Bonesetter 2 -Winter- (6 page)

Yadin was still wondering about this strange ritual, when the young man stood up. Not wanting the young man to turn and see him standing there unannounced, Yadin said, “Hello.”

Startled, the young man spun around at Yadin’s strange voice and stared at him wide-eyed. Yadin saw the young man hadn’t been eating well. He was thin like Pont and Fellax. Yadin assumed this meant that the young man was a member of the Aldans tribe and thought to himself that if all the Aldans were as thin as the three he’d met, it boded ill for their survival this winter.

As the young man had said nothing, Yadin thought he should continue. “I’m Yadin, a member of the Oppo tribe. I’m trying to find the Aldans. Do they live near here?”

“Um, yes,” the young man said. “I’m Exen, one of the Aldans.” He narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin interrogatively, “Why are you trying to find us?”

“I’ve heard that a stranger recently came among you. A man named Pell?”

Exen shrugged, “He’s no stranger. He grew up amongst us.”

“But he’s been gone for some time, yes?”

Exen shrugged again, “Only for the summer.”

“And he’s the same as ever?” Yadin asked.

“Hah!” Exen exclaimed, apparently quite amused. “No, he’s really different.”

“What’s changed?”

“He
grew
. A lot! And… well, it’s hard to explain, but he’s… not the same.”

Yadin wasn’t sure what to say next. He didn’t want to come right out and ask if an evil spirit had invaded either the boy or the tribe. Finally, “Are you on your way back to where the Aldans live?”

Exen nodded.

“Can I walk with you?”

Exen thought for a moment, everyone knew that strangers could be interesting… or sometimes dangerous. He nodded, and started along the path that Yadin had already been following. His eyes tracked to the spears Yadin was carrying and widened a little. “Who made those spearheads?”

Yadin shrugged, “I made them. I’m a flint knapper.”

After a moment, Exen pulled his eyes away from the spearheads. “Why are you interested in Pell?”

“I’ve heard… strange things about him.”

Exen turned to look at Yadin with a frown, “Who would have told you about Pell?”

Yadin tugged at his ear while he thought. He wasn’t sure he should mention Pont, but he did need to have some reason to have come all this way. Truth telling seemed safest, “A man who called himself Pont came to the Oppos. Claimed to be a medicine man. He was telling us about Pell.”

Exen laughed, “Telling you bad things I’d imagine?”

Yadin paused, but decided that this Exen didn’t look like he’d been ensorcelled. He shrugged, “Pont says that Pell’s been taken over by an evil spirit. He says that Pell’s been enchanting the Aldans. Is that true? Do you Aldans need help?”

Exen laughed again, “You might say that, if feeding us counts as enchanting.” He looked at Yadin and lifted an eyebrow, “We’d been hungry for quite a while, so when Pell brought us food and taught us a new way to hunt,” he grinned, “we
really
liked that.”

Yadin blinked, “Wait, I thought you said that this Pell was a boy, just into his growth spurt.”

“He’s grown all right!” Exen snorted. “He was skinny, scrawny, and clumsy. A little tall for his age, but still, you know, he still seemed small. Now he’s taller than anyone else in the Aldans. He’s muscular too, and carries a healthy amount of fat that’ll help get
him
through the winter.”

Yadin digested that as they walked in silence for a minute or two. Then, he said, “Pont claims that the boy called on an evil spirit to cast boulders down from a mountain. He says the boulders killed your headman and the headman’s son?”

Exen also walked without saying anything for several beats. Then he sighed, “Yeah, that’s true. The headman’s son was my friend, but… he was a… a bad person.” Exen glanced off into the distance, “He did a lot of awful things. He and his father led the hunts for the Aldans and recently those hunts were almost all failures.” He patted his stomach, “That’s why we’re so thin.”

“Awful things?”

“Yeah,” Exen sighed, “
terrible
things… He killed a boy from another tribe… For nothing, really. I think just… just because he could. The boy was smaller than Denit… kid never had a chance. And he forced a young girl to have sex with him. Caught her alone on a trail near a trading place the day we were leaving so’s he wouldn’t get caught. Denit was
always
bullying someone who was smaller than he was. Denit bullied Pell when Pell lived with us…” Exen paused for a moment, then continued quietly, “Denit was merciless. He’s the biggest reason Pell was cast out of our tribe.”

Yadin looked over at Exen, “Did
you
try to stop Denit?”

Looking ashamed, Exen shook his head. In a small voice, “I was afraid. Afraid Denit would turn on
me
.”

Yadin mulled this over as they kept walking. He said, “So you don’t think this Pell is controlled by the spirits?”

Exen grinned at this, “I think
he
controls the spirits. Did you know a giant wolf follows him wherever he goes? It does his bidding too.”

Yadin shrugged doubtfully.

Exen said, “And the spirits teach him things.
Amazing
things!”

Yadin was feeling stunned. When Pont had talked about a wolf doing the boy’s bidding, Yadin had scoffed at the very idea. Somehow, he believed it more from this Exen than he had from Pont. After a moment, he said, “What kinds of things have the spirits taught him?”

“A new way to hunt! And a way to preserve meat so it doesn’t go bad.”

Thinking of the meat he’d brought with him, meat which had tasted pretty bad when he’d eaten it for lunch, Yadin thought the second thing Pell had learned sounded most interesting. “So does he perform some mystical ceremony to preserve the meat?”

“No!
Anyone
can do it. He just has to teach you how!”

Stunned by this possibility, Yadin’s gaze wandered ahead. He saw some people on a ledge in front of an escarpment. His eyes wandered over it, noticing a couple of goats up on the steep slope above the ledge. The escarpment was generally the pale color of limestone, but the area behind the people on the ledge was a much browner color. He frowned.
It almost looks like they’ve smeared mud on that part of the hillside.

Yadin turned to Exen, “Why’s the rock a different color behind the people there?”

Exen grinned, “That’s
another
thing the spirits taught Pell.”

“What,” Yadin snorted, “to cover the hillside with mud?”

“Wait ‘til you’re there, you’ll see.”

Yadin suddenly stopped, “I’m not sure I should go any farther. You don’t
seem
to be enspelled, but until I’m sure, I don’t want to get close enough to this Pell that he might have his spirits take me over.”

“You don’t have to worry, Pell left to go back to Cold Springs ravine this morning.”

Yadin stood for another moment, wondering if he’d wasted his time coming here, then resumed walking. “Why did he leave?”

Exen shrugged, “He said he wanted to get back to his own tribe. He thinks of the new people he’s gathered at Cold Springs as his tribe now… more than he does us Aldans anyway. We Aldans treated him pretty badly, so it’s not hard to see why he’d like the people at his new place better.”

Yadin frowned, “If he doesn’t like you, why did he come? Pont said it was so that his evil spirit could take you Aldans over too.”

“He came because Gontra, our new headman, begged him to. After Gontra had seen what Pell’s done at Cold Springs he pleaded with him to come in hopes that he’d teach us some of his new knowledge.”

“If this Pell’s a boy, how does he know so much?”

Exen shrugged, “Maybe the spirits taught him? He
claims
he just thought about the problems he was having and came up with these new ideas. Says he was lucky that some odd things happened to him and he figured out how they might help him survive… And now they’re going to help us survive… I
think
.” Exen turned to Yadin, “I really don’t believe anyone, by themselves, could possibly figure out so many different… things…
important
things that would help people stay alive.” He shrugged, “So I think the spirits
must
have taught these things to him. Maybe in his dreams or something.”

Yadin suddenly stopped, staring. They’d just arrived in front of a bunch of animal skins that had been sewn together and hung against the cliffside. Exen had lifted up the flap and now Yadin could see that the skins covered a cave. But, not a natural cave. The mud he’d seen from a ways back was plastered over wooden poles and sticks and straw. The pieces of wood were bigger than spear shafts and ran almost vertically from the ledge up to the cliffside above. Yadin immediately realized that there’d been a large shallow cave here and that the Aldans had probably been living under the limited shelter it provided. It would have served to keep the rain off, but the wind would have blown through, making it cold in the winter. This “wall” of sticks and mud had turned it into a real cave!

It seemed simple enough,
Why haven’t I heard of anyone else making a wall like this to enclose a wide mouthed cave?

Trying not to look too surprised, Yadin turned to Exen, “You say
Pell
thought of making this wall out of sticks and mud?”

Exen barked a laugh, “That’s what he says. The cave he was living in at Cold Springs ravine had a big opening like this one. He says first he put mud at the top to form a lip and keep the water from dripping back into the cave. Then he put mud at the bottom to keep water from running in down there. Then he tried to block the wind by putting bushes or something in front of the cave. That helped a little, but finally he started sticking poles in place with the mud. Then he sealed the cracks between the poles with sticks and grass and more mud. The way he describes it, it seems like he just thought of one thing after the other.” Exen snorted, “I never even thought that maybe the mouth of the cave
could
be closed off! If I
had
thought that, I probably would have thought of hanging animal skins over it like we do over our summer shelters.” He looked at the wall, “I think animal skins would have helped, but not as much as this wall of sticks and mud.”

Yadin reached out and gently thumped the wall. “I think you’re right. This is a better idea.” He wondered if he’d have thought of it. The Oppos’ cave had a narrow mouth and was nice and deep so they didn’t need anything like this. After a moment, Yadin decided that if he’d lived in a cave that the wind blew through, he’d have walled it up with something, maybe not mud and sticks, but
something
.

He thought he would have anyway.

Exen said, “Gontra, we have a visitor.” He indicated Yadin, “This is Yadin who comes to us from the Oppo tribe.” Exen jerked his chin up at the tips of Yadin’s spears, “Yadin’s a flint worker. Look at those beautiful spear points!” To Yadin he said, “This is Gontra, my father and our new headman.”

Yadin looked at Gontra, seeing a man in the prime of life… but thin. Yadin realized when he’d followed Exen up to the cave opening he hadn’t really looked at the other members of the Aldans. He glanced quickly at them and saw that Pont had told the truth about that at least. They all looked underfed. He didn’t comment on this. Instead he said, “Hello Gontra.”

Gontra had been staring at Yadin’s spear heads, “You do nice work.” He grinned slyly, “The Aldans could use a good flint worker if you’re tired of the Oppos.”

Yadin thought of saying that he
was
tired of the Oppos, but he didn’t want to intimate that he was ready to jump from one tribe to the other right now. Instead, he glanced up at the spearheads and said, “Thank you. I think these two are some of my best work.”

Gontra said, “So, why are you traveling after the first snow?”

“I think it was an early snow, and that winter won’t really be here for a while yet.”

“Still, why travel?”

Having already told Exen, it seemed silly not to tell Gontra. “Your medicine man, Pont, came to us at our cave.” Yadin glanced around to be sure no one was very close, then continued quietly, “I don’t want to offend, but Pont said some bad things have been happening here to you Aldans. Our headman suggested I come see what was going on.” Yadin
didn’t
say he was supposed to be scouting for a possible attack.

Gontra grimaced, “I’ll tell you not to trust anything that Pont says before I even hear what he told you.” Then he gave Yadin a dubious look, “But if he told you bad things, why did you come?”

Yadin lifted his chin, “Pont claims that evil came here from the west and took over your tribe. He says that because we’re east of here, the evil will soon come to us in the Oppos. My headman wanted me to come to see if it was true.”

Gontra smiled, “So, do you see any evil here?”

Yadin made a show of glancing around, “I see many people looking hungry.”