How Shinbone Lane Got Its Name

A long time ago, when adventurers from across the globe rode, marched, clawed, borrowed and thieved their way to California after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, Henry entered his grandfather Otto's apothecary shop in Boston's North End. Threadbare clothes hung from the teenager's slight frame as he made his way past assorted remedies in bottles, tins and boxes.

Henry approached Otto, who stood near a shelf stacked with potions, salves and other remedies at the back wall. Candles flickered. Smells of herbs permeated, as usual, but Otto was not the same as the day before. Instead of standing firm, the old man swayed like a sapling in wind. His usually wild white hair, lay limp against his skull.

"Opa, what's the matter? You don't look good."

The old man greeted Henry with a craggy voice. "Don't look so shaken, my son. You knew this day would come."

"But there's so much more to learn." Henry bent down to pick up a penny on the floor and put it on Otto's table.

"Your uncle arrives this afternoon, my only surviving son. He knows I am failing fast and will take over my affairs. But he is cruel. He will cast you out, though you already know more about remedies than he ever will." From a shelf at the back wall, Otto pushed aside a small chest, and from behind it, he pulled down a flute made from a human child's shinbone. "He will also turn the place upside down looking for this." He held the instrument out to Henry. "I told him it was lost on the journey to America when your dear parents and grandmother succumbed to cholera. I said I was too ill myself to keep track of it. He's never believed me."

Henry knew the lore about the flute. It had been passed down in the family for genertions from a time when animals and people conversed, inatimate objects moved on their own, and stones told stories to those willing to listen. In that time, there was a village girl who had a voice so beautiful people came from far and wide to hear her sing. This made her sister jealous, for no one noticed her at all. So one day, the jealous girl convinced her sister to have a picnic on a ridge high above a nearby river. Once there, though, as they admired the view, the jealous girl pushed her sister over the edge, and she fell down, down, hitting many rocks on the way, and was washed downstream. Certain eveyone would now come to hear her sing instead, the jealous sister lied about what had happened. And when the jealous one tried to sing, instead of music, frogs came from her mouth, so everyone knew she'd had a hand in her sister's disappearance. And, though people searched for the girl, her body was never found. Far downsteam, one of Henry's forefathers found the shinbone and fashioned it into a flute, and the family, already known for their healing remedies, discovered the flute had healing powers and used it discretely in their work.

Otto wiped dust from the flute with his sleeve. "Use this only to serve others. And guard it well. In the wrong hands, it can do harm."

Henry had seen Otto play the flute only once in Austria before the family left for America ten years before. Otto had been called to a landowner's home where the first-born son was gravely ill. The healer closed everyone out except for Otto. He burned sage, rubbed the young aristocrat down with a rosemary tincture, and then played the flute. As sounds of innocent beauty filled the room, a sparkling, multicolored mist enveloped the youth. Vitality gradually returned to his body. The next day he was fully healed. The only payment Otto accepted was food for his and Henry's journey home.

Henry bowed his head at the thought of accepting the flute. "I am not worthy of such power."

"I cannot let my greedy son get hold of this. It would bring only tragedy."

"I don't know how—"

Otto held it the flute. "Take it now, and use it sparingly, only for those who deserve it. And don't let anyone see you play." He handed Henry the instrument, coughed and struggled to his bed. "I've paid your passage on a ship that leaves Boston this morning for California by way of Cape Horn at the bottom of South America. It will take months to get there, and it's said gold is everywhere for the taking, and fools believe it. The captain is expecting you. You'll calm seasickness and other maladies as part of the arrangement. Many will need your help to survive on the journey and afterward. You'll find your gold in what I've taught you, not in mining."

"I don't want to leave."

"This is the way of life. It's inevitably too soon when these passages arise."

Henry rubbed the flute as sorrow flowed through him. "Boston's my home now. How will I get by?"

"You are a smart boy with an uncanny gift for language. Listen well on the ship and you'll learn new tongues before you reach your new home." The old man motioned to the table where Henry had watched him mix remedies for years."Take my medicine bag, and put on the clothes and footwear I set aside for you. Take Mystery, too. He'll advise you and help keep the flute safe." Otto nodded toward a pigeon with golden brown body and head, purple wings and tail with yellow and turquoise markings around his neck and on his wings.

"But he doesn't talk to me."

"His voice will come to you when the time is right. Go quickly. Your uncle will be here soon."

Henry boarded the ship for California just before it pulled up anchor. He carried the flute, medicines and, on his shoulder, the pigeon Mystery. The sea slapped, roared and jolted with uncommon fury throughout the journey, as though monsters in the depths were at war. While nauseated himself, he treated several passengers for seasickness, a few for dysentery, and, when he was at a loss for how to treat a poor soul suffering delirium, Mystery's gravely voice came into his mind, telling him what he'd seen Otto do in such cases. Finally, they reached San Francisco, until recently known as Yerba Buena, where the lust for gold had taken over and shacks and shanties cluttered the shoreline and dotted the hills All but two sailors abandoned ship, hoping to stake a claim and strike it rich.

Henry spent several days blending into shadows, listening to what people said about routes, supplies, and streams full of gold. With possibility in the air everywhere, he thought he could be both healer and prospector. Some might say it's foolish of him, but the boy had to make his own decisions now. He purchased basic supplies and a mule with gold coins Otto had left in the pockets of the clothes he’d set aside for him, and set off for the Sierras, where gold was said to still be plentiful. He trekked along, stopping at shotgun town that had sprung up and met a Nissan shaman whose tribe had been wiped out by gangs of gold seekers from New England. Henry shared a ritual for easing troubled spirits he'd learned from Otto; the shaman showed him several local plants with healing powers.

Farther along his journey, he met Maeve, an Irish woman whose husband trapped for a fur company, while she raised their children and ran a boarding house that was thriving. Also a healer, she said she was descended from the goddess Airmed, whose tears over her slain brother's grave gave rise to the world's healing herbs, some of which Maeve grew in her garden. Her home was also a haven for birds drawn to her from all corners of the earth. Some were pigeons colored just like Mystery. Two males and three females fluttered to Henry when he was preparing to move on.

"Would you allow them to come with us?" Henry asked.

"It's not up to me. They come and go of their own free will."

So Henry left with a flock of six instead of Mystery alone. A few days later, approaching a town at a fork in the Yuba River, Henry heard groans coming from the side of the road. There he saw a bulky man prone with eyes swollen shut and blood oozing into the dirt.

(To be continued in Laura’s forthcoming novel, On Shinbone Lane.)