The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [109]
A large grass-covered field edged to the sheer drop-off of the shelf, though the soil layer, evidenced by a couple of shallow cooking pits that went down to rock, was not deep. About halfway back, brush and small trees began to appear, hugging and climbing the rugged walls. The trees grew to a respectable size near the rear wall, and the brush thickened and clambered up the steep back incline. Close to the back on a side wall was the prize of the high terrace: a sandstone overhang with a deep undercut. Beneath it were several shelters constructed of wood, partitioning the area into dwelling units, and a roughly circular open space, with a main hearth and a few smaller ones, that was both an entrance and a gathering place.
In the opposite corner was another valuable asset. A long thin waterfall, dropping from a high lip, played through jagged rocks for a distance before spilling over a smaller sandstone overhang into a lively pool. It ran off along the far wall to the end of the terrace, where Dolando and several men were waiting for Thonolan and Jondalar.
Dolando hailed them when they appeared around the jutting wall, then began descending over the edge. Jondalar jogged behind his brother and reached the far wall just as Thonolan started down a precarious path alongside the small stream that dropped down a series of ledges to the river below. The trail would have been impossible to negotiate in places except for narrow steps tediously chiseled out of the rock, and sturdy rope handrails. As it was, the cascading water and constant spray made it treacherously slick, even in summer. In winter it was an impassable mass of frozen icicles.
In the spring, though it was inundated with heavier runoff and icy patches which threatened footing, the Sharamudoi—both the chamois-hunting Shamudoi, and the river-dwelling Ramudoi, who formed their opposite half—scampered up and down like the agile goatlike antelope that inhabited the steep terrain. As Jondalar watched his brother descend with the reckless disregard of one born to it, he thought Thonolan was certainly right about one thing. If he lived here all his life, he would never get used to this access to the high shelf. He glanced at the turbulent water of the huge river far below and felt the familiar ache in his groin, then took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and stepped over the edge.
More than once he was grateful for the rope as he felt his foot slip on unseen ice, and he expelled a deep sigh when he reached the river. A floating dock of logs lashed together, swaying with the shifting current, was welcome stability by comparison. On a raised platform that covered more than half the dock were a series of wood structures similar to the ones under the sandstone overhang on the ledge above.
Jondalar exchanged greetings with several inhabitants of the houseboats as he strode along the lashed logs toward the end of the dock where Thonolan was just getting into one of the boats tied there. As soon as he got in, they shoved off and began pulling upstream with long-handled oars. Conversation was kept to a minimum. The deep, strong current was urged on by spring melt, and, while the river men rowed, Dolando’s men kept an eye out for floating debris. Jondalar settled back and found himself musing on the unique interrelationship of the Sharamudoi.
People he had met specialized in different ways, and he often wondered what had led them along their particular path. With some, all the men customarily performed one function, and all the women another, until each function became so associated with a certain gender that no woman would do what she considered man’s work, and no man could bring himself to perform a woman’s task. With others, tasks and chores tended to fall more along lines of age—younger people performing the more strenuous tasks, and older ones the sedentary