The Mammoth Hunters Read online

  Jondalar took a swallow from one of the small brown waterbags of fermented drink, looked around at the people waiting expectantly, then smiled at Ayla. He’s done this before! she thought, a little surprised, understanding that he was setting the pace and the tone to tell his story. She settled down to listen as well.

  “It is a long story,” he began. People were nodding. That’s what they wanted to hear. “My people live a long way from here, far, far to the west, even beyond the source of the Great Mother River that empties into Beran Sea. We live near a river, too, as you do, but our river flows into the Great Waters of the west.

  “The Zelandonii are a great people. Like you, we are Earth’s Children; the one you call Mut, we call Doni, but She is still the Great Earth Mother. We hunt and trade, and sometimes make long Journeys. My brother and I decided to make such a Journey.” For a moment, Jondalar closed his eyes and his forehead knotted with pain. “Thonolan … my brother … was full of laughter and loved adventure. He was a favorite of the Mother.”

  The pain was too real. Everyone knew it was not an affectation for the sake of the story. Even without his saying so, they guessed the cause. They also had a saying about the Mother taking the ones she favored early. Jondalar hadn’t planned to show his feelings like that. The grief caught him by surprise and left him somewhat embarrassed. But such loss is universally understood. His unintended demonstration drew their sympathy and caused them to feel for him a warmth that went beyond the normal curiosity and courtesy they usually extended to nonthreatening strangers.

  He took a deep breath and tried to pick up the thread of his tale. “The Journey was Thonolan’s in the beginning. I planned to accompany him only a short way, only as far as the home of some relatives, but then I decided to go with him. We crossed over a small glacier, which is the source of Donau—the Great Mother River—and said we would follow her to the end. No one believed we would do it, I’m not sure if we did, but we kept going, crossing many tributaries and meeting many people.

  “Once, during the first summer, we stopped to hunt, and while we were drying the meat, we found ourselves surrounded by men pointing spears at us.…”

  Jondalar had found his stride again, and held the camp enthralled as he recounted his adventures. He was a good storyteller, with a flair for drawing out the suspense. There were nods and murmurs of approval and words of encouragement, often shouts of excitement. Even when they listen, people who speak with words are not silent, Ayla thought.

  She was as fascinated as the rest, but found herself for a moment watching the people who were listening to him. Adults held young children in their laps while the older children sat together watching the charismatic stranger with glistening eyes. Danug, in particular, seemed captured. He was leaning forward, in rapt attention.

  “Thonolan went into the canyon, thinking he was safe with the lioness gone. Then we heard the roar of a lion …”

  “What happened then?” Danug asked.

  “Ayla will have to tell you the rest. I don’t remember much after that.”

  All eyes turned toward her. Ayla was stunned. She didn’t expect it; she had never spoken to a crowd of people before. Jondalar was smiling at her. He’d had the sudden thought that the best way to get her used to talking to people was to make her do it. It wouldn’t be the last time she’d be expected to recount some experience, and with her control over the horses still fresh in everyone’s mind, the story of the lion would be more believable. It was an exciting story, he knew, and one that would add to her mystery—and perhaps, if she satisfied them with this story, she wouldn’t have to bring up her background.

  “What happened, Ayla?” Danug said, still caught up in the tale. Rugie had been feeling shy and reticent around her big brother who had been gone for so long, but remembering former times when they sat around telling stories, she decided at that moment to climb into his lap. He welcomed her with an absentminded smile and hug, but looked at Ayla expectantly.

  Ayla looked around at all the faces turned toward her, tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, though her palms were sweaty.

  “Yes, what happened?” Latie repeated. She was sitting near Danug, with Rydag in her lap.

  The boy’s big brown eyes were filled with excitement. He opened his mouth to ask, too, but no one understood the sound he made—except Ayla. Not the word itself, but its intent. She had heard similar sounds before, had even learned to speak them. The people of the Clan were not mute, but they were limited in their ability to articulate. They had instead evolved a rich and comprehensive sign language to communicate, and used words only for emphasis. She knew the child was asking her to continue the story, and that to him the words had that meaning. Ayla smiled, and directed her words to him.

  “I was with Whinney,” Ayla began. Her way of saying the mare’s name had always been an imitation of the soft nicker of a horse. The people in the lodge didn’t realize she was saying the animal’s name. Instead, they thought it was a wonderful embellishment to the story. They smiled, and spoke words of approval, encouraging her to continue in the same vein.

  “She soon have small horse. Very big,” Ayla said, holding her hands out in front of her stomach to indicate that the horse was very pregnant. There were smiles of understanding. “Every day we ride, Whinney need go out. Not far, not fast. Always go east, easy to go east. Too easy, nothing new. One day, we go west, not east. See new place,” Ayla continued, directing her words to Rydag.

  Jondalar had been teaching her Mamutoi, as well as the other languages he knew, but she wasn’t as fluent as she was in his language, the one she’d first learned to speak. Her manner of speaking was odd, different in a way that was hard to explain, and she struggled to find words, feeling shy about it. But when she thought of the boy who couldn’t make himself understood at all, she had to try. Because he had asked.

  “I hear lion.” She wasn’t sure why she did it. Perhaps it was the expectant look on Rydag’s face, or the way he turned his head to hear, or an instinct for it, but she followed the word “lion” with a menacing growl, that sounded for all the world like a real lion. She heard little gasps of fear, then nervous chuckles, then smiling words of approval from the assembled group. Her ability to mimic the sounds of animals was uncanny. It added unexpected excitement to her story. Jondalar was nodding and smiling his approval, too.

  “I hear man scream.” She looked at Jondalar and her eyes filled with sorrow. “I stop, what to do? Whinney is big with baby.” She made the little squealing sounds of a foal, and was rewarded with a beaming smile from Latie. “I worry for horse, but man scream. I hear lion again. I listen.” She managed, somehow, to make a lion’s roar sound playful. “It is Baby. I go in canyon then, I know horse not be hurt.”

  Ayla saw puzzled looks. The word she spoke was unfamiliar, although Rydag might have known it if his circumstances had been different. She had told Jondalar it was the Clan word for infant.

  “Baby is lion,” she said, trying to explain. “Baby is lion I know, Baby is … like son. I go in canyon, make lion go away. I find one man dead. Other man, Jondalar, hurt very bad. Whinney take back to valley.”

  “Ha!” a voice said derisively. Ayla looked up and saw that it was Frebec, the man who had been arguing with the old woman earlier. “Are you trying to tell me you told a lion to go away from a wounded man?”

  “Not any lion. Baby,” Ayla said.

  “What is that … whatever you are saying?”

  “Baby is Clan word. Mean child, infant. Name I give lion when he live with me. Baby is lion I know. Horse know, too. Not afraid.” Ayla was upset, something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure what.

  “You lived with a lion? I don’t believe that,” he sneered.

  “You don’t believe it?” Jondalar said, sounding angry. The man was accusing Ayla of lying, and he knew only too well how true her story was. “Ayla does not lie,” he said, standing up to untie the thong that was gathered around the waist of his leather trousers. He dropped
down one side of them and exposed a groin and thigh disfigured with angry red scars. “That lion attacked me, and Ayla not only got me away from him, she is a Healer of great skill. I would have followed my brother to the next world without her. I will tell you something else. I saw her ride the back of that lion, just as she rides the horse. Will you call me a liar?”

  “No guest of the Lion Camp is called a liar,” Tulie said, glaring at Frebec, trying to calm a potentially ugly scene. “I think it is evident that you were badly mauled, and we have certainly seen the woman … Ayla … ride the horse. I see no reason to doubt you, or her.”

  There was a strained silence. Ayla was looking from one to the other, confused. The word “liar” was unfamiliar to her, and she did not understand why Frebec said he didn’t believe her. Ayla had grown up among people who communicated with movement. More than hand signs, the Clan language included posture and expressions to shade meanings and give nuances. It was impossible to lie effectively with the entire body. At best, one could refrain from mentioning and even that was known, though allowed for the sake of privacy. Ayla had never learned to lie.

  But she did know something was wrong. She could read the anger and hostility that had sprung up as easily as if they’d shouted it. She also knew they were trying to refrain from mentioning it. Talut saw Ayla look at the dark-skinned man, then look away. Seeing Ranec gave him an idea of a way to ease tensions and get back to storytelling.

  “That was a good story, Jondalar,” Talut boomed, giving Frebec a hard look. “Long Journeys are always exciting to hear about. Would you like to hear a story of another long Journey?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  There were smiles all around as people relaxed. It was a favorite story of the group, and not often was there an opportunity to share it with people who hadn’t heard it before.

  “It’s Ranec’s story …” Talut began.

  Ayla looked at Ranec expectantly. “I would know how man with brown skin comes to live at Lion Camp,” she said.

  Ranec smiled at her, but turned to the man of his hearth. “It’s my story, but yours to tell, Wymez,” he said.

  Jondalar was seated again, not at all sure he liked the turn the conversation had taken—or perhaps Ayla’s interest in Ranec?—though it was better than the near-open hostility, and he was interested, too.

  Wymez settled back, nodded to Ayla, then, smiling at Jondalar, he began. “We have more in common than a feel for the stone, young man. I, too, made a long Journey in my youth. I traveled south toward the east first, past Beran Sea, all the way to the shores of a much larger sea farther south. This Southern Sea has many names, for many people live along its shores. I traveled around its eastern end then west along the south shore through lands of many forests, much warmer, and rainier, than here.

  “I won’t try to tell you all that happened to me. I will save that for another time. I will tell you Ranec’s story. As I traveled west, I met many people and stayed with some of them, and learned new ways, but then I would get restless and travel again. I wanted to see how far west I could go.

  “After several years I came to a place, not far from your Great Waters, I think, Jondalar, but across the narrow straits where the Southern Sea joins it. There, I met some people whose skin was so dark it seemed black, and there I met a woman. A woman I was drawn to. Perhaps at first it was her difference … her exotic clothes, her color, her dark flashing eyes. Her smile compelled … and the way she danced, the way she moved … she was the most exciting woman I ever met.”

  Wymez talked in a direct, understated way, but the story was so enthralling it needed no dramatics. Yet, the demeanor of the stocky, quietly reserved man changed perceptibly when he mentioned the woman.

  “When she agreed to join with me, I decided to stay there with her I always had an interest in working stone, even as a youngster, and I learned their way of making spear points. They chip off both sides of the stone, you understand?” He directed the question to Jondalar.

  “Yes, bifacially, like an axe.”

  “But these points were not so thick and crude. They had good technique. I showed them some things, too, and I was quite content to accept their ways, especially after the Mother blessed her with a child, a boy. She asked me for a name, as was their custom. I chose Ranec.”

  That explains it, Ayla thought. His mother was dark-skinned.

  “What made you decide to come back?” Jondalar asked.

  “A few years after Ranec was born, difficulties began. The dark-skinned people I was living with had moved there from farther south, and some people from neighboring Camps didn’t want to share hunting grounds. There were differences in customs. I almost convinced them to meet and talk about it. Then some young hotheads from both sides decided to fight about it instead. One death led to another for revenge, and then to attacks on home Camps.

  “We set up good defenses, but there were more of them. It went on for some time and they kept killing us off, one after another. After a while, the sight of a person with lighter skin began to cause fear and hatred. Though I was one of them, they started distrusting me, and even Ranec. His skin was lighter than the others, and his features had a different cast. I talked to Ranec’s mother, and we decided to leave. It was a sad parting, leaving family and many friends, but it wasn’t safe to stay. Some of the hotheads even tried to keep us from going, but with help, we stole away in the night.

  “We traveled north, to the straits. I knew some people lived there who made small boats which they used to cross the open water. We were warned that it was the wrong season, and it was a difficult crossing during the best of conditions. But I felt we had to get away, and decided to chance it.

  “It was the wrong decision,” Wymez said in a tightly controlled voice. “The boat capsized. Only Ranec and I made it across, and one bundle of her belongings.” He paused for a moment before he continued the story. “We were still far from home, and it took a long time, but we finally arrived here, during a Summer Meeting.”

  “How long were you gone?” Jondalar asked.

  “Ten years,” Wymez said, then smiled. “We created quite a stir. No one expected to see me again, much less with Ranec. Nezzie didn’t even recognize me, but my little sister was only a girl when I left. She and Talut had just completed their Matrimonial and were setting up the Lion Camp with Tulie and both of her mates, and their children. They invited me to join them. Nezzie adopted Ranec, though he is still the son of my hearth, and took care of him as though he were her own, even after Danug was born.”

  When he stopped talking, it took a moment to realize he was through. Everyone wanted to hear more. Even though most of them had heard many of his adventures, he always seemed to have new stories or new twists to old stories.

  “I think Nezzie would be everyone’s mother, if she could,” Tulie said, recalling the time of his return. “I had Deegie at the breast then, and Nezzie couldn’t get enough of playing with her.”

  “She does more than mother me!” Talut said, with a playful grin as he patted her broad backside. He had gotten another waterbag of the powerful drink and was passing it on after taking a swallow.

  “Talut! I’ll do more than mother you, all right!” She was trying to sound angry, but stifling a smile.

  “Is that a promise?” he countered.

  “You know what I meant, Talut,” Tulie said, brushing aside the rather obvious innuendos between her brother and his woman. “She couldn’t even let Rydag go. He’s so sickly, he’d have been better off.”

  Ayla’s eye was drawn to the child. Tulie’s comment had bothered him. Her words had not been intentionally unkind, but Ayla knew he didn’t like being spoken of as though he wasn’t there. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, though. He couldn’t tell her how he felt, and without thinking, she assumed that because he couldn’t speak, he didn’t feel.

  Ayla wanted to ask about the child, too, but felt it might be presumptuous. Jondalar did it for her, though it was to satis
fy his own curiosity.

  “Nezzie, would you tell us about Rydag? I think Ayla would be particularly interested—and so would I.”

  Nezzie leaned over and took the child from Latie, and held him on her lap while she gathered her thoughts.

  “We were out after megaceros, you know, the giant deer with the great antlers,” she began, “and planned to build a surround to drive them into—that’s the best way to hunt the big-antlered ones. When I first noticed the woman hiding near our hunting camp, I thought it was strange. You seldom see flathead women, and never alone.”

  Ayla was leaning close, listening intently.

  “She didn’t run away when she saw me looking at her, either, only when I tried to get closer. Then I saw she was pregnant. I thought she might be hungry, so I left some food out near the place she was hiding. In the morning it was gone, so I left more before we broke camp.

  “I thought I saw her the next day a few times, but I wasn’t sure. Then that night, when I was by the fire nursing Rugie, I saw her again. I got up and tried to get closer to her. She ran away again, but she moved like she was in pain, and I realized she was in labor. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help, but she kept running away, and it was getting dark. I told Talut, and he got some people together to go after her.”

  “That was strange, too,” Talut said, adding his part to Nezzie’s story. “I thought we’d have to circle around and trap her, but when I yelled at her to stop, she just sat on the ground and waited. She didn’t seem too frightened of me, and when I beckoned to her to come, she got right up and followed behind me, like she knew what to do and understood I wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “I don’t know how she even walked,” Nezzie continued. “She was in such pain. She was quick to understand that I wanted to help her, but I don’t know how much help I was. I wasn’t even sure she’d live to deliver her baby. She never cried out, though. Finally, near morning, her son was born. I was surprised to see he was one of mixed spirits. Even that young you could tell he was different.