The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [141]
Steppe horses usually migrated north during the summer. Their thick far and compact bodies were adapted to the cold, and while there were wolves on the southern plains—no predator was more widespread—Wolf came from northern stock. Over time, wolves that lived in the southern regions had made several adaptations to the extreme conditions of the south, with its hot, dry summers, and winters that were nearly as cold as the land closer to the glaciers, but could also see much heavier snow. For example, they shed their fur in far greater amounts when the weather warmed, and their panting tongues cooled them more efficiently.
Ayla did everything she could for the suffering animals, but even daily dunkings in the river and various medications did not rid them entirely of the tiny gnats. Open running sores infested with their quick-maturing eggs grew larger despite the medicine woman’s treatments. Horses and Wolf alike shed handfuls of hair, leaving bare spots, and their thick rich coats became matted and dull.
Applying a soothing wash to a sticky open sore near one of Whinney’s ears, Ayla said, “I’m sick of this hot weather, and these terrible gnats! Will it ever be cool again?”
“You may wish for this heat before this trip is through, Ayla.”
Gradually, as they continued traveling upstream beside the great river, the rugged uplands and high peaks of the north angled closer, and the eroded chain of mountains to the south increased in elevation. In all the twists and turns of their generally westward direction, they had been heading just slightly north. They veered then toward the south, before making a sharp turn that began taking them northwest, then arced around to the north, and finally even east for a distance before curving around a point and going northwest again.
Though he couldn’t exactly say why—there weren’t any particular landmarks he could positively identify—Jondalar felt a familiarity with the landscape. Following the river would take them northwest, but he was sure it would curve back around again. He decided, for the first time since they had reached the great delta, to leave the security of the Great Mother River and ride north beside a tributary, into the foothills of the high, sharp-peaked mountains that were now much closer to the river. The route they followed up the feeder river gradually turned northwest.
Ahead the mountains were coming together; a ridge joining the long arc of the ice-topped northern range was closing in on the eroded southern highlands, which had become sharper, higher, and icier, until they were separated by only a narrow gorge. The ridge had once held back a deep inland sea that had been surrounded by the soaring chains. But over the vast millennia the outlet that spilled out the yearly accumulation of water began to wear down the limestone, sandstone, and shale of the mountains. The level of the inland basin was slowly lowered to match the height of the corridor that was being ground out of the rock until, eventually, the sea was drained, leaving behind the flat bottom that would become a sea of grass.
The narrow gorge hemmed in the Great Mother River with rugged, precipitous walls of crystalline granite. And volcanic rock, which once had been outcrops and intrusions in the softer more erodable stone of the mountains, soared up on both sides. It was a long gateway through the mountains to the southern plains and ultimately to Beran Sea, and Jondalar knew there was no way to walk beside the river as she went through the gorge. There was no choice but to go around.
14
Except for the absence of the voluminous flow, the terrain was unchanged when they first turned aside and began following the small stream—dry, open grassland with stunted brush close by the