The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [161]
He recovered quickly and tried to pull up on the rope to cause a little slack so the canoe wouldn’t dip so dangerously. In a last desperate effort to free itself, the sturgeon lunged toward the river’s edge and finally succeeded in tearing the harpoon out of its flesh. It was too late. The last of its life surged out the gaping rip in its side. The huge marine creature plunged down to the river bottom, then rose to the top and, belly up, hung on the surface of the river with only a twitch giving testimony to the prodigious struggle the primeval fish had waged.
The river, in its long and sinuous course, made a slight curve at the place where the fish chose to die, creating a whirl of conflict in the current speeding around the bend, and the last lunge of the sturgeon carried it to an eddying backwater near the shore. The boat, trailing a slack rope, bobbed and rocked, bumping into the log and the fish that shared its resting place in the undecided trough between backwater and tide.
In the lull, Jondalar had time to realize he was lucky he hadn’t cut the rope. With no paddle, he couldn’t control the boat if it started downstream. The shore was near: a narrow rocky beach clipped off as it rounded the bend to a steep bank, with trees crowding so close to the edge that naked roots burst through to claw at the air for support. Maybe he could find something that would serve as a paddle there. He took a deep breath to prepare for the plunge into the cold river, then slipped over the side.
It was deeper than he expected; he went in over his head. The boat, moved by the disturbance, found its way into the river current; the fish was moved closer to shore. Jondalar started to swim after the boat, grabbing for the rope, but the light canoe, barely skimming the surface, spun around and danced away more quickly than he could follow.
The icy water was numbing. He turned toward shore. The sturgeon was bumping against the bank. He headed for it, grabbed it by its open mouth, and hauled it along after him. There was no point in losing the fish now. He dragged it partway up the beach, but it was heavy. He hoped it would stay. Don’t need to find a paddle, now, he thought, with no boat, but maybe I can find some wood to make a fire. He was soaking wet and cold.
He reached for his knife and found an empty sheath. He had forgotten that he had lost it, and he didn’t have another. He used to keep an extra blade in the pouch he carried at his waist, but that was when he wore Zelandonii attire. He’d given up the pouch when he began wearing Ramudoi clothing. Maybe he could find materials for a platform and fire drill to make the fire. But, without a knife you can’t cut wood, Jondalar, he said to himself, or shave tinder or kindling. He shivered. At least I can gather some wood.
He looked around him, and heard a scurrying in the bushes. The ground was covered with damp rotting wood, leaves, and moss. Not a dry stick anywhere. You can get dry “small wood,” he thought, looking for the dead dry lower branches of conifers that clung to the trees beneath the green growing branches. But he was not in a coniferous forest like the ones near his home. The climate of this region was less severe; it was not influenced as much by the glacial ice in the north. It was cool—it could be quite cold—but damp. It was a temperate-climate forest, not boreal. The trees were the kind the boats were made of: hardwood.
Around him was a forest of oak and beech, some hornbeam and willow; trees with thick brown crusty trunks and more slender ones with gray smooth skin, but no dry “small wood.” It was spring, and even the twigs were filled with sap and budding. He’d learned