The Mammoth Hunters Read online

  “I’m surprised, as fast as you’ve been learning Mamutoi! I can watch you. Every day you’re better. I wish I had your gift for language.”

  “I am still not right. Many words I do not know, but I think of speaking words in Clan way of language. I listen to words and watch how face looks, feel how words sound and go together and see how body moves … and try to remember. When I show Rydag, and others, hand signs, I learn, too. I learn your language, more. I must learn, Deegie,” Ayla added with a fervor that bespoke her earnestness.

  “It isn’t just a game for you, is it? Like the hand signs are for us. It’s fun to think that we can go to the Summer Meeting and speak to each other without anyone else knowing it.”

  “I am happy everyone has fun and wants to know more. For Rydag. He has fun now, but is not a game for him.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it is.” They reached for the waterskin again, then Deegie stopped and looked at Ayla. “I couldn’t understand why Nezzie wanted to keep him, at first. But then I got used to him, and grew to like him. Now he’s just one of us, and I’d miss him if he wasn’t here, but it never occurred to me before that he might want to talk. I didn’t think he ever gave it a thought.”

  Jondalar stood at the entrance of the earthlodge watching the two young women deeply involved in conversation as they approached, pleased to see Ayla getting along so well. When he thought about it, it seemed rather amazing that of all the people they might have met up with, the one group they found had a child of mixed spirits in their midst and so was more willing than most would probably have been to accept her. He’d been right about one thing, though. Ayla didn’t hesitate to tell anyone about her background.

  Well, at least she hadn’t told them about her son, he thought. It was one thing for a person like Nezzie to open her heart to an orphan, it was quite another to welcome a woman whose spirit had mingled with a flathead’s, and who’d given birth to an abomination. There was always an underlying fear that it might happen again, and if she drew the wrong kind of spirits to her, they might spread to other women nearby.

  Suddenly the tall handsome man flushed. Ayla doesn’t think her son is an abomination, he thought, mortified. He had flinched with disgust when she first told him about her son, and she had been furious. He had never seen her so angry, but her son was her son, and she certainly felt no shame over him. She’s right. Doni told me in a dream. Flatheads … the Clan … are children of the Mother, too. Look at Rydag. He’s a lot brighter than I ever imagined one like him would be. He’s a little different, but he’s human, and very likable.

  Jondalar had spent some time with the youngster and discovered how intelligent and mature he was, even to a certain wry wit, particularly when his difference or his weakness was mentioned. He had seen the adoration in Rydag’s eyes every time the boy looked at Ayla. She had told him that boys of Rydag’s age were closer to manhood in the Clan, more like Danug, but it was also true that his weakness might have matured him beyond his years.

  She’s right. I know she’s right about them. But if she just wouldn’t talk about them. It would be so much easier. No one would even know if she didn’t tell them.…

  She thinks of them as her people, Jondalar, he chided himself, feeling his face heat again, angry at his own thoughts. How would you feel if someone told you not to talk about the people who raised and took care of you? If she’s not ashamed of them, why should you be? It hasn’t been so bad. Frebec’s a troublemaker anyway. But she doesn’t know how people can turn on you, and on anyone who’s with you.

  Maybe it’s best that she doesn’t know. Maybe it won’t happen. She’s already got most of this Camp talking like flatheads, including me.

  After Jondalar had seen how eagerly nearly everyone wanted to learn the Clan way of communicating, he sat in on the impromptu lessons that seemed to spring up every time someone asked questions about it. He found himself caught up in the fun of the new game, flashing signals across a distance, making silent jokes, such as saying one thing and signing something else behind someone’s back. He was surprised at the depth and the fullness of the silent speech.

  “Jondalar, your face is red. What could you be thinking?” Deegie asked in a teasing tone when they reached the archway.

  The question caught him off guard, reminded him of his shame, and he blushed deeper in his embarrassment. “I must have been too close to the fire,” he mumbled, turning away.

  Why does Jondalar say words that are not true? Ayla wondered, noticing that his forehead was furrowed in a frown and his rich blue eyes were deeply troubled before he averted them. He is not red from fire. He is red from feeling. Just when I think I am beginning to learn, he does something I don’t understand. I watch him, I try to pay attention. Everything seems wonderful, then for no reason, suddenly he’s angry. I can see that he’s angry, but I can’t see what makes him angry. It’s like the games, saying one thing with words and another with signs. Like when he says nice words to Ranec, but his body says he’s angry. Why does Ranec make him angry? And now, something bothers him, but he says fire makes him hot. What am I doing wrong? Why don’t I understand him? Will I ever learn?

  The three of them turned to go in and almost bumped into Talut coming out of the earthlodge.

  “I was coming to look for you, Jondalar,” the headman said. “I don’t want to waste such a good day, and Wymez did some unplanned scouting on the way back. He says they passed a winter herd of bison. After we eat, we’re going to hunt them. Would you like to join us?”

  “Yes. I would!” Jondalar said with a big smile.

  “I asked Mamut to feel the weather and Search for the herd. He says the signs are good, and the herd hasn’t wandered far. He said something else, too, which I don’t understand. He said, ‘The way out is also the way in.’ Can you make anything of that?”

  “No, but that’s not unusual. Those Who Serve the Mother often say things I don’t understand.” Jondalar smiled. “They speak with shadows on their tongues.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if they know what they mean,” Talut said.

  “If we are going to hunt, I’d like to show you something that could be helpful.” Jondalar led them to their sleeping platform in the Mammoth Hearth. He picked up a handful of lightweight spears and an implement that was unfamiliar to Talut. “I worked this out in Ayla’s valley, and we’ve been hunting with it ever since.”

  Ayla stood back, watching, feeling an awful tension building up inside. She wanted desperately to be included, but she was not sure how these people felt about women hunting. Hunting had been the cause of great anguish for her in the past. Women of the Clan were forbidden to hunt or even to touch hunting weapons, but she had taught herself to use a sling in spite of the taboo and the punishment had been severe when she was found out. After she had lived through it, she had even been allowed to hunt on a limited basis to appease her powerful totem who had protected her. But her hunting had been just one more reason for Broud to hate her and, ultimately, it contributed to her banishment.

  Yet, hunting with her sling had increased her chances when she lived alone in the valley, and gave her the incentive and encouragement to expand on her ability. Ayla had survived because the skills she had learned as a woman of the Clan, and her own intelligence and courage, gave her the ability to take care of herself. But hunting had come to symbolize for her more than the security of depending on and being responsible for herself; it stood for the independence and freedom that were the natural result. She would not easily give it up.

  “Ayla, why don’t you get your spear-thrower, too,” Jondalar said, then turned back to Talut. “I’ve got more power, but Ayla is more accurate than I am, she can show you what this can do better than I can. In fact, if you want to see a demonstration of accuracy, you ought to see her with a sling. I think her skill with it gives her an advantage with these.”

  Ayla let out her breath—she didn’t know she had been holding it—and went to get her spear-thrower and spears while Jondal
ar was talking to Talut. It was still hard to believe how easily this man of the Others had accepted her desire and ability to hunt, and how naturally he spoke in praise of her skill. He seemed to assume that Talut and the Lion Camp would accept her hunting, too. She glanced at Deegie, wondering how a woman would feel.

  “You ought to let Mother know if you are going to try a new weapon on the hunt, Talut. You know she’ll want to see it, too,” Deegie said. “I might as well get my spears and packboards out now. And a tent, we’ll probably be gone overnight.”

  After breakfast, Talut motioned to Wymez and squatted down by an area of soft dirt near one of the smaller fireplaces in the cooking hearth, well lit by light coming in through the smoke hole. Stuck in the ground near the edge was an implement made from a leg bone of a deer. It was shaped like a knife or a tapered dagger, with a straight dull edge leading from the knee joint to a point. Holding it by the knob of the joint, Talut smoothed the dirt with the flat edge, then, shifting it, began to draw marks and lines on the level surface with the point. Several people gathered around.

  “Wymez said he saw the bison not far from the three large outcrops to the northeast, near the tributary of the small river that empties upstream,” the headman began, explaining as he drew a rough map of the region with the drawing knife.

  Talut’s map wasn’t so much an approximate visual reproduction as a schematic drawing. It wasn’t necessary to accurately depict the location. The people of the Lion Camp were familiar with their region and his drawing was no more than a mnemonic aid to remind them of a place they knew. It consisted of conventionalized marks and lines that represented landmarks or ideas that were understood.

  His map did not show the route which the water took across the land; their perspective was not from-such a bird’s-eye view. He drew herringbone zigzag lines to indicate the river, and attached them to both sides of a straight line, to show a tributary. At the ground level of their open flat landscape, rivers were bodies of water, which sometimes joined.

  They knew where the rivers came from and where they led, and that rivers could be followed to certain destinations, but so could other landmarks, and a rock outcrop was less likely to change. In a land that was so close to a glacier, yet subject to the seasonal changes of lower latitudes, ice and permafrost—ground that was permanently frozen—caused drastic alterations of the landscape. Except for the largest of them, the deluge of glacial runoff could change the course of a river from one season to the next as easily as the ice hill pingos of winter melted into the bogs of summer. The mammoth hunters conceived of their physical terrain as an interrelated whole in which rivers were only an element.

  Neither did Talut conceive of drawing lines to scale to show the length of a river or trail in miles or paces. Such linear measures had little meaning. They understood distance not in terms of how far away a place was but how long it would take to get there, and that was better shown by a series of lines telling the number of days, or some other markings of number or time. Even then, a place might be more distant for some people than for others, or the same place might be farther away at one season than another because it took longer to travel to it. The distance traveled by the entire Camp was measured by the length of time it took the slowest. Talut’s map was perfectly clear to the members of the Lion Camp, but Ayla watched with puzzled fascination.

  “Wymez, tell me where they were,” Talut said.

  “On the south side of the tributary,” Wymez replied, taking the bone drawing knife and adding some additional lines. “It’s rocky, with steep outcrops, but the floodplain is wide.”

  “If they keep going upstream, there are not many outlets along that side,” Tulie said.

  “Mamut, what do you think?” Talut asked. “You said they haven’t wandered far off.”

  The old shaman picked up the drawing knife, and paused for a moment with his eyes closed. “There is a stream that comes in, between the second and last outcrop,” he said as he drew. “They will likely move that way, thinking it will lead out.”

  “I know the place!” Talut said. “If you follow it upstream, the floodplain narrows and then is hemmed in by steep rock. It’s a good place to trap them. How many are there?”

  Wymez took the drawing tool and drew several lines along the edge, hesitated, then added one more. “I saw that many, that I can say for certain,” he said, stabbing the bone drawing knife in the dirt.

  Tulie picked up the marking bone and added three more. “I saw those straggling behind, one seemed quite young, or perhaps it was weak.”

  Danug picked up the marker and added one more line. “It was a twin, I think. I saw another straggling. Did you see two, Deegie?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “She only had eyes for Branag,” Wymez said, with a gentle smile.

  “That place is about half a day from here, isn’t it?” Talut asked.

  Wymez nodded. “Half a day, at a good pace.”

  “We should start out right away then.” The headman paused, thoughtfully. “It’s been some time since I’ve been there. I’d like to know the lay of the land. I wonder …

  “Someone willing to run could get there faster and scout it, then meet us on the way back,” Tulie said, guessing what her brother was thinking.

  “That’s a long run …” Talut said, and glanced at Danug. The tall, gangly youth was about to speak up, but Ayla spoke first.

  “That is not long run for horse. Horse runs fast. I could go on Whinney … but I do not know place,” she said.

  Talut looked surprised at first, then smiled broadly. “I could give you a map! Like this one,” he said, pointing at the drawing on the ground. He looked around and spied a cast-off flake of broken ivory near the bone fuel pile, then pulled out his sharp flint knife. “Look, you go north until you reach the big stream.” He began incising zigzag lines to indicate water. “There is a smaller one you have to cross first. Don’t let it confuse you.”

  Ayla frowned. “I do not understand map,” she said. “I not see map before.”

  Talut looked disappointed, and dropped the ivory scrap back on the pile.

  “Couldn’t someone go with her?” Jondalar suggested. “The horse can take two. I’ve ridden double with her.”

  Talut was smiling again. “That’s a good idea! Who wants to go?”

  “I’ll go! I know the way,” a voice called out, followed quickly by a second. “I know the way. I just came from there.” Latie and Danug had both spoken up, and several others looked ready to.

  Talut looked from one to the other, then shrugged his shoulders, holding out both hands, and turned to Ayla. “The choice is yours.”

  Ayla looked at the youth, nearly as tall as Jondalar, with red hair the color of Talut’s, and the pale fuzz of a beginning beard. Then at the tall, thin girl, not quite a woman but getting close, with dark blond hair a shade or two lighter than Nezzie’s. There was earnest hope in both sets of eyes. She didn’t know which one to choose. Danug was nearly a man. She thought she ought to take him, but something about Latie reminded Ayla of herself, and she remembered the look of longing she had seen on the girl’s face the first time Latie saw the horses.

  “I think Whinney go faster if not too much weight. Danug is man,” Ayla said, giving him a big, warm smile. “I think Latie better this time.”

  Danug nodded, looking flustered, and backed off, trying to find a way to deal with the sudden flush of mixed emotions that had unexpectedly overwhelmed him. He was sorely disappointed that Latie was chosen, but Ayla’s dazzling smile when she called him a man had caused the blood to rush to his face and his heart to beat faster—and an embarrassing tightening in his loins.

  Latie rushed to change into the warm, lightweight reindeer skins she wore for traveling, packed her haversack, added the food and waterbag Nezzie prepared for her, and was outside and ready to go before Ayla was dressed. She watched while Jondalar helped Ayla fasten the side basket panniers on Whinney with the harness arrangement she had d
evised. Ayla put the traveling food Nezzie gave her, along with water, in one basket on top of her other things, and took Latie’s haversack and put it in the other carrier. Then, holding onto Whinney’s mane, Ayla made a quick leap and was astride her back. Jondalar helped the girl up. Sitting in front of Ayla, Latie looked down at the people of her Camp from the back of the dun yellow horse, her eyes brimming with happiness.

  Danug approached them, a little shyly, and handed Latie the broken flake of ivory. “Here, I finished the map Talut started, to make the place easier to find,” he said.

  “Oh, Danug. Thank you!” Latie said, and grabbed him around the neck to give him a hug.

  “Yes. Thank you, Danug,” Ayla said, smiling her heart-pounding smile at him.

  Danug’s face turned almost as red as his hair. As the woman and the girl started up the slope on the back of the mare, he waved at them, his palm facing him in a “comeback” motion.

  Jondalar, with one arm around the arched neck of the young horse, who was straining after them with his head raised and nose in the air, put his other arm around the young man’s shoulder. “That was very nice of you. I know you wanted to go. I’m sure you’ll be able to ride the horse another time.” Danug just nodded. He wasn’t exactly thinking of riding a horse at that moment.

  Once they reached the steppes, Ayla signaled the horse with subtle pressures and body movements, and Whinney broke into a fast run, heading north. The ground blurred with motion beneath flying hooves, and Latie could hardly believe she was racing across the steppes on the back of a horse. She had smiled with elation when they started out, and it still lingered, though sometimes she closed her eyes and strained forward just to feel the wind in her face. She was exhilarated beyond description; she had never even dreamed anything could be so exciting.

  The rest of the hunters followed behind them not long after they left. Everyone who was able and wanted to go went along. The Lion Hearth contributed three hunters. Latie was young and only recently allowed to join Talut and Danug. She was always eager to go, as her mother had been when she was younger, but Nezzie did not often accompany hunters now. She stayed to take care of Rugie and Rydag, and help watch other young children. She had not gone on many hunts since she took in Rydag.