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encircled him with posts set into the ground and tethered him to them using long, braided leather ropes tied around his neck. The ropes going to the posts had enough slack that he could stand or lie down in the center. To define the pen’s boundaries, the enclosure had been secured with more ropes, wound from post to post around the circle.
    Several sturdy guards stood nearby. Bear told them to unwind the ropes going around the pen but to leave the ones attached to the Longhead’s neck.
    Raven turned to Leaf. “Tell him we’re going to set his arm and that he should drink this.” She showed Leaf the gourd. “But first, I will need to examine him.” Leaf translated, and the Longhead looked over at her. She searched his face to see how he felt about what he’d heard, but his expression gave nothing away.
    When the ropes were gone from around the pen, Raven entered the surrounding posts, fully expecting Bear to stop her. He didn’t, so she put the gourd down carefully on the ground, all the while aware of the Longhead’s eyes following her. To reach him, she went between two of the tethers. She paused a moment and then gently moved her hands around on his shoulder and arm. His skin was hot, feverish.
    “What in the great Mother’s earth are you doing?” Bear shouted, starting toward her.
    “I have to determine whether the bone has come out the front or the back,” she said. “Let’s hope that it’s the front, or relocating it will be difficult.”
    Bear glowered but stepped back out of the circle, and Raven continued her examination. The Longhead stood still while her fingers probed. She took a quick look at his face and experienced that odd swirling of impressions she’d had on first seeing him up close. He looked strange, which was not to say ugly. It just took a few more heartbeats to make sense of the striking eyes gleaming under those heavy, menacing brows and the well-shaped mouth under such a large, protruding nose.
    Luckily, the arm was out of joint in the front, but the whole limb was tight and swollen. Too much time had passed. The bone wouldn’t go back in easily, maybe not at all. She brought the gourd over and mimicked drinking from it before pressing the handle into the hand of his good arm.
    He looked so intently into her face that Raven felt he was trying to see into her mind and hear her thoughts. With eyes still on hers, he raised the gourd and drank. His trust warmed her, and she wanted to smile at him but dared not.
    “Well, which is it?” Bear asked when she emerged from the circle.
    Raven looked at him hesitantly. She doubted he understood that medicines needed time to work. If Bear straightened the arm at that point, her potion would only ease the soreness after the arm was fixed, doing nothing until then. When the more immediate pain sank its fangs into the Longhead, he possibly wouldn’t be mild like a newborn calf but more like a raging bull.
    “It’s out the front,” she said. “We should wait until the potion takes better effect.”
    “There isn’t time. There are other things to be done this morning,” he said. But still he stood there, his fingers pulling and working the bottom of his parka. Seeing how they were all watching him expectantly, he huffed out his chest and moved inside the circle of posts.
    The captive’s brow tightened when Bear stopped in front of him. For a moment, the two bulky forms faced each other as if about to wrestle. Then Bear lifted the bad arm and began to slowly pull. A growl rumbled from the Longhead’s throat. Bear dropped the arm, turned, and tromped out of the circle.
    “Since you boasted you could, you do it, healer,” he hissed, rubbing dampness from his face.
    Raven walked into the pen area again, and something resembling relief crossed the captive’s face. Her stomach roiled like a pool of eels as she began taking the looped rope ends from around the post tops, so the ropes fell without tension from his neck. Although no one told