The valley of horses_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [53]
The mare saw the gap with its beckoning glimpse of the river and headed for it. Then she saw the open pit—too late. She gathered her legs under her to leap over the hole, but her hooves slipped on the muddy edge. She crashed into the pit with a broken leg.
Ayla dashed up, breathing hard; she picked up a spear and stood looking at the wild-eyed mare that was screaming, tossing her head, and floundering in the mud. Ayla grasped the shaft with both hands, braced her legs, and plunged the point toward the pit. Then she realized that she had driven the spear into a flank, wounding the horse, but not mortally. She raced around to the other side, slipping on the mud and nearly falling in the hole herself.
Ayla picked up the other spear and this time took more careful aim. The mare was neighing in confusion and pain, and, as the point of the second spear bored into her neck, she lurched forward in a last valiant effort. Then she sank back with a whinny that was more like a whimper, with two wounds and a broken leg. A hard blow with the club finally ended her pain.
Realization came slowly to Ayla; she was too dazed to comprehend her achievement yet. At the edge of the pit, leaning heavily on the club she still held and gasping for breath, she stared at the fallen mare in the bottom of the hole. The shaggy grayish coat was streaked with blood and covered with mud, but the animal did not move.
Then, slowly, it filled her. An urge, like none she had ever known, rose out of her depths, grew in her throat, and burst from her mouth in a primal scream of victory. She did it!
At that moment, in a lonely valley in the middle of a vast continent, somewhere near the undefined boundary of the desolate northern loess steppes and the wetter continental steppes to the south, a young woman stood with a bone club in her hand—and felt powerful. She could survive. She would survive.
But her exultation was short-lived. As Ayla looked down at the horse, it suddenly occurred to her that she would never be able to drag the whole animal out of the pit; she would have to butcher it in the bottom of the muddy hole. And then she would have to get it back to the beach, quickly, with the whole skin in reasonably good condition, before too many other predators picked up the scent of blood. She would have to cut the meat into thin strips, salvage the other parts she wanted, keep the fires going, and keep watch while the meat dried.
And she was already exhausted from the grueling night’s work and the anxious chase. But she wasn’t a man of the Clan who could relax, now that his exciting part was over, and leave the job of butchering and processing to the women. Ayla’s work had just begun. She heaved a great sigh, then jumped down into the pit to slit the mare’s throat.
She ran back to the beach for the tent hide and the flint tools, and, on her return, she noticed that the herd at the far end of the valley was still moving. She forgot them as she struggled in the cramped space of the pit, covered with blood and mud, hacking out hunks of meat and trying not to damage the hide any worse than it was.
Carrion birds were picking shreds of meat off discarded bones when she had piled up as much meat on the tent hide as she thought she could haul. She dragged it to the beach, added fuel to the fire, and dumped her load as close as she could. She ran back dragging the empty hide, but had her sling out and stones flying before she reached the pit. She heard the yip of a fox and saw it limp away. She would have killed one if she hadn’t run out of stones. She picked up more stones from the riverbed and took a drink before she started back to work.
The stone was sure and fatal