The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [248]
When they came upon a herd of reindeer grazing in a field of dry standing hay, Jondalar looked at Ayla with a smile, then pulled out his spear-thrower. Ayla nodded in agreement and urged Whinney to follow the man and the stallion. With nothing around but a few small animals, hunting had been poor, and as the river was by then far below in the gorge, they hadn’t been able to fish. They had been subsisting essentially on dried food and emergency traveling rations, even sharing some with the wolf. The horses were hard pressed, too. The scraggly grass that managed to grow in the thin soil had been barely sufficient for them.
Jondalar slit the throat to bleed the small-antlered doe they killed. Then they lifted the carcass into the bowl boat attached to the travois and looked for a place to camp nearby. Ayla wanted to dry some of the meat and render the animal’s winter fat, and Jondalar was looking forward to a good piece of roast haunch and some tender liver. They thought they’d stay a day or so, especially with the meadow nearby. The horses needed the feed. Wolf had discovered an abundance of small creatures, voles, lemmings, and pikas, and had gone off to hunt and explore.
When they noticed a cave tucked into a hillside, they headed for it. It was a little smaller than they would have liked, but it seemed sufficient. They dropped the pole drag and unloaded the horses to let them enjoy the meadow, put the packs beside the cave, and dragged the travois over themselves, then spread out to collect woody brush and dried dung.
Ayla was looking forward to making a meal with fresh meat and was thinking about what to cook with it. She gathered some dried seed heads and grains from the meadow grasses, and handfuls of the tiny black seeds from the pigweed that was growing beside a small stream somewhat north of the cave. When she returned, Jondalar had already started the fire, and she asked him to go to the stream and fill up the waterbags.
Wolf arrived before the man came back, but when the animal approached the cave, he bared his teeth and snarled menacingly. Ayla felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
“Wolf, what is it?” she said, unconsciously reaching for her sling and picking up a stone, although her spear-thrower was just as close. The wolf stalked slowly into the cave, his throat rumbling with a deep snarl. Ayla followed behind, ducking her head to enter the small dark opening in the rock, and she wished she had brought a torch. But her nose told her what her eyes could not see. It had been many years since she had smelled that odor, but she would never forget it. Suddenly her mind pictured that first time so long ago.
They were in the foothills of the mountains not far from the Clan Gathering. Her son was riding on her hip, supported by his carrying cloak, and though she was young and one of the Others, she was walking in the medicine woman’s position. They had all stopped in their tracks and were staring at the monstrous cave bear, nonchalantly scratching his back against the bark of the tree.
Though the huge creature, twice the size of ordinary brown bears, was the most revered totem of all the Clan, the young people of Brun’s clan had never seen a living one. There were none left in the mountains near their cave, though dry bones attested to the fact that there once had been. For the powerful magic they contained, Creb had retrieved the few tufts of hair that had been caught in the bark after the cave bear finally lumbered off, leaving only his distinctive smell behind.
Ayla signaled Wolf and backed out of the cave. She noticed the sling in her hand and tucked it in her waist tie with a wry face. What good was a sling against a cave bear? She was just grateful that the bear had begun his long sleep and