Bonesetter (29 page)

He remembered his own panic when he had thought his own finger was turning dark in this fashion.
“Panute will soon die,”
he thought to himself but tried grimly to keep the knowledge from showing on his face.
As he looked around, he saw despair upon Panute’s countenance, and doubt in the faces of Deltin and Agan.
Unbelievably, he found the expectancy of a miracle in the expressions of the others.
Infuriatingly, it reminded him of Tando’s constant and blasé assumption that Pell could right any kind of physical problem.
“Well,” he said aloud, “let’s get you on to our camp and see what can be done.
You can tell me what happened on the way.
I can carry Panute if you will carry this rabbit and squirrel.

They helped get Panute up on Pell’s back and soon all were back on the trail.
Ginja, distressed by the large group of strangers, plunged off into the forest and was not seen further.
As they walked, they told Pell a tale of disaster.
Their tribe had long lived in a cave cut deep into a cliffside by a creek.
As they described it, it sounded to Pell like a wonderful location. The water was cutting back underneath it so that the lip of the floor hung right above the stream.
This meant that there was water ten to twenty feet below the cave that they could haul up in skins with a rope, not even having to fetch
it
.
A ledge from the cave went down stream a ways and then curved out onto a flat, rich little meadow.
Every few years though, after a heavy storm, the stream rose to flood the cave. Although inconvenient, when that happened they simply moved out for a day or so and came back when the flooding went back down.
There was a smaller, though much less convenient, cave higher on the same hillside that they would move into during those periods in order to stay dry.

Eight nights ago, the water had risen suddenly and disastrously during the night.
The rains had been heavy and the water
had been
rising so that they had expected that they
might
have to move out.
Unfortunately, it was the middle of the night when water first rushed into the cave, so it caught them somewhat by surprise.
Nonetheless, they had thought that, as in previous floodings, they would have time to save their possessions.
When the water started coming in, Manute immediately carried Agan up to the small cave and Falin had limped up as well to sit with her.
The other members of their tribe had been gathering their possessions but unbelievably; the first trickle was followed a few minutes later by a huge surge of water that filled the
entire
cave in just a few minutes.

Gia had been away at a neighboring tribe, ministering to a sick child.
After depositing Agan in the little cave, Manute had gone back to get their important possessions but had been astonished to find himself unable to get back to the cave against the flooding waters.
Nonetheless, he assumed that the others had of course, gotten to safety.
He
had thought that he
must have missed them in the dark downpour.

Manute returned to the cave and found that no one had arrived.
They waited in growing dread as the night passed, reassuring each other that the missing members of their tribe simply couldn’t find their way back in the dark. The next morning dawned and they went out to search with growing anxiety.
By evening they recognized the appalling truth.

Deltin and Panute had been the only other survivors from a cave of twenty-three people and they, only because the two of them had started shortly behind Manute, Agan and Falin, carrying a large basket of grain.
They were swept off the path by the waters just after leaving the cave but had already spilled most of the grain, struggling in knee high water.
The nearly empty basket had floated like a boat and they had clung to it in the rushing waters.
The rushing torrent flung them to a landing on a rocky shore at a bight in the stream. A log came aground on top of Panute, breaking her leg and crushing her finger.
Amazingly enough, Deltin had been almost unhurt and was already carrying her back towards the cave when Manute, searching downstream for survivors, had fou
nd them.
None of the other members of their tribe
were able to swim and though they had hoped that
a few people
may have floated somehow and come to shore far downstream
so far
it appeared that no
one else
had
survived.
Gia and Agan, striving to stop the swelling and fever in Panute’s hand, had tried all their poultices and teas but to no avail.
Despairing, and with nowhere else to turn, the group of six had set out for Cold Springs in hopes that Pell could work another miracle.

Pell’s mind was racing.
What could they possibly think that he could do for Panute’s finger!? A broken leg, yes, he could accept that perhaps he was the person to treat that—but a finger with wound fever?
No, he wasn’t the one to treat wound fever.
That was for a medicine woman like Agan or Gia, or even, though he hated to admit it, for Pont.
Not for Pell.
Pell didn’t even have any idea which medicines to use for wound fever. Where would they all sleep if it rained, as the dark clouds overhead were threatening?
Should he try to convince Tando that it was OK for their guests to sleep inside, now that most of their stores were hidden?
How were Gia and her tiny tribe going to survive the winter with only two hunters and all their summer stores washed away?

He thought back to the horrible way that Kana had died a
gain
and again.
He remembered the fear that he had had when he thought his own finger might do the same thing.
Through it all, he smelled the fetid odor of Panute’s finger as her arms dangled limply about his neck.

Then they walked into the clearing below their home cave and he saw Tando standing in the entrance.
When he called out to Tando, Tando raised his hand and waved.
Pell found himself staring at the missing small finger on Tando’s hand and goosebumps raised on his flesh.
Tando had crushed his finger under the same rock as Kana!
But his finger had been cut completely away and he had never even
developed
the wound fever!
Pell remembered that when he had seen his own finger turning dark, he had thought
of cutting
it off like Tando’s in hopes of keeping the wound fever away.
Might the same treatment work even after the wound fever started?

Shortly they were all gathered in the clearing while the tale of flooding and woe was repeated to Tando and Donte.
When telling Pell their tale earlier, the little group of six had held up bravely. Now, perhaps through their sheer exhaustion, tears ran freely.
Especially as they spoke of Gia’s father and aunt and several cousins who had died in the disaster.

Pell recognized the dismay in Donte’s face as she looked at Panute’s hand.
To Pell’s surprise as Tando looked at the suppurating hand, his face was filled with excitement and anticipation.
Tando looked brightly at Pell and said, “Well, Pell, what do we do first?
Shall I gather wood for splints?
Shall we move her down by the stream?”

Once again, Pell was taken aback that Tando could be so matter of fact in expecting Pell to treat Panute’s hand.
Apparently expecting him to treat it with a
successful
resolution, Pell almost uttered a rude rejoinder.
He stopped himself, realizing that the dying woman would hear.
“I’m not sure, Tando.”
He turned to the others, “I only have a trick for setting bones. I’m not at all sure what might be done for Panute.”
Pell felt their almost palpable dismay like a visceral blow and so, against his better judgment, he weakly offered, “I have a bizarre idea, but I don’t know if it will work.
I’ve never tried it before.
I’ve never even tried to
care for
anyone
with
a
wound fever before.”

“Well, for spirit’s sake, Pell, try it!” Tando exploded.
“No one else has
any
idea how to treat wound fever!
You can hardly make it worse.”

“Tando! You don’t even know what the idea is!
It may indeed make the wound fever worse.
Besides Gia and Agan know treatments for it—they’ve been using them.”

“They’ve been using them and they haven’t been working!
Haven’t you been listening?
It
can’t
be worse Pell—she’s going to
die
without something being done and you know it!
Use your gift!”

Despite living around Tando for years, Pell was once again shocked by his bluntness.
How could he speak of Panute’s impending death in front of her?
Pell’s gaze darted to Panute and saw her eyes wide with shock.
“Panute,
” he hesitated, “
Tando doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
You’re not going to die…”

Panute shook her head and interrupted.
“Yes I am.
I knew it myself.
I was just surprised to hear him say it.
I would like you to try your idea,
whatever
it is.
Otherwise I’m finished.”

“Yes Pell, lets do it, what
is
this idea?” Gia looked at him as if expecting him to spout the ancestor’s own truth.

“Well, in our old cave… Once…
Uh, once Tando and Kana’s fingers were both crushed under a large rock.
Tando’s finger was cut completely off but it healed cleanly with a little stump as you see.”
Tando held up his hand and waggled the finger at everyone, as if he was proud of it.
Pell would have giggled if the situation weren’t so serious.
“Kana’s finger was crushed but remained on her hand.
At first, we thought Kana’s to be the less serious injury because her finger was still on her hand but it soon swelled with the wound fever.
Redness and swelling raced up her arm.
She died a week later.”
Pell refrained from describing the horrible nature of that death and looked around at his audience.

Tando wore a puzzled look.
“So what should we have done to save Kana?”

Pell was taken aback.
He had thought that his story would make his suggestion obvious to everyone without his stating it baldly.
“Well...
I don’t know…
I’m just observing that cut off fingers do better than crushed but still attached fingers….”

The others looked puzzled and Tando was exasperated.
“OK, but
what
should we do for Panute, her fingers are crushed, they
aren’t
cut off!”

Pell looked down.
“I thought...
I thought perhaps...
I thought that we should cut her fingers the rest of the way off,” he finished weakly in a rush.

They all stared at him.

Finally Tando said, “Do what!?”

“Cut them off.
When I thought my own finger was going bad, I tried to cut it off myself,” he said exasperatedly.
“I couldn’t bring myself to
cut
my own finger though, so I tried to break it off—that’s when it went back into place
—
and I learned the trick of bonesetting
…
”

A moment of startled silence passed again.
Then Agan rolled her eyes back and baldly stated that she had never heard of
anything
quite so absurd.
A rush of argument followed.
Gia argued that Pell had a gift and, if the spirits had advised him to do this, it must be the right thing to do.
Manute, having seen Pell’s miracle with Falin’s leg, also seemed to feel that if Pell thought it would work that of course it should be done.

Pell, now crushed with doubt,
began to think it was a terrible idea
.
While the others were arguing, Donte raised Pell’s anxiety by whispering in his ear that a gift for reducing fingers might not be the same as a gift for cutting them off.
Tando, though initially appalled, as always seemed to feel that the spirits would bless
anything
that
Pell
had suggested in the way of healing.
In fact, Tando took an offended tone with anyone who disagreed with Pell’s proposed treatment.

The argument had been surging back and forth for some time and it seemed that, despite their great respect for Agan, the tide was in favor of the amputations.
At that point, Deltin, who’d been quiet ‘til then, burst out, “But, but, how will Panute take care of herself with two fingers missing?” A pause followed to be broken when Panute said tiredly, “How will I take care of myself
if I’m
dead, Deltin?” speaking for the first time in the entire rumbling argument.