The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [116]
Looking carefully between the reed stalks in the direction of the last wolf call, Ayla caught a glimpse of wolf fur and two yellow eyes watching her. Then a movement above caught her eye. She looked up and, partly hidden by foliage, she saw a wolf looking down at them from the crotch of a tree, with his tongue lolling out.
Wolves didn’t climb trees! At least no wolf she ever saw climbed a tree, and she had watched many wolves. She tapped Jondalar and pointed. He saw the animal and caught his breath. It looked like a real wolf, but how did it get up in the tree?
“Jondalar,” she whispered, “let’s go. I don’t like this island that is not an island, with wolves that can climb trees and walk on land where there is none.”
The man felt just as edgy. They quickly paddled back across the channel. When they were close to shore, Wolf jumped out of the boat. They climbed out, quickly dragged the small craft up on the dry land, then got their spears and spear-throwers. Both horses were facing the direction of the floating island, their ears pricked forward, tension communicated in their stance. Normally wolves were shy and did not bother them, especially since the mixed scents of horses, humans, and another wolf presented an unfamiliar picture, but they weren’t sure about these wolves. Were they ordinary, real wolves or something … unnatural?
Had not their seemingly supernatural control over animals frightened away the inhabitants of the large island, they might have learned from the people who were familiar with the marshland that the strange wolves were no more unnatural than they were themselves. The watery land of the great delta was home to many animals, including reed wolves. They lived primarily in the woodlands on the islands, but they had adapted so well to their waterlogged environment over thousands of years that they could travel through the floating reed beds easily. They had even learned to climb trees, which, in a shifting, flooding landscape, gave them a tremendous advantage when they were isolated by floods.
That wolves could thrive in an environment that was almost aquatic was evidence of their great adaptability. It was the same adaptability that allowed them to learn to live with humans so well that over time, though still able to breed with their wild forebears, they become so fully domesticated that they almost appeared to be a different species, many of them hardly resembling wolves at all.
Across the channel on the floating island, several wolves could now be seen, two of them in trees. Wolf looked expectantly from Ayla to Jondalar, as though waiting for instructions from the leaders of his pack. One of the reed wolves voiced another howl; then the rest joined in, sending a chill down Ayla’s spine. The sound seemed different from the wolf song she was used to hearing, though she could not say precisely how. It may have been that the reverberations from the water changed the tone, but it added to her feelings of uneasiness about the mysterious wolves.
The standoff suddenly ended when the wolves disappeared, leaving as silently as they had come. One moment the man and woman with their spear-throwers, and Wolf, were facing a pack of strange wolves across an open channel of water, the next moment the animals were gone. Ayla and Jondalar, still holding their weapons, found themselves staring intently at harmless reeds and cattails, feeling vaguely foolish and unsettled.
A cool breeze, raising gooseflesh on their bare skin, made them aware that the sun had dropped behind the mountains to the west and night was coming on. They put their weapons down, hurriedly dressed, then quickly built up their fire and finished setting up camp, but their mood was subdued. Ayla found herself often checking the horses, and she was glad they had chosen to graze in the green field where they were camped.
As darkness surrounded the golden glow of their fire, the two people were strangely quiet, listening, as the night sounds of the river delta filled the air. Squawking night herons became active at dusk, then chirping crickets.