The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

The musicians were intrigued. The promise of something new was always interesting. Deegie kneeled on the mat in Tharie’s place, and Ayla sat cross-legged close to the drum and tapped it to get the feel. Then Deegie hit the leg-bone instrument in a few places until Ayla indicated the sound was right.

When they were ready, Deegie began beating a slow steady pace, changing the tempo slightly until she saw Ayla nod, but not changing the tone at all. Ayla closed her eyes, and when she felt herself moving to Deegie’s steady beat, she joined in. The timbre of the skull drum was too resonant to replicate exactly the sounds Ayla remembered. It was difficult to create the sense of a sharp crack of thunder, for example; the sharp staccato beats came out more like a sustained rumbling, but she had been practicing with a drum like it. Soon she was weaving an unusual contrapuntal rhythm around the strong, steady beat, a seemingly random pattern of staccato sounds that varied in tempo. The two sets of rhythms were so distinct they bore no relationship to each other, yet a stressed beat of Ayla’s rhythms coincided with every fifth beat of Deegie’s steady sound, almost as if by accident.

The two rhythms had the effect of producing an increasing sense of expectation, and after a while, a slight feeling of anxiety until the two beats, though it seemed impossible that they ever would, came together. With each release, another surge of tension mounted. At the moment when it seemed no one could stand it any more, Ayla and Deegie stopped before a concluding beat, and left a heightened expectation hanging in the air. Then, to Deegie’s surprise as much as anyone, a windy, reedy, flutelike whistle was heard, with a haunting, eerie Dot-quite melody, that sent a shiver through the listeners. It ended on a note of closure, but a sense of otherworldliness still lingered.

No one said a word for some moments. Finally Tharie said, “What strange, asymmetrical, compelling music.” Then several people wanted Ayla to show them the rhythms, eager to try them out.

“Who played the wind reed?” Tharie asked, knowing it wasn’t Manen, who had been standing beside her.

“No one did,” Deegie said. “It wasn’t an instrument. Ayla was whistling.”

“Whistling? How does anyone whistle like that?”

“Ayla can imitate any whistling sound,” Deegie said. “You ought to hear her bird calls. Even they think she’s a bird. She can get them to come and eat out of her hand. It’s part of her way with animals.”

“Would you show us a bird whistle, Ayla?” Tharie said, in a tone that sounded unbelieving.

She didn’t think it was really the place, but went through a quick repertoire of bird whistles, which brought the astonished looks Deegie had expected.

Ayla was grateful when Kylie offered to show her around. She was shown some of the costumes and other paraphernalia, and discovered that some of the headpieces were actually face masks. Most things were garishly colored, but worn at night, by firelight, the colors of the costumes would stand out, yet appear normal. Someone was grinding red ochre from a small pouch, and mixing it into fat. With a chill, she again remembered Creb rubbing a paste of red ochre on Iza’s body before her burial, but she was told it would be used to decorate and add color to the faces and bodies of the players and dancers. She noticed ground charcoal and white chalk, too.

Ayla watched a man sewing beads on a tunic, using an awl, and it occurred to her how much easier it would be with a thread-puller, but she decided to have Deegie bring one over. She was getting too much attention as it was, and it made her uncomfortable. They looked at strings of beads and other jewelry, and Kylie held up two conical spiral seashells to her ears.

“Too bad your ears are not pierced,” she said. “These would look nice on you.”

“They are nice,” Ayla said. She noticed the holes in Kylies ears then, and in her nose as well. She liked Kylie, and admired her, and felt a rapport that could lead to friendship.

“Why don’t you take them anyway? You can talk to Deegie or Tulie and have them do it. And you really should have a tattoo, Ayla. Then you can go wherever you want,

and won’t have to keep explaining that you belong to the Mammoth Hearth.”

“But I’m really not Mamut,” Ayla said.

“I think you are, Ayla. I’m not sure what the rites are, but I know Lomie would not hesitate if you told her you were ready to dedicate yourself to the Mother.”

“I’m not sure if I am ready.”

“Maybe not, but you will be. I feel it in you.”

When she and Deegie left, Ayla realized she had been given something very special, a private look behind the scenes that few people were allowed to see. It was a place of mystery, even uncloaked and explained, but how much more magical and supernatural it must seem, she thought, when seen from outside. Ayla glanced toward the flint-working area as they were leaving, but Jondalar was not there.

She followed as Deegie walked through the encampment, heading toward the back of the hollow, looking for friends and relations, and finding out where all the various Camps were located. They passed an area where three Camps, tucked in among brush, faced a clearing. There was a noticeable feeling about the area that was different, but Ayla couldn’t put her finger on it at first. Then she began to notice specific details. The tents were ragged, and not well hung, and holes were poorly patched, if at all. A strong unpleasant smell and the buzz of flies called her attention to a rotting piece of meat left on the ground between two tents, and then she noticed more garbage strewn haphazardly around. She knew that children often got dirty, but the ones that were staring at them looked like they hadn’t been clean for some time. Their clothes were grimy, their hair unkempt, their faces dirty. There was an unsavory squalor about the place.

Ayla noticed Chaleg lounging in front of one tent. Her appearance there took him by surprise, and his first expression was one of malicious hatred. It shocked her. Only Broud had ever looked at her that way. Then Chaleg covered it, but the insincere, malevolent smile was almost worse than the blatant hatred.

“Let’s leave this area,” Deegie said, with a sniff of disdain. “It’s always a good idea to know where they are, so you know what to avoid.”

Suddenly there was a loud eruption of screaming and shouting as two children, a boy in his early teens and a girl about eleven years, came running out of one of the tents.

“You give that back to me! Do you hear? You give that back to me!” the girl screamed as she chased after the boy.

“You’ve got to catch me first, little sister,” the boy taunted, holding something in her face and shaking it.

“You … Oh, you … Give that back!” the girl screamed again and ran after him with a new burst of speed.

The boy’s smile made it clear that he was taking great delight in the girl’s anger and frustration, but when he turned back to look at her, he failed to notice an exposed root. He tripped and fell heavily, and the girl was on top of him, hitting and pounding with all her might. He hit her in the face then, with great force, and brought a spurt of blood from her nose. She cried out, and struck him back in the mouth, tearing his lip.

“Help me, Ayla!” Deegie said, as she descended on the two children rolling on the ground. She wasn’t quite as strong as her mother, but she was a tall and strong young woman, and when she grabbed the boy, who happened to be on top of his sister at that moment, there was no resisting her. Ayla held on to the girl, who was struggling to get back at the boy again.