The Shelters of Stone (106 page)

Jondalar saw Ayla close her eyes as though concentrating, turning her head back and forth to better hear something. “I think mammoths are coming this way,” she said.

“How do you know? I can’t see anything.”

“I can hear them,” she said, “especially the big male.”

“I can’t hear anything,” Jondalar said.

“It’s a deep, deep rumbling sound,” she said, straining to listen again. “Look, Jondalar! Over there!” she called out, full of excitement, when she saw a herd of mammoths in the distance coming in their direction. Ayla was detecting the long-distance bellow of a male mammoth in musth, which was below the auditory range normally heard by humans, but could be heard by a female mammoth in heat for up to Ave miles because such low-level sounds did not attenuate as easily over distance. Though Ayla couldn’t exactly hear it, she could sense the deep call.

The herd was essentially female and their young, but since one of the young females was in heat, several males were crowding around the edges, always hopeful, though the dominant bull of the region was already in consort with her. She had refused the persistent advances of the lesser males until he arrived. Now he kept the others away, since none of them dared to challenge him, which allowed her to eat and nurse her first young calf in between mating sessions.

The thick coat of the woolly mammoth covered the huge animal completely, from the toes to the end of its long nose, including the small ears. As they came closer, the various shades of their fur became more apparent. The little ones had the lightest-colored hair, the females shaded from bright chestnut in the younger ones to the dark brown of the old matriarch. The males became almost black as they aged. The coat had a very dense underfur out of which grew fairly long, straight hairs that kept them very warm even in the coldest of
the winters, especially after consuming the sometimes icy water or eating snow or ice. That’s when their bodies tended to become chilled.

“It’s early in the season for mammoths,” he said. “We never used to see them until fall, late fall. Mammoths, rhinos, musk oxen, and reindeer, those are the winter animals.”

On the last day of their isolation, Ayla and Jondalar rose early. They had spent the previous few days exploring the region to the west of The River near a second river that ran nearly parallel to it. They packed all their belongings but wanted to make one more long ride before they went back to the Summer Meeting with all its people and social interactions, which put demands on their time and attention, but brought rewards, satisfaction, and pleasure as well. They had enjoyed the respite, but they were ready to return and looking forward to seeing the people they cared about. They had spent nearly a year with only each other and the animals for company and were familiar with both the joys and the sorrows of solitude.

They took food and water with them, but they were in no hurry and had no particular destination in mind. Wolf had left them two days before, which saddened Ayla. He had been eager to stay with them on their Journey, but he was little more than a puppy then. He was still young. Although it seemed much longer, they could count only one year and about two seasons since the winter they lived with the Mamutoi, when Ayla brought back a fuzzy little wolf who had been born no more than a moon before. For all of Wolf’s great size, he was still a juvenile.

Ayla didn’t know how long wolves lived, but she suspected that the length of their lives was far less than that of most humans, and she thought of Wolf as an adolescent—considered by most mothers and their mates as the most troubling years. Those were the years of exuberant energy and little experience when youngsters, full of life and convinced it would last forever, took chances that endangered their lives. If they lived, they usually gained some background and knowledge
that would help them to survive longer. She thought it was probably not much different for wolves, and she couldn’t help worrying.

It had been a cool summer, and drier than Jondalar recalled. On the open plains mini-whirlwinds of dust blew up, spun around for a while, then died, and they were happy to see a small lake ahead. They stopped beside it and shared Pleasures in the shade of a weeping willow, extravagantly full of small lanceolate leaves on boughs that bent to the water’s surface, then rested and talked before going for a swim.

After splashing into the water, Ayla shouted, “I’ll race you across,” and immediately reached out with long, sure strokes. Jondalar followed quickly, slowly gaining on her with his longer arms and powerful muscles, but it was an effort. She looked back, saw him drawing near, and renewed her efforts in a fresh burst of speed. They reached the other side in a dead heat.

“You had a head start, so I won,” Jondalar said as they reached the opposite shore of the small lake and flopped to the ground, breathing hard.

“You should have challenged me first,” Ayla answered, laughing. “We both won.”

They swam at a more leisurely pace back to the other side as the sun passed its zenith and was starting its descent, signaling the last half of the day. They were a little sad as they repacked their things, knowing their idyllic respite was nearly over. They mounted the horses and headed in the direction of the Summer Meeting camp, but Ayla missed Wolf and wished he was with them.

They were approaching the campsite, perhaps a few miles away, when they heard shouts amid clouds of dust rising from the dry earth of the plains. Riding closer, they saw several young men who probably shared one of the bachelor fa’lodges, and from the glimpse of decoration on their clothing, Jondalar thought they were mostly from the Fifth Cave. Each one held a spear, and they were spaced out in a rough circle, in the middle of which was a beast with a long shaggy coat and two huge horns protruding from his snout.

It was a woolly rhinoceros, a massive creature, eleven and a half feet in length and five feet high. He was a ponderous beast, with short, thick, stubby legs to support his immense bulk. He ate huge quantities of the grasses, herbs, and brush of the steppes, as well as the twigs and branches of evergreens and willows that lined the banks of the rivers. His nostrils were partitioned, and his eyes were on the sides of his head. He could not see well, especially in front, but his senses of smell and hearing were particularly acute and discerning to make up for his poor eyesight.

The front one of his two horns was more than a yard long, heavy and vicious looking as it swept the ground in an arc from side to side. In winter he could use it to sweep snow away and expose the dried, recumbent steppe grasses that lay underneath. A thick, woolly, light grayish-brown fleece covered his body, with longer outer hair hanging down, nearly brushing the ground. A wide distinctive band of fur around the middle of the rhino was a shade darker and looked, Ayla thought, as though someone had covered him with a saddle blanket, not that anyone would dream of riding such a tremendously powerful, unpredictable, sometimes malicious, and very dangerous animal.

The woolly rhinoceros pawed the ground, turning his head from side to side, trying to see the young man that his sensitive nose told him was there. Suddenly he charged. The man stood his ground until, at the very last moment, he dodged aside, and the long, forward-pointing horn of the rhinoceros barely missed him.

“That looks dangerous,” Ayla said as they pulled up the horses a safe distance away.

“That’s why they’re doing it,” Jondalar said. “Woolly rhinos are difficult to hunt under any circumstances. They are mean tempered and unpredictable.”

“Like Broud,” Ayla said. “The woolly rhino was his totem. The Clan men hunted them, but I never watched them. What are they doing?”

“They’re baiting him, see? Each man tries to get his attention to make him charge, then they dodge away when he
comes near. They are making a sport of wearing him down, trying to see who can let the rhino come closest before they jump aside. The bravest is the one who can feel the beast brush past as he charges. It’s usually young men who like to hunt rhinoceros like that,” Jondalar explained.

“If they kill one, they give the meat to the Cave, and get lots of praise for it. Then they share the other parts, but the one who gets credited with the kill gets first choice. He will usually take the horn. The horns are prized, they say, for making tools, knife handles, and such, but more likely it’s for other reasons. Probably because its shape resembles a man in heat for Pleasures, there are rumors that grinding up the horn and secretly giving it to a woman will make her more passionate for the man who gave it to her,” Jondalar said with a smile.

“The meat is not bad, and there’s a lot of fat under that heavy coat,” Ayla said. “It’s rare to see one, though.”

“Especially this time of year,” Jondalar said. “Woolly rhinos are solitary animals most of the time, and usually scarce around here in summer. They like it colder, even though they shed the soft fur under the long outer hair every spring. It gets caught in bushes before they leaf out, and people like to go out and collect it, particularly weavers and basket-makers. I used to go with my mother. We did it several times a year. She knows when all the animals shed, ibex and mouflon, musk-ox, even horses and lions, and of course, mammoths and woolly rhinos.”

“Have you ever baited a rhinoceros, Jondalar?”

The man laughed. “Yes, most men do, especially when they are young. They bait lots of animals like that, aurochs bulls and bison, but they like to bait rhinos best. Some women do, too. Jetamio did, the time I showed them how to hunt a rhino. She was the Sharamudoi woman who became Thonolan’s mate. She was good at it. They didn’t usually hunt rhinos. They hunted the huge sturgeon of the Great Mother River from those boats they showed you, and ibex and chamois up high in the mountains, which are very hard to hunt, but they didn’t know the techniques to hunt woolly rhinos.” He paused and looked sad. “It was because of a rhino
that we met the Sharamudoi. Thonolan had gotten gored by one, and they saved his life.”

They watched as the young men played their dangerous game. One man, standing out in the open shouting and waving his arms, was trying to make the rhino charge. The animal’s usually keen sense of smell was confused by so many men arrayed around him. When he finally detected movement with his small, nearsighted eyes, he started in that direction, gaining speed as he drew closer to his antagonist. For all his short legs, the animal could move remarkably fast. He lowered his head a bit as he neared, preparing to ram his massive horn into a resistive mass. It encountered air instead as the man deftly spun around and moved aside. It took a moment for the beast to realize his charge had been in vain and slow to a halt.

The rhino was baffled and getting tired and angry. He pawed the ground as the men quickly deployed in a new circle around him. Another man stepped out, snouting and waving to draw the huge brute’s attention. The rhino turned and charged again, and the man darted away. The next time it took longer to entice him to charge. They seemed to be succeeding in tiring the rhino. The exhausting, infuriating bursts of energy were taking their toll.

The great beast stood still, head drooping, breathing heavily. The men tightened the circle, closing in for the kill. The man whose turn it was to draw the beast out moved in cautiously, spear held in readiness. The rhino appeared not to notice. As the man drew near, the unpredictable beast caught the movement with his weak eyes. His flagging strength, revived by the short rest, was goaded by the fury that filled his primordial brain.

Without warning, the rhino charged again. It happened so fast that the man was unprepared. The huge woolly beast finally succeeded in thrusting his massive horn into something more solid than air. They heard an agonized scream and the man was down. When Ayla heard it, without thinking she urged her horse forward.

“Ayla! Wait! It’s too dangerous!” Jondalar called after her, prodding his own mount as he readied his spear-thrower.

The other men were hurling their spears even as Jondalar spoke. When Ayla jumped off her still-moving horse and ran toward the wounded man. the huge beast lay crumpled in a heap; several spears, a couple from a spear-thrower, were sticking out of his body in every direction, like the quills of some enormous grotesque porcupine. But the kill was too late. The enraged beast had had his satisfaction.

Several young men, looking scared and lost, were ranged around the fallen man, who was crumpled, unconscious where he dropped. As Ayla approached them with Jondalar close behind, they appeared surprised to see her, and it seemed for a moment that one was going to bar her way or ask who she was, but she ignored him. She turned him over and checked his breathing, and pulled out her knife to cut away blood-soaked leggings from his leg, her hands already colored from the task. There was a smear of red on her face where she had unconsciously pushed aside a strand of hair. She didn’t have any Zelandoni marks on her face, yet she seemed to know what she was doing. The young man backed away.

When she exposed the leg, the damage was obvious. The calf of his right leg was bent backward where there was no knee. The huge pointed horn had gored the man in the calf and broken both bones. The muscle was torn open, the jagged end of a bone was showing, and blood was pouring out of the gash and pooling on the ground.

She looked up at Jondalar. “Help me straighten him out while he’s unconscious, it’s going to hurt to move him when he wakes up. Then get me some soft hides, our toweling hides will work. I need to apply pressure to stop the bleeding, then I’ll need help to splint the leg.” The tall man hurried off, and she turned to one of the young men who were standing around, gaping.

“He’ll need to be carried back. Do you know how to make a stretcher?” He looked blank, as though he hadn’t
heard or understood her. “We need something for him to lie on while he’s carried.”

He nodded. “A stretcher,” he said.

He was really only a boy, she realized. “Jondalar will help you,” she said as the man returned with the hides.

They laid him out on his back. He moaned from the movement, but didn’t wake up. She checked him again; he might have sustained a head injury from the fall, but she didn’t see anything obvious. Then, leaning hard on his leg above the knee, she tried to slow the bleeding. She thought about a tourniquet, but if she could get the bone straightened and wrap the leg, she might not need it. Pressure on the wound itself should be enough. He was still bleeding, but she had seen worse.