Bonesetter (33 page)

“Agan still leads us,” Manute said, seemingly surprised that it wasn’t obvious.
“She has led our tribe for over twenty years. It is why we are known as ‘Aganstribe.’”

“Agan?!” Pell was nonplused.
“How can she be the leader?
Anyone who disagreed with her could simply… k—k, cast her aside.
Then they could proclaim themselves the leader.”

Deltin stared at Pell.
“The tribe chooses her as leader because she is so wise.
She always consults with
the people of the tribe
before making important decisions.
We have our say.
If she begins to make bad decisions, we will probably choose someone else.
We choose anew at the midwinter feast each year.”

“
How do y
ou ‘choose’ a leader?”

“Well, you would be surprised at how complex it is!
Five adults are chosen from volunteers by voice acclamation of the tribe at a feast the night before.
The five then pick from a pile of river pebbles, taking turns and each trying to get the largest but, of course, eventually getting some pebbles that are pretty small.
When each of the five has one pebble for each member of the tribe, they dole them out to tribe members as people lay down to sleep that night, putting them in small baskets at the head of each person’s sleeping place.
They give the pebbles out to people according to the value that they feel that that person has to the tribe; good hunters, powerful medicine makers and good mothers get large pebbles while children, and those who may have been lazy receive small pebbles.
Then before anyone moves, Agan checks each basket to be sure that each person has five pebbles, one for each of the five ‘valuators’.
Agan thinks that the next part is the most important event of the year, when each person finds out how they are viewed by the members of the tribe.
Believe me your heart is pounding with fear that you may find five tiny pebbles in your basket!
Some have
found
grains of sand when they have been
particularly
slothful the year before.
You hold your pebbles in your possession until the next night, when you place your pebbles in the basket of the person that you feel would make the best leader.
The person with the heaviest basket at the end of the night becomes the next year’s leader.
Sometimes in the past twenty
winters
, others than Agan have had quite a few pebbles placed in their basket, but never enough to make it close.
Those people always wind up giving any pebbles they accumulate to Agan when they realize they cannot win.
She finishes the night with
all
the pebbles every time.”

Reminiscing of the people from their decimated tribe had brought tears to the eyes of Manute and Deltin.
Neither Tando, nor Pell knew what to say, so the group walked on in silence for a while.
Pell pondered the concept of the leader “consulting” with the tribe before making important decisions.
It seemed a good thing to do, but it was hard to
even
imagine Roley doing such a thing.
Considering the benefits of consulting with the others, he felt bad that he and Tando had just, a few minutes ago, decided to ask the others to join their tribe without even thinking of whether Donte might welcome them.

Tando did not say anything to the other two men about joining during the remainder of the trip back to the cave.
Instead, after they regained their composure, he carried on a cheery conversation about hunting techniques and
enthusiastically
described some of the “great kills” he had been in on.

They and their deer were welcomed back at the cave with a great deal of excitement.
Agan and Gia
immediately began
preparing the heart and liver of the deer for Panute, claiming that some of the spirit of the deer resided there and would help her heal.

When Pell heard the words, “
help
her heal,” he felt the hair prickle on the back of his neck and looked at Panute more closely.
He had avoided looking at her when they first arrived back, fearing the worst.
Elatedly he realized that she did look better.
S
till wan, but even he saw that the redness had faded significantly from her arm.
Pell’s insides did little gyrations and he wanted to jump up and down.
He looked over to see if Tando and Donte had noticed Panute’s condition as well and saw them in deep conversation off to one side.
So instead, he went over to speak to Panute.
As he approached, she smiled, waving with her good hand at her bad arm, “It’s much better Pell!
It doesn’t hurt as much and I’m not feverish.
I thank you, and beg you to thank the spirits for me.
Whichever spirits that you called on to help me so!”

Pell was embarrassed.
How could he tell Panute that he had little or no knowledge of the spirits?
Perhaps he should pretend that he did?
But no, he had promised himself that he would
n’t
act
like
Pont had.
Without speaking much, he adjusted the splints on her leg, changed the poultice on her hand then retreated to the cooking fire where he carefully watched the special preparations of the deer’s organs.
This involved cooking strips briefly, then rolling them in crushed herbs.
Before presenting them to Panute, Gia and Agan chanted mystically over them awhile, their voices weaving a strange harmony.
Panute complained about the taste of the liver, nonetheless she dutifully ate several strips of it.
She consumed her portion of the heart with great relish.
Gia set much of the rest aside for Panute to eat over the next two days but everyone else got a strip of the heart and a strip of the liver in their own bowl at dinner.
Pell found the heart edible but, as usual, almost couldn’t choke the liver down.
Gia went on and on about how eating it strengthened your own heart and liver.
Listening to her, Pell managed to gulp it all down.
In fact,
by
watching Gia’s gray eyes flash as she spoke, he
got it down without noticing the flavor all that much
.

A pause came in the conversation and Tando cleared his throat.
“I have spoken with Pell and Donte and our group of three here at Cold Springs, have a proposition for you members of Aganstribe.”
Pell stared at Tando.
So, that’s what Tando had been speaking to Donte about earlier?
Tando wouldn’t have considered talking to Donte about uniting the groups b
efore h
earing Deltin’s description of how things were done in Aganstribe
. Listening to the men’s description of
Agan’s consu
ltations before major decisions
must have made as big an impression on Tando as it had on Pell.
When everyone was listening, Tando went on, “Your tribe has been devastated so that now it is too small to be safe from attack or to hunt well for its sustenance. We would welcome you to join us here in Cold Springs.
We consider the successful hunt today by the combined hunters of our tribes a great omen.”

Startled looks passed among Agan’s group.
Surprise and disbelief held the greatest sway.
They all eventually looked to Agan to speak.
The old woman slowly looked from Tando to Donte to Pell and then into the fire.
After gazing there a while she began, “This is a generous offer to make late in the fall, to a group with one old woman, one sick woman, one child and no stores laid by.
We must think on it well.
I myself do not know you well enough to say yes, having only met you once before yesterday.
I must admit that yesterday… yesterday… I thought it had been a great mistake to come here.”
This last came out in a rush. Then she looked up at Pell, “I…
I had… had never heard of such a thing as
to cut away a part of someone.
Certainly, I never considered the possibility that inflicting an additional injury might help to heal a person and so…
I thought it, at best—a terrible blunder, at worst—a grievous depravity.
I was aghast when Pell bent everyone to his will in what I thought to be his evil intent.
I am ashamed to say that I wished for evil to fall upon Pell in return.
And now I see –
see clearly, that
your
intent was not evil at all, but instead an admirable intent that I am merely too simple to comprehend.
Now,
but
a single day after I, in my ignorance wished you ill, I realize that
all
that I truly know of the three of you,” she swept her gaze over them, “is good.
Both from what Gia has told me of the time you helped with Falin’s ankle, and from this time when you have helped Panute.
Now you offer to help us through a winter that will almost certainly claim my life, if not that of the others.”
She stared back into the fire, “Still, grateful as I am, as all of us in our broken little tribe should be, we must talk on this ‘joining’ more.
Both
of our groups look to be in for a very hard winter.
Will we truly do better together?
You have some, though not a great deal of food stored up, while we have none.
We know how to hunt in our regular wintering area, and don’t know how to hunt here.
For that matter, I understand that this is
your
first winter at Cold Springs as well.
Perhaps you won’t know how to hunt the winter game in this area either?
If our two tribes did join, perhaps it should be at our area?
Before we decide
whether
to join, let us talk of how things would be decided, and, who would be our leader.
We must think of
who
will do
what,
as we try to ready ourselves for winter.
We must
all
understand the benefits and risks of such a joining for our individual groups.”

Pell had not heard the old matron say so much at one time before—later he would realize that she seldom said much at one time, preferring to listen and to steer the conversations of others with a word or two now and then.
However, he was astonished not only at the length of her words but the wisdom
they
contained.
His opinion of her as a crotchety old hag had rapid
ly
metamorphos
ed
since he learned that she was the leader of their tribe.

Discussion of the union of the two groups ranged on late into the evening and spanned many topics.
They spoke of the dangers of being raided by another tribe—here it seemed that the members of Aganstribe had little fear, having gotten on well with their neighbors for many years.
Their neighbors, first because of Agan’s and now because of Gia’s reputation as a healer, desperately wanted to remain their friends.
One factor mitigating any rush to join the Cold Springs band on their part, was their expectation that they had a good chance of being taken in by one of those tribes.
They did fear though, that they might have to split up and go to two separate tribes, if one did not feel it could take them all.

Nonetheless, Pell realized that their plight wasn’t as wretched as he and Tando had thought.
In fact, as the conversation continued, he realized that most other tribes were less tyrannical and aggressive than the Aldans had been.
Few, perhaps, were as democratic as Aganstribe had been, but it appeared that the chances of Agan’s little band being massacred by their neighbors were much
lower
than
those
chances
for
the Cold Springs group.

They spoke of winter stores, where it seemed that Agan’s group had nothing.
Pell’s group had stores, Agan acknowledged, but she didn’t think the Cold Springs’ stores enough by any means, to get them
all
through the winter.
Again, the old woman wondered how well they would do, hunting in unfamiliar territory for their first winter.
Pell let slip the fact that they had stores hidden before he caught Tando’s warning glance.
Tando apparently had wanted to keep that their own secret a little longer—when Pell asked him about it later, Tando said that he hadn’t wanted Agan’s group joining just to get access to their stored food, but rather because they were willing to work together to survive the winter.
After considering this idea, Pell agreed that such would have been a good strategy and regretted revealing their hidden stores so soon.
Nonetheless, he thought, telling them that they had
some
smoked meat hidden away was quite different from revealing the huge quantity that the traplines had allowed them to preserve.
Revealing that they had some hidden meat had some benefit though, for when Agan heard that they had hidden food stores, she revealed that her tribe had already harvested some grain and stored it at their winter cave earlier that summer.
In view of the surplus of smoked meat that lay beneath their feet, she felt that stored grain made a good match.