The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“Ayla, you shouldn’t have gone out in that blizzard!” Deegie said. “You can lose your way a few steps beyond the entrance.”

But it has been blowing like that for many, many days, and Whinney and Racer go out. I want to know where they go.”

“Did you find out?”

“Yes. They like to feed at place around bend. Wind does not blow so hard, and snow does not cover dry grass too high. Blows drift on other side. I have some grain, but have not grass left. Horses know where is grass, even when blizzard blows. I will give water here, when they come back,” Ayla said, stamping her feet, and shaking the snow off the parka she had just pulled off. She hung it up on a peg near the entrance to the Mammoth Hearth, on her way in.

“Can you believe it? She went outside. In this weather!” Deegie announced to the several people who were congregated at the fourth hearth.

“But why?” Tornec asked.

“Horses need to eat, and I …” Ayla started to reply.

“I thought you were gone a long time,” Ranec said. “When I asked Mamut, he said he had last seen you go into the horse hearth, but when I looked you weren’t there.”

“Everyone started looking for you, Ayla,” Tronie said.

“Then Jondalar noticed your parka was gone, and the horses, too. He thought you might have gone out with them,” Deegie said, “so we decided we’d better look for you outside. When I looked out to see how the weather was, I saw you coming.”

“Ayla, you should let someone know if you are going out when the weather is bad,” Mamut chided, gently.

“Don’t you know you make people worry when you go out in a blizzard like this?” Jondalar said, his tone more angry.

Ayla tried to answer, but everyone was talking at once. She looked at all the faces watching her, and flushed. “I am sorry. I did not mean to make worry. I live alone long time, have no people to worry. I go out and come in when I want. I am not used to people, to have someone worry,” she said, looking at Jondalar, then at the others. Mamut saw Ayla’s brow knit in a frown as the blond man turned away.

Jondalar felt himself flush as he walked away from the people who had been worried about Ayla. She was right, she had lived alone and taken care of herself just fine. What right did he have to question her actions, or take her to task for not telling anyone she was going out? But he had been fearful from the moment he discovered she was missing and had probably gone outside into the blizzard. He had seen bad weather—winters where he grew up were exceptionally cold and bleak—but he had never seen weather so severe. This storm had raged without letup for half the season, it seemed.

No one had been more fearful for her safety than Jondalar, but he didn’t want to show his deep concern. He’d been having difficulty talking to her since the night of her adoption. At first, he was so hurt that she had chosen someone else, he had withdrawn, and was ambivalent about his own feelings. He was wildly jealous, yet he doubted his love for her because he had been ashamed that he brought her.

Ayla had not shared Ranec’s furs again, but every night Jondalar was afraid she might. It made him tense and nervous, and he found himself staying away from the Mammoth Hearth until after she was in bed. When he did finally join her on their sleeping platform, he turned his back and resisted touching her, afraid he might lose control, afraid he might break; down and beg her to love him.

But Ayla didn’t know why he was avoiding her. When she tried to talk to him, he answered in monosyllables, or pretended to be asleep; when she put an arm around him, he was stiff and unresponsive. It seemed to her that he didn’t like her any

more, especially after he brought separate furs to sleep in, so he wouldn’t feel the searing touch of her body next to his. Even during the day, he stayed away from her. Wymez, Danug, and he had set up a flint-working area in the cooking hearth and Jondalar spent most of his waking hours there—he couldn’t stand working with Wymez at the Fox Hearth, across the passageway from the bed Ayla had shared with Ranec.

After a while, when her friendly advances had been rebuffed too often, she became confused and hesitant and drew back from him. Only then did he finally begin to realize that the growing distance between them was his own doing, but he didn’t know how to resolve it. As experienced and knowledgeable as he was about women, he had no experience with being in love. He found himself reluctant to tell her how he felt about her. He remembered young women following him around, declaring their strong feelings for him, when he didn’t feel strongly about them. It had made him uncomfortable, made him want to get away. He didn’t want Ayla to feel that way about him, so he held back.

Ranec knew they were not sharing Pleasures. He was excruciatingly conscious of Ayla every moment, though he tried not to make it obvious. He knew when she went to bed and when she woke, what she ate and with whom she spoke, and he spent as much time as he could at the Hearth of the Mammoth. Among those who gathered there, Ranec’s wit, sometimes directed at one member or another of the Lion Camp, was often the cause of raucous laughter. He was scrupulously careful, however, never to denigrate Jondalar, whether Ayla was nearby or not. The visitor was aware of Ranec’s way with words, but such cleverness had never been Jondalar’s strong point. Ranec’s compact muscularity and insouciant self-confidence had the effect of making the tall, dramatically handsome man feel like a big oaf.

As the winter progressed, Jondalar and Ayla’s unresolved misunderstanding kept getting worse. Jondalar was becoming afraid that he would lose her entirely to the dark, exotic, and engaging man. He kept trying to convince himself that he should be fair, and let her make the choice, that he didn’t have any right to make demands on her. But he stayed away because he didn’t want to present her with a choice which would give her the opportunity to reject him.

* * *

The Mamutoi did not seem disturbed by the harsh weather. They had plenty of food stored, and busied themselves with their usual winter diversions, snug and secure inside their semisubterranean longhouse. The older members of the Camp tended to gather around the cooking hearth, sipping hot tea, telling stories, reminiscing, gossiping, and playing games of chance with pieces of carved ivory or bone, when they were not busy on some project. The younger people congregated around the Mammoth Hearth, laughing and joking, singing songs and practicing musical instruments, though there was a great deal of intermixing among everyone, and the children were welcome everywhere. This was the time of leisure; the time to make and mend tools and weapons, utensils and jewelry; the time to weave baskets and mats, to carve ivory, bone, and antler; to make thongs, ropes, cords, and nets; and the time to make and decorate clothing.

Ayla was interested in how the Mamutoi processed their leather and, especially, how they colored it. She was also intrigued with the colored embroidery, quill and beadwork. Decorated and sewn clothing was new and unusual to her.

“You said you would show me how to make leather red after I make skin ready. I think bison skin I am working on is ready,” Ayla said.

“All right, I’ll show you,” Deegie said. “Let’s see how it looks.”

Ayla went to the storage platform near the head of her bed and unfolded a complete hide, and spread it out. It was incredibly soft to the touch, pliable, and nearly white. Deegie examined it critically. She had watched Ayla’s process without comment, but with great interest.

First Ayla had cut off the heavy mane close to the skin with a sharp knife, then she beamed it; draped it over a large smooth mammoth leg bone and scraped it, using the slightly dulled edge of a flint flake. She scraped the inside to remove clinging bits of fat and blood vessels, and the outside, against the lay of the hair, taking off the outer layer of skin, which included the grain of the leather, as well. Deegie would have rolled it up and left it near the fire for a few days, allowing it to begin to decay, to loosen the hair. When she was ready, the hair would come out, leaving behind the outer layer of skin, which would become the grain of the leather. To make the softer buckskin, as Ayla had done, she would have tied it to a frame to scrape off the hair and the grain.

Ayla’s next step incorporated a suggestion from Deegie. After soaking and washing, Ayla had planned to rub fat into the hide to soften it, as she was accustomed to doing. But Deegie showed Ayla how to make a thin gruel of the putrefying brains of the animal to soak the hide in instead. Ayla was both surprised and pleased at the results. She could feel the change in the hide, the softening and elasticity which the brain tissue imparted, even while she was rubbing it in. But it was after thoroughly wringing out the hide that the work began. It had to be pulled and stretched constantly while it was drying, and the quality of the finished leather depended upon how well the hide was worked at this stage.

“You do have a good hand for leather, Ayla. Bison hide is heavy, and this is so soft. It feels wonderful. Have you decided what you want to make out of it?”