Bonesetter (7 page)

“No!
You’ve got to at least chew some hemp first, so it doesn’t hurt so badly. Before I fixed my own finger, I chewed some of Pont’s.”

“Oh, yeah.”
Gontra mumbled.
He scrabbled about in his pouch with his good hand.
“Pont gave me some for the pain.”

Pell saw Gontra grimace when he bumped his bad finger trying to hold the pouch open with that hand.
Pell’s own finger hadn’t seemed that sensitive, even before Pont gave him the hemp leaves.
Was it because of all the manipulations that the healer had performed on Gontra’s finger the previous night?
It could be, but Pell remembered that his own finger had been so numb with the cold that he could hardly feel it anyway.
Should he wait until nighttime and send Gontra out into the cold?

His hand bumped the skin full of ice cold water hanging by his side, just outside his furs.
Maybe he could numb Gontra’s hand with the cold water in the skin?
When he poured some out of the waterskin and onto his own hand, he found that the water had warmed up considerably, at least as compared to how it had felt in the creek.

He looked up to find Gontra stuffing his mouth with hemp leaves.
“Wait!
Spit those back out.
We’re not ready yet.”

Gontra spit them back into his good hand with a look of puzzlement/anger.
“What now?”

“We need to go back to the stream.”

“The stream?
Why?”

“Your hand needs to be cold.
You can hold it in the water a while.”

Gontra didn’t want his hand cold, certainly not as cold as it would get in the stream.
Nonetheless while he argued they all walked back toward the cave.
Then having resigned himself to putting his hand in the cold water, he began to argue for going to a section of the stream a ways below the cave.
He and Exen were glancing about and suddenly Pell realized that they didn’t want to be seen with Pell.
Pell felt a little disturbed by this unwillingness to lower their status by association with him, but on the other hand, he wasn’t sure he wanted the healer to see him with them either.
Or other members of the tribe, what if he failed to “set” Gontra’s finger?
After a few moments consideration he agreed to go to the little swimming hole downstream from the cave.

Shortly before they arrived at the hole Pell had Gontra begin chewing the wad of hemp he still carried in his good hand.
When they got to the hole he already
had
a drugged appearance.
Pell had him crouch at the edge of the hole and immerse his hand to the wrist.
He was surprised at how readily Gontra acquiesced, but attributed it to the hemp.
Gontra shortly began to complain about holding his hand in the cold water.
Pell didn’t blame him but insisted that he keep it in.
After another minute or so Gontra pulled it out of the water of his own accord, complaining loudly and in a slurred voice about how he could hardly feel his hand.
Pell saw that the whole hand had blanched white but made him put it back in the water anyway.
He sat down next to Gontra and wiped sweaty palms on his furs. He wondered why his hands would be sweaty on a cold day like this one.
He saw Gontra trembling and thought he was about to pull his hand back out again.
“OK, take it out and give it to me.”

Gontra jerked his hand out of the water and extended the white, trembling member to Pell.

Pell grasped the deformed part of the finger in his fist, bent it way back as he had his own finger and the rabbit’s leg, and pulled mightily.

Gontra bellowed and jerked his hand out of Pell’s grasp, rolling back onto his buttocks.
He gripped the offended member in his other fist and curled over it in agony, though he didn’t seem as miserable as he had the night before during the healer’s attempts.
Pell scrambled away fearfully, thinking that Gontra might strike him when he recovered.
But then Gontra opened his good hand to look tremblingly at his injured digit.
Pell could see, even from where he stood, that the finger was straight again!
Massively swollen still, but
by the Spirits, straight again!
Exen let out a whoop of joy and knelt to throw his arms around Gontra.
He and his father swayed about in each other’s grasp for almost a whole minute.

Gontra reached in his pouch and pulled out a flint knife that he tossed quickly to Pell.
“Thanks,” he said, and with that, he and Exen started back up the trail with a bounce in their step.

Pell stood looking at the knife, wondering at the tumultuous emotions he felt.
He was elated that he had reduced Gontra’s finger but somehow felt that the celebration was too short or that it hadn’t included him as he felt it should have.
He recognized immediately that this was an old knife that Gontra didn’t use much anymore.
It had several chips out of the blade and, though bigger, wasn’t really even as good as Pell’s primary knife.
At first surprised that Gontra had given him anything for what he’d done; now he found himself disappointed at the shoddiness of the gift.
Pont would have demanded, and received, a much better reward from Gontra if he had successfully reduced the finger—of
course, Pont was a real healer and
Pell wasn’t.

Pell contemplated what had happened for a while longer, then set out again on his interrupted hunt.
As he traveled, his thoughts
returned
over and over
to
the incident just past.
He was hurt that Exen and Gontra hadn’t invited him to hunt with them.
He wished that he had insisted on some sort of public recognition from them.
He wished that he had thought to accompany them back to the cave where they were probably celebrating—he could be the hero of the moment.
Maybe there would be a hero’s welcome for him from the tribe anyway, when he got back later.
The Aldans would surely recognize the value of having one in their midst who could perform bonesettings.
While he was lost in these thoughts, he wandered back up to the same ravine he had been in earlier.
When he got to the brush barrier, he remembered that he didn’t want to try to go through it again. Rather than go back down the ravine he resolved to climb up the side and thus go around the barrier.
The side of the ravine was quite steep and difficult to climb but, shortly, pulling himself up on various bushes, he had scrambled up onto the rocks directly east of the brushy barrier.
The afternoon sun had warmed the rocks somewhat and so he sat puffing at the top for a minute.
His eye caught some motion on the north side of the barrier.
A group of small pigs like the one Denit had killed snuffled in a small patch of rotting vegetation.
He threw the spear in his hand but it clattered off the rocks three or four paces from the pig he had cast it at.
His second spear bounced into the legs of a running pig and tangled in its
feet
a moment.
It fell but then regained its feet, apparently unharmed.
Pell scrambled down the side of the ravine but to his dismay the boars were scattering back up to the north.
By the time he had gotten down to the ground on the north side of the brush pile, the pigs were far out of reach of any further spear throws.

He collected his spears and examined them.
Sure enough, the point on his better spear had been crushed on the rock it had struck.
Cursing, he sat down to resharpen it.
He tried out the knife Gontra had given him.
He noted that at least it had a better handle for such scraping than his old one.
He was still working away when a small boar burst out of the tunnel in the brush and rocketed up the west side of the ravine to join its fellows.
Startled Pell dropped the spear and the knife.
He scrabbled around to get his second spear and launched another miserable throw, again missing widely.
Cursing even more vehemently he walked over to pick up the spear, noted that its point was now ruined as well, then walked back to pick up the other spear and his new knife.
The flint knife lay beside the spear, shattered into three large pieces and several smaller ones.

With hot tears running down his cheeks
Pell
sat, got out his other knife, and jerkily brought both spears to points.

After the tears ran down, he gathered up the fragments of
his new
knife, put them in his pouch, and, dragging his spears behind him went back to the brush tunnel.
Too dejected to consider climbing over, he crouched down and started through the tunnel.
When he got to the area where he had been trapped the day before, he took it in with new eyes.
During his struggle, he had broken off a couple of sticks and branches, which had then protruded into the tunnel on a slant.
They were what had been poking into him when he tried to back out the other way.
He noticed some blood on one of them, he couldn’t remember being stuck badly enough to start bleeding though.
He smelled it—it was fresh boar’s blood!
The little boar, which had just escaped him, must have been trapped here for a while too!
He wondered if he could wait a while and some other animal would come along and get trapped?
Well they wouldn’t come in here if he were here; his scent would keep them away.
But, could he get back in here before they got free?
If he did would he be able to take on a boar in such close quarters?
Maybe if the sticks were sharper they would kill the boar for him?
While contemplating it he began scraping the one that had blood on it, thinking to diminish the scent of blood.
As he did so he realized that he was bringing it to a point like a spear and
then he
began to do so purpose
fully
.
It was made of a springy wood that made it easy to push aside but tended to hold it out in the center of the tunnel.
He realized that it was easy to get by going one direction but not the other!
Inspiration struck and he began finding similar branches, sharpening one end and wedging them into the surrounding branches so that they sloped into the center of the tunnel.
He moved a few paces the other way and did the same thing, this time making the little spears so that they faced the opposite direction.
This made a small section of the tunnel that was easy to get into by brushing the spears aside, but once within it the spears faced you from either direction.
Pell would be able to get out by careful use of his hands, but he thought that a boar would be stuck for quite a while.
He climbed out of the little tunnel, intending to sit up on the side of the ravine and wait for an animal to try to go through the tunnel.
Then he would dash in to kill it before it could get loose.
Unfortunately, the sun was getting low.
He didn’t want to get caught out after dark with big cats and other night predators so he he
aded back to the Aldans’ cave. He r
esolv
ed
to come back out and sit by the ravine in the morning.

When Pell got back to the cave there was a celebration in progress.
He trotted up to his mother, Donte and asked her what had happened.

“Another kill of a small boar, this time by Belk.
Even better—Gontra popped his own finger back in!”

“
Gontra
popped his finger back in?!”

Donte didn’t notice Pell’s dismay at the news.
“Yes, yes, isn’t it wonderful?
He fell into a bush and when he pulled his hand back out the finger was straight!
He was chasing one of the big boars at the time, you know one of the same kind that he was hunting when his finger was hurt to begin with.
Pont says he had been praying to the spirit of the big boars all day today.
So, the spirit must have heard the healer’s call and decided to give Gontra his finger back… Pell are you OK?”

Pell felt as if he’d been poleaxed.
“Gontra, put—his own, finger back?” he repeated stupidly.

“Yes, yes, well actually the Boar Spirit did it.
What’s the matter with you?”

Pell looked up and saw Gontra staring at him.
Gontra looked nervously over at Pont who was all dressed up in his ceremonial finest.
Gontra looked back at Pell and quickly shook his head.
Then he lightly put his finger over his lips, shaking his head again.
Pell sat down where he stood, feeling lightheaded.
So much for his hopes of
being recognized
upon his return this evening!
The most important thing he had done in his life—and all that he would get out of it would be one shoddy knife, already broken?
Not even a real “thanks” from Gontra?
No one was to even know that he had accomplished it?
For a moment, Pell thought to announce to the camp what had really happened, but he realized in time, though with even more dismay, that any such claim, contradicted by
both
Gontra and Pont, would make him a laughingstock.