The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [41]
“Several Cave leaders sent runners with messages, and many of them got together and talked. They’ve agreed to send out trackers, find the young men, separate them to break up the gang, and then each Cave is going to deal with their own member individually. They will be severely punished, I imagine, but they’ll be given a chance to make restitution,” Jondalar explained.
“I’d say that’s a good plan, especially if they all agree to it, including the Cave of the instigator,” Joharran said, “and if the young men come peaceably, once they’ve been found…”
“I’m not sure about the leader, but I think the rest of them want to go home, and would agree to anything to be allowed back. They looked hungry, cold, and dirty, and not too happy,” Jondalar said.
“You saw them?” Marthona asked.
“That’s how we met the Clan couple. The gang had gone after the woman, they didn’t see the man around. But he had climbed up on a high rock to scout game and jumped down when they attacked his woman. Broke his leg, but it didn’t stop him from trying to fight them off. We happened upon them then; it was not far from the glacier we were getting ready to cross.” Jondalar smiled. “Between Ayla, Wolf, and me, not to mention the two Clan people, we chased them off in a hurry. There’s not much fight left in those boys. And with Wolf and the horses, and the fact that we knew who they were, when they had never seen us before, well, I think we put a scare in them.”
“Yes,” Zelandoni said thoughtfully. “I can see how it would.”
“You would have scared me,” Joharran said with a wry smile.
“Then Ayla convinced the Clan man to let her set his broken leg,” Jondalar continued. “We camped together for a couple of days. I made him a couple of sticks to lean on and help him walk, and he decided to go home. I was able to talk to him a little, though Ayla did most of it. I think I became something like a brother to him,” he said.
“It occurs to me,” Marthona said, “that if there is a possibility of trouble with—what do they call themselves? Clan people?—and they can communicate enough to negotiate, it could be very helpful to have someone like Ayla around who can talk to them, Joharran.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Zelandoni added. She had also been thinking about what Jondalar had said of the fearful effect Ayla’s animals had on people, though she didn’t mention it. It could be useful.
“That’s true, of course, mother, but it’s going to be hard to get used to the idea of talking to flatheads, or calling them something else, and I’m not the only one who’s going to have trouble,” Joharran said. He paused, then shook his head as if to himself. “If they talk with their hands, how do you know they’re really talking and not just waving their arms around?”
Everyone looked at Ayla. She turned to Jondalar.
“I think you should show them,” he said, “and maybe you could talk at the same time, the way you did when you were talking to Guban and translating for me.”
“What should I say?”
“Why not just greet them, as if you were speaking for Guban?” he said.
Ayla thought for a time. She couldn’t really greet them the way Guban would. He was a man, and a woman would never greet anyone the same way a man would. She could make a greeting sign, that gesture was always the same, but one never made only a greeting sign. It was always modified depending on who was making it and to whom it was being made. And there really was no sign for a person of the Clan to greet one of the Others. It had never been done before, not in a formal, acknowledged way. Perhaps she could think of how it would be done if they ever had to. She stood up and backed into the clear area in the middle of the main room.
“This woman would greet you, People of the Others,” Ayla began, then paused. “Or perhaps one should say People of the Mother,” she said, trying to think of how the Clan might make the signs.
“Try Children of the Mother, or Children of the Great Earth Mother,