The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [119]
Early one warm day in late fall, nearly a year from the time she first made her decision to hunt, Ayla decided to climb to the high pasture to collect the mature hazelnuts that had fallen to the ground. As she drew near the top, she heard the whooping and cackling and snuffling of a hyena, and when she reached the meadow, she saw one of the ugly beasts half buried in the bloody entrails of an old roe deer.
It made her mad. How dare that noisome creature defile her meadow, attack her deer? She started to run toward the hyena to scare him off, then thought better of it. Hyenas were predators, too, with jaws strong enough to crack the large leg bones of grazing ungulates, and not easily chased from their own prey. She quickly shrugged off her basket and reached to the bottom of it for her sling. She scanned the ground for stones as she edged toward an outcrop near the rock wall. The old stag was half devoured, but her movement caught the attention of the scraggly spotted animal, nearly as large as the lynx. The hyena looked up, found her scent, and turned in her direction.
She was ready. Stepping out from behind the outcrop, she hurled a missile, followed quickly by a second. She didn’t know the second was unnecessary—the first had done the job—but it was good insurance. Ayla had learned her lesson. She had a third stone in her sling and a fourth in hand, prepared for a second series if it proved necessary. The cave hyena had crumpled on the spot and didn’t move. She looked around to make sure there were no more nearby, then cautiously moved toward the beast, her sling ready. On her way, she picked up a leg bone, a few shreds of red meat still clinging to it and not yet broken. With a skull-cracking blow, Ayla made sure the hyena would not rise again.
She looked at the dead animal at her feet and let the club fall from her hand. Awareness of the implications of her deed came slowly. I killed a hyena, she said to herself as the impact hit her. I killed a hyena with my sling. Not a small animal, a hyena, an animal that could kill me. Does that mean I’m a hunter now? Really a hunter? It wasn’t exultation she felt, not the excitement of a first kill or even the satisfaction of overcoming a powerful beast. It was something deeper, more humbling. It was the knowledge that she had overcome herself. It came as a spiritual revelation, a mystical insight; and with a reverence deeply felt, she spoke to the spirit of her totem in the ancient formal language of the Clan.
“I am only a girl, Great Cave Lion, and the ways of the spirits are strange to me. But I think I understand a little more now. The lynx was a test even more than Broud. Creb always said powerful totems are not easy to live with, but he never told me the greatest gifts they give are inside. He never told me how it feels when you finally understand. The test is not just something hard to do, the test is knowing you can do it. I am grateful you chose me, Great Cave Lion. I hope I will always be worthy of you.”
As the brilliant polychrome autumn lost its luster and skeletal branches dropped withered leaves, Ayla returned to the forest. She tracked and studied the habits of the animals she chose to hunt, but she treated them with more respect, both as creatures and as dangerous adversaries. Many times, though she crept close enough to hurl a stone, she refrained and merely watched. She developed a stronger feeling that it was a waste to kill an animal who did not threaten the clan and whose pelt she could not use. But she was still determined to be the best sling-hunter in the clan; she didn’t realize she already was. The only way she could continue