The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [187]
Jondalar did not sleep well. His side was sore and tender, and he knew there was something wrong inside, but he couldn’t think of stopping now. They had to find their way to solid ground first.
In the morning, they seined fish out of the river with wide mesh baskets made of cattail leaves and alder branches and cords made of stringy bark. They rolled the fire-making materials and flexible baskets inside the sleeping mats, tied them with the cord, and slung them over their backs. Taking their spears, they started out. The spears were only pointed sticks, but they had provided one meal—and the fish baskets had supplied another. Survival depended not so much on equipment as knowledge.
The two brothers had a small difference of opinion over which direction to go in. Thonolan thought they were across the delta and wanted to go east, toward the sea. Jondalar wanted to go north, sure there was yet another channel of the river to cross. They compromised and headed northeast. Jondalar was proved right, though he would have been much happier if he had been wrong. Near noon they reached the northernmost channel of the great river.
“Time to go swimming again,” Thonolan said. “Are you able?”
“Do I have any choice?”
They started for the water, then Thonolan stopped. “Why don’t we tie our clothes to a log, the way we used to. Then we won’t have to dry clothes.”
“I don’t know,” Jondalar said. Clothes, even wet, would keep them warmer, but Thonolan had been trying to be reasonable, though his voice betrayed frustration and exasperation. “But, if you want …” Jondalar shrugged acquiescence.
It was chilly standing naked in the cool damp air. Jondalar was tempted to retie his tool pouch around his bare waist, but Thonolan had already wrapped it in his tunic and was tying everything to a log he had found. On his bare skin, the water felt colder than he remembered, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out when he plunged in and tried to swim, but water numbed the pain of his wound somewhat. He favored his side while swimming and lagged behind his brother, though Thonolan was pulling the log.
When they crawled out of the water and stood on a sandbar, their original destination—the end of the Great Mother River—was in sight. They could see the water of the inland sea. But the excitement of the moment was lost. The journey had lost its purpose, and the end of the river was no longer their goal. Nor were they yet on solid ground. They were not quite across the delta. The sandbar where they stood had once been in midchannel, but the channel had shifted. An empty riverbed still had to be crossed.
A high wooded bank, with exposed roots dangling from the underside where a swift current had once undercut, beckoned from the other side of the vacated channel. It had not been vacated long. Water still puddled in the middle, and vegetation had barely taken root. But insects had already discovered the stagnant pools, and a swarm of mosquitoes had discovered the two men.
Thonolan untied the clothes from the log. “We still have to get through those puddles down there, and the bank looks muddy. Let’s wait until we get across before we put these back on.”
Jondalar nodded agreement, in too much pain to argue. He thought he’d strained something while swimming, and he was having trouble standing up straight.
Thonolan slapped a mosquito as he started down the gentle gradient which had once been the slope leading from the bank into the river channel.
They’d been told often enough. Never turn your back on the river; never underestimate the Great Mother River. Though she had left it for a time, the channel was still hers, and, even in her absence, she left a surprise or two behind. Millions of tons of silt were brought down to the sea and spread over the thousand or more square miles of her delta every year. The vacated