The Shelters of Stone (79 page)

She smiled back. “I do, too,” she said.

He kissed her with warmth and feeling. “The thing I miss most about traveling is that we could stop and share Pleasures whenever we felt like it. Now, it seems there is always something to do and it’s not as easy to stop and do what we want whenever we want.” He nuzzled her neck, felt the fullness of her breasts, and kissed her again. “Maybe I don’t have to get to the spear-throwing range so early,” he added with a huskiness in his voice.

“Yes, you do,” she said with a laugh. “But if you want to stay …”

“No, you are right, but I’m going to look for you later.”

Jondalar headed for the main camp and Ayla went back into the lodge. When she came out, she was carrying her backpack, the one with the holders for spears and spear-thrower, into which she had packed a few things. She whistled for Wolf and headed upstream along the small creek. Both horses knew she was coming and had strained to come toward her as far as their lead ropes would allow. Ayla noticed that the ropes had gotten caught in some of the vegetation. Besides the long grass that had twisted itself around
both leads, Whinney’s rope had an entire dry bush tangled in it, and Racer had pulled a living shrub out of the ground, roots and all. Maybe a surround would work better than those ropes, she thought.

Ayla removed both their halters and lead ropes, and while she was at it, she checked Racer’s eye. It was a little red, but otherwise seemed fine. Racer and Wolf rubbed noses and then, so glad to be free of the restricting rope, Racer began running in a large circle, and Wolf chased after him. Ayla. started brushing Whinney, and when she looked up, Racer was chasing Wolf. The next time she looked, Wolf was chasing Racer again. She stopped brushing for a while to watch them. As Wolf got close to Racer, the young stallion actually slowed down a bit until the wolf passed him and raced ahead. When they came full circle, Wolf slowed down and let Racer pass him.

At first, Ayla thought she was imagining that they were doing it on purpose, but as she continued to watch them, it soon became obvious that they were playing a game with each other, and enjoying it. Both young male animals, so full of life and energy, had discovered a way to run some of it off and have fun doing it. Ayla smiled and shook her head, wishing Jondalar were there to enjoy their antics with her, then went back to brushing the mare. Whinney, too, was beginning to show her pregnancy, but she appeared to be in good health.

When Ayla finished with her horse, she saw that Racer was grazing quietly and Wolf was nowhere in sight. Off exploring, she thought. She whistled the particular tones that Jondalar had developed to call his horse. He looked up and started toward her. He had nearly reached her when another whistle sounded, repeating the exact tones. They both looked for the whistler. Ayla thought it must be Jondalar, back for some reason, but when she looked up she saw a boy coming in her direction.

He was not familiar to her, and she wondered what he wanted and why he had imitated her particular whistle. When he neared, she thought he could count perhaps nine or
ten years, then she noticed that one of his arms was somewhat stunted, shorter than the other, and hung a little awkwardly, as though he didn’t have full control of it. The boy reminded her of Creb, whose arm had been amputated at the elbow when he was a boy, and she warmed to him immediately.

“Are you the one who whistled?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you whistle like I did?” Ayla said.

“I never heard a whistle like that. I wanted to see if I could do it,” he said.

“You did,” she said. “Are you looking for someone?”

“No,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m just looking. Someone told me there Were horses here, but I didn’t know anyone had set up camp. He didn’t tell me that. Everyone else is by Middle Creek,” he said.

“We just recently arrived. How long have you been here?”

“I was born here.”

Oh, then you are of the Nineteenth Cave.”

“Yes. Why do you talk funny?”

“I was not born here. I come from far away. I used to be Ayla of the Lion Camp of the Mamutoi, now I am Ayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii,” she said, then stepped toward him, holding out both hands in the manner of a formal greeting.

He became a little flustered because he could not reach out well with his partially paralyzed arm. Ayla stretched a bit for his crippled limb and took both hands in hers as though it were perfectly normal, but she noted that his hand was smaller and misshapen, and the little finger was fused to the one next to it. She held his hands for a moment and smiled.

Then, as though he just remembered, the boy said, “I am Lanidar of the Nineteenth Cave of the Zelandonii.” He was about to let go, but added, “The Nineteenth Cave welcomes you to the Summer Meeting, Ayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii.”

“You whistle very well. Your whistle was a very good
copy of mine. Do you like to whistle?” she asked when she let go.

“I guess so.”

“Can I ask you not to make that whistle sound again?” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I use that sound to call the horse, this one, the stallion. If you whistle like that, I’m afraid he will think you are calling him and it will confuse him,” Ayla explained. “If you like to whistle, I can teach you other sounds to whistle.”

“Like what?”

Ayla looked around and noticed a chickadee perched on the limb of a nearby tree, singing the
cbick-a-dee-dee-dee
sound that gave the bird its name. She listened for a moment, then repeated the sound. The boy looked startled, and the bird stopped singing for a moment, then started up again. Ayla repeated the sound. The black-capped bird sang again, looking around.

“How do you do that?” the boy said.

“I’ll teach you if you like. You could learn, you’re a good whistler,” she said.

“Can you whistle like other birds, too?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Which ones?”

“Any one you want.”

“How about a meadow lark?”

Ayla closed her eyes for a moment, then whistled a series of tones that sounded exactly like a lark that had soared high into the sky and swooped down, making its glorious melody.

“Can you really teach me to do that?” the boy asked, looking at her with wonder in his eyes.

“If you really want to learn,” Ayla said.

“How did you learn?”

“I practiced. If you have patience, sometimes the bird will come to you when you whistle its song,” the woman replied. Ayla remembered when she lived alone in her valley and taught herself to whistle and imitate the sounds of birds.
Once she started feeding them, there were several that always came at her call and ate out of her hand.

“Can you whistle other things?” Lanidar asked, completely intrigued by the strange woman who talked funny and whistled so well.

Ayla thought for a moment, then perhaps because the boy reminded her of Creb, she began to whistle an eerie melody that sounded like a flute playing. He had heard flutes many times, but he had never heard anything like it. The haunting music was totally unfamiliar to him. It was the sound of the flute played by the mog-ur at the Clan Gathering she had gone to with Brun’s clan when she still lived with them. Lanidar listened until she stopped.

“I never heard whistling like that,” he said.

“Did you like it?” she asked.

“Yes, but it was a little scary, too. Like it came from a place far away,” Lanidar said.

“It did,” Ayla said, then she smiled and pierced the air with a sharp, commanding trill. Before long, Wolf came bounding out of the long grass of the field.

“It’s a wolf!” the boy screamed with fear.

“It’s all right,” she said, holding Wolf close to her. “The wolf is my friend. I walked through the main camp with him yesterday. I thought you would know that he was here, along with the horses.”

The boy calmed down, but still looked at Wolf with large round eyes full of apprehension.

“I went with my mother to pick raspberries yesterday. Nobody even told me you were here. They just said there were some horses in the Upper Meadow,” Lanidar said. “Everybody was talking about some kind of spear-throwing thing some man wanted to show. I’m not good at throwing a spear, so I decided I’d look for the horses instead.”

Ayla wondered if the omission was on purpose, if someone was trying to trick him the way Marona had tried to trick her. Then she realized that a boy of his age who went berry picking with his mother probably led a pretty lonely life. She got a sense that the boy with a crippled arm, who could not
throw a spear, did not have many friends and that the other boys made fun of him and tried to trick him. But he did have one good arm. He could learn to throw a spear, especially using a spear-thrower.

“Why aren’t you good at throwing a spear?” she asked.

“Can’t you see?” he said, holding out his malformed arm and looking at it with loathing.

“But you have another arm that is perfectly good,” she said.

“Everybody always holds their extra spears with their other arm. Besides, nobody wanted to teach me. They said I could never hit a target, anyway,” the boy said.

“What about the man of your hearth?” Ayla asked.

“I live with my mother, and her mother. I guess there was a man of the hearth once, my mother pointed him out to me, but he left her a long time ago, and he doesn’t want anything to do with me. He didn’t like it when I tried to visit him. He seemed embarrassed. Sometimes a man will come and live with us for a while, but none of them bother with me much,” the boy said.

“Would you like to see a spear-thrower? I have one with me,” Ayla said.

“Where did you get one?” Lanidar asked.

“I know the man who made it. He’s the man I’m going to mate. I’ll be going to help him show his spear-thrower as soon as I finish with the horses.”

“I guess I could look at it,” the boy said.

Her backpack was on the ground nearby. She got her spear-thrower and a couple of spears and walked back.

“This is how it works,” she said, taking a spear and laying it on top of the strange-looking implement. She made sure the hole carved into the butt end of the spear was up against the small hook at the back of the narrow board with the groove down the middle, then put her fingers through the loops attached to the front end. She sighted down the field, then launched the spear.

“That spear went a long way!” Lanidar said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man throw a spear that far.”

“Probably not. That’s what makes the spear-thrower such a good hunting weapon. I think you could throw a spear with this. Come here, ITI show you how to hold it.”

Ayla could see that her spear-thrower was not made for someone of Lanidar’s size, but it was good enough to demonstrate the principle of leverage behind it. It was his right arm that was deformed, which had forced him to develop his left arm. Whether he would naturally have been left-handed if his right arm had developed properly didn’t matter. He was left-handed now, and he was strong on that side. She didn’t worry about aiming for the moment, but she showed him how to pull back and cast the spear. Then she set it up and let him do it. The spear flew high and wide, but quite far, and the grin on Lanidar’s face was ecstatic.

“I threw that spear. Look how far it went!” he nearly shouted. “Can you actually hit something with it?”

“If you practice,” she said, smiling. She looked around the field, but didn’t see anything. She turned to Wolf, who’d been lying on his belly with his head up, watching the whole thing. “Wolf, go find something for me,” she said, although the hand signal she gave him said more.

He jumped up and raced into the meadow of full-grown grass turning from green to gold. Ayla followed behind slowly, and the boy walked behind her. Before long she saw movement of the grass ahead, then caught sight of a gray hare darting away from the wolf. She had the spear poised, watching carefully, and when she saw the direction it would likely bound the next time, she cast the small spear. It landed true, and when she reached it, the wolf was standing over it, looking up at her.

“I want that one, Wolf. You go catch one of your own now,” she said to the carnivore, again signaling him at the same time. But the boy didn’t really see the signals and was completely amazed at the way the huge wolf minded the woman. She picked up the hare and started back toward the horses.

“You should go and see the man demonstrate the spear-thrower he made. I think you might find it interesting,
Lanidar, and just because you don’t know how to throw a spear won’t make any difference. No one else knows how to use a spear-thrower, either. Everybody will be learning from the beginning. If you want to wait a while, ITI walk over there with you,” Ayla said.

Lanidar watched her brushing down the young stallion. “I’ve never seen a brown horse like that. Most horses look like the mare.”

“I know,” Ayla said, “but far to the east, beyond the end of the Great Mother River that starts on the other side of the glacier, some horses aré brown like that. That’s where these horses come from.”

After a while the wolf returned. He found a spot, circled around it a few times, then lowered himself to his belly, panting and watching.

“Why do these animals stay around you, let you touch them, and do what you say?” Lanidar asked. “I’ve never seen animals do that.”

“They are my friends. I was hunting and the mare’s dam fell into my pit trap. I didn’t know she was nursing until I saw the foal. A pack of hyenas saw the foal, too. I don’t know why I chased them away. The foal couldn’t have lived alone, but since I saved her, I raised her. I guess she grew up thinking I was her mother. Later we became friends, and learned to understand each other. She does things I ask her to do, because she wants to. I named her
Whinney”
Ayla said, but the way she said the name was the perfect copy of a horse’s whinny. In the field, the dun-yellow mare raised her head and looked in their direction.

“That was you! How did you do that?” Lanidar said.

“I paid attention and practiced. That is her real name. To most people I usually say ‘Whinney’ because they understand it better, but that’s not how I said it when I named her. This stallion is her son. I was there when he was born. So was Jondalar. He named this horse Racer, but that was later,” Ayla explained.