The Valley of Horses (27 page)

I have to find someone sometime, but I can stay a little longer. At least until I do some hunting, and maybe until some of the roots are ready. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll stay until the roots are big enough for digging.

She felt relieved after her decision to postpone her departure, and ready to do something. She got up and walked to the other side of the ledge. The stench of rotting meat wafted up from the new pile at the base of the wall. She noticed movement below and watched a hyena crush with powerful jaws the foreleg of what had likely been a deer. No other animal, predator or scavenger, had such strength concentrated in jaw and forequarters, but it gave the hyena an ungainly disproportionate build.

She’d had to restrain herself the first time she saw the back end of one, with its low hindquarters and slightly crooked legs, nosing into the pile. But when she saw it dragging out a rotting piece of carcass, she left it alone, for once grateful of the service they performed. She had studied them, as she had observed other carnivorous animals. Unlike the felines or wolves, they didn’t need powerful springing hindleg muscles to attack. When they hunted, they went for the viscera, the soft underbelly and mammary glands. But their usual diet was carrion—in any condition.

They reveled in corruption. She had seen them scavenge human refuse piles, disinter bodies if they weren’t carefully buried; they even ate dung, and they smelled as foul as their diet. Their bite, if not immediately fatal, often caused death later, from infection; and they went after the young.

Ayla made a face and shuddered with disgust. She hated them, and she had to resist an urge to chase off the ones below with her sling. Her attitude was irrational, but she couldn’t help her revulsion at the brown-spotted scavengers. To her they had no redeeming features. She was not nearly
as offended by other scavengers, though they often smelled as bad.

From the vantage point of the ledge she saw a wolverine going after a share of the offal. The glutton resembled a bear cub with a long tail, but she knew they were more like weasels, and their musk glands were as noxious as a skunk’s. Wolverines were vicious scavengers. They would vandalize caves or open sites for no apparent reason. But they were scrappy, intelligent animals and absolutely fearless predators that would attack anything, even a giant deer, though they could content themselves with mice, birds, frogs, fish, or berries. Ayla had seen them drive off larger animals from their own kills. They were worthy of respect, and their unique frost-doffing fur was valuable.

She watched a pair of red kites take wing from their nest high in a tree across the stream, and fly rapidly into the sky. They spread long reddish wings and deeply forked tails and soared down to the rocky beach. Kites fed on carrion, but, like other raptors, they also preyed on small mammals and reptiles. The young woman wasn’t as familiar with carnivorous birds, but she knew the females were usually larger than the males, and they were beautiful to watch.

Ayla could tolerate the vulture, despite its ugly bald head and a smell as evil as its looks. Its hooked beak was sharp and strong, built for shearing and dismembering dead animals, but there was majesty to its movements. It was breathtaking to see one gliding and soaring so effortlessly, riding air currents with large wings, then, on spying food, plummeting to the ground and running toward the corpse with outstretched neck and wings half open.

The scavengers below were having a feast, even carrion crows were getting a share, and Ayla was delighted. With the stink of decaying corpses so near her cave, she could even abide the hated hyena. The faster they cleaned it up, the happier she would be. Suddenly she felt overpowered by the fulsome reek. She wanted a breath of air untainted by malodorous emanations.

“Whinney,” she called. The horse poked her head out of the cave at the sound of her name. “I’m going for a walk. Do you want to come with me?” The mare saw the beckoning signal and walked toward the woman, tossing her head.

They walked down the narrow path, gave the rocky beach and its noisome inhabitants a wide berth, and edged around the stone wall. The horse seemed to relax as they
strolled along the fringe of brush that lined the small river, quietly contained within its normal banks again. The smell of death made her nervous, and her unreasoning fear of hyenas had a basis in early experience. They both enjoyed the freedom allowed by the sunny spring day after a long restricting winter, though the air still had a chilly dampness. It smelled fresher on the open meadow, too, and flying scavengers were not the only birds feasting, although other activities seemed more important.

Ayla slowed to watch a pair of great spotted woodpeckers, the male with a crimson crown, the female white, indulge in aerial displays, drum on a dead snag, and chase each other around trees. Ayla knew woodpeckers. They would hollow out the heart of an old tree and line the nest with wood chips. But once the six or so brown-spotted eggs were laid and incubated, and the young hatched and reared, the couple would go their separate ways again to search tree trunks within their territory for insects and make the woods resound with their harsh laughing call.

Not so the larks. Only during breeding season did the sociable flocks separate into pairs and the males behave like feisty gamecocks with former friends. Ayla heard the glorious song as a pair soared straight up. It was sung with such volume that she could hear them as they hovered above, hardly more than specks in the sky. Suddenly, like a pair of stones, they dropped, then swooped up singing again the next moment.

Ayla reached the place where she had once dug a pit to hunt a dun mare; at least she thought it was the place. No trace remained. The spring flood had swept away the brush she had cut and smoothed out the depression. Farther on, she stopped for a drink and smiled at a wagtail running along the water’s edge. It resembled a lark, but was slimmer with a yellow underbelly, and it held its body horizontal to keep its tail from getting wet, which caused it to wag up and down.

A flood of liquid notes brought her attention to another pair of birds who had no qualms at all about getting wet. The water ouzels were bobbing at each other in courtship display, but she always wondered how they could walk underwater without getting their plumage waterlogged. When she went back to the open field, Whinney was grazing the new green shoots. She smiled again at a pair of brown wrens scolding her with their
chick-chick
when she passed too
close to their shrub. Once beyond it, they changed to a loud clear flowing song that was sung first by one, and then by the other in an alternating response.

She stopped and sat on a log listening to the sweet songs of several different birds, and then was surprised when a bush warbler imitated the whole chorus in one burst of melody. She sucked in her breath at the virtuosity of the small creature, and surprised herself with the whistling sound she produced. A green bunting followed her with his characteristic note that sounded like an indrawn whistle, and the mimicking bush warbler repeated it again.

Ayla was delighted. It seemed she had become part of the avian chorus, and she tried again. Pursing her lips, she sucked in her breath but managed to produce only a faint windy whistle. The next time she got more volume, but filled her lungs so full of air that she had to expel it, making a loud whistle. It was much closer to the sounds of the birds. With the next effort, she only blew air through her lips, and she had no better luck with several more tries. She went back to the indrawn whistle and had more success making a whistling sound, though it lacked volume.

She kept trying, pulling in and blowing out, and occasionally she produced a sharp sound. She became so involved with the attempts that she didn’t notice Whinney perking up her ears whenever the piercing whistle was made. The horse didn’t know how to respond, but she was curious and took a few steps toward the woman.

Ayla saw the young mare approaching with a quizzical forward cocking of her ears. “Are you surprised that I can make bird sounds, Whinney? So am I. I didn’t know I could sing like a bird. Well, maybe not quite like a bird, but if I keep practicing, I think I could come close. Let me see if I can do it again.”

She drew in a breath, pursed her lips, and, concentrating on it, let out a long solid whistle. Whinney tossed her head, whinnied, and pranced to her. Ayla stood up and hugged the horse’s neck, suddenly realizing how much she had grown. “You’re so big, Whinney. Horses grow so fast, you’re almost a grown woman horse. How fast can you run now?” Ayla gave her a sharp slap on the rump. “Come on, Whinney, run with me,” she motioned, starting across the field as fast as she could.

The horse outdistanced her in a few paces and raced ahead, stretching out as she galloped. Ayla followed after,
running just because it felt good. She pushed herself until she could go no farther, panting to a breathless halt. She watched the horse gallop down the long valley, then veer around in a wide circle and come cantering back. I wish I could run like you, she thought. Then we could both run together wherever we wanted. I wonder if I’d be happier if I were a horse instead of a human? I wouldn’t be alone then.

I’m not alone. Whinney is good company, even if she isn’t human. She’s all I have, and I’m all she has. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could run like her.

The filly was lathered when she returned, and made Ayla laugh when she rolled in the meadow, kicking her legs up in the air and making little noises of pleasure. When she got up, she shook herself and went back to grazing. Ayla kept watching her, thinking how exciting it would be to run like a horse, then fell to practicing her whistle again. The next time she managed a shrill piercing sound, Whinney looked up and cantered to her again. Ayla hugged the young horse, rather pleased that she had come at the whistle, but she couldn’t get the thought of running with the horse out of her mind.

Then an idea struck her.

Such an idea would not have occurred to her if she hadn’t lived with the animal all winter, thinking of her as a friend and companion. And certainly she would not have acted on such a thought if she were still living with the Clan. But Ayla had become more used to following her impulses.

Would she mind? Ayla thought. Would she let me? She led the horse to the log and climbed up on it, then put her arms around the horse’s neck and lifted a leg. Run with me, Whinney. Run and take me with you, she thought, then straddled the horse.

The young mare was unaccustomed to weight on her back, and she flattened her ears back and pranced nervously. But, though the weight was unfamiliar, the woman was not, and Ayla’s arms around her neck had a calming influence. Whinney almost reared to throw the weight off, then tried to run away from it instead. Breaking into a gallop, she raced down the field with Ayla clinging to her back.

But the young horse had already had a good run, and life for her in the cave was more sedentary than was usual. Though she had grazed the standing hay of the valley, she hadn’t had a herd to keep up with or predators to run from.
And she was still young. It wasn’t long before she slowed, then stopped, her sides heaving and her head drooping.

The woman slid off the horse’s back. “Whinney, that was wonderful!” Ayla motioned, her eyes sparkling with excitement. She lifted the drooping muzzle with both hands and laid her cheek on the animal’s nose; then she tucked the mare’s head under her arm in a gesture of affection which she hadn’t used since the horse was small. It was a special embrace, saved for special occasions.

The ride was a thrill she could hardly contain. The very idea of going along with a horse when it galloped filled Ayla with a sense of wonder. She had never dreamed such a thing was possible. No one had.

Ayla could hardly keep herself off the horse’s back. Riding the young mare as she galloped at top speed was an inexpressible joy. It thrilled her more than anything she had ever known. Whinney seemed to enjoy it as well, and she quickly became accustomed to carrying the woman on her back. The valley soon became too small to contain the woman and her galloping steed. They often raced across the steppes east of the river, which were easy to reach.

She knew that soon she would have to gather and hunt, process and store the wild food nature provided to prepare for the next cycle of seasons. But during early spring when the earth was still awakening from the long winter, its offerings were lean. A few fresh greens added variety to a dried winter diet, but neither roots nor buds, nor bony shanks, had yet filled out. Ayla took advantage of her enforced leisure to ride the horse as often as she could, most days from early morning to late evening.

At first she just rode, sitting passively, going wherever the horse went. She didn’t think in terms of directing the filly;
the signals Whinney had learned to understand were visual—Ayla didn’t attempt to communicate with only words—and she couldn’t see them with the woman sitting on her back. But to the woman, body language had always been as much a part of speaking as specific gestures, and riding allowed close contact.

After an initial period of soreness, Ayla began to notice the play of the horse’s muscles, and after her initial adjustment, Whinney could sense the woman’s tension and relaxation. They had already developed an ability to sense each other’s needs and feelings, and a desire to respond to them. When Ayla wanted to go in a particular direction, unknowingly she leaned that way, and her muscles communicated the change in tension to the horse. The horse began reacting to the tension and relaxation of the woman on her back by changing direction or speed. The animal’s response to the barely perceptible movements caused Ayla to tense or move in the same way when she wanted Whinney to respond that way again.

It was a mutual training period, each learning from the other, and in the process deepening their relationship. But without being aware of it, Ayla was taking control. The signals between woman and horse were so subtle, and the transition from passive acceptance to active direction so natural, that Ayla didn’t notice it at first, except at a subliminal level. The almost continuous riding became a concentrated and intense training course. As the relationship grew more sensitive, Whinney’s reactions came to be so finely tuned that Ayla had only to
think
of where she wanted to go and at what speed and, as though the animal were an extension of her own body, the horse responded. The young woman didn’t realize she had transmitted signals through nerves and muscles to the highly sensitive skin of her mount.