The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [253]
“No!” Her answer was sharp and abrupt, and then she tried to soften it. “I was hoping you would watch Jonayla. Beladora is taking her children to spend some time with her mother this morning. Jondecam and Levela are also going and taking Jonlevan with them, because they are all related. I don’t know what Kimeran is doing, but I think he may join them later. Jonayla is like family, but she is really just a friend and may feel left out because she won’t have her usual friends to play with. I thought maybe you and Racer could go for a ride with her and Gray this morning.”
“That’s a good idea. We haven’t been riding for a while. The exercise would do the horses good,” Jondalar said. Ayla smiled at him and rubbed cheeks, but a frown still creased her forehead. She looked unhappy.
It was barely daylight when Ayla left, riding Whinney and whistling for Wolf. She rode along the riverbank looking over the vegetation. She knew the plants she was looking for grew near the place where they had camped, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to ride that far. She rode past the Third Cave’s location; it was deserted. Everyone was at the meeting that had spontaneously come about at the First Cave. She wondered how Amelana was doing, and if she would have her baby before they left. It could be any time now, she thought, and fervently hoped it would be a normal, healthy, happy baby.
She didn’t find what she was looking for until she was close to their former campsite. It was the backwater of the river that had almost formed an oxbow lake that created the right kind of habitat for both water parsnip and water hemlock. She halted the horse and quickly slid off. Wolf seemed happy to have her to himself for a change and was a little frisky, but Ayla was in no mood for playfulness, so he began exploring the interesting smells coming from the small holes and hummocks.
She had her good sharp knife and a digging stick with her and first collected heaps of water parsnips. Then in another basket and with a new tool she had fashioned explicitly for the purpose, she dug up several roots and plants of the water hemlock. She wrapped them with long stems of grass and put them in a separate basket, again made expressly for the plants. She left it on the ground while she packed the parsnips in the panniers fastened to Whinney, then attached the separate basket on top. Then whistling for Wolf, she started back upstream; she was in a hurry to return. When she came to a place where the river flowed fresh and clean, she stopped to fill her waterbag. Then she saw the dry bed of a seasonal tributary stream that would be full of rushing water when rains came. The smooth, rounded stones on the bottom were perfect, and she carefully selected several of them to refill the pouch of stones for her sling.
She was near a stand of pines and noticed small mounds pushing up under a layer of needles and twigs beneath the trees and brushed them aside. She found a clump of pinkish-buff mushrooms hidden underneath. She searched and found more until she had collected quite a nice little pile of pine mushrooms. These were good mushrooms, white and firm of flesh with a rather nice, slightly spicy smell and taste, but not everyone knew them. She filled a third gathering basket with them. Then she mounted Whinney, whistled for Wolf, and rode back, pushing her mare to a gallop for part of the distance. People were in the midst of preparing or eating their morning meal when she arrived. She went straight to the zelandonia pavilion and brought in two of the baskets. Only the two “Firsts” were there.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” the One Who Was First asked.
“Yes,” Ayla said. “Here are some good pine mushrooms, with a somewhat unusual flavor that I like very well,” she said, then showing them the basket of water hemlock, she said, “I have never tasted these.”
“That’s good. I hope you never do,” the large woman said.
“Outside, on Whinney’s pannier is a big load of water parsnips. I was careful not to mix them,” Ayla said.
“I’ll give them to one of the people who