The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“ … and I’ll make sure you are invited on the first hunt,” Talut continued, assuming that Jondalar had stayed because of his counsel and invitation.

“Jondalar?” Deegie said, a little shocked. “From the back I thought you were Darnev!” She walked around him, with a smile on her face, looking him over. She liked what she saw. “You shaved,” she said.

“It’s spring. I decided it was time,” he said, smiling back, his eyes telling her that she was attractive, too.

She was caught by his blue eyes, and his compelling attraction, then laughed, and decided it was time he was cleaned up and in decent clothes. He’d been looking so scruffy in his straggly, untrimmed beard and Talut’s hand-me-downs, she’d forgotten how handsome he was.

“You wear that outfit well, Jondalar. It suits you. Wait until you get to the Summer Meeting. A stranger always gets a lot of attention, and I think the Mamutoi women will want to make you feel very welcome,” Deegie said, with a teasing smile.

“But …” Jondalar gave up trying to explain that he wasn’t planning to go to the Summer Meeting with them. He could tell them later, when he left.

He tried on another outfit after they left, one more suited to traveling or everyday wear, then went outside looking for the headwoman to thank her again, and show her how well the clothes fit. In the entrance foyer, he met Danug, Rydag, and Wolf just coming in. The youth was holding Rydag with one arm and Wolf with the other. They had a fur wrapped around them and their hair was still damp. Danug had carried the boy up from the river after their sweatbath. He put them both down.

“Jondalar, you look good,” Rydag signaled. “All ready for Spring Festival?”

“Yes. Are you?” he signed hack.

“I have new clothes, too. Nezzie make for me, for Spring Festival,” Rydag replied, smiling.

“For the Summer Meeting, too,” Danug added. “She made new clothes for me, and for Latie and Rugie.”

Jondalar noticed that Rydag’s smile faded when Danug talked about the Summer Meeting. He didn’t seem to look forward to the big summer gathering as much as the others.

When Jondalar pushed back the heavy drape and started out, Danug, not wanting the words to be heard, whispered to Rydag, “Should we have told him that Ayla is right outside? Every time he sees her, he runs away from her.”

“No. He want see her. She want see him. Make right signals, wrong words,” Rydag signed.

“You’re right, but why can’t they see it? How can they make each other understand?”

“Forget words. Make signals,” Rydag replied, with his un-Clanlike smile, then picked up the wolf puppy and carried him into the lodge.

Jondalar discovered what the youngsters didn’t tell him the moment he stepped out. Ayla was outside the front entrance with the two horses. She had just given Wolf to Rydag to take care of, and she was looking forward to a long, hard ride to work off the tension she was feeling. Ranec wanted her agreement before the Spring Festival, and she couldn’t make up her mind. She hoped the ride would help her think. When she saw Jondalar, her first reaction was to offer to let him ride Whinney, as she had done before, knowing that he loved it, and hoping that his love of the horses would bring him closer to her. But she wanted to ride. She had been anticipating it, and was just ready to leave.

When she looked at him again, she caught her breath. He had scraped off his beard with one of his sharp flint blades, and he looked so much the way he did when they were in her valley the previous summer it made her heart pound and her face flush. He reacted to her physical signals with unconscious signals of his own, and the magnetic pull of his eyes drew her.

“You have removed your beard,” Ayla said.

Without realizing it, she had spoken in Zelandonii. It took him a moment before he realized what was different, then, he couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t heard his own language in a long time. The smile encouraged her, and a thought came to her.

“I was just going out to ride on Whinney, and I have been thinking that someone needs to start getting Racer used to a rider. Why don’t you come with me and try to ride him? It’s a good day for it. The snow is almost gone, new grass is coming in, but the ground is not so hard yet, in case someone falls off,” she said, rushing ahead before something happened that would make him change and become distant again.

“Uh … I don’t know,” Jondalar hesitated. “I thought you would want to ride him first.”

“He’s used to you, Jondalar, and no matter who rides him first, it would help to have two people. One to calm and settle him while the other gets on.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, frowning. He didn’t know if he should go out on the steppes with her, but he didn’t know how to refuse, and he did want to ride the horse. “If you really want me to, I guess I could.”

“I’ll go and get a lead rope, and the guider you made for him,” Ayla said, racing to the annex before he could change his mind. “Why don’t you start walking them up the slope?”

He began to have second thoughts, but she was gone before he could reconsider. He called the horses to him and started up to the broad flat plains above. Ayla caught up with them when they were near the top. She had a haversack and a waterbag as well as the halter and a rope. When they reached the steppes, Ayla led Whinney to a mound she had used before when she let some of the members of the Lion Camp, particularly the younger ones, ride the mare. With a practiced leap, she was on the back of the hay-colored horse.

“Get on, Jondalar. We can ride double.”

“Ride double!?” he said, almost in a panic. He hadn’t considered riding double with Ayla, and was ready to bolt.

“Just until we find a nice open stretch of flat ground. We can’t try it here. Racer might run into a gully or down the slope,” she said.

He felt caught. How could he say he wouldn’t ride double with her for a short distance? He walked to the mound, and carefully sat astride the mare, trying to sit back and avoid touching Ayla. The moment