The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [244]
They saw mammoths less often, usually traveling north, but even from a distance the giant woolly beasts commanded attention. When not driven by the demands of reproduction, male mammoths tended to form small herds with loose ties for companionship. Occasionally one would join a female herd and travel with it for a while, but whenever the Journeyers noticed a lone mammoth, it was invariably male. The larger permanent herds were of closely related females; a grandmother, the old and wily matriarch who was their leader, and sometimes a sister or two, with their daughters and grandchildren. The female herds were easy to identify because their tusks tended to be somewhat smaller and less curved, and there were always young ones with them.
Though also impressive when they were sighted, woolly rhinoceroses were most rare and least social. They didn’t, as a rule, herd together. Females kept to small family groups and, except during mating, males were solitary. Neither mammoths nor rhinoceroses, except for the young and the very old, had much to fear from four-legged hunters, not even the huge cave lion. The males in particular could afford to be solitary; the females needed the herds to help protect their young.
The smaller woolly musk-oxen, however, who were goatlike creatures, all banded together for protection. When they were under attack, the adults usually packed themselves into a circular phalanx facing outward, with the young ones in the middle. A few chamois and ibex made an appearance as Ayla and Jondalar climbed higher in the hills; they often dropped down to lower ground with the approach of winter.
Many of the small animals were secure for the winter in their nests burrowed deep in the ground, surrounded by stores of seeds, nuts, bulbs, roots, and, in the case of pikas, piles of hay that they had cut and dried. The rabbits and hares were changing color, not to white, but to a lighter mottled shade, and on a wooded knoll they saw a beaver and a tree squirrel. Jondalar used his spear-thrower to get the beaver. Besides the meat, the fatty beaver tail was a rare and rich delicacy, roasted by itself on a spit over the fireplace.
They usually used the spear-throwers for the larger game they hunted. They were both quite accurate with the weapons, but Jondalar had more power, could throw farther. Ayla often brought down the smaller animals with her sling.
Though they didn’t hunt them, they noticed that otter, badger, polecat, marten, and mink were also numerous. The carnivores—foxes, wolves, lynxes, and larger cats—found sustenance in small game or the other herbivores. And though they seldom fished on this leg of their Journey, Jondalar knew there were sizable fish in the river, including perch, pike, and very big carp.
Toward evening they saw a cave with a large opening and decided to investigate it. As they approached, the horses did not show any nervousness, which the humans took to be a good sign. Wolf sniffed around with interest when they entered the cave, obviously curious, but no hackles were raised. Seeing the unconcerned behavior of the animals, Ayla felt confident that the cave was empty, and they decided to camp for the night.
After building a fire, they made a torch to explore a little deeper. Near the front were many signs that the cave had been used before. Jondalar thought the scrapes on the walls were either from a bear or a cave lion. Wolf smelled out droppings nearby but they were so dry and old that it was hard to tell what animal had made them. They found large, dry leg bones that had been partly eaten. The way they were broken and the teeth marks made Ayla think cave hyenas had cracked them with their extremely powerful jaws. She shuddered with repugnance at the thought.
Hyenas were no worse an animal than any other. They scavenged the carcasses that had died naturally and the kills of others, but so did other predators, including wolves, lions, and humans,