The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [131]
Racer, with head high and ears pitched forward, followed them as far as his lead would allow, then stood with neck outstretched and nostrils wide, watching after them. Whinney nickered to him as they started down the valley again, and he came back and followed behind.
As they hurried upstream toward the narrow end of the valley, they could see the small river swirling in a sharp turn around a jutting wall and a rocky beach on the right. On the other side of it was a large pile of rocks, driftwood, and bones, antlers, horns, and tusks of every variety. Some were skeletons from the steppes, others were the remains of animals caught in flash floods, carried downstream, and thrown against the wall.
Ayla could hardly wait. She slid off Whinney’s back and raced up a steep, narrow path alongside the bone pile to the top of the wall, which formed a ledge in front of a hole in the face of the rock cliff. She almost ran inside, but checked herself at the last minute. This was the place where she had lived alone, and she had survived because never for a moment did she forget to be alert to possible danger. Caves were used not only by people. Edging up along the outside wall, she unwound her sling from her head and stooped to pick up some chunks of rock.
Carefully, she looked inside. She saw only darkness, but her nose detected a faint smell of wood burned long ago, and a somewhat fresher musky scent of wolverine. But that, too, was old. She stepped inside the opening and let her eyes adjust to the dim light, and then looked around.
She felt the pressure of tears filling her eyes, and struggled to hold them back to no avail. There it was, her cave. She was home. Everything was so familiar, yet the place where she had lived for so long seemed deserted and forlorn. The light streaming in from the hole above the entrance showed her that her nose had been right, and closer inspection brought a gasp of dismay. The cave was in a shambles. Some animal, perhaps more than one, had indeed broken in, and had left the evidence scattered around. She wasn’t sure how much damage had been done.
Jondalar appeared at the entrance then. He came in, followed by Whinney and Racer. The cave had been home to the mare, too, and the only home Racer knew until they met the Lion Camp.
“It looks as if we’ve had a visitor,” he said when he became aware of the devastation. “This place is a mess!”
Ayla heaved a big sigh and wiped a tear away. “I’d better get a fire going and torches lit so we can see how much has been ruined. But first I’d better unpack Whinney so she can rest and graze.”
“Do you think we should just let them run free like that? Racer looked like he was ready to follow those horses. Maybe we should tie them up.” Jondalar had some misgivings.
“Whinney has always run free,” Ayla said, feeling a little shocked. “I can’t tie her up. She’s my friend. She stays with me because she wants to. She went to live with a herd once, when she wanted a stallion, and I missed her so much, I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had Baby. But she came back. She will stay, and, as long as she does, so will Racer, at least until he grows up. Baby left me. Racer might, too, just like children leave their mothers’ hearths when they grow up. But horses are different from lions. I think if he becomes a friend, like Whinney, he might stay.”
Jondalar nodded. “All right, you know them better than I do.” Ayla was, after all, the expert. The only expert when it came to horses. “Why don’t I make the fire while you unpack her, then?”
As he went to the places where Ayla had always kept the fire-starting materials and wood, not realizing how familiar her cave had become to him in the short summer he had lived there with her, Jondalar wondered how he could make Racer a good friend. He still didn’t understand completely how Ayla communicated with Whinney so that she went where the woman wanted her to when they were riding,