Mammoth Hunters (24 page)

Ayla pulled her hand away from Ranec and backed off. It was too much. All the questions and crowding, and uncontrollable emotions overpowering her. Her stomach tightened into a knot, her chest pounded, her throat ached; she had to get away. She saw Whinney with Rydag still on her back, and without thinking, swooped up the pouch of stones with the hand that still held her sling as she raced toward the horse.

She vaulted onto the mare’s back and wrapped a protective arm around the boy as she leaned forward. With the signals of pressure and movement, and the subtle, inexplicable communication between horse and woman, Whinney sensed her need to flee and, leaping to a start, raced across the open plains in a fast gallop. Racer followed behind, keeping up with his dam with no trouble.

The people of the Lion Camp were stunned. Most of them had no idea why Ayla had run for her horse, and only a few had seen her ride hard. The woman, long blond hair flying in
the wind behind her, clinging to the back of the galloping mare, was a startling and awesome sight, and more than one would have gladly traded places with Rydag. Nezzie felt a twinge of worry for him, then, feeling that Ayla wouldn’t let him come to harm, she relaxed.

The boy didn’t know why he had been granted this rare treat, but his eyes glistened with delight. Though the excitement caused his heart to pound a bit, with Ayla’s arm around him, he felt no fear, only a breathless wonder to be racing into the wind.

Flight from the scene of her distress and the familiar feel and sound of the horse relieved Ayla’s tension. As she relaxed, she noticed Rydag’s heart beating against her arm with its peculiar, indistinct rumbling sound, and felt a moment’s concern. She wondered if she was wise to have taken him with her, then realized the heartbeat, though abnormal, was not unduly stressed.

She slowed the horse, and making a wide circle, headed back. As they neared the throwing course, they passed near a pair of ptarmigan, their mottled summer plumage not yet fully changed to winter white, concealed in the high grass. The horses flushed them out. Out of habit, as they took to the air, Ayla readied her sling, then looked down and saw that Rydag had two stones in his hand from the pouch he held in front of him. She took them, and guiding Whinney with her thighs, she knocked one of the low-flying fat fowl down from the sky, and then the other.

She halted Whinney and, holding Rydag, slid off the mare’s back with the boy in her arms. She put him down and retrieved the birds, wrung their necks, and with a few stringy stalks of standing hay, she tied together their feathered feet. Though they could fly fast and far when they chose, ptarmigan did not fly south. Instead, with a heavy winter growth of white feathers that camouflaged and warmed their bodies and made snowshoes of their feet, they endured the bitter season, feeding on seed and twigs, and when a blizzard struck, scratched out small caves in the snow to wait it out.

Ayla put Rydag on Whinney’s back again. “Will you hold the ptarmigan?” she signed.

“You will let me?” he signaled back, his sheer joy showing in more than his hand signs. He had never run fast just for the pleasure of running fast; for the first time he felt what it was like. He had never hunted or really understood the
complex feelings that came from the exercise of intelligence and skill in the pursuit of sustenance for himself and his people. This was as close as he had ever come; it was as close as he ever could.

Ayla smiled, draped the birds across the horse’s withers in front of Rydag, then turned and started walking toward the throwing course. Whinney followed. Ayla wasn’t in a hurry to get back, she was still upset, remembering Jondalar’s angry look. Why does he get so angry? One moment he was smiling at her, so pleased … when everyone was crowding in on her. But when Ranec … She flushed, remembering the dark eyes, the smooth voice. Others! she thought, shaking her head as if to clear her mind. I don’t understand these Others!

The wind blowing from her back whipped tendrils of her long hair in her face. Annoyed, she brushed them out of her way with her hand. She had thought several times about braiding her hair again, the way she had worn it when she lived alone in the valley, but Jondalar liked her hair worn loose, so she left it down. It was a nuisance sometimes. Then, with a touch of irritation, she noticed that she still held her sling in her hand because she had no place to put it, no convenient thong to tuck it in. She wasn’t even able to wear her medicine bag with these clothes that she wore because Jondalar liked them; she had always tied it to the thong that held her wrap closed.

She lifted her hand to push her hair out of her eyes again, and then noticed her sling. She stopped, and pulling her hair back out of her eyes, she wrapped the supple leather sling around her head. Tucking the loose end under, she smiled, pleased with herself. It seemed to work. Her hair still hung loose down her back, but the sling kept her hair out of her eyes, and her head seemed to be a good place to carry her sling.

Most people assumed Ayla’s flying leap on the horse, and the fast ride ending with the quick dispatch of the ptarmigan, were part of her sling demonstration. She refrained from correcting them, but she avoided looking at Jondalar and Ranec.

Jondalar knew she was upset when she turned and ran, and was sure the fault was his. He was sorry, mentally chided himself, but was having trouble coping with his unfamiliar mixed emotions, and didn’t know how to tell her. Ranec
hadn’t realized the depth of Ayla’s distress. He knew he was provoking some feeling from her, and suspected that may have contributed to her disconcerted rush toward the horse, but he thought her actions were naïve and charming. He was finding himself even more attracted to her and wondered just how strong her feeling was for the big blond man.

Children were racing up and down the throwing course again when she returned. Nezzie came for Rydag, and took the birds as well. Ayla let the horses go. They moved off and began to graze. Ayla stayed to watch when a friendly disagreement led several people to an informal spear-throwing contest, which then led them to an activity beyond her realm of experience. They played a game. She understood competitions, contests that tested necessary skills—who could run the fastest or throw a spear the farthest—but not an activity whose object seemed to be simply enjoyment, with the testing or improving of essential skills incidental.

Several hoops were brought up from the lodge. They were about the size that would fit over a thigh, and had been made of strips of wet rawhide, braided and allowed to dry stiff, then wrapped tightly with bear grass. Sharpened feathered shafts—light spears, but not tipped with bone or flint points—were also part of the equipment.

The hoops were rolled on the ground, and the shafts thrown at them. When someone stopped a hoop by throwing a shaft through the hole and embedding it in the ground, shouts and thigh-slapping applause signaled approval. The game, which also involved the counting words and this thing called wagering, had aroused great excitement, and Ayla was fascinated. Both men and women played, but took turns rolling the hoops and throwing the shafts, as though they were opposing each other.

Finally, some conclusion was reached. Several people headed back to the lodge. Deegie, flushed with excitement, was among them. Ayla joined her.

“This day seems to be turning into a festival,” Deegie said. “Contests, games, and it looks like we’re going to have a real feast. Nezzie’s stew, Talut’s bouza, Ranec’s dish. What are you going to do with the ptarmigan?”

“I have special way I like to cook. You think I should make?”

“Why not? It would add to the feast to have another special dish.”

Before they reached the lodge, preparations for the feast were evident in the delicious cooking smells that reached out with tantalizing promise. Nezzie’s stew was largely responsible. It was quietly bubbling in the large cooking hide, tended at the moment by Latie and Brinan, though everyone seemed to be involved in some way with food preparations. Ayla had been interested in the stew cooking arrangement, and had watched Nezzie and Deegie set it up.

In a large pothole that had been dug near a fireplace, hot coals were placed on top of ashes, accumulated from previous use, that lined the bottom. A layer of powdered, dried mammoth dung was poured on the coals, and on top of that was placed a large, thick piece of mammoth hide supported by a frame, and filled with water. The coals smoldering under the dung began to heat the water, but by the time the dung caught fire, enough of the fuel had been burned away that the hide no longer rested on it, but was supported by the frame. The liquid slowly seeping through the hide, though it had reached boiling, kept the leather from catching fire. When the fuel under the cooking hide was burned away, the stew was kept boiling by the addition of river stones that had been heated red hot in the fireplace, a chore some children were tending to.

Ayla plucked the two ptarmigan and gutted them, using a small flint knife. It had no handle, but the back had been dulled by retouching to prevent cutting the user, and a notch had been chipped away from behind the point. It was held with the thumb and index finger on either side, and the forefinger on the notch, making it easy to control. It was not a knife for heavy work, only for cutting meat or leather, and Ayla had only learned to use it since she arrived, but found it very convenient.

She had always cooked her ptarmigan in a pit lined with stones in which a fire was lit and allowed to go out before the birds were put in and covered over. But large stones were not easy to find in this region, so she decided to adapt the stewpot heating pit to her use. It was the wrong season for the greens she liked to use—coltsfoot, nettles, pigweed—and for ptarmigan eggs, or she would have stuffed the cavity with them, but some of the herbs in her medicine bag, used lightly, were good for seasoning as well as healing, and the hay she wrapped the birds in added a subtle flavor of its own.
It might not be exactly Creb’s favorite dish when she was through, but the ptarmigan should taste good, she thought.

When she finished cleaning the birds, she went inside, and saw Nezzie at the first hearth starting a fire in the large fireplace.

“I would like to cook ptarmigan in hole, like you cook stew in hole. Can I have coals?” Ayla asked.

“Of course. Is there anything else you need?”

“I have dried herbs. I like fresh greens in birds. Wrong season.”

“You could look in the storage room. There are some other vegetables you might think of using, and we do have some salt,” Nezzie volunteered.

Salt, Ayla thought. She hadn’t cooked with salt since she left the Clan. “Yes, would like salt. Maybe vegetable. Will look. Where I find hot coals?”

“I’ll give you some, as soon as I get this going.”

Ayla watched Nezzie make the fire, idly at first, not paying much attention, but then she found herself intrigued. She knew, but had not really thought about it before, that they did not have many trees. They burned bone for fuel, and bone did not burn very easily. Nezzie had produced a small ember from another fireplace, and with it set fire to some fluff from the seedpods of fireweed collected for tinder. She added some dried dung, which made a hotter and stronger flame, and then small shavings and chips of bone. They did not catch hold well.

Nezzie blew at the fire to keep it going while she moved a small handle the young woman had not noticed before. Ayla heard a slight whistling sound of wind, noticed a few ashes blowing around, and saw the flame burn brighter. With the hotter flame, the bone chips began to singe around the edges, then burst into flame. And Ayla suddenly realized the source of something that had been nagging at her, something she had barely noticed but that had bothered her ever since she arrived at the Lion Camp. The smell of smoke was wrong.

She had burned some dried dung occasionally and was familiar with the strong sharp odor of its smoke, but her primary fuel had been of plant origin; she was used to the smell of wood smoke. The fuel used by the Lion Camp was of animal origin. The smell of burning bone had a different character, a quality reminiscent of a roast left too long on the fire. In combination with the dried dung, which they also
used in large quantities, a distinctive pungent odor permeated the entire encampment. It wasn’t unpleasant, but unfamiliar, which created in her a slight uneasiness. Now that she had identified the cause, a certain undefined tension was relieved.

Ayla smiled as she watched Nezzie add more bone, and adjust the handle, which made it burn hotter.

“How you do that?” she asked. “Make fire so hot?”

“Fire needs to breathe, too, and wind is the fire’s breath. The Mother taught us that when She made women keepers of the hearth. You can see it when you give your breath to fire; when you blow on it, the fire gets hotter. We dig a trench from underneath the fireplace to the outside to bring the wind in. The trench is lined with the intestines of an animal that are blown full with air before they are dried, then covered over with bone before the dirt is put back. The trench for this hearth goes out that way, under those grass mats. See?”

Ayla looked where Nezzie pointed, and nodded.

“It comes in here,” the woman continued, showing her a hollow bison horn protruding out of an opening in the side of the firepit, which was lower than the level of the floor. “But you don’t always want the same amount of wind. It depends how hard it is blowing outside and how much fire you want. You block the wind, or open it up here,” Nezzie said, showing her the handle that was attached to a damper made of thin scapular bone.

In concept, it seemed simple enough, but it was an ingenious idea, a true technical achievement, and essential to survival. Without it the Mammoth Hunters could not have lived on the subarctic steppes, except in a few isolated locations, for all the abundance of game. At most, they would have been seasonal visitors. In a land nearly devoid of trees, and with the harsh winters only known when glaciers advance upon the land, the forced-air fireplace enabled them to burn bone, the only fuel available in quantities large enough to allow year-round occupation.