Authors: W.C. Hoffman
The final ingredient to Uncle’s healing oil was as simple and abundant as could be in their northern Michigan home. Rotten birch bark was not only littered across every acre of their valley but it also lined the walls of their cabin.
The key to using the birch was to find a dry piece that had decomposed to the point its physical structure was breaking down, causing the inside layers to become stringy and hair-like. The decomposing process stripped the bark of its protective layers and sugars, allowing the bark to release its natural anti-inflammatory properties.
Not wanting to pull a piece of back from the wall, Drake quickly, quietly and cautiously stepped outside the front door. Moving the oak tree door was more of a chore with his sore chest than he had imagined it would be, but he managed to do and returned with an old piece of bark from a nearby blow-over without waking up his brother.
Drake placed a glass soda bottle they had found years before on top of the terracotta pot’s hole. The bottle being about half full of water would quickly come to a boil, at which point he would place the string-like strips of birch into the bottle. Boiling them took a few minutes longer than the wintergreen, giving Drake a chance to go run their small kitchen hose out to the river. With the hose placed underwater and held there with a small rock, Drake returned inside where the other end of the hose came up from its buried position in the floor into the small sink.
Drake began hand-pumping the air out of the hose with an improvised vacuum made from an old hot water pad that Uncle had stuffed with a large sponge. Squeezing the bag over and over for about three minutes was all that was needed to have a steady constant supply of siphoned river water into their sink. With the cold water flowing in from the river, positioned in the sink was an old, rusted red tin coffee can. The can itself was not important, but it held inside of it a coil of copper piping about a quarter of an inch in diameter. One side of the pipe contained a funnel with the other being just an open spout with a cap on it, extruding out from the bottom of the can. Drake placed the hose in the can and it filled up quickly with the cold running water from the river. Leaking out of the rusted holes in the coffee can and out the top allowed the river to continually provide the condensing coil with chilled, flowing water.
Seeing that the bark strand had softened up and sloped down into the bottom of the glass bottle he knew it was time to add the wintergreen. In doing so, Drake was making sure to get every last leaflet and sprig in the bottle. Drake now had to just wait. He placed the funnel over the glass bottle and watched as the vapors produced from the boiling down of the ingredients nature had provided entered the funnel and came to rest inside the cooling coils.
Once inside the coils, the menthol, water and anti-inflammatory vapors would distill back into a liquid that had oil-like consistency. Drake watched closely, confirming that he had good water flow through the tin can throughout the distillation process, which was required in order to properly cool down the vapors inside the coil.
The coil began to make a popping noise and thump around inside the tin can. This allowed Drake to know that the coil was filling and soon would be ready to open. Pulling the cork stopper from the end of the tube allowed the oil to flow out into the bowl Drake had ready. Filling the bowl rather quickly, Drake set it aside and began cupping his hands directly under the spout and as they filled he splashed the cool oil onto his bruised chest.
The cool burning sensation as the menthol opened up his skin pores was a welcomed relief. The pores being opened allowed the birch to work its magic and enter the affected areas. As quick as the coil had begun flowing, it was soon empty again and Drake removed the funnel and bottle from the oven.
Deciding to leave the oven going to heat the room, Drake tilted the other beeswax candles’ melted wax into the bowl of healing oil. Combining the oil and the wax made a cream like substance that could be rubbed on and into the skin, allowing hours of relief compared with the seconds that the oil alone provided. It also made the homemade medicine spill-proof, as well as providing it with a much longer shelf life.
Stirring the cream and applying it to his bruised body, Drake felt the cooling action and a sense of pride, as that was the first time he had made it alone without Uncle’s guidance. Lying there in his bunk Drake finally rested and closed his eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep only waking periodically to adjust his position on the cot as none of them allowed him total comfort with the soreness in his chest.
With each awakening, Drake would reapply a healthy coat of healing balm and as the sun began to rise he was pleased to find that for the first time in hours he could take deep breaths with little to no pain.
Getting up with the sun, opening the door and watching the sunrise crest the mountains, Drake remembered what he loved the most about their way of life here in the woods. It was something that maybe Uncle had forgotten over his years of pain. It was the fact that in the woods they were always alone, yet always together.
D
rake’s moment of enjoying the peaceful morning sunrise quickly changed as he glanced upriver. Slowly meandering its way, floating toward him, bobbing up and down in the gentle rapids without someone paddling it was their dugout canoe. Not wanting to lose the boat, he pondered his options. Drake was not looking forward to entering the river yet again to swim out and snag it before it passed by, but he knew without some luck that would most likely be his only choice. Or, perhaps, the river might help him out and so he began running downriver to cut it off at the bend, hoping it would wash up on the river’s sharp turn.
Running as fast as his injured lungs allowed him to breathe, he gained altitude on the hillside to avoid having to climb over the large riverbank-side rocks. The cold morning air in his lungs felt good against the pain of his sore muscles. Exhaling out the cold morning air and watching it become instant mist was equally painful. However, any pain and concern about his lungs was quickly set aside in his mind as the canoe continued to make its way toward him.
Looking down from his hillside perch the boat which was almost parallel with him on the river gave Drake enough height clearance to see what it was that set the boat free from its moorings where they stored it upriver at Shipen Run. Looking down into the cavity of the floating dugout was Deputy Henderson. Cold, shivering and balled up in the fetal position, she did not have the strength to paddle the vessel and was relying on the river to save her.
Just as Drake hoped, the boat came to rest on the shoreline at the river’s bend. Drake had watched every large stump and log that took the same path end up there over the years so the canoe doing the same was not a guarantee, but also no surprise.
Standing there a mere five yards away from the beached vessel, Drake reached for the throwing knife kept on his hip, only to realize that he began chasing down what he thought was an empty boat without gathering a single piece of weaponry or gear. Watching the boat while pondering what to do, Drake knew his chest was too injured to risk a hand-to-hand fight, even if it was against a woman.
His eyes remained fixed as there were no signs of movement. He knew at this point the woman was either already dead or incredibly weak.
“I should sneak back and get Tomek, or at least a weapon,”
Drake thought to himself. However, he quickly ruled out the option of leaving as he heard Henderson roll to her side, moan and unintelligibly whine. Leaving his concealed position along the wooded bank, he grabbed a large rock about the size of his own head and stalked up to the side of the canoe.
Peeking over the side wall of the boat with the large rock above his head in his extended arms, ready to slam it down on the deputy’s head, Drake looked into her eyes, glossed over and distant, as if she was already on her way out of this world, Drake decided smashing her skull was not needed and doing so in the boat could damage the bottom beyond repair. With his arms trembling from the pain of his bruise, Drake dropped the rock with a swift sigh of relief.
Thumping the side of the boat with his foot shaking her motionless body just a bit caused her to again moan. Reaching down into the boat, Drake removed the pistol from her holster and pointed it at her. Just as the rock would damage the boat, he knew a bullet would do the same. Having just killed Magee the night before with a firearm, Drake felt Henderson was deserving of a more honorable death. Tossing the gun out into the middle of the river, Drake decided he was done with shooting people.
Drake then placed his foot on the top edge of the boat and applied his body weight on it, causing the canoe to flip to its side and the deputy to roll out. Hitting the rocks and lying face down in four inches of river water caused Henderson to roll again to her back this time with her eyes open, looking around in a panicked state.
Drake quickly grabbed her by the throat with his uninjured left hand and arm, pulling her out into knee-deep water. Looking into her eyes as he held her head above the water, her limp body sank and the back of her ankles drug across the rocky river bed floor. The deputy’s eyes remained open, but she was in a distant state. Unresponsive and seemingly unaware of her surroundings, she provided no resistance as Drake continued to drag her out into the river until icy flowing water was just under his waistline.
Looking at her he could not help but to think how killing a girl might feel different than doing the same to a man. Was it the right thing to do? Should he show her some form of mercy? Standing in the cold river, his mind was quickly made up as he thought back to all the whitetail does and black bear sows they harvested over the years. Their insides were no different than a buck or bruins. They fed, ran, lived and tasted the same. Killing Henderson was no different than killing Magee, Ravizza or a trespassing hunter. Ending lives was part of their life now, and she was no different.
With his decision made, Drake grabbed the uniform lapels and pushed the deputy’s head under the water. She briefly struggled, lightly shaking back and forth, but never with enough force to even come close to breaking the grip of Drake, who then pinned her down deeper beneath the oxygen-robbing surface. With the final exhaling bubbles leaving her drowning mouth and nose, Drake loosened his grip, letting the limp and lifeless body float up to the surface. Looking across the river, he was unsure of what to do with her body. Letting her go to float down to Pine Run would alert the town, but it may also send a message. Dragging her back up river to burn her body would be too difficult of a task. His only choice was to leave her lie there on the bank and return with his brother later.
Drake spun the body around letting the current push her legs downstream. Grabbing the shirt and vest behind her neck, he dragged the waterlogged deputy against the flow to the shore. Once reaching shore, he brought Henderson a few more feet out of the water to make certain her body would not float away.
Out of breath and suffering from the pain inside his lungs, Drake dropped to his hands and knees in an attempt to catch his breath, but a constant string of coughs would not let him do so. Each deep, gasping breath was answered by a raging, body-shaking cough that all but forced him to stay in a prone position for fear of passing out and falling face-first into the shallow bank side water. Each cough rocked his chest cavity to the point that the boy began to feel lightheaded.
Losing all sense of balance and sight from the combination of not being able to breathe and his level of pain, Drake rested on his side. With his shoulder resting in the water, Drake propped his head up on his forearm and continued couching. He removed the hand covering his mouth to find it covered in a thick, frothy blood.
As he lay there struggling to breathe, coughing up blood into the river water, the irony of the situation was not missed. He thought about the fact that he had just drowned Henderson in the same river that was causing him to struggle to breathe. This may have been the same feeling she had as she looked up at him through the water.
It was also not lost on him that this time he was alone. Tomek was not there to save him as he had been many times before. In fact, he had not even told his twin about the canoes upon dashing out the door in a hurry. Uncle had died in the shallows of the river and Drake knew it was a fitting place for him, as well. His thoughts on the situation were much less clear with each failed attempt at catching any air that entered his now-burning lungs. The dizziness of the situation took its toll and upon losing consciousness, Drake’s head, now unsupported by his arm, slumped down into the river.
Lying there face-down, drowning in four inches of water his two remaining coughs did nothing but blow more blood from his lungs into the water. The current took the red stream downriver, away from what was to be his final resting place.
Coughing again while regaining brief consciousness, his face was now out of the water, but he felt and knew that it was not him holding his head up out of the water. Slipping back in and out of the darkness that was his state of consciousness, he again woke up, this time lying on his back, having no idea how he had flipped over. Drake lay there, only knowing now that he was staring up at the blue sky. Taking in a deep breath for the first time in minutes without a cough, his eyes opened further to realize that he was not, in fact, dead.
Sitting up unaware and still dizzy he looked around him, having no clue how much time had passed by. While it had only been minutes, Drake felt as if he had been dead for hours. Shaking the water and blood from his hair, he placed his good left arm on the ground as a base in an attempt to rock sideways to his knee and stand up.
As quick as he had shifted his weight onto the arm, from the corner of his eye we saw the sweeping leg fly in and kick his elbow, taking out his brace and causing his chest to slam back down, splashing into the river. Unable to move before his assailant made its next move, Drake laid there with an enemy on his back. Their knee placed directly into the back of his shoulder, pushing his broken ribs into the rocky river bottom below, where they grinded back and forth and all but immobilizing him.