The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [197]
She decided not to make too many knots, since she wasn’t sure about pulling them out later. She finished four knots along the gash and added three more to hold the torn muscle in place. When she was through, she smiled at the knots of sinew holding a man’s flesh together, but it had worked. The gash no longer gaped, the muscle stayed in place. If the injury healed clean without festering, he might have good use of his leg. At least the chances of it were much better.
She made a poultice of the comfrey root and wrapped the leg in soft leather. Then she carefully washed the rest of the scratches and gashes, mostly around his right shoulder and chest. The lump on his head bothered her, but the skin was not broken—it was just swollen. In fresh water, she made an infusion of arnica flowers, then made a wet compress for the swelling and tied it on with a leather strip.
Only then did she sit back on her heels. When he woke, there were medicines she could give him, but for now, she had treated everything she could treat. She straightened a minute wrinkle in the leather wrappings on his leg, and then, for the first time, Ayla really looked at him.
He was not as robust as men of the Clan, but muscular, and his legs were incredibly long. The golden hair, curled on his chest, became a downy halo on his arms. His skin was pale. His body hair was lighter and finer than that of men she had known; he was longer and leaner, but not much different. His flaccid maleness rested on soft golden curls. She reached out to feel the texture, then held back. She noticed a fresh scar and not quite faded bruise on his ribs. He must have recovered from a previous injury only recently.
Who had taken care of him? And where had he come from?
She leaned closer to see his face. It was flat in comparison with the faces of Clan men. His mouth, relaxed, was full-lipped, but his jaws did not protrude as much. He had a strong chin, with a cleft. She touched hers, and remembered that her son had one, but no one else in the Clan did. The shape of this man’s nose was not much different from Clan noses—high-bridged, narrow—but it was smaller. His closed eyes were wide spaced and seemed prominent; then she realized he had no heavy brow ridges to shadow them. His forehead, creased with the slight indentation of worry wrinkles, was straight and high. To her eyes, conditioned to seeing only people of the Clan, his forehead seemed to bulge. She laid her hand on his brow, then felt her own. They were the same. How strange she must have looked to the Clan.
His hair was long and straight—part of it still held by a thong in back, but most a tangled mass—and yellow. Like hers, she thought, but lighter. Familiar somehow. Then, with a shock of recognition, she remembered. Her dream! Her dream about a man of the Others. She couldn’t see his face, but his hair had been yellow!
She covered the man, then quickly walked out to the ledge, surprised that it was still daytime, early afternoon by the sun. So much had happened, and so much concentrated mental, physical, and emotional energy had been expended with such intensity, that it seemed it should have been much later. She tried to sort out her thoughts, put them in some kind of order, but they caromed in confusion.
Why had she decided to ride west that day? Why should she have been right there just when he screamed? And, of all the cave lions on the steppes, how did it happen that the one she found in the canyon was Baby? Her totem must have led her there. What about her dream of the man with yellow hair? Was this the man? Why was he brought here? She wasn’t sure what significance he would have in her life, but she knew it would never be the same. She had seen the face of the Others.
She felt Whinney nuzzle her hand from behind, and she turned. The horse put