The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“You mean Ayla’s way. Go ahead, Ayla. See if you can bring those bison here.”

Ayla smiled, and whistled for Whinney. The mare neighed and galloped toward her, followed by Racer. “Jondalar, keep Racer here,” she said, and sprinted toward the horse.

“Don’t forget your spear-thrower,” he called.

She stopped to grab it and some spears from the holder on the side of her pack, then with a practiced easy motion, she leaped onto the horse’s back, and was off. For a while, Jondalar had his hands full with the young horse that didn’t like being kept from joining his dam in an exciting run. It was just as well; it didn’t give Jondalar time to notice the look on Ranec’s face as he watched Ayla go.

The woman, bareback on the horse, rode hard along the floodplain beside the tumbling, boisterous stream, which wound along a sinuous corridor hemmed in by steep rolling hills on both sides. Naked brush screened by dry standing hay clung to the hillsides and crouched low on the windy crests, softening the craggy face of the land, but hidden beneath the windblown loess topsoil that filled in the cracks was a stony heart. Exposed projections of bedrock studding the slopes revealed the essential granite character of the region, dominated by lofty knolls which rose to the bare rock summits of the prominent outcrops.

Ayla slowed when she neared the area where she had seen the bison earlier in the day, but they were gone. They had sensed, or heard, the building activity and reversed their direction. She saw the animals just as she was moving into the shadow of one of the outcrops cast by the afternoon sun, and, just beyond the small herd, she saw Barzec standing near what appeared to be a small cairn.

Greener grass amid the bare slender trees near the water had coaxed the bison into the narrow valley, but once they moved past the twin outcrops that flanked the stream, there was no exit other than the way in. Barzec and the younger hunters had seen the bison strung out along the stream, still stopping to graze now and then, but steadily moving out. They had chased them back in, but that stopped them only temporarily, and caused them to bunch together and move with more determination when they tried to leave the valley the next time. Determination and frustration could lead to stampede.

The four had been sent to keep the animals from leaving, but they knew they’d never stop a stampede. They couldn’t keep chasing them in. It took too much effort to keep it up and Barzec didn’t want to start them stampeding in the other direction before the trap was ready, either. The pile of stones Barzec was standing near when Ayla first saw him was stacked around a sturdy branch. A piece of clothing was fastened to it and was flapping in the wind. Then she noticed several more stone piles supporting upright branches or bones, spaced at fairly close intervals between the outcrop and the water, and from each a sleeping fur or a piece of clothing or a tent covering had been hung. They had even used small trees and bushes, anything from which they could drape something that would move in the wind.

The bison were nervously eying the strange apparitions, not sure how threatening they were. They didn’t want to go back the way they had come, but they didn’t want to go forward, either. Sporadically a bison would move toward one of the things, then back off when it flapped. They were stalled, effectively being kept exactly where Barzec wanted them. Ayla was impressed with the clever idea.

She edged Whinney close to the outcrop, trying to work her way around the bison slowly, so as not to upset the delicate balance. She noticed the o

ld cow with the broken horn edging forward. She didn’t like being held in, and looked ready to make a break.

Barzec saw Ayla, looked behind him for the rest of the hunters, then looked back at her with a frown. After all their efforts, he didn’t want her chasing the bison the wrong way. Latie moved up beside him, and they spoke quietly, but he still watched the woman and the horse with apprehension for the long moments it took her to reach them.

“Where are the others?” Barzec asked.

“They are waiting,” Ayla said.

“What are they waiting for? We can’t keep these bison here forever!”

“They wait for us to chase bison.”

“How can we chase them? There’s not enough of us! They’re getting ready to break out as it is. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep them here, much less chase them back in. We’d have to get them to stampede.”

“Whinney will chase,” Ayla said.

“The horse is going to chase them!”

“She chase before, but better if you chase, too.”

Danug and Druwez, who had been spread out watching the herd and throwing stones at the occasional animal that dared the flapping sentinels, moved closer to hear. They were no less amazed than Barzec, but their lessened vigilance opened an opportunity and ended the conversation.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ayla saw a huge young bull bolt, followed by several more. In a moment, all would be lost as the pentup herd broke free. She wheeled Whinney around, dropped her spear and spear-thrower, and went after him, grabbing the flapping tunic from the branch on her way.

She raced straight for the animal, leaning over, waving the tunic at him. The bison dodged, trying to go around. Whinney wheeled again as Ayla snapped the leather in the young bull’s face. His next diverting move turned him back toward the narrow valley, and into the path of the animals that had followed his lead, with Whinney and Ayla, snapping the leather tunic, right behind him.

Another animal broke away, but Ayla managed to turn her around, too. Whinney seemed to know almost before the bison did which one would try next, but it was as much the woman’s unconscious signals to the horse as the mare’s intuitive sense that put her in the way of the shaggy animal. Ayla’s training of Whinney had not been a conscious effort in the beginning. The first time she got on the horse’s back had been sheer impulse, and no thought of controlling or directing entered her mind. It had happened gradually, as mutual understanding grew, and the control was exerted by tension of her legs and subtle shifts of her body. Though, eventually, she did begin to apply it purposefully, there was always an additional element of interaction between the woman and the horse, and they often moved as one, as though they shared one mind.

The instant Ayla moved, the others recognized the situation, and rushed to stop the herd. Ayla had chased herding animals with Whinney in the past, but she would not have been able to turn the bison around without help. The large humpbacked beasts were much harder to control than she imagined they would be. They’d been held back, and she had never tried to drive animals in a direction they didn’t want to go. It was almost as though some instinctual sense warned them of the trap waiting for them.

Danug rushed to Ayla’s aid, to help turn back the ones who first bolted, though she was concentrating so intensely on stopping the young bull that she hardly noticed him at first. Latie saw one of the twin calves break, and, pulling the branch out of the pile of stones, she dashed to block its path. She whacked it on the nose, and harried it back, while Barzec and Druwez descended upon a cow with stones and a flapping fur. Finally their determined efforts turned the incipient stampede around. The old cow with the broken horn and a few others managed to break out, but most of the bison pounded along the floodplain of the small river, heading upstream.

They breathed a little easier once the small herd was beyond the granite outcrops, but they would have to keep them going. Ayla stopped only long enough to slide off the horse, pick up her spear and spear-thrower, and leap back on.

Talut had just taken a drink from his waterbag when he thought he heard a faint rumbling, like low rolling thunder. He cocked his head downriver and listened a few moments, not expecting to hear anything so soon, not sure that he expected to hear them at all. He lay face down and put his ear to the ground.

“They’re coming!” he shouted, jumping up.

All of them scrambled to find their spears, and rushed to the places they had decided to take. Frebec, Wymez, Tornec, and Deegie spread out along the steep slope at one side, ready to fall in behind and block the gate closed. Tulie was nearest the open gate on the opposite side, ready to slam it shut once the bison were inside the pen.