The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [146]
With the passage of time, and particularly since Baby had come, the grief she felt for the people she loved had abated. The emptiness, her need for human contact, was such a constant pain that it seemed normal. Any lessening of it was a joy, and the two animals went a long way toward filling the void. She liked to think of the arrangement as similar to Iza and Creb and herself when she was a little girl, except she and Whinney took care of Baby. And when the lion cub, with claws retracted, wrapped his forelegs around her when she cuddled up to him at night, she could almost imagine it was Durc.
She was reluctant to leave and seek out unknown Others, with unknown customs and restrictions; Others who might take laughter away from her. They won’t, she said to herself. I won’t live with anyone again who won’t let me laugh.
The animals had grown tired of their game. Whinney was grazing, and Baby was resting nearby, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting. Ayla whistled, which brought Whinney, with the lion padding behind her.
“I have to go hunting, Whinney,” she motioned. “That lion eats so much and he’s getting so big.”
Once the baby cave lion had recovered from his injuries, he always followed Ayla or Whinney. Cubs were never left alone in the pride, nor were babies ever left alone in the Clan, so his behavior seemed perfectly normal. But it presented a problem. How was she going to hunt with a cave lion trailing her? When Whinney’s protective instincts were aroused, however, the problem solved itself. It was customary for a lion mother to form a subgroup with her cubs and a younger female when they were small The younger female tended the cubs when the lioness went hunting, and Baby accepted Whinney in that role. Ayla knew that no hyena, or similar animal, would brave the stomping hooves of the mare aroused to protect her charge, but it meant she had to hunt on foot again. Yet, hiking the steppes close to the cave in search of animals appropriate for her sling gave her an unexpected opportunity.
She had always avoided the pride of cave lions that roamed the territory east of her valley. But the first time she noticed a few lions resting themselves in the shade of stunted pines, she decided it was time to learn something more about the creatures that embodied her totem.
It was a dangerous occupation. Hunter though she was, she could easily become prey. But she had observed predators before and had learned ways to make herself inconspicuous. The lions knew she was watching, but after the first few times, they chose to ignore her. It didn’t remove the danger. One could turn on her at any time, for no reason other than a cranky mood, but the longer she watched, the more fascinating they became.
They spent most of their time resting or sleeping, but when they hunted, they were speed and fury in action. Wolves, hunting in packs, were able to kill a large deer; a single cave lioness could do it more quickly. They hunted only when they were hungry, and might eat only once in a handful of days. They had no need to store food ahead as she did; they hunted all year long.
They tended to be nocturnal hunters in summer when the days were hot, she noticed. In winter, when nature thickened their coats, lightening the shade to ivory to blend into the lighter landscape, she had seen them hunting during the day. The severe cold kept the tremendous energy they burned during the hunt from overheating them. At night, when temperatures plummeted, they slept piled together in a cave or rock overhang out of the wind, or amidst the strewn rubble of a canyon where the stones absorbed a little heat from the distant sun during the day and gave it up to the dark.
The young woman was returning to