The Healer by Daniel P. Mannix Read Free Book Online Page B

followed by dogs."
    Billy had the feeling that Abe Zook knew well that the animals were not supernatural but that he preferred to think of them as werewolves. The boy wondered if the old man practiced magic because he believed in it or wanted to believe in it. Perhaps Zook wished so desperately to feel that his mysterious art was true that he had come to live in a pretend world that was real to him, even though he knew it was all a game of make-believe.
    The familiar cackling of the guinea fowl sounded as soon as they climbed the fence, and Wasser tore out, barking. They called to him and the dog came bounding to meet them, snuffing at the baskets and jumping on Billy. Grip was pacing up and down before the door, indignant, as it was long past his feeding time. Billy got him a piece of bread and some sausage and after examining both, the raven took the sausage and flew off with it. Thinking he did not want the bread, Billy retrieved the piece and was going back to the house with it when furious cries made him stop. Grip was flying back, the sausage still in his beak. Alighting by the boy's feet, Grip did a war dance of outrage. Then he dropped the sausage, hurriedly dug a hole with his beak, put the meat in it, covered it over, and then marched over to Billy demanding his bread. Billy gave it to him, and Grip was obviously in a quandary whether to take the bread away and hide it or stand guard over his sausage. He finally solved the problem by eating the bread on the spot and then unearthing the sausage and carrying it off to a safer spot.
    "You should go and get wood, no?" suggested Abe Zook. "Or is the hand too bad?"
    "I can do it," said Billy turning away. He hated to admit that the hand still hurt him, for he felt that the injury was the result of his own stupidity.
    "On the way, look for rats in the trap under the corncrib," Abe Zook called after him.
    "I thought you poisoned rats."
    "Not when I have an owl to feed. If he ate a poisoned rat, he would die too."
    Billy found the trap. It was a small barrel with tin nailed around the inside, sunk into the ground. A light board hung over the edge with bait fastened to the end. When a rat crept along the board, it tilted so the rat fell into the barrel and then, with the weight gone, the board swung back into place. There were three rats in the barrel, but Billy did not know how to get them out without being bitten. He got his armful of wood and reported to Abe Zook.
    "You tail them. Come, I show you." The old man got an old milk can and they went to the trap. With surprising dexterity, Zook grabbed the rats by the tails, one after another, and dropped them in the can, quickly replacing the lid. They then went to the shed where the owl, seeing them coming, bent over, clicking and hissing. Zook opened the door and tossed in a rat. Before it struck the floor, the owl was on it. Billy gasped at the big bird's speed. The rat turned over once in the iron grip and tried to bite, but the same grip that had paralyzed Billy's arm made him numb. The owl seized him by the neck with its hooked beak and finished him.
    "If you are worried, the rat felt very little. The talons numb the pain."
    "Yes, I know," said Billy staring, entranced, and yet horrified. It was the first time he had seen any living thing killed.
    "More later, I will give him the rest," said Zook, putting the can in the shed and closing the door.
    "Do the rats know what's going to happen to them?"
    "Do you wish the owl to eat?"
    "Can't he eat regular meat? I'd let him have some of my supper."
    "No, he must have fur or feathers. He will spit the fur up in the form of a little ball and that keeps his crop clean. Besides something must keep the rats down or they would take over the barn. Why not let the wild creatures do it?"
    Billy said nothing. For a wild owl to catch rats seemed all right, but to catch them and then feed them to an owl was somehow cruel. It was all very confusing.
    Abe Zook led him to a high, rectangular