Bonesetter 2 -Winter- (10 page)

Gia snorted, but said nothing.

“Really! I’m…” He stopped, realizing that he really didn’t want to tell the beautiful girl who claimed she loved him—despite being much too good for him—all the things he’d failed at.

Eyes twinkling, she said, “You’re what?”

His face heating, he said a little sullenly, “There are
lots
of things I’m not good at.”

“For instance?”

“Um,” he paused, now not wanting to roll out the litany of his failures. Finally he said, “I’m not a very good throw.”

Gia giggled, “I
saw
you hit that grouse!”

Pell mumbled a response.

“What?”

“I was lucky,” Pell said, now feeling frustrated that she’d dragged it out of him.

“Uh-huh, and the grouse under the grapes?”

“I was lucky
that
time too,” Pell said, knowing his face was blushing for no good reason.

Gia snickered, “Well, I may disagree by thinking that you are good at many things, but,” she eyed his basket, “you’re bad enough at basket weaving to balance your skills in a lot of other areas.”

Pell looked down at the mess his fingers had made of the basket while he’d been trying to respond to her. He had to laugh as well. “You’re right. This is terrible!” He started pulling it back apart.

“Do you think this is deep enough?” Gia asked, eyeing the basket she’d been weaving.

Pell looked at it. Though he’d barely gotten started, she’d nearly finished. The basket she’d shaped was nicely woven. He thought it’d hold a couple grouse, though he doubted more than one would get in the trap at one time. There was room at the end for the inward pointing spikes that he hoped would keep the grouse from leaving once they’d gotten inside. “Um, it’s very nice…”

“Nice, but what?” Gia asked, evidently fully aware of the hesitation in his response.

“Uh, you’ve woven it so nicely… um, I don’t think the grouse will be able to see the grain inside.”

Gia’s eyes jumped back to the basket she’d been making and widened. Then she burst into laughter. “You’re right! I’m so used to weaving tightly so things won’t fall out that I just went right back to it!” She gave him a sly look, “And you’re so good at not hurting people’s feelings that you weren’t even going to tell me, were you?”

Pell cleared his throat, “I’m
not
very good at it! Otherwise, you wouldn’t have known I thought there was anything wrong!”

Gia gave her basket a rueful look, “Well, I guess I’d just as well take this apart.”

“Maybe not.” Pell shrugged, “We don’t know, maybe grouse find their grain by smell or something. Now that you’ve nearly finished that one, we should set it up and try it out.”

“Okay,” Gia said dubiously, “how should we make the little door that traps the birds inside?”

“Door?” He turned and looked at the door flap over the opening of their cave. “You’re right! A door that only opens one way would probably work.” He narrowed his eyes at the basket, “But it can’t be a leather flap like we have over the mouth of the cave, the birds wouldn’t be able to see that there was an opening.”

“I thought you were going to make it out of stiff reeds?”

“Yes, but I was just thinking of them as spikes that would poke the birds if they tried to leave the trap, not as an entire door.”

Gia looked at the cave, then the basket. “I think the spikes would be the easiest.” She pushed a couple of reeds through the weave of the basket so they pointed inward from the basket’s mouth. “You mean something like this?”

“Yes!” Pell said startled once again by how easy she’d made it look, “Though, I think you need to secure them better.”

She thumped him on the arm, “Of course I do. I’m just asking if this is how you want them positioned.” She started winding them into place with a slender weaver.

A little while later, they walked out to where the grouse had been eating their grain the day before. Pell set Gia’s basket down in the middle of that area. She’d brought a handful of grain and she scattered half of it around the basket. She pushed her hand in through the opening and dumped the rest of it inside the basket. “Um, Pell?”

Pell had been looking at a couple of small birds across the meadow, wondering if they could get in and out of the basket between the blocking reeds to steal the grain. Absently, he turned back to Gia, “Yes?”

“Your trap trapped my hand!” she laughed. I think I need your help getting my hand out!”

Pell turned to study the situation. He looked at Gia and grinned, “Perfect! A trap for beautiful girls!”

She glared at him, “What you have, is a trap for
angry
girls. If you don’t want to have come up with a trap for
furious
girls, you’ll help me get my hand out of it right
now
!”

“Oops, I guess I’ll have to work on the design a little more,” Pell said reaching in to push the reeds aside so she could pull her hand out. He studied the basket for a moment, then said, “If the weave was looser, we could tie some thongs to these reeds that came out through the weave in the basket. Then you could pull on them from the outside with your other hand to get your hand out.”

Gia snorted, “If the weave was looser, I could just drop the grain into the basket through the openings.”

Pell looked back at the basket, “Um, I guess you’re right. But, the basket needs to be woven tightly on the bottom so that the grain won’t fall out.” He tilted his head, “And, we need to do something so the basket won’t roll over and dump the grain.” He looked up at her, “Can you weave it so it’s tight on one side and the bottom side’s flat so that it won’t roll?”

“Yes,” she said, with a long suffering tone. “But, maybe it’d be better if you drove a stake down through the holes in the loose weave and into the ground. That would keep it from rolling,
and
from blowing away. You could put a curved piece of stiff leather on the bottom to hold the grain.”

“Oh,” Pell said, chagrined, “that’d be a good idea.”

Gia stood up and dusted her hands, “We’ve learned a lot. The next one’ll be better, but we’d just as well see if this one will catch anything.”

***

As Yadin walked along the big river that led to Cold Springs ravine he gnawed thoughtfully on a piece of the amazing “spirit meat” the Aldans had given him. He found it hard to believe that a tribe that had been going hungry right before the onset of winter was willing to part with
any
food, much less something as exotic as the tough meat with the smoky flavor.

Actually, when he’d first put a piece of the hard goat jerky in his mouth he’d thought that the meat had been ruined. It felt hard and smelled smoky, which made him think it’d been burned or something. He could tell that it was actually meat, but its texture didn’t
seem
at all like meat! Moments after he’d put it in his mouth, the smoky, meaty flavor filled his senses and he’d begun to think of it as some kind of exotic delight. When they told him that it was the meat that didn’t spoil he’d been dumbfounded.

Even during the brief time he’d been there at the Aldans’ cave, their hunters had come in several times carrying small animals. Yadin had already asked Gontra how they hunted so successfully for small quick creatures like rabbits and Gontra had told him it was Pell’s secret.

That hadn’t kept Yadin from also asking Belk. Belk had given him an odd smile, then said, “That’s
another
thing you’ll need to ask the Bonesetter.”

Yadin had frowned, “Bonesetter?”

“Pell,” Belk had said, looking surprised that Yadin didn’t know who he was talking about.

Narrowing his eyes, Yadin had said, “Why do you call him ‘Bonesetter’?”

Belk had shrugged, “That’s the first amazing thing he did. First he set his own finger, then Gontra’s finger, then Tando’s wrist. I’ve heard that he’s set the bones on several other people since he’s been at Cold Springs.”

“So you’re saying… this boy, Pell, not
only
taught you a new way to hunt, but also a way to preserve meat, and that… he’s a bonesetter?”

“Yeah,” Belk had snorted in disgust, “pretty good for a boy we turned out to die, huh?”

As he mused on this, Yadin saw movement on the trail ahead of him. He quietly stepped off the path and behind a large tree. He looked up to make sure he could reach a sturdy branch in case he needed to climb away from a big predator. He also freed up his spear in case a deer was on the path. Nothing quite improved your welcome like arriving at a tribe’s cave carrying a substantial animal so everyone could have a feast.

After a moment he was able to see that it was a young man coming toward him. Stepping out from behind the tree, Yadin raised a hand and said, “Hello.”

The man stopped abruptly to eye Yadin warily, “Hello. My name is Woday, I come in peace.”

“I’m Yadin. Where are you going?”

“Cold Springs ravine, how about you?”

Yadin smiled, “That’s where I’m going, do you live there?”

“No,” the young man laughed, “I was hoping you did. I’m not sure how to find it. I’ve come a long way with limited directions. Do you know where it is?”

“No,” Yadin said, “but according to my directions, it should be up the next stream, back the way you came from.”

“Damn,” Woday said with a frustrated but amused expression, “I
wondered
if that was the right stream because the water was cold. But by my count of the tributaries, it should be the next one or the one after that.”

Yadin shrugged, “Well, perhaps you’re right and I’m wrong.” He glanced back behind him, “It’s a long way back to the last stream I crossed. How far is it to the one you passed?”

Woday looked back over his shoulder, “Not very far. Shall we go back that way together?”

“Sure,” Yadin said. Woday turned and they continued the way Yadin had been going. He turned to Woday, “Why are
you
going to Cold Springs?”

“I’m going to ask if the Bonesetter will take me as an apprentice and teach me his art.”

Yadin coughed to cover his surprise. “Bonesetter?” He wondered if this Woday knew how young this bonesetter was supposed to be.

Woday gave Yadin a surprised look, “You hadn’t heard? There’s a man there who puts broken bones back in place!”

“How did
you
hear about him? Did he treat someone you know?”

“No, my tribe lives far to the west. But he treated a boy at Aganstribe, a tribe between here and there. The boy had a broken leg which was horribly deformed, but the Bonesetter put it back in place. The story spread from tribe to tribe until even
we
heard about it. I’m told that the boy walks better now than he did before he was injured!”

Yadin gave him a doubtful look, “How could
that
be true?”

“
I
don’t know,” Woday said, with an awed shake of the head, “but they say he can do amazing things…”

***

Pell crouched over the cold water of the stream from the Cold Springs. He held a forked branch in the water which had one of his thong nooses hanging on one branch. He’d tied a small piece of jerky to the branch just upstream from the noose. He’d seen a couple of fish in the water when he’d first arrived. They weren’t as big as the ones he and Gia had seen down in the main river, but he still suspected they would make a good meal.

They’d disappeared when he’d first leaned out and put his noose down in the water, but after he’d held still for a few minutes, they’d reappeared.

He watched tensely, then one darted forward—through the noose as he’d hoped. Pell jerked the branch up out of the water. There was no fish in the noose. It all happened so quickly that he couldn’t tell if he’d even
touched
the fish with the loop of leather, much less whether he’d come close to snaring it. With disgust, he examined the upstream branch and saw that his piece of jerky was gone once again. It was the fifth time he’d tried to snare one and he hadn’t really even felt the tug he would have expected if the snare
had
caught on a fish a little bit.
I’ll never catch one this way, they’re just too fast!

He tried to picture how the fish might snare
itself
in one of his nooses like the rabbits and squirrels did, but just couldn’t imagine it happening with such a streamlined body shape. From behind him, he heard Gia’s voice, “What are
you
doing while I’m slaving away making your baskets?”

Pell turned and squinted up at her. She was limned by light from the sun behind her and looked almost mystical. His breath nearly caught in his throat. Nonetheless, he said, “Oh,
I’m
sorry. I’d thought
you
were going to eat the grouse that the basket traps caught. I didn’t know they were only for me.”