The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [188]
The two men slid and slipped down the slope on the finegrained sticky mud, and, when they reached level ground, it sucked at their bare feet. Thonolan hurried ahead, forgetting that Jondalar was not quite up to his usual long-strided pace. He could walk, but the slippery descent had hurt. He was picking his way carefully, feeling a bit foolish to be wandering through the marsh naked, making an offering of his tender skin to the hungry insects.
Thonolan had gotten so far ahead that Jondalar was about to call out to him. But he looked up just as he heard his brother’s cry for help and saw him go down. Pain forgotten, Jondalar ran toward him. Fear clutched when he saw Thonolan floundering in quicksand.
“Thonolan! Great Mother!” Jondalar cried, rushing to him.
“Stay back! You’ll get caught too!” Thonolan, struggling to free himself from the mire, was sinking deeper instead.
Jondalar looked around frantically for something to help Thonolan out. His shirt! He could throw him an end, he thought, then remembered that was impossible. The bundle of clothes was gone. He shook his head, then saw the dead stump of an old tree half buried in the muck and ran to see if he could break off one of the roots, but any roots that might have come free had long since been torn off in the violent journey downstream.
“Thonolan, where is the clothes bundle? I need something to pull you out!”
The desperation in Jondalar’s voice had an unwanted effect. It filtered through Thonolan’s panic to remind him of his grief. A calm acceptance came over him. “Jondalar, if the Mother wants to take me, let Her take me.”
“No! Thonolan, no! You can’t give up like that. You can’t just die. O Mother, Great Mother, don’t let him die like that!” Jondalar sank to his knees and, stretching out full, reached out his hand. “Take my hand, Thonolan, please, take my hand,” he begged.
Thonolan was surprised at the grief and pain on his brother’s face, and something more that he’d seen before only in infrequent passing glances. In that instant, he knew. His brother loved him, loved him as much as he had loved Jetamio. It was not the same, but as strong. He understood at an instinctive level, by intuition, and he knew as he reached for the hand stretching toward him that, even if he couldn’t get out of the mire, he had to clasp his brother’s hand.
Thonolan didn’t know it, but when he ceased struggling, he didn’t sink as fast. When he stretched out to reach for his brother’s hand, he spread out into a more horizontal position, displacing his weight over the water-filled, loose, silty sand, almost as though floating on water. He reached until they touched fingers. Jondalar inched forward until he had a firm grasp.
“That’s the way! Hold on to him! We’re coming!” said a voice speaking Mamutoi.
Jondalar’s breath exploded, his tension punctured. He discovered he was shaking but held Thonolan’s hand firmly. In a few moments, a rope was passed to Jondalar to tie around his brother’s hands.
“Relax now,” Thonolan was instructed. “Stretch out, like swimming. You know how to swim?”
“Yes.”
“Good! Good! You relax, we will pull.”
Hands pulled Jondalar back from the edge of the quicksand and soon had Thonolan out as well. Then they all followed a woman who prodded the ground with a long pole to avoid other sinkholes. Only after they reached solid ground did anyone seem to notice that the two men were entirely naked.
The woman who had directed the rescue stood back and scrutinized them. She was a big woman, not so much tall or fat as burly, and she had a bearing that commanded respect. “Why do you have nothing on?” she asked finally. “Why are two men traveling naked?”
Jondalar and Thonolan looked down at their nude, mud-caked bodies.
“We got in the wrong channel; then a log hit our boat,” Jondalar began. He was feeling uncomfortable, unable to stand straight.
“After we had to dry our clothes, I thought we might as well