Bonesetter

by Laurence Dahners

  Tando put some more wood on the fire and turned the roasting groundhog. While poking at the fire he told the other two, “I’ve been worrying that the smell of the smoked meat, even though we bury it, might attract scavengers like hyenas or even some of the big cats that roam the area. Maybe one of us should stay nearby to stoke the fire all the time? I don’t mean right in the cave. That would be a waste when we could be out trying to gather or hunt, but maybe each day one of us shouldn’t travel too far. Then that person could come back and build up the fire a couple of times so that the fire would keep the animals away.”

  “But if we keep a big fire all day we’re going to be spending a lot of time just collecting wood for the fire!”

  Pell said slowly, “I don’t think we need a big fire, just a smoky one. The animals can’t stand smoke and if we’re gone, the smoke won’t bother us. In fact it will be good for the meat we’re smoking. All a smoky fire requires is that someone drop by and put something green on the fire occasionally.”

  The others thought the smoky fire idea was good and discussing it led Donte to talking about her attempts to smoke vegetables. That idea had turned out poorly she said while pulling the tubers out of the fire and cutting them open to cool. “The leafy vegetables shriveled up and were practically inedible! Tubers and grain kept fairly well, but they keep pretty well even without being smoked. Berries and apple slices dried up on the smoking shelf and then they don’t rot but the smoky taste ruins them. Pell, do you think that just drying them might work?”

  “Spirits, I don’t know! I keep telling you two that this whole ‘smoking’ thing was just an accident.” Pell had taken the groundhog off the fire and began pulling it apart, handing pieces to Tando, Donte and the head to Ginja. Cursing a burned finger he said, “Maybe it’s just the drying that makes the meat keep. It wouldn’t hurt to try just drying different foods, especially things we have too much of. Even if they are ruined we won’t have lost much.”

  Donte said she would try drying some fruit slices in the sun to see what would happen. Then they started talking about a lot of equipment that they needed but didn’t know how to make for themselves—flint knives, scrapers and spearpoints, better leather, medicines, a sewing awl and other odds and ends.

  “We need to go to a trading place,” Tando said, wiping some of the grease from the roast groundhog off of his lips and reaching for another piece.

  Pell was startled. “What would we trade?”

  “Are you kidding? Smoked meat, of course. Everyone will love it!”

  “But why would they trade for smoked meat? They could just make their own.”

  Tando snorted, “No they couldn’t! Not if we don’t tell them how. We’ll tell them it takes powerful magic to preserve it… which just happens to give it a smoky flavor, not vice versa.”

  “I think they’ll figure it out pretty soon.”

  He grinned, “But we’ll have made a lot of good trades by then.”

  “Where would we go to trade?”

  “About this time of summer quite a few tribes gather at the River Fork to trade. You must remember going there, Pell. The Aldans go to River Fork a lot of summers. I think we could make some good trades with some of the different groups that go.”

  “I think they gather at River Fork a little later than this,” said Donte. “We should work on the cave and some of our other projects a little longer… maybe go in two hands of days.”

  Stuffed from their feast, they talked on into the night about their projects and the trading mission. Over the next several days they all pitched in and enlarged the cave with more mud and sticks, even while they continued trapping, gathering and smoking. Tando continued to grumble good naturedly about having to do “women’s work.” Pell thought that Tando actually was very good at constructing the wattle wall and thought that, despite his complaining, he secretly enjoyed the work.

  Donte stopped Pell one morning to ask him about the white rind that she had noticed accumulating near the top of the skin that Pell had been using to soak the meat in before smoking it. “Should I remove it or is it important? Why do you soak the meat anyway?”

  “Oh, I soak it in that skin to make it salty. The skin has some of your rock salt in the bottom and I like the flavor of smoked meat that was soaked in the salty water before smoking better than the plain.”

  “Oh. What’s the white stuff then?” Donte scraped a little flake of it loose and tasted it. “Pell! It’s salt! Clean salt! It tastes like the ocean salt that the southern tribes bring up to trade sometimes. It’s really good!”

  Pell also tasted it excitedly. In fact the accumulated rind of clean white salt at the top of the “soaking skin” was much purer than the dirty salt they were starting with. They happily found that it tasted good when they put it straight onto food rather than only using it to flavor the cooking pot. Donte set up several similar skins that she just left out, even when there wasn’t any meat to salt. Even though she didn’t understand how it operated, evaporation still worked its miracle, and soon she was scraping off the salt to take on their trading mission.

  For his part Pell began to get excited about the mission as well. Though he didn’t admit it to the others, he dreamed of seeing some girls again. When he had last gone trading with the Aldans he had still viewed girls ambivalently, but mostly as annoyances, to be ignored or on occasion to be teased. Recently however, he had begun thinking of them wistfully. They even entered his dreams sometimes. In one dream he found himself mating with one as he had seen the men of the Aldans doing with their own mates. He found the dreams wildly exciting and found himself thinking about mating with a woman when he was awake as well.

  They began to worry about how to keep animals out of their cave during their absence. There was some talk of one of them staying behind but they all really wanted to go… Pell suspected that he might not be the only one thinking of mating. They put heavy rocks on top of the dirt that covered their smoked meat to make it hard for animals to dig up. Then they threw freshly broken up scat of one of the big cats over it, both to mask the smell of the meat and to frighten away smaller predators. They built up their fire and put some green wood and leaves on it so that it would thoroughly smoke up the cave, a smell that they hoped would also keep most animals away. Pell and Tando lashed together some more poles into a panel big enough to cover their doorway. Finally, they closed the doorway with the big panel and mudded it into place. The also closed the smoke hole with sticks that they mudded into place.

  They set out for River Fork about midday, gathering as they went for meals, so as not to use up their stores. Of course, they couldn’t hunt with snares while traveling, but after all, they had plenty of smoked meat that they were taking along to trade. As it was just after midsummer, the gathering was good and it turned out that they actually could have added to their stores as they traveled if they’d had room in their packs to carry more. It was two and a half days of tiring travel to the River Fork area, but their spirits were high. While they walked, they talked gleefully about their expected successes in trading. They all were excited to trade for various new tools.

  When the River Fork area came into view Pell lifted his “far-seer” that he’d started keeping on a thong around his neck. He used it to survey the area. It appeared that they had judged it about right. He saw by the smoke of campfires that there were several tribes already in the area.

  “What are you looking through?” Tando asked Pell.

  “It’s just a far-seer, like the one Roley uses.”

  “What?!” Tando reached out and Pell handed it to him. “Where did you get it?”

  “I made it. All you have to do is drill a small hole in a flat chip of wood.”

  Tando held it up to his eye. “I don’t see any better. Of course Roley’s far-seer didn’t help me see better either, but many of the hunters said it helped them.”

  Donte asked to look through it and Tando handed to her. “Hey! Everything is sharper when you look through thi
s hole. Well, not things close to me, they’ve always been sharp. But things that are far away are blurry until you hold the far-seer to your eye. This must take powerful spirit magic.”

  “No, mama. You just drill a little hole in something and look through it. In fact, it also works if you just hold up your fingers so that there is a little hole between them. I think it’s the same reason that you squint when you are trying to see something far away. I don’t know why it doesn’t help Tando. Maybe because his eyes are already so good?”

  To her delight, Pell gave his mother the “far-seer.” He had another in his pouch and, after all, could make more easily. She stood for a while looking about in amazement with it, exclaiming about the details that she could now see in the far distance.

  Tando asked, “Why do you have two of them Pell?”

  “I made two of them so I could try to see well with both eyes. But it was a lot of trouble to hold both of them up to my eyes, so I seldom ever use them that way. Besides, if you have them over both eyes all the time you can’t see what danger might be approaching from the sides.”

  They moved closer to the trading area and to their relief, saw none of the Aldans among the people they sighted. The three established camp some distance from the trading area while evening fell. Ginja acted very uneasy at their proximity to the other tribes and Pell felt relieved when the wolf faded back into the woods. As darkness fell, he saw her watching them from a hiding place a short distance back into the undergrowth.

  They awoke the next morning with some excitement. As they feared leaving their goods unguarded, Donte stayed behind while Pell and Tando went in to the market area to look about. As they approached the market area, Pell found his heart pounding with excitement, even more so when he saw some young women striding along towards them. They were healthy looking, with the well-fed appearance of members belonging to a tribe that had good hunters faring well in an abundant summer. The shorter one on the left caught Pell’s eye especially. Her muscular legs flashed from beneath her furs and her long hair swung in thick braids. Her breasts swayed enticingly as she strode down the path. Pell’s thoughts flashed to a mental picture in which he was mating with her. This image brought an immediate response from beneath his loincloth. This, to Pell’s great distress, the two young women immediately noticed. One of them pointed to his groin and their heads went together as they giggled.

  Tando also noticed when they pointed and, looking at Pell’s groin himself, he let out an unrestrained guffaw. Pell flushed bright red and the murderous rage that followed quickly stifled his previous reaction.

  Furious, Pell strode ahead of Tando into the market area and looked around. It was an ill-defined area at the juncture of two of the great rivers where huge hardwood trees grew strong and tall. Their dense canopy had stifled much of the undergrowth and the annual trading marketplace had beaten down the rest. Different groups staked out skins covered with trade goods beneath various trees. Pell’s eye was drawn immediately to a flint worker plying his trade at one corner of a large leather on which he had laid out many flint implements. As he started toward it Tando caught him, grasping him by the biceps, whispered roughly into his ear. “Don’t go first to the one whose goods are most desirable, you will seem too eager. They will bargain harder with you. Wander about and look at all the goods, appearing disinterested, then return later to bargain. Then when you do bargain, you can act as if you’ve seen other items as good as or even better than the ones you’re bargaining for.”

  Though he still wanted to strangle Tando for laughing at him earlier, Pell thought this advice was clever. So, following Tando’s advice, he went first to a large leather laid out near to that of the flintworker who had first caught his attention. Here an old hag had laid out medicines. These were in the form of herbs, powdered so that they could be made into teas but also because when they were in the form of powders it was difficult to guess their ingredients. Mixed into all the powdered medicines were pungent, tangy but useless herbs whose only purpose was to prevent the buyer from recognizing the smell of the active ingredients. “Do you have a particular sickness in your tribe?” the hag queried in tremulous yet resonant voice. “I can advise you better on which medicines you need if you can describe the illness.”

  Pell thought the hag was probably the oldest human he had ever seen, and wondered if this meant that her medicines were successful since they had kept her alive so long. Perhaps they weren’t any good or they would have kept her healthier in appearance. “Um, no, no one is sick at present.”

  “Then you should at least get some of this tea here. It keeps away the evil spirits and so it will help to keep everyone healthy. You may also want some of this tea. It relieves pain. Injuries are bound to happen, and this tea will keep until someone needs it.”

  Intrigued with the concepts of the medicines, Pell thought her suggestions to be practical. He felt pretty certain that the main ingredient of the pain reliever would be willowbark. Unfortunately he had no idea how to prepare willowbark himself and so its ready availability did not mean he could make his own pain medicine. For an instant he considered asking the hag what part of the willowbark was used in the teas but knew she would laugh at such a question. “Maybe later” he mumbled, suddenly worried that he hadn’t appeared to be as uninterested as Tando had suggested. He moved on to the next area, consciously moving away from the flintworker’s area.

  As he stepped away his eye was drawn back to the old hag’s area. A most beautiful creature had walked up, set herself down and begun talking with the hag. She was slender but not skinny, rather muscular. She moved like a tawny young cat in its prime. Her skin glowed and she appeared to be in the very prime of health. She had long, golden brown hair sleekly combed and braided. It was tied and had no snarls. Her eyes sparkled with amusement over the story she was relating to the old woman. As she laughed Pell saw clean healthy white teeth. Pell tried not to be caught staring but couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away.

  “Hey, watch your step, fool!” a voice barked at him.

  Pell looked around to where he had nearly trod on some carvings laid out at the next site. He stepped hastily back and gazed unseeingly at the carvings. He didn’t think he could afford to trade for carvings, no matter their beauty or spiritual power. But, whether he wanted carvings or not, he didn’t want to go any further from the beautiful girl at the medicine woman’s area. With furtive glances, he watched them and decided that the girl and the hag were related. Now they appeared to be talking business from the hushed voices they used as if talking about trade secrets. After a few more moments, the beautiful young woman stood and walked away. Pell’s eyes followed her until she disappeared from sight. Now, at last released to continue his shopping, he left the carver’s site, mind spinning, to go on about the different sites and take in the wares on display.

  He stopped at a site where a woman quickly and deftly was stiching a stack of soft leathers into various items of clothing. As Pell watched, one man was fitted for a pair of winter pantaloons. He stood, legs spread, while the woman laid various leathers against his legs and waist, deftly cutting them with a sharp flint. He paid her with a stack of cured skins, agreeing to give her even more skins when the pantaloons were complete. The woman eyed Pell’s ragged leather loincloth with distaste and when he made no offer to trade, went back to her stitching. Laid out on her leather were some examples of her work, including some short summer pantaloons, a vest and a winter hat made of fur. There were also leather items that didn’t need to be fitted which were already made up. Carrying bags, pouches, sheaths for flint knives and most interestingly, a braided leather rope! Pell dropped to his knees to examine this. Thick strips of pliable leather were twisted back and forth around each other in a manner he could not fathom. Every so often he could see a place where a strip was joined to another by cutting holes in both strips and sliding the tail of each strip through the other’s hole to make a longer thong. He had done this himself but it always made a weak link where t
he thong would break. Somehow Pell had a feeling that the braiding of many thongs together made it much stronger than several thongs merely tied into a bundle as he had seen done in the Aldans. With a rope like this, he could make a snare strong enough for a boar or a deer! He would have to get Donte to look at it, perhaps she could braid one without Pell’s having to purchase one, after all the braiding did look similar to the braiding that Donte often did in her hair.

  Pell moved on past a family selling bead jewelry, another woman with medicines, a group roasting a boar which would be sold in pieces later and a man with waterbags made from the stomachs of various animals. He came to another flint worker. There were serviceable scrapers and awls displayed. The knives and spear points were thick and somewhat clumsy looking and while Pell was watching the flintworker cursed exasperatedly when he broke a blade that he had been working on. Pell thought back on some of the blades his father had made. Beautiful blades—blades that had been revered by the Aldans. Pell wished again that his father had lived long enough to teach him that skill. The flintworker, though obviously not a great talent like Pell’s father, had many nice sharp flakes that would make perfectly serviceable general cutting tools. And, Pell thought, probably at a much lower cost than some of the better products from the better flintworkers around the marketplace.

  When Pell moved on he encountered Tando circulating the area and they conferred briefly. No one appeared to be offering sea salt, so Tando felt that Donte’s salt should prove valuable in trading. Tando had seen two other flintworkers and the one near the medicine hag seemed to have the best products. Pell asked, “Should we get some general purpose medicines and some clothing?”