The Mammoth Hunters ec-3 Page 70

  "I can't let anything hurt her," Ayla said. "I'll just have to miss things."

  "That would be too bad," Tulie said.

  "Can't you think of something?" Deegie said.

  "No… if only she was brown, too," Ayla said.

  "Well, why not make her brown?"

  "Make her brown? How?"

  "What if we mix some color like I do for leather, and rub it on her."

  Ayla thought for a while. "I don't think it will work. It's a good idea, Deegie, but the trouble is, making her brown really won't make much difference. Even Racer is still in danger. A brown horse still looks like a horse, and if someone is hunting horses, it won't be easy to remember not to kill brown ones."

  "That's true," Talut said. "Hunters think about hunting, and two brown horses that aren't afraid of people would make very tempting targets."

  "How about a different color like…red. Why not make Whinney a red horse? A bright red horse. Then she'd really stand out."

  Ayla made a face. "I don't like the thought of making her a red horse, Deegie. She would look so strange. It is a good idea, though. Everyone would know she is not an ordinary horse. I think we should do it, but a bright red horse…Wait! I have another idea." Ayla rushed into the tent. She dumped her traveling pack out on top of her sleeping furs, and found what she was looking for near the bottom. She ran out with it.

  "Look, Deegie! Remember this?" Ayla said, opening out the bright red hide she had dyed herself. "I never could think of anything to make with it. I just liked it for the color. I can tie this on Whinney when she's out in the meadow alone."

  "That is a bright red!" Valez said, smiling and nodding his head. "I think it will work. With that on, anyone who saw her would know she is a special horse, and would probably hesitate to hunt her, even without being told. We can announce it tonight that the horse with the red cover and the brown one with her are not to be hunted."

  "It might not hurt to tie something on Racer, too," Talut said. "It wouldn't have to be as bright, but something made by a person so anyone who gets close enough to throw a spear will know he is not ordinary."

  "I would suggest," Marlie added, "that since all people are not entirely reliable, sometimes telling is not enough. It might be wise for you and your Mamut to contrive some prohibition against killing the horses. A good curse could scare off anyone who might be tempted to see how mortal those animals are."

  "You can always say that Rydag will send Wolf to get anyone who hurts them," Branag said, with a smile. "That story is probably all over the Meeting by now, and grown bigger with each telling."

  "That may not be such a bad idea," Marlie said, standing up to go. "At least it could be spread around as a rumor."

  They watched the co-leaders of the Wolf Camp go, then shaking her head sadly, Tulie went to finish getting settled in. Talut decided to go find out who was organizing competitions to set up a spear-thrower competition, and stopped to talk to Brecie and Jondalar. The three left together. Deegie and Branag walked with Ayla toward the horses.

  "I know just the person to tell to start the rumor going," Branag said. "With the stories going around already, even if they aren't entirely believed, I think they will avoid the horses. I don't think anyone will want to take a chance that Rydag might send the wolf after him. I've been meaning to ask, how did Rydag know to signal the wolf?"

  Deegie looked at the man to whom she was Promised with surprise. "I guess you don't know, do you? I don't know why I should think that just because I know something, you know it, too. Frebec wasn't just making something up to defend Lion Camp. He was telling the truth. Rydag understands everything that everyone says. He always has. We just didn't know it until Ayla taught us all his sign language so we could understand him. When Frebec was pretending to walk away, he told Rydag, and Rydag asked Ayla. We all knew what they were saying, so we knew what was going to happen."

  "Is that true?" Branag asked. "You were talking to each other and no one knew it!" He laughed. "Well, if I'm going to be in on the Lion Camp's surprises, maybe I should learn this secret language, too."

  "Ayla!" Crozie called, coming out of the tent. They stopped and let her catch up. "Tulie just told me what you decided to do to mark the horses," she said, coming toward them. "Smart idea, and red will stand out on a light-colored horse, but you don't have two bright red hides. When I was unpacking, I found something I'd like you to have." She unwrapped a bundle that had recently been untied, took out a folded hide and shook it open.

  "Oh, Crozie!" Ayla exclaimed. "This is beautiful!" she breathed in wonder at a chalk-white leather cape decorated with ivory beads in subtle repetitive triangles, and hedgehog quills, dyed ochre red and sewn on in patterns of right-angled spirals and zigzags.

  Crozie's eyes lit up at her admiration. Having made a tunic, Ayla understood the difficulty of making leather white. "It's for Racer. I think white against his dark brown coat will stand out."

  "Crozie, it's too beautiful for that. It will get dirty and dusty, and especially if he tries to roll with it on, it will lose the decorations. I can't let Racer wear this out in the field," Ayla said.

  Crozie looked at her sternly. "If someone is out hunting horses and sees a brown horse with a white decorated cover on his back, do you think that hunter is likely to aim a spear at him?"

  "No, but you have put too much work into that to let it get ruined."

  "The work was put in many years ago, Crozie said, then with a softening expression and a misting of her eyes, she added, "It was made for my son, Fralie's brother. I have never been able to give it to anyone else. I could not bear to see someone else wear it, and I could not throw it away. I have just dragged it around from place to place, a useless piece of hide, the work wasted. If this hide will help protect that animal, it will no longer be useless, the work will have some value. I want you to have it, for what you have given me.

  Ayla took the proffered package, but looked puzzled. "What have I given you, Crozie?"

  "It's not important," she said abruptly. "Just take it."

  Frebec, hurrying into the tent, looked up and saw them, and smiled, full of self-satisfaction, before going in. They smiled back.

  "I was very surprised when Frebec came forward to defend Rydag," Branag commented. "I would have thought he would be the last one."

  "He's changed a lot," Deegie said. "He still likes to argue, but he's not so hard to get along with. He's willing to listen sometimes."

  "Well, he never was afraid to step up and say what he thought," Branag said.

  "Maybe that's what it was," Crozie said. "I never did understand what Fralie saw in him. I tried my best to talk her out of joining with him. He didn't have a thing to offer. His mother had no status, he had no particular talents, I thought she was throwing herself away. Maybe just having the nerve to ask says something for him, and he really did want her. I suppose I should have trusted her judgment all along, after all, she is my daughter. Just because someone comes from poor beginnings doesn't mean he may not want to better himself."

  Branag looked at Deegie, and then Ayla, over Crozie's head. In his opinion, she had changed even more than Frebec.

  32

  Ayla was alone in the tent. She glanced over the area that would be her place for the duration of their stay, trying to find one more article to fold, one more object to arrange, one more reason to delay leaving the confines of Cattail Camp. As soon as she was ready, Mamut had told her, he wanted to take her to meet the people with whom she was associated with in a unique way, the mamuti, those who belonged to the Mammoth Hearth.

  She looked upon the meeting as an ordeal, certain they would want to question her, evaluate her, and judge whether she had a right to be included within their ranks. In her heart, she didn't believe she did. She didn't feel possessed of unique talents and special gifts. She was a Healer because she had learned the skills and knowledge of a medicine woman from Iza. There was no great magic in having the animals, either. The mare answered to her beca
use, when she was alone, and lonely, in her valley, she had taken in a motherless foal for company, and Racer was born there. She saved Wolf because she owed it to his mother, and she knew by then that animals raised around people would be friendly. It wasn't a big mystery.

  Rydag had stayed inside the tent with her for a while, after she examined him, asked him some specific questions about how he felt, and made a mental note to adjust his medicine. Then he went out and sat with Wolf to watch the people. Nezzie had agreed with her that he seemed in a much better mood. The woman was full of self-righteous delight, and praise for Frebec, who had heard and overheard so many words of praise he was almost embarrassed. Ayla had never seen him smile so much, and knew that part of his happiness was the sense of acceptance and belonging. She understood the feeling.

  Ayla looked around one last time, picked up a rawhide container and attached it to her belt, then sighed and walked outside. Everyone seemed to be gone except Mamut, who was talking to Rydag. Wolf saw her and raised his head as she approached, which caused Rydag and Mamut to look also.

  "Is everyone gone? Maybe I should stay here and watch Rydag until someone comes back," she said, quick to volunteer.

  "Wolf watch me," Rydag signed, with a grin. "No one stay long when see Wolf. I tell Nezzie go. You go, Ayla."

  "He's right. Wolf seems content to stay here with Rydag, and I can't think of a better guardian," Mamut said.

  "What if he gets sick?" Ayla said.

  "I get sick, I tell Wolf, 'get Ayla.'" Rydag made the signal they had worked out before in practice and play. Wolf jumped up, put his paws on Ayla's chest, and reached up to lick her jaw, eager to get her attention.

  She smiled, ruffed up his neck, then signaled him down.

  "I want stay here, Ayla. I like watching. River. Horses in meadow. People walk by." Rydag grinned. "Not always see me, stare at tent, stare at horse place. Then see Wolf. Funny people."

  Mamut and Ayla both smiled at his simple delight in seeing the surprised reactions of people.

  "Well, I suppose it will be all right. Nezzie wouldn't have left him if she didn't think he would be safe," Ayla said, conceding her last internal argument against leaving. "I'm ready to go, Mamut."

  As they walked together toward the permanent lodges of Wolf Camp, Ayla noticed a denser concentration of tents and Camps, and many more people milling around between them. She was glad they were on the outside edge, where she could look out and see trees and grass, and the river and meadow. Several people nodded or spoke to them as they passed. Ayla watched Mamut, noting how he acknowledged their greetings, and responded the same way.

  One lodge at the end of the somewhat uneven row of six seemed to be the focal point of activities. Ayla noticed a cleared area with no household Camps near the dwelling, and realized it must be the place where people gathered. The Camps that were immediately adjacent to the clearing did not have the look of usual household areas. One of them had a fence made of openly spaced mammoth bones, branches and dried brush marking the territorial boundaries. As they passed it, Ayla heard her name called. She stopped, surprised at who had called her from the other side of the fence.

  "Latie!" she said, then recalled what Deegie had told her. As long as Latie was still at the lodge of the Lion Camp, the restriction on her association with males did not limit her movements or activities too much. However, once they reached the Meeting place, it was necessary that she be kept in seclusion. Several other young women were with her, all smiling and giggling. She was introduced to Latie's age mates, who seemed to be somewhat in awe of her.

  "Where are you going, Ayla?"

  "To the Mammoth Hearth," Mamut answered for her.

  Latie nodded as though she should have known. Ayla noticed Tulie in the enclosed yard area around a tent which was decorated with painted designs in red ochre, talking to several other women. She waved and smiled.

  "Latie, look! A red-foot!" one of her friends said, in hushed tones of excitement. Everyone stopped to stare, and the young women giggled. Ayla found herself looking with great interest at the woman who sauntered past, noticing as she walked that the bottoms of her bare feet were a rich bright red. She had been told about them, but this was the first one she had seen. She seemed to be a perfectly ordinary woman, Ayla thought. Yet, there was a quality to her that made one look twice.

  The woman approached a knot of young men, whom Ayla hadn't seen before, loitering near a stand of small trees across the clearing. Ayla thought her walk became more exaggerated as she neared them, her smile more languorous, and she suddenly noticed her red feet more. The woman stopped to talk to the young men, and her liquid laugh floated across the empty space. As she and the old man walked away, Ayla remembered the conversation the women, and Mamut, had had the evening before the Spring Festival.

  All the young females who were in the transitional state of not-yet-women were under constant surveillance – but not only by the chaperons. Ayla noticed, now, several groups of young men standing around the fringes of the prohibited area where Latie and her age mates were staying, hoping to catch a glimpse of the forbidden, and therefore all the more desirable, young women. At no time in her life was a woman the object of greater interest by the male population. The young women enjoyed their unique status and the special attention it brought, and were just as interested in the other gender, though they disdained to show it openly. They spent most of their time peeking out of the tent or around the fence, speculating about the various males, who paraded and lounged around the periphery with exaggerated casualness.

  Though the young men who watched, and were watched in return, might eventually form a hearth with those just now becoming women, they were not the ones likely to be chosen for the first, important initiation. The young women and the older female advisers who shared their tent discussed several possibilities from among the older and more experienced men. Those being considered were usually approached privately before the eventual selection was made.

  The day before the ceremony, the young women who were staying together in one tent – occasionally there were too many for one tent and two Camps of young women would be established – would go out as a group. When they found a man with whom they wanted to spend the night, they would surround and "capture" him. The men thus captured were required to go along with the initiates – few men objected to the requirement. That night, after some preliminary rituals, they would all go together into the darkened tent, grope to find each other, and spend the night exploring the differences and learning the Pleasures of each other. Neither the young women nor the men were supposed to know with whom they eventually coupled, though in actual practice, they usually did. The watching older women made sure there was no undue roughness, and were available on the rare occasion that advice was necessary. If, for some reason, any of the young women were not opened, it could be accommodated in a quiet second night's ritual without overtly placing blame on anyone in particular.

  Neither Danug nor Druwez would be invited to Latie's tent, primarily because they were too closely related, but also because they were too young. Other women who had celebrated their First Rites in previous years, particularly those who had no children yet, could choose to stand in for the Great Mother and teach Her way to young men. After a special ceremony, which honored them and set them apart for the season, the soles of the feet of these women would be stained with a deep red dye that would not wash off, though eventually it would wear off, to signify that they were available to help young men gain experience. Many also wore red leather bands tied around their upper arms, ankles, or waists.

  Though some teasing was inevitable, the women appreciated the underlying seriousness of their task. Understanding his natural shyness, and the driving urge behind his eagerness, they treated each young man with consideration, teaching him to know a woman tenderly, so that someday he might be chosen to make a woman, so that someday she might make a child. And to show them how pleased She was with this offering of themselves, Mut blessed man
y of these women. Even those who had been joined for some time, and had never borne life in their wombs, were often pregnant by the end of the season.

  Next to the not-yet-women, the red-footed women were the most sought after by all ages of men. For the rest of his years, nothing could so quickly stimulate a man of the Mamutoi as the flash of a red foot when a woman walked by, and knowing it, some women tinged their feet reddish to make themselves more attractive. Though a woman who had made such a dedication of herself was free to choose any man, her service was for the younger ones and any older man who managed to convince her to share his company felt himself favored.

  Mamut directed Ayla toward a Camp that was not far from the Rites of Womanhood Camp. At first glance it seemed to be an ordinary tent within a household Camp. The difference, she noticed, was that everyone was tattooed. Some, like old Mamut, just had a simple dark blue chevron pattern high on the right cheekbone, three or four broken lines, like the lower parts of downward-pointing triangles, stacked up, one nestled within the other. They reminded her of the lower jawbones of mammoths that had been used to construct Vincavec's lodge. The tattoos of others, particularly the men, Ayla noticed, were much more elaborate. The patterns incorporated not only chevrons but triangles, zigzags, rhomboids, and right-angled spirals, in both blue and red.

  Ayla was glad they had stopped off at Mammoth Camp before coming to the Meeting. She knew she would have been startled by their decorated faces, if she had not already met Vincavec. As fascinating and complex as the tattoos on the faces of these people were, none was as intricate as his.

  The next difference she noticed was that although there seemed to be a preponderance of women at this Camp, there were no children. They had obviously been left in someone's care at the household Camps. Ayla quickly understood that this was not considered to be a place for children. This was a place for adults to gather, for serious meetings, discussions, and rituals – and gaming. Several people were playing games with marked bones, sticks, and pieces of ivory in the outdoor area of the Camp.