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position it had
settled in. Using her fingertips she quickly located where the break was.
After a short
inspection, she concluded that it was not a full break. “That good,” she said
to herself. It meant the chances of the bone mending properly where much
higher. It would also give the eagle a better chance of full recovery. Because
the break was not too serious, it didn’t take long to knead the bones together.
When she had completed this, she used the strips and splint to bind his wing.
It was time for her
to rebuild her own heat up, so Manana repeated the exercises she had done
earlier. Warmed up a little, she returned to her work. The next task was going
to be the hardest. Two broken ribs could not be taken lightly. It would be
better to investigate the damage more, before trying to fix them. Placing her
hand on the bird's head, she closed her eyes and concentrated. Immediately she
felt herself experiencing the eagles now familiar visions. Ignoring these, she
repeated her journey through the body, straight to her objective; the lungs.
When she reached them, she was able to view the damage from a different
perspective. She noticed that the break on one of the ribs was pressing
against the bird's lung. The slightest movement in the wrong direction could
push it through the lungs and would inevitably prove fateful.
With one hand still
touching the eagle to maintain her contact, she placed her other hand to the
area around the lung. Then with painfully slow movements she began to feel for
the broken rib. When she had located it, she gradually moved it of the lung.
It was her mental contact with the bird that allowed her to observe the rib and
guide her own hand simultaneously. She repeated the operation with the second
rib. Finally satisfied, she broke the mental contact she had established and
stood up.
Canana's mind was
locked in inner turmoil. What was the human doing to him? Try as he might, he
could not get his body to obey the commands he gave it. When the human had
woken the second time, he had been prepared to fight it. But it had acted
strangely. Gone was the fear it had previously shown. Even when it had reached
out to him, Canana had tried to form some type of defence, but had been unable
to find the strength. Then he started to feel strange and he no longer felt
afraid of the creature. Those soft sounds it had stared to emit had soothed his
fear. He had felt puzzled as well. He sensed that the human only wanted to
help him, but why?
His mother had told
him that these animals only wanted to destroy. They kill for fun and sport she
had taught him they can never be trusted. He didn’t doubt it was true, yet his
instincts told him to trust this one. Then the human had put its hand on his
head, and the tones emitting from her beak had changed slightly. At once he
felt more relaxed. The strange sounds sent a vibration through his body. A
pleasant, gentle vibration he had never experienced before, followed by a
wariness spreading all over him.
Then there came the
pictures in his mind. Humans playing and laughing: Dogs and horses, strange
boxes moving on endless roads. Pictures of sunrises and sunsets in places he
had never seen before. Human faces that were familiar to him, but which he
never could have known. He realised that these were Gypsies. A strange people
his mother had told him about. “They were friends to the earth,” she had said,
“you need not fear them.” Then the tingling vibration was replaced by a
soothing caress that seemed to relieve the constant hurt he had been feeling.
“Am I dying,” he wondered. “If so why was it such a beautiful feeling.” His
mind turned to his own family and with that the eagle drifted into a painless
sleep.
He drifted in and
out of consciousness a few times, during the time Manana administered to him.
He vaguely recalled the food that she fed him. A quite tasteful substance he
did not recognise. But all to soon it was gone. He also remembered hands
touching and probing, as well as the human binding parts of his body in the dead
animal skin she wore. His final thought, before drifting into a long and deep
unconsciousness, was that the human only wore the skins because it did not have
fur or feathers to keep it warm.
Manana had lost
track of time, since she had begun to work on the eagle. She surmised it was
around three to four hours since darkness had fallen. One thing of which she
was certain, was that it was getting colder by the minute; and pretty soon the
cold may kill both of them.
After a further
round of exercises, she pondered the options left open to her. She could leave
the bird and try to make her way back to the camp, but she immediately rejected
that idea. She could easily get lost in the dark, or lose her footing once more
and end up worse than she was now. She had nothing with which to light a fire
(at this she cursed herself for not venturing out more equipped). It seemed her
only option would be to stay with the bird and hope help would come.
Having settled what
she would do. She replaced her hand on the eagle's head. She needed to know
how the eagle was bearing up. She may have started the mending process, but she
was skilled enough to know that the danger was far from over. There was
always the chance the bird may go into shock, or into fever. Her experience
told her that both of those usually follow an accident of this nature. But
mostly she was worried by the cold. If the eagle went too deep into a sleep, it
would succumb to the cold. Then all her work would have defiantly been in vain.
Manana’s efforts to
enter into the mind of her patient were going nowhere. With her teeth
chattering and her limbs shaking, try as she might, she could no longer summon
the words or concentration required. After twenty minutes without success,
tears of frustration began to run down her cheeks. Despite the bitter cold,
sweat formed on her brow from the effort she had excerpted.
Suddenly she
stopped. Was it her imagination, or had she heard something? She tuned her
hearing to the direction she thought the noise had come from. Again she heard
something. “It’s a Dog barking,” she told herself. “Not one, but many,” she
concluded. Then there came the unmistakable sound of human voices calling.
Over the still night air, she could hear her name being shouted. Her tears of
frustration soon turned to ones of relief. Help was at hand. Sobbing and
stumbling she climbed out the gully. |
