Bonesetter (13 page)

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
breath
ing
.
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 st
arvation 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 disbelief.
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 towar
d 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 w
ith a “whump.” T
ears stream
ed
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.”

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 se
t 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, be
tter 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 had 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.