Free Bonesetter by Laurence Dahners

crouched down and began to go through. A few paces into the mess of sticks and brush he saw some motion ahead. He realized that it was coming from the area he had worked on. There was a boar in there! And a wolf! He backed up warily holding his spear out in front of him to ward off the wolf if it came his way. His heart was throbbing but the wolf didn’t pursue him. In fact, it appeared that there were only a few abortive motions coming from the wolf. The boar lay still. Finally, holding his spear rigidly in front of himself he advanced again. When he got close again he saw that both animals had become thoroughly trapped in the little area between the sharpened stakes that he had set up the other day. He suspected that the pig had become trapped first. The wolf had probably come to investigat e , hoping to make a meal of the pig.
    In any case, they had become wedged into the small area with one another and it appeared that although the wolf had eventually killed the boar, the boar had battered the wolf up against Pell’s stakes and caused some serious injuries of its own. The wolf lay weakly on its side, lapping at blood still dripping from the boar’s carcass. It looked up at Pell’s approach and he could see the fear in its eyes. The wolf was rather small but had a beautiful pelt of silvery brown fur. He braced himself to plunge his spear into the wolf’s chest, thinking that the pelt would be valuable. He slid the spear through the stakes that blocked the exit and put the tip on the wolf’s chest so that he couldn’t miss.
    The wolf looked into his eyes piteously—in those eyes Pell saw a reflection of himself, begging for his life from Roley. He cursed and pulled the spear back. The wolf was no threat in its current condition. Harvesting its pelt while he was traveling would be a waste anyway, he wouldn’t be able to stretch or work it. He had more pig than he could eat before it rotted and in any case, wolf meat was tough and stringy.
    He started disengaging the stakes that blocked the passage. Once he had removed them all so that they no longer formed their one-way block age of the passage, he reached in and grabbed the front limb of the dead boar. He heaved hard and began hauling it slowly back out of the narrow passage that been its deathtrap. The wolf lay unmoving. Pell pulled the boar back out to the end of the passage where he had left the bundle Donte had made for him.
    To his dismay he saw that the bundle had fallen over! In horror he untied the bundle and felt the little firepot inside. It was barely warm! Desperately, he got out his good flint knife and made some shavings from one of the dry pieces of wood. He broke off some small dry twigs and laid them close to hand. He opened the fire pot and put the shavings inside on the coal that lay within. He blew gently. It didn’t bring a glow! Frantic, he shook the little vessel, nudged the coals and then blew some more. Spirits! The coals were dead!
    He couldn’t possibly survive without the tribe, without a cave and without fire! He would have to go back and get another coal—but the hunters were probably already back! Perhaps he could trade the pelt of the wolf for a coal?
    He turned and looked back into the tunnel. The wolf stood swaying in the entrance, obviously barely able to stand. He took his knife and walked over to it, it should be easy to kill. He planned to grasp its snout and cut its throat but as Pell reached for its nose the wolf licked his hand. He jerked his hand back but then recognized it for the friendly gesture it was. Once again Pell found himself unable to look into its sorrowful eyes while killing it. He backed away and began cutting up the boar’s carcass—after a minute he threw the boar’s head to the wolf. The animal lay down and began gnawing on it. While Pell skinned and cut up the boar he worried about what to do.
    Done, he wrapped one haunch of the pig, with a chunk of the liver, which was all he estimated he could