The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M. Auel [78]
9
You have a future claim on me, Jondalar,” Tulie stated. “I admit I might have given you an outside chance to beat Talut, but never would I have believed the woman could. I’d like to see that … aah … what do you call it?”
“A spear-thrower. I don’t know what else to call it. I got the idea from Ayla, when I was watching her with her sling one day. I kept thinking, if only I could throw a spear as far, and as fast, and as well as she can throw a stone with a sling. Then I started thinking about how to do it,” Jondalar said.
“You’ve talked about her skill before. Is she really that good?” Tulie asked.
Jondalar smiled. “Ayla, why don’t you get your sling and show Tulie?”
Ayla’s brow creased. She wasn’t used to public demonstrations. She had perfected her skill in secret, and after she was grudgingly allowed to hunt, she always went out alone. It had made both the clan and her uncomfortable for them to see her use a hunting weapon. Jondalar was the first one who ever hunted with her, and the first to see her display her self-taught expertise. She watched the smiling man for a moment. He was relaxed, confident. She could detect no cues warning her to refuse.
She nodded her head and went to get her sling and the bag of stones from Rydag, to whom she had given them when she decided to throw the spear. The boy was smiling at her from Whinney’s back, feeling a part of the excitement, delighted at the stir she had caused.
She looked around for targets. She noticed the upright mammoth rib bones and sighted on them first. The resonant, almost musical, sound of stones hitting bone left no doubt that she had hit the posts, but that was too easy. She looked around trying to find something else to hit. She was used to searching out birds and small animals to hunt, not objects to throw stones at.
Jondalar knew she could do much more than hit posts, and recalling one afternoon during the summer just past, his smile turned into a grin as he looked around, then kicked loose some clods of dirt. “Ayla,” he called.
She turned, and looking down the throwing lane, saw him standing with legs apart, his hands on his hips, and a clod of dirt balanced on each shoulder. She frowned. He had done something similar once before with two rocks, and she didn’t like to see him put himself in jeopardy. Stones from a sling could be fatal. But, when she thought about it, she had to admit that it was more dangerous in appearance than in actuality. Two unmoving objects should be an easy target for her. She hadn’t missed a shot like that in years. Why should she miss it now, just because a man happened to be supporting the objects—the man she loved?
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then nodded again. Picking out two stones from the pouch on the ground at her feet, she brought together the two ends of the leather strap and fitted one of the stones into the worn pocket in the middle, holding the other stone in readiness. Then she looked up.
A nervous stillness hovered over and filled the empty spaces around the onlookers. No one spoke. No one even breathed, it seemed. All was quiet, except for the screaming tension in the air.
Ayla concentrated on the man with the clumps of dirt on his shoulders. When she started to move, the entire Camp strained forward. With the lithe grace and subtle movement of a trained hunter who has learned to signal her intention as little as possible, the young woman wound up and let fly the first missile.
Even before the first stone had reached its mark, she was readying the second. The hard clump of dirt on Jondalar’s right shoulder exploded with the impact of the harder stone. Then, before anyone was even aware she had cast it, the second stone followed the first,