The Reindeer People (23 page)

'It was just a boys' prank!' objected Lasse. He bent to pick frozen clumps of snow from his damp leggings.

'Perhaps to Kelr's boys it was. But what was it to Kerlew? And you can't judge a boy's worth from a minor thing like that. Look how he came alone to the talvsit that night. I still can't believe he followed the pulkor trail all the way from his tent to our camp that night. Alone, in the dark.'

'But that's another thing,' Lasse objected stubbornly. 'Why didn't he stay in his tent, as he was told?'

'I'd promised I'd send you to keep him company. And, in the rush of things, I forgot to even ask you.'

'That's not a very good reason to walk all that way in the cold and dark.'

'Perhaps not for one of us. But Kerlew strikes me as a very single-minded young man.'

'Single-minded, you say. Simple-minded, say the others. Well, it's no difference to me. Tolerating Kerlew is a small price to pay for having a healer with us again.'

Heckram was silent for long moments. Then he gave a harsh bark of laughter that made Lasse jump. He looked at the crooked arrow shaft he had just fashioned and flung it away into the snow. In a tired voice he asked, 'I wonder if anyone has ever asked what price Kerlew will pay for us to have Tillu as our healer?'

'What price?'

Tillu turned slowly from her fire. She had just finished pouring steaming water into a small wooden trough. 'What you want to give.'

Joboam thought it was a question. He sat bare-chested on her pallet, cradling his left forearm in his lap. A poultice of cooked and pounded inner bark from a spruce tree covered the angry suppuration on the back of his forearm. The cut was no longer than a man's finger. But the swelling it had caused had puffed and stiffened his elbow, and made his fingers into fat sausages on a thick hand. Despite his pain, he bartered. 'Two wolf hides, without the tails. Or a sausage and two cheeses?'

'Whatever you choose. How long, this hurt?'

Joboam glanced down at the injury and wrinkled his brow, as if looking at it increased the discomfort. He took his time to answer. 'Long time. Long, long time ago. I was carving, and cut myself. Not bad. It didn't bleed that much. It heals for a while. Then swells, and oozes. I take my knife, open it, wash it. It starts to heal. Then, again, it swells up, bigger, worse. Again, I cut it. I think it is healing. Then, one morning, sore again, swelling. This time is the worst it's been.'

Joboam spoke slowly in simple words, matching Tillu's speech. She didn't bother to tell him she understood their language now. Specific words she might not know, but she was comfortable with the flow of the words and their strange inflection. And she could speak it more fluently than she did. She found it easier to speak very simply and briefly. Maybe to keep from having to talk about anything besides healing. Maybe to keep a distance.

'Lucky man. Lucky you're still alive, not poisoned. Bad kind of hurt. Maybe something in there. If something is in there, we have to find it, get it out. Going to hurt a lot to find it. But going to kill you if we don't.' As she spoke, she opened a tiny leather sack and spilled from it a small pile of salt. Biting her lower lip, she reluctantly added more to the heap of gleaming crystals. The salt was precious, not only as seasoning, but for its drawing properties when used in poultices and soaks. From the look of Joboam's arm, it was going to take most of her supply to heal him. She wondered idly why those with the most were the stingiest when it came to offering payment.

'Stop staring, boy!' Joboam growled suddenly.

Tillu glanced up. Joboam had arrived very early. She had been preparing food for the boy and herself, but had set that aside at the sight of Joboam's arm. Kerlew was waiting on the hides by the fire. He watched her like a hungry dog as she rook out her healing supplies. Kerlew didn't answer Joboam, but hung his head. His hands toyed listlessly with his precious spoons. Tillu spoke softly.

'Kerlew. Go outside. You can gather firewood for me.'

'But I'm hungry!'

'Then take cheese and sausage with you and eat that.'

'I want hot food.'

'Out, boy!' Joboam growled. Kerlew's eyes flickered sideways. Other than that, he gave no sign of hearing the man. He sucked his lower lip in tightly as he looked at Tillu.

Tillu set her jaw. She forced herself to speak calmly. 'Go for the firewood, then. Have cheese and sausage now, and pile up some wood. Then I will cook some of the reindeer that Lanya brought us. Go, now. Then I can work faster. Go on!'

She didn't look at Joboam as she urged her son from the tent. There had always been men like Joboam, would always be men like Joboam. Men who felt they could take charge whenever there wasn't another man around. Men who could not meet Kerlew's peculiar stare, who were offended by his slow speech and odd mannerisms. Men she couldn't trust not to strike the boy if he came too near or looked at them too long. Men who feared him, as they feared the touch of disease or madness.

As she dissolved the salt in the steaming water and set out clean white moss, she reminded herself that Joboam was in pain. And probably tired from traveling here, and uneasy in a strange place. She had to be patient and remember that she was a healer. A healer. After a moment, she sighed and let the tension ease out of her shoulders. She would be able to treat him as she did everyone else. And then he would go.

'Hot water. Slowly, slowly,' she cautioned him as she set the trough before him. It was just large enough for him to submerge the festering arm. She removed the poultice from the wound and motioned toward the water. She watched his face, saw him wince as his elbow touched the hot water. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes, but slowly his arm entered the water. Sweat sprang out on his chest and forehead, but he made no sound of pain. She found herself turning away, unwilling to admire the control he exerted over himself.

'Why didn't you come sooner?' She picked through the moss, discarding bits of sticks and dirt into the fire.

'I thought it would heal by itself.' His voice was slightly strained. 'How long must I leave my arm in the water?'

'Water let wound open. Wound drain, then we clean out pus, then we reach inside, dig and probe, look for thing inside it.'

'Oh.'

His reply was soft and Tillu looked over her shoulder to see lines of stress embedded in his face. She started to speak, then bit her own tongue, ashamed. Her description had made him squirm as she had known it would. She was a healer, and she must not be petty. Breaking his control and making him cry out would not gain his respect for Kerlew or herself. It would only make her lose her respect for herself.

She moved to his side, eased her hands into the hot water, and gently touched the surface of the wound. It opened almost immediately, releasing its foulness into the water, and Joboam gasped at the release of pressure in his arm. 'Steady. Sit still. Be still,' she said softly, keeping her eyes on the arm. He smelled of sweat and fear and maleness.

She worked deftly, using her moistened bits of white moss to clear the pus from the wound. Tillu motioned Joboam to lift his arm from the water. The wound gaped wide and angry in his flesh. 'Something in there,' she decided. 'Have to find it, get it out.' Rising, she took the fouled water outside to dump it.

Kerlew was standing beside the tent, looking bored, 'I'm cold,' he began whiningly.

'No, you're not.' Tillu's voice brooked no argument. 'This is the warmest it's been for days. If you're cold, work. That will warm you. Bring down more wood.'

'Is it nearly done?'

She took pity on him. 'Nearly. I'm working as fast as I can. If I can heal him well, we will have wolf hides to sew with. New leggings for Kerlew, hmm?'

'No one needs new leggings in spring,' the boy pointed out, but looked pleased anyway.

'More firewood,' she reminded him, as Joboam's voice boomed from the tent.

'Healer! Healer, what is keeping you?'

Tillu didn't bother to answer as she pushed her way back into the tent. She wiped the trough clean with moss and set it to one side. Measuring more salt, she poured it into the trough and set water to heat again. She came then to kneel beside Joboam and peer closely at the injury. She could guess where the problem was. There were signs of the flesh trying to close over an object, only to break open again when Joboam used his arm. Whatever it was, it had gone in deep. Yet it probably hadn't been much of an injury at the time. Just a short, deep cut.

'Going to hurt. Cut open, get it out. I make a medicine first, help with pain.'

Joboam hesitated, then nodded. Wise. She stood up, measuring his size and weight, and then turned to her herbs. This was going to take a strong brew. She knelt by her fire, measuring out and crushing the herbs. She set raspberry root and willow leaves and bark to soak. Bound on a wound, they controlled bleeding. She hoped she would not need them.

'Where is your man?' he demanded suddenly to her back.

She didn't even turn. 'Gone.'

'What happened? Is he dead, or did he just leave you?'

'Gone.' She repeated it flatly, and went on with her work.

Joboam gave a knowing snort. 'The boy, eh? Well, it would be a hard thing to live with. But don't you have other people?'

Tillu finally turned to face him. 'Gone.' Her eyes were flat, her lips thinned to a line. Joboam didn't falter.

'All alone, hmm? Must be hard. Would you like to join with the herdfolk? Go with us?' There was a strange note in his voice, a voice like a trader holding up prime merchandise.

'Go?' Tillu was doubly puzzled. She had seen the talvsit as a permanent village, but now this man spoke of 'going' as if they were a wandering, hunting people. Go? With a wrench she realized how accustomed she had become to the idea of living alone, but within reach of a village. She had thought she had a place as a healer, and yet the privacy she needed for Kerlew to be safe. She had thought ...

'Yes, go.' Joboam hadn't sensed her confusion. 'Capiam say, you might go with us to the summer grounds, be our healer. Better life for you. You have food and hides and help to move your tent, even if no one needs healing. Maybe even give you some reindeer. Maybe. What do you think of that?'

It was too many new ideas, too fast. She was trying to juggle the idea of so many settled people suddenly rising up and going somewhere else with the idea of giving reindeer. Since the night she had ridden in Heckram's pulkor, she had accepted that these people used reindeer as domestic animals. But to be, possibly, the owner of one herself was too strange. Like owning a tree or a spring. And she was not happy to give up her image of planted fields and a settled life again.

'Herdfolk go soon?'

'Yes. Not very long from now. We'll go to the tundra. We'll leave the talvsit behind. If you don't go with us, you'd be alone all summer. Completely alone.'

There was a subtle taunt to his words. A veiled threat of some kind? Why? For what? 'Not alone,' she corrected him calmly. 'Kerlew with me.'

Joboam gave a snort of deprecation. Tillu almost regretted the sense-dulling mixture that was now simmering on her fire. She should have dug it out of his arm as he sat. She quelled her temper and turned back to stir the mixture. She could not say exactly why she found this man so irritating. The sooner he was healed and bandaged, the sooner he would leave.

She poked at the sodden mass in the bottom of the small pot. It would do. Carefully she added warm water, stirred, and ladled off a scoop of the dark liquid that formed. She advanced on Joboam. His nose wrinkled at the odor.

'Bitter,' she told him, trying not to sound satisfied. 'Drink all. Make you sleepy, not hurt so much.'

Joboam took the ladle carefully and stared down at the dark brew. 'Maybe I don't need it,' he suggested.

Tillu shrugged, 'I cut, you hurt. You decide. But must not jerk arm while I cut. Maybe Kerlew hold arm down for me.'

Glaring at her over the rim of the ladle, he drank. A shudder ran through him and he swallowed with an effort.

'Water?' he asked.

'No. Make you sick, vomit. No water. Lie down. Wait.'

He didn't like it. She didn't care. But she still helped him lie hack on her pallet. He swallowed noisily and looked up at her with wary eyes. She stood over him, waiting for the medicine to take effect. She watched the steady rise and fall of his wide chest. She had been surprised when he took his tunic off. He was more hairy than the men of Benu's tribe had been. Dark hair formed a triangle on his chest and tapered down the line of his belly. The ridged belly muscles showed clearly, tight with worry. He was cleaner, too. She wondered if all the men of the herdfolk were so. Heckram's stubble-cheeked face came into her mind. What did his chest look like?

With a snort of contempt for herself, she turned aside. If Joboam was going to sweat and worry and fight the medicine, it was going to take longer to work. In the meantime, she would cook something for Kerlew and take it to him. She was no eager girl to spend her time staring at a man's chest and smirking. She was a woman with a son to tend and a healing to do. As Joboam's breathing became more steady, she cut a generous slab of meat from the chunk suspended from the tent support. It was not that she had so much to spare; it was the recent warm temperatures. The meat was dripping and would soon spoil unless it was eaten or turned into jerky. That was one thing she regretted about the coming spring. Meat would not stay nicely frozen as it did all winter. There was more work to preserving a kill, and more pests that tried to ruin it.