Bonesetter 2 -Winter- (14 page)

Donte grinned up at him and patted the ground next to her, “Well, don’t loom over me, sit down. Tell me about
your
life.”

Feeling oddly happy to be invited to sit down, Yadin said, “What are you thinking you could store in such a loosely woven basket?”
Its shape seems so odd, longer and more slender than any basket I’ve seen.

Donte turned her eyes down to the structure her hands had continued to fabricate even while she’d looked up and spoken to Yadin. “It’s another of my son’s projects.” She grinned over at Yadin as he sat down next to her, “He has
lots
of crazy ideas.”

“Um, your son’s Pell?” Yadin asked.

Donte nodded, continuing to work on the loose basket. The reeds were so loosely placed, that she’d actually stopped adding new reeds and was using thin strips to bind the reeds she’d already woven so that they wouldn’t slip around. She glanced up in the direction of the outcrop of slate and smiled fondly, “Here he comes now.”

Yadin looked that direction and saw Pell striding toward them. Something about his gait reminded Yadin of a big panther.
Maybe the evil that’s taken him over is the spirit of a big cat? Perhaps
that’s
why he could drive a lion away from his kill?
Tearing his eyes away from the young man he turned back to Donte, “Has he always been so tall?”

Giving a little laugh, Donte said, “He’s always been tall for his age. But until recently, he was so scrawny that no one even noticed he was a little bit taller than other boys his age. He was one of those kids, so skin-and-bones, that you’d think a stiff breeze would blow him over.” She shook her head in wonder, “It’s just hard to
believe
how much he’s grown over this past summer.”

“But he was always really athletic, huh?”

Donte snorted, “No! Clumsy beyond belief!” She measured Yadin with her eyes, “I’d just as well tell you, you’re sure to learn someday. He was
cast out
of the Aldans for being so clumsy.” She shrugged, getting a sad and distant look in her eyes as if she were seeing something heartbreaking in her mind’s eye, “No one thought he’d be able to hunt. When he was cast out,
everyone
expected him to be dead in a few days.” Her voice broke, “Even… his own mother, she thought he’d surely die.”

“He got this big,
and
learned to set bones, all in one summer?”

Donte nodded and wiped at the corner of an eye, “Hi Pell,” she said, as her son walked up to them.

Pell squatted and studied the basket Donte’d been making, “That looks really good mother!” He looked up and noticed her red eyes, “Are you okay?”

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes again, “I’m fine. Tears of joy that you didn’t die when the Aldans cast you out.” She sniffed again and picked up some stiffer, harder reeds with points cut on their ends. She stuck them into the open end of the basket so they pointed backward into the mouth of it, “And these go like this, right?”

With an enthusiastic nod, Pell said, “That looks good. I hope it works!” He stood, “I’m going to go learn how to cook fish.” He turned and walked toward the door of the cave.

Yadin stared at what Donte had woven. She was sticking more of the stiff sharp reeds into its mouth. A more useless looking basket he’d never seen. “What in the world are you going to use
that
basket for?”

Donte gave him a sly grin, “You’ll have to have Agan’s permission before I can tell you something like that.” She shrugged, “Besides, it might not work the way we think it will…” She gave the basket a measuring look, “In which case,” she snorted, “we’ll just be using it to keep the fire burning.” She started wrapping fiber around one of the sharp reeds, but looked at him while her fingers kept working. “So, tell me about yourself. Were you born into the Oppos?”

“No, I fell in love with a pretty girl named Uva at a summer tribal gathering. She didn’t want to leave her family in the Oppos, so, after we mated we joined her tribe.” He shrugged, “I would have done
anything
to make her happy. We visited my old tribe a few times after that, but…”

To his surprise, Yadin found himself telling Donte his life story. In fact, telling her more of it than he’d told anyone since Uva. Every time he ran down, she’d ask a question that would keep him going. A couple of times he thought he should try to learn about her life, but then she’d have another question and he’d once again find himself answering in more detail than he’d expected.

Woday felt proud of himself. The people of Cold Springs had given him numerous compliments on the fish. He kept reminding himself that they’d never had fish before, so they really had no idea whether he’d done a good job cooking or not. They just liked the taste of the big trout. However, he did think he’d done a surprisingly good job of cooking it, especially having never done more than watch the women cook it back home.

He’d known how to clean the fish and filet it, those were common men’s tasks among the Falls-people. As he’d done so, he’d carefully inspected the fish for evidence that they’d been speared in case he’d missed it before.

He hadn’t found any spear wounds.

Shaking his head wonderingly, he’d next wondered how to judge when the rock was hot enough. There he suspected he’d just gotten lucky. When he’d laid the fillets on the rock they had sizzled much the same as when the women did it back home.

To his astonishment, the beautiful Gia had asked him if salt was good on fish. He’d only ever had fish with salt on it once in his life, but it had been wonderful. He knew it improved the flavor of most foods. When he’d nodded, she’d gone off into a corner and come back with a small leather bag
full
of salt! He’d spread a pinch of the precious stuff over the fish and thought the salt was a huge part of the reason everyone thought he was such a good cook.

Back home, any man would have felt insulted to be called a cook, but the men in this tribe seem to take it in stride. Certainly, Pell had evinced intense interest in how he cooked the fish, asking question after question. Woday hadn’t really known the answers to many of the questions, but Pell had persisted, asking for Woday’s best guesses and seeming satisfied with that. The two fish hadn’t been enough for ten people, but the Springs people had prepared their rabbits into a thick stew which was better than he’d ever had before. He suspected that they’d actually put salt in the stew as well and wondered where they went to trade for the precious material. The only salt he’d ever had come up with traders from the sea.

The Cold Springs people hadn’t stinted on the food either. At first, he’d thought it only natural to eat all the rabbit and fish; that’s what everyone did since meat went bad if you didn’t consume it. Then, he’d remembered Yadin’s claim that these people could preserve meat somehow. The mere fact that they ate all the fish and the rabbits they’d gotten suggested to him that the preservation claim must be false. Otherwise, surely they would have saved some aside to preserve for use later in the winter. They also ate more grain, roots, and apples than he’d have expected. He did see that their cave had stores of these foods in it, and more than he’d have expected considering that the six members of Aganstribe had only arrived very recently. However, they certainly didn’t look like they had enough to last the winter for nine people so he’d have been expecting them to husband those resources.

Thinking about the cave, Woday nudged Yadin, who sat next to him. He minutely indicated the wall they’d built for the cave and whispered, “You noticed that they enclosed a shallow cave to make it into a nice deep one?”

Yadin nodded.

Continuing to speak at a barely audible level, Woday said, “Have you ever seen a wall made out of sticks and mud like that before?”

Looking mildly amused, Yadin nodded again.

Feeling surprised, Woday said, “I’ve never even heard of anything like this, and I know a lot of tribes in our area who would like to be able to close in caves like this. Is it common here in the East?”

Yadin shook his head and also spoke quietly, “The only place I’ve seen it before was in the Aldans cave.”

“Oh,” Woday said considering this information, “so Pell and Donte learned it from them?”

“No,” Yadin said with an amused little snort, “Pell taught
them
how to do it, only a few days ago.”

Woday drew his head back in surprise, then said, “
Who
taught him?!”

With a small laugh, Yadin said, “As the Aldans told me Pell had explained it, cold breezes and blowing rain were a problem in this cave. First he piled some brush in front of the cave to block some of the wind. That didn’t work very well, so he started leaning a row of poles against the cave opening which he held in place with mud at the top and bottom. Then mud and grass and sticks filled in the gaps—the next thing you know, he had a solid wall.”

Woday shook his head, “
Someone
must’ve taught him, don’t you think?”

Yadin chewed his lip thoughtfully, “Maybe some kind of spirit?”

Woday looked across the fire at the Bonesetter. Pell had his arm around Gia, whispering something in her ear. Something amusing to judge from the giggle it induced. “Maybe?” He turned to Yadin, “But if a spirit taught him these things, it doesn’t seem like an
evil
spirit to me. I think these people seem… nice.” After a moment, he continued darkly, “I think they seem…
to have fewer wicked, unpleasant people in this tribe than in the tribes I’ve known in the west…”

Across the fire, Agan cleared her throat. “Now that we’ve eaten, we should hear some stories. Woday, will you tell us a story from the Falls-people? Or if you like,” she winked, “you can make up a tale like our Gia does.”

“Oh,” Woday said, startled at the concept of making up a story. “I don’t think I could
make up
a story, but I’m good at remembering them. One of my favorites is the story of the wolf and the lion.” Woday had drawn a breath to start the story when the flap covering the mouth of the cave pushed aside and an immense wolf stepped through the opening!

…Woday blinked his eyes open. Pell’s beautiful girlfriend, Gia, knelt over him dripping cold water on his forehead. She used her hand to smooth the cold water over his brow and down onto his cheeks. Seeing he was awake, she said, “It’s okay Woday, the wolf is Pell’s friend, Ginja. She lived with him after he was cast out of the Aldans, back when he was all alone. Now she comes and goes as she pleases, but she’s here more than she’s gone. If you’re going to spend much time with us, you’ll have to get used to her.”

Embarrassed at having passed out, Woday rolled his eyes to the side to look across the fire and see if the wolf was still there. It was. In fact, it sat, tongue lolling and looking strangely happy as it leaned against Pell and curiously studied Woday. The Bonesetter’s fingers idly scratched behind the wolf’s ears. Woday would have sworn that the animal looked practically ecstatic about it. “Doesn’t it…”

Gia giggled, “Eat people?”

Woday nodded.

“She’s bitten people who were attacking Pell,” she raised an eyebrow, “so if I were you…” she continued in the ominous tone people used for frightening stories, “I’d be nice to the Bonesetter.” She sat back and grinned, “Actually, I’m just teasing. Do you feel up to telling your story?”

***

Tando felt bemused as they walked up Cold Springs ravine and approached the little meadow in front of what Tando still thought of as “Pell’s cave.” The fact that Ontru had chosen to come with him made him very happy. He’d always considered Roley’s younger wife to be the most attractive of the women in the Aldans’ tribe. The fact that she was Roley’s younger wife had made her completely unobtainable, but hadn’t moved her beyond his longing. Even when he’d been wed to Tellgif, he’d sometimes fantasized about having her for his second wife.

With Roley gone, he’d found himself unable to keep his eyes off her. When he’d realized she was looking back, his heart had done a little flip-flop. She’d actually followed him when he’d gone out to check his snares and when the first snare held a fat hare, she’d come up to admire it. Her touch on his arm as she expressed her high regard for his trapping skills felt… hot. Before he’d finished running his trap line, they’d been talking like old friends. Then they’d started kissing…

Tando had felt a few moments of guilt, since Tellgif had only died a few months ago. The guilt hadn’t lasted though. It’d been overwhelmed by the onslaught of his feelings for Ontru. A cynical voice in the back of his mind had told him that Ontru was thinking of the Aldans’ numbers. With three hunters, but five women—actually six if you counted Gurix who was blossoming into a woman as they watched—the Aldans were quite imbalanced. She probably hadn’t liked being the second wife before Roley died, even though she’d been mated to a particularly powerful man. Now, a suspicious voice in Tando’s mind argued that, rather than being an extra woman in a tribe with too many, Ontru was angling to be a first wife. As he’d previously been the most respected hunter in the Aldans, Tando had thought he might be sought after.
Though,
he thought,
no man can truly understand what women want!