The shelters of stone - Jean M. Auel [49]
“Are you really going to get on the back of a horse, Folara?” Ramila asked.
The woman who had been listening didn’t wait to hear the answer. She had stopped for a moment, then, with a malicious smile, hurried away.
Wolf ran ahead, stopping now and then to make sure the woman and man were still following him. The sloping path down from the northeast end of the front terrace led to a meadow on the right bank of a small river that was nearing its confluence with the main stream. The level grassy lea was surrounded by open, mixed woodland that grew more dense farther upstream.
When they reached the meadow, Whinney whickered a greeting and some people who were watching from a distance shook their heads in amazement when the wolf ran straight to the mare and they touched noses. Then the canine struck a playful pose with his tail and back end up and his front end down, and yipped a puppy bark at the young stallion. Racer lifted his head in a neigh and pawed the ground, returning the playful gesture.
The horses seemed particularly happy to see them. The mare approached and put her head across Ayla’s shoulder, while the woman hugged the sturdy neck. They leaned against each other in a familiar posture of comfort and reassurance. Jondalar patted and stroked the young stallion, rubbing and scratching the itchy places Racer presented. The dark brown horse took a few paces forward, then nuzzled Ayla, wanting contact with her, too. Then they all crowded close together, including the wolf, welcoming each other’s familiar presence in this place of so many strangers.
“I feel like going for a ride,” Ayla said. She looked up at the position of the sun in the afternoon sky. “We have time for a short one, don’t we?”
“We should have. No one will gather for the feast until it’s almost dark. “Jondalar smiled. “Let’s go! We can swim afterward,” he said. “I feel as though someone is watching me all the time.”
“Someone is,” Ayla said. “I know it’s just natural curiosity, but it would be nice to get away for a while.”
Several more people had gathered to watch from some distance. They saw the woman leap with ease onto the back of the dun-yellow mare, and the tall man seem to do little more than step up to mount the brown stallion. They left at a fast pace, the wolf following along with ease.
Jondalar led the way, first upstream a short distance to a shallow crossing of the tributary, then continuing upstream along the opposite bank of the small river a little farther until they saw a gorgelike narrow valley on their right. They rode north away from the stream and up the length of the confined vale along a rocky dry streambed that became a runoff creek in wet weather. At the end of the gorge was a steep but climbable trail that eventually opened out onto a high windy plateau that overlooked the waterways and countryside below. They stopped to take in the commanding view.
At an elevation of some six hundred fifty feet, the plateau was one of the highest in the immediate area and afforded a breathtaking panorama, not only of the rivers and valley floodplains, but across to the landscape of rolling hills of the highlands on the other side. The limestone Causses above the river valleys were not level plateaus.
Limestone is soluble in water, given enough time and the right acidic content. Over the long ages rivers and accumulated groundwater had cut down through the limestone base of the region, carving the once fiat floor of the ancient sea into hills and valleys. The existing rivers created the deepest valleys and the steepest