The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [116]
She quickly surpassed Vorn with her chosen weapon. It wasn’t only that he tended to look upon the sling as an old man’s weapon and lacked the determination to master it, it was more difficult for him. He didn’t have her physical build with its free-swinging arm movement better adapted to throwing. Her full leverage and practiced hand-and-eye coordination gave her speed, force, and accuracy. She no longer compared herself with Vorn; in her mind it was Zoug whose ability she challenged, and the girl was fast approaching the old hunter’s skill. Too fast. She was getting overconfident.
Summer was nearing its end with its full charge of crackling heat and a bumper crop of lightning-singed thunderstorms. The day was hot, unbearably hot. Not the hint of a breeze stirred the still air. The previous evening’s storm, with its fantastic displays of arcing flashes illuminating the mountain crests and with hail the size of small stones, had sent the clan scurrying into the cave. The damp forest, normally cool from the shade of the trees, was humid and stifling. Flies and mosquitoes droned interminably around the slimy ooze of the drying creek’s backwater, trapped by lowered water levels into stagnant ponds and algae-coated puddles.
Ayla was following the spoor of a red fox, moving silently through the woods near the edge of a small glade. She was hot and sweaty, not especially interested in the fox, and thinking about giving it up and going back to the cave to take a swim in the stream. Walking across the seldom-exposed rocky bed, she stopped for a drink where the creek still ran freely between two large boulders that forced the meandering trickle into an ankle-deep pool.
She stood up and, as she looked straight ahead, caught her breath in her throat. Ayla stared apprehensively at the distinctive head and tufted ears of a lynx crouched on the rock just in front of her. He was eyeing her warily, his short tail whipping back and forth.
Smaller than most large felines, the long-bodied, short-legged Pardel lynx, like his northern cousin of later years, was capable of fifteen-foot standing leaps. He subsisted mainly on hares, rabbits, large squirrels, and other rodents, but could bring down a small deer if he felt so inclined; and an eight-year-old girl was easily within his range. But it was hot, and humans were not his normal prey. He would probably have let the girl go on her way.
Ayla’s first tingle of fear was replaced by a chill of excitement as she watched the unmoving cat watching her. Didn’t Zoug tell Vorn a lynx could be killed with a sling? He said not to try for anything larger, but he did say a stone from a sling could kill a wolf or hyena or lynx. I remember him saying lynx, she thought. She had not hunted the medium-sized predators, but she wanted to be the best sling-hunter in the clan. If Zoug could kill a lynx, she could kill a lynx, and here, right in front of her, was the perfect target. On impulse, she decided the time had come for larger game.
She reached slowly into the fold of her short summer wrap, never taking her eyes off the cat, and felt for her largest stone. Her palms were sweaty, but she gripped the two ends of the leather strap together tighter while she put the stone in the pocket. Then, quickly, before she lost her nerve, she aimed for a spot just between his eyes and flung the stone. But the lynx caught the motion as she raised her arm. He turned his head as she hurled. The rock grazed the side of his head, causing a sharp pain at the point-blank range, but little more.
Before Ayla could think of reaching for another stone, she saw the cat’s muscles bunch under him. It was with sheer reflex that she threw herself to the side as the annoyed lynx leaped for his attacker. She landed in the mud near the creek and her hand fell on a stout driftwood branch, churned