Clan of the Cave Bear (39 page)

Mog-ur hadn’t volunteered any comment up till then, but felt the time was right. “Iza is too weak to go, and she needs to stay and take care of Uba, but there’s no reason Ayla can’t go.”

“She’s not even a woman,” Broud interjected, “and, besides, the spirits might not like it if the strange one is with us.”

“She’s bigger than a woman, and as strong,” Droog contended, “a hard worker, good with her hands, and the spirits favor her. What about the cave? And Ona? I think she will bring luck.”

“Droog is right. She’s a fast worker and as strong as a woman. She doesn’t have any children to worry about, and she’s had some training as a medicine woman. That could be useful, though if Iza were stronger, I’d rather take her. Ayla comes with us,” Brun gestured with finality.

Ayla was so excited when she found out she was going along on the mammoth hunt, she couldn’t sit still. She pestered Iza with questions of what to take with her and had her basket packed and repacked several times in the final days before they planned to leave.

“You don’t want to take too much, Ayla. Your load is going to be much heavier on the way back, if the hunt is successful.
But I do have something for you that I think you should take. I just finished making it.”

Tears of happiness came to Ayla’s eyes as she saw the pouch Iza held out. It was made from the whole skin of an otter, cured with the fur, head, tail, and feet left intact. Iza had asked Zoug to get one for her and she had kept it hidden at Droog’s hearth, including Aga and Aba in on her surprise.

“Iza! My own medicine bag!” Ayla cried, and hugged the woman. She immediately sat down and removed all the small pouches and packets, setting them out in rows as she had seen Iza do so many times. She opened each one and sniffed at the contents, then tied them all back up with exactly the same knots with which they had been tied originally.

It was difficult to distinguish between many dried herbs and roots by smell alone, though particularly dangerous ones were often mixed with an innocuous but strong-smelling herb to prevent accidental misuse. The real system of classification was the type of cord or thong that held the pouches closed and an intricate combination of knots. Certain classes of herbal remedies were tied with cord made of horsehair, others with the hair of bison or some other animal whose hair had a distinctive color and texture, still others were tied with sinew or the cords made of stringy barks or vines, and some with leather thongs. Part of memorizing the uses of a particular plant was knowing the type of cord and the system of knots used to close the pouch or packet that held it.

Ayla put the pouches back into her medicine bag, then tied it to the cord at her waist, admiring it. She took it off and put it near her collecting basket along with the large bags that would be used to hold the mammoth meat they hoped to bring back. Everything was ready. The only problem that gave Ayla any cause for concern was what to do with her sling. She would have no use for it, but she was afraid to leave it behind for Iza or Creb to find. She thought of hiding it in the woods, but thought some animal might dig it up or the exposure might ruin it. Finally, she decided to take it with her, but keep it well hidden in a fold of her wrap.

It was still dark when the clan got up on the day of the hunters’ departure, and the multihued leaves were just starting to show their true colors as the sky lightened when they
started out. But as they passed beyond the ridge east of the cave, the radiant gleam of the rising sun broached the horizon, illuminating the broad plain of standing hay below with an intense golden glow. They trooped down the wooded flanks of the foothills and reached the steppes while the sun was still low. Brun set a fast pace, nearly as rapid as when the men went out alone. The women’s burdens were light, but unused to the rigors of rapid travel, they had to push to keep up.

They traveled from sunup to sundown, covering a much greater distance in a day than when the entire clan was looking for a new cave. They did no cooking except to boil water for tea, and little was required of the women. No game was hunted along the way; they all ate the traveling food the men usually took hunting: dried meat ground to a coarse meal, mixed with clean rendered fat and dried fruit, formed into small cakes. The highly concentrated traveling food supplied their nutritional needs more than adequately.

It was cold on the open windy prairie and got colder rapidly as they traveled north. Even so, shortly after they started out in the mornings, they removed layers of their clothing. Their pace warmed them quickly and only when they stopped for short rests did they notice the frigid temperature. The aching muscles of the first few days, especially the women’s, soon disappeared as they hit a stride and developed traveling legs.

The terrain of the northern part of the peninsula was rougher. Broad flat plateaus suddenly disappeared into steep ravines or abutted sheer cliffs—the result of rumbling upheavals in the violent earth of earlier times shaking free the constraints of limestone bonds. Narrow canyons were walled with jagged rocky faces, some dead-ending where the walls conjoined and some strewn with the rubble of sharp-edged fallen boulders cleaved from the surrounding bulwarks. Others channeled occasional waterways ranging from small seasonal streams to rushing rivers. Only near watercourses did a few wind-twisted pines, larches, and firs, crowded by birches and willows stunted to little more than brush, relieve the monotony of the grassy steppes. In rare instances where a ravine opened into a watered valley, sheltered from the incessant, driving wind and supplied with sufficient moisture, the coniferous and small-leafed deciduous trees more closely approached their true proportions.

The journey was uneventful. They traveled at the steady,
fast pace for ten days before Brun began sending out men to scout the surrounding area, slowing their progress for the next few days. They were close to the broad neck of the peninsula. If they were going to find mammoth, they should begin to see them soon.

The hunting party had stopped at a small river. Brun had sent Broud and Goov out earlier in the afternoon, and he was a short distance off from the rest looking in the direction they had gone. He would have to make a decision soon whether they would camp beside this river or continue farther before they stopped for the night. The late afternoon shadows were lengthening into evening, and if the two young men did not return soon, the decision would be made for him. He squinted his eyes as he faced directly into the sharp east wind that whipped his long fur wrap around his legs and flattened his bushy beard against his face.

Far in the distance he thought he saw movement, and as he waited, the running figures of two men became more distinct. He felt a sudden twinge of excitement. Perhaps it was intuition, or perhaps it was his sensitive attunement to the way their bodies moved. They saw the solitary figure and put on a fresh burst of speed, waving their arms. Brun knew long before their voices could be heard.

“Mammoth! Mammoth!” the men shouted, out of breath as they raced toward the group. Everyone crowded around the exultant men.

“A large herd, to the east,” Broud gestured excitedly.

“How far?” Brun asked.

Goov pointed straight up, then moved his arm down in a short arc. “A few hours,” the signal indicated.

“Show the way,” Brun motioned and signaled the rest to follow. There were still enough hours of daylight left to move closer to the herd.

The sun was crowding the horizon before the hunting party saw the dark blur of movement in the distance. It is a large herd, Brun thought, as he called a halt. They would have to make do with the water they carried from the previous stop; it was too dark to look for a stream. In the morning they could find a better campsite. The important thing was that they had found mammoth. Now it was up to the hunters.

After the troupe moved to a new encampment beside a meandering creek defined by a double row of scraggly brush along each bank, Brun took his hunters to reconnoiter
the possibilities. A mammoth could not be run down like a bison, or tripped with bolas. A different tactic had to be devised to hunt the woolly pachyderms. Brun and his men scouted the ravines and canyons in the vicinity. He was looking for a particular formation, a blind canyon that narrowed to a close defile with boulders lining the sides and piled up at the closed end, not too far from the slowly moving herd.

Early in the morning of the second day, Oga nervously sat down in front of Brun, head bowed, while Ovra and Ayla waited anxiously behind her.

“What do you want, Oga?” Brun motioned as he tapped her shoulder.

“This woman would make a request,” she began hesitantly.

“Yes?”

“This woman has never seen a mammoth. Neither have Ovra or Ayla. Would the leader allow us to go closer so we can get a better look?”

“What about Ebra and Uka, do they want to see a mammoth, too?”

“They say they will see enough mammoth before we are through to satisfy them. They have no wish to go,” Oga replied.

“They are wise women, but then, they have seen mammoth before. We are downwind; it should not disturb the herd if you do not go too close and do not try to circle around.”

“We will not go too close,” Oga promised.

“No, I think when you see them, you will not want to go too close. Yes, you may go,” he decided.

It won’t hurt to let the young women make a small excursion, he thought. They have little to do now, and they will be busy enough later—if the spirits favor us.

The three were excited about their proposed adventure. It was Ayla who finally convinced Oga to ask, though they had all talked about it. The hunting trip had thrown them into a closer association than they normally had at the cave, and it gave them an opportunity to get to know each other better. Ovra, who was quiet and reserved by nature, had always considered Ayla one of the children and did not seek her out for companionship. Oga did not encourage too much social contact, knowing how Broud felt about her,
and neither of the young women felt they had much in common with the girl. They were mated women, adults, mistresses of their men’s hearths; Ayla was still a child who did not have the same responsibilities.

It was only that summer, when Ayla assumed a quasi-adult status and began going on hunting trips, that the women began to think of her as more than a child, and especially during the trek to hunt for mammoth. Ayla was taller than any of the women, which gave her the appearance of an adult, and she was treated in most ways as though she were a woman by the hunters. Crug and Droog in particular called upon her. Their mates were back at the cave, and Ayla was unmated. They didn’t have to make their requests through another man, or with his permission, however informally it was asked or granted. With the common interest of the hunt, a friendlier relationship developed among the three younger females. Ayla’s closest associations before were with Iza, Creb, and Uba, and she enjoyed the newfound warmth of friendship with the women.

Shortly after the men left in the morning, Oga left Brac with Ebra and Uka and the three started out. It was a pleasant hike. They soon fell into animated conversation with rapidly moving hands and emphatic words. As they drew closer to the animals, their conversation fell off and soon ceased altogether. They stopped and gawked at the massive creatures.

The woolly mammoths were well adapted to the harsh periglacial climate of their cold environment. Their thick hides were covered with an undercoat of dense soft fur and an overlayer of shaggy, long, reddish brown hair up to twenty inches in length. They were further insulated by a three-inch layer of subcutaneous fat. The cold had caused modifications in their body structure, too. They were compact for their species, averaging ten feet high at the withers. Their massive heads, large in proportion to their overall height and more than half the length of their trunks, rose high above their shoulders in a peaked dome. They had small ears, short tails, and relatively short trunks with two fingers at the end, an upper and a lower one. In profile, they had a deep depression at the nape of the neck between their domed heads and a high hump of stored fat on the withers. Their backs sloped down sharply to the pelvis and somewhat shorter hind legs. But most impressive were their long, curved tusks.

“Look at that one!” Oga gestured and pointed to an old bull. His ivory tusks originated close together, pointed steeply downward, curved sharply outward, upward, then inward, crossing over in front of him and continuing on for a full sixteen feet.

The mammoth was tearing out swaths of grass, herbs, and sedge with his trunk and stuffing the tough, dry fodder into his mouth to break it down with efficient rasplike grinders. A younger animal, one whose tusks were not so long and still useful, uprooted a larch and began to strip it of twigs and bark.

“They’re so big!” Ovra motioned with a shudder. “I didn’t think any animal could be so big. How are they ever going to kill one? They can’t even reach one with a spear.”

“I don’t know,” Oga said, just as apprehensive.

“I almost wish we hadn’t come,” Ovra said. “It will be a dangerous hunt. Someone could get hurt. What will I do if something happens to Goov?”

“Brun must have a plan,” Ayla said. “I don’t think he’d even try to hunt them if he didn’t think the men could. I wish I could watch,” she added wistfully.

“I don’t,” Oga said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near. I’ll just be glad when it’s over.” Oga remembered her mother’s mate had been killed in a hunting accident just before the earthquake that took her mother. She was well aware of the dangers in spite of the best of plans.

“I think we should go back now,” Ovra said. “Brun didn’t want us to get too close. This is closer than I want to be.”

The three of them turned to go. Ayla looked back a few times as they hurried away. They were more quiet on the return trip, each lost in her own thoughts and not in the mood for much talk.

When the men returned, Brun directed the women to break camp and move after the hunters left the next morning. He had found a suitable location, they would hunt tomorrow, and he wanted the women well out of the way. He had seen the canyon early the day before. It was an ideal site but too far from the mammoths. He considered it a particularly good omen that the herd, moving slowly in a southwesterly direction, had wandered close enough by the end of the second day to make the site feasible.