The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [29]
She saw blue-purple pasqueflowers, erect and beautiful, each rising from expanding leaves covered with fine hairs and, unbidden, the medical associations came into her mind—the dried plant was helpful for headaches and women’s cramps—but she enjoyed it as much for its beauty as for its usefulness. When her eye was caught by alpine asters with long thin petals of yellow and violet growing from rosettes of silky, hairy leaves, her fleeting notion became a conscious temptation to gather a few, along with some of the other flowers, for no reason except to enjoy them. But where would she put them? They would only wilt, anyway, she thought.
Jondalar was beginning to wonder if they had missed the marked campsite, or if they were farther away from it than he had thought. He was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that they were going to have to make camp soon and look for the landmark campsite tomorrow. With that, and the need to hunt, they would probably lose another day, and he didn’t think they could afford to lose so many days. He was deep in thought, still worrying about whether he had made the right decision in continuing south, and imagining the dire consequences, and was not paying close attention to a commotion on a hill to their right, except for noticing that it seemed to be a pack of hyenas that had made a kill.
Though they often scavenged, and when hungry were satisfied with the most noxious of rotten carcasses, the large hyenas with their powerful, bone-cracking jaws were also effective hunters. They had pulled down a yearling bison calf, nearly full-grown, but not fully developed. His lack of experience with the ways of predators had been his undoing. A few other bison were standing around, apparently safe now that one had succumbed, and one was watching the hyenas, bawling uneasily at the smell of fresh blood.
Unlike mammoths, and steppe horses, which were not exceptionally large for their species, the bison were giants. The one nearby stood nearly seven feet at the withers and was heavily built in the chest and shoulders, though his flanks were almost graceful. His hooves were small, adapted to running very fast over firm dry soils, and he avoided bogs in which he would become mired. His large head was protected by massive long black horns, six feet across, that curved out and then up. His dark brown, hairy coat was heavy, especially in the chest and shoulders. Bison tended to face into the frigid winds and were better protected in front, where the hair fell in a fringe that was up to thirty inches long, but even his short tail was covered with hair.
Although they were all grass eaters, the various grazers did not eat precisely the same food. They had different digestive systems or different habits and made subtly different adaptations. The highly fibrous stems that sustained horses and mammoths were not sufficient for bison and other ruminants. They needed grass sheaths and leaves that were higher in protein, and bison preferred the low-growing, more nutritious shortgrass of the drier regions. They only ventured into the midgrass and tallgrass regions of the steppes in search of new growth, usually in spring when all the lands were rich with fresh grass and herbs—which was also the only time of the year when their bones and horns grew. The long, wet, green spring of the periglacial grassland gave bison, and several other animals, a long season for growing, which resulted in their heroic proportions.
In his dark and introspective mood, it took a few moments for the possibilities of the scene on the hill to make an impact on Jondalar. By the time he was reaching for his spear-thrower and a spear with the idea of also bringing down a bison, as the