The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [48]
From the rounded shoulder of the plateau above to the wide floodplain below, the fine loess soil was sculpted by deep gullies; the handiwork of rain, melting snow, and the outflow of the great glaciers to the north during the spring runoff. A few green larch and pine stood straight and stiff in their isolation, scattered sparsely among the recumbent tangle of leafless shrubs on the lower ground. Downstream, along the river’s edge, the spikes of cattails mingled with reeds and sedges. Her view upstream was blocked by the bend in the river, but Whinney and Racer grazed within sight on the dry standing hay that covered the balance of the stark, spare landscape.
A spattering of dirt landed at Ayla’s feet. She looked up, startled, into Jondalar’s vivid blue eyes. Talut was beside him with a big grin on his face. She was surprised to see several more people on top of the dwelling.
“Come up, Ayla. I’ll give you a hand,” Jondalar said.
“Not now. Later. I just come out. Why you up there?”
“We’re putting the bowl boats over the smoke holes,” Talut explained.
“What?”
“Come on. I’ll explain,” Deegie said. “I’m ready to overflow.”
The two young women walked together toward a nearby gully. Steps had been roughly cut into the steep side leading to several large, flat mammoth shoulder blades with holes cut in them braced over a deeper part of the dry gully. Ayla stepped out on one of the shoulder blades, untied the waist thong of her legged garment, lowered it, then bent down and squatted over the hole, beside Deegie, wondering again why she hadn’t thought of the posture herself when she was having so much trouble with her clothes. It seemed so simple and obvious after she watched Deegie once. The contents of the night baskets were also thrown into the gully, as well as other refuse, all of which was washed away in the spring.
They climbed out and walked down to the river beside a broad gulch. A rivulet, whose source farther north was already frozen, trickled down the middle. When the season turned again, the trench would carry a raging torrent. The top sections of a few mammoth skulls were inverted and stacked near the bank along with some crude long-handled dippers, roughed out of leg bones.
The two women filled the mammoth skull basins with water dipped from the river, and from a pouch Ayla brought with her, she sprinkled withered petals—once the pale blue sprays of saponin-rich ceanothus flowers—into both their hands. Rubbing with wet hands created a foamy, slightly gritty washing substance which left a gentle perfume on clean hands and faces. Ayla snapped off a twig, chewed the broken end, and used it on her teeth, a habit she had picked up from Jondalar.
“What is bowl boat?” Ayla asked as they walked back carrying the waterproof stomach of a bison, bulging with fresh water, between them.
“We use them to cross the river, when it’s not too rough. You start with a frame of bone and wood shaped like a bowl that will hold two or maybe three people, and cover it with a hide, usually aurochs, hair side out and well oiled. Megaceros antlers, with some trimming, make good paddles … for pushing it through the water,” Deegie explained.
“Why bowl boats on top of lodge?”
“That’s where we always put them when we aren’t using them, but in winter we cover the smoke holes with them so rain and snow won’t come in. They were tying them down through the holes so they won’t blow away. But you have to leave a space for the smoke to get out, and be able to move it over, and shake it loose from inside if snow piles up.”
As they walked together, Ayla was thinking how happy she was to