The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [93]
The next day he decided to use the wood-shaping apparatus he had set up to bend the wood for the boat frame, to straighten shafts for new spears. Shaping and smoothing them took most of the next couple of days, even with the special tools he had with him, carried in a roll of leather tied with thongs. But while he was working, every time he passed by the side of the earthlodge where he had thrown it, Jondalar noticed the truncated spear shaft he had brought up from the valley and felt a flush of annoyance. It was a shame that there wasn’t a way to salvage that straight shaft, short of making a cropped and unbalanced spear out of it. Any of the spears he was working so hard to make could break just as easily.
When he was satisfied that the spears would fly true, he used yet another tool, a narrow flint blade with a chisellike tip hafted to an antler-tine handle, to hollow out a deep notch in the thicker butt ends of the shafts. Then, from the prepared flint nodules he had with him, Jondalar knapped new blades and attached them to the spear shafts with the thick glue he had made as a coating for the boat, and fresh sinew. The tough tendon shrank as it dried, making a strong, solid bond. He finished by affixing pairs of long feathers, found near the river, from the numerous white-tailed eagles, falcons, and black kites that lived in the region feeding on the abundance of susliks and other small rodents.
They had set up a target, using a thick, grass-stuffed bed pad that the badger had torn up and made worthless. Patched with scraps from the aurochs, it absorbed the force of a throw without damage to the spears. Both Jondalar and Ayla practiced a little every day. Ayla did it to maintain her accuracy, but Jondalar was experimenting with different lengths of shaft and sizes of point to see which would work best with the spear-thrower.
When his new spears were finished and dried, he and Ayla took them to the target area to try them out with the spear-thrower and choose which ones each wanted. Though they were both very adept with the hunting weapon, some of their practice casts inevitably went wide of the mark and mised the cushioned target, usually landing harmlessly on the ground. But when Jondalar cast a newly completed spear with a powerful throw, and not only mised the target, but hit a large mammoth bone that was used as an outdoor seat, he flinched. He heard a crack as it bent and bounced back. The wooden shaft had splintered at a weak spot about a foot back from the point.
When he walked over to examine it, he noticed that the brittle flint tip had also shattered along one edge and spalled off a large chip, leaving a lopsided point that was not worth salvaging. He was furious with himself for wasting a spear that had taken so much time and effort to make, before it could be used for anything worthwhile. In a sudden surge of anger, he cracked the bent spear across his knee and broke it in two, then threw it down.
When he looked up, he noticed Ayla watching him, and he turned away, flushed with embarrassment over his outburst, then stooped down and picked up the broken pieces, wishing he could dispose of them unobtrusively. When he looked up again, Ayla was getting ready to cast another spear as though she hadn’t seen anything. He walked over to the earthlodge and dropped the broken spear near the shaft that had broken during the hunt, then stared down at the pieces, feeling foolish. It was ridiculous to get so angry over breaking a spear.
But it is a lot of work to make one, he thought, looking at the long shaft with the end broken off, and the section of the other spear with the broken flint point still attached that happened to be