The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children 6)

rm the identity. She had made a thick infusion along with licorice root for coughs, and Iza had used it to soothe inflamed eyes. One Mamut at the Mamutoi Summer Meeting had recommended ground ivy for humming noises in the ears, and for wounds.

The damp ground led to a marshy area and a small stream, and Ayla was delighted to see an extensive stand of cattails, a tall reed-like plant six feet or more in height and among the most useful of all plants. In spring, the young shoots of new roots could be pulled loose from the rootstalk, exposing a tender young core; the new shoots and the core could be eaten raw or cooked lightly. Summer was the season for the green flower stalks growing at the top of the tall stems, which when boiled and gnawed off the stem were deliciously edible. Later they would turn into brown cattails, and the long pollen spike above each cattail would ripen, making the protein-rich yellow pollen available for harvesting. Then the cattail would burst into tufts of white down, which could be used as stuffing for pillows, pads, or diapers, or as tinder for starting fires. Summer was also the season when the tender white sprouts that represented next year’s plant growth were growing out of the thick underground rhizome, and with such a large concentration, gathering a few would not harm next year’s crop.

The fibrous rootstalk was available all year, even in winter if the ground wasn’t frozen or covered with snow. A white, starchy flour could be extracted by pounding it in a shallow, wide bark container of water so that the heavier flour would settle to the bottom while the fibers floated, or the rhizome could be dried and later pounded to remove the fibers, leaving the dry flour. The long, narrow leaves could be woven into mats for sitting upon or could be turned into envelope-like pouches, or waterproof panels, several of which could be made into a temporary shelter, or into baskets or cooking bags that could be filled with roots, stalks, leaves, or fruits, lowered into boiling water, and easily retrieved, and if they cooked long enough, the leaves could also be eaten. The dried stalk from the previous year’s growth could be used as a fire drill when spun between the palms against a suitable platform to make fire.

Ayla put her gathering basket down on dry ground, pulled her digging stick, which was made from an antler of a red deer, out of her waist band, and waded into the marsh. With the stick and her hands she dug down through the mud about four inches and pulled out the long rootstalks of several plants. The rest of the plant came with, including the large sprouts attached to the rhizome, and the six-inch-long, nearly inch-thick, cattail-shaped green flower-seed heads, both of which she was planning to cook for their evening meal. She wrapped some cordage around the long cattail stalks, making a bundle that was more easily managed, and headed back to the open field.

She passed an ash tree along the way, and she recalled how prevalent they had been near the home of the Sharamudoi, athough there were a few in Wood Valley. She thought about preparing the ash keys the way the Sharamudoi did, but the winged fruit had to be picked when very young, crisp but not stringy, and these were already past their prime. The tree had many medicinal uses, though.

When she returned to the meadow, she was immediately alarmed. Wolf was standing near her baby, staring at some high grass, making a low, menacing growl. Was something wrong?

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She hurried to find out. When she reached them, she saw that Jonayla was awake and oblivious to the danger the canine seemed to sense, but she had somehow turned herself over from her back to her stomach and was holding herself up on her arms looking around.

Ayla couldn’t see what Wolf was looking at, but she heard movement and snuffling sounds. She put down her collecting basket and the bundle of cattails, picked up her baby, and put her on her back with the carrrying blanket. Then she loosened the ties and reached into the special pouch for a couple of stones as she pulled her sling off her head. She couldn’t see what was there; no point in using a spear if there was nothing to aim at, but a stone flung hard in the general direction might scare it off.

She cast one stone, followed quickly by another. The second hit something with a thump and a yelp. She heard something moving in the grass. Wolf was straining forward, whining softly, eager to go.

“Go ahead, Wolf,” she said, making the signal at the same time.

Wolf dashed ahead while Ayla quickly wrapped her sling back around her head, then took her spear-thrower out of its holder, and reached for a spear as she followed behind.

When Ayla reached Wolf, he was facing off with an animal the size of a bear cub, but much more fierce. The dark brown fur with a lighter band that ran along its flanks to the upperside of its bushy tail was the distinctive marking of a wolverine. She had dealt with this largest of the weasel family before, and had seen them drive bigger four-legged hunters away from their own kills. They were nasty, vicious, and fearless predators that often hunted and killed animals much larger than themselves. They could eat more than looked possible for a creature their size, which probably accounted for their other name, “glutton,” yet sometimes, it seemed, they slaughtered for pleasure, not hunger, leaving behind what they killed. Wolf was more than ready to defend her and Jonayla, but in any fight a wolverine could inflict serious injury, or worse, if not on a pack, certainly on a solitary wolf. But he wasn’t a lone wolf; Ayla was part of Wolf’s pack.

With cool deliberation, she fitted a spear onto her thrower, and without hesitation hurled it at the animal, but Jonayla made a crying sound that alerted the wolverine. The creature had seen the woman’s swift movement at the last moment, and started to scurry away. It might well have dashed out of her line of fire entirely if it hadn’t been distracted by having to watch the wolf. As it was, it moved enough that her spear missed its mark slightly. Though the animal was hurt and bleeding, the sharp tip had only penetrated the hind quarters, which was not immediately fatal. The flint point of her spear was attached to a short, tapering length of wood that fit into the front of a longer shaft, and had separated from the long end of the spear as it was supposed to.

The wolverine ran for cover in the wooded underbrush with the point still embedded in him. Ayla could not leave the injured animal. Though she thought it was mortally wounded, she needed to finish it. It was probably hurting and she didn’t want anything to hurt unnecessarily. Besides, wolverines were bad enough under normal circumstances—who knew what kind of damage it might inflict if it was frantic with pain, perhaps to their own camp, which wasn’t so far away. In addition, she wanted to retrieve her shaped flint point, to see if it was still usable. And she wanted the fur. She took out another spear, noting where the shaft of the first lay so she could come back for it.

“Find him, Wolf!” she signaled without saying the words, and followed behind.

Wolf, running in front, quickly sniffed out the animal. Not far ahead, Ayla found the canine snarling threateningly at a mass of dark brown fur snarling back from within a coppice of bushes.

Ayla quickly studied the position of the animal, then flung her second spear, hard. It pierced deeply, going all the way through the neck. A spurt of blood declared that an artery was severed. The wolverine stopped snarling and dropped to the ground.

Ayla disengaged the second spear shaft and considered dragging the wolverine back by its tail, but the nap of the fur lay in the other direction and pulling with the grain rather than against it would make it easier to tow the animal across the grass. Then she noticed more wood avens with their strong, wiry stems growing nearby, and yanked them out by the roots. She wrapped the stems around the head and jaws, and hauled the wolverine back to the clearing, stopping to pick up her first spear shaft on the way.

When she reached the place where she had left her gathering basket, Ayla was shaking. She dropped the animal a few feet away, loosened the carrying blanket, and shifted Jonayla around to the front. She hugged her daughter as tears rolled down her cheeks, finally letting her fear and anger out. She was sure the wolverine had been after her baby.

Even with Wolf on guard—and she knew he would have fought to his death for her—the large, vicious weasel could have hurt the healthy young canine, and attacked her child. There were very few animals that would go up against a wolf, especially one as big as Wolf. Most large cats would have backed off, or just passed them by, and those were the predators that were most on her mind. That was the only reason she had left Jonayla, not wanting to disturb her sleeping infant while she went to gather a few greens. After all, Wolf was watching her. Jonayla wasn’t out of her sight more than a few moments, just when she was in the marsh getting the cattails. But she hadn’t considered a wolverine. She shook her head. There was always more than one kind of predator around.

She nursed the baby for a while, as much to comfort herself as the child, and praised Wolf, petting him with her other hand and talking to him.

“Right now I have to skin out that wolverine. I would rather have killed something we could eat, though I suppose you could eat him, Wolf, but I do want that fur. It’s the one thing wolverines are good for. They are mean and vicious and steal food from traps and when meat is drying, even if people are around. If they get inside a shelter, they destroy everything they can and make a big stink, but their fur makes the best trim around a winter hood. Ice doesn’t cling to it when you breathe. I think I’ll make a hood for Jonayla, and a new one for me, and maybe Jondalar, too. But you don’t need one, Wolf. Ice doesn’t cling much to your fur, either. Besides, you’d look funny with wolverine fur around your head.”

Ayla recalled the wolverine that had been bothering the women of Brun’s clan when they were cutting up an animal from a hunt. It kept dashing into their midst and stealing the freshly cut strips of meat they had set out to dry on cords stretched close to the ground. Even when they threw stones, it wasn’t deterred for long. Finally some of the men had to go after it. That incident had given her one of the reasons she had used to rationalize her decision when she resolved she would teach herself to hunt with the sling she had secretly learned to use.

Ayla put her baby down on the soft buckskin carrying blanket again, this time on her stomach, since she seemed to li

ke pushing up and looking around. Then she dragged the wolverine carcass a few more paces away and turned it on its back. First she cut out the two flint points that were still embedded in the animal. The one stuck in the hindquarters was still good—she would only need to wash off the blood—but the one she had thrown with such force that it went clear through the neck had a broken tip. She could resharpen it and use it for a knife if not a spear point, but Jondalar could do it better, she thought.

With the new knife he had recently given her, she turned to the wolverine. Starting at the anus, she cut away his genital organs and made a deft cut up toward the stomach but stopped short of the ventral scent gland. One of the ways wolverines marked their territory was to straddle low logs or bushes and rub the strong-smelling material that issued from the gland on them. They also marked territory with urine and feces, but it was the gland that could ruin the fur. It was almost impossible to get the smell out and unbearable to wear the fur around the face if it was contaminated by the gland, whose smell was almost as strong as a skunk’s.

Carefully pulling the skin away to avoid cutting through the stomach lining and breaking into the intestines, she cut all the way around the gland, then gingerly feeling with her hand, reached under it with the knife and cut it free. She was going to just toss it toward the woods, then realized that Wolf would likely pick up the odor and go after it, and she didn’t want him smelling terrible either. She cautiously picked it up by the edge of the skin and walked back toward the woods where she had killed the creature. There was a fork in a tree above her head and she laid the gland on top of a branch. When she came back, she finished cutting through the skin, making a slit up the stomach to the throat.

Next she went back to where she started, at the anus, and began to slice through both skin and flesh. When she got to the pelvic bone, she felt for the ridge that was between the left and right sides, and cut through the muscle down to the bone. Then forcing the legs apart and again feeling for just the right spot, she exerted more pressure, and split the bone, cutting the stomach membrane just a bit to relieve tension. Now the bowel could be removed with the rest of the innards after she finished cutting the opening. Once this delicate task was accomplished cleanly, she cut the meat up to the breastbone, being careful not to penetrate the intestines.

Cutting through the breastbone would be somewhat more difficult, and would require more than just her stone knife. She needed a hammer. She knew she had a small hammerstone in the same pouch in which she kept her bowl and cup, but she looked around first to see if she could find something else to use. She should have taken the rounded stone out before she started the task of field-dressing the wolverine, but she had been a little disconcerted and forgot. She had some blood on her hands and didn’t want to reach into her pouch and leave wolverine blood inside. She saw a stone sticking out of the ground and, using her digging stick, tried to pry it out, but it turned out to be bigger than it seemed. Finally, she wiped her hand on the grass and removed the hammerstone from her pouch.