Chapter 21
Pain and Glory
Matt lost consciousness during his trek through the woods on the travois. At first the Mohawk men jostled him about so much that the pain in his shoulder became corrosive, eating through all his nerve fibers. But after a while, maybe an hour, his mind entered something like a dead zone and he felt nothing. When he awoke, they were no longer moving. He blinked to clear his vision.
Not too far from where he lay on the ground, a fire burned. A pot of water was suspended over it on a tripod of sticks. Instead of the travois, Matt was lying on a soft blanket of fur. He tried to sit up, but a jackhammer drilled at his head and he felt bile reverse in his stomach like the tide in the Bay of Fundy, so he quickly sank back down. One of the warriors crouched near him and spoke soothingly in Mohawk. The man pointed to the arrow still protruding from his shoulder. Matt craned his neck and looked at it.
“I guess it should come out, don’t you think?” he said. He reached up to grasp it and bit his lip as the movement sent knives ripping through his flesh.
The warrior seized his hand and swept it away. He called over the Mohawk Matt remembered—Segoleh. Wavy bands of black and white war paint still decorated his face. His eyes bore the same wicked gleam, though his mouth had softened. “Must not touch arrow, English.”
“Matt.”
“Matt,” Segoleh repeated. “Shaman will fix.”
“Shaman?” asked Matt.
“Medicine man.”
Matt felt a surge of panic. “I don’t want any witch doctor touching me, thank you very much.”
Segoleh smiled. “Welcome,” he replied, totally missing the gist of Matt’s statement. He beckoned another man over to the boy’s side. “This Aghstawenserontha. Means he who puts on rattles.” Segoleh held up a carved wooden handle. Some type of animal’s foot was attached to it, claws and all—maybe a turtle’s foot? By way of an explanation, Segoleh shook the device. It made a distinctive chatter. “He great medicine man. Use rattle to chase away demons of disease. Then he remove arrow.”
Matt considered the other Mohawk in front of him. Black paint covered his face, to match charcoal irises. Only the whites of his eyes were apparent in the dark. Tucked into his hair at the back and displayed like a fan were many white feathers. The effect was more like that of a peacock than a human being. Matt was not reassured. He remembered Dr. Basin at home, with his starched white lab coat and his calm brown eyes. His hair had always been clipped short and neatly combed. He’d had the air of a well-ordered professional. Despite all of Dr. Basin’s poking and prodding over the years, Matt sort of missed him right now.
The medicine man leaned over him. “Ug-say-what’s-a-on-that,” Matt said. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Aghstawenserontha,” corrected the shaman. He uttered something in Mohawk. Segoleh translated. “Be still.” Then he chuckled, of all things. It sent a shiver down Matt’s spine.
Aghstawenserontha gently unwound the strip of Sarah’s sweatshirt that still hugged the arrow at its base. It clung to Matt’s skin, cemented there with congealed blood, but the medicine man moistened it with water and carefully plied it off. He studied the wound, then opened his bag and removed a folded cloth holding leaves and another chopped up substance. He drizzled the mixture into the pot of boiling water over the fire. After a few minutes, he dipped a cup into the solution, waited until the steam evaporated, and then held it to Matt’s lips.
“Tea,” said Segoleh.
Matt eyed the cup. I am thirsty, but . . . tea? “No, thank you. I’m more of a Coke person.”
Aghstawenserontha muttered something, and Segoleh nodded. “You must drink,” he said. “Has sassafras roots and other herbs—will help with pain and keep evil spirits from entering body.”
Matt didn’t give much weight to the evil spirits part, although Segoleh could mean infection, but he’d take anything that would help with the pain. He sipped the tea and gradually the throbbing subsided.
By that time, the medicine man was chanting and shaking the rattle. He pulled a stone pipe wed to a hollow wooden stem, along with a dried leaf, from his deerskin bag. Setting aside the rattle, he stuffed the leaf into the chiseled chamber of the pipe, lit a twig in the fire and fed the tip of the burning twig to the bowl of the pipe. He took several drags and puffed curling grey clouds over Matt’s head, his voice still warbling through the chant. Then he focused on Matt, although his eyes seemed somewhat bleary.
“You smoke,” Aghstawenserontha said, through Segoleh.
“I’m not allowed to smoke,” said Matt. “I’m only a kid.”
Aghstawenserontha thrust the tip of the pipe between Matt’s lips. “You smoke,” he insisted.
Matt inhaled the bitter smoke and started coughing and sputtering. “This stuff is awful,” he muttered.
Segoleh smiled. “Taste awful. Feel less pain.” He nodded to the arrow. “Aghsta take arrow out.”
“Maybe I’m getting to like it,” said Matt. “It’s not so bad walking around with an arrow attached to you. He’s like a buddy to me now.”
Aghsta, as Segoleh called him, sat back on his haunches and gazed pensively at Matt.
“Good. You’ve changed your mind,” said Matt.
Aghsta jammed the pipe into his mouth again. He forced Matt to take several more puffs.
“Okay. That’s enough,” Matt said, through a series of raspy coughs. His voice seemed muffled and slurred. His movements were sluggish. He felt distant from this whole situation. He floated away—he could see the medicine man and Segoleh, even himself with the arrow poking out of his chest, but it was like he was suspended above it, hovering in space.
“Ooh. This is weird,” he heard his own voice saying.
Aghsta grunted a string of words to Segoleh, who knelt beside Matt and placed his hands on his arms. Matt could see everything, but feel nothing. The medicine man seized the arrow with two hands, placed a foot on Matt’s chest, and wrenched the arrow from his shoulder.
Matt screamed. He screamed and screamed. He was no longer above anything. Searing pain ripped into him as though a bottle of acid had been splashed over his shoulder. It galvanized every nerve ending, making him shudder and shake. He didn’t notice that Aghsta was prodding the fire with a stick, igniting the end, until the shaman raised the glowing tip in front of his face.
“Wh-what are you doing with that thing?”
“Smoke,” said Aghsta, nodding to Segoleh who lowered the pipe to Matt’s lips.
Matt turned his head away. “I don’t want to smoke! What are you doing with that thing!” Matt tried to sit up, even though sparks and currents leaped through him, like he’d been given an electric shock. Segoleh held him down.
“Stop bleeding,” Segoleh said.
Matt knew all about cauterization. He knew that burning the wound was probably the most practical thing to do to stop the bleeding. He also knew—through first-hand experience—that there was no such thing as painkillers in this day and age.
“Smoke,” insisted Segoleh. He thrust the pipe between Matt’s lips. Matt had no choice but to inhale the bitter vapour. He choked and nearly retched. But the man kept the pipe in his mouth until he’d filled his lungs three or four times. Gradually, the jolts and needles wracking his body subsided.
“I know what you’re doing,” Matt said drowsily. “You’re making me sleepy so I can’t fight back. R . . . really c . . . clever. But I . . . I’m not a . . . about to be b . . . burned.”
He was rising above everything again. He couldn’t, shouldn’t. He had to stay behind and fight. In a few prolonged seconds, as if in slow motion, Aghsta lowered the poker to Matt’s blood-soaked shoulder. A sizzle hissed through the air, and the flesh blackened beneath his evil wand.
Matt returned to his body with a thud. He screamed again, only louder this time. A blazing current zapped through his chest and rode every nerve up and down his arms and through his abdomen. He writhed under Segoleh’s pinning grasp. No one cou
ld live through this much agony. Finally, after what must have been minutes but felt like hours, he gave a vast shudder, and the pain retreated. The wound still pulsated in his shoulder, but it was no longer a thing of unbearable torture.
“Can I have another smoke?” he asked weakly.
“No,” said Segoleh. “Too strong. Make you sick.”
If Matt hadn’t been shuddering, he would have laughed. “I’d rather be sick. I can’t take any more of this.”
“All done,” said Segoleh, nodding at Aghsta. The medicine man was methodically spreading some paste over the wound. “Feel better soon.”
“Right,” said Matt. Then he passed out.