The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [145]
“What else did you see?” Broud’s eyes were narrowed and his gesture clipped. Brun, too, suddenly remembered what had happened in the practice field the day Zoug began Vorn’s training, and he wasn’t happy at the thought of a female witnessing the incident.
Ayla hesitated. “I saw the other men practicing, too,” she answered, trying to evade the issue, then she saw Brun’s eyes become stern. “And I saw Broud push Zoug down, and you got very mad at him, Brun.”
“You saw that! You saw the whole thing?” Broud demanded. He was livid with anger and embarrassment. Of all people, of all the people in the clan, why was she the one who had to see it? The more he thought about it, the more mortified he became, and the more furious. She was witness to Brun’s harshest denunciation of him. Broud even remembered how badly he missed his shots and suddenly recalled that he had missed the hyena, too. The hyena she killed. A female, that female, had shown him up.
Every kind thought, every bit of gratitude he had so recently felt toward her vanished. I’ll be so glad when she’s dead, he thought. She deserves it. He couldn’t bear the idea of her continuing to live with her knowledge of his supreme moment of shame.
Brun watched the son of his mate and could almost read his thoughts from the expressions on his face. Too bad, he thought, just when there was some chance of ending the animosity between them, not that it matters anymore. He continued the questioning.
“You said you began to practice the same day as Vorn, tell me about it.”
“After you left, I walked across the field and saw the sling Broud threw on the ground. Everyone forgot about it after you got mad at Broud. I don’t know why, but I just wondered if I could do it. I remembered Zoug’s lesson and tried. It wasn’t easy, but I kept trying all afternoon. I forgot how late it was getting. I hit the post once, I think it was just an accident, but it made me think I could do it again if I worked at it, so I kept the sling.”
“I suppose you learned how to make one from Zoug, too.”
“Yes.”
“And you practiced that summer?”
“Yes.”
“Then you decided to hunt with it, but why did you hunt meat eaters? They’re more difficult, more dangerous, too. We’ve found dead wolves, even dead lynxes. Zoug always said they could be killed with a sling, you proved he was right, but why those?”
“I knew I could never bring anything back for the clan, I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch a weapon, but I wanted to hunt, I wanted to try, anyway. Meat eaters are always stealing food from us; I thought if I killed them, I would be helping. And it wouldn’t be such a waste, we don’t eat them. So I decided to hunt them.”
It satisfied Brun’s curiosity about why she chose predators, but not why she wanted to hunt in the first place. She was female; no woman ever wanted to hunt.
“You know it was dangerous to try for the hyena from so far away; you might have hit Brac instead.” Brun was probing. He had been ready to try his bola, though the chance of killing the boy with one of the large stones was more than a possibility. But instant death from a cracked skull was preferable to the one the child faced, and at least they would have had the boy’s body to bury, so he could be sent on his way to the spirit world with proper rituals. They would have been lucky to find scattered bones if the hyena had had his way.
“I knew I could hit it,” Ayla answered simply.
“How could you be sure? The hyena was out of range.”
“He wasn’t out of my range. I’ve hit animals before from that distance. I don’t miss often.”
“I thought I saw the marks of two stones,” Brun motioned.
“I threw two stones,” Ayla confirmed. “I taught myself after the lynx attacked me.”
“You were attacked by a lynx?” Brun pressed.
“Yes,” Ayla nodded, and told of her close call with the large cat.
“What is your range?” Brun asked. “No, don’t tell me, show me. Do you have your sling?”
Ayla nodded and got up. They all moved to the far end of the clearing where a small brook trickled over a rocky bed. She selected a few pebbles of the right size and shape. Round