Bonesetter 2 -Winter- (26 page)

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 admiringly 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.

Sidean had felt quite surprised when he learned that the evil spirit had apparently kept him from being able to see clearly. Or, somehow had allowed him to see people apparently happy, eating well, and going about normal business, who instead were actually hungry, miserable, and engaged in depravities he’d been unable to witness.

He’d listened to the medicine men, initially with wide-eyed surprise, and later with narrow eyed suspicion. But then, he’d wondered what reason the medicine men could possibly have for painting such a bleak picture right over his pleasant description. Surely there was no benefit in it for them. Eventually he began to wonder if indeed his eyes
had
been deceived. Then he wondered how the medicine men could see the true picture when
their
eyes hadn’t been on the journey with Wenax and himself.

By their description, the two medicine men had engaged some of their clairvoyant powers to enable them to travel to Cold Springs in spirit form. There, they claimed to have witnessed the agony and suffering of the people of Cold Springs. Torments that were limited to the depths of the Cold Springs cave where no one from the outside could see it.

Nosset shook his head mournfully, “It’s our sacred duty to these beleaguered neighbors to free them from this oppression.”

Staring, Sidean looked at Nosset, “How would we do that?!”

Pont turned his gaze on Sidean as if he thought Sidean was particularly dense. “The evil spirit resides within the fading husk of the boy Pell. We need do no more than kill what appears to be a boy, but is actually only the boy’s shell. Without the support of the boy’s remaining life force, the evil spirit will fade back whence it came.”

Wenax spoke at last, “If Pell’s the one I think he is, he doesn’t look like no ‘husk.’ He’s big and healthy lookin’. I know
I
wouldn’t want to challenge him!”

“That’s why we need to go after him with all
six
of our hunters,” Nosset said.

Pont said, “He may be big, but he was always a clumsy and inadequate hunter. He won’t be able to stand against six of you.”

“Pont and I will be right behind you,” Nosset said, “using
all
of our powers to restrain the evil spirit so that
you’ll
just be fighting the human boy. With our restraint protecting you, a spear will kill him just like it would any other boy.”

Pont intoned ominously, “Not only do we owe this to our neighbors the Aldans and the Cold Springs tribes, but we owe it to our own people here. If this evil spirit isn’t stopped now, it will only become more powerful. Soon it will spread its power over
all
the tribes in this area, wreaking its foul and malevolent will on people everywhere!”

Sidean felt chills run over his body at Pont’s words. To his surprise he found that he wanted the boy dead! So did the others apparently, after some raucous shouting and raised fists they made plans to set out in the morning.

That night, as Sidean lay on his bedding waiting to fall asleep, he wondered what had happened. He’d gone into the Oppos’ meeting feeling sure that there was nothing to fear from the Aldans, nor any evil in Cold Springs. He’d believed firmly that Yadin had simply decided he’d rather live in Cold Springs. Sidean’d certainly felt that he knew better than anyone here in the Oppos what was going on in those two tribes, after all, he’d actually gone there and seen what was happening.

Yet, somehow, the two medicine men had managed to muddy his thoughts! He’d come to believe that what had seemed so clear to him in the light of day, was merely a deception brought on by an evil spirit. What if that wasn’t true?

Well, if it’s not true, the worst that will happen is that we’ll kill that boy Pell. He may never have brought us any harm, but he hasn’t done us any good either. Better that the boy lies dead in error, than we fail to kill him only to later find that he truly is possessed of an evil spirit. An evil spirit seeking to destroy us and our children.

Gritting his teeth against a sick unease roiling his stomach, Sidean wished that sleep would overtake him.

***

Yadin set his flint knapping equipment up out on the ledge in front of the Cold Springs cave. Choosing a spot next to where Donte usually worked, he brought out a stack of ten of the huge pile of small furs the tribe had to sit on. It was still kind of cold, and Donte hadn’t come out yet, but he hoped when she did she’d wind up sitting down next to him and they could talk. He’d been worried that she was going to think he was just following her around like a young boy with his first crush. This way, she would be coming to him.

As he sat, idly turning a nodule of flint this way and that, seeking the tool that might be hidden in it, his mind turned to the things he’d learned since joining the tribe. How to make spirit meat. How to make traps for mice, grouse, and fish. He suspected the tribe used the same traps for rabbits and other small animals as well. Though he’d never thought of knowledge as a prized possession before, he’d realized that if he left here and went to join another tribe, the ability to do these things would make him
very
welcome. This kind of knowledge was a kind of wealth just as concrete as a well done spear point.

He found it hard to believe the assertions of the people here; that the boy-man Pell had come up with almost all of these ideas. However, he’d witnessed the “handled axe” come into being himself. The axe wasn’t perhaps on the same level as the traps which brought you food without effort, but it was something
he
could make which would—at least until others learned to replicate it—trade high at the summer meetings.