Kim Robinson - Shaman

Also the rules for remembering were clearer to him now, more helpful: the rule of threes, the up-to-down and down-to-up, the helpers and their chores, and so on. It was still hard for him, and even when he succeeded, a fortnight later he would too often find that it had all gone again. And because he now wanted to please Thorn, the losses were more frustrating than ever. His heart would sink a little as he realized that now that he was back, and saved, he was going to have to learn these stories, even if he never got good at them. Not until now had he ever believed he would have to do the things a man had to do.

But mostly, he was just happy. He watched Elga eating like a mink, filling out right before his eyes, and he could hardly believe she was there among them. It felt like a dream, and he was afraid sometimes that one day he would wake with the sunlight turning the gorge mist yellow and find that he had woken up in a different world where it hadn’t happened. That they had gotten her back was perpetually amazing to him; he would never get over it, he would always be a little stunned. He wanted nothing ever to happen again.

Heather was clearly pleased they were back.—It was dull without old unspeakable spouting all his carbunculosities. The men in this pack are mostly fools, and the women are in a little showdown right now, so there was no one left to talk to. And a pack needs its shaman, I guess, even if they’re a little snake of a shaman.

She regarded Loon closely.—I’m glad to see you too, Loon. But listen to me: you need to take care of that bad ankle, or you’ll be lame for life. You’re still a young man, just a little more than a boy. You don’t want to be lame for twenty years. You need both legs to get by in this world!

—I know it, Loon said fretfully.—Believe me, I know.

—So why are you still walking around on it then?

Loon was surprised.—Because I need to be helping! I can’t just sit around and be fed like a baby. Even if I can’t hunt, I can at least get firewood.

She was shaking her head as he said this.—We were doing fine before you got back. We don’t need you. Listen! If you don’t sit down for a moon and rest that leg, you’ll never be able to hunt again. And we need your hunting, and we can do without you for a while around camp. Everyone will understand. Even Ibex will understand. And if he doesn’t, I’ll make him. This last in a dark tone that made Loon shiver a little.

She put that darkness into a look and pinned him with it.—So will you do what I say or not?

—I’ll try.

After that Loon sat around camp, even during the day when everyone was out and about. He helped look after Lucky and the other kids, and knapped blades from cores, and cured hides, and cut and sewed new jackets and leggings for Elga. His sewing was serviceable, but several of the women made clothes so much finer than his that he gave up and turned to carving figures out of sticks, and grinding earthblood to powder, and reciting some of the stories he was learning. No matter what he did, Heather didn’t want him standing up. On many days, and every night, she heated water in buckets by putting fire stones in the water, then poured the hot water into bladders and draped them over the ankle of Badleg. She also tried a few of her poultices, although when she inspected his leg after these applications, she shook her head dubiously. Clearly she thought the hot water bladders were helping the most, and they felt good to Loon too. After the heating was done, she would hold his foot and ankle and press gently on the skin over the swollen top of the ankle, testing where it hurt, or trying to rub some healing into it.

—You should do this too, she told him.—You can feel it better. Sometimes if a ligament or sinew breaks, they just won’t heal. But other times they will. A lot more of these tears and breaks heal than you might expect. So you have to assume the best, and act like it’s going to work out. You can get over this. At the very least, you should be able to get around without pain.

—That would be good.

It was true that it didn’t hurt as much as it had on their trek. But certain accidental movements, or slips of balance, still caused the little snick of agony to shoot up his leg. Heather could see that, and she also saw that he wasn’t going to be able to keep sitting around for too much longer. Soon it would be a month of it; soon they would be preparing to head north; he would have to get up and give it a try. So one morning she told him she was going to make a healing shoe for him.

—What do you mean?

—Let me show you.

She sat him down in the sun with a supply of sticks, antlers, mammoth tusk pieces, sinews, leather strips, and cedar bark cord, and they took all morning to make a wooden frame somewhat like a boot, with leather straps, so that Heather could bind it to his foot, ankle, and calf. With the frame strapped to his foot and lower leg, all the way up to his knee, he could only walk by swinging the whole thing ahead and landing each step on the bottom of it. This made for quite a limp, but no matter how he stepped, no matter what he did, the left foot and ankle were held in just one position. That would give the break time to heal, Heather said. And it was true that when he wore it he never felt the click, even when walking.

So he could help collect firewood, and do other slow tasks around camp. As the days of the seventh month began, and he continued to use the wooden boot, and apply hot water bladders to the ankle by night, he felt less pain from the area, and could see there was less swelling. He was slow, he moved ugly, as Hawk put it, but a day finally came when he could dispense with the boot, go barefoot, and not feel any pain in the ankle when he walked around. There was stiffness there, and weakness when compared to Goodleg, but no pain. This was astonishing to Loon; he had not expected it, had not dared to hope. Heather had cured him!

She shook her head when he said this to her.—No no. Your body healed itself. But I know what you’re trying to say. When you’re hurt, it’s very difficult to believe your body can heal itself. Mostly it seems to go the other way. We fall apart and die, that’s how it goes. But sometimes healing happens. I’ve seen it too often to doubt it, I’ve even felt it in myself once or twice. No, healing is real. But why does it come into us some times and not others?

She shook her head darkly.—No one knows. Really we know nothing. We only know the shit that Raven dumps on our heads, we only know what comes out of the world’s asshole onto us. But what that world is up to up there, why we get the particular shit we get, no one knows.

They were sitting against the cliff wall in the sun, with the smell of thyme and gray stone and the river percolating in the warming air. Loon rotated his ankle slowly and carefully, and couldn’t help grinning.

—Pretty good shit this morning, he pointed out, sniffing the air and looking around.

She glared at him, still wanting to indulge her bad mood. Finally she changed the subject. She had a list of forest plants she wanted him to go out and find and bring back to her. He could take it slow, and she suggested he take the wooden boot along with him, in case he ever felt like he needed it.—The last thing you want is to injure yourself again just as you’re getting well.

It was mostly women’s work, but boys or old men or shamans did it too, especially in this month. Quite a few of the girls worked for Heather and thus learned what she knew about plants and healing and midwifery, without her making any special thing about it. Loon wished Thorn would be that way about the shaman stuff. But the women did things differently. Many of them often went out trapping by day. These women would disappear up and down the riverside to set underwater snares to drown muskrats. Some of them threw spears too at the small animals in the gorge, killed some sisters to pass the time during their monthlies, when not a few of them were surly. Yes, the women were all hunters too in their way, whether they went out or not. Some of the ones who stayed in camp were the scariest of all. They worked as a gang within the pack, they stared at you. They judged you. They would slit your throat if that’s what it took to get what they wanted. Even Elga, with all her warmth, and the way she loved him, the way she took him in her, the way she had pulled him back home through the snow, even Elga had a look in her that was more cave bear than elg. She was not to be crossed, now less than ever. Which was fine, because Loon only wanted what she wanted. And anyway her cave bear look was mostly directed at Thunder and Bluejay, and Sage.