The Healer (2 page)

"Do I have to let him bite me?"

"No, when he makes to do it again, grab him by the beak. He does not like that."

With an innocent air, the raven approached Billy, moving sideways. Suddenly the beak darted out but this time the boy was ready. He seized the beak and held it. Grip thrashed with his wings, uttered indignant sounds, and scratched with his mail-clad feet. The claws were sharp enough to be painful and Billy let him go. Grip retreated, muttering to himself, took a nip at the dog's tail and then, spreading his black sails, beat his way up into a tree.

"I guess I'd better be going now," said the fat man uncomfortably. "It's a long drive to the city. Billy, get your suitcases out of the car."

The boy got the two suitcases and, staggering under the load, returned. His stepfather was talking earnestly to Zook and Billy heard him say, "Needs a lot of straightening out. I haven't the time for it myself. What he wants is a lot of hard work."

"On a farm there is always work," said Zook quietly. "But that one does not look so strong. Better first I see what he can do."

Billy watched the car depart with mixed feelings. He had never liked his stepfather, yet now he felt deserted.

He tried to call the dog to him but the old hound, while politely waving his tail, did not come.

"What's his name?"

"Wasser."

"That's a funny name. What does it mean?"

"Water. Witches are not for liking water so with that name they do not bother him."

"There aren't any such things as witches."

"Say so? Is that what they teach you in the city?"

"Everybody knows that."

"Maybe everybody knows things which are not true. Still, the dog is called Wasser."

"Here Wasser, here boy!"

On hearing his name, the big dog approached gravely and allowed his head to be scratched. Billy then called to Grip but the raven was sulking and would not come down.

"I wish they liked me better," said the boy unhappily.

"Liking takes time. When Grip has learned that he cannot bully you, then he will be for liking you. Now he is angry because he thought you were a fool and instead, he was made to look like a fool. Wasser is old and boys he does not understand. I, too, am old and I know dogs and birds better than children. We learn together. Come, I carry one of the bags."

They entered the house. There was one large room and that seemed to be a junk shop of strange objects, some fascinating and others incomprehensible. Especially interesting to Billy were the skins of animals nailed to the walls. A raccoon skin he recognized because of the ringed tail, but he had no idea what the rest might be. Overhead ran long beams and from each beam hung bunches of herbs and grasses. Two guns hung over the fireplace, a shotgun and a rifle. There were jars and boxes against the walls, steel traps hanging from pegs, pieces of wire, and bits of wood carved in curious shapes. There were fishhooks, lines, and nets whose use the boy only vaguely suspected. In one corner was a dilapidated bed and over it a shelf with some books.

"Where did you get all those skins?" asked Billy entranced.

"Some I trap. Some I catch in wire snares. Some I hunt down with Wasser and then shoot."

The boy looked at him in horror. "Mr. Bryant—he's our science teacher—says it's cruel to kill animals for their skins. He's getting his doctor's degree and he knows a lot."

The old man shrugged. "Maybe. And maybe he does not know what it is like to be hungry. Maybe, too, he does not know what it is like to lose your chickens or find your sheep killed by wolves."

"There aren't any wolves here."

Zook looked at him curiously. "Like witches, there are no wolves, eh? You have a much to learn."

"Have you ever seen a wolf?"

"I have seen the tracks of one."

"How do you know it wasn't a dog?"

"There is a difference. This is not only a wolf, it is one of the werewolffen. When a hex doctor dies but does not have this plant which is called wolfsbane," he took down one of the herbs and turned it over slowly between his fingers, "he becomes a werewolffen and walks at night. Such a one was Nelson Rehmeyer, and he has come back as a wolf. I hear his voice at night. Sometimes I see the deer he has killed and two times the sheep. He comes to take me with him but always I have the wolfsbane."

Billy looked at him uneasily. Either the old man was crazy or simply trying to scare him. He knew that adults sometimes amused themselves trying to frighten children with wild stories, and he did not like the idea of his great-uncle having fun at his expense.

"Do you like killing animals?"

"It is a skill to catch them. I will show you how it is done."

"I don't want to know. How would you like to be caught by the leg in a trap and lie there until someone came to kill you?"

The old man hung up the wolfsbane and turned around slowly. "I would not like it. That is partly the reason why you are here. A few months ago I was in the woods and my foot went into a hole and I broke my leg. For a time I thought I would die there. No one knew where I was, no one would care what happened to me. It was a bad feeling. So when your mother asked me to take you, I thought 'Now there will be a young boy in the house and if I do not come back, he can take Wasser and look for me.' "

"All right, you know how you felt, so why do you want to make animals feel the same way?"

"Animals and plants were put here for man to use. You eat meat, ain't? To provide the meat, something had to die."

The boy hesitated. "Those are domestic animals and they're raised for food. Wild animals are different."

"The wild animals are my domestic animals and the wild plants my vegetables. I gather them as the farmer gathers his crops."

"You mean you eat all those weeds?"

"What is a weed? A weed is only a name for a plant you don't like." He walked to the beam nearest the boy and ran his hand lovingly along the line of drying herbs. "These are the grasses. Fimffinger Graut—five-finger grass. Here is Geils Schwantz, which in English you call shave grass. This is Deshligraut—peppergrass—for the stomach. All have their uses. People come from all over and elsewhere to buy my herbs."

"Aren't some herbs poisonous?"

"Yes, but they have their uses. Sometimes people are foolish about certain herbs. John Stoltzfus used to smoke certain herbs and dream. Finally he could not tell the dreams from the real world. Still he smoked more and more. He always said that it did not do him any harm, which it did not, except to make his teeth fall out, his eyes collapse, and his skin look green. I guess that was good when he was hunting woodchucks; he made one with the grass. I am not that fond of woodchuck meat."

"I know kids in school who smoke pot and they say it doesn't hurt them."

"So? I am glad to know that there are so many fools in the world. Also that children have the money to spend on such things. It is good for business. How wise you are to know that pot does not harm and that hunting and trapping are wicked."

Billy moved uncomfortably. Like all children, he hated sarcasm and did not know how to reply to it. He was beginning to dislike the old man and even to be a little afraid of him, even though the room fascinated him and he wanted to see more of Wasser and Grip.

Abe Zook seemed to notice his reaction for he said gently, "When I was a boy, I dreamed enough without the herbs. Perhaps children today are too wise. They know everything early so they must look for things which no one knows."

"What do the other herbs do?"

"As many things as there are herbs. This is Schpitza Wedderick or plantain. It makes bleeding stop. With this I cured a woman for whom the doctors could do nothing. Here is Biskata Graut. Smell already!" The boy smelt, choked, and turned away. Zook laughed. "Skunk cabbage, say not? It is good for the kidneys. See the leaves, they look like a kidney. All the herbs, they have the signature that God put on them, if you can only read."

To Billy, all the herbs looked alike. He began to examine the other objects in the room, going from one to another as though opening a Christmas stocking, asking constantly "What's this for? What does this do? How come you have that?" and hardly staying for the answer. He saw muskrat skins on stretching boards, wild honey as black as ink, pine cones which would be sold to florists, eggs so carefully blown that they had only a minute hole on one side, making them valuable to egg collectors; a wooden pail of maple syrup, a rock with fossil trilobites and a handfull of garnets, bottles of scents for trappers, homemade turkey calls, and fishing flies.

"I can't understand why you want to kill things," he said at length. "Is it just to make money? When I grow up I want to be a scientist and learn how to preserve animals and plants. Couldn't you learn to be a scientist?"

Zook turned away. "I am too old for books. I have the knowledge that men put into books—when they can understand it."

Billy looked around him wistfully. He wanted to learn the old man's lore, yet Abe Zook frightened him. Although the braucher understood nature, he seemed hard and cruel. Billy could understand now why the two children they had met on the road were terrified of the old man. It was coming on toward evening and Billy disliked the thought of spending the night in this weird place.

He looked up and saw Abe Zook watching him. Billy turned away in embarrassment at the steady stare.

Abe Zook said softly: "You are not feeling for your new father, no?"

"I liked my real father best."

"How is that?"

"Well, father used to fool around with me and play games and he didn't pick on me all the time. All this man cares about is how I'm dressed—I always have to wear a coat and tie—and what marks I get at school. And he won't let me keep any pets. Father never minded pets."

"You are strong for animals—so strong you do not like to see one hurt. Why is this?"

"I've always liked animals and now they're the only friends I have. I used to have friends at the other school I went to, but after mother married again we had to go live in the city in an apartment because that's what her new husband wanted. The kids there don't like me and I don't like them, so I spend most of my time with the animals in Mr. Bryant's laboratory. He's got some cool animals there from all over the world and he lets me clean the cages and feed them. I can handle some of them that even Mr. Bryant can't, like the big capybara who bites and a spider monkey called Snoopy who won't let anyone else come near him. Mr. Bryant doesn't let most of the kids stay with the animals by themselves because they tease them."

"Why should they do this?"

"They're just mean, I guess. They like to hurt things. They keep picking on me all the time, too."

"Why?"

"I don't know, they just don't like me, I guess." Billy paused to think. "I don't like other kids too much anyhow. I like to be by myself. I read a lot and I'm not good at sports. Mother took me to a doctor and he said I'd outgrown my strength or something, but in a few years I'd be all right. I'm just different. That's why they like to pick on animals, because the animals are different."

"And you are making one with the animals?"

"Well, animals don't pick on me, and I know how they feel when people want to tease them and hurt them."

"I am seeing a little." Abe Zook stood silent for a minute, thinking. Then he glanced out of the window. "The cows come by the barn, so it is late. Come, and I show you how to milk."

Wasser was waiting for them by the door. He was a little more responsive to Billy's advances, and Zook watched them smiling. "Wasser is perhaps too old for boys. Maybe later I get you a puppy of your own."

"A dog of my own?" Billy's voice went up to a high squeak of excitement. "I've never been allowed to have a dog. When can I get him?"

"When I hear of a litter of puppies with good hunting blood. It will not be long, for I know all the dog men. Now we go to the milking."

They crossed the yard, Wasser falling in beside them. Billy looked into the tree for Grip, but the raven was gone. "He has gone to roost," said Abe Zook, following the boy's eyes. "He sleeps in a big hemlock. Sometime I will show you." They walked beside a privet hedge, now gone completely wild, that served as a windbreak along one side of the barnyard and was full of sparrows and starlings noisily preparing to go to roost. The chickens were flying into the hedge also, taking the preferred spots under the overshoot of the barn that stood supported by huge, concrete, cone-shaped pillars. The two cows were standing by the barred gate and mooed restlessly when they saw the man, for their bags had begun to hurt. Billy looked at them in surprise. He had never seen a cow before and had no idea that they were so big or had such long horns.

Abe Zook threw open the double doors into the stalls and the cows trooped in, each going to her accustomed place. There was a drumming of hooves and a big white horse came tearing into the barnyard at full gallop, scattering some wildly honking geese by the gate, and rushed up to his stall to stand impatiently until Zook opened the door. Then the old man led the way through what seemed to Billy to be a maze of dark, tunnel-like passages to the milking shed, where the pails hung. The barn was old, much older than the house, and like most Pennsylvania Dutch barns was built into the side of a hill, so that a team of horses could drag the heavy hay wagons into the loft above the stalls. Before milking, Zook dusted off the cows with an herb he took from one of the deep windows.

"This is Gruddabalsen. It keeps away flies. Children call it mosquito plant. All things have two names, one for calling and one for friendly talk. So all things are really two."

The boy looked at him. "I don't know what you mean by that."

"That you are two people. One person your stepfather and I see. Another is you, yourself. Mostly the two stay together, like different sides of a coin, but sometimes they separate. Has that happened to you?"

Billy said nothing. He felt embarrassed. Ever since his stepfather had left the highway and driven between the two big trees he felt as though he were a different person, as though he were in a dream. The boy was naturally a daydreamer—another trait that irritated his stepfather—and often his daydreams seemed more real to him than the world itself. In his dreams he was a very different sort of person than in real life, and he felt his dream self was more really he than his waking self. Yet he was ashamed of his dreaming and resented the question.