The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [131]
“This girl will save the tools until the time of the mammoth hunt. If she is chosen to accompany the hunters, she will use them for the first time on the mammoth the hunters will kill,” she told him.
Droog grunted, then he shook out the leather that was spread across his lap to remove the small chips and splinters of stone, placed the mammoth-foot anvil, hammerstone, bone hammer, and the bone and stone retouchers in the middle of it, and wrapped them up and tied them securely with a cord. Then he gathered up the new implements and walked to the shelter he shared with the other members of his hearth. He was through for the day though it was still afternoon. In a very short time he had produced some very fine tools and he did not want to push his luck.
“Iza! Iza! Look! Droog gave these to me. He even let me watch while he made them,” Ayla motioned with Creb’s one-handed symbols, holding the tools carefully in the other as she ran toward the medicine woman. “He said the hunters were going on a mammoth hunt in the fall and he was making the tools for the men to make new weapons especially for it. He said I might find these useful if I go along with them. Do you think I might get to go with them?”
“You might, Ayla. But I don’t know why you’re so excited about it. It will be hard work. All the fat must be rendered and most of the meat dried, and you can’t believe how much meat and fat is on a mammoth. You’ll have to travel far and carry it all back.”
“Oh, I don’t care if it’s hard work. I’ve never seen a mammoth, except once far in the distance from the ridge. I want to go. Oh, Iza, I hope I can go.”
“Mammoth don’t often come this far south. They like it cold and the summers are too hot here. There’s too much snow in winter for them to graze. But I haven’t had mammoth meat in a long time. There’s nothing better than good, tender mammoth, and they have so much fat that can be used for so many things.”
“Do you think they’ll take me, mother?” Ayla gestured excitedly.
“Brun doesn’t tell me his plans, Ayla. I didn’t even know they were going; you know more about it than I do,” Iza said. “But I don’t think Droog would have said anything if it wasn’t a possibility. I think he was grateful that you saved Ona from drowning and the tools and news about the hunt are his way of telling you. Droog is a fine man, Ayla. You are fortunate he finds you worthy of his gifts.”
“I’m going to save them until the mammoth hunt. I told him if I go, I’ll use them for the first time then.”
“That’s a good idea, Ayla, and it was the proper thing to say.”
14
The mammoth hunt, planned for early fall when the huge woolly beasts migrated south, was a chancy undertaking at best, and it had the whole clan excited. Every able-bodied person would be included in the expedition to the northern end of the peninsula, close to where it joined the mainland. During the time it would take to travel, butcher and preserve the meat, render the fat, and return to the cave, all other hunting activities would be precluded. And there was no assurance they would find mammoth once they got there, or, if they did, that the hunters would be successful. Only the fact that if they were successful, one gigantic beast would provide enough meat to sustain the clan for many months, along with a large supply of fat so essential to their existence, made it worthwhile to even consider.
The hunters crammed many more than the usual amount of regular hunts into the early summer season to lay in enough meat to see them through the coming winter—if they were careful. They couldn’t afford the luxury of gambling on a mammoth hunt without making some provision for the next cold season. But the next Clan Gathering would be held in two years, and during that summer, there would be