The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [296]
They were approaching a construction that was like a surround, except that it didn’t seem particularly sturdy. It was made of long, thin, straight alder and willow poles lashed together in horizontal Xs with other poles across the top, attached to shorter, somewhat sturdier poles sunk into the ground. Bushes and tree branches, already drying out, loosely filled in the spaces between. If a herd of bison, for example, or even a large male—six feet six inches at the top of the hump on his shoulders, with long black horns—tried to break out, the enclosure would not have held. Even the horses could likely break it down, if they were determined.
“Do you remember how to whistle to call Racer, Lanidar?” Ayla asked.
“Yes, I think so,” he said.
“Why don’t you call him and see if he’ll come?” she said.
The boy whistled the loud, piercing call. Very soon the two horses, the mare following the young stallion, appeared from behind some trees that lined the small waterway and came trotting toward them. They stopped at the enclosure fence and watched the humans approaching. Whinney snorted and Racer whickered at them. Ayla answered with the distinctive whinny that was the sound she had originally named her horse, and both horses neighed back.
“She does know how to make a sound like a horse,” Mardena said.
“I told you she could, mother,” Lanidar said.
Wolf raced ahead, easily slipping under the fence. He sat in front of the mare while she dropped her head in what appeared to be a gesture of greeting. Then Wolf approached the young stallion, dropped down on his chest and forepaws, with his hindquarters up in the air in a playful pose, and yipped at Racer. The stallion nickered back, then they touched noses. Ayla smiled at them as she ducked inside the fence. She hugged the mare around the neck, then turned and stroked the stallion, who was crowding in looking for attention, too.
“I hope you like this surround better than having to wear halters and ropes all the time. I wish I could let you run free, but I don’t think it’s safe when so many people are out hunting. I’ve brought some visitors today, and it’s important for you to be very cooperative and gentle. I want the boy who whistles to check on you for me, and his mother is protective of him and nervous about you,” Ayla said in the language she had invented when she lived alone in the valley.
It comprised certain sounds and gestures from the Clan, some of the nonsense sounds she and her son had made to each other when he was a baby and they were alone, and certain onomatopoeic sounds she had begun to make in imitation of the animals around her, including horse snorts and whickers. Only she knew what she meant, but she had always used her invented language when she talked to the horses. She doubted if they fully understood, though certain sounds and gestures had meaning for them, since she used them as signals and directions, but they knew it was her way of addressing them and they responded by paying attention.
“What’s she doing?” Mardena said to Folara.
“She’s talking to the horses,” Folara said. “She often talks to them like that.”
“What is she saying to them?” Mardena asked.
“You’ll have to ask her,” Folara said.
“Do they know what she’s saying? It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Denoda said.
“I don’t know, but they seem to listen,” Folara said.
Lanidar had crowded up close to the fence and was watching her closely. She really did treat them like friends, more like family, actually, he thought, and they treated her the same way. But he wondered where the enclosure came from. It hadn’t been there the day before.
When Ayla was through talking to the horses and turned around to face the people, Lanidar asked her, “Where did the surround come from? It wasn’t here yesterday.”
Ayla smiled. “A lot of people got together and built it yesterday afternoon,” she said.
When Ayla returned from having a meal with the Nineteenth Cave, she mentioned to