Megan Lindholm - The Reindeer People

'I expect she'll come with us, then,' Heckram observed. He hadn't spoken to her since Elsa's death. His lack of feeling puzzled him. Either he should be grateful to her for ending Elsa's suffering, or hate her for ending Elsa's life. This peculiar emptiness he felt was inappropriate. It was too close to what he had felt at the thought of marrying Elsa.

Did he think the healer was as inevitable? Idly he took out his belt knife to cut a slender whip from a nearby sapling. He began to whittle at it, half listening to Lasse.

'If Capiam asks her, I bet she'll come. There's some talk against the idea. Joboam can't stand her half-wit son. He says the boy has wolf eyes. Some of the others feel the same.

Kerlew didn't seem all that strange to me, but the other -'

'Kerlew is not a half-wit,' Heckram said firmly, and this time it was the strength of his emotion that surprised him. His knife bit deeply into the bark.

'Well, that's true, I suppose. I mean, he doesn't go about drooling or anything like that. But when Missa tried to send him for water that morning, he acted like he couldn't understand what she wanted. Finally she gave him the bucket and pointed at the spring. When he got to the spring, he turned the bucket upside down and sat on it.

Didn't go any farther, just sat and stared at the water, with that spooky look in his eyes.

Then he knelt down and touched the blood-stained snow ...' Lasse's voice suddenly faltered. He cleared his throat, obviously shortening his story. 'Two of Kelr's little boys tried to talk to him, but he didn't answer. So they pelted him with snow, just to stir him, you know how boys are. And Kerlew, twice their age, ran back to Tillu, howling. And wouldn't go back, for the bucket or the water. You can't say that isn't strange.'

'The strangest part is that Kelr would let his sons so treat a stranger.' A chunk of bark flew.

'It was just a boys' prank!' objected Lasse. He bent to pick frozen clumps of snow from his damp leggings.

'Perhaps to Kelr's boys it was. But what was it to Kerlew? And you can't judge a boy's worth from a minor thing like that. Look how he came alone to the talvsit that night. I still can't believe he followed the pulkor trail all the way from his tent to our camp that night. Alone, in the dark.'

'But that's another thing,' Lasse objected stubbornly. 'Why didn't he stay in his tent, as he was told?'

'I'd promised I'd send you to keep him company. And, in the rush of things, I forgot to even ask you.'

'That's not a very good reason to walk all that way in the cold and dark.'

'Perhaps not for one of us. But Kerlew strikes me as a very single-minded young man.'

'Single-minded, you say. Simple-minded, say the others. Well, it's no difference to me. Tolerating Kerlew is a small price to pay for having a healer with us again.'

Heckram was silent for long moments. Then he gave a harsh bark of laughter that made Lasse jump. He looked at the crooked arrow shaft he had just fashioned and flung it away into the snow. In a tired voice he asked, 'I wonder if anyone has ever asked what price Kerlew will pay for us to have Tillu as our healer?'

'What price?'

Tillu turned slowly from her fire. She had just finished pouring steaming water into a small wooden trough. 'What you want to give.'

Joboam thought it was a question. He sat bare-chested on her pallet, cradling his left forearm in his lap. A poultice of cooked and pounded inner bark from a spruce tree covered the angry suppuration on the back of his forearm. The cut was no longer than a man's finger. But the swelling it had caused had puffed and stiffened his elbow, and made his fingers into fat sausages on a thick hand. Despite his pain, he bartered. 'Two wolf hides, without the tails. Or a sausage and two cheeses?'

'Whatever you choose. How long, this hurt?'

Joboam glanced down at the injury and wrinkled his brow, as if looking at it increased the discomfort. He took his time to answer. 'Long time. Long, long time ago. I was carving, and cut myself. Not bad. It didn't bleed that much. It heals for a while.

Then swells, and oozes. I take my knife, open it, wash it. It starts to heal. Then, again, it swells up, bigger, worse. Again, I cut it. I think it is healing. Then, one morning, sore again, swelling. This time is the worst it's been.'

Joboam spoke slowly in simple words, matching Tillu's speech. She didn't bother to tell him she understood their language now. Specific words she might not know, but she was comfortable with the flow of the words and their strange inflection. And she could speak it more fluently than she did. She found it easier to speak very simply and briefly. Maybe to keep from having to talk about anything besides healing. Maybe to keep a distance.

'Lucky man. Lucky you're still alive, not poisoned. Bad kind of hurt. Maybe something in there. If something is in there, we have to find it, get it out. Going to hurt a lot to find it. But going to kill you if we don't.' As she spoke, she opened a tiny leather sack and spilled from it a small pile of salt. Biting her lower lip, she reluctantly added more to the heap of gleaming crystals. The salt was precious, not only as seasoning, but for its drawing properties when used in poultices and soaks. From the look of Joboam's arm, it was going to take most of her supply to heal him. She wondered idly why those with the most were the stingiest when it came to offering payment.

'Stop staring, boy!' Joboam growled suddenly.

Tillu glanced up. Joboam had arrived very early. She had been preparing food for the boy and herself, but had set that aside at the sight of Joboam's arm. Kerlew was waiting on the hides by the fire. He watched her like a hungry dog as she rook out her healing supplies. Kerlew didn't answer Joboam, but hung his head. His hands toyed listlessly with his precious spoons. Tillu spoke softly.

'Kerlew. Go outside. You can gather firewood for me.'

'But I'm hungry!'

'Then take cheese and sausage with you and eat that.'

'I want hot food.'

'Out, boy!' Joboam growled. Kerlew's eyes flickered sideways. Other than that, he gave no sign of hearing the man. He sucked his lower lip in tightly as he looked at Tillu.

Tillu set her jaw. She forced herself to speak calmly. 'Go for the firewood, then. Have cheese and sausage now, and pile up some wood. Then I will cook some of the reindeer that Lanya brought us. Go, now. Then I can work faster. Go on!'

She didn't look at Joboam as she urged her son from the tent. There had always been men like Joboam, would always be men like Joboam. Men who felt they could take charge whenever there wasn't another man around. Men who could not meet Kerlew's peculiar stare, who were offended by his slow speech and odd mannerisms. Men she couldn't trust not to strike the boy if he came too near or looked at them too long. Men who feared him, as they feared the touch of disease or madness.

As she dissolved the salt in the steaming water and set out clean white moss, she reminded herself that Joboam was in pain. And probably tired from traveling here, and uneasy in a strange place. She had to be patient and remember that she was a healer. A healer. After a moment, she sighed and let the tension ease out of her shoulders. She would be able to treat him as she did everyone else. And then he would go.

'Hot water. Slowly, slowly,' she cautioned him as she set the trough before him. It was just large enough for him to submerge the festering arm. She removed the poultice from the wound and motioned toward the water. She watched his face, saw him wince as his elbow touched the hot water. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes, but slowly his arm entered the water. Sweat sprang out on his chest and forehead, but he made no sound of pain. She found herself turning away, unwilling to admire the control he exerted over himself.