He came walking into camp around noon. He introduced himself as Falcao, the traveling healer.At the time nobody needed healing, so we told him he might as well move on to the next camp which was up along the creek about two miles.

“I have a feeling that I’m going to be needed here,” he said. “I’ll stick around until tomorrow just to be safe. I can give your cookie a hand washing dishes or peeling potatoes. “

Nobody disagreed on that.

“The cookie is over by the big tent,” I said, pointing at the tent so he’d know what I was talking about. He headed toward the tent without saying another word.

About two hours later a crummy came flying into camp. A man jumped out of the truck and yelled, “We got a bleeder here, somebody get an iron out of the fire!”

At that point Falcao came running like a bat out of hell. As he got to the crummy he yelled, “I’m a healer, where is the bleeder?”

“In the back of the truck,” the man said. Falcao zoomed to the back of the truck and swung open the door. He then pulled out a small bag from his satchel, located the bleeder, and dumped out the contents of the bag on the wound..

“Sonofabitch,” the man with the bleeder said. “That stings like a motherfucker.

Then cookie the arrived with the iron, and after looking at the wound said, “No need to slap iron, the bleeding has stopped.:

One of the camp loggers ran up to Falcao and forced him to the ground. “Only a witch could stop a bleeder that easily.”

Several other loggers grumbled in agreement. “Put him to the stake, ” someone one yelled out.

“You better get out of here, ” I told Falcao. He was already gathering up his stuff. Moments later he left the camp headed up stream. We never saw him again. Years later I learned that Falcao was the Mystic of Cascadia and wishing I’d fought for his right to stay in camp. If I ever see him again you can bet I’ll do everything I can to keep him in camp