The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [287]
She decided to recite one of the Histories, a story that told about the before times, a story that was particularly difficult for her. It was an early reference to the ones the Zelandonii called Flatheads, the ones she thought of as her Clan, but her mind kept drifting away. The story was full of names that held no familiarity, events that had no meaning for her, and concepts that she didn’t quite understand, or perhaps, with which she didn’t agree. She kept thinking of her own memories, her own history, her early life with the Clan. Maybe she ought to switch to a legend. They were easier. They often told stories that were funny or sad, that explained or exemplified customs and behaviors.
She heard a faint sound, a panting breath, and turned to see Wolf coming up the path to join her. He bounded toward her, obviously happy to see her. She felt the same. “Hello, Wolf,” she said, roughing up the thick fur around his neck and smiling as she held his head and looked into his eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. I’m in the mood for company tonight.” He licked her face, then tenderly took her jaw in his teeth. When he let go, she gently held his furry muzzle in her teeth for a moment. “I think you are glad to see me, too. Jondalar and Jonayla must be back, and she is probably sleeping. It relieves my mind to know you are looking after her, Wolf, when I can’t be there.”
The wolf settled at her feet; she wrapped the cloak tightly around her, sat back down to wait for the moon to rise, and tried to concentrate on a legend about one of the Zelandonii ancestors, but instead she recalled the time that she nearly lost Wolf on their Journey. They were making a perilous crossing of a flooded river and had become separated from him. She remembered searching for him, cold and wet and nearly out of her mind with the fear that she had lost him. She felt again the sinking dread when she finally found him unconscious, afraid he was dead. Jondalar had found them both, and though he was cold and wet, too, he had done everything. She was so cold and exhausted, she was useless. He had put up the shelter, carried her and the half-drowned wolf inside, saw to the horses, took care of them all.
She wrenched her mind back to the present, feeling a need for Jondalar. Maybe the counting words, she thought. She started to say them, “One, two, three, four,” and remembered how delighted she had been the first time Jondalar had explained them to her. She had understood the abstract concept immediately, counting things she could see in her cave: she had one sleeping place; one, two horses; one, two … Jondalar’s eyes are so blue.
I must stop this, she thought. Ayla stood up and walked toward the columnar stone that seemed balanced so precariously close to the edge. Yet last summer when several men had tried to push it over, thinking it might pose a danger, they couldn’t budge it. It was the stone that she had seen from below on the day she and Jondalar first arrived, she remembered, the one that made a distinctive outline against the sky. She vaguely recalled seeing it before in a dream.
She reached out and put her hand on the large stone near the base, and suddenly snatched it away. Her fingertips seemed to tingle where she had touched the stone. When she looked at it again, in the dim light of the moon, it felt as though the stone had moved slightly, leaned closer to the edge, and was it glowing? She backed away, staring at the peculiar stone. I must be imagining it, she thought. She shut her eyes and shook her head. When she opened them, the stone looked like any other stone.