The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [210]
The girl looked down. “Yes.”
“Then why can’t you keep it?”
“Can’t keep it,” the girl said, then hesitated. “Won’t let me. Someone will take it.”
Ayla began to understand. “All right, let’s do it this way. You keep it for me. Then you will have it when you want to use it.”
“Someone will take it,” Lanoga repeated.
“Tell me if someone takes it, then I will go and take it back,” Ayla said.
Lanoga started to smile, then frowned and shook her head again. “Someone will get mad.”
Ayla nodded. “I understand. I will keep it, then, but remember, any time you want to use it, for Lorala or for you, you can come and borrow it. If someone wants to take it, tell them it belongs to me.”
Lanoga took the soft hide off the baby and put her down on a patch of grass. She gave the hide to the woman. “She’ll mess it,” she said.
“That wouldn’t be so bad. We’d just have to wash it. Let’s put her on it. It’s softer than the grass,” Ayla said. She spread it out and laid the baby on it, noticing that it still retained a slight, but pleasant, smoky odor.
After a hide was cleaned and scraped, it was processed, often with the brains of the animal, then worked and stretched while it dried to a beautiful soft, napped finish. The nearly white hide was then tanned over a smoky fire. The wood and other fuel that was burned determined the color of the hide, usually tan with a brownish or yellowish hue, and, to a slight degree, the texture of the finished piece. The tanning wasn’t done primarily for the color, however, it was done to maintain elasticity. While a hide might be soft before tanning, if it got wet and wasn’t worked and stretched again, it would dry stiff and hard. But once the smoke coated the collagen fibers, a change took place that kept the leather soft even through a washing. Smoke tanning was what made animal hides truly usable.
Ayla noticed that Lorala’s eyes were closing. Wolf had finished with his bone and had moved closer while they were washing the baby, too curious to stay away. Ayla had glanced up and seen him. Now she signaled him to come closer, and he ran toward them.
“It’s our turn to bathe,” Ayla said. She looked at the animal. “Wolf, watch Lorala, watch the baby.” Her hand signals told him the same thing. It wasn’t the first time the wolf had been left to guard a sleeping child. Lanoga had a slight frown of concern. “He’ll stay right here and make sure nothing harms her, and he’ll let us know if she wakes up. We will be right over there in that pond behind the stone dam. You will be able to see them. We’re going to wash ourselves the same way we washed Lorala, but our water will be colder,” Ayla added with a smile.
The woman picked up her haversack and the basket of soaking soaproot on their way to the pond. She took off her clothes and stepped in first. She demonstrated how to clean herself and helped Lanoga wash her hair, then took out two more pieces of the hide toweling and a long-toothed comb she had gotten from Marthona. After they dried, she worked the snarls and tangles out of Lanoga’s hair and, with a second comb, did her own.
Then, from the bottom of the carrying pack, she took out a tunic. Though it had been used, it was not worn. It looked new and had a simple decoration of fringes and some bead-work. Lanoga looked at it with longing and then touched it softly. She smiled when Ayla told her to put it on.
“I want you to wear this when we go to see the women,” Ayla said. Lanoga did not object, did not say a word, in fact, and did not hesitate to put it on. “We should go now. It is getting late. They are probably waiting for us.”
They followed the path back up to the stone terrace and started toward the living section and Proleva’s dwelling. Wolf fell back, and as Ayla turned to find him, she noticed he was looking back the way they had come. She followed his gaze and saw a woman and a man some distance behind. The woman weaved and stumbled as she walked. The man stayed beside her, but not very close, though one time he caught her when she almost fell down. When the woman turned toward Laramar’s