The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [156]
Should I use a sling to get something to eat? Why not? I’ve already been cursed, what more can they do to me? But this one’s no good; what can I use to make a new one? The cloak? No, it’s too stiff, it’s been out here too long. I need soft pliable leather. She looked around the cave. I can’t even kill anything to make a sling if I don’t have one. Where can I find soft leather? She racked her brain, then sat down in despair.
She looked down at her hands in her lap, then suddenly noticed what her hands were resting on. My wrap! My wrap is soft and pliable. I can cut a piece out of it. She brightened and started looking around the cave with enthusiasm again. Here’s an old digging stick; I don’t remember leaving one here. And some dishes. That’s right, I did bring some shells up. I am hungry, I wish there was something to eat around here. Wait! There is! I didn’t collect the nuts this year, they should be all over the ground outside.
She hadn’t realized it yet, but Ayla had begun to live again. She gathered the nuts, brought them into the cave, and ate as many as her stomach, shrunken from lack of food, could hold. Then she took off the old fur and her wrap and cut a piece from it for a sling. The strip didn’t have the bulging pocket to hold the stones, but she thought it would work.
She had never hunted animals for food before, and the rabbit was quick, but not quick enough. She thought she remembered passing a beaver dam. She got the aquatic animal just as it was diving for the water. On her way back, she saw a small, gray, chalky boulder near the creek. That’s flint! I know that’s flint. She picked up the nodule and hauled it back with her, too. She took the rabbit and beaver inside the cave and went back out to gather wood and find a hammerstone.
I need a fire stick, she thought. It should be good and dry; this wood is a little damp. She noticed her old digging stick. That should work, she said to herself. It was a little difficult to start a fire by herself; she was used to alternating the downward-pressured twirling motion with another woman to keep it spinning. After intense effort and concentration, a smoldering chunk of the fire platform slipped onto the bed of dry tinder. She blew at it carefully and was rewarded with small, licking flames. She added the dry kindling piece by piece, then larger pieces of the old shelf. When the fire was firmly established, she laid on the larger chunks of wood she had collected, and a cheerful fire warmed the small cave.
I’m going to have to make a cooking pot, she thought as she spitted the skinned rabbit and laid the beaver tail on top to add its fatty richness to the lean meat. I’m going to need a new digging stick and a collecting basket. Creb burned my collecting basket. He burned everything, even my medicine bag. Why did he have to burn my medicine bag? Tears began to well up and soon spilled down her cheeks. Iza said I was dead. I begged her to look at me, but she just said I was dead. Why couldn’t she see me? I was standing right there, right in front of her. The girl cried for a while, then sat up straight and wiped away her tears. If I’m going to make a new digging stick, I’ll need a hand-axe, she said to herself firmly.
While the rabbit was cooking, she knapped herself a hand-axe the way she had learned by watching Droog, and with it chopped down a green branch to make a digging stick. Then she gathered more wood and stacked it inside the cave. She could hardly wait for the meat to cook—the smell made her mouth water and her empty stomach growl. She was sure nothing had ever