The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [104]
“Is this it? Have we reached the Great Mother River?” Ayla said, her eyes sparkling.
“Yes. This is it,” Jondalar said, then looked toward the west, upstream. He did not want to dampen Ayla’s excitement at reaching the river, but he knew how far they had yet to go.
They would have to retrace his steps all the way back across the breadth of the continent to the plateau glacier that covered the highland at the headwaters of the extensive river, and then beyond, almost to the Great Water at the edge of the earth, far to the west. Along its winding, eighteen-hundred-mile course, Donau—the river of Doni, the Great Earth Mother of the Zelandonii—swelled with the waters of more than three hundred tributaries, the drainage of two glaciered mountain chains, and acquired a burden of sediment.
Often splitting into many channels as she meandered across the flatter stretches of her length, the great waterway transported the prodigious accumulation of silt suspended within her voluminous spill. But before reaching the end of her course, the fine gritty soil settled out into an immense fan-shaped deposit, a mud-clogged wilderness of low islands and banks surrounded by shallow lakes and winding streams, as though the Great Mother of rivers was so exhausted from her long journey that she dropped her heavy load of silt just short of her destination, then staggered slowly to the sea.
The broad delta they had reached, twice as long as it was wide, began many miles from the sea. The river, too full to be held within a single channel in the flat plain between the ancient massif of raised bedrock to the east and the gentle rolling hills that dropped gradually from the mountains to the west, divided into four main arms, each taking a different direction. Channels interlaced the diverging arms, creating a labyrinth of meandering streams that spread out to form numerous lakes and lagoons. Great expanses of reed beds surrounded firm land that ranged from bare sandy spits to large islands complete with forests and steppes, populated by aurochs and deer, and their predators.
“Where was that smoke coming from?” Ayla asked. “There must be a Camp nearby.”
“I think it might have been from that big island we saw downstream there, across the channel,” Jondalar said, pointing in the general direction.
When Ayla looked, all she saw at first was a wall of tall phragmite reeds, their feathery purple tops bending in the light wind, more than twelve feet above the waterlogged ground from which they grew. Then she noticed the beautiful silvery-green leaves of sallow extending up beyond them. It took a moment before she made another observation that puzzled her. Sallow was usually a shrub that grew so close to water that its roots were often flooded in wet seasons. It resembled certain willows, but sallows never grew to the height of trees. Could she be mistaken? Could those be willow trees? She seldom made a mistake like that.
They started downstream, and when they were opposite the island they headed into the channel. Ayla looked back to make sure the dragging poles of the travois, with the bowl boat lashed between them, were not snagged; then she checked that the crossed ends in front moved freely as the poles floated up behind the mare. When they were repacking, getting ready to leave the large river behind, they originally planned to leave the boat. It had served its purpose in getting them and their things across, but after all the work it had taken to make it, even though the crossing had not gone exactly as they had planned, they both hated to abandon the small round boat.
Ayla was the one who thought about fastening it to the poles, even though it meant Whinney would have to wear the harness and drag