The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [105]
Only with me, he can get away with it, Ayla thought bitterly. Just because I’m female. Brun was really angry when he hit Zoug, but he can hit me anytime he feels like it and Brun wouldn’t care. No, that’s not really true, she admitted to herself. Iza said Brun dragged Broud away to make him stop beating me, and Broud doesn’t hit me as much when Brun’s around. I wouldn’t even care if he just hit me, if he would just leave me alone sometimes.
She had been picking up pebbles and throwing them into the creek and found she had fitted one into the sling without thinking. She smiled, sighted a last withered leaf dangling from the end of a small branch, aimed, and hurled. A warm feeling of satisfaction came over her as she saw the stone tear the leaf off the tree. She picked up a few more pebbles, got up and walked to the middle of the field, and hurled them. I can still hit what I want to, she thought, then frowned. What good does that do? I never even tried to hit anything that was moving; the porcupine doesn’t count, it had almost stopped. I don’t even know if I could, and if I did learn to hunt, really hunt, what good would it do? I couldn’t bring anything back; all I’d do is make it easy for some wolf or hyena or wolverine, and they steal enough from us as it is.
Hunting and the animals that were killed were so important to the clan they had to be constantly on their guard against competing predators. Not only did large cats or wolf packs or hyenas sometimes snatch an animal from the hunters, but skulking hyenas or sneaky wolverines were always around when meat was drying, or they were trying to break into caches. Ayla rejected the idea of helping the competitors to survive.
Brun wouldn’t even let me bring a wolf cub into the cave when it was hurt, and lots of times hunters kill them even if we don’t need their pelts. The meat eaters are always giving us trouble. That thought stayed in her mind. Then another idea began to take shape. Meat eaters, she thought, meat eaters can be killed with a sling, except for the biggest ones. I remember Zoug telling Vorn. He said sometimes it’s better to use a sling, then you don’t have to get so close.
Ayla recalled the day Zoug was extolling the virtues of the weapon with which he was most proficient. It was true that with a sling a hunter didn’t have to get as close to sharp fangs or claws; but he didn’t mention that if the hunter missed, he could be subject to attack from a wolf or lynx without another weapon to back him up, though he did stress it would be unwise to attempt it on anything larger.
What if I hunted only meat eaters? We never eat them, so it wouldn’t be wasting, she thought, even if they would be left for carrion eaters to finish off. The hunters do it.
What am I thinking? Ayla shook her head to banish the shameful thought from her mind. I’m female, I’m not supposed to hunt, I’m not even supposed to touch a weapon. But I do know how to use a sling! Even if I’m not supposed to, she thought defiantly. It would help. If I killed a wolverine or a fox or anything, it couldn’t steal our meat anymore. And those ugly hyenas. I might even get one of those someday, think what a help that would be. Ayla imagined herself stalking the wily predators.
She had been practicing with the sling all summer, and though it was only a game, she understood and respected any weapon enough to know its real purpose was game—not target practice, but hunting. She sensed that the excitement of hitting posts or marks on rocks or branches would soon pall without further challenge. And even if it were possible, the challenge of competition for the sake of competition was a concept that would not take hold until the earth