Bonesetter 2 -Winter- (23 page)

Deltin snorted and called after him, “Oh no you don’t. You’re just wanting all the credit for the axe when it’s done!” His smile showed he wasn’t serious.

Pell gave him a dismissive wave as he continued walking away, “Okay, you do it. You can have
all
the credit if you want.”

Yadin stared after Pell and Woday.
What in the world are they doing with a wet basket?

Sounding like he was still amused by the exchange he’d just had with the other men, Pell turned to Woday and said, “So what went wrong? Weren’t you able to catch the crayfish when they fell off the outside of the trap?”

Woday shook his head, “No! There were only
two
on the outside of the trap and only
five
inside!”

“Oh.” Pell shrugged, “Sometimes the hunting’s good and sometimes it’s not.”

“But last time there were more than twenty!”

“Did your catching-basket catch the two on the outside?”

“Yes, but…”

Pell plucked the trap out of Woday’s hand and held it up to look in through the more loosely woven and with the door. “They look fine,” he said musingly.

“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them! There just aren’t very many!”

“I thought you said that a hunter would be happy with five to ten crayfish back at the falls?”

Woday gave an exasperated sigh, “Not if he’d had nearly thirty the day before with virtually no effort!”

Pell frowned, “Did you have to work really hard to get these?”

“No, but…” Woday stopped as he realized how much his world had changed to leave him so dissatisfied with a catch of seven crayfish.

Pell had started looking over the basket. Contemplatively, he said, “I don’t think there are any holes for them to escape through.” He pushed his hand in through the reeds at the end, carefully avoiding the waiving pincers of the crayfish inside. “It still seems like they should have been able to climb in without much difficulty.” He turned to look curiously at Woday, “Did you put it in the same kind of quiet water?”

Throwing his hands up in frustration, Woday said, “Yes! I put it in exactly the same spot we had it in yesterday!”

“Oh,” Pell said, looking amused. “You don’t think that you caught most of the crayfish that lived in that spot yesterday?”

“Huh?” Woday said, not grasping what Pell was saying.

Pell shrugged, “Supposing you were a great cat and you liked to eat people.” He raised an eyebrow at Woday to see if Woday was following.

Woday gave him a puzzled nod.

“And supposing you came here to Cold Springs and ate 10 people one day.” Apparently not registering Woday’s look of horror, Pell continued, “If you came back the next day would you expect to be able to eat ten more?”

Woday frowned, then raised his eyes to the sky as he thought, “No…” he said slowly. “There are only fourteen people here total, so if the cat ate ten,” he worked his fingers, “there’d only be four left.” He turned a puzzled look on Pell, then realized what Pell was saying. “Oh, so you’re saying we have to put our fish trap in a different place every day?! What happens when we run out of spots?”

“Then we go back to the first place,” Pell said unconcernedly. “That’s what we do with our animal traps. I think, after a while, other animals move in to take over the empty place. It’s the same with hunting… you can’t keep hunting the same place over and over again and expect to keep finding animals there.”

“Oh,” Woday said, feeling stupid. It seemed so obvious now. “So, shall I put the trap out in a different location?”

“Sure,” Pell said, “but you’ll need new bait. The crayfish seem to have eaten all the bait you had in here.”

“There’s still the entrails of the grouse from last night,” Woday said. Then, suddenly, his mind backtracked. “Animal traps?!” When Pell gave him a blank look, he said, “Before… you said you move your
animal
traps! Do you have traps like this you use to catch animals?!”

Pell shrugged, “Not like these. We use
snares
to catch small animals. I’ll get around to teaching you about them eventually.”

Realization dawned, “That’s how Manute and Deltin get all those rabbits, squirrels, and hedgehogs, isn’t it?!”

Pell grinned at him and nodded slowly.

“Teach me now!”

“First you need to figure out how to catch fish for Cold Springs, then Cold Springs can teach you how to snare animals.” He winked, “Bait your crayfish trap and get it back in the river; it turns out I like crayfish.”

With a sigh, Woday picked up the fish trap and said disconsolately, “Yes Master.” He tilted his head curiously, “Can I just put the fish trap in the stream right on the other side of the meadow?”

Pell shrugged indifferently, “Try it if you like. The section of the stream near the meadow is shallow and the water runs fast. I suppose there must be fish there sometimes, but I don’t see very many. If crayfish like still water, I’ll bet there aren’t very many of them in this section. There’s a little slow moving pool right at this edge of the meadow, perhaps you could try it there if you wanted.” But then Pell’s eyes went to Yadin. “Maybe you shouldn’t. We don’t have Agan’s permission to show Yadin how to trap yet and, since he’s right here, he might figure it out from watching you put the trap in the river.”

“You don’t want him to know?”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll tell him eventually. But you heard Agan last night. I think she’d like to get something out of it in return.” He winked, “Maybe some of those fine flint tools of his.”

“Oh, yeah.” Woday stood, “I’ll find a basket to store these crayfish in and then go put the trap in a different spot in the river for the night.” He turned curious eyes on Pell, “I’m sure there must be other areas of slow moving water to put the trap in besides that little bend we’ve been putting it in. Can I try some of them?”

Pell shrugged, “Sure. We were just fishing there because that overhanging rock let us see what was going on down in the water.”

“Okay,” Woday said. As he walked off, he wondered if he would’ve thought to try out a new idea down at that rock so he could
see
how it was working…

***

Sidean cursed, “Come on Wenax! Get your ass up!”

Wenax burrowed deeper into the drift of leaves they’d slept in the night before, “Let’s wait until it warms up a little more.”

“If we wait much longer, it’ll be nearly dark when we get to Cold Springs! We won’t be able to tell if Yadin’s there until the next day and we’ll be out here
five
days instead of four!” He grunted unhappily, “Hungry days!”

They’d only brought food for three days. Then they’d arrived at the Aldans and not been able to see Yadin anywhere. Fortunately, Sidean had encountered one of the Aldans that he’d gotten to know pretty well from previous visits. He’d asked the guy where Yadin was. They hadn’t been happy to learn that Yadin had gone on to Cold Springs, especially knowing that Jalgon would be angry if they returned without going to check Cold Springs as well.

Wenax heaved himself up onto an elbow and rubbed at his eyes with the back of a wrist. “Okay, okay. But I
hate
traveling in this cold.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sidean muttered, “you’ll hate it worse if it snows before we get back home…”

***

Woday sat beside Pell while they both watched Deltin work on an axe handle. At first Woday had been angry because it seemed like woodworking had little to do with the things he wanted to learn. However, he’d followed along as Deltin walked through the woods looking for the perfect branch. When Woday had asked why they couldn’t just take any branch that was the right size, Deltin had replied, “I’m looking for a straight one that has two knots, a little more than three fingers apart.” Then he’d smiled and pointed, “Like that one there.”

Watching Deltin quickly and efficiently cut the limb free with his hand axe, Woday could understand why Deltin thought making an axe with a handle to protect Woday’s fingers was a waste of time. Deltin was highly skilled and cut the branch free with a minimum number of strokes of his hand axe. With his confident chopping, there wasn’t any danger to
his
fingers.

They’d returned to the ledge in front of the cave and, using a stone chisel, Deltin had deftly started to cut a hole between the two knots in the branch. The wood near the knots appeared to be hard to cut. When Woday had asked why Deltin was making the hole between the two knots where it appeared to be so difficult, Deltin had held up the club he was using as a mallet for his chisel.

“The twisted grain of a knot keeps wood from splitting,” he’d said. “That’s why I’m using this club with a big knot on the end of it as a mallet. If I used a straight piece of wood it’d be breaking and splintering a lot more.” He pointed to the branch he was making into an axe handle, “We’re going to wedge that axe into this hole, then hit things with it. Straight wood would split as the axe wedged into the hole, but the knots’ll prevent that. Although,” he said, looking a little irritated, “the toughness of the wood at the knots does make it harder to cut the hole.”

Cutting the hole was a difficult project and took even longer because Pell wanted to do part of it. He’d never used a chisel and wanted to know how, but, because he hadn’t used one, he wasn’t very efficient with it. Pell even suggested Woday try using the chisel for a while. Though Woday had no desire to, and thought it was a waste of time, he chiseled some anyway.

Finally, they had a hole they could wedge the back of Yadin’s axe head into. It looked fine to Woday, but Deltin popped it back out and widened the hole a little bit saying, “We want it to be tight against the ends where the knots are, not tight against the sides like it was. If it’s tight against the sides, it’ll still be trying to split the wood down its length.”

Woday found this concept difficult to understand, but apparently Pell grasped the principle. He thanked Deltin warmly for explaining it, as if he thought he’d be able to use it again in the future.

Finally, they had the axe head wedged into the handle to Deltin’s satisfaction. He and Pell both took some tentative swings, gently chopping at a piece of firewood, but then Deltin said, “
Now
let’s wrap it with wet sinew. We’ll wait for it to dry and tighten before we try really chopping anything with it. After
all this
work, it’d be infuriating if it broke the first time we used it.”

Soon they were all sitting around chewing dried strips of tendon to soften them. Deltin wedged the axe head into the hole with some birch tar, trapping the starting end of the sinew in the tar as well as between the axe head and the handle. Then he started wrapping the sinew tightly around the junction of the axe head and handle. When he finally set it aside to dry, he shook his head as if dismayed and said, “I hope protecting Woday’s fingers was worth all that effort.”

Enigmatically, Pell said, “I think
you’ll
like it too, not just Woday.”

That evening, when they sat down to have their meal, Pell noticed that Tando was sitting higher than usual. Everyone usually just sat cross-legged on the ground. However, once Panute’s leg had healed well enough for her to be off her bedding, she’d started sitting on a log they’d brought in because it helped her keep her broken leg straight. Then Agan had tried sitting on Panute’s log and found that it made it much easier getting up and down with her arthritis. Soon they’d brought in another log for Agan.

Pell grinned at Tando and said, “I see you’ve started sitting on a log to help you get up and down with your stiff old knees.”

Tando drew himself up and arched an eyebrow, “
This
log is special. I was going to show everyone after dinner, but, if you’re going to treat me rudely, perhaps I won’t.”

Pell tried to pretend he wasn’t interested in whatever was special about the log, but it was hopeless. Soon everyone was venturing guesses as to the special nature of Tando’s log. By the time they’d finished eating, everyone was impatiently waiting for Tando’s revelation. Instead, Tando smiled around at everyone and said, “So, shall we tell some stories? I’m sure Yadin could tell us another one.”

This venture was greeted with hoots of derision. Even Yadin proclaimed himself uninterested in hearing any stories
he
might know. “Come on Tando, you’d just as well show us what’s under your ass.”

This brought a few laughs and calls for Tando to go ahead. He narrowed his eyes and surveyed the group, saying, “Anyone else want to make fun of how old and stiff I am?”

After more begging, Tando finally relented. Standing, he stepped behind the log, then sank down to sit cross-legged on the side away from the fire. He reached under the log and pulled out a couple of slender oak sticks. He thumped his log with one of them and arched an eyebrow.

“It’s hollow!” a couple of people shouted. People who’d been in the Aldans and had heard Gontra drumming on the hollow log there.

Tando started pounding on the log with both sticks. It seemed to Pell that he was trying to replicate the rolling thunder sound Gontra had often produced, but he didn’t seem to be generating the steady rhythm Gontra had so unerringly created.