Bonesetter by Laurence Dahners

and after a while he began to look glassy eyed. Pell got him to walk over to the stream. He had him lie down and put his arm in the icy water. Tando immediately pulled the limb back out of the water, protesting bitterly about the cold. Thinking of the effect that his calm tone of voice had had before, Pell spoke in a soothing tone and reminded Tando of how cold makes it hard to feel your fingers. He told Tando that he was sure the cold temperature had helped with the pain when he reduced his own and Gontra’s fingers. Pell continued calmly reassuring him and Tando eventually put the arm back in the stream, lying on his back with his other arm over his eyes.
    Pell waited until Tando had resumed his drunken expression then lifted the arm out of the water to look at it. It was pale and cool. Pell put it back in the water and then, taking a deep breath, stepped into the icy water himself, positioning himself over Tando’s arm and trying to picture how best to grasp the wrist. He lifted it out of the water and bent it back as he had bent the fingers and the rabbit leg back. It was too big and the water made it too slippery! He couldn’t pull it out to length! Tando immediately started to struggle and the arm slipped out of Pell’s grasp. In a slurred tone Tando began berating him—for breaking his arm in the first place, for putting it in the cold water, for jerking painfully on it, for not getting it straight, for ruining his life, for killing him slowly, for being a worthless ginja, outcast, lowlife. Pell cringed, heart pounding, wanting nothing more than to jump up and run away.
    He got out of the water and backed away a few paces. Then he turned and struggled to again speak calmly. Pell couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice, but Tando, in his drugged state, didn’t seem to notice. “Sorry Tando, your wrist was just too big and slippery for me, I just need something to help me get a better grip. You settle down, I’ll look for something to help me get that grip and we’ll try it again.”
    Tando looked blearily at Pell for a moment, considering. “OK,” he slurred Donte gave him some more of the hemp to chew.
    Pell walked back up to the campsite thinking furiously. Easily said but how could he get a better grip? For a moment he envisioned tying a slipknot around the wrist with a leather strap. How would he bend the bone back while he pulled on it though? He pawed through his meager possessions and looked around the campsite. His eye fixed on a piece of driftwood left from an old flooding of the ravine. It lay near some leather straps he had made earlier while cutting out thongs for his “traps.” It was about half a hand wide and the length of a forearm. He picked up the driftwood and the straps and went back down to look at Tando’s wrist. Tando snored loudly, oblivious to the world as Pell looped straps about his own arm in different directions and held the piece of driftwood up to his wrist, cocking his head to look at it from different angles. Finally, Pell took his hand ax and split it lengthwise. He hacked and scraped away at it until he had a fairly flat little board with a relatively smooth side. This smooth side fit comfortably against Pell’s own forearm, wrist, palm and fingers.
    Pell laid the board against Tando’s palm and considered. Because of the angulation at Tando’s wrist, the portion of the board, which should lie against the forearm, stood away at least a handspan. Pell scratched his head, contemplating the problem. He tied the board to Tando’s palm with a couple of leather straps. With a shock of excitement, he realized that the portion of the board that would eventually lie against the palmar surface of the forearm gave him a handle such that, when he pulled on it, it would bend the bone back! This would i ncrease the deformity like he’ d had to do in reducing both fingers and also the rabbit’s broken leg! He wrapped the board into place with even more straps, extending from