THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE ec-4

by Jean M. Auel

  The night cooled quickly, and they were glad for the tent. Though Ayla had seemed unusually silent, full of sadness and remembering, she was warmly responsive to his touch, and Jondalar soon stopped worrying about her quiet mood.

  In the morning the air was still brisk, and the condensed moisture had brought a ghostly shimmer of frost to the land again. The icy stream was cold but invigorating when they used it to wash. They had buried Jondalar's hare, encased in its furry hide, under the hot coals to cook overnight. When they peeled off the blackened skin, the rich layer of winter fat just underneath had basted the usually lean and often stringy meat, and slow cooking within its natural container made it moist and tender. It was the best time of the year to hunt the long-eared animals.

  They rode side by side through the tall ripe grass, not rushing but keeping a steady pace, talking occasionally. Small game was plentiful as they headed toward the Sister, but the only large animals they saw all morning were across the river in the distance: a small band of male mammoths, heading north. Later in the day they saw a mixed herd of horses and saiga antelope, also on the other side. Whinney and Racer noticed them, too.

  "Iza's totem was the Saiga," Ayla said. "That was a very powerful totem for a woman. Even stronger than Creb's birth totem, the Roe Deer. Of course, the Cave Bear had chosen him and was his second totem before he became Mog-ur."

  "But your totem is the Cave Lion. That's a much more powerful animal than a saiga antelope," Jondalar said.

  "I know. It's a man's totem, a hunter's totem. That's why it was so hard for them to believe it, at first," Ayla said. "I don't really remember, but Iza told me that Brun even got angry at Creb when he named it at my adoption ceremony. That's why everyone was sure I would never have any children. No man had a totem powerful enough to defeat the Cave Lion. It was a big surprise when I got pregnant with Durc, but I'm sure it was Broud who started him, when he forced me." She frowned at the unpleasant thought. "And if totem spirits have something to do with starting babies, Broud's totem was the Woolly Rhinoceros. I remember the Clan hunters talking about a woolly rhino that killed a cave lion, so it could have been strong enough, and, like Broud, they can be mean."

  "Woolly rhinos are unpredictable and can be vicious," Jondalar said.

  "Thonolan was gored by one not far from here. He would have died then if the Sharamudoi hadn't found us." The man closed his eyes with the painful memory, letting Racer carry him along. They didn't speak for a while, then he asked, "Does everyone in the Clan have a totem?"

  "Yes," Ayla replied. "A totem is for guidance and protection. Each clan's mog-ur discovers every new baby's totem, usually before the end of the birthing year. He gives the child an amulet with a piece of the red stone inside it at the totem ceremony. The amulet is the totem spirit's home."

  "You mean like a donii is a place for the Mother spirit to rest?" Jondalar asked.

  "Something like that, I think, but a totem protects you, not your home, although it is happier if you live in a place that's familiar. You have to keep your amulet with you. It is how your totem spirit recognizes you. Creb told me that the spirit of my Cave Lion would not be able to find me without it. Then I would lose his protection. Creb said if I ever lost my amulet, I would die," Ayla explained.

  Jondalar hadn't understood the full implications of Ayla's amulet before, or why she was so protective of it. He had occasionally thought she carried it too far. She seldom took it off, except to bathe or swim, and sometimes not even then. He had supposed it was her way of clinging to her Clan childhood, and he hoped she would someday get over it. Now he realized there was more to it than that. If a man of great magical power had given him something, and told him he would die if he ever lost it, he would be protective of it, too. Jondalar no longer doubted that the holy man of the Clan, who had raised her, possessed true power derived from the spirit world.

  "It's also for the signs your totem leaves for you if you make the right decision about something important in your life," Ayla continued. A nagging worry that had been bothering her suddenly struck her with more force. Why hadn't her totem given her a sign to confirm that she had made the right choice when she decided to go with Jondalar to his home? She had not found a single object that she could interpret as a sign from her totem since they left the Mamutoi.

  "Not very many Zelandonii have personal totems," Jondalar said, "but some do. It's usually considered lucky. Willomar has one."

  "He's your mother's mate, right?" Ayla asked.

  "Yes. Thonolan and Folara were both born to his hearth, and he always treated me as though I was."

  "What is his totem?"

  "It's the Golden Eagle. The story is told that when he was a baby, a golden eagle swooped down and picked him up, but his mother grabbed him before he could be taken away. He still bears the scars from the talons on his chest. Their zelandoni said that the eagle recognized him as his own and came for him. That's how they knew it was his totem. Marthona thinks that's why he likes to travel so much. He can't fly like the eagle, but he has a need to see the land."

  "That's a powerful totem, like the Cave Lion, or the Cave Bear," Ayla commented. "Creb always said that powerful totems were not easy to live with, and it's true, but I have been given so much. He even sent you to me. I think I have been very lucky. I hope the Cave Lion will be lucky for you, Jondalar. He is also your totem now."

  Jondalar smiled. "You've said that before."

  "The Cave Lion chose you, and you have the scars to prove it. Just as Willomar was marked by his totem."

  Jondalar looked thoughtful for a moment. "Perhaps you are right. I hadn't thought of it that way."

  Wolf, who had been off exploring, suddenly appeared. He yipped to get Ayla's attention, then fell into place beside Whinney. She watched him, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, ears perked up, running with the wolf's usual untiring, ground-covering pace through the standing hay, which sometimes hid him from view. He seemed so happy and alert. He loved to go off and explore on his own, but he always returned, which made her happy. Riding with the man and the stallion beside her made her happy, too.

  "From the way you always talk about him, I think your brother must have been like the man of his hearth," Ayla said, resuming the conversation. "Thonolan liked to travel, too, didn't he? Did he look like Willomar?"

  "Yes, but not as much as I resemble Dalanar. Everyone remarks on it. Thonolan had a lot more of Marthona in him," Jondalar smiled, "but he was never chosen by an eagle, so that doesn't explain his travel urge." The smile faded. "My brother's scars were from that unpredictable woolly rhinoceros." He was thoughtful for a while. "But then Thonolan always was a bit unpredictable. Maybe it was his totem. It didn't seem to be very lucky for him, although the Sharamudoi did find us, and I never saw him as happy as he was after he met Jetamio."

  "I don't think the Woolly Rhino is a lucky totem," Ayla said, "but I think the Cave Lion is. When he chose me, he even gave me the same marks the Clan uses for a Cave Lion totem, so Creb would know. Your scars are not Clan marks, but they are clear. You were marked by a Cave Lion."

  "I definitely do have the scars to prove that I was marked by your cave lion, Ayla."

  "I think the spirit of the Cave Lion chose you so that your totem spirit would be strong enough for mine, so that someday I will be able to have your children," Ayla said.

  "I thought you said it was a man who made a baby start growing inside a woman, not spirits," Jondalar said.

  "It is a man, but maybe spirits need to help. Since I have such a strong totem, the man who is my mate would need a strong one, too. So maybe the Mother decided to tell the Cave Lion to choose you, so we can make babies together."

  They rode together in silence again, thinking their own thoughts. Ayla was imagining a baby that looked like Jondalar, except a girl, not a boy. She didn't seem to be lucky with sons. Maybe she'd be able to keep a daughter.

  Jondalar was thinking about children, too. If it was true that a man started lif
e with his organ, they had certainly given a baby plenty of chances to start. Why wasn't she pregnant?

  Was Serenio pregnant when I left? he thought. I'm glad she found someone to be happy with, but I wish she had said something to Roshario. Are any children in the world in some way a part of me? Jondalar tried to think of the women he had known and remembered Noria, the young woman of Haduma's people with whom he shared First Rites. Both Noria and the old Haduma herself had seemed convinced that his spirit had entered her and that a new life had begun. She was supposed to give birth to a son with blue eyes like his. They were even going to name him Jondal. Was it true? he wondered. Had his spirit mixed with Noria's to begin a new life?

  But Haduma's people didn't live so far away, and in the right direction, to the north and west. Maybe they could stop for a visit, except, he suddenly realized, he didn't really know how to find them. They had come to where he and Thonolan had been camped. He knew their home Caves were not only west of the Sister, they were west of the Great Mother River, but he didn't know where. He did recall that they sometimes hunted in the region between the two rivers, but that was of little help. He would probably never know if Noria had that baby.

  Ayla's thoughts had turned from waiting until they reached Jondalar's home before they started having children, to his people, and what they were like. She wondered if they would find her acceptable. She felt a little more confident, after meeting the Sharamudoi, that there would be a place for her somewhere, but she wasn't sure if it would be with the Zelandonii. She remembered that Jondalar had reacted with strong revulsion when he first discovered she had been raised by the Clan, and then she recalled his strange behavior the previous winter while living with the Mamutoi.

  Some of it was because of Ranec. She came to know that before they left, though she hadn't understood it in the beginning. Jealousy was not a part of her upbringing. Even if they had felt such an emotion, no man of the Clan would ever show jealousy over a woman. But part of Jondalar's strange behavior also stemmed from his concern about how his people would accept her. She knew now that, though he loved her, he had been ashamed of her living with the Clan and, especially, he had been ashamed of her son. True, he did not seem concerned any more. He was protective of her and not at all uneasy when her Clan background came out when they were with the Sharamudoi, but he must have had some reason for feeling that way in the first place.

  Well, she loved Jondalar and wanted to live with him, and besides, it was too late now to change her mind, but she hoped she had done the right thing in coming with him. She wished once again that her Cave Lion totem would give her a sign so that she would know she had made the right decision, but no sign seemed to be forthcoming.

  As the travelers neared the turbulent expanse of water at the confluence of the Sister River with the Great Mother River, the loose, crumbly marls – sands and clays rich in calcium – of the upper terraces gave way to gravels and loess soils on the low levels.

  In that wintry world, glaciered mountain crests filled streams and rivers during the warmer season with meltwater. Near the end of the season, with the addition of heavy rains that accumulated as snow in the higher elevations, which sharp temperature changes could release suddenly, the swift streams became torrential floods. With no lakes on the western face of the mountains to hold back the gathering deluge in a natural reservoir and dole the outpour in more measured tribute, the increasing tide fell over itself down the steep slopes. The cascading waters gouged sand and gravel out of the sandstones, limestones, and shales of the mountains, which was washed down to the mighty river and deposited on the beds and floodplains.

  The central plains, once the floor of an inland sea, occupied a basin between two massive mountain ranges on the east and west and highlands to the north and south. Almost equal in volume to the burgeoning Mother as she neared their meeting, the swollen Sister held the drainage of part of the plains, and the entire western face of the mountain chain that curved around in a great arc toward the northwest. The Sister River raced along the lowest depression of the basin to deliver her offering of floodwater to the Great Mother of Rivers, but her surging current was rebuffed by the higher water level of the Mother, already filled to capacity. Forced back on herself, she dissipated her offertory in a vortex of countercurrents and destructive spreading overflow.

  Near midday, the man and woman approached the marshy wilderness of half-drowned underbrush and occasional stands of trees with their lower trunks beneath the water. Ayla thought the similarity to the soggy marshland of the eastern delta grew stronger as they drew closer, except that the currents and countercurrents of the joining rivers were swirling maelstroms. With the weather much cooler, the insects were less bothersome, but the carcasses of bloated, partially devoured, and rotting animals that had been caught up by the flood collected their share. To the south, a massif with densely forested slopes was rising out of a purple mist caused by the surging eddies.

  "Those must be the Wooded Hills Carlono told us about," Ayla said.

  "Yes, but they are more than hills," Jondalar said. "They are higher than you think, and they extend for a long way. The Great Mother River flows south until she reaches that barrier. Those hills turn the Mother east."

  They rode around a large quiet pool, a backwater that was separated from the moving waters, and stopped at the eastern edge of the swollen river, somewhat upstream from the confluence. As Ayla stared across the mighty flood at the other side, she began to understand Jondalar's warnings about the difficulty of crossing the Sister.

  The muddy waters, swirling around the slender trunks of willows and birches, tore loose those trees whose roots were not as securely anchored into the soil of low islands that were surrounded by channels in drier seasons. Many trees were pitched at precarious angles, and naked branches and boles that had been wrenched from upstream woods were trapped in muck along the banks or circled in a dizzy dance in the river.

  Ayla silently wondered how they would ever get across the river, and she asked, "Where do you think we should cross?"

  Jondalar wished the large Ramudoi boat that had rescued Thonolan and him a few years before would appear and take them to the other side. The reminder of his brother again brought a piercing stab of grief, but also a sudden concern for Ayla.

  "I think it's obvious we can't cross here," he said. "I didn't know it would be this bad so soon. We'll have to go upstream to look for an easier place to attempt it. I just hope it doesn't rain again before we find it. Another rainstorm like the last one, and this whole floodplain will be under water. No wonder that summer camp was abandoned."

  "This river wouldn't go up as high as that, would it?" Ayla asked, her eyes open wide.

  "I don't think it would, yet, but it might. All the water falling on those mountains will eventually end up here. Besides, flash floods could easily come down the stream that ran so near the camp. And probably do. Frequently. I think we should hurry, Ayla. This is not a safe place to be if it starts to rain again," Jondalar said, looking up at the sky. He urged the stallion to a gallop and kept to such a fast pace that Wolf was hard pressed to keep up with them. After a while he slowed down again, but not to the leisurely pace they had maintained before.

  Jondalar stopped occasionally and studied the river and its far bank before continuing north, glancing at the sky anxiously. The river did seem narrower in some places and wider in others, but it was so full and broad that it was hard to tell for sure. They rode until it was nearly dark without finding a suitable crossing place, but Jondalar insisted that they ride to higher ground to make camp for the night, and they halted only when it became too dark to travel safely.

  "Ayla! Ayla! Wake up!" Jondalar said, shaking her gently. "We have to get moving."

  "What? Jondalar! What's wrong?" Ayla said.

  She was usually awake before him, and she felt disconcerted to be awakened so early. When she moved the sleeping fur aside, she felt a chill breeze, and then she noticed the tent flap was open. The dif
fused radiance of seething clouds was outlined by the opening, providing the only illumination inside their sleeping quarters. She could barely make out Jondalar's face in the dim gray light, but it was enough to see that he was worried, and she shivered with foreboding.

  "We have to go," Jondalar said. He had hardly slept all night. He couldn't exactly say why he felt they had to get across the river as soon as possible, but the feeling was so strong that it gave him a knot of fear in the pit of his stomach, not for himself, but for Ayla.

  She got up, not asking why. She knew he would not have awakened her if he didn't think their situation was serious. She dressed quickly, then got out her fire-making kit.

  "Let's not take the time for a fire this morning," Jondalar said.

  She frowned, then nodded and poured out cold water for them to drink. They packed while eating cakes of traveling food. When they were ready to leave, Ayla looked for Wolf, but he was not in camp.

  "Where is Wolf," Ayla said, a note of desperation in her voice.

  "He's probably hunting. He'll catch up with us, Ayla. He always does."

  "I'll whistle for him," she said, then pierced the early morning air with the distinctive sound she used to call him.

  "Come on, Ayla. We need to go," Jondalar said, feeling a familiar irritation over the wolf.

  "I'm not going without him," she said, whistling again louder, giving the tone more urgency.

  "We have to find a place to cross this river before the rain starts, or we might not get across," Jondalar said.

  "Can't we just keep on going upstream? This river is bound to get smaller, isn't it?" she argued.

  "Once it starts to rain, it will only get bigger. Even upstream it will be bigger than it is here now, and we don't know what kind of rivers will be coming down off those mountains. We could easily get caught by a flash flood. Dolando said they were common once the rains started. Or we could be stopped by a large tributary. Then what do we do? Climb back up the mountain to get around it? We need to get across the Sister while we can," Jondalar said. He mounted the stallion and looked down at the woman standing beside the mare with the travois trailing behind her.