Read The Healer of Harrow Point Online
Authors: Peter Walpole
The Healer of Harrow Point
2000 ASPCA Henry Berg
Children's Book Award Finalist
Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year
Award 2000 Finalist
Read what others are saying about
The Healer of Harrow Point—
“...quiet, luminous”
—Denver Post
“Tender and skillfully blending fantasy and real life, this is a fable with a powerful message to ponder and it will linger long in readers' minds.”
—
School Library Journal
“...lyrical and careful observations of woods, animals, and people; he has the rare ability not only to offer fresh descriptions of nature but to do so without impeding the flow of the plot. His writing bears watching.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Arresting first novel.”
—
Napra Review
“It's a classic coming-of-age tale like
Old Yeller
or
The Education of Little Tree
. But be warned: Anyone who picks up
The Healer of Harrow Point
will find that it's impossible to put down.”
—Amazon.com
“The story is written so beautifully and evokes the woods so well. I could really see it.”
—Annemarie Powers, director. Children's Book Project, Columbia University Teachers College
Copyright 2000
by Peter Walpole
All rights reserved, including, the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.
Cover design by Mayapriya Long
Cover art by David Brown
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Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.
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Charlottesville, VA 22902
Or call: 804-296-2772
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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-95402
ISBN 1-57174-167-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Printed on acid-free paper in Canada
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For Dr. Jane Raymond Walpole
the best of traveling companions
I remember there was a fine blue sky and a light brisk breeze on that first, beautiful late fall day when I met Emma. I was lying belly down in a nest of leaves in a little dry creek ditch, maybe twenty feet away from an almond-eyed, dusty-brown buck. His antlers were short but legal, meaning they were long enough, that the buck was old enough to be legally hunted once deer season began. He was safe now, I thought. Safe for a few more weeks. He was nosing about in a scraggly berry bush, tearing off small bits, munching the berries; little pieces fell to the earth around him as he chewed rapidly, his head bobbing from side to side. Then he nosed in and tore off another bit of the bush.
For a moment I felt supremely, wonderfully alive. I loved the cool crisp air and the dank smell of earth and leaves; and I loved the buck, rather like a collector would
love a rare, long-sought-for piece for his collection. I had found him and he was mine. But a question, one that had been growing in me for months, picked at me, pulling back from the joy of that moment. If I had a gun, could I shoot him? Could I possibly squeeze a trigger and bring him down? It scarcely seemed possible.
When I reached the age of twelve, in six long weeks, my father was to give me my first shotgun and take me hunting for the first time. My birthday and the first day of hunting season would coincide, so we would make an outing of it, my father and I and a couple of his friends. There were times, when I was with my father or with my friends at school, that I was certain I wanted to go hunting when my birthday came. There were other times, chiefly when I was alone in the woods, that I was just as certain that I could never want to hunt.
I loved tramping through the woods. In long, rambling walks through the ancient forest land that surrounded my home town, my father taught me the rules of hunting, the ins and outs of tracking deer, the habits of wildlife. My father used these walks to scout the best places to hunt. He told me, clearly and unequivocally, that I was not to walk in the woods alone during hunting season. There was too much danger of being shot accidentally by a hunter. It was one of his few hard and fast rules. All the rest of the year I was free to wander as I pleased. So, there were many, many days when I would head off into the woods after school, to walk the places that I knew, to explore.
On Saturdays, my mother would often pack me a couple of sandwiches, and I would spend the whole day in the woods, the great source and playground of my imagination. Sometimes I was an Indian, moving quietly through the woods tracking a panther that was threatening my tribe; and sometimes I was Daniel Boone, pioneer woodsman and Indian fighter. But as I got a little older, it seemed that I imagined less and watched and listened more. The woods were more wonderful in themselves than anything I could imagine about them. It is difficult to explain, but I felt somehow that if I was quiet enough in my heart and in my head then I could become in some sense transparent, invisible even. I could slip through the trees like a spirit, watching and listening to all the wonders going on around me. There was a quiet there that went beyond the hushed and intricate sounds of the forest, a quiet that went deeper and deeper until it disappeared past hearing, past everything.
I had been so still watching that buck, my breath, my heart working on in perfect silence, and then I thought about shooting him, about whether I could possibly want to shoot him, and the silence was gone.
The buck looked up just as I did. On the ridge far above us a man in a red plaid shirt snapped a twig underfoot in the moment he leveled his rifle on target. He was a poacher, hunting out of season. I screamed as the sharp pop of the rifle cut through the air. The deer lurched back toward me, staggered once trying to keep its slim legs beneath it, and fell to the earth, not four
feet from where I lay, dazzled by fear. His eyes were open, staring at nothing. His side was torn and bloody. His chest heaved twice with two great rasping snorts, a rippling shudder cascaded along his side, and then he was absolutely still.
I saw the man begin the difficult descent down the ridge. I wanted to get up and run away, and I wanted, I don't know ... I wanted to scream at the man, to bash him with something, a tree branch, anything. More than all of that, more than all the world, I wanted the buck to rise and run off, unharmed, alive. I would follow him and find him and he would be mine again.
In the moment of that supreme wish I heard a crashing noise behind me, the sound of someone running, someone heavy, coming toward me. In a blur a figure rushed past me. It was a woman, heavy but not fat, older than my mother, I sensed, but not much older, in old, dirty pants and a weathered, heavy flannel shirt. She knelt by the deer, seeming almost to fold her large bulk around the fallen animal. She held its head up in her left hand, and stroked its coat with her right. Her eyes closed. She placed her head softly against the side of the deer. I dared not move. With a start the woman's eyes opened. She turned and looked directly into my eyes. Her eyes were a piercing blue. She seemed intensely alive to me—I don't know how else to describe her—in that instant when our eyes met. Then she closed her eyes and again inclined her head closer to the deer.
“Come now' she said quietly. “Come on. Up with you.”
I didn't know what to do. I thought at first she was talking to me, but I was too afraid to move. I just watched as she roughly stroked and rubbed the buck's coarse fur. Her fingers went over the bloody wound in the deer's neck and she winced with pain.
“All right,” she said, her voice quiet, tight. “All right.”
In an instant something happened. The woman blew out a sharp breath and pushed herself from the deer, rocking back on her heels. The small buck twitched, rolled back and forward once, struggled to his feet, and then bolted off through the underbrush, leaping now to the left, now to the right with astonishing speed, far down the ravine, and was gone from sight. Struck dumb with wonder, I looked back toward the woman and saw behind her the hunter approaching, fifty yards away or so.
“Hey!” the hunter called. “That's my deer. You leave that alone!”
A dark frown passed quickly across the woman's face. She turned and looked at me.
“Run,” she said. “Now.”
“Are, are . . . are you,” I couldn't quite get a question together in my mind, but I did manage to get to my feet. I took a step toward home and looked back at the woman. I was held in place by what had just happened.
“It's not safe here,” she said quickly, a firm tone in her voice. “Run!”
But I just stood there, and the hunter was getting nearer.
“Oh for heaven's sake,” she said, slowly and loudly. She stepped over toward me, pulled me out from behind the bit of brush where I had been hiding, and then scooped me up under one arm. She hefted me once for balance, and crashed off into the woods carrying me like an oversized football.
It is kind of comical to think of now, but then I was terrified, whizzing through the brush headfirst, my legs dangling behind. I could hear the great panting and grunting of the woman as she carried me. I was too big for her to carry me very far, and soon we were running side by side, crashing through the brambles and brush, her hand firmly grasping my arm.
Finally, the woman slowed to a trot, then a lurching, uneven walk, and finally pulled up at the base of a low hill covered with thick, sharp brambles. Her chest was heaving. She rubbed her left forearm across her face, wiping away the sweat. Then, looking as if she were surprised to find me there, tight in her grasp, she gently pushed me away from her.
“Oh pheewuu, oh my,” she said, grinning, leaning down with her hands on her knees. “Oh, I'm getting—” she hiccupped “—old.”
She shook her head, sat down with a crash, and, with some difficulty, propped herself against a small outcropping of rock, where she sat to recover her breath. As her breathing gradually eased, she began to eye me with apparent curiosity. I stared at her, too
scared to talk or walk or do anything. A few more moments passed. It was odd, how quiet everything had suddenly become. I had no idea how far we had run; it seemed to be miles, but of course it couldn't have been. She was still looking at me. It made me feel strangely shy. I walked a very few steps away from her and then spun drunkenly on my feet. I stood still, and squinted at her.
“Well?” she asked, her breathing almost returned to normal.
I said nothing.
“Hmmph.” She seemed utterly dissatisfied with me. My face was cut and scratched in a dozen different places after our run through the woods. I'm sure I was filthy from lying on the soft, moist earth. I imagine I was crying. The woman's look might have softened, although still she was eyeing me critically.