The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [100]
The pace finally slowed and one day she strapped on her basket, took her digging stick, and climbed to her hidden clearing once more, planning to collect hazelnuts. The moment she arrived, she shrugged her basket off her back and went inside the cave for her sling. She had furnished her playhouse with a few implements she had made and an old sleeping fur. She took a birchbark cup from a flattish piece of wood stretched across two large rocks that also held a few shell dishes, a flint knife, and some rocks she used to crack nuts. Then she got her sling from the covered wicker basket where she kept it. After getting a drink from the spring, she ran along the creek looking for pebbles.
She made a few practice shots. Vorn doesn’t hit his targets as often as I do, she thought, pleased with herself when her stones landed where she aimed them. After a while, she grew tired of the sport, put her sling and the last few pebbles away, and began to pick up the nuts scattered on the ground beneath the thick, gnarled old bushes. She was thinking how wonderful life was. Uba was growing and thriving and Iza seemed much better. Creb’s aches and pains were always less severe in the warm summers and she loved the slow shambling walks with him beside the stream. Playing with the sling was a game she loved and she had become quite skillful with it. It was almost too easy to hit the post or the rocks and branches she sighted as targets, but there was still an excitement about playing with the forbidden weapon. And best of all, Broud didn’t bother her at all anymore. She didn’t think anything could ever spoil her happiness as she filled her gathering basket with nuts.
Brown, dry leaves were caught by the brisk winds as they fell from the trees, whirled around by their unseen partner, and dropped gently to the ground. They covered the nuts still scattered beneath those trees that had brought them to maturity. Fruit not picked for winter storage hung ripe and heavy on branches bereft of foliage. The eastern steppes were a golden sea of grain, rippled by wind in imitation of the foam-bedecked waves of gray water to the south; and the last of the sweet clusters of plump, round grapes, bursting with juice, beckoned to be picked.
The men were in their usual knot planning one of the last hunting trips of the season. They had been discussing the proposed trek since early morning, and Broud had been sent to tell a woman to bring them water to drink. He saw Ayla sitting near the mouth of the cave with sticks and pieces of thong spread out around her. She was constructing frames from which bunches of grapes would be hung until they dried to raisins.
“Ayla! Bring water!” Broud signaled and started back.
The girl was lashing a critical corner, supporting the unfinished frame against her body. If she moved just then, it would collapse and she’d have to start over again. She hesitated, looked to see if another woman was nearby, then heaving a sigh of reluctance, got up slowly, and went to find a large waterbag.
The young man fought to quell the anger that quickly rose at her obvious reluctance to obey him, and struggling with his fury, he looked for another woman who would respond to his request with proper alacrity. Suddenly, he changed his mind. He looked back at Ayla just getting up and narrowed his eyes. What gave her the right to be so insolent? Am I not a man? Isn’t it her place to obey me? Brun never told me to allow such disrespect, he thought. He can’t put a death curse on me just for making her do what she’s supposed to do. What kind of leader would let a female defy him? Something snapped inside Broud. Her impudence has gone on too long! I won’t let her get away with it. She will obey me!
The thoughts came to him in the split second it took to make the three strides covering the distance between them. Just as she stood up, his hard fist caught her by surprise and knocked her flat. Her startled look quickly changed to anger. She glanced around and saw Brun watching, but there was a quality about his expressionless face that