The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [444]
Toward evening, they found a racing, bubbling, healthy-looking stream and followed it until they came to a large open field with a few trees and some brush beside the water. They decided to make camp early and cook some of their deer meat. The rain had let up and there wasn’t any hurry any more, though they had to keep reminding themselves of that.
The following morning, when Ayla stepped out of the tent, she stopped and gaped in amazement, stunned by the sight. The landscape seemed unreal, with the quality of an especially vivid dream. It seemed impossible that they could have endured the most harshly bitter intensity of extreme winter conditions only days ago and, suddenly, it was spring!
“Jondalar! Oh, Jondalar. Come and see!”
The man put his sleepy head out of the opening, and she watched his smile grow.
They were at a lower elevation, and the rainy drizzle and fog of the day before had given way to a bright new sun. The sky was a rich azure blue decorated with mounds of white. Trees and brush were flocked with the fresh bright green of new leaves and the grass in the field looked good enough to eat. Flowers—jonquils, lilies, columbines, irises, and more—bloomed in profusion. Birds of every color and many varieties darted and wheeled through the air, chirping and singing.
Ayla recognized most of them—thrushes, nightingales, bluethroats, nutcrackers, black-headed woodpeckers, and river warblers—and whistled their song back to them. Jondalar got up and came out of the tent in time to watch with admiration while she patiently coaxed a gray shrike to her hand.
“I don’t know how you do that,” he said, as the bird flew away.
Ayla smiled. “I’m going to look for something fresh and delicious to eat this morning,” she said.
Wolf was gone again, and Ayla was sure he was exploring or hunting; spring brought adventures for him, too. She headed toward the horses, who were in the middle of the spring meadow grazing on the fine short blades of sweet grass. It was the rich season, the time of growth throughout the land.
For most of the year the broad plains surrounding the miles-thick sheets of ice, and the high mountain meadows, were dry and cold. Only scant rain or snow managed to fall on the land; the glaciers usually captured most of the moisture circulating in the air for themselves. Though permafrost was as pervasive on the ancient steppes as in the wetter northern tundras of later times, the glacier-driven winds kept the summers arid, and the land dry and firm, with few bogs. In winter, the winds kept the light snows blown into drifts, leaving large sections of the frozen ground bare of snow, but covered with grass that had dried into hay; feed that maintained the uncountable numbers of huge grazing animals.
But not all grasslands are the same. To create the rich abundance of the Ice Age plains, it wasn’t so much the amount of precipitation—so long as it was sufficient—as when it fell; a combination of moisture and drying winds in the right proportions and at the right times made the difference.
Because of the angle of incoming sunlight, in lower latitudes the sun begins to warm the earth not long after the winter solstice. Where snow or ice have accumulated, most of the early spring sunlight is reflected back into space, and the little that is absorbed and converted to heat must be used to melt the snow cover before plants can grow.
But on the ancient grasslands, where winds had laid the plains bare, the sun poured its energy onto the dark soil, and received a warm welcome. The dry, frozen top layers of permafrost began to warm and thaw, and though it was still cold, the wealth of solar energy impelled seeds and extensive roots to prepare to send up shoots. But water in usable form was necessary if they were to flourish.
The glistening ice resisted the warming rays of spring, reflecting back the sunlight. But with so much moisture stored in the mountain-high icy sheets, it could not