The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [274]
He went to bed with unsettled, ambivalent feelings. He stared at the fire after he lay down, thinking. Suddenly he felt a distorting sensation, and something like vertigo without the dizziness. He saw a woman as though reflected in a pond into which a stone had dropped; a wavering image from which ripples spread out in larger and larger circles. He did not want the woman to forget him—to be remembered by her was significant.
He sensed a divergence, a path splitting, a choice, and he had no one to guide him. A current of warm air raised the hair on the back of his neck. He knew She was leaving him. He had never consciously felt Her presence, but he knew when She was gone, and the void She left behind ached. It was the beginning of an ending: the ending of the ice, the end of an age, the end of the time when Her nourishment provided. The Earth Mother was leaving Her children to find their own way, to carve out their own lives, to pay the consequences of their own actions—to come of age. Not in his lifetime, not in many lifetimes to come, but the first inexorable step had been taken. She had passed on Her parting Gift, Her Gift of Knowledge.
Jondalar felt an eerie keening wail, and he knew he heard the Mother cry.
Like a thong stretched taut and released, reality snapped back into place. But it had been stretched too far and could not fit back into its original dimension. He felt that something was out of place. He looked across the fire at Ayla and saw tears flowing down her face.
“What’s wrong, Ayla?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure she can take both of us?”
“No, I’m not sure,” Ayla said, leading Whinney, loaded with her carrying baskets. Racer trailed behind, led by a rope that was tied to a sort of halter made of leather thongs. It gave him freedom to graze and to move his head, and it would not tighten up around his neck and choke him. The halter had bothered the colt at first, but he was getting used to it.
“If we can both ride, traveling will be faster. If she doesn’t like it, she will let me know. Then we can ride her in turns, or both walk.”
When they reached the large boulder in the meadow, Ayla climbed on the horse, moved up a bit, and held the mare steady while Jondalar mounted her. Whinney flicked her ears back. She felt the extra weight and wasn’t accustomed to it, but she was a sturdy rugged horse and she started out at Ayla’s urging. The woman kept her to a steady pace and was sensitive to the horse’s change in gait that signaled it was time to stop and rest.
The second time they started out, Jondalar was more relaxed and then wished he was still nervous. Without the tense worry, he became entirely aware of the woman riding in front of him. He could feel her back pressing up against him, her thighs against his, and Ayla became sensitive to more than the horse. A hot, hard pressure had risen behind her, over which Jondalar had no control, and every movement of the horse jogged them together. She wished it would go away—and yet she didn’t.
Jondalar was beginning to feel a pain he had not experienced before. He had never forced himself to hold in his aroused desire so much. From the first days of manhood, there had always been some means for release, but there was no other woman here except Ayla. He refused to bring it about himself again and just tried to bear it.
“Ayla,” his voice was strained, “I think … I think it’s time to rest,” he blurted out.
She stopped the horse and got off as quickly as she could. “It’s not far,” she said. “We can walk the rest of the way.”
“Yes, it will give Whinney a rest.”
Ayla didn’t argue, although she knew that was not why she was walking. They walked three abreast, with the horse between them, talking over her back. Even then, Ayla could hardly keep her mind on landmarks and directions, and Jondalar walked with aching loins, grateful for the screen the horse provided.
As they came in sight of a herd of bison,