The next time John woke was when Jeremiah, armed with a spoon and a bowl of porridge gently woke him up.
"Hey there buddy. You think you could keep awake for just a little longer than five minutes this time? Long enough for me to feed you this, so that Sally stops giving out to me for neglecting you?" Jeremiah asked with a friendly smirk.
John nodded and tried to get up but failed. The cuts crisscrossing his upper body and arms, although healing, were still very painful, so was his right shoulder and his head still hurt too. Jeremiah helped him sit up, propping him up with cushions against the headboard of the bed and then sat down beside him on the right side of the mattress.
Eating the porridge was a slow affair. Jeremiah put some food onto the spoon and then leaving it on the side of the bowl held the bowl out in front of John, so that John could pick up the spoon with his left hand to put the food into his mouth. He took only tiny amounts of food from each spoon. Just opening and closing his mouth, chewing and swallowing somehow seemed to hurt his head. Neither of them spoke, even though both had plenty they wanted to say and even more questions to ask.
"How's the patient today?" Walls wanted to know, as he marched into the room, with a broad smile, having obviously answered his own question, by just watching John sitting up and being fed his breakfast.
"He's good, Joseph," Jeremiah said looking up at the man, who stood slightly bend forward, with both his hands holding onto the top of the wooden board at the foot of John's bed. "He'll be alright," Jeremiah said with a cheerful voice.
Walls nodded and smiled contently, but his demeanour changed in an instant when Carl, who had cautiously snuck into the room through the door that Walls had left open, squeezed himself in between his father's strong arms to see for himself how his friend was doing.
"Is he better, Pa?" Carl asked cautiously, first looking at his friend, then at Jeremiah, and lastly up at his father. Walls looked at John now with a frown and intimidatingly stern expression, having straightened his body so that he stood at the end of the bed with his arms crossed in front of his broad chest like a dangerous giant.
The drastic change in his stance did not go unnoticed, neither by John nor Jeremiah, so that John anxiously glanced at Jeremiah who raised his brows and faintly shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, 'don't look at me Pal, I'm with him,' the same expression he had for him when Numees gave him an earful for walking muck all over the cabin.
"Yes Carl," Walls said with a firm voice. "Your friend is doing a lot better today. He will be alright now," Walls said as he placed his strong hands on the small shoulders of his son in front of him.
"I hope you know how lucky you were," Walls' addressed John, in a reprimanding tone, and booming voice, which made John bashfully look down onto the blanket, studying the patchwork pattern in front of him with his fingertips. He didn't feel particularly lucky at this point of time. In fact, he thought he had been particularly unlucky that the lioness had cubs, and that she had also found him out. Lucky would have been if he had either been able to come home a hero for having killed a mountain lion, or being able to sneak back to the ranch undetected by the adults and the lioness alike, but he decided against sharing those thoughts with Walls.
John glanced up first at Carl, who looked at him pityingly then Jeremiah who went back to casually putting food onto John's spoon and then holding the bowl out to him. John didn't dare to look at Walls. He knew it would only encourage the unreasonable man to go on and into full lecture mode, and the man's voice hurt his head. Instead, he obediently picked up the spoon from the side of the bowl and bravely tried to finish his meal, which caused him enough pain that it showed a little on his face.
Walls sighed. "I suppose this conversation can wait, but don't think you're going to get away with what you have done, young man. You had us all terribly worried," Walls said, with his strict eyes focused on the boy in the bed in front of him, waving his index finger about as a warning and a tone that made Jeremiah look around to him. John briefly looked up at both of them, noticing how the two men swiftly exchanged glances, and Walls nodded in silent agreement in Jeremiah's direction before he turned his attention to his son.
"Come on Carl. Let's leave them to it. Your friend still needs a lot of rest. He hasn't fully recovered just yet," Walls told his son with an altogether much softer voice as he gently turned him around by his shoulders and moved him towards the door.
Carl was somewhat reluctant to leave and gave John another pitying smile over his shoulder and a little wave as his father gently, but firmly lead him out of the room. John then could hear Carl's feet speedily running down the stairs, and calling to his older brother Bert, telling him the good news about John being awake and going to live.
Walls having reached the door frame, paused and turned himself around once more. "I'm glad you are better, John," he said, in a dark tone that conveyed more what he thought he ought to be saying to the boy, than express the immense relieve he and his family felt at the boy's recovery.
When Numees came in a short while later, Jeremiah handed her the bowl of porridge and asked her to take over. It was about time he got back to do some work he told them both and left, giving her a kiss on the way out.
Numees did not bother with letting John feed himself. She spooned the food into his mouth, with no fuzz. Quickly, quietly and efficiently, as if both his arms were entirely useless. Instinctively she knew to only put a tiny amount of food onto his spoon. Once he tried to take the spoon from her as her hand approached his mouth, but she just gently moved his hand out of her way. John wasn't entirely sure what to make of this, but decided it was easier not to quarrel with her. It was rare she didn't win a quarrel with any of them, often with nothing more than a look or hand gesture. Tired and with a sore head he stood no chance against the wilful woman.
As she fed him and with nothing to do, his eyes landed on the necklace that was hanging down from her neck. It was new but the wooden beads with their carvings on top seemed old. The beads were flat, like little stones rather than pearls, and went all the way around her neck forming a long chain. Their shape was somewhat unusual, neither square nor rectangular, and on close inspection seemed slightly curved and wider at the top than the bottom. The string was pulled through the top part of each bead lengthways, so that they lay flat against her buckskin top. It wasn't until he recognised the feathers attached to the long pendant in the middle that John realised the origin of the beads.
"Oh no, Numees?!" John moaned remorsefully, as he leant painfully forward to pick up the pendant with the feathers. He had heard the break but had hoped he'd be wrong, "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to..."
Numees looked at him and did not smile. She took the pendant back out of his hand and examined it herself with a barely noticeable sigh.
"It couldn't be fixed?" John asked, but he knew the answer already. They would have, had it been possible. He knew what the bow had meant to her. Her adoptive father had made it for her. He hadn't thought of it at the time, but he knew. He should have never taken it.
"Some things cannot be fixed once broken," Numees said to him, without any emotion and wanted to get back to feeding him.
"I'm sorry," John whispered, "I didn't mean to..." he repeated a second time, looking straight into her eyes, trying to detect how mad she was at him. There was no way she didn't hate him for this.
"Numees knows," she said, with that determined strong voice of hers, that often left him guessing how she felt, but could not be disagreed with, "Better Numees' bow broken, than John," she said, using his name for the first time, and John wasn't sure if he liked it.
John let her finish feeding him, despite his appetite gone. He didn't dare to object to her now.
At some stage they were joined by Enkoodabooaoo who came with a bowl of warm water and his medicines to tend to his wounds. He stood against the wall, watching them, waiting patiently, making the atmosphere even more awkward for John. Neither Numees, nor Enkoodabooaoo seemed to feel uncomfortable though.
When the food was all gone, Numees and Enkoodabooaoo got to the task of changing his dressings. It was the first time he got a good luck at his injuries and consciously took in the angry wounds that were still raw and bleeding in places. He had to avert his eyes with a flinch, when Numees washed all around them and put the ointment over them. Not being able to hold him by the shoulders, Enkoodabooaoo placed one hand firmly on his forehead, while using the other to hold his lower arm, to help him stay still, but there was no need, John knew how to bite down pain.
"John did not kill the cat? Why? They say John did not shoot?" Numees questioned him, as she finished up what she was doing by replacing the old bandages with clean ones. She looked into his tearful eyes, wiping his hair of his forehead which was sweaty from the pain.
John tried but was only faintly able to shrug his shoulders. It was hard to explain, and he wasn't sure if he wanted her to know, not least because Enkoodabooaoo was listening in as well. He didn't want him to think he was a coward. He didn't want him to think he was soft. He couldn't even kill a mountain lion, what sort of a warrior was he supposed to be? Not a brave one anyhow. Who was he kidding? He'd be no use to Matunaagd or any of them.
"I fell," John told her a version of the truth but lied about the essential, and then saw Enkoodabooaoo quietly move behind her, placing one hand on her shoulder but looking down at him.
"John tried to scare the lioness away. He did not want to shoot her," Enkoodabooaoo told her, but looking at John, who had to look away because he couldn't hold the old man's gaze.
"I couldn't. She had two babies. I would have had to kill them as well. I just couldn't," John said ashamed of himself. "They would have starved otherwise. I just couldn't," he said, with his head turned towards the wall so that he didn't have to look at either of them. He wished Jeremiah was there. Jeremiah would understand.
"John chose to be kind," Enkoodabooaoo said looking down at John with his old voice that sounded rough but resolute and soft at the same time, so that John was compelled to glance up at the old man. He didn't want to look at him, but the old man's knowledgeable eyes demanded his attention and didn't allow him to avert his gaze again.
"John is brave. And he is – kind. He is Ikimmapiiyipisiwa" the old man said with a serious face, translating the word 'kind' into his own language, the way he often did when he wanted him to learn a new and important word.
John sighed. The old man's tone left no doubt, his words were clearly meant as an endorsement. John didn't really understand why, nor could he agree. He was supposed to be strong, supposed to be hard, supposed to be tough and unyielding, grown-up. They had said the lion had to die. It would keep going after the herd. There was no choice. Matunaagd was looking forward to the honour of the hunt. No empathy wasted on it, Matunaagd was going to kill the large cat, and now John was praised for wanting to let her live, for being kind? It made no sense.
"I was going to kill her, when I realised, she was going to kill me, I was going to kill her," John whispered, "but then I fell," John said embarrassedly because he didn't feel he deserved Enkoodabooaoo's generous words. He'd been distracted, let her sneak up on him and fell. He wasn't that kind, nor that brave, that he was going to die for her. In the end, he would have killed her probably. He kept on hesitating for just too long. He didn't want to tell them that he delayed because he was afraid Matunaagd was going to be mad at him for going after his hunt. Matunaagd could be funny about things like that.
He never thought of it that way, that he'd almost died just because he'd feared Matunaagd was going to be mad at him, because he couldn't face him. What sort of brave was that?
Enkoodabooaoo nodded. "It happens," he said non-chalantly, "John did good tracking. It took courage to try and scare her away. It was kind to give her a chance, and it was brave," Enkoodabooaoo said.
"Did Matunaagd go after her?" John asked.
"No," Enkoodabooaoo said and shook his head. "The Lioness ran and took her children with her. The guns scared her away and hopefully she will not return. Matunaagd has decided the lioness is Ikimma's coup and respects his wish to let her and her children live," Enkoodabooaoo told him. They were silent for a few moments, and John contemplated what Enkoodabooaoo had said, while Numees pulled the blankets all the way back up to John's chin, tucking him back into bed.
"But what if she comes back?" John asked Enkoodabooaoo who had already turned and was about to leave. "What if she comes back and she kills another calf, what then?"
"Sleep John," Enkoodabooaoo advised, "you might not need to find the answer to that question, but you need sleep," and with that Enkoodabooaoo left while Numees gathered the things they used for cleaning his wounds and dressing them, before also leaving the boy alone to rest.
She had already closed the door behind her, and headed for the stairs when John called after her, "Numees wait! Who is Ikimma?"