The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [56]
“Don’t talk loud. Look.”
“There they are!” Latie said in a muffled squeal, trying to keep her excitement under control.
Ayla turned her head back and forth, then wet a finger and held it up, testing the wind direction. “Wind blows to us from bison. Good. Do not want to disturb until ready to hunt. Bison know horses. On Whinney, we get closer, but not too much.”
Ayla guided the horse, carefully skirting the animals, to check farther upstream, and when she was satisfied, came back the same way. A big old cow lifted her head and eyed them, chewing her cud. The tip of her left horn was broken off. The woman slowed and let Whinney assume movement that was natural to her while her passengers held their breaths. The mare stopped and lowered her head to eat a few blades of grass. Horses did not usually graze if they were nervous, and the action seemed to reassure the bison. She went back to grazing as well. Ayla slipped around the small herd as fast as she could, then galloped Whinney downstream. When they reached previously noted landmarks, they turned south again. They stopped for water for Whinney and themselves after they crossed the next stream, and then continued south.
The hunting party was just beyond the first small creek when Jondalar noticed Racer pulling against his halter toward a cloud of dust moving in their direction. He tapped Talut and pointed. The headman looked ahead and saw Ayla and Latie galloping toward them on Whinney. The hunters did not have long to wait before the horse and riders pounded into their midst, and pranced to a stop. The smile on Latie’s face was ecstatic, her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were flushed with excitement as Talut helped her down. Then Ayla threw her leg over and slid off, as everyone crowded around.
“Couldn’t you find it?” Talut asked, voicing the concern everyone felt. One other person mentioned it at almost the same time, but in a different tone.
“Couldn’t even find it. I didn’t think running ahead on a horse would do any good,” Frebec sneered.
Latie responded to him with surprised anger. “What do you mean, couldn’t even find it? We found the place. We even saw the bison!”
“Are you trying to say you have already been there and back?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Where are the bison now?” Wymez asked the daughter of his sister, ignoring Frebec and blunting his snide remark.
Latie marched to the basket pannier on Whinney’s left side and took out the piece of marked ivory. Then taking the flint knife from the sheath at her waist, she sat on the ground and began scratching some additional marks on the map.
‘The south fork goes between two outcrops, here,” she said. Wymez and Talut sat down beside her and nodded agreement, while Ayla and several others stood behind and around her. “The bison were on the other side of the outcrops, where the floodplain opens out and there is still some green feed near the water. I saw four little ones …” She cut four short parallel marks as she spoke.
“I think, five,” Ayla corrected.
Latie looked up at Ayla, and nodded, then added one more short mark. “You were right, Danug, about the twins. And they’re young ones. And seven cows …” She looked up at Ayla again for confirmation. The woman nodded agreement, and Latie added seven more parallel lines, slightly longer than the first ones. “ … only four with young, I think.” She pondered a moment. “There were more, farther off.”
“Five young males,” Ayla added. “And two, three others. Not sure. Maybe more we not see.”
Latie made five slightly larger lines, somewhat apart from the first ones, then added three more lines, between the two sets, making them a bit smaller again. She cut a little Y tick in the last mark in the line to indicate she was done, that that was the full number of bison they had counted. Her counting marks had cut over some of the other marks that had been etched into the ivory earlier, but it didn’t matter. They had already served their purpose.
Talut took the ivory flake from Latie and studied it. Then he looked at Ayla. “You didn’t happen