Bonesetter 2 -Winter- Read Free Page B

would I do that?! If we make an opening for light to come in, the cold will come in too!”
    Gia said, “Our winter cave had only a small opening, so it was dark like this one. We made ‘lamps’ which help. I can show you how to make them.”
    “Lamps?” Pell asked, appearing very curious. “What’s a lamp?”
    “It’s a way to make a small steady flame,” Gia said. “It’s hard to explain, so it’d be better if I showed you. It’s not a good choice for the Aldans right now, because it burns animal fat. The Aldans can’t afford to burn fat when they’re so hungry.”
     
    Back in the cave, Gontra barked at the Aldans until they’d all gotten up. The women began preparing food to start the day. For the first time in many weeks, with the deer, rabbit, and squirrels Pell had brought in the previous day, they had plenty of meat. Everyone got a small strip of deer liver and some stew with bits of meat, grain, and roasted tuber.
    While they waited for their food, Gontra said, “As soon as we eat, we’ll go for a hunt and Pell can teach us his new methods.” Gontra, Belk, and Exen got up and went to the men’s area of the cave.
    Tando looked over and saw they’d gotten out their spears and begun sharpening the wooden ones and tightening the points on the ones tipped with flint. He laughed, “That’s a great idea, but stop worrying about your spears and come on over here. Pell and I’ll start teaching you how to make a snare.”
    The Aldans’ men looked surprised, but they gathered off to one side of the hearth where they could see by the light of the fire. Pell got out one of his thongs. He and Tando explained how a noose made from the thong could be suspended above the paths that animals followed. Then, Pell held the small noose over an imaginary path while Tando used his hand as a puppet. Tando ran his hand into the noose and pantomimed the rabbit jerking around in a panicked fashion until it’d strangled itself on the cord.
    Pell looked up at the three men of the Aldans and found them staring wide-eyed at Tando’s “dead rabbit.” Belk said, “That can’t work… can it?”
    As Belk said it, Lissa brought him a clay bowl full of stew. Tando reached out and poked a chunk of meat floating in the bowl, “It can work, and there’s your proof.”
     
    Once they’d all eaten, Pell had each of them cut several long narrow strips of leather and make little nooses on the ends of them. They headed out to check the snares he’d left the day before. He had them pick up lumps of grass-eater dung on the way.
    The first two snares they came to were empty. Pell picked them up to move them to new sites. Belk said, “Was there something wrong with those two?”
    Pell shrugged, “Maybe? Maybe there aren’t any small animals running those trails? Maybe the snow kept them in their burrows? In the past I’ve tried leaving a snare on a trail where it didn’t catch anything the day before. Sometimes it catches something the next day, but not very often. So, now I usually move it.” He rubbed some droppings on the thongs as they walked. “Whenever I move them, I put more dung from plant eaters on the thongs to cover up my smell.”
    They came to the third snare and it had a rabbit! The rabbit’s brown coat stood out against the snow. Pell wondered whether the rabbits’ coats changed to white because of the snow, or for some other reason. Hopefully, he thought, Maybe this’ll be one of those years when the first snow is followed by some warm weather.
    The next two snares were empty as well, as was the first large snare that used a heavy rope. Pell began to worry that he’d been right to think the snares might not catch much during the winter.
    Then they came to the second big rope snare he’d put out on the trail up the steep slope up to the plateau. It had a goat! One of the goats that so nimbly ran up and down those steep slopes. They were so quick on the difficult terrain that hunters rarely had any chance