since Gia really likes to eat grouse. Then he realized you could use the same thing to catch fish. When he and Woday were working it out, they accidentally caught a crayfish, but now they put a trap where the stream is rocky and the water is slow moving and deep to catch crayfish. They put a trap where the waters are flowing when they’re trying to catch fish.”

  Belatedly, Yadin remembered that he’d seen Pell pulling a basket trap out of the water when he and Woday had first arrived at Cold Springs. When they’d first met him, Pell’d had a couple of fish that he must’ve caught with the basket. Obviously, since he’d just arrived, Woday couldn’t have taught them how to use a basket to catch fish. “Pell’s just full of good ideas, isn’t he?” Yadin said musingly.

  Donte snorted, “You’re just now noticing?” She turned to grin up at him, “His crazy ideas turned him from a cast out boy who was about to die, into a young man who’s saved…” her voice got throaty, “all kinds of other people!” She moved over to the area on the ledge where she frequently sat, then gave him a smile, “Now, if you want to make yourself useful, teach me how to skin and clean these mice so we can put them in the stew.”

  Yadin frowned, “That might be more trouble than it’s worth, don’t you think? The skin’s too small to make furs and there’s not enough meat to make it worth slicing the stuff off those tiny bones. If we were starving, we could roast them and eat them, bones and all, but since we’ve got plenty of other meat, I don’t think anyone will want to chew up a bony mouse.”

  Donte looked at her little basket full of mice and chewed her lip for a moment, “I guess you’re right, but I really wanted to eat my first kill.”

  Yadin lifted an eyebrow, “Well now, if I’d known it was your first kill… That’s an entirely different matter. Give them to me, I’ll clean them, skin them, and spit them to roast over the fire for a midday snack.” He grinned at her, “We can’t throw away the results of your first hunt!”

  Donte gave him a huge smile as she passed the basket to him. “Thanks!” She pointed to some ties on the far end of the basket from its little one-way entrance. “When you want to get the mice out, you untie these ties and the end of the basket comes off. Then you can reach in to pluck them out. Don’t…” she gave him a stern look, “let them get away! We don’t want them getting back into the cave to eat any more of our grain.”

  Yadin watched admiri
ngly as she walked over to the spot on the cave’s ledge where she usually worked on her projects.

  ***

  Sidean looked about with some disbelief. He and Wenax had returned to the Oppos, hungry but grateful to have made their journey without encountering snow. They’d reported that Pell currently resided at Cold Springs. Yadin, they both thought, appeared to have joined the Cold Springs tribe of his own will. They’d detailed their impression that no one appeared to be enspelled by any evil spirits, either in the Aldans, or at Cold Springs. The Aldans were in fact, thin, as Pont had said, but he and Wenax had seen two men carrying the carcasses of rabbits, suggesting that their days of bad hunting were behind them.

  Sidean had expected that upon receiving this news, the Oppos would breathe a sigh of relief and get on with their own lives. He’d thought they would be able to do so without any more worry about what might be happening in neighboring tribes than they’d had in the past.

  When he’d looked around the faces of his tribe at the end of his account, he’d had the impression that his tribesmen, appearing relieved, felt much the same as he did.

  What he hadn’t counted on, was the reaction of Nosset and Pont. The two medicine men acted as if they hadn’t been listening to the same story Sidean thought he’d been telling. Their response had started with some of their ominous chanting and degraded into diatribes filled with vitriol.