The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children 4)

"There used to be quite a few on the other side of the river," Barono said.

"What happened to them?" Ayla asked.

The people in the boat were suddenly embarrassed, looking down and away. Finally Markeno said, "After Doraldo died, Dolando got a lot of people together and ... went after them. After a while, most of them ... were gone ... I guess they went away."

"Show that to me again," Roshario said, wishing she could try it with her own hands. Ayla had put the birchbark cast on her arm that morning. Though it was not quite dry, the strong, lightweight material was already rigid enough to hold the arm securely, and Roshario was enjoying the greater mobility it allowed her, but Ayla did not want her to attempt to use the hand yet.

They were sitting with Tholie out in the sun amidst several soft chamois hides. Ayla had her sewing case out and was showing them the thread-puller she had developed with the help of the Lion Camp.

"First you have to cut holes with an awl into both pieces of the leather you want to sew together," Ayla said.

"The way we always do," Tholie said.

"But you use this to pull the thread through the holes. The thread goes through this tiny hole at the back end, then when you put the point into the cuts in the leather, it pulls the thread with it through both pieces that you want to join together." A thought occurred to Ayla as she was demonstrating the ivory needle. If it was sharp enough, I wonder if the thread-puller could make the hole, too? Leather can be tough, though.

"Let me see it," Tholie said. "How do you get the thread through the hole?"

"Like this, see?" Ayla said, showing her, then gave it back. Tholie tried a few stitches.

"This is so easy!" she said. "You could almost do it with one hand."

Roshario, watching closely, thought Tholie might be right. Though she couldn't use her broken arm, if she could use her hand just to hold the pieces together, with a thread-puller like that, she might be able to sew with her good hand. "I never saw anything like that. Whatever made you think of it?" Roshario asked.

"I don't know," Ayla said. "It was just an idea I had when I was having trouble trying to sew something, but a lot of people helped. I think the hardest part was making a drill out of flint small enough to make the tiny hole at the end. Jondalar and Wymez worked on that."

"Wymez is Lion Camp's flint knapper," Tholie explained to Roshario. "I understand he is very good."

"I know Jondalar is," Roshario said. "He worked out so many improvements on the tools we use to make boats that everyone was raving about him. Just little things, but it made a big difference. He was teaching Darvo before he left. Jondalar's good at teaching youngsters. Maybe he'll be able to show him more."

"Jondalar said he learned much from Wymez," Ayla said.

"That may be, but you both seem to be good at thinking up better ways to do things," Tholie said. "This thread-puller of yours is going to make sewing a lot easier. Even when you know how, it's always hard to push a thread through holes with an awl, and that spear-thrower of Jondalar's has everyone excited. When you showed how good you are with it, you made people think that anyone could do it, though I don't think it's as easy as you made it seem. I think you must have practiced more than a little."

Jondalar and Ayla had demonstrated the spear-thrower. It took a great deal of skill and patience to get close enough to a chamois to make a kill, and when the Shamudoi hunters saw how far a spear could be thrown with it, they were eager to try it on the elusive mountain antelopes. Several of the Ramudoi sturgeon hunters were so enthusiastic about it that they decided to adapt a harpoon to it, to see how it would work. In the discussion, Jondalar brought up his idea of a spear in two parts, with a long back shaft fletched with two or three feathers, and a smaller detachable front end tipped with a point. The potential was immediately understood, and several approaches were tried by both groups over the next few days.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the far end of the field. The three women looked up and saw several people hauling up the supply basket. Some youngsters were running toward them.

"They caught one! They caught one with the harpoon-thrower!" Darvalo shouted as he approached the women. "And it's a female!"

"Let's go see!" Tholie said.

"You go ahead. I'll catch up as soon as I put my thread-puller away."

"I'll wait for you, Ayla," Roshario said.

By the time they joined the others, the first part of the sturgeon had been unloaded and the basket sent down again. It was a huge fish, too much to bring up at one time, but the best part had gone up first: nearly two hundred pounds of tiny black sturgeon eggs. It seemed propitious that the large female was the result of the first sturgeon hunt with the new weapon developed from Jondalar's spear-thrower.

Fish-drying racks were brought out to the end of the field, and most of the people there were beginning to cut the great fish into small pieces. The great mass of caviar, however, was brought back to the living area. It was Roshario's responsibility to oversee its distribution. She asked Ayla and Tholie to help her, and she dished out some for all of them to taste.

"I haven't eaten this in years!" Ayla said, taking another bite. "It's always best when it's fresh from the fish, and there's so much."

"And a good thing, too, or we wouldn't get to eat much of it," Tholie said.

"Why not?" Ayla asked.

"Because sturgeon roe is one of the things we use to make the chamois skin so soft," Tholie said. "Most of it is used for that."

"I'd like to see how you make that skin so soft sometime," Ayla said. "I have always liked to work with leather and furs. When I lived with the Lion Camp, I learned how to color skins and made a really red one, and Crozie showed me how to make white leather. I like your yellow color, too."