The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [439]
After the round boat was repacked, Jondalar picked up the small pack of essentials while Ayla led Whinney. Although somewhat fearful of slipping, they walked along the edge looking for a way down. As if to make up for the delays and dangers they had endured in the crossing, they soon found the gradual slope of a moraine, with all its gravel, that appeared possible, just beyond a somewhat steeper grade of slick ice. They dragged the boat to the icy slope; then Ayla unfastened the travois. They removed all the halters and ropes from both animals, but not the mammoth-hide horse boots. Ayla checked them to make sure they were securely tied; they had conformed to the shape of the horses’ hooves and now fit snugly. Then they led the horses to the top of the moraine.
Whinney nickered, and Ayla calmed her, calling her by the whinny name she was most familiar with, and she spoke in their language of signals and sounds and made-up words. “Whinney, you need to make your own way down,” the woman said. “No one else can find your footing on this ice better than you can.”
Jondalar reassured the young stallion. The descent would be dangerous, anything could happen, but at least they had gotten the horses across. They would have to get themselves down. Wolf was pacing nervously back and forth along the edge of the ice, the way he did when he was afraid to jump into a river.
With Ayla’s urgings, Whinney was the first to go over the edge, picking her way carefully. Racer was close on her heels and soon outdistanced her. They came to a slick spot, slipped and slid, gained momentum, and moved down faster to keep up. They would be down safely—or not—by the time Ayla and Jondalar reached the bottom.
Wolf was whining at the top, his tail tucked between his legs, not ashamed to show the fear he felt as he watched the horses go.
“Let’s push the boat over and get started. It’s a long way down, and it won’t be easy,” Jondalar said.
As they pushed the boat near the steeper icy edge, Wolf suddenly jumped in it. “He must think we’re getting ready to ride across a river,” Ayla said. “I wish we could float down this ice.”
They both looked at each other and started to smile.
“What do you think?” Jondalar said.
“Why not? You said it should hold together.”
“But will we?”
“Let’s find out!”
They shifted a few things around to make room, then climbed into the bowl-shaped boat with Wolf. Jondalar sent a hopeful thought to the Mother, and, using one of the travois poles, they pushed off.
“Hold on!” Jondalar said as they started over the edge.
They gained speed quickly, but headed straight ahead at first. Then they hit a bump and the boat bounced and spun around. They swerved sideward, then rode up a slight incline and found themselves in midair. They both screamed with the fearful excitement. They landed with a jolt that lifted them all up, the wolf included, then spun around again while they clutched the edge. The wolf was trying to crouch down and poke his nose over the side at the same time.
Ayla and Jondalar held on for all they were worth; it was all they could do. They had absolutely no control over the round boat that was racing down the side of the glacier. It zigged and zagged, bounced and spun around as though leaping with joy, but it was heavily loaded, bottom heavy enough to resist tipping over. Though the man and woman screamed involuntarily, they couldn’t help smiling. It was the fastest, most thrilling ride either of them had ever taken, but it was not over.
They didn’t think about how the ride would end, and, as they neared the bottom, Jondalar remembered the usual crevasse at the foot separating the ice from the ground below. A hard landing on gravel could throw them out and cause injury, or worse, but the sound didn’t make an impression on him when he first heard it. It wasn’t until they landed with a hard bump and a huge splash into the middle of a roaring waterfall of cloudy water that he realized their descent down the wet slippery ice had taken them back toward the river of meltwater that was gushing out of the