The Mammoth Hunters (Earth's Children 3)

“You’d rather be in your own bed, wouldn’t you?” he finally said.

“I know you want to help, Ranec, and that in itself helps more than I can say. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me when I saw you there, standing beside me. I am so grateful to the Lion Camp, too. Everyone has been so good, so wonderful to me, almost too wonderful. I learned so much from them, and I was so proud to be Mamutoi, to say they were my people. I thought all the Others—the ones I used to call the Others—were like the Lion Camp, but now I know that isn’t true. Like the Clan, most people are good people, but not everyone, and even good people are not good about everything. I had some ideas and … I was making some plans … but, I need to think, now.”

“And you can think better in your own bed, not cramped in here with me. Go ahead, Ayla, you’ll still be next to me,” Ranec said.

Ranec wasn’t the only one who had been watching Ayla, and when Jondalar saw her get out of Ranec’s bedroll and into her own, he had a strange set of mixed feelings. He was relieved that he wouldn’t have to grit his teeth against the sounds of them sharing Pleasures, but he felt a pang of regret for Ranec. If he had been in the dark carver’s place, he would have wanted to hold Ayla, and comfort her, try to take on some of her pain. It would have hurt him if she had left his bed to sleep alone.

After Ranec fell asleep and a deep stillness settled on the Camp, Ayla quietly got up, slipped on a light parka against the nighttime chill, and went outside into the dark starlit night. In a moment, Wolf was beside her. They walked toward the horse lean-to, and were welcomed by a nicker from Racer, and a soft blow of recognition from Whinney. After patting and scratching, and quiet words, Ayla put her arms around Whinney’s neck, and leaned on her.

How many times had the hay-colored mare been her friend when she needed one? Ayla smiled. What would the Clan think of her friends? Two horses and a wolf! She was grateful for their presence, their company, but there was still an emptiness inside her. Someone was missing, the one she wanted most. Yet he had been there. Even before the Lion Camp stood up for her. She didn’t even know where he came from. Suddenly Jondalar was just there, beside her, standing against them all. Against their repugnance, their disgust. It had been terrible, worse than the Clan Gathering. It wasn’t just that she was different. They feared her, hated her. That’s what he’d been trying to tell her all along. But even if she’d known, it wouldn’t have made any difference. She couldn’t let them pick on Rydag, or malign her son.

From the opening of the tent, another pair of eyes watched her. Jondalar could not sleep either. He had seen her get up, and quietly followed her. How many times had he seen her like that with Whinney? He was happy that she had the animals to turn to, but he ached to be in the mare’s place. But it was too late. She didn’t want him, and he couldn’t blame her. With a sudden realization, he saw through his emotional confusion

, saw his actions with a new clarity, and realized that he had done it himself. In the very beginning, he wasn’t just being “fair” and letting her make her own choice. He had turned away from her, out of petty jealousy. He was hurt, and wanted to hurt back.

There was more to it than that, admit it, Jondalar, he said to himself. You were hurt, but you knew how she was raised. She didn’t even understand your jealousy. When she went to Ranec’s bed that night, she was only being a “good Clan woman.” That was the real problem, her Clan background. You were ashamed of it. You were ashamed to love her, afraid you would have to face what she faced today. You didn’t know if you could stand up for her. No matter how much you said you loved her, you were afraid you’d turn against her, too. Well, there is no shame in loving her, the shame is in your own cowardice. And now it’s too late. She didn’t need you. She stood up for herself, and then the whole Lion Camp stood up for her. She doesn’t need you at all, and you don’t deserve her.

Finally the chill drove Ayla back in. She glanced toward Jondalar’s sleeping place when she entered the tent. He was rolled over on his side, facing the other way. She slipped into her bed, and felt a heavy, sleeping hand reach for her. Ranec did love her, she knew that. And she loved him, too, in her own way. She lay still, and listened to Ranec’s steady breathing. After a while he rolled the other way and the hand was gone.

Ayla tried to sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking. She had wanted to go for Durc and bring him back to Lion Camp to live with her. Now she questioned if that would be best for him. Would he be happier here with her than he would be living with the Clan? Could he be happy living with people who would hate him? Who would call him a flathead and worse, a half-animal abomination? With the Clan, he was known, and loved; he was one of them. Maybe Broud hated him, but even at the Clan Gathering, he would have friends. He was accepted, he would be allowed to join in the competitions, and the ceremonies—did Durc have the Clan memories? she wondered.

If she couldn’t take him away, could she go back to the Clan and live? Now that she had found people like herself, could she ever accept Clan ways, again? They would never allow her to keep her animals. Would she be willing to give up Whinney and Racer, and Wolf, and be only Durc’s mother? Does Durc need a mother? He was a baby when I left, but he’s not a baby any more. By now, Brun is teaching him to hunt.

He has probably made his first small kills, and brought them back to show Uba. Ayla smiled to herself at the picture that evoked. Uba would praise him so highly, and tell him what a brave, strong hunter he is.

Durc has a mother! she realized. Uba is his mother. Uba has raised him, taken care of him, nursed his little cuts and scrapes. How can I take him away from her? Who would take care of her when she gets old? Even when he was a baby, the other women in the clan were more mother to him than I was after I lost my milk.

How can I go back and get him, anyway? I am cursed. To the Clan, I am Dead! If Durc saw me, I would only frighten him, and everyone else. Even if there was no death curse on me, would he be happy to see me? Would he even remember me?

He was hardly more than a baby when I left. By now, he is at the Clan Gathering and has met Ura. He’s young yet, but he must be thinking about the time when they will mate. He is planning to make a hearth—just as I am, she thought. Even if I could convince him I wasn’t a spirit, Durc would have to bring Ura with him, and Ura would be miserable here. It will be difficult enough for her to leave her own clan and live with Durc and his clan, but to move into a world in which nothing was familiar would be so much worse. Especially a world where she would be hated and misunderstood.

What if I went back to the valley? And then brought Durc and Ura to live there? But Durc needs people … and so do I. I don’t want to live alone, why should Durc want to live alone in a valley with me?

I’ve been thinking of myself, not Durc. It would not be better for him to come here. It would not make him happy. It would only make me happy. But I am not Durc’s mother any more. Uba is his mother. I am nothing to him but a memory of a mother who died, and maybe it’s better that way. The Clan is his world, and like it or not, this is my world. I cannot go back to the Clan; Durc cannot come here. There is no place in this world where my son and I can live together, and be happy.

Ayla woke early the next morning. Even after she did finally go to sleep, she did not sleep well. She woke often from dreams of shaking earth and crumbling caves, and felt uneasy and depressed. She helped Nezzie heat water for soup and grind grains for a morning meal, and was glad for the opportunity to talk with her.

“I feel terrible about all the trouble I’ve caused, Nezzie. The whole Lion Camp is being shunned because of me,” Ayla said.

“Don’t even say that. It’s not your fault, Ayla. We had a choice, and we made it. You were only defending Rydag, and he is a member of Lion Camp, too, at least to us.”

“All this trouble has made me realize something,” Ayla continued. “Ever since I left the Clan, I’ve always thought about going back to get my son someday. Now I know I never can. I can’t bring him here, and I can’t go back there. But knowing that I’ll never see him makes me feel that I just lost him all over again. I wish I could cry, grieve for him, mourn for him, but I just feel dry and empty.”

Nezzie was sorting through yesterday’s fresh-picked berries and pulling off the stems. She stopped and gave Ayla a level gaze. “Everyone suffers disappointments in life. Everyone loses loved ones. Some are real tragedies You lost your people when you were young. That was a tragedy, but there was nothing you could do about it. It’s worse if you blame yourself. Wymez lives every day of his life blaming himself for the death of the woman he loved. I think Jondalar blames himself for his brother’s death. You’ve lost a son. It is hard for a mother to lose a child, but you do have something. You know he is probably still alive. Rydag lost his mother … someday I will lose him.”

After breakfast, Ayla went out. Most people were staying around Cattail Camp. She looked toward the center of the Meeting, then at Larch Camp, the newly set up summer home of the Mammoth Camp. She was surprised to see Avarie looking across at her. She wondered how they felt today about setting up the Camp so close to Lion Camp.

Avarie went to the tent her brother had designated as the Mammoth Hearth, scratched on the leather, then without waiting for a response, went in. Vincavec had spread his fur bedroll out so that it took up almost half the floor space. In the middle was a backrest, an ornately decorated hide stretched across a mammoth bone frame that had been lashed together with rawhide. He was sitting up on his furs, lounging against the backrest.

“The feelings are mixed,” she said without preamble.

“I can imagine,” Vincavec replied. “Lion Camp worked hard with us putting up the lodge. By the time they left, everyone was feeling more than friendly toward them. And Ayla with her horses and wolf was fascinating—and a little awe-inspiring. But now, if old stories and customs are to be believed, Lion Camp is sheltering an abomination, a woman of unbridled evil, who draws animal flathead spirits to her like a fire draws moths at night, and spreads them around to the other women. What do you think, Avarie?”

“I don’t know, Vincavec. I like Ayla, and she doesn’t seem like an evil person to me. The boy doesn’t seem like an animal, either. He’s just weak and can’t talk, but I do believe he understands. Maybe he is human, and maybe the other flatheads are, too. Maybe the old Mamut is right. The Mother just chose a spirit from the only men near Ayla when She gave her a baby. I didn’t know she lived with a pack of flatheads once, though, or that the old man did.”

“That old man has lived so many years, he’s forgotten more things than a double handful of younger men have ever learned, and he’s often right. I have a feeling about this, Avarie. I don’t think it will have lasting bad effects. There is something about Ayla that makes me think the Mother watches out for her. I think she may come out of this more powerful than she was before. Let’s find out how Mammoth Camp feels about siding with Lion Camp.”

* * *