The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [185]
The delta was a morass of quicksand, salt marsh, and insecure little islands. Some of the silty islets stayed in place several years, long enough for small trees to send down tenuous roots, only to be washed away at the vicissitude of seasonal flood or eroding seepage. Four major channels—depending on season and happenstance—cut through to the sea, but their courses were inconstant. For no apparent reason, the water would suddenly switch from a deeply worn bed to a new path, tearing up brush and leaving a sinkhole of soft wet sand.
The Great Mother River—eighteen hundred miles and two glacier-covered mountain ranges of water—had nearly reached her destination. But the delta with its hundreds of square miles of mud, silt, sand, and water was the most dangerous section of the entire river.
By following the deepest of the left channels, the river had not been hard to navigate. The current had taken the small log boat around its sweeping northward turn, and even the final large tributary had only pushed them to midstream. But the brothers didn’t anticipate that she would break into channels so soon. Before they realized it, they were swept into a middle channel.
Jondalar had gained considerable skill in handling the small craft, and Thonolan could manage one, but they were far from being as capable as the expert boatmen of the Ramudoi. They tried to turn the dugout around, retreat back upstream, and reenter the proper channel. They would have done better to reverse the direction they were rowing—the shape of the stern was not so different from the shape of the prow—but they didn’t think of it.
They were crosswise against the current, Jondalar shouting instructions to Thonolan to get the front end turned around, and Thonolan becoming impatient. A large log with an extensive root system—heavy, water-soaked, and lying low in the water—was washing down the river, the sprawling roots raking along everything in their path. The two men saw it—too late.
With a splintering crash, the jagged end of the huge log, brittle and blacker where it had once been struck by lightning, rammed broadside into the thin-walled dugout. Water rushed in through a hole punched into the side and quickly swamped the small canoe. As the snag bore down on them, one long root finger just below the water’s surface jabbed Jondalar in the ribs and knocked him breathless. Another barely missed Thonolan’s eye, leaving a long scratch across his cheek.
Suddenly immersed in the cold water, Jondalar and Thonolan clung to the snag and watched with dismay as a few bubbles rose while the little craft, with all their possessions lashed firmly to it, sank to the bottom.
Thonolan had heard his brother’s grunt of pain. “Are you all right, Jondalar?”
“A root jabbed me in the ribs. Hurts a bit, but I don’t think it’s serious.”
With Jondalar following slowly, Thonolan started working his way around the snag, but the force of the current as they were swept along kept pushing them back into the log with the rest of the debris. Suddenly, the snag caught on a sandbar under the water. The river, flowing around and through the open network of roots, pushed out objects that had been held under by the force of the current, and a whole bloated reindeer carcass rose to the surface in front of Jondalar. He moved to get out of its way, feeling the pain in his side.
Free of the log, they swam to a narrow island in midchannel. It supported a few young willows, but it was not stable and would be washed away before long. The trees near the edge were already partly submerged, drowned, with no green buds of spring leaves on the branches, and, with roots losing their hold, some were leaning over the rushing flow. The ground was a spongy bog.
“I think we should keep on going and try to find a drier place,” Jondalar said.
“You are in a lot of pain—don’t tell me you aren’t.”
Jondalar admitted to some discomfort, “But we can’t stay here,” he added.
They slid into the cold water across the