The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [221]
He watched them start off, the man in the lead, the child in the middle, and the woman bringing up the rear. The man was big for the compact horse, which he called Racer, his feet nearly dragged the ground when he sat on the dark brown horse—an unusual color that he had not seen before. But as the animals began a fast trot, the man sat farther back on the horse, pulled up his knees, and hugged the body of the stallion with his legs. The girl sat forward, almost riding the neck of the taupe-colored young mare, her little legs sticking out. Again the grayish-tan horse’s coat was an unusual color, though he had seen it before when he’d made a trip north. Some called the taupe color gruya; Ayla just called it gray, and it had became the mare’s name.
Not long after they started out, the fast trot speeded up to a gallop. Without encumbrances, like the pole-drags, the horses liked to stretch their legs, especially on a morning ride. Ayla leaned forward low on Whinney’s neck, which was her signal to the horse to go as fast as she wished. Wolf yipped and joined in the sprint. Jondalar leaned forward as well, keeping his knees bent and close to the animal. Jonayla grabbed Gray’s mane with one hand, and with her cheek resting high on the horse’s neck while she squinted to see ahead, she wrapped her other arm around as best she could. With the wind in their faces, the fast ride was exhilarating, and the riders let the horses have their run and delighted in it.
After they had worked out all the kinks, Ayla sat up somewhat, Jonayla sat lower near the base of Gray’s neck, and Jondalar sat a little straighter and let his legs hang down. They all felt more relaxed and cantered on at a somewhat slower pace. Ayla gave Wolf a signal and said “Search,” which he knew meant search for people.
There were very few people on earth at that time. They were far outnumbered by millions of other creatures from the very large to the very small, and those humans who were there tended to cluster close together. When Wolf sampled all the smells that were in the wind, he could identify many different animals in various stages of life, and death. He seldom detected the scent of human on the wind, but when he did, he knew it.
The rest of them also searched, scanning the landscape to see if they could find any sign that people had passed by recently. They didn’t think they would discover anyone so close, sure that the other party of travelers would have sent a runner ahead if they were in any kind of trouble and that close to their destination.
Around midday, they took a break for a meal and to let the horses graze. When they continued, they scanned the countryside more intently. There was a trail of sorts that they followed: occasional blazes on trees, limbs on brush bent in certain ways, sometimes a small pile of stones tapering from front to back, and rarely a mark on a rock made with red-ocher paint. They searched until sundown, then made camp and set up their traveling tents near an active stream that had begun as a spring on higher ground.
Ayla took out some traveling cakes made with dried bilberries, rendered fat, and dried meat that had been ground with a pestle into small pieces, and broke them into boiling water, then added some extra dried meat to the soup. Jondalar and Jonayla took a walk in the rather flat meadow nearby, and the child returned with her hands full of onions they had found, mostly by smell. The level ground had been a wetland earlier in the season, the result of the stream flooding, and as it dried it became a suitable place for certain plants to grow. Ayla thought she might take a look at it the next morning to gather more onions and whatever else she might find.
They started out the next day after