The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [15]
Ayla and Jondalar felt the level ground begin sloping downhill toward the valley of the larger river, though they were still some distance from the water. Before long they found themselves surrounded by tall grass. Stretching to see over the eight-foot growth, even from Whinney’s back, Ayla could see little more than Jondalar’s head and shoulders between the feathery tops and the nodding stems of minuscule florets, turning gold with a faintly reddish tinge, atop the thin, blue-green stalks. She glimpsed his dark brown mount now and then, but recognized Racer only because she knew he was there. She was glad for the advantage of height the horses gave them. Had they been walking, she realized, it would have been like traveling through a dense forest of tall green grass waving in the wind.
The high grass was no barrier, parting easily in front of them as they rode, but they could see only a short distance past the nearest stalks, and behind them the grass sprang back, leaving little trace of the way they had come. Their view was limited to the area immediately around them, as though they took with them a pocket of their own space as they moved. With only the brilliant incandescence tracing its familiar path through the clear deep blue above, and the bending stalks to show the direction of the prevailing wind, it would have been more difficult to find their way, and very easy to become separated.
As she rode, she heard the soughing wind and the high whine of mosquitoes zinging by her ear. It was hot and close in the middle of the dense growth. Though she could see the tallgrass swaying, she barely felt a breath of wind. The buzz of flies and a whiff of fresh dung told her that Racer had recently dropped scat. Even if he hadn’t been just a few paces ahead, she would have known it was the young stallion who had passed that way. His scent was as distinctively familiar to her as that of the horse she was riding—and her own. All around was the rich humus odor of the soil, and the green smell of burgeoning vegetation. She did not classify smells as bad or good; she used her nose as she did her eyes and ears, with knowledgeable discrimination to help her investigate and analyze the perceptible world.
After a time, the sameness of the scenery, of long green stalk after long green stalk, the rhythmic gait of the horse, and the hot sun almost directly above, made Ayla lethargic; awake, but not fully aware. The repetitive tall, thin, jointed grass stems became a blur she no longer saw. Instead, she began to notice all the other vegetation. Much more than grass grew there, and as usual, she took mental note of it, without consciously thinking about it. It was simply the way she saw her environment.
There, Ayla thought, in that open space—some animal must have made that by rolling in it—those are goosefoots, what Nezzie called goosefoots, like the pigweed near the clan’s cave. I should pick some, she mused, but made no effort to do so. That plant, with the yellow flowers and leaves wrapped around the stem, that’s wild cabbage. That would be good to have tonight, too. She passed it by as well. Those purple-blue flowers, with the small leaves, that’s milk vetch, and it has a lot of pods. I wonder if they’re ready? Probably not. Up ahead, that wide white flower, sort of rounded, pink in the middle, it’s wild carrot. It looks like Racer stepped on some of the leaves. I should get my digging stick, but there’s more over there. Seems to be a lot of it. I can wait, and it’s so hot. She tried to swat away a pair of flies that buzzed around her