The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [294]
But progress was agonizingly slow. Every time she looked, the other side of the river was farther than she expected. She was moving much faster downstream than across. By the time the river swept her past the place she had thought to land, she was tired, and the cold was lowering her body temperature. She was shivering. Her muscles ached. It felt as though she had been kicking forever with rocks tied to her feet, but she forced herself to keep on.
Finally, exhausted, she surrendered to the inexorable force of the tide. The river, taking its advantage, swept the makeshift raft back in the direction of the stream, with Ayla clinging on desperately as the log now controlled her.
But ahead, the river’s course was changing, its southerly direction swerving sharply west as it curved around a jutting spit of land. Ayla had traversed more than three-quarters of the way across the racing torrent before giving in to her fatigue, and when she saw the rocky shore, with a resolute effort, she took control.
She forced her legs to kick, pushing to reach the land before the river carried her around the point. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on keeping her legs moving. Suddenly, with a jolt, she felt the log grate against the bottom and come to a stop.
Ayla couldn’t move. Half submerged, she lay in the water still clinging to the branch stubs. A swell in the turbulent stream lifted the log free of the sharp rocks, filling the young woman with panic. She forced herself to her knees and shoved the battered tree trunk forward, anchoring it to the beach, then fell back into the water.
But she couldn’t rest long. Shivering violently in the cold water, she made herself crawl onto the rocky spit. She fumbled with the knots in the vine, and, with that loosened, she hauled the bundle to the beach. The thong was even more difficult to untie with her trembling fingers.
Providence helped. The thong broke at a weak spot. She clawed the long leather strap away, pushed the basket aside, and crawled on the bearskin and wrapped it around her. By the time her shivering stopped, the young woman was asleep.
Ayla headed north and slightly west after her perilous river crossing. The summer days warmed as she searched the open steppeland for some sign of humanity. The herbal blossoms that had brightened the brief spring faded, and the grass neared waist high.
She added alfalfa and clover to her diet, and welcomed the starchy, slightly sweet groundnuts, finding the roots by tracing rambling surface vines. Milk-vetch pods were swelling with rows of oval green vegetables in addition to edible roots, and she had no trouble distinguishing between them and their poisonous cousins. When the season for the buds of day lilies passed, the roots were still tender. A few early-ripening varieties of low-crawling currants had begun to turn color, and there were always a few new leaves of pigweed, mustard, or nettles for greens.
Her sling did not lack for targets. Steppe pikas, souslik marmots, great jerboas, varying hares—gray brown now instead of winter white—and an occasional, omnivorous, mouse-hunting giant hamster abounded on the plains. Low-flying willow grouse and ptarmigan were a special treat, though Ayla could never eat ptarmigan without remembering that the fat birds with the feathered feet had always been Creb’s favorite.
But those were only the smaller creatures feasting on the plain’s summer bounty. She saw herds of deer—reindeer, red deer, and enormous antlered giant deer; compact steppe horses, asses, and onagers, which resembled both; huge bison or a family of saiga antelope occasionally crossed her path. The herd of reddish brown wild cattle, with bulls six feet at the withers, had spring calves nursing at the ample udders of cows. Ayla’s mouth watered for the taste of milk-fed veal, but her sling was not an adequate weapon to hunt aurochs. She glimpsed migrating woolly mammoths, saw musk oxen in a phalanx