The Valley of Horses (44 page)

Ayla grabbed a spear from the pack basket behind her. Whinney, responding to her urgency, raced after the old saiga. The antelope’s spurt of speed was short-lived. He was slowing. The speeding horse quickly closed the gap. Ayla poised the spear and, just as they came abreast, she struck, not aware that she was screaming with sheer primal exuberance.

She wheeled the horse around and trotted back to find the young cave lion standing over the old buck. Then, for the first time, he proclaimed his prowess. Though it still lacked
the full-throated thunder of the adult male’s, Baby’s triumphant roar carried the promise of its potential. Even Whinney shied at the sound.

Ayla slid off the mare’s back and patted her neck reassuringly. “It’s all right, Whinney. It’s only Baby.”

Not considering that the lion might object and could inflict serious injury, Ayla pushed him aside and prepared to gut the antelope before taking it back. He gave way to her dominance, and to something else that was uniquely Ayla: her confidence in her love for him.

She decided to find the wolf and skin it. Wolf fur was warm. Returning, she was surprised to see Baby dragging the antelope, and she realized he intended to haul it all the way to the cave. The male antelope was full grown and Baby was not. It gave her an increased appreciation of his strength—and the power he was still to gain. But if he dragged the antelope all that way, the hide would be damaged. Saiga were widespread, living in mountains as well as the plains, but they were not numerous. She had not hunted one before, and they had a special meaning for her. The saiga antelope had been Iza’s totem. Ayla wanted the hide.

She signaled “Stop!” Baby hesitated only a moment before releasing “his” kill, and, guarding it, he paced anxiously around the travois all the way back to the cave. He watched with more than usual interest while she removed the hide and the horns. When she gave it to him, he dragged the entire skinned carcass to the niche in the far corner. After he gorged, he still maintained a vigil, and he slept close by.

Ayla was amused. She understood he was protecting his kill. He seemed to feel there was something special about this beast. Ayla did, too, for other reasons. Surges of excitement still coursed through her. The speed, the chase, the hunt had been thrilling—but more important, she had a new way to hunt. With the help of Whinney, and now Baby, she could hunt anytime, summer and winter. She felt powerful, and grateful, and she would be able to provide for her Baby.

Then, for no reason she could think of, she checked on Whinney. The horse was lying down, perfectly secure in spite of the proximity of a cave lion. She lifted her head as Ayla approached. The woman stroked the horse, then, feeling a need to be close, she lay beside her. Whinney blew a soft snort of air through her nostrils, content to have the woman near.

Winter hunting with Whinney and Baby, without the arduous task of digging pits, was a game. Sport. From the earliest days of practicing with her sling, Ayla had loved hunting. Each new technique mastered—tracking, the double-stone throw, the pit and spear—brought an additional feeling of accomplishment. But nothing matched the sheer fun of hunting with the horse and the cave lion. They both seemed to enjoy it as much as she. While Ayla made preparations, Whinney tossed her head and danced on her toes, with her ears pricked forward and tail raised, and Baby padded in and out of the cave, making low growls of anticipation. Weather concerned her until Whinney brought her home through a blinding blizzard.

The trio usually started out shortly after daybreak. If they sighted prey early, they were often home before noon. Their usual method was to follow a likely candidate until they were in a good position. Then Ayla would signal with her sling and Baby, eager and ready, would spring forward. Whinney, feeling Ayla’s urge, galloped after him. With the young cave lion clinging to the back of a panicked animal—his claws and fangs drawing blood, if not actually fatal—it seldom took long for the galloping horse to close the distance. As they came abreast, Ayla plunged the spear.

In the beginning, they weren’t always successful. Sometimes the chosen animal was too fast, or Baby would fall off, unable to get a secure hold. For Ayla, learning to wield the heavy spear at full gallop took some practice, too. Many times she missed, or made only a glancing blow, and sometimes Whinney didn’t get close enough. Even when they missed, it was exciting sport, and they could always try again.

With practice, they all improved. As they began understanding each other’s needs and abilities, the unlikely trio became an efficient hunting team—so efficient that when Baby made his first unassisted kill, it went almost unnoticed as part of the team’s efforts.

Bearing down at a hard gallop, Ayla saw the deer falter. It was down before she reached them. Whinney slowed down as they passed by. The woman jumped off and was running back before the horse came to a halt. Her spear was raised, ready to finish the job, when she found Baby had done it himself. She proceeded to make the deer ready to take back to the cave.

Then the full import struck her. Baby, as young as he was, was a hunting lion! In the Clan, that would make him an adult. Just as she had been called the Woman Who Hunts before she was a woman, Baby had reached adulthood before he attained maturity. He should have a manhood ceremony, she thought. But what kind of ceremony would have meaning for him? Then she smiled.

She unbound the doe from the travois, then put the grass mat and the poles in the pack baskets. It was his kill, and he had a right to it. Baby didn’t understand at first. He paced back and forth from the carcass to her. Then, as Ayla left, he took the deer’s neck in his teeth and, pulling it underneath him, he dragged it all the way back to the beach, up the steep path, and into the cave.

She didn’t notice any difference, immediately, after Baby’s kill. They still hunted together. But more often than not, Whinney’s chase was only exercise and Ayla’s spear unnecessary. If she wanted some of the meat, she took it first; if she wanted the hide, she skinned it. Though, in the wild, the pride male always took the first and largest portion, Baby was still young. He’d never known hunger, as his growing size attested, and he was accustomed to her dominance.

But toward spring, Baby began leaving the cave more, exploring by himself. He was seldom gone long, but his excursions became more frequent. Once he came back with blood on his ear. She guessed he’d found other lions. It made her realize she was no longer enough; he was looking for his own kind. She cleaned the ear, and he spent the day following her so closely that he was getting in her way. At night, he crept up to her bed and searched for her two fingers to suck.

He’ll be leaving soon, she thought, wanting a pride of his own, mates to hunt for him, and cubs to dominate. He needs his own kind. Iza came to mind. You’re young, you need a man of your own, one of your own kind. Find your own people; find your own mate, she had said. It will be spring soon. I should think about leaving, but not yet. Baby was going to be huge, even for a cave lion. He already far exceeded lions his age in size, but he wasn’t grown; he couldn’t survive, yet.

Spring followed close on the heels of a heavy snow. Flooding kept them all restricted, Whinney more than the others. Ayla could climb to the steppes above, and Baby
could leap there with ease, but the slopes was too steep for the horse. The water finally receded, the beach and the bone pile had new contours again, and Whinney could finally go down the path to the meadow once more. But she was irritable.

Ayla first noticed something out of the ordinary when Baby yelped from an equine kick. The woman was surprised. Whinney had never been impatient with the young lion; perhaps a nip now and then to keep him in line, but certainly not enough to kick him. She thought the unusual behavior was a consequence of her enforced inactivity, but Baby tended to stay away from her place in the cave as he got older, sensitive of Whinney’s territory, and Ayla wondered what had drawn him there. She went to see, then became conscious of a strong odor she’d been vaguely aware of all morning. Whinney was standing with her head down, her hind legs spread apart, and her tail held to the left. Her vaginal opening was swollen and pulsating. She looked up at Ayla and squealed.

The series of emotions that came over Ayla in quick succession pulled her to opposite extremes. First it was relief. So that’s your problem Ayla knew about estrus cycles in animals. In some, the time of pairing occurred more frequently, but for grazers, once a year was usual. This was the season when males often fought for the right to couple, and it was the
one time
when the males and females mingled, even those who normally hunted separately or herded in different groups.

Pairing season was one of those mysterious aspects of animal behavior that puzzled her, like deer dropping their antlers and growing new and bigger ones every year. The kinds of things that made Creb complain that she asked too many questions about, when she was younger. He didn’t know why animals paired, either, though he had once volunteered that it was the time for the males to show their dominance over females, or perhaps, like people, the males had to relieve their needs.

Whinney had had a pairing season the previous spring, but at the time, though she heard a stallion neighing on the steppes above, Whinney couldn’t get up to him. The young mare’s need seemed stronger this time, too. Ayla didn’t remember so much swelling and squealing. Whinney submitted to the young woman’s pats and hugs; then the horse dropped her head and squealed again.

Suddenly, Ayla’s stomach churned into a knot of anxiety. She leaned against the horse, the way Whinney sometimes did against her when she was upset or frightened. Whinney was going to leave her! It was so unexpected. Ayla hadn’t had time to prepare for it, though she should have. She’d been thinking about Baby’s future, and her own. Instead, Whinney’s pairing season had come. The filly needed a stallion, a mate.

With great reluctance, Ayla walked out of the cave and signaled Whinney to follow. When they reached the rocky beach below, Ayla mounted. Baby got up to follow them, but Ayla motioned “Stop.” She did not want the cave lion with her now. She was not going hunting, but Baby might not know that. Ayla had to stop the lion once more, with firm determination, before he stayed behind watching them go.

It was warm, and damply cool at the same time, on the steppes. The sun, about midway to noon, blazed out of a pale blue sky with a veiled halo; the blue seemed faded, bleached by the intensity of the glare. Melting snow steamed to a fine mist that did not limit visibility but softened sharp angles, and fog clinging to cool shadows flattened contours. Perspective was lost and the entire view was foreshortened—lending an immediacy to the landscape, a sense of present tense, here and now, as though no other time and place ever existed. Distant objects seemed only a few paces away, yet took forever to reach.

Ayla didn’t guide the horse. She let Whinney take her, only subliminally noticing landmarks and direction. She didn’t care where she was going, didn’t know her tears were adding their salty moisture to the ambient dampness. She sat loosely, jouncing, her thoughts turned inward. She recalled the first time she saw the valley and the herd of horses in the meadow. She thought about her decision to stay, her need to hunt. She remembered leading Whinney to the safety of her fire and her cave. She should have known it couldn’t last, that someday Whinney would return to her own kind, just as she herself needed to do.

A change in the horse’s pace jogged her attention. Whinney had found what she was looking for. A small band of horses was ahead.

The sun had melted the snow covering a low hill and exposed tiny green shoots poking above the ground. The animals, hungry for a change from the straw of last year’s
forage, were nibbling the succulent new growth. Whinney stopped when the other horses looked up at her. Ayla heard the neigh of a stallion. Off to the side, on a knoll she hadn’t noticed before, she saw him. He was dark reddish brown with a black mane, tail, and lower legs. She had never seen a horse so deeply colored. Most of them were shades of gray brown, or beige dun, or, like Whinney, the yellow color of ripe hay.

The stallion screamed, lifted his head, and curled back his upper lip. He reared and galloped toward them, then stopped short a few paces away, pawing the ground. His neck was arched, his tail was raised, and his erection was magnificent.

Whinney nickered in reply, and Ayla slid off her back. She gave the horse a hug, then backed away. Whinney turned her head to look at the young woman who had taken care of her since she was a foal.

“Go to him, Whinney,” she said. “You’ve found your mate, go to him.”

Whinney tossed her head and neighed softly, then faced the bay stallion. He circled behind her, head low, nipping her hocks, herding Whinney closer to his flock, as if she were a recalcitrant truant. Ayla watched her go, unable to leave. When the stud mounted, Ayla couldn’t help remembering Broud, and the terrible pain. Later, it had only been unpleasant, but she always hated it when Broud mounted her, and was grateful when he finally grew tired of it.

But for all the screaming and squealing, Whinney was not trying to reject her stallion, and, as she watched, Ayla felt strange stirrings within herself, sensations she could not explain. She could not tear her eyes away from the bay stallion, his front legs up on Whinney’s back, pumping, and straining, and screaming. She felt a warm wetness between her legs, a rhythmic pulsation in time to the stallion’s pounding, and an incomprehensible yearning. She was breathing hard, felt her heart reverberating in her head, and ached with longing for something she couldn’t describe.

Afterward, when the yellow horse willingly followed the bay, without so much as a backward look, Ayla felt an emptiness so heavy that she thought she could not bear it. She realized how fragile was the world she had built for herself in the valley, how ephemeral had been her happiness, how precarious her existence. She turned and ran back toward the valley. She ran until her breath tore her throat, until
pain stabbed her side. She ran, hoping somehow, if she ran fast enough, she could leave behind all the heartache and loneliness.