Bonesetter (40 page)

Huffing up a slope with the boar about his neck, Gontra turned to Pell and said, “Now, if you’d planned this better, you would have had this boar meet you to be killed right about here.
Then I wouldn’t be worn out from carrying it.”

Pell laughed, thinking wistfully how nice it would be if he actually could just summon animals to be killed wherever he wanted.

It was after dark, but just barely, when they arrived below the cave, at the creek’s side.
The moon had risen, a brilliant auroch’s horn shape in the sky.
It cast an eerie blue glow over the landscape where it struck, but ominous shadows lay elsewhere.
They could see the glow of the fire flickering inside the cave when Gontra stopped and turned, letting the boar slide down off his shoulders to thump into the dirt at Pell’s feet.
“I think you should wait here Pell. So that they don’t get hit with too much at once, I’ll go on up and let them know that Belk and I aren’t dead.”

They stood for a moment in silence and Pell heard the women wailing inside.
“Yeah, I think that Pont’s gotten them pretty worked up by now.
Go on ahead.
Call out when you want me to come on up.”
Pell sat down on the boar’s carcass, thinking again just how little he wanted to be among the people in that cave, especially to
be recognized as the
one who’d killed their hunters
.

Gontra walked up the path a ways then
stopped
.
“Pell, come with me,” he whispered, “I can’t face Fellax and Ontru alone.”

A cold dread seeped over Pell, but he climbed to his feet, hoisted the boar to his shoulders and started up the path behind Gontra.

Too soon came the sight of the pitiful group huddled about the fire, most of them wailing.
Pont, his back to Gontra and Pell, was gesturing animatedly, though Pell could not understand what he was saying. With a little surprise, Pell observed that they all had their furs about them, even though they were close to the fire.
Then he remembered how this cave had always been cold in winter, even with a fire.
The fire had to be built near the entrance or it choked the cave with smoke, not having an exit hole such as he had built into the wall of the Cold Springs cave.
The entrance was wide and couldn’t be closed off like the Cold Springs cave could with its large leather flap.
Thus the wind swirled freely through the cave, cooling everything not directly struck by the heat radiating from the fire.
Pell looked at the scene and the people in it, thinking fondly of some, like Lessa, the healer’s mate and Lenta, Belk’s woman, both of whom had been kind to him as a boy.
He dreaded meeting again with Pont, or with Fellax, Roley’s imperious first wife.
For a moment he considered just throwing down the boar and leaving, but instead he merely shuffled to a stop.
Gontra turned and
saw Pell falling back.
With a
hand gesture he motioned Pell to keep coming.
As Pell resumed moving, there was a shriek from fireside and Lenta rose, pointing to Gontra and saying, “Tonday, I, I… see Gontra’s spirit!!”

Tonday burst to her feet, looking wildly about, face streaked with tears as Gontra stepped fully into the light.
Gontra surveyed the scene, then said “No, this is not my spirit, I
am
truly here!”
He stepped forward, throwing his arms about Tonday, then reaching out with one hand to Exen.

Pont reacted almost angrily, “No, I
saw
you crushed by the rocks!” Somehow Pell was not surprised when, almost without taking a breath, Pont changed his tone completely and proclaimed in his most sonorous tones, “Never have my requests to the spirit world been answered so quickly.
Gontra!
Back from the dead! Gontra, how do you feel?!”

Gontra did not respond at first and for a moment Pell feared that Gontra would go along with the healer’s preposterous claims, as he had when Pont claimed the spirits reduced Gontra’s finger dislocation.
Then Gontra took a deep breath and turned on the healer, “You!
You didn’t ‘see’ me crushed.
You were
running
like a frightened doe!” He turned to the others.
“Our ‘Medicine Man’ Pont didn’t even check on the rest of us to see who was hurt, or who might need help.
No
,
he ran back here as fast as his little legs would carry him.”
Pell winced.
An insult regarding the healer’s small and bowed legs had not been uttered aloud since Pont’s childhood when they had been a
common
source of taunts.
No one would have dared Pont the Medicine Man’s wrath before now.
“
Pell
, whom we were about to attack, was the one who came to help us.
He came to heal us from our injuries, injuries inflicted by rocks that the ‘Trap Spirit’ cast down on us.
Rocks which the Trap Spirit cast upon us
when Pell asked it to protect him from us
.
While our own ‘healer’ ran, actually scurried like a lizard into a crack, Pell, who has become known as a great ‘Bonesetter’ in his region, came to us, to aid us—to aid those who had been about to raid
his tiny tribe
for food.”

Pell missed Gontra’s next words in his consternation over the continuance of the “Trap Spirit” explanation of what had happened.
Hadn’t
Gontra been listening when
he explained that the trap was
only
a device?
Then he remembered acceding to requests that he pray to the “Trap Spirit.”
He was brought back to the present by the women’s cries, “Us?
Did the others survive then?
How are the others?
Where are Roley and Denit?
Is Belk OK as well?”

Gontra looked about wildly a moment, making shushing motions with his hands.
As he looked back over his shoulder toward Pell, the group discerned Pell as a shadowy figure.
Gontra
finally
said, “Belk survived but he is badly hurt.
The Trap Spirit took the lives of Roley and Denit in payment for their attempt at attacking Pell.”

Lenta leaped to her feet, apparently thinking the figure in the shadows was Belk.
She ran towards Pell, shrieking Belk’s name as she ran.
Pell stepped forward into the light so that she would be able to see that he wasn’t Belk.
The group about the fire was startled at the apparition before them.
They recognized Pell’s face, but, because of his tremendous summer growth spurt, Pell was
much
larger than they remembered him.
In fact larger than anyone in their tribe except for the massive Roley.
The boar draped over his shoulders like a huge cowl markedly emphasized this startling first impression.
Having initially surged forward, they now drew back and shrank in among themselves, some gasping in fear.

Pell, having spent most of his life in subjugation to these same people,
was surprised by their frightened expressions
.
He could, however see that they were thin and hungry looking—appallingly so.
In response to his recognition of their hunger and, in hopes of influencing their opinions positively, he swung the boar down off of his shoulders and carried it to them.
“
We’
ve brought a boar,” he said.

The eyes of the group flashed up and down, from Pell to the boar and back again.
Gontra roared, “
Pell,
brought you that boar—after hunting it down,
by himself
, in just an hour or two.
He has become a
mighty
hunter, as well as a powerful bonesetter, and, the shaman of the Trap Spirit!”

Several of the group about the fire prostrated themselves before him.
Pell started back, then knelt, urging them back to their feet.
“Lenta, get up, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for Belk to get hurt.
I think he’s going to be OK,” he whispered, grasping her arm and urging her to her feet and back to the heat of the fire.
He couldn’t quite bring himself to say that he hadn’t meant for Denit or Roley to be hurt, but he
did
help Ontru, Roley’s lesser wife, back to her feet.
He saw that Fellax, Roley’s first wife, remained on the far side of the fire,
fixing
him with a fierce and angry gaze.
There would be no prostration from Fellax he suspected.
He looked about at the children, who looked fearful, and the women, who ranged in expression from awe, to fear, to hate.
Exen glowered at him from across the fire, where was the healer?

Suddenly Pont struck from behind!
The healer pounced from Pell’s left rear quarter, wrapping his left arm about Pell’s neck and surging around with his right to thrust his wicked flint knife at Pell’s
chest
!
The world moved slowly as Pell’s own right hand flashed out to block, then grasp the healer’s forearm.
Pell was distantly surprised when the knife’s approach stopped—then he forced it away.
Pell mused to himself that Pont must have weakened—he had always been so much stronger than Pell was.
Pell grasped Pont’s choking left forearm with his own left hand, pulling it away, not easily—but again, he was astounded that it was even possible.
The struggling healer’s legs beat a tattoo about Pell’s waist and Pell staggered about while the others looked on in horror.
Gontra had stepped toward the fighters as if to intervene, then, realizing that Exen looked as if he were about to help Pont, turned instead to confront his own son.

Suddenly Ginja burst out of the dark, knocking Pell and the healer to the ground beside the fire.
As they were bowled apart, Ginja leaped onto Pont, snarling, slavering and as the healer rolled away, instantly attacking the medicine man’s throat. Somewhat to his own wonderment Pell found himself exclaiming, “No!
Ginja!
No!”
His own hate for the healer and deep-set wish to see Pont dead,
subjugated by
his lifelong
understanding
of the tribe’s need for every man it had.
Nonetheless, Pell kept his grasp on
the wrist of
Pont’s knife
hand
, preferring that Ginja kill the healer rather than see that knife buried
Pell’s
his best friend
’s furry coat
.
After a moment Ginja, still snarling, slowly backed away and Pell looked up into the ashen faces surrounding the fire—faces which were cowering fearfully away.
The healer grasped his neck with one hand, trying to stanch the flow of blood from his wounds as Pell wrested the knife from his hand.
Having wrenched Pont’s knife free, Pell slowly stood, panting, wondering if Pont had another knife hidden about him somewhere.
Pont cowered a moment, fully expecting the knife to fall on him, then… the healer groveled at Pell’s feet, begging for his life.

Pell paused, having not initially considered sinking the knife into Pont when he had wrenched it from his grasp.
His thoughts turned first to the needs of his old tribe for another hunter and a medicine man, miserable though he was beginning to realize that Pont was at both of those roles.
Then he remembered the healer’s lifelong vindictiveness.
If Pell let him live this time, wouldn’t Pont simply sink a knife into Pell by complete surprise on some later day?
Wouldn’t it really be better to have
Pont
gone so that
Pell
could go on without worry—even if it
were
a hardship for the others—others who had cast
him
out to fend for
him
self?
For a moment the knife rose, nearly of its own accord, then Lessa was there, on her knees, clinging to Pell’s right arm, begging for her man’s life.
And Pell remembered Lessa’s many kindnesses when Pell had been a child.
His arm slowly, slowly dropped.

He looked into Lessa’s fearful eyes, “I must sleep here tonight, if I let him live, how will I be sure he won’t knife me in my sleep?”

In a craven display that turned Pell’s stomach, Pont began shrieking his purity of thought and future deed, but Lessa, staring clearly into Pell’s
eyes
, simply said, “Tie him up.”

Pell was startled.
He had never seen anyone tied, though he
had
heard of it.
“I wouldn’t know how.”

Gontra stepped over and said, “I can tie him.
I’ve seen it done.”

Pell looked at him, considering, “What if someone cuts him loose in the night?”

Gontra pondered a moment, then, “We’ll place him at the back of the cave.
You and I will sleep between him and the others, so that anyone going to him will have to step over us.
If we lay dry twigs about him, they’ll snap if someone does manage to step over us.”
He looked down at the sniveling Pont, considering for a moment.
Then he looked back up, “On the other hand, you’re probably right.
Better to kill him now.
We can’t do this every night.”
Gontra reached for his own knife.