Summer Read online

  BONESETTER 3

  —summer—

  By

  Laurence Dahners

  Copyright 2018

  Laurence E Dahners

  Kindle Edition

  Author’s Note

  Though this book can “stand alone” it will be much easier to understand if read after the stories Bonesetter and Bonesetter 2. I’ve minimized the repetition of explanations that would be redundant to those books in order to provide a better reading experience for those who are reading the books in order.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Epilogue

  The End

  Author’s Afterword

  Prologue

  “Water! Water! The river’s coming in!” Those words, shrieked by Karteri, were Valri’s first hint of the disastrous flooding of Aganstribe’s cave.

  For a moment Valri felt the typical confusion of being awakened in the middle of the night, but then terror washed it away. Reaching off the edge of her piled up bedding, she could feel an inch or two of water on the floor of the cave.

  Before Valri’s mind had even begun gibbering questions about what to do, Agan called out, “Don’t panic. Those of you near the fire, grab some brands that’ll make good torches and lift them high enough they can’t get drowned by the water. We should have a few hundred heartbeats. Everyone else gather a few truly important items and start up the mountain to the little cave.”

  Having a purpose helped calm Valri. One of the young boys picked up several pieces of wood from the fire and held them up, waving them to fuel their flames. Valri turned to her mother, “What should we take?!”

  Valri thought her mother’s expression looked a little panicked, but it was hard to tell in the dim flickering light of the torches. Her mother said, “Grain. Grab the biggest basket of grain you can carry and start up the path!”

  As Valri turned toward the big, deep, tightly-woven storage baskets the grain was kept in, she saw Manute loading Agan onto his back and yelling at the injured young Falin to come along with him. Valri tried lifting the biggest basket, but immediately realized she wouldn’t be able to carry it. As Valri picked up a substantially smaller one, Deltin and Panute grabbed the handles on either side of that biggest one Valri’d first tried. They headed out of the cave toward the path up the mountain, looking like the huge basket was a strain even for two.

  They probably thought I was crazy trying to pick that one up at my age, Valri supposed, feeling a little bit embarrassed. She decided even the second one she tried to lift up was too much, so she grabbed the next smaller one yet. Grunting, she headed for the path out of the cave, wondering if they’d be teasing her tomorrow for thinking she could carry such an enormous basket.

  A massive surge of water flooded around her, becoming thigh high almost instantaneously. Valri slipped and fell down, losing her grip on the grain basket. The water lifted her with a sudden heave. She felt like she must be high above the floor of the cave. I’ve lost the grain! she thought, then hoped no one had been lifted so high they hit their head on the roof of the cave. I hope Deltin and Panute didn’t lose that huge basket, winter’s going to be really hard if we lose all the food we’ve stored…

  The water tumbled her over, spun her about, and Valri suddenly realized things could be much worse than just losing the grain. She was under water for several long moments. She fought to the surface. “Mother!” she shouted. She listened but heard nothing over the roaring water. She’ll never hear me over the noise… Valri thought, and even if she did, I’d never hear her reply.

  The water sucked Valri under again. This time it seemed even longer before she broke the surface. She gasped in a breath, then something struck her in the side. At first, she thought she’d landed on the rocks at the side of the stream. But then, as she threw her arms out, hoping to crawl to safety, she realized—from the rough bark and the fact it was moving downstream with the water—that she’d been hit by the limb of a tree. A big tree, she thought, gauging its ponderous movements in the water. A small tree or branch would be bobbing and shaking me all about.

  Though it was dark and she couldn’t see the trunk, the motions of the limb she clung to told her that the main body of the tree was to her right. She began pulling herself along the limb toward the trunk.

  A few hundred heartbeats later, a wave in the water helped Valri heave herself up onto the limb where it joined the trunk of the massive tree. From there she pulled her body up onto the trunk, keeping her legs wrapped around the base of the limb so she wouldn’t lose her grip. From the shuddering she felt sometimes, she decided the tree must be scraping over the bottom occasionally. My legs could get crushed against the bottom, she thought. Reaching out, she felt some good, stout stubs of branches on the upper surface of the tree. With a lot of effort, she pulled herself up amongst them.

  The tree shuddered to a stop suggesting the front end of it’d run aground. Valri heard screaming up ahead and wondered if someone up there could see her in the dark. Perhaps they wanted her to get off. She stood and groped her way forward but the tree groaned and she felt it swinging around in the current. By the feel of the rotation Valri thought she was near the pivot point at the front. Maybe I can jump off if I can make it the rest of the way to the end.

  Before Valri reached the end, the tree heaved twice and broke free. She wondered whether she should jump off and try to swim the rest of the way to the shore, but worried she’d get lost in the dark, swimming the wrong direction. Or I could get hit by another tree. Suddenly the screaming from the shore filled her with foreboding. Maybe my tree hurt someone when it ran aground!

  I hope this tree grounds itself soon. If it doesn’t, the walk back to the cave’s going to be really long!

  When the dawn’s light arrived, Valri woke feeling exhausted. She’d slept a little bit on the log, wedged between some of the stumps of its upper branches. However, every few hundred heartbeats she’d wakened in terror. It wasn’t because the tree was constantly being thrashed by waves and rapids. It wasn’t. Sometimes it rode calmly through what seemed like placid water for substantial distances. However, even in those calm waters, little bumps and wiggles woke her. Her mind would toss her about, wondering whether anybody’d been hurt when the water came into Agan’s cave.

  Wondering whether she could have done something more to help the others.

  She started to worry that perhaps someone had been drowned.

  Now she looked out over the morning’s sodden landscape, still wet from the previous day’s heavy rain. The river she rode was wider than she’d ever seen. She knew the water got broader the farther you went downstream, but this was much wider than she’d ever dreamed.

  She noticed a row of bushes sticking up through the water some distance from the edge of the river. With dismay, she realized they were trees that only looked like bushes because their trunks were hidden beneath the surface. The trees actually delineated the normal banks of the waterway.

  Of course, she had no idea how far downstream she was. She might have ridden this huge log farther than anyone she knew had ever traveled. Certainly, nothing looked familiar to Valri, but she hadn’t traveled extensively herself. She watched the bank for a while and decided it was going by at about the speed of a fast walk. If she’d been traveling at that speed for most of the night, it meant that it would take a full day’s walk to get home. More, since she’d be going uphill. And that assumed she turned up the correct tributary on her return, since she knew she had to be riding on the main river now, not the branch Agan’s tribe lived on.

/>   Valri began to hear what sounded like rumbling thunder in the distance. However, she didn’t think it could be thunder because it was constant, not intermittent. Valri slowly realized the sound came from further down the river. At first, she thought that would be interesting because she’d pass close enough to it to see what was making the noise.

  With a rising sense of horror, she began to wonder whether the sound could be coming from the river itself. Maybe it portends a new danger?

  She began to see mist over the river ahead.

  Valri briefly wondered whether she should jump from the tree and try to swim to one of the banks of the river, but the distance to the shore seemed impossible.

  The water got rough. The thundering mist closed in.

  The front of the tree dropped. The back part of the huge tree beneath Valri bucked up into the air, nearly tossing her off. As it lifted up, she wondered whether she should let herself be thrown free.

  Worried that she might come back down and be impaled on the stubs of the mighty tree’s branches, instead she held on for dear life.

  Valri had heard of a small waterfall the height of many men up in the mountains. This huge, waterfall turned out to be tremendously wide but only a little higher than a tall man. Nonetheless, the violence of the ride as Valri’s enormous log slammed over it shocked her. Despite holding on for dear life, there were moments she thought she’d be thrown free.

  On the downriver side, she looked back at the falls. This must be where the Falls People live, she thought in a moment of lucidity that broke through the gasping relief that she’d survived.

  Valri looked around, hoping she might see some of the people who lived at the falls out in the water. Maybe catching fish as they were reputed to do. Perhaps someone that might rescue her?

  She didn’t see a soul.

  They’d have to be crazy to be out in the water when the river’s flooding, she thought. Nonetheless, she watched the banks until the afternoon. By that point, she judged she’d floated far enough down the river that she had to be beyond where the Falls People lived or even where they might hunt.

  She wished she had her pouch. If she’d snatched it up when she left the cave, she could have used her little hand axe to cut a small branch from the tree. Then some cord from the pouch could have wrapped her knife to the branch, and she could have tried to spear a fish.

  Though she didn’t see any fish in the roiling water.

  Another night passed, this time with Valri’s stomach gnawing with hunger. The river provided plenty to drink. She drank to fill her stomach, not just slake her thirst, even though the water tasted muddy.

  The massive tree rode more and more calmly as the night passed, so this time Valri got a good bit of sleep. Awake at one point, she thought, In the morning I’ll swim for the shore. The dangers of whatever’s in the water have to be less than waiting. What if the river comes to an even higher waterfall?

  One I can’t survive.

  As morning light crept over the hills behind her, Valri found her tree floating in the middle of a broad, placid river. The surrounding land was gently undulating.

  The shores were improbably far away.

  Valri contemplated the long swim to shore with great dread. She’d learned to swim in the pools of the large stream Aganstribe lived on. She thought of herself as a good swimmer, but she’d never swum even a tenth of the distance to the closest shore.

  But, if I wait, the river’s just going to get wider!

  She looked downriver, worrying that waiting might bring her closer to some possible disaster like the waterfall. The river bent around a corner to the left so she couldn’t see what lay beyond. Wait, the water will swing to the outside of the turn, won’t it?

  Valri tried to remember riding rafts down Aganstribe’s stream. Considered foolishness by their elders, it was a common sport for the younger members of the tribe. They’d tie several small logs together and ride down past the cave in the summers. Valri had only done it a few times, but she remembered that the rafts often grounded on the shore during turns—she thought they went aground to the outside of the curve. I’ll wait at least until that turn ahead, she thought. The log should get a little closer to the shore, even if it doesn’t run aground.

  Valri’s hope stirred. The log started to swing toward the right bank as the river turned left; it was as if the log was continuing straight, not having noticed the curve in the river. She stood and moved to the base of a large limb that went off to the right of the trunk. If she timed it right, she hoped she could run down the limb and leap off into the water a little bit closer to shore.

  Her eyes searched the shore downriver for a good place to climb out. The tree surged and she nearly lost her perch. Looking ahead, she saw the water speeding up and getting rougher as it turned to the left. The river began to cut through steep bluffs on either side. As the river straightened again, she saw even steeper rapids rushing down a fairly straight chute between cliffs that went up to the higher bluffs on either side. Further ahead the river appeared to slow and get… unbelievably wide. And blue instead of the muddy brown of the river. Valri’s eyes widened, It’s the sea!

  I rode this tree all the way to the sea!

  She looked again at the rough water ahead, realizing that if she jumped off now, she’d be trying to swim in the fast water as it crested over boulders. And, if she paused, clinging to one of the boulders, logs or other flotsam in the river might crush her from behind.

  Should I jump? she wondered, looking again at the shore, frustrated to be so indecisive at such a critical moment. The log made her decision for her as it began thumping and thrashing in the rapids. Getting off suddenly seemed far too dangerous.

  Valri clung to the broken branches on the log and weathered the rapids, though there were times she thought she couldn’t possibly make it. After what seemed like forever, the log bumped heavily a couple of times then settled into smoother slower water at the end of the descent. Lower now, she could no longer see the blue water, but knew it couldn’t be too much further.

  Exhausted and trembling from the ride down the rapids, Valri clung to the log. Once she’d gotten control of herself, she straightened up and once again tried to think what to do. With dismay she remembered hearing that monsters lived in the sea. She told herself she had to get out of the river before it reached the sea. As she moved to leap from the log and swim for the shore—no matter the distance—Valri lifted her eyes to check the river’s banks. People! She saw people beyond the water’s edge.

  Valri screamed, shouting “Help!” and waving her arms. She doubted they could hear her but after a moment a couple of people waved back at her.

  They see me! Will they realize I don’t know what to do? Would they try to rescue me? Are they even capable of coming after me? Will they come for me even after I float out to sea? Maybe they’re trying to tell me to get off before it goes that far?!

  Valri steeled herself to jump, then the tree shivered as it hit a boulder. The heavy vibration ran the length of her log and nearly threw her off.

  Once again, she found herself clinging to the massive log as it bumped and jolted through a couple of additional patches of rough water. The last one felt like it sent the log skidding out the river’s estuary into the sea.

  In a brief calm moment Valri looked back to see whether the people she’d seen on shore might be coming after her. They probably have their own problems from the flood, she thought.

  She couldn’t see anyone.

  She couldn’t see monsters in the water either but wondered whether, nonetheless, they were there, just waiting for her to try to swim to shore.

  Eventually the tree began to surge up and down under the influence of the waves coming in off the sea.

  The sun had risen another fist into the sky. Valri had spent the time hoping in turns for a rescue party from the people she’d seen; or for the waves to push her tree back to shore. Neither seemed to be happening and, worse, Valri had discovered the seawater
tasted salty. She’d tried drinking some anyway, but it didn’t slake her thirst. It uneasily filled her stomach, but she thought she might throw it up.

  I have to try to swim to shore, she thought, trying to judge which shore of the estuary looked most promising. She turned to scan the sea for the beasts she’d heard swam in the sea.

  She’d been told they ate unwary swimmers, though those might just have been tales told to frighten children.

  Valri eyed a smaller log, wondering if she could lie on it, paddling with her hands like the kids occasionally propelled little rafts in the creek’s pools back home. Then if a sea monster came, perhaps she could pull herself completely up on the log for safety? Though, in her mind, the sea monsters resembled the big cats that roamed the nights. She couldn’t imagine a huge swimming cat that would have trouble pulling her off her log.

  Valri dithered a bit longer, then, thinking that a splash might call a sea monster to her, she slowly lowered herself into the water and gently dog paddled to the log she’d been eyeing.

  Pulling herself up onto it pushed the log lower in the water, but she found she could get her entire body out of the water on top if it if she was careful. If the sea monsters can’t leave the water, I could be safe up here. Then she thought of fish she’d seen jump out of the water to catch insects. Could “sea monsters” just be big fish? she wondered. Deciding it didn’t matter, she tried paddling toward the shore. Unfortunately, her log didn’t seem to move at all relative to the other trees.

  A large wave lifted her, heaving her tree and all the others up and down. Wearily, she saw the problem. Its limbs were tangled with the branches of other trees beneath the water’s surface.

  Valri looked toward the shore again. Her eyes focused on a log that looked as if it might be floating freely, though it was about 10 body lengths away. Best of all it didn’t look like it had branches to get tangled with others. Once again she slipped into the water and started paddling.