The Healer (16 page)

"Now I am showing you how to catch a bee," said Zook. He caught several that had alighted on the mustard flowers by shooing them into the box with his handkerchief. Next he slid back the glass top on the small box and put a dab of honey from a small bottle on the inside. "This honey is mixed with anise to give it a strong odor," he explained. He closed the glass top and took out the tin slide. Before long one of the prisoners crawled up through the hole into the small box and Zook slid the tin door back into position to keep the others out.

"What now?" asked Billy, still uncertain whether the whole business had some real purpose or was one of the old man's magical rites.

"Watch and you will see." Zook got out the bottle of paint, dipped in a twig, and cautiously sliding back the glass, marked the bee—an easier process than Billy had supposed, as the bee was so busy feeding that she paid no attention to the twig. When the bee was full, Zook pulled out the glass and released her.

"Now be watching close where she goes," said the old man, lifting his glasses. The bee circled around for a few minutes as though to mark the spot and get her bearings. Then she took off, flying so directly that Billy for the first time knew what a "beeline" meant.

"Watch already," called Zook as the bee disappeared. The bee went so fast that Billy could only follow her line of flight for a dozen yards or so, but he pointed out the direction as best he could. Zook marked another bee and released it. This bee took off in another direction but Zook did not seem discouraged. He continued to mark and release bees, carefully noting with his big watch when each bee was released. When the last bee had flown, Zook drove a stake into the ground and put the box with the glass slide pulled back on top of it.

"Now we are waiting," he said. Billy sat down and looked over the valley. It was a glorious spring. The pewter-colored days of winter had gone and it was a time of blue and gold—robin's-egg blue skies and a golden sun. The new leaves on the trees were as tender as fresh lettuce and the air was full of scents. Billy, remembering when he had gone into Wolf's mind, wished that now he had the coyote's power to distinguish between the individual odors and find them attractive, frightening, warning, or informative. Recalling that wonderful power, he felt almost crippled without it—as though he had gone blind. But Wolf could not see as well as he could, and he was content to look around. Wild geraniums covered the hillside with a veil of pink, bordered with purple where sweet William bloomed along the fence rows. The ghostly dutchman's pipes glimmered along the edge of the woods and the incessant song of a red-eyed vireo sounded continually.

A marked bee was hovering around the box, and with her were a couple of other bees. "Friends of hers from the same hive," said Zook, looking at his watch. "It is just ten minutes." Other marked bees were beginning to come in for the honey in the box and Zook noted each one's time. "After filling up with honey, they go straight to the hive," he told Billy. "If a bee takes eight minutes for a round trip, the hive is half a mile away. If she takes fourteen minutes, then the hive is a full mile. Twenty-three minutes means two miles. Long ago I worked out all these numbers."

"Suppose the bee takes half an hour, how far is the hive then?" asked Billy.

"It is probably five miles or so away and not worth bothering about. Now we will catch some of those that took only ten minutes and be trying again."

Zook caught some of the ten minute bees and then he and Billy walked a mile or so to another position. Here he started releasing the insects. "Now we watch how they fly," he told Billy. After a few minutes he reported, "See, they are heading so." He pointed across the valley. "The other flight was like this," and he pointed. "So we have two straight lines. Where they cross will be the hive."

They walked to the spot where Zook believed that the two lines crossed, and a few more bees were released.

When they returned, bringing others with them, Zook again consulted his watch.

"The hive is less than half a mile away," he reported with satisfaction. "Now you must be using your ears as well as your eyes. Often you can hear them buzzing around the bee tree when you are not seeing them."

They started walking. Billy was growing tired from carrying the heavy buckets but he refused to complain. Soon they came to an old Victorian house deep in the woods. There were some gigantic old trees and Zook said proudly, "The hive is in one of those trees. We will look for bees flying in and out of a hole."

Although they looked for nearly an hour, there was no sign of the bees and Zook became irritable. He flipped some of his bee bait on the bushes and said, "We will wait once." He and Billy waited, but nothing happened.

Billy was growing restless. The braucher liked to make a mystery out of everything, and sometimes this was fun, but today the boy was hot and tired. Also, he was worried about Wolf and Blackie. If Blackie was going to have pups, he wanted to be there to help her even though he had no idea what to do. At least, he might be able to protect the werewolffen from the dog pack and the game warden.

"Ah there!" said Zook with satisfaction. Bees had begun to alight on the bait and gorge themselves. "When they go, we follow them," said Zook rising. As usual, the bees made their straight flight to the hive, and now the mystery was solved. The hive was in the cupola of the old house.

"What do we do now, burn the house down?" asked Billy, who could still see no point in the expedition.

"Let us be asking the people who live there if we can get into the cupola. 1 am thinking they would not be too glad to have a hive of bees in their attic."

He knocked on the door and a little old lady opened it. She looked to be about the same age as the house. Zook asked her about the bees.

"Oh certainly," said the woman cordially. "They must have tons of honey up there. It keeps dripping through the ceiling onto our beds. But they've built in an air space and there's no way into it."

Zook looked discouraged. "Sixty-five cents a pound I could be getting for that honey," he told Billy. "Would you be letting me break through the ceiling?"

"No!" said the lady decidedly.

Zook turned to Billy. "To most people, there would be no answer, but I am a braucher. I will show you how to put a charm on bees so we get both the honey and the swarm."

Empty-handed, they returned to the farm. After much rummaging around in the loft of the barn, Zook found an old beehive. It was a square box with a slit along the bottom to allow the bees to enter. Inside were removable frames and Zook explained how the bees would build their wax combs in the frames, which could then be taken out and the honey extracted.

"How are you going to get the bees to go into the hive?" asked Billy sceptically.

"This I now show you. Only a braucher or one who knows much about such things has the secret. See here now!" He produced a device consisting of a frame with a small opening fitted with two springs. "This we put over the entrance to the hive. The bees can go in but they cannot come out again. Now we hitch up the buggy and go to see Martin Hinkle. He has some beehives, and I will be asking him for some frames with day-old brood in them."

The trip to the Hinkle farm took nearly an hour, and although Martin Hinkle was not home, his wife told them to take two brood frames. Zook put on his hat with veil, started a fire in his box, working its bellows until smoke poured out, and donning his gloves, went to the nearest hive, while Billy stood well back. A few puffs of smoke from the box quieted the bees and Zook removed the top of the hive. Furious bees poured out like black confetti and Billy, who had come closer to watch, was stung on his upper lip and forehead. He ran, batting wildly at the trail of angry insects that followed him, but he was stung twice more before he lost his pursuers. He was still smearing mud on his wounds when Zook joined him with the brood frames.

"Ah, they caught you. I was wrong not to be bringing some horsetail. That takes the sting out of bee bites."

"Didn't they get you too?"

"A few, but I am used to such things. Now we go back to the old house and I show you a trick worth knowing."

They drove back to the house in the woods where the hive was located. There was a window just below the cupola with a projecting frame. Zook got the hive from the buggy and mounted it outside the window. Then with some ancient wire window screening he had brought, he made a passageway from the hole in the cupola to the hive, fitting the device with the springs at the hive entrance. "Now the bees must go into the hive but they cannot come out again," he said triumphantly to Billy, who had prudently remained on the ground during this process.

"But you'll have to let them out sometime and then they'll go back to their old hive," protested Billy.

"For that we get the brood frames. When the bees find that they cannot get back to their old home and old queen, they will start feeding one of the brood bees in the cells royal jelly. That is a special food bees make in their heads, and how they do it not even I know. The brood bee so fed will become a queen who can lay eggs. Only a bee fed with royal jelly becomes a queen; the rest are workers, who although they are females, cannot lay eggs but must work all the time. The young queen will grow and become the ruler in the new colony, and all the bees will obey her. After two weeks, I will let the workers go free. They will fly back to their old hive and take the honey for their new home. In this way I will be getting both the honey and the bees."

Billy thought it was rather hard on the bees but after his stings, he did not feel much sympathy for them.

The next afternoon Billy was sent over to check the hive and make sure that the bees were going into it. After seeing that everything was all right, he started back toward the farm. It was a stifling hot day and the heat increased until the air seemed to die of it. A wet blanket of humidity pressed down on the boy until Billy could hardly breathe. Then, slowly, mountains of blue-black clouds stretched themselves over the ridge. Above, they were sugared with a strip of white icing, and a few flamingo feather wisps floated over them where the sinking sun shone behind the storm bank. Inch by inch the darkness crept higher and higher, spreading as it came on with flying skirmishers of scud racing ahead.

As the tempest strode across the sky, golden cracks splintered across the storm clouds, instantly followed by the roll and paralyzing report of the thunder. Billy could smell the ozone in the air, and it frightened him. The wind had risen to almost hurricane force, the leaves strained against their stalks to be free, and the first drops of rain were flung in the boy's face. Then came the crack of the thunder and the brilliant flash of lightning that suddenly made every twig stand out as though etched in microscopic detail.

Suddenly Billy heard something howling. He stopped to listen. It was Wolf. He was howling either in sympathy with the thunder or because it hurt his ear drums. He was on the other side of the ridge, probably in a little valley that Billy knew well, and in spite of the threatening storm, Billy started toward the sound.

The drops increased in number, and then the rain came down in a solid wall that formed sheets where the wind tossed it. It slashed through the trees and struck the ground so hard that it seemed to boil. White claws of foam tore at the red clay slopes. Billy stood under a tree that offered a little protection and waited.

The storm passed quickly and the air smelled wonderful, washed clean of dust. Billy splashed along the soggy ground to the valley where he had heard Wolf.

When he came to the edge of the depression, he saw with delight Wolf wriggling out of the ironwood with a half-grown woodchuck in his mouth. Surprisingly, the coyote looked almost dry. Billy guessed that he had been digging the 'chuck out of a hole when the storm struck, and even the cloudburst could not make him abandon his prey.

Wolf laid down the 'chuck, shook himself, nudged the 'chuck with his nose as if not quite sure that it was dead, and then picked it up and slipped through the ironwood. Billy waited until he was out of sight and then followed. The sun had come out brilliantly after the storm, and Billy was sure that there would be a rainbow on the other side of the ridge if he had time to look for it. He slid into the little valley and easily found Wolf's paw marks in the mud that had been washed down the side of the ridge during the storm. He followed the coyote out of the valley, to where Wolf had cut through a field planted in clover where tracks did not show.

The sun was low and threw a perfect flat-lighting on the field. Even though there were no tracks, Billy could see where the coyote had knocked off the drops of water that clung to the clover, and so could follow the trail. On the far side of the field there was a gravel pit and here Billy completely lost the trail. He longed for Wasser, but by the time he returned to the farm and got the hound, the line would be cold.

Climbing out of the pit, the boy made a wide circle, as he had seen the hounds do when they were at fault. The ground was too hard to carry pad marks, but there was tall grass. Billy could see where the coyote had passed through, pushing the stalks to either side and leaving a dim but definable trail, especially when, by shifting around a little, the boy could catch the reflection of the sun on the bent stalks. He lost the trail at the foot of the ridge, for the hillside grass was so tough that it had sprung back into position as soon as the coyote had passed.

While wondering what to do, Billy looked up and saw Wolf on a little rise, watching him intently.

Billy called. The coyote dodged back and then slowly stuck his head out again. After studying the boy carefully, he looked away up the slope. When Billy started up the slope toward him, the coyote instantly vanished, but the boy had noticed Wolf's intent expression as he looked up the hill. There was something there of great importance to the animal, of that Billy was sure. He turned and went in the same direction and presently came on a wide fan of brown earth. Here were scattered the dried hides of rabbits, woodchucks, and rats, as well as feathers. Billy took another step forward and saw the black hole leading down into the earth. He had found the den.