The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [196]
She applied pressure to the groin while she washed the wound using the cured skin of a rabbit, scraped and stretched until it was soft and absorbent, dipped in the warm infusion of marigold petals. The liquid was astringent as well as antiseptic, and she would later use it to check the minor bleeding of the other wounds as well. She cleaned thoroughly, flushing the injury inside and out. Under the deep external gash, a section of his thigh muscle was ripped. She sprinkled geranium-root powder liberally onto the wound and noticed the immediate coagulating effect.
Holding the pressure point with one hand, Ayla dipped comfrey root in water to rinse it. Then she chewed it to a pulp and spit it into the hot marigold-petal solution to use for a wet poultice directly on the open wound. She held the gash closed and repositioned the torn muscle, but when she took her hands away, the wound gaped open and the muscle slipped out of place.
She held it closed again but knew it wouldn’t stay. She didn’t think wrapping it firmly would hold it together properly, and she didn’t want the man’s leg to heal badly and cause a permanent weakness. If only she could sit there and hold it together while it healed, she thought, feeling helpless and wishing Iza were there. She was sure the old medicine woman would have known what to do, though Ayla could not remember any instructions ever given to her about how to treat a situation like this.
But then she remembered something else, something Iza had told her about herself when she had asked how she could be a medicine woman of Iza’s line. “I’m not really your daughter,” she had said. “I don’t have your memories. I don’t really understand what your memories are.”
Iza had explained then that her line had the highest status because they were the best; each mother had passed on to her daughter what she knew and learned, and she had been trained by Iza. Iza had given her all the knowledge she could, perhaps not all she knew, but enough, because Ayla had something else. A gift, Iza had said. “You don’t have the memories, child, but you have a way of thinking, a way of understanding … and a way of knowing how to help.”
If only I could think of a way to help this man now, Ayla thought. Then she noticed the pile of clothing she had cut off the man, and something occurred to her. She let go of his leg and picked up the garment that had covered the lower part of his body. Pieces had been cut, and then joined together with fine cord; a cord made of sinew. She examined the way they were attached, pulling them apart. The cord was put through a hole on one side, and then through a hole on the other, and pulled together.
She did something similar to shape dishes of birchbark, piercing holes and tying the ends together with a knot. Could she do something like that to hold the man’s leg closed? To hold the gash until it healed together?
Quickly, she got up and brought back what appeared to be a brown stick. It was a long section of deer tendon, dried and hard. With a round smooth rock, Ayla rapidly pounded the dried tendon, breaking it down to long strands of white collagen fibers. She pulled it apart, then worked out a fine strand of the tough connective tissue and dipped it in the marigold solution. Like leather, sinew was flexible when wet, and if untreated it stiffened as it dried. When she had several pieces ready, she looked over her knives and borers, trying to find the best one with which to cut small holes in the man’s flesh. Then she remembered the packet of slivers she had gotten from the tree struck by lightning. Iza had used such slivers to pierce boils, blisters, and swellings that needed to be drained. They would work for her purpose.
She washed away seeping blood but wasn’t quite sure how to begin. When she jabbed