The Valley of Horses (Earth's Children 2)

you keep colt?”

“So that’s it,” he said. “You want me to mind the colt while you go hunting with the mare?” He chuckled. “That’s a change. Usually, after she has a child or two, a woman stays to mind them. It’s a man’s responsibility to hunt for them. Yes, I’ll stay with the colt. Someone has to hunt, and I don’t want the little fellow to get hurt.”

Her smile was one of relief. He didn’t mind, he really didn’t seem to mind.

“You might investigate that fire to the east before you plan your hunt, though. One that big can do your hunting for you.”

“Fire hunt?” she said.

“Whole herds have been known to die from the smoke alone. Sometimes you’ll find your meat cooked! Storytellers have a funny fable about a man finding cooked meat after a prairie fire, and the problems he had trying to convince the rest of his Cave to try meat he burned on purpose. It’s an old story.”

A smile of comprehension crossed her face. A fast-raging fire could overcome a whole herd. I might not have to dig a pit after all.

When Ayla got out the basket-harness-travois arrangement, Jondalar was intrigued, not able to understand the purpose of the complicated equipment.

“Whinney take meat to cave,” she explained, showing him the travois while adjusting the straps on the mare. “Whinney take you to cave,” she added.

“So that’s how I got here! I’ve been wondering for a long time. I didn’t think you carried me here alone. I thought perhaps some other people found me and left me here with you.”

“No … other people. I find … you … other man.”

Jondalar’s expression became strained and bleak. The reference to Thonolan caught him by surprise, and the pain of his loss gripped him. “Did you have to leave him there? Couldn’t you have brought him, too?” he flung at her.

“Man dead, Jondalar. You hurt. Much hurt,” she said, feeling frustration well up inside her. She wanted to tell him she had buried the man, that she sorrowed for him, but she could not communicate. She could exchange information, but she could not explore ideas. She wanted to speak to him of thoughts she wasn’t even sure could be expressed in words, but she felt stifled. He had spent his grief on her the first day, and now she couldn’t even share his sorrow.

She longed for his ease with words, his ability to marshal them spontaneously into the proper order, his freedom of expression. But there was a vague barrier she couldn’t cross, a lack that she often felt on the verge of breaching, which eluded her. Intuition told her she ought to know—that the knowledge was locked inside her, if only she could find the key.

“I’m sorry, Ayla. I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that, but Thonolan was my brother.…” The word was almost a cry.

“Brother. You and other man … have same mother?”

“Yes, we had the same mother.”

She nodded and turned back to the horse, wishing she could tell him she understood the closeness of siblings and the special tie that could exist between two men born of the same mother. Creb and Brun had been brothers.

She finished loading the pack baskets, then picked up her spears to carry them outside to load after they were through the low cave opening. As he watched her making final preparations, he began to see that the horse was more than a strange companion to the woman. The animal gave her a decided advantage. He hadn’t realized how useful a horse could be. But he was puzzled by another set of contradictions she posed: she used a horse to help her hunt and to carry back the meat—an advancement he’d never heard of before—yet she used a spear more primitive than any he’d seen.

He had hunted with many people, and each group had its own variation of hunting spear, but none was as radically different as hers. Yet there was something familiar about it. Its point was sharp and fire-hardened, and the shaft was straight and smooth, but it was so clumsy. There was no question that it was not meant to be thrown; it was larger than the one he used to hunt rhino. How did she hunt with it? How could she get close enough to wield it? When she came back, he’d have to ask her. It would take too much time now. She was learning the language, but it was still difficult.

He led the colt into the cave before Ayla and Whinney left. He scratched, stroked, and talked to the young horse until he was sure Ayla and his dam were far away. It felt odd to be in the cave alone, knowing the woman would be gone most of the day. He used the staff to pull himself up, and then, succumbing to his curiosity, he found a lamp and lit it. Leaving the staff behind—he didn’t need it inside the cave—he held the hollowed-out stone lamp in one palm and started following the walls of the cave to see how big it was and where it led. There were no surprises in the size—it was about as big as he had thought, and, except for the small niche, there were no side passages. But the niche held a surprise: every indication of recent cave lion occupation, including a pug-mark, a big one!

After he had looked over the rest of the cave, he was convinced Ayla had been there for years. He had to be wrong about the cave lion spoor, but when he went back and examined the niche even more carefully, he was certain a cave lion had dwelled in that corner some time within the past year.

Another mystery! Would he ever find an answer to all the perplexing questions?

He picked up one of Ayla’s baskets—unused as far as he could tell—and decided to look for firestones on the beach. He might as well try to be useful. While the colt bounded ahead, Jondalar worked his way down the steep path with the help of the staff, then leaned it against the wall near the bone pile. He’d be grateful when he wouldn’t have to use it at all.

He stopped to scratch and fondle the foal who was nosing his hand, and then laughed when the young horse rolled with exuberant delight in the wallow he and Whinney both used. Squealing with intense pleasure, the colt, with his legs in the air, wriggled in the loose giving earth. He got up and shook himself, throwing dirt in all directions, then found a favorite spot in the shade of a willow and settled down to rest.

Jondalar walked slowly on the rocky beach, bent over to scan each rock. “I found one!” he shouted in excitement, which startled the colt. He felt a bit foolish. “Here’s another!” he said again, then smiled sheepishly. But as he picked up the brassy gray stone, he was stopped by the sight of another stone, much larger. “There’s flint on this beach!”

She gets the flint to make her tools right here! If you could find a hammerstone, and make a punch, and … You could make some tools, Jondalar! Good sharp blades, and burins … He straightened up and appraised the pile of bones and rubble which the stream had thrown against the wall. It looks like there is good bone around here, too, and antler. You could even make her a decent spear.

She might not want a “decent spear,” Jondalar. She might have a reason for using the one she does. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a spear for yourself. It would be better than sitting around all day. You might even do some carving. You used to have a fair hand for carving, before you gave it up.

He rummaged through the heap of bones and driftwood piled against the wall, then went around to her midden on the other side of it and searched through the overgrown brush to find disarticulated bones, skulls, and antler among the refuse. He found several handfuls of firestones, while searching for a good hammerstone. When he broke off the cortex of the first nodule of flint, he was smiling. He hadn’t realized how much he missed practicing his craft.

He thought about everything he could do, now that he had some flint. He wanted a good knife, and an axe, with handles. He wanted to make spears, and now he could fix his clothes with some good awls. And Ayla might like his kind of tools; at least he could show her.

The day had not dragged the way he had feared, and twilight was settling before he carefully gathered his new flint-knapping tools, and the new flint tools he had made with them, into the hide he had borrowed from Ayla. When he returned to the cave, the colt was nudging and looking for attention, and he suspected the young animal was hungry. Ayla had left behind some cooked grains in a

thin gruel—which the colt had refused at first, then took later, but that had been at midday. Where was she?

By the time it was dark, he was definitely worried. The colt needed Whinney, and Ayla should be back. He stood out on the far side of the ledge watching for her, then decided to build a fire, thinking she might see it in case she had lost her way. She wouldn’t lose her way, he said to himself, but he made the fire anyway.

It was late when she finally returned. He heard Whinney and started down the path to meet them, but the colt was ahead of him. Ayla dismounted on the beach, dragged a carcass off the travois, adjusted the poles to accommodate the narrow trail, and led the mare up as Jondalar reached the bottom and stepped aside. She came back with a stick from the fire for a torch. Jondalar took it while Ayla loaded a second carcass back on the travois. He hobbled over to help, but she had moved it already. Watching her handle the dead weight of the deer gave him an appreciation of her strength, and an insight into how she had acquired it. The horse and travois were useful, perhaps even indispensable, but she was still only one person.

The colt was eagerly searching for his dam’s teat, but Ayla pushed him aside until they reached the cave.

“You right, Jondalar,” she said as he reached the ledge. “Big, big fire. I not see before so big fire. Far away. Many, many animals.”

Something in her voice made him look closer. She was exhausted, and the carnage she had seen had left its imprint in the strained hollowness of her eyes. Her hands were black, her face and wrap were smudged with soot and blood. She unfastened the harness and travois, then put an arm around Whinney’s neck and leaned her forehead against the mare in weariness. The horse was standing with her head down and front legs spraddled while her colt eased the fullness of her udders. She looked as tired.

“That fire must have been far away. It’s late. Have you been riding all day?” Jondalar asked.

She pulled her head up and turned to him. For a moment, she had forgotten he was there. “Yes, all day,” she said, then took a deep breath. She couldn’t give in to her fatigue yet, she had too much to do. “Many animal die. Many come take meat. Wolf. Hyena. Lion. Other I not see before. Big teeth.” She demonstrated an open mouth and her two index fingers hanging down like elongated canines.