Bonesetter (39 page)

No one had said a word when Gontra suddenly shook himself and stood up.
“I have to get back to the tribe.
Pont is probably
nearly
there,
and he’ll cause
all kinds of trouble.”
He looked over at the sleeping Belk, “I’ll come back to get Belk in a day or two.”

Tando grabbed his hand, “You can’t go now, it’s dark.
Sit back down—we’ll make plans tonight.
You can go in the morning.”
Tando and some of the others laughed nervously.
Pell wondered if they thought Gontra might actually go.

Gontra pulled his hand away, “No.
I need to go
now.
Pont
will be there soon
.
He
’ll tell
Tonday and Lenta that Belk and I are dead along with Roley and Denit.
Belk’s kids too, they’re old enough to understand.
Thank the spirit that little Tila is too young.
For that matter, he’s probably been bending my boy Exen’s mind the entire trip back.
As if it wasn’t bent enough from hanging around with Denit all the time.
Just telling the truth to Roley’s wives will be bad enough.
Having Pont tell them will really foul it up…
I should go now.”
He was practically muttering by the end, his eyes darting about.

Pell was dumbfounded; he really was going to go!
“Gontra!
You can’t go!
It’s dark and there’s no moon tonight!
Stay
tonight
.
I’ll go with you tomorrow.”

Gontra stared at Pell a moment, then his eyes dropped.
He sat back down and muttered, “OK.”

When he had told Gontra to stay, Pell had fully expected him to reject the idea, just as Gontra had when Tando told him to stay.
In fact, as he thought on it, he realized he only told him to stay because he felt
like
he should, not because he expected to be obeyed.

With dismay,
Pell
realized that he didn’t want to go with Gontra to the old cave.
Especially, as their killer, to tell everyone of the deaths of Roley and Denit.
Particularly Roley’s wives, Fellax and Ontru.
He didn’t want to face the healer either.
Nor Exen.
Why had Gontra obeyed Pell’s demands after rejecting Tando’s pleas?
How had Pell gotten himself into this?

He was still pondering these questions when he fell asleep much later that night.
Was there a way to honorably get out of the promised trip?
Maybe Gontra had acceded to his request to stay without really expecting Pell to go with him in the morning?

Pell startled awake in the dark to a hand on his shoulder.
“Pell.
It’ll be light soon.
Let’s go.
I want to get there before Pont has everyone too upset.”

Spirit!
Thought Pell,
He really does want me to go!
“OK Gontra,” he groaned, “give me a little time.”

Pell built the fire up a little, balancing the waking of the others against their joy at having a warm cave when morning came.
He began digging around for his traveling supplies.
Gontra followed him about the cave, unable to help with
Pell’s
preparations and pestering him with whispered questions about why they couldn’t just
go
.
Pell was alternately annoyed, then puzzled by what seemed to him to be childishness.
Surely, Gontra recognized the value of planning and preparation?
As he thought on it, he
recognized
that his old memories of Gontra
were full of impetuosness
.
In fact the same could be said for most of the men of the tribe.
Even their hunts had
little
preparation, just a simple “let’s go out and kill something” decision that initiated the hunt. When they found game, there would be a brief planning session around the best way to surround and kill it.
Pell
hadn’t found that too surprising when he lived with them, but since he had begun living on his own, he realized that he had taken to planning
everything
.
He
had
had to, to have even a chance of surviving.
Now, to his inner amusement, he recognized that he found the behavior of the Aldans’ adult members immature.
Even more, he was beginning to realize that he had always thought of the adults in
the Aldans
as being intelligent—they had certainly known more than Pell the child did.
But now he was being confronted with the fact that he just didn’t think Gontra was
very
bright.
Had the stress of the previous day’s events reduced Pell to a less accepting state?
Or was Pell just now assessing Gontra’s intelligence from the vantage point that a period of separation had given him?
It made him think of the others, even those in his new tribe.
Many of them had difficulty grasping Pell’s ideas, even after he explained them repeatedly.
Then when they saw those ideas in action they
often
thought them the result of magic, or spirits.
Maybe they never did or ever would understand how Pell’s devices worked?

Gray light was filtering in from outside the door flap of the cave when Pell was finally ready.
As he and Gontra stepped outside Gontra asked, “Why do you have these skins hanging over the mouth of the cave Pell?
They keep you from being able to see outside.
What if a big night cat were to creep up on you, you wouldn’t even know it was there!”

“It keeps the wind out, Gontra.
With the flap there, it stays warmer in the cave.
Besides there is too much smell of smoke and fire for the big cats.
I don’t think they would try to come in.”

Pell looked Gontra over critically.
It didn’t look like he had gotten much sleep during the night.
There were gaps in his furs that must leave him cold.
Especially Gontra’s legs, they were nearly uncovered!
Pell went back into the cave and found an extra set of the winter leggings they had learned about from Manute.
Pell brought them out and tried to put them on Gontra.
At first Gontra didn’t understand their function, then he said he didn’t need them.
But, when
Pell
finally
got them on him
and
he
felt the warmth they provided, he pronounced them wonderful and
thanked Pell
effusive
ly
.

They set out and Pell handed Gontra some spirit meat.
Gontra took it, saying, “What’s this?” He held it up to his nose to smell it.
“Hey, is this meat?
Oh it must be some of that ‘meat that doesn’t rot’ that they said you had at the trading place.
Everyone was pretty amazed
by
that stuff.
Huh, I was sure you wouldn’t really have any left, but I guess Denit was at least right about your still having some.”
Gontra consumed it hungrily, then was astonished when Pell gave him some more.
“Thanks, Pell.
You really should keep some for yourself you know.”

“I’ve got plenty.”

“Well, if you don’t mind I’ll just save this for Tonday and Tila.
Especially little Tila, I need her to be as strong as possible going into winter.
Even strong, this is going to be a hard winter for her.
Better, now that Denit is gone though.
He’d already been restricting meat for the little ones.
Said they didn’t need it as badly as ‘hunters’ did.
The women either.
I think they need it just as bad as we do.
What do you think?”

Pell found himself bemused by the
usually
taciturn Gontra’s rambling orations
. First last night, now again this morning
.
“Yes, I think they need meat just as bad as the hunters.
But you don’t need to save that for them.
I have more in my pack.”

“Really?!
That’s great!” Gontra said, getting it back out of his pouch and hungrily gnawing the remainder of the
tough
piece of spirit meat.
“Tando must be a really great hunter—like they were saying last night.
He was always good, but I thought he was done for when he broke his wrist.
The spirits you used to fix his wrist must still be there, helping with every throw of his spear.
It almost makes me wish I’d broken my wrist instead of just my finger.”
A bemused expression crossed his face.
Pell could see it as they had finished wending their way down the narrow path out of Cold Springs Ravine and were now walking side by side out into the big valley.
“I wonder if I throw better since you fixed my finger?
Not that I’ve had much of a chance to throw a spear in those abortions that Denit called ‘hunts’.”
He brightened, “Now that he’s gone I’ll bet I do better at hunting too, just like Tando.”

Pell found himself irritated at the way that Gontra assumed that any successful hunting had been done by Tando, even if Gontra was ascribing Tando’s success to Pell.
Abruptly, he realized that he and Tando’s most recent trapline had run down the small valley just to their left.
“Gontra, I’m going to take a little detour here.
I’ll meet you at that lone tree up there when the sun has moved a hand.
You can go down to the water there and see if you can spear a fish while you’re waiting.”

“No!
Pell, I want to keep moving.
If we keep up this pace we can make the whole trip
by midafternoon
.”

“So it’ll be dark when we get there, you know the paths close to the cave like you know the back of your hand.
This is
important
.”

Gontra acquiesced, though in a surly fashion
.
Pell thought
he had responded
like a child would to an adult who told him to behave.
Pell hiked up the little valley looking for the limestone marks that he and Tando had been using to mark their traplines.
The marking system had become necessary so that they wouldn’t lose trap
sites, especially when one of them laid the traps out and the other picked them up.
Soon he was on the line and excitedly remembered that this part of the run he had laid out
with
some traps for larger animals.
The first trap was empty.
The second had had something in it but it had been discovered by scavengers and there was little left but blood and disturbed earth.
The third and fourth were also empty and the noose for the sixth had been knocked loose and hung limply off to one side of the path.
Pell’s heart began to sink.
He needed to rejoin Gontra.
He decided to check one more before heading on to the meeting site.

Gontra was sitting at the edge of the river, peering sullenly into the water when Pell threw the young boar down by his side.
Pell had found it recently snared and in good health.
The noose was snug about its neck and it had obviously struggled for a bit from the looks of the torn up dirt and foliage in the area.
Trapped, panting and spraddle
legged;
it seemed almost to be waiting for Pell’s spear.
It had succumbed to his first thrust and its bristly coat didn’t show the noose marks that might give away Pell’s departure from standard hunting techniques.

Pell had carefully and noiselessly padded up and Gontra had start
l
ed admirably when the boar thumped down at his side.
“It’s a good thing I’m not a lion Gontra, I’d be having
you
for dinner.
” He chuckled
,
“I
nstead, I brought you
some
dinner!
Is having this boar to take to the Aldans worth a little delay?”

Gontra goggled at the boar in quite a satisfactory manner.
“Spirits, Pell.
This will be wonderful!
We haven’t had this much meat for weeks!
How did you kill this boar without other hunters to help you trap it?”

“I just commanded it to hold still while I ran my spear through it,” Pell said, reflecting that that
lie
was actually
somewhat
close to the truth.

They set about cleaning it and after putting the cleaned stomach, intestines, heart and liver in Pell’s carry pack, set out again with the boar itself draped around Gontra’s neck.
Despite Gontra’s greater size, he tired often while carrying the boar.
They took to trading it back and forth, with the other carrying the pack.
Pell was surprised to realize that he was carrying the boar farther and easier on his turns than Gontra was, but then, Gontra hadn’t been eating as well as Pell had.
At one point, as they stood face to face to shift the boar from Pell’s shoulders to the Gontra’s, Pell realized that Gontra really wasn’t taller than Pell any more either.
After years of looking up at Gontra and considering him to be a large man, this was a startling insight
. Pell was bigger than he was now
.
Despite Gontra’s weariness, they made good time along the flats bordering the great river.
By late afternoon they were in country familiar to Pell as they neared the Aldans cave.