Bonesetter 2 -Winter- (8 page)

“Tando said it was okay to teach them how to make spirit meat. He even cut them a tree that holds the meat strips up by the smoke hole in the new wall we built for their cave. We had good luck trapping while we were there, small animals like we get here, as well as a deer and two goats.” He shifted his basket to his other arm, “If they keep working hard at trapping and stay lucky, I think they’ll be okay.”

“Good…” Donte trailed off. Then she asked, as if dreading the answer, “But, if they
do
go hungry, will you give them some of
our
spirit meat?”

“I don’t think it’s up to me. It’s up to
us
.” Pell looked a little mulish, “
If
they worked hard and still don’t have enough food
and
we’ve got plenty, my vote would be to share some. If they
don’t
work hard and just count on us to take care of them, I think it should be
their
problem.”

“You’d let the children go hungry?”

Pell sighed and his shoulders drooped a little, “No.”

Donte sympathetically patted Pell on the shoulder, “Yeah, that’s the problem… Well,” she said, trying for a brighter tone of voice, “did anything else interesting happen while you were there visiting?”

“Um…” then Pell continued uncertainly, almost in a whisper, “Gia said she wanted to be mated to me.”

Donte gasped, almost dropping her basket of grapes. Then she set the basket down so hard it bounced. She turned to clasp her arms around her son. He held his basket off to the side to give her room, “Oh! Pell! Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you saw me?!” She pushed him back out to arm’s length and narrowed her eyes, “I assume you said yes?”

Pell nodded, unable to speak around a sudden frog in his throat. A flush rose in his face. He wasn’t sure why he felt so emotional.

Donte hugged him hard again, overcome with reaction to the recent changes in her son’s status. It seemed hard to believe that, less than a year ago, he’d been the clumsy, bullied son of a club-footed flint worker who’d died while Pell was young. A boy who’d been cast out of his tribe because his poor judgment and inaccurate spear throwing had resulted in an injury to their best hunter. A boy who
no one
had thought could possibly feed himself and who everyone had expected to die soon after being cast out.
Her
son, who against
all
odds, had not only survived, but
thrived
. Who’d learned a new way to hunt, and hunted so successfully that he actually had
too much
meat.

Extra meat that he’d found a way to preserve!

Her
son who’d eaten so well during the summer of his growth spurt that he was now taller than anyone she’d ever known. Tall, muscular… dare she say
handsome?
Even though she was his mother, Donte felt sure that Pell’s looks were striking. In everyone’s eyes, not just his mother’s. A feeling now confirmed by the fact that Gia wanted to mate with him. Gia was the most beautiful young woman Donte’d ever seen.

Though, Donte had to admit, with Pell’s recent accomplishments, he could look like a mangy, half-dead, three-legged boar and girls would still be looking favorably on him.

Donte leaned away again to look up at her son through tear rimmed eyes. “When will you have the mating ceremony?”

“Gia wants to have it next summer,” Pell said, worried that it might indicate some reluctance on Gia’s part.

“Oh Pell,” Donte said, a rasp in her voice. “I’m
so
glad!”

Donte picked up her basket and they continued on their way back to the Cold Springs cave.

When they arrived back at the cave, Pell saw Gia talking to Manute, Deltin, and Boro just outside of it. Pell felt surprised to see that Boro already looked healthier, though it’d only been a few days since Pell had last seen him. He wondered if it was only the fact that Boro had been eating better or whether it had as much to do with the death of Boro’s tormentor, Denit. Pell remembered feeling sick after Denit had bullied him.

Donte abruptly put down her basket and ran to hug Gia. Pell bent and stacked his basket on top of hers and then picked up both to continue on to the cave.

He didn’t feel at all comfortable dealing with all these emotions.

A little later, Pell sat with Donte and Gia splitting grapes and picking seeds out of them so they could be dried. Gia suddenly said, “What’s this under the grapes in your basket Pell?” She dug under them a little more, then pulled up the grouse Pell had hit earlier. He’d forgotten tossing it in the basket and then putting his grapes in on top. Gia said, “A grouse! I love grouse!” She turned to Pell, “Have you figured out a way to trap birds?” She held the grouse up and looked at it, then turned back to Pell, “It doesn’t have a narrow neck. How did you get the noose to catch behind its head? I’d think you’d have the same problem as with fish.”

Pell said, “Um, I threw a rock at that one.”

Gia said, “Oh! Aren’t birds really hard to hit with rocks? Manute says it’s not really worth trying…”

Gia kept talking, but Pell wasn’t really listening. He was still thinking about the idea of trapping birds and fish. Gia lifting the grouse out of a basket had tickled something in his mind.

Gia said, “Pell?”

“Huh?” Pell responded breaking off his thought about baskets and traps. He hadn’t been getting anywhere with it anyway.

Gia repeated, “I thought you did your hunting with traps. Do you use a spear or a rock very often?”

“No, not very often.”
More like never!
Pell thought to himself, not wanting to admit to her that the grouse she held in her hand was the first prey he’d
ever
killed with a throw.

Gia waved a hand out across the small clearing in front of the Cold Springs cave. “Why don’t you knock down a couple of those grouse, and we’ll have enough to have grouse for our evening meal.”

Pell looked where she had pointed, seeing a number of different birds including a few grouse pecking at the ground in one area. He’d seen birds there before and now, suddenly wondered why. Glancing at Gia, he said, “Why do birds seem to gather in that same spot so often?”

Gia laughed, “Because, that’s where your mother and I thresh and winnow the grain. I thought you were going to learn the women’s tasks too? Did you think that harvesting the sheaves was all there was to it?”

“Um,” Pell said, embarrassed, “I guess I didn’t think about it very much. I kind of wondered why the sheaves we cut in the field didn’t look like the grains you actually cook, but Donte pulled the head of a stalk open and pointed the grains out to me. I suppose you’re going to tell me that there’s a lot of work involved in getting the grains out of the head?”

“Yes,” Gia snorted, “we beat the heads of the stalks with a flail to knock the grains loose from the chaff. It’s hard work! Then we have to toss it up in the air on a windy day so the wind will blow the chaff away leaving only the grain.”

“Oh,” Pell said, “I guess I should help you do that the next time.”

“Of course you offer
now
. We thrashed the last of the sheaves while you were off picking grapes!”

“Oh,” Pell grinned somewhat sheepishly, “maybe next fall then?” He looked back out at the grouse, “Still, I don’t understand what that has to do with the birds gathering there?”

“We spread skins to catch the grain when it falls free from the sheaves by the flail, but they don’t catch
all
the seeds. Your friends the grouse are eating the ones we missed.”

“Ah,” Pell said in sudden understanding.
The fact that trapping mostly brings in small skins that aren’t as good for catching the grain probably has something to do with it too.

“Well?! Aren’t you going to do something about those grouse that are eating all of our grain?”

“Oh! Okay,” Pell said getting up. He picked up a couple of stones, thinking that he really didn’t want to throw them in front of Gia and have her see him miss. Then he realized that as soon as he threw the first one the birds would all be gone anyhow. Hopefully, she’d think he only missed once, rather than realizing how bad he actually was.
On the other hand,
he thought as he got closer,
maybe I’ll make a lucky throw like I did earlier?

As Pell approached, the birds began acting nervously, bobbing their heads up to look at him more and more frequently. He decided that he’d gotten as close as he could and focused intently on the big grouse that was closest to him. He cocked, stepped, and threw in one smooth motion. He missed, his aim a little high, but, trying to flee, the grouse lifted right into Pell’s stone. It flopped over, instantly dead. In a whirring of wings, the rest of the birds exploded outward, disappearing in all directions and sparing Pell the possible embarrassment of missing on a second throw.

Pell heard Gia and his mother excitedly applauding behind him. He walked to get the bird, not trusting his face to hide his own astonishment if he looked back their way.
How did I get so much better at this? Is it really just maturity and that little bit of practice this afternoon? Could a spirit actually be helping me? Or,
he thought trying to be more realistic,
have I just had a few lucky throws all in a row?

That night, as they ate their birds, Gia said, “I love grouse. It’s too bad we’re done with threshing. If I’d known Pell was such a good throw, we could have been having him kill us a grouse every afternoon after we threshed!”

Startled by that idea, Pell felt
relieved
that the threshing was done so Gia wouldn’t see him fail the next time he tried to hit a bird. Mentally, he recommitted himself to practicing his throwing before Gia asked him to try again.

Then Donte winked at Pell and said, “I’d be willing to throw out a little bit of our threshed and winnowed grain if Pell could feed us like this every night.”

A stab of worry shot through Pell as he thought not only of the embarrassment, but also of the wasted grain.

Later, as Pell lay down to sleep, something about the idea that they could lure birds to grain kept running through his mind. Birds didn’t follow narrow paths where you could hang a noose to snare them. Somehow, even if birds came to grain, he didn’t think there would be a way to get a snare successfully around a bird’s neck, but perhaps he should try. A failed snare would be less embarrassing than throwing stones that missed.

***

To Yadin’s surprise, the Aldans invited him to eat with them that night. He certainly didn’t expect a group that was starving to even offer, but then thought that perhaps they hoped he brought food with him. He said, “I’m sorry, I have nothing to offer other than a few roots and a little grain. I brought some meat with me when I left the Oppos, but it’s gone bad.”

“That’s okay,” Gontra said, “we have plenty.”

Although Yadin found this almost impossible to believe, he did stay to eat. He didn’t really have a place to go and would appreciate a warm place to sleep even if they didn’t have much food. He contributed some of his roots and grain to the meal as a friendly traveler should.

To his astonishment, the meal served by the Aldans was a heavy stew. It had the roots and grain he’d expected, but also had large portions of meat!
How could they be so thin when they have so much meat?
In a stew, it was hard to tell what kind of meat it was so he lifted a bit of it and asked Exen, “Is this boar?”

Exen shrugged, “I don’t know what kind that bit is. Rabbits, squirrels, and some goat all went into the stew.”

Yadin blinked. Small animals were notoriously difficult to hunt. They were so quick that they easily avoided a hunter’s spear. You could occasionally get lucky enough to hit one with a rock if you threw well, but having both a rabbit and a squirrel would be really… unusual. Even more surprising would be a goat. The nimble animals easily climbed paths where hunters couldn’t go. It was rare to see them down on level ground, but Yadin supposed that it must happen occasionally. To Exen, he said, “Tell me how you got a goat! That must be quite a story.”

Exen grinned at him, “Ah, to be able to hunt goats, you must learn how to hunt like
Pell
. You’ll have to ask
him
.”

Yadin said nothing for a few minutes while he considered. Then he said, “So, you’re saying that you have so much meat tonight because of what Pell taught you?”

Exen nodded, “If you’d come a few weeks ago, you would have found nothing but roots and grain in our stew.” He lifted an eyebrow, “And we’d have been loath to share even that with you.”

Across the fire, Gontra said, “Yadin, I hope you’ll be willing to tell us a tale. It’s traditional here for travelers to tell a story.”

It was traditional in the Oppos tribe also, so Yadin had feared this request. “I’m sorry, I’m a poor teller of tales.”

“Don’t worry,” one of the women said. Yadin thought she’d been introduced to him as Lenta. “Lessa is our storyteller and she’s good, but we’ve heard all her tales over and over. We’ll gladly take your poorly related account over hearing one of hers again.”