Earth's Children [02] The Valley of Horses Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE BESTSELLING CLASSIC

  The Valley of Horses

  “Auel may be creating one of the most believable characters in English fiction—one to rank with Sherlock Holmes, Scarlett O’Hara and a handful of others.”

  —UPI

  “A powerful story … Auel is a highly imaginative writer. She humanizes prehistory and gives it immediacy and clarity.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Ayla is an unforgettable heroine of fierce courage, determination, and sensitivity. A wonderful, exciting story.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Entertaining and provocative … A kind of prehistoric romance replete with graphic descriptions of Ayla’s awakening sexual interest … An old love story in a totally unpredictable and delightfully drawn setting.”

  —Chicago Tribune Book World

  “A fascinating and original novel.”

  —Los Angeles Herald Examiner

  “Auel makes a plot come alive.… She writes with innocent sensuousness, good humor, and compassion.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  This eBook version of THE VALLEY OF HORSES contains bonus content not found in the printed version.

  A Sneak Preview from THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES

  Read an exciting preview from Jean M. Auel’s The Land of Painted Caves, on sale in hardcover in Spring 2011.

  EARTH’S CHILDREN® Series Sampler

  Read excerpts from each of the novels in the Earth’s Children® series.

  Q&A with Jean M. Auel

  In this special Q&A, Jean M. Auel discusses her bestselling Earth’s Children® series.

  This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  THE VALLEY OF HORSES

  A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Crown Publishers

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Crown edition published September 1982

  A Featured Alternate Selection of The Literary Guild / January 1983

  Bantam edition / September 1983

  Bantam reissue / November 1991

  Bantam reissue / March 2002

  EARTH’S CHILDREN is a trademark of Jean M. Auel

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1982 by Jean M. Auel

  Excerpt from The Land of Painted Caves copyright 2010 by Jean M. Auel.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-005123.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Crown Publishers, Inc.,

  New York, NY.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76762-2

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Land of Painted Caves. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1_r2

  For KAREN,

  who read the first draft of both,

  and for ASHER

  with Love

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Novels by Jean M. Auel

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Excerpt from The Land of Painted Caves

  Earth’s Children Series Sampler

  An Interview with Jean M. Auel

  About the Author

  Novels by Jean M. Auel

  THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR

  THE VALLEY OF HORSES

  THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS

  THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE

  THE SHELTERS OF STONE

  And the latest novel in the Earth’s Children® series

  THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES

  Acknowledgments

  In addition to the people mentioned in The Clan of the Cave Bear, whose help has been of continuing assistance for this Earth’s Children book, and for which I am still grateful, I am further indebted to:

  The director, Dr. Denzel Ferguson, and staff of Malheur Field Station, in the high desert steppes country of central Oregon, and most especially to Jim Riggs. He taught, among other things, how a fire is made, how a spear-thrower is used, how bulrushes make sleeping mats, how to pressure-flake a stone tool, and how to squish deer brains—who would have thought that could turn deer hide into velvety soft leather?

  Doreen Gandy, for her careful reading and most appreciated comments so I could be assured this book stands alone.

  Ray Auel, for support, encouragement, assistance, and doing the dishes.

  “Venus” of Lespugue. Ivory restored). Height 14.7 cm/5¾ in. Found Lespugue (Haute-Garonne), France. Musée de l’Homme, Paris.

  “Venus” of Willendorf. Limestone with traces of red ochre. Height 11 cm/4 in. Found Willendorf, Wachau, Lower Austria. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna.

  “Venus” of Vestonice. Fired clay (with bone). Height 11.4 cm/4½ in. Found Dolni Vestonice, Mikulov, Moravia, Czechoslovakia. Moravian Museum, Brno.

  Female Figurine. Ivory. Height 5.8 cm/2¼ in. Found Gagarino, Ukraine, USSR. Ethnographic Institute, Leningrad.

  Lady of Brassempouy. Ivory (fragment). Height 3.2 cm/1¼ in. Found Grotte du Pape, Brassempouy (Landes), France. Musée des Antiquites Nationales, Saint-Germain-en-laye.

  1

  She was dead. What did it matter if icy needles of freezing rain flayed her skin raw. The young woman squinted into the wind, pulling her wolverine hood closer. Violent gusts whipped her bearskin wrap against her legs.

  Were those trees ahead? She thought she remembered seeing a scraggly row of woody vegetation on the horizon earlier, and wished she had paid more attention, or that her memory was as good as that of the rest of the Clan. She still thought of herself as Clan, though she never had been, and now she was dead.

  She bowed her head and leaned into the wind. The storm had come upon her suddenly, hurtling down from the north, and she was desperate for shelter. But she was a long way from the cave, and unfamiliar with the territory. The moon had gone through a full cycle of phases since she left, but she still had no idea where she was going.

  North, to the mainland beyond the peninsula, that was all she knew. The night Iza died, she had told her to leave, told her Broud would find a way to hurt her when he became leader. Iza had been right. Broud had hurt her, worse than she ever imagined.

  He had no good reason to take Durc away from me, Ayla thought. He’s my son. Broud had no
good reason to curse me, either. He’s the one who made the spirits angry. He’s the one who brought on the earthquake. At least she knew what to expect this time. But it happened so fast that even the clan had taken a while to accept it, to close her out of their sight. But they couldn’t stop Durc from seeing her, though she was dead to the rest of the clan.

  Broud had cursed her on impulse born of anger. When Brun had cursed her, the first time, he had prepared them. He’d had reason; they knew he had to do it, and he’d given her a chance.

  She raised her head to another icy blast, and noticed it was twilight. It would be dark soon, and her feet were numb. Frigid slush was soaking through her leather foot coverings despite the insulating sedge grass she had stuffed in them. She was relieved to see a dwarfed and twisted pine.

  Trees were rare on the steppes; they grew only where there was moisture enough to sustain them. A double row of pines, birches, or willows, sculptured by wind into stunted asymmetrical shapes, usually marked a watercourse. They were a welcome sight in dry seasons in a land where groundwater was scarce. When storms howled down the open plains from the great northern glacier, they offered protection, scant though it was.

  A few more steps brought the young woman to the edge of a stream, though only a narrow channel of water flowed between the ice-locked banks. She turned west to follow it downstream, looking for denser growth that would give more shelter than the nearby scrub.

  She plodded ahead, her hood pulled forward, but looked up when the wind ceased abruptly. Across the stream a low bluff guarded the opposite bank. The sedge grass did nothing to warm her feet when the icy water seeped in crossing over, but she was grateful to be out of the wind. The dirt wall of the bank had caved in at one place, leaving an overhang thatched with tangled grass roots and matted old growth, and a fairly dry spot beneath.

  She untied the waterlogged thongs that held her carrying basket to her back and shrugged it off, then took out a heavy aurochs hide and a sturdy branch stripped of twigs. She set up a low, sloping tent, held down with rocks and driftwood logs. The branch held it open in front.

  She loosened the thongs of her hand coverings with her teeth. They were roughly circular pieces of fur-lined leather, gathered at the wrist, with a slit cut in the palms to poke her thumb or hand through when she wanted to grasp something. Her foot coverings were made the same way, without the slit, and she struggled to untie the swollen leather laces wrapped around her ankles. She was careful to salvage the wet sedge grass when she removed them.

  She laid her bearskin wrap on the ground inside the tent, wet side down, put the sedge grass and the hand and foot coverings on top, then crawled in feet first. She wrapped the fur around her and pulled the carrying basket up to block the opening. She rubbed her cold feet, and, when her damp fur nest warmed, she curled up and closed her eyes.

  Winter was gasping its last frozen breath, reluctantly giving way to spring, but the youthful season was a capricious flirt. Amid frigid reminders of glacial chill, tantalizing hints of warmth promised summer heat. In an impulsive shift, the storm broke during the night.

  Ayla woke to reflections of a dazzling sun glinting from patches of snow and ice along the banks, and to a sky deep and radiantly blue. Ragged tatters of clouds streamed far to the south. She crawled out of her tent and raced barefoot to the water’s edge with her waterbag. Ignoring the icy cold, she filled the leather-covered bladder, took a deep drink, and ran back. After relieving herself beside the bank, she crawled inside her fur to warm up again.

  She didn’t stay long. She was too eager to be out, now that the danger of the storm had passed and the sunshine beckoned. She wrapped on foot coverings that had been dried by body heat and tied the bearskin over the fur-lined leather wrap she had slept in. She took a piece of dried meat out of the basket, packed the tent and hand coverings, and went on her way, chewing on the meat.

  The stream’s course was fairly straight and slightly downhill, and the going was easy. Ayla hummed a tuneless monotone under her breath. She saw flecks of green on the brush near the banks. An occasional small flower, bravely poking its miniature face through melting patches of snow, made her smile. A chunk of ice broke loose, bumped along beside her for a pace, then raced ahead, carried by the swift current.

  Spring had begun when she left the cave, but it was warmer at the southern end of the peninsula and the season started earlier. The mountain range was a barrier to the harsh glacial winds, and maritime breezes off the inland sea warmed and watered the narrow coastal strip and south-facing slopes into a temperate climate.

  The steppes were colder. She had skirted the eastern end of the range, but, as she traveled northward across the open prairie, the season advanced at the same pace. It never seemed to get warmer than early spring.

  The raucous squeals of terns drew her attention. She glanced up and saw several of the small gull-like birds wheeling and gliding effortlessly with wings outstretched. The sea must be close, she thought. Birds should be nesting now—that means eggs. She stepped up her pace. And maybe mussels on the rocks, and clams, and limpets, and tide pools full of anemones.

  The sun was approaching its zenith when she reached a protected bay formed by the southern coast of the mainland and the northwestern flank of the peninsula. She had finally reached the broad throat connecting the tongue of land to the continent.

  Ayla shrugged off her carrying basket and climbed a craggy outcrop that soared high above the surrounding landscape. Pounding surf had cleaved jagged chunks of the massive rock on the seaward side. A bevy of dovekies and terns scolded with angry squawks when she collected eggs. She broke open several and swallowed them, still warm from the nest. She tucked several more into a fold of her wrap before climbing down.

  She took off her footwear and waded into the surf to wash sand from mussels pried loose from the rock at water level. Flowerlike sea anemones drew in mock petals when she reached to pluck them from the shallow pools left stranded by the receding tide. But these had a color and shape that were unfamiliar. She rounded out her lunch with a few clams instead, dug from the sand where a slight depression gave them away. She used no fire, enjoying her gifts raw from the sea.

  Surfeited on eggs and seafood, the young woman relaxed at the foot of the high rock, then scaled it again to get a better view of the coast and mainland. Hugging her knees, she sat on top of the monolith and looked out across the bay. The wind in her face carried a breath of the rich life within the sea.

  The southern coast of the continent curved in a gentle arc toward the west. Beyond a narrow fringe of trees, she could see a broad land of steppes, no different from the cold prairie of the peninsula, but not a single sign of human habitation.

  There it is, she thought, the mainland beyond the peninsula. Where do I go now, Iza? You said Others were there, but I don’t see anyone at all. As she faced the vast empty land, Ayla’s thoughts drifted back to the dreadful night Iza died, three years before.

  “You are not Clan, Ayla. You were born to the Others; you belong with them. You must leave, child, find your own kind.”

  “Leave! Where would I go, Iza? I don’t know the Others, I wouldn’t know where to look for them.”

  “North, Ayla. Go north. There are many of them north of here, on the mainland beyond the peninsula. You cannot stay here. Broud will find a way to hurt you. Go and find them, my child. Find your own people, find your own mate.”

  She hadn’t left then, she couldn’t. Now, she had no choice. She had to find the Others, there was no one else. She could never go back; she would never see her son again.

  Tears streamed down Ayla’s face. She hadn’t cried before. Her life had been at stake when she left, and grief was a luxury she could not afford. But once the barrier was breached, there was no holding back.

  “Durc … my baby,” she sobbed, burrowing her face in her hands. Why did Broud take you away from me?

  She cried for her son, and for the clan she had left behind; she cried for Iza, the only
mother she could remember; and she cried for her loneliness and fear of the unknown world awaiting her. But not for Creb, who had loved her as his own, not yet. That sorrow was too fresh; she wasn’t ready to face it.

  When the tears had run their course, Ayla found herself staring at the crashing surf far below. She watched the rolling breakers spout up in jets of foam, then swirl around the jagged rocks.

  It would be so easy, she thought.

  No! She shook her head and straightened up. I told him he could take my son away, he could make me leave, he could curse me with death, but he could not make me die!

  She tasted salt, and a wry smile crossed her face. Her tears had always upset Iza and Creb. The eyes of people in the Clan did not water, unless they were sore, not even Durc’s. There was much of her in him, he could even make sounds the way she could, but Durc’s large brown eyes were Clan.

  Ayla climbed down quickly. As she hoisted her carrying basket to her back, she wondered if her eyes were really weak, or if all the Others had watering eyes. Then another thought echoed in her mind: Find your own people, find your own mate.

  The young woman traveled west along the coast, crossing many streams and creeks that found their way to the inland sea, until she reached a rather large river. Then she veered north, following the rushing waterway inland and looking for a place to cross. She passed through the coastal fringe of pine and larch, woods which boasted an occasional giant dominating dwarfed cousins. When she reached the continental steppes, brush of willows, birches, and aspens joined the cramped conifers that edged the river.

  She followed every twist and turn of the meandering course, growing more anxious with each passing day. The river was taking her back east in a general northeasterly direction. She did not want to go east. Some clans hunted the eastern part of the mainland. She had planned to veer west on her northward trek. She did not want to chance meeting anyone who was Clan—not with a death curse on her! She had to find a way to cross the river.