The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“Yes. Talut told me these two,” Ayla said.

“Let’s see, that’s heather, and that’s cushion pink,” Deegie said, identifying the other two, then sat down beside Ayla. “We’re almost there. Talut says sometime tomorrow. I can hardly wait. Tomorrow I’ll see Branag, and then it won’t be long until we are finally joined. I don’t even know-if I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

Ayla smiled at her. Deegie was so excited it was hard not to share her enthusiasm, but it only served to remind her that she, too, would soon be joined. Jondalar’s talk about the valley and going back there had renewed her ache of longing for him. She had been watching him

, trying not to make it obvious, and she had a distinct feeling that he had been observing her. She kept meeting his eyes briefly before both looked away.

“Oh, Ayla, there are so many people I want you to meet, and I’m so glad we are going to be joined at the same Matrimonial. That’s something we’ll always have together.”

Jondalar got up. “I need to go … and … uh … set up my sleeping roll,” he said, then hurried away.

Deegie watched Ayla’s eyes follow after him, and was almost certain she saw tears being held back. She shook her head. Ayla just didn’t seem like a woman who was about to join and establish a new hearth with a man she loved. There was no joy, no excitement. Something was missing. Something called Jondalar.

31

In the morning the Lion Camp continued upstream, staying on the plateau of the plains, but catching glimpses of the swift waterway below on their left, cloudy with glacial runoff and churning with silt. When they reached a fork, a place where two major rivers joined, they took the left branch. After fording two large tributaries, putting most of their possessions in a bowl boat they had brought along for that purpose, they descended to the floodplain and traveled through the woods and grassy meadows of the river valley.

Talut kept watching the system of hollows and ravines on the high right bank across the river, comparing the actual landscape to the ivory scratched with symbols, whose meaning was still unclear to Ayla. Ahead, near a sharp bend, was the highest point of the opposite shoreline, rising some two hundred feet above the water. On their side, a broad grassy field and patches of woods extended inland for some miles. As they drew closer, Ayla noticed a bone cairn, with a wolf skull on top. A peculiar arrangement of rocks extended across the river in the direction Talut was heading.

The river there was wide and shallow, and would have been fordable in any case, but someone had made the crossing even easier. Piles of rock and gravel, and some bone, had been placed and spread out in the manner of stepping-stones to make a pathway for people to cross the river, while diverting the flow of water to the spaces in between.

Jondalar paused to look more closely. “What a clever idea!” he remarked. “You could cross the river here without even getting your feet wet.”

“The best places to put lodges are on that side—those deep hollows give good protection from the wind—but the best hunting is on this side,” Barzec explained. “This walkway washes out with the floods, but Wolf Camp builds a new one every year. They seem to have gone to extra trouble this year, probably to make it easier for visitors.”

Talut started across. Ayla noticed Whinney was extremely agitated, and thought the horse was nervous about the stepping-stone path with the watery spaces in between, but the mare followed her without incident.

The headman paused more than halfway over. “Right here, it’s good fishing,” he said. “The current runs fast, so it’s deep Salmon come up this far. Sturgeon, too. And other fish, pike, trout, catfish.” He directed his comments at Ayla and Jondalar in particular, though he included any of the youngsters who had not been there before. It had been some years since Lion Camp had visited Wolf Camp as a group.

On the other side, as Talut led them toward a wide ravine, perhaps a half-mile across at the top, Ayla heard a strange sound, like a loud hum or a muted roar. They gradually climbed uphill. Sixty feet or so above the level of the river and one hundred and fifty yards back, they came to the bottom of the large ravine. Ayla looked ahead, and gasped. Protected by steep walls, a half-dozen separate round lodges in a row were comfortably settled within the nearly mile-long hollow. But it wasn’t the round earthlodges that made Ayla gasp.

It was the people. In all her life, Ayla had never seen so many people. Well over a thousand human souls, more than thirty Camps, had gathered together for the Mamutoi Summer Meeting. The length and breadth of the entire area was filled with tents. There were at least four or five times as many people as had come together for the Clan Gathering—and everyone was staring at her.

Or rather, at her horses and Wolf. The young canine cowered against her leg, just as thunderstruck as she. She sensed panic in Whinney and was sure Racer felt the same. Fear for them helped her overcome her own feelings of sheer terror at the sight of so many human beings. She looked up and saw Jondalar hanging on the lead rope, struggling to keep Racer from rearing, while the frightened boy hung on tight.

“Nezzie, get Rydag!” she called out. The woman had already seen the problem and hardly needed Ayla’s words to impel her to move. Ayla helped Mamut down, and put her arm around the mare’s neck, leading her toward the young stallion to help calm him. The wolf followed after her.

“I’m sorry, Ayla. I should have thought about how the horses would react to so many people,” Jondalar said.

“You knew there would be this many?”

“I … didn’t know, but I guessed there might be about as many as would come to a Zelandonii Summer Meeting.”

“I think we should try to set up Cattail Camp someplace out of the way,” Tulie said, speaking up to get everyone’s attention. “Maybe here, near the edge of the encampment. We’ll be farther away from everything”—she was looking around as she spoke—“but Wolf Camp has a creek running through their hollow this year, and it turns this way.”

Tulie had been anticipating the reaction of the people, and she hadn’t been disappointed. They had been seen crossing the river, and everyone there had crowded close to watch the arrival of the Lion Camp. But she had not anticipated that the animals might be overwhelmed by their initial introduction to a herd of humanity.

“How about over there, near the wall,” Barzec suggested. “It’s not too level, but we can even it out.”

“It looks fine to me. Are there any objections?” Talut said, looking pointedly at Ayla. She and Jondalar just led the animals that way, wanting to get them settled. The Lion Camp began clearing out rocks and brush and leveling a place to set up their large, double-skinned, communal tent.

Living in a tent was made much more comfortable by using two layers of hides. The insulating layer of air between helped to keep the warmth in, and moisture condensing in the cool of the evening ran down the inner side of the outer hides to the ground. The inner hides, which were tucked under the interior ground cloths, kept drafts out as well. Though not nearly as permanent as the earthlodge at Lion Camp, it was a more substantial structure than the single-wall overnight shelter that was only a part of the full summer tent, which they used when traveling. They referred to their summer home as Cattail Camp to differentiate the summer location, wherever it happened to be, from the winter site, when they spoke of it, though they still thought of themselves as belonging to a group called Lion Camp.

The tent was divided into four interdependent conical sections, each with a separate fireplace, supported by sturdy, flexible young trees, although mammoth rib bones, or other long bones, could have and had been used. The central section, which was largest, would house the Lion Hearth, the Fox Hearth, and the Mammoth Hearth. While the tent lodge was not as roomy as the earthlodge, it would be used primarily for sleeping, and it was seldom that everyone would be in the tent sleeping at the same time. Other activities, private, social, and public, would take place outdoors, so setting up also meant defining territory beyond the walls of the tent. The placement of Cattail Hearth, the main exterior cooking hearth, was a matter of some importance.

While they worked to set up their tent and stake out their territory, the rest of the people at the Meeting began to recover from their initial stunned silence, and began to talk excitedly among themselves. Ayla finally discovered the source of the peculiar muted roar. She recalled, when she first arrived at Lion Camp, how noisy she thought it was when everybody spoke at once. This was that noise many times over; it was the combined voices of the entire throng.

No wonder Whinney and Racer were so skittish, Ayla thought. The constant hum of humanity made her skittish, too. She wasn’t used to it. The Clan Gathering had not been as big, but even if it had, it would never have been as noisy. They used few words to communicate; a gathering of the people of the Clan was quiet. But with people who used verbal speech, except for rare occasions, it was always noisy within an encampment. Like the wind on the steppes, the voices never ceased, they only varied in intensity.