The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [91]
“Are you lonely for people?” he asked. “You spent such a long time alone in your valley, I thought you’d be used to it.”
“Maybe that’s why. I spent enough time being alone. I don’t mind it for a while, sometimes I like it, but we haven’t seen any people for so long … I just thought it would be fun to talk to someone,” she said, then looked at him. “I’m so happy you are with me, Jondalar. It would be so lonely without you.”
“I am happy, too, Ayla. Happy I didn’t have to make this trip alone, happier than I can say that you came with me. I’m looking forward to seeing people, too. When we reach the Great Mother River, we should meet some. We’ve been traveling across country. People tend to live near fresh water, rivers or lakes, not out in the open.”
Ayla nodded, then held the end of another slender sapling, which had been heating over hot rocks and steam, while Jondalar carefully bent it into a circle, then helped him lash it to the others. Judging from the size of it, she began to see that it would take the entire hide of the aurochs to cover it. There would be no more than a few scraps left over, not enough to make a new rawhide meat-keeper to replace the one she had lost in the flash flood. They needed the boat to cross the river, she would just have to think of something else to use. Maybe a basket would work, she thought, tightly woven, long in shape, and rather flat, with a lid. There were cattails and reeds and willows, plenty of basket-making materials around, but would a basket work?
The problem with carrying freshly killed meat was that blood continued to seep out, and no matter how tightly woven, it would eventually leak through a basket. That was why thick, hard rawhide worked so well. It absorbed the blood, but slowly, and didn’t leak, and after a period of use, could be washed and redried. She needed something that would do the same thing. She’d have to think about it.
The problem of replacing her parfleche stayed on her mind, and when the frame was finished, and they left it to wait for the sinew to dry hard and firm, Ayla headed down to the river to collect some basket-making materials. Jondalar went with her but only as far as the birch woods. Since he was all set up for shaping wood, he decided to make some new spears, to replace those that had been lost or broken.
Wymez had given him some good flint before he left, roughed out and preshaped so that new points could be made easily. He had made the bone-pointed spears before they left the Summer Meeting, to show how they were done. They were typical of the kind his people used, but he had learned how to make the flint-tipped Mamutoi spears as well, and because he was a skilled flint knapper, they were faster for him to make than shaping and smoothing bone points.
In the afternoon Ayla started to make a special meat-keeping basket. When she lived in the valley, she had spent many long winter nights easing her loneliness by making baskets and mats, among other things, and she had become very quick and adept at weaving. She could almost make a basket in the dark, and her new carrying container for meat was finished before she went to bed. It was made extremely well, she had thought carefully about the shape and size, materials and tightness of weave, but she wasn’t quite satisfied with it.
She went out in the darkening twilight to change her absorbent wool and wash the piece she was wearing in the small stream. She put it near the fire to dry, but out of Jondalar’s sight. Then, without quite looking at him, she lay down in their sleeping furs beside him. Women of the Clan were taught to avoid men as much as possible when they bled, and never to look at them directly. It made Clan men very nervous to be around women during that time. It had surprised her that Jondalar had no qualms about it, but she still felt uncomfortable, and she took pains to be discreet in caring for herself.
Jondalar