Bonesetter

by Laurence Dahners

  Donte arrived back with some hemp while Pell was still contemplating the problem. His mind seemed to alternate from considering the complexity of Tando’s condition, to shrinking back from the impossibility of the entire situation. Tando began chewing and after a while he began to look glassy eyed. Pell got him to walk over to the stream. He had him lie down and put his arm in the icy water. Tando immediately pulled the limb back out of the water, protesting bitterly about the cold. Thinking of the effect that his calm tone of voice had had before, Pell spoke in a soothing tone and reminded Tando of how cold makes it hard to feel your fingers. He told Tando that he was sure the cold temperature had helped with the pain when he reduced his own and Gontra’s fingers. Pell continued calmly reassuring him and Tando eventually put the arm back in the stream, lying on his back with his other arm over his eyes.

  Pell waited until Tando had resumed his drunken expression then lifted the arm out of the water to look at it. It was pale and cool. Pell put it back in the water and then, taking a deep breath, stepped into the icy water himself, positioning himself over Tando’s arm and trying to picture how best to grasp the wrist. He lifted it out of the water and bent it back as he had bent the fingers and the rabbit leg back. It was too big and the water made it too slippery! He couldn’t pull it out to length! Tando immediately started to struggle and the arm slipped out of Pell’s grasp. In a slurred tone Tando began berating him—for breaking his arm in the first place, for putting it in the cold water, for jerking painfully on it, for not getting it straight, for ruining his life, for killing him slowly, for being a worthless ginja, outcast, lowlife. Pell cringed, heart pounding, wanting nothing more than to jump up and run away.

  He got out of the water and backed away a few paces. Then he turned and struggled to again speak calmly. Pell couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice, but Tando, in his drugged state, didn’t seem to notice. “Sorry Tando, your wrist was just too big and slippery for me, I just need something to help me get a better grip. You settle down, I’ll look for something to help me get that grip and we’ll try it again.”

  Tando looked blearily at Pell for a moment, considering. “OK,” he slurred Donte gave him some more of the hemp to chew.

  Pell walked back up to the campsite thinking furiously. Easily said but how could he get a better grip? For a moment he envisioned tying a slipknot around the wrist with a leather strap. How would he bend the bone back while he pulled on it though? He pawed through his meager possessions and looked around the campsite. His eye fixed on a piece of driftwood left from an old flooding of the ravine. It lay near some leather straps he had made earlier while cutting out thongs for his “traps.” It was about half a hand wide and the length of a forearm. He picked up the driftwood and the straps and went back down to look at Tando’s wrist. Tando snored loudly, oblivious to the world as Pell looped straps about his own arm in different directions and held the piece of driftwood up to his wrist, cocking his head to look at it from different angles. Finally, Pell took his hand ax and split it lengthwise. He hacked and scraped away at it until he had a fairly flat little board with a relatively smooth side. This smooth side fit comfortably against Pell’s own forearm, wrist, palm and fingers.

  Pell laid the board against Tando’s palm and considered. Because of the angulation at Tando’s wrist, the portion of the board, which should lie against the forearm, stood away at least a handspan. Pell scratched his head, contemplating the problem. He tied the board to Tando’s palm with a couple of leather straps. With a shock of excitement, he realized that the portion of the board that would eventually lie against the palmar surface of the forearm gave him a handle such that, when he pulled on it, it would bend the bone back! This would increase the deformity like he’d had to do in reducing both fingers and also the rabbit’s broken leg! He wrapped the board into place with even more straps, extending from the hand, back up across the wrist and just onto the forearm bones, but only on the hand side of the break. Tando had tolerated all this fairly well, with only an occasional moan. The hemp must be working its magic fairly well even without Pont’s other herbal ingredients. Pell inspected the apparatus a moment more then put Tando’s arm, board and all, back in the cold water. Tando moaned and struggled a bit but tolerated it better this time. When Pell thought the wrist should be numb, he pulled it out and checked the straps, snugging up a few even tighter than he had gotten them before. He put Tando’s arm back in the water again and once more stepped out into the icy water to stand over the arm. As the submerged arm cooled again, Pell carefully considered how to exert the greatest possible force during this next try. He was fairly certain that Tando wouldn’t be giving him another chance if he failed this time. He had pulled very hard on the two fingers he had reduced. How much harder might he have to pull on an arm?

  Pell bent Tando’s arm up to a right angle at the elbow. He grasped the proximal part of the board with his right hand, just below the fracture, bending the wrist and hand back. He grasped the other end of the board with Tando’s strapped fingers in his left hand then put his foot on Tando’s biceps just above the bent elbow. With a surge, Pell pulled mightily. The board bent the bone even farther back at the fracture site. Still through the board, Pell could feel the bones grinding together and slipping around. Tando flailed up, striking Pell on the back, though Pell hardly noticed. With his own left hand, which was grasping the board and Tando’s hand, he pulled the wrist back straight. This maneuver laid the board back down against Tando’s proximal forearm.

  Pell stared. Yes! The board lay flat against the arm! Tando’s arm was straight again! It even seemed like it was back to its original length! Tears ran down Pell’s cheeks. He started to let go, expecting Tando’s arm to stay straight. The dislocated fingers had remained straight, after he had reduced them. To his alarm, in a sickening fashion the arm started to bend again. Pell remembered that the rabbit’s leg had done the same thing. He pushed the board back down against Tando’s forearm—this seemed to hold it straight. He held it there with one hand and lifted his own feet out of the icy water to sit on the bank and look at his work. Absently Pell reached out, picked up one more of the leather straps, and began to wrap it around the proximal forearm to secure the board in place as a splint. While doing this Pell slowly came to realize that Tando was still pounding him weakly on the back, all the while gasping in great wracking sobs.

  Pell turned, “Tando, it worked. Your arm looks straight!”

  Tando looked at his arm, still gasping. Then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the ground. For panic stricken minute, Pell feared that Tando’s spirit had left him, but after watching carefully, he could tell that Tando was still breathing. With a gasp, Pell began breathing again as well.

  Pell slowly began to wind even more leather straps into place. When he had Tando’s arm firmly strapped to the wooden splint he propped it against the supine Tando's abdomen. To his amazement, a sense of complete exhaustion rolled over Pell. He considered the physical effort involved in what he had just completed and it didn’t seem like much, however he seemed to be unraveled. He lay back next to Tando, trembling.

  To hide her own tears, Donte had gone out collecting firewood while Pell whittled on the little board. Her own nerves were tattered by the battering alteration of despair and hope for her only surviving child. She didn’t honestly want to survive Pell’s death, a death that she saw as inevitable unless Roley took him back into the Aldans. A squalid death in starvation or a savage death in the jaws of some predator—in either case it would be a desolate end for a mother’s son. Her hopes had been buoyed high upon Gontra’s admission that Pell—believe it or not, Donte’s own son—had in fact been the one to reduce his dislocated finger.

  The ability to perform such miracles was a Spirit given gift that could make you welcome in any tribe, even if you were an abysmal hunter—even such an abysmal hunter that a mother would recognize the lack of skill in her own son. Donte’s high hopes had been dashed repeatedly on the stones of dis
belief. This was, after all, the boy she had raised for thirteen summers, always watching for the signs of the distinction that a mother hopes for in her child, yet, being honest with herself, never seeing it.

  Pell had been a scrawny, clumsy child, and though initially friendly, after many beatings at the hands of his tormentor, Denit, he had become fearful and shy. Only the similarly afflicted Boro had remained as Pell’s friend. Nonetheless, Donte had loved her son and had still hoped against hope that he would prove to have some distinctive skill. If not skill as a hunter, then something else that would prove his worth. When Tando had asked her to take him to Pell, she had begun praying to all the spirits that she knew of. Praying for a miracle that she didn’t truly believe could occur. On edge when Tando first asked Pell to reduce the wrist, horrified when Tando became angry at Pell’s initial poking, relieved when Pell calmly reassured Tando, then finally and desperately disappointed when Pell’s attempt failed—Donte’s emotions had whipsawed back and forth so brutally that she had stumbled back into the bushes where she emptied her stomach violently on the ground.

  Seeking solace in a familiar routine, she set out to gather wood. While dully and tediously collecting a leather strap full of dry sticks, Donte had arrived at the conclusion that she must stay in Cold Springs Ravine with her son. Her son couldn’t possibly survive without her, and she couldn’t bear to rejoin the Aldans with Tando. With a crippled Tando, and with word certain to get out that, not only had Pell crippled the marvelous hunter that had been Tando, but that her son had tried and, of course, failed to amend the damage he had wrought.

  She arrived back at the little clearing below Pell’s shelter with a leaden cloud of despair, ready to find Tando hostile and angry. She searched for words to brace Pell’s spirits. Her load of wood clattered to the ground. As if struck dead by the Spirits, Pell and Tando both lay inanimate at the edge of the stream! Donte cried out, rushing to them. Then her heart leapt with joy as Pell rose on one elbow to look toward her. She stumbled to a halt, “What happened? Are you OK? What’s wrong with Tando?”

  Pell grimaced, “Yes, I’m fine. I think Tando will be OK too; he’s just had too much hemp. His wrist did go back in place though.”

  Donte turned wildly to look at Tando’s wrist. It was extensively bound to Pell’s piece of driftwood and thus almost completely hidden from view by the leather straps. Nevertheless, it was obvious that the grotesque deformity that had been present for the past two days was gone! Donte felt little prickles in her scalp and, lightheaded but still staring at Tando’s arm, she sat down with a “whump.” Tears streamed freely down her face. Pell got up and moved to her side, “Are you OK?”

  “Yes,” she sobbed, clinging to her son, “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  Chapter Three

  When Tando regained consciousness sufficiently, Pell and Donte helped him stumble back up to the little campsite under the overhang. Tando's arm had swollen further and Pell saw that the leather straps were biting into his flesh. He carefully loosened them one at a time, worrying that the bones would slip back out of place. He wished he knew what herbs the medicine men used in the leafy compresses that they said kept swelling down.

  While Pell sat fretting over Tando’s arm, Donte went out gathering again. She returned with some small roots and even a few leaves that she said were edible in a stew. Pell asked her if she would take him gathering on her next trip and teach him something about recognizing the useful plants. At first she was surprised at his request to learn “women’s tasks” but after Pell explained his reasons, agreed that he should learn to gather. They made and ate a stew containing some of the meat that Donte and Tando had brought with them while they discussed their plans for the next day.

  During the night, Tando woke several times moaning about the pain. Not knowing what else to do they had him chew more of the hemp. Each time he awakened, Pell looked at Tando’s arm in the firelight. Twice during the night, he loosened the straps further because of increased swelling. He worried that the swelling portended a dire outcome. He lay awake worrying about it. When he finally slept, he dreamed about Kana’s terrible swollen finger that had eventually led to her death.

  The next morning Pell loosened up Tando’s bandages again and, remembering how his swollen finger had felt better when it was held high in the air, propped Tando’s arm up on a few pieces of the firewood Donte had gathered. Then Pell and Donte went out to do some gathering, leaving Tando lying at the back of the underhang that sheltered their camp. He and Donte wandered from place to place in the forests of the little ravine and somewhat out on to the flatter areas below while she chattered animatedly about the different plants they were passing. They found some mint, early onions, small tubers and a few leafy plants that were edible. Donte pointed out bushes that would bear fruit later and grasses that would ultimately have grain. As they were inspecting some of the bushes they saw an animal thrashing about within the brambles. Excitedly Pell realized that this was one of the bramble patches where he had set a snare. Spirits! Pell thought, It’s a rabbit trapped in one of my nooses! He speared it and dragged it out. For a moment he worried that Donte would recognize what had happened, but she, knowing little of hunting, assumed that it had simply become trapped in the brambles and that Pell had merely been lucky. While she wasn't looking Pell slipped the noose off its head and into his pouch.

  While heading back up the ravine to the campsite, Donte became very excited upon spying a whitish layer of sediment in the ravine wall. She rubbed her finger on it and then licked it. It was salty! They gathered some in a pouch and took it back. Salt, even dirty salt like this, could be quite valuable in trading with other tribes. Everyone loved the flavor that salt gave to their food.

  They returned at midday to find Tando awake, alert and grumpy. The hemp had worn off, leaving him quite sober. His arm remained swollen but did not seem any worse since Pell and Donte had left that morning. Despite being irritable from the pain, Tando, when questioned, waxed ecstatic about the alignment of his wrist. To Pell’s relief, neither Tando nor Donte associated the swelling of his wrist with what had happened to Kana and her finger.

  Pell and Donte set about making a stew with the rabbit and the produce they had gathered. On several occasions Donte tried to brush Pell aside out of habit, thinking that a boy or man should not be involved with food preparation. Pell steadfastly remained involved however, reminding her repeatedly how desperately he needed to understand all the processes of gathering and preparing food.

  They made the stew in a large leather pouch, which they suspended on a tripod of sticks. Donte put some of the salt in first, then filled the pouch with water, rabbit, vegetables, and finally, several hot rocks from the fire. Because the salt was dirty, it was not suitable for direct application to food but was good for flavoring a stew. The salt dissolved into the water and the dirt and pebbles sank to the bottom. Some of the dirt, as well as ashes from the hot rocks floated to the surface where Donte skimmed it off. Then she put the rabbit and vegetables into the hot water.

  Donte ladled the stew into bowls for each of them and they sat about slurping it up, stabbing some pieces with their knives. Sitting back hugely satisfied, Pell decided that this was the finest meal he had ever eaten, better even than his earlier kill. The salt made the stew so savory. Tando made it even finer when he complimented Pell on the kill. Pell glanced at Donte but she didn’t contradict Tando—neither did Pell.

  Over the next several days Donte gave Pell a considerable education in the gathering of various fruits, vegetables and tubers. As they traveled about the nearby area Pell slipped away and checked quite a few of the snares he had previously set out. He became more and more excited as he found two more rabbits, a hare, a squirrel, and a hedgehog in the snares, all of which he quickly reset. Out of this bounty, the hare and hedgehog had been mostly eaten and one rabbit partially consumed by carnivores happening on his traps before he did. These losses did little to dampen Pell’s spirits. He felt sure that if he h
ad a chance to check the snares daily, or better yet, twice daily, the likelihood that they would have been raided would be much less. The fact that other animals had chewed them allowed Pell to explain his sudden success as a hunter as mere fortune in finding other small predators at their kills and driving them away. With the undamaged rabbit and squirrel though, he couldn’t resist claming them as “kills,” struck with “unerring throws” of course.

  Over the next few days Tando's swelling began to go down and Pell found it necessary to begin tightening rather than loosening the straps. As Tando felt better he went with Pell on several occasions to hunt. He felt that, though he could not really hunt himself or contribute to the hunt, he might repay Pell’s miraculous restoration of his arm somewhat by giving him some pointers on hunting.

  Pell was somewhat surprised at this for, after all, Tando’s broken arm had been Pell’s fault to begin with. Pell didn’t feel that reducing the break nearly repaid his debt. However, Tando apparently felt that it did—actually a good part of Tando’s generosity resulted from simple reverence towards anyone who could do what Pell had done with his wrist. In any case, Pell certainly couldn’t afford to refuse any charity. After watching some of Pell’s wild throws, he shook his head and expressed amazement that Pell had killed a rabbit and a squirrel in the past few days. Pell feared that Tando would openly express doubt that Pell actually had killed the rabbit and squirrel, but Tando apparently accepted that Pell had just had unusually lucky throws. However, Tando did strongly urge Pell to practice his throwing and actually sat with him while he did so, giving him some pointers. He also spent time critiquing Pell’s stealth.