The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [189]
“Hurt? One of you is hurt?” the woman asked.
“My brother,” Thonolan said. At the mention of it, Jondalar became acutely aware of the aching, throbbing pain.
The woman saw him blanch. “Mamut must see to him,” she said to one of the others. “You are not Mamutoi. Where did you learn to speak?”
“From a Mamutoi woman living with the Sharamudoi, my kin,” Thonolan said.
“Tholie?”
“Yes, you know her?”
“She is my kin, too. The daughter of a cousin. If you are her kin, you are my kin,” the woman said. “I am Brecie, of the Mamutoi, leader of the Willow Camp. You are both welcome.”
“I am Thonolan, of the Sharamudoi. This is my brother, Jondalar, of the Zelandonii.”
“Zel-an-don-yee?” Brecie said the unfamiliar word. “I have not heard of those people. If you are brothers, why are you Sharamudoi, and he this … Zelandonii? He does not look well,” she said, briskly dismissing further discussion until a more appropriate time. Then she said to one of the others, “Help him. I’m not sure he can walk.”
“I think I can walk,” Jondalar said, suddenly dizzy with pain, “if it’s not too far.”
Jondalar was grateful when one of the Mamutoi men took an arm while Thonolan supported the other.
• • •
“Jondalar, I would have gone long ago if you hadn’t made me promise to wait until you were well enough to travel. I’m leaving. I think you should go home, but I won’t argue with you.”
“Why do you want to go east, Thonolan? You’ve reached the end of the Great Mother River. Beran Sea, it’s right there. Why not go home now?”
“I’m not going east, I’m going north, more or less. Brecie said they will all be going north to hunt mammoth soon. I’m going ahead, to another Mamutoi Camp. I’m not going home, Jondalar. I’m going to travel until the Mother takes me.
“Don’t talk like that! You sound like you want to die!” Jondalar shouted, sorry the instant he said it for fear the mere suggestion would make it true.
“What if I do?” Thonolan shouted back. “What do I have to live for … without Jetamio.” His breath caught in his throat, and her name came out with a soft sob.
“What did you have to live for before you met her? You’re young, Thonolan. You have a long life ahead of you. New places to go, new things to see. Give yourself a chance to meet another woman like Jetamio,” Jondalar pleaded.
“You don’t understand. You’ve never been in love. There is no other woman like Jetamio.”
“So you’re going to follow her to the spirit world and drag me along with you!” He didn’t like saying it, but if the only way to keep his brother alive was to play on his guilt, he’d do it.
“No one asked you to follow me! Why don’t you go home and leave me alone.”
“Thonolan, everyone grieves when they lose people they love, but they don’t follow them to the next world.”
“Someday it will happen to you, Jondalar. Someday you’ll love a woman so much, you’d rather follow her to the world of the spirits than live without her.”
“And if it were me, now, would you let me go off alone? If I had lost someone I loved so much I wanted to die, would you abandon me? Tell me you would, Brother. Tell me you’d go home if I was sick to death with grief.”
Thonolan looked down, then into the troubled blue eyes of his brother. “No, I guess I wouldn’t leave you if I thought you were sick to death with grief. But you know, Big Brother”—he tried to grin but it was a contortion on his pain-ravaged face—“if I decide to travel for the rest of my life, you don’t have to follow me forever. You are sick to death of traveling. Sometime you have to go home. Tell me, if I wanted to go home, and you didn’t, you’d want me to go, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I’d want you to go. I want you to go home now. Not because you want to, or even because I do. You need your own Clave, Thonolan, your family, people you’ve known all your life, who love you.”
“You don’t understand. That’s one way we’re different. The Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii is your home, it always will be. My home is wherever I want to