The Valley of Horses (28 page)

Ayla hadn’t planned to train Whinney. It was the result of the love and attention she lavished on the animal, and the innate differences between horse and human. Whinney was curious and intelligent, she could learn and had a long memory, but her brain was not as evolved and was organized differently. Horses were social animals, normally living in herds, and they needed the closeness and warmth of fellow creatures. The sense of touch was particularly developed and important in establishing close rapport. But the young mare’s instincts led her to follow directions, to go
where she was led. When panicked, even leaders of herds fled with the rest.

The woman’s actions had purpose, were directed by a brain in which foresight and analysis were constantly interacting with knowledge and experience. Her vulnerable position kept her survival reflexes sharp and forced her to be constantly aware of her surroundings, which together had precipitated and accelerated the training process. The sight of a hare or giant hamster, even while she was riding for pleasure, tended to make Ayla reach for her sling and want to go after it. Whinney had quickly interpreted her desire, and her first step in that direction led ultimately to the young woman’s tight, though unconscious, control of the horse. It wasn’t until Ayla killed a giant hamster that she became aware of it.

It was still early in spring. They had flushed the animal inadvertently, but the moment Ayla saw it running, she leaned toward it—reaching for her sling as Whinney started racing after it. When they drew near, Ayla’s shift in position, that came with a thought to jump down, brought the horse to a halt in time for her to slide off and hurl a stone.

It’ll be nice to have fresh meat tonight, she was thinking as she walked back toward the waiting horse. I should do more hunting, but it’s been so much fun riding Whinney …

I was riding Whinney! She chased after that hamster. And she stopped when I wanted her to! Ayla’s thoughts raced back to the first day she had climbed on the horse’s back and wrapped her arms around the young mare’s neck. Whinney had reached down for a clump of tender new grass.

“Whinney!” Ayla cried. The horse lifted her head and perked up her ears expectantly. The young woman was stunned. She didn’t know how to explain it. The mere idea of riding on the horse had been overwhelming enough, but that the horse would go where Ayla wanted to go was harder to understand than the process had been for both of them to learn.

The horse came to her. “Oh, Whinney,” she said again, her voice cracking with a sob, though she wasn’t sure why, as she hugged the shaggy neck Whinney blew through her nostrils and arched her neck so her head was leaning over the woman’s shoulder.

When she went to mount the horse, Ayla felt clumsy. The hamster seemed to get in the way. She walked to a
boulder, though she had long since ceased using one, and, stopping to think about it, knew she had jumped and thrown her leg over, mounting easily before. After some initial confusion, Whinney started back to the cave. When Ayla consciously tried to govern the filly, her unconscious signals lost some of their decisiveness, as did Whinney’s response. She didn’t know how she had been directing the horse.

Ayla learned to rely on her reflexes again when she discovered that Whinney responded better if she relaxed, though in the process she did develop some purposeful signals. As the season waxed, she began to hunt more. At first she stopped the horse and got off to use her sling, but it wasn’t long before she made an attempt from horseback. Missing her shot only gave her reason to practice, a new challenge. She had taught herself the use of the weapon in the beginning by practicing alone. It was a game then, and there was no one she could have turned to for training; she wasn’t supposed to hunt. And after a lynx caught her unarmed when a stone missed, she had developed a technique to rapid-fire two stones, practicing until she had it perfected.

It had been a long time since she’d had need to practice with her sling, and it again became a game, though no less serious because it was fun. She was already so skilled, however, that it wasn’t long before she was as accurate from horseback as she was standing on her own two feet. But, even racing on the horse as she closed on a fleet-footed hare, the young woman still didn’t comprehend, couldn’t imagine, the full range of possible benefits, the advantages she had gained.

Initially, Ayla carried her kills home the way she always had, in a basket strapped to her back. Laying her prey in front of her across Whinney’s back was an easy step to make. Devising a pannier, a specially made basket for the young mare to carry on her back, was the next logical move. It took a little more thought to come up with a pair of baskets on either side of the horse, attached to a wide thong tied around her middle. But with the addition of the second basket, she began to perceive some of the advantages of harnessing the strength of her four-legged friend. For the first time, she was able to bring to the cave a load that was larger than she alone could carry.

Once she understood what she could accomplish with the help of the horse, her methods changed. The entire pattern
of her life changed. She stayed out longer, ranged farther afield, and returned with more produce, or plant materials, or small animals at one time. Then she spent the next few days processing the results of her forays.

Once when she noticed wild strawberries were beginning to ripen, she searched over a large area to find as many as she could. Ripe ones were few so early in the season, and far between. It was nearly dark when she started back. She had a sharp eye for landmarks which kept her from getting lost, but before she reached the valley, it was too dark to see them When she found herself near the cave, she relied on Whinney’s instincts to guide them, and on subsequent trips she often let the horse find their way back.

But afterward she took along a sleeping fur, just in case. Then one evening she decided to sleep out on the open steppes, because it was late and she thought she’d enjoy a night under the stars again. She made a fire, but, cuddled up beside Whinney in her fur, she hardly needed it for warmth. Rather it was a deterrent to nocturnal wildlife. All the steppes creatures were wary of the smell of smoke. Raging grass fires sometimes burned unchecked for days, flushing out—or roasting—everything in their path.

After the first time, it was easier to spend a night or two away from the cave, and Ayla began to explore the region east of the valley more extensively.

She wasn’t quite admitting it to herself, but she was looking for the Others, hoping she would find them, and afraid that she might. In one sense, it was a way of putting off the decision to leave the valley. She knew she would soon have to make preparations to go if she was going to take up her search again, but the valley had become her home. She didn’t want to leave, and she was still worried about Whinney. She didn’t know what some unknown Others might do to her. If there were people living within range of her valley by horseback, she could, perhaps, observe them first before making her presence known, and learn something about them.

The Others were her people but she couldn’t remember anything of her life before living with the Clan. She knew she had been found unconscious beside a river, half starved and burning with infected cave lion gashes. She was near death when Iza picked her up and carried her with them on their search for a new cave. But whenever she tried to recall anything of her earlier life, a nauseous fear overcame her
along with an uneasy sense of the earth rocking beneath her feet.

The earthquake that had cast a five-year-old girl alone in the wilderness, left to the mercy of fate—and the compassion of people who were much different—had been too devastating for her young mind. She had lost all memory of the earthquake and of the people to whom she had been born. They were to her as they were to the rest of the Clan: the Others.

Like the indecisive spring, with its swift changes from icy showers to warm sun and back again, Ayla’s inclination shifted from one extreme to the other. The days were not bad. While growing up, she had often spent her days roaming the countryside near the cave gathering herbs for Iza or, later, hunting, and she was accustomed to solitude then. So in the mornings and afternoons, when she was busy and active, she wanted nothing more than to stay in the sheltered valley with Whinney. But at night, in her small cave with only a fire and a horse for company, she yearned for another human being to ease her loneliness. It was more difficult being alone in the warming spring than it had been all through the long cold winter. Her thoughts dwelled on the Clan and the people she loved, and her arms ached to hold her son. Every night she decided she would begin preparations for leaving the next day, and every morning she put it off and rode Whinney on the eastern plains instead.

Her careful and extended survey made her aware not only of the territory, but of the life that inhabited the vast prairie. Herds of grazers had begun to migrate, and it set her to thinking about hunting a large animal again. As the idea took up more of her thoughts, it displaced a measure of her preoccupation with her solitary existence.

She saw horses, but none had returned to her valley. It didn’t matter. She had no intention of hunting horses. It would have to be some other animal. Though she didn’t know how she might use them, she began taking her spears along on her rides. The long poles were unwieldy until she devised secure holders for them, one in each basket carried on either side of the horse.

It wasn’t until she noticed a herd of female reindeer that an idea began to take shape. When she was a girl, and surreptitiously teaching herself to hunt, she often found an excuse to work near the men when they were discussing hunting—their favorite topic of conversation. At the time she
had been more interested in the hunting lore associated with the sling—her weapon—but was intrigued no matter what kind of hunting they discussed. At first sight, she thought the herd of small-antlered reindeer were males. Then she noticed the calves and recalled that among all the varieties of deer, only reindeer females had antlers. The recollection triggered a whole set of associated memories—including the taste of reindeer meat.

More important, she remembered the men saying that when reindeer migrate north in the spring, they travel the same route, as though following a path only they could see, and they migrate in separate groups. First the females and the young begin the trek, followed by a herd of young males. Later in the season, the old bucks come stringing along in small groups.

Ayla rode at a leisurely pace behind a herd of antlered does and their young. The summer horde of gnats and flies that liked to nest in reindeer fur, especially near eyes and ears, driving the reindeer to seek cooler climates where the insects were less abundant, were just appearing. Ayla absently brushed away the few that were buzzing around her head. When she had started out, a morning mist still clung to low-lying hollows and dips. The rising sun steamed out the deep pockets, lending an unaccustomed moisture to the steppes. The deer were used to other ungulates, and they ignored Whinney, and her human passenger, as long as they didn’t get too close.

While watching them, Ayla was thinking of hunting. If the bucks follow the does, they should be coming this way soon. Maybe I could hunt a young reindeer buck; I’ll know what path they will be taking. But knowing the path won’t help if I can’t get close enough to use my spears. Maybe I could dig a hole again. They’d just move out of the way and avoid it, and there’s not enough brush to build a fence they couldn’t jump. Maybe if I get them running, one will fall in.

If it does, how will I get it out? I don’t want to butcher an animal in the bottom of a muddy hole again. I’ll have to dry the meat out here, too, unless I can get it back to the cave.

The woman and the horse followed the herd all day, stopping occasionally to eat and rest, until the clouds turned pink in a deepening blue sky. She was farther north than she had been before, in an unfamiliar area. From a distance she’d
seen a line of vegetation, and, in the fading light as the sky turned vermilion, she saw the color reflected beyond a stand of thick brush. The reindeer formed themselves into single files to pass through narrow openings to reach the water of a large stream, and they ranged along the shallow edge to drink before crossing.

Gray twilight drained the fresh green from the land while the sky blazed, as though the color stolen by night was returned in brighter hue. Ayla wondered if it was the same stream they had crossed several times before. Rather than several rills, creeks, and streams contributing to a larger body of running water, often the same river was crossed several times as it meandered across flat grasslands, turning back on itself in oxbows and breaking into channels. If her reckoning was right, from the other side of the river she could reach her valley without having to cross any other major watercourses.

The reindeer, browsing on lichen, appeared to be settling down for the night on the opposite side. Ayla decided to do the same. It was a long way back, and she’d have to cross the river at some point. She didn’t want to chance getting wet and chilled with night coming on. She slid off the horse, then removed the carrying baskets and let Whinney run loose while she made camp. Dry brush and driftwood were soon blazing with the help of her firestone and flint. After a meal of starchy groundnuts wrapped in leaves to roast, and an assortment of edible greens stuffed in a giant hamster and cooked, she set up her low tent. Ayla whistled the horse to her, wanting her near, then crawled into her sleeping fur, with her head outside the tent opening.

The clouds had settled against the horizon. Above, the stars were so thick that it seemed some impossibly brilliant light was straining to break through the cracked and pitted black barrier of the night sky. Creb said they were fires in the sky, she mused, hearths of the spirit world, and the hearths of totem spirits, too. Her eyes searched the heavens until they found the pattern she was looking for. There’s the home of Ursus, and over there, my totem, the Cave Lion. It’s strange how they can move around the sky, but the pattern doesn’t change. I wonder if they go hunting and then return to their caves.