by Jean M. Auel
34
They started back to the Great Mother River with Ayla leading the way over the same trail that she had followed to find the S'Armunai Camp, but when they reached the river crossing, they decided to ford the smaller tributary and then head southwest. They rode across country over the windy plains of the ancient lowland basin that separated the two major mountain systems, heading for the river.
Despite the scant snowfall, they often had to take cover from blizzardlike conditions. In the intense cold, the dry snowflakes were picked up and blown from place to place by the unremitting winds until they were ground into frozen grit, sometimes mixed with the pulverized particles of rock dust – loess – from the margins of the moving glaciers. When the wind blew especially hard, it blasted their skin raw. The withered grass in the most exposed places had long since been flattened, but the winds that kept snow from accumulating, except in sheltered pockets, bared the sere and yellowed fodder enough for the horses to graze.
For Ayla, the trek back was much faster – she was not trying to follow a trail over difficult terrain – but Jondalar was surprised at the distance they had to travel before reaching the river. He hadn't realized how far north they had been. He guessed that the S'Armunai Camp was not far from the Great Ice.
His speculation was correct. If they had gone north, they could have reached the massive frontal wall of the continental ice sheet in a walk of a handful or two of days. In early summer, just before they started on their Journey, they had hunted mammoths at the frozen face of the same vast northern barrier, but far to the east. Since then, they had traveled down the full length of the eastern side of a great curved arc of mountains, around the southern base, and up the western flank of the range almost to the land-spanning glacier again.
Leaving behind the last outliers and flysch foothills of the mountains that had dominated their travels, they turned west when they reached the Great Mother River and began approaching the northern foreland of the even larger and loftier range to the west. They were retracing their steps, looking for the place where they had left their equipment and supplies, following the same route they had begun earlier in the season, when Jondalar thought they had plenty of time… until the night that Whinney was taken by the wild herd.
"The landmarks seem familiar – it should be around here," he said.
"I think you're right. I remember that bluff, but everything else looks so different," Ayla said, surveying the changed landscape with dismay.
More snow had accumulated and settled in this vicinity. The edge of the river was frozen, and, with the snow blown into drifts and filling every depression, it was hard to know where the bank ended and the river began. Strong winds and ice, which had formed on branches during an alternate freezing and thawing earlier in the season, had brought down several trees. Brush and brambles sagged under the weight of the frozen water clinging to them; covered with snow, they often appeared to the travelers to be hillocks or mounds of rocks until they broke through when they attempted to climb them.
The woman and man stopped near a small stand of trees and carefully scanned the area, trying to find something that would give them a hint of the site of their stashed tent and food.
"We must be close. I know this is the right area, but everything is so different," Ayla said, then paused and looked at the man. "Many things are different from what they seem, aren't they, Jondalar?"
He looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Well, yes, in winter things look different than in summer."
"I don't mean just the land," Ayla said. "It's hard to explain. It's like when we left, and S'Armuna told you to tell your mother that she sends her love, but she said Bodoa sends it. That was the name your mother called her, wasn't it?"
"Yes, I'm sure that's what she meant. When she was young she was probably called Bodoa."
"But she had to give up her own name when she became S'Armuna. Just like the Zelandoni you talk about, the one you knew as Zolena," Ayla said.
"The name is given up willingly. It's part of becoming One Who Serves the Mother," Jondalar said.
"I understand. It was the same when Creb became The Mog-ur. He didn't have to give up his birth name, but when he was conducting a ceremony as The Mog-ur, he was a different person. When he was Creb, he was like his birth totem, the Roe Deer, shy and quiet, never saying much, almost as though he were watching from a hiding place. But when he was Mog-ur, then he was powerful and commanding, like his Cave Bear totem," Ayla said. "He was never quite what he seemed."
"You're a little like that, Ayla. Most of the time you listen a lot and don't say much, but when someone is hurting or in trouble, you almost become a different person. You take control. You tell people what to do, and they do it."
Ayla frowned. "I never thought of it that way. It's just that I want to help."
"I know that. But it's more than wanting to help. You usually know what to do, and most people recognize that. I think that's why they do what you say. I think you could be One Who Serves the Mother, if you wanted to," Jondalar said.
Ayla's frown deepened. "I don't think I would want that. I wouldn't want to give up my name. It's the only thing I have left from my real mother, from the time before I lived with the Clan," the young woman said. Then she suddenly tensed and pointed at a snow-covered mound that seemed unusually symmetrical. "Jondalar! Look over there."
The man looked where she pointed, not seeing what she saw at first; then the shape leaped into his awareness. "Could that be…?" he said, urging Racer forward.
The mound was in the middle of a tangle of briars, which increased their excitement. They dismounted. Jondalar found a sturdy branch and beat their way through the thicket of canes. When he reached the middle and hit the symmetrical mound, the snow fell away, revealing their upturned bowl boat.
"That's it!" Ayla cried.
They stomped and beat down the long thorny runners until they could reach the boat and the carefully wrapped packages cached underneath.
Their storage place had not been entirely effective, though it was Wolf who gave them the first indication. He was obviously agitated by a scent still clinging to the area, and when they found wolf scat, they understood why. Wolves had vandalized their cache. Attempts to tear open carefully wrapped bundles had succeeded in some cases. Even the tent was torn, but they were surprised it wasn't worse. Wolves usually couldn't stay away from leather, and once they got hold of it, they loved to chew it up.
"The repellent! That must have been what kept them from doing more damage," Jondalar said, pleased that Ayla's mixture had kept not just their canine traveling companion away from their things, but had later kept away the other wolves as well. "And all the while I thought that Wolf was making our Journey more difficult. Instead, if it hadn't been for him, we probably wouldn't even have a tent. Come here, boy," Jondalar said, patting his chest and inviting the animal to jump up and put his paws on it. "You did it again! Saved our lives, or at least our tent."
Ayla watched him grab the thick fur of the wolf's neck and smiled. She was pleased to see his change in attitude toward the animal. It wasn't that Jondalar had ever been unkind to him, or even that he disliked him. It was just that he'd never been so openly friendly and affectionate before. It was obvious that Wolf enjoyed the attention, too.
Though they would have sustained much more damage if it hadn't been for the wolf repellent, it hadn't kept the wolves away from their emergency food stores. They suffered a devastating loss. Most of their dried meat and cakes of traveling food were gone, and many of the packets of dried fruit, vegetables, and grain had been torn open or were missing, perhaps taken by other animals after the wolves had left.
"Maybe we should have taken more of the food the S'Armunai offered us when we left," Ayla said, "but they had little enough for themselves. I suppose we could go back."
"I'd rather not go back," Jondalar said. "Let's see what we have. With hunting, we may have enough to make it as far as the Losadunai. Thonolan and I met so
me of them and stayed overnight with them. They asked us to come back and spend some time with them."
"Would they give us food to continue our Journey?" Ayla asked.
"I think so," Jondalar said. Then he smiled. "In fact, I know they will. I have a future claim on them!"
"A future claim?" Ayla said, with a questioning frown. "Are they your kin? Like the Sharamudoi?"
"No, they're not kin, but they are friendly, and they have traded with the Zelandonii. Some of them know the language."
"You've talked about it before, but I never have quite understood what a 'future claim' means, Jondalar."
"A future claim is a promise to give whatever is asked for, at some time in the future, in exchange for something given or, more usually, won in the past. Mostly it's used to pay a debt when someone has been gaming and lost more than that person can pay, but it's used in other ways, too," the man explained.
"What other ways?" Ayla asked. She had a feeling there was more to the idea, and that it would be important for her to understand.
"Well, sometimes to repay someone for something he's done, usually something special, but difficult to value," Jondalar said. "Since there is no limit placed on it, a future claim can be a heavy obligation, but most people will not ask for more than is appropriate. Often just accepting the obligation of a future claim shows trust and good faith. It's a way of offering friendship."
Ayla nodded. There was more to it.
"Laduni owes me a future claim," the man continued. "It is not a major claim, but he is required to give me whatever I ask, and I could ask for anything. I think he'll be glad to fulfill his obligation with nothing more than a little food, which he would probably give us anyway."
"Is it far to the Losadunai?" Ayla asked.
"It's quite a distance. They live at the western end of these mountains, and we're at the eastern end, but it's not hard traveling if we follow the river. We will have to cross it, though. They live on the other side, but we can do that farther upstream," Jondalar said.
They decided to camp there overnight, and they carefully went through all their belongings. It was mostly food that was gone. When they put all they could salvage together, it made a meager pile, but they realized the situation could have been worse. They would have to hunt and gather extensively along the way, but most of their gear was intact and would be entirely serviceable with some mending and repairing, except for the meat-keeper, which had been chewed to shreds. The bowl boat had protected their cache from the weather, if not from the wolves. In the morning they had to make a decision about whether or not to continue dragging along the round, skin-covered boat.
"We're getting into more mountainous country. It could be more trouble taking it than leaving it behind," Jondalar said.
Ayla had been checking over the poles. Of the three poles she had used to keep their food away from animals, one was broken, but they only needed two for the travois. "Why don't we take it along for now, and if it turns out to be a real problem, we can always leave it later," she said.
Traveling west, they soon left behind the low-lying basin of windy plains. The east-west course of the Great Mother River, which they followed, marked the line of a great battle between the most powerful forces of the earth, waged in the infinitely slow motion of geologic time. To the south was the foreland of the high western mountains, whose uppermost reaches were never warmed by the gentle days of summer. The lofty prominences accumulated snow and ice year after year and, farther back, the tallest peaks of the range glistened in the clear, cold air.
The highlands on the north were the basic crystalline rock of an immense massif, rounded and smoothed vestiges of ancient mountains worn down over eons of time. They had risen from the land in the earliest epoch and were anchored to the deepest bedrock. Against that immovable foundation, the irresistible force of continents, moving slowly and inexorably from the south, had crushed and folded the earth's crust of hard rock, uplifting the massive system of mountains that stretched across the land.
But the ancient massif did not escape unscathed from the great forces that created the high-peaked mountains. The tilting, faulting, and breaking of the rock, seen in the disruption of its solidified crystal structure, told a story in stone of the violent folding and thrusting it endured as it held firm against the inconceivable pressures from the south. In the same epoch, not only were the high western range on their left, and another even farther west, uplifted by moving continents pushing against unyielding bedrock, but so were the long curved eastern range they had skirted, and the entire series of ranges that continued eastward to the tallest peaks on earth.
Later, during the age of ice, when yearly temperatures were lower, the frozen crown extended far down the sides of the massive mountain ranges, covering even moderate elevations with a sparkling crystal crust. Filling in and enlarging valleys and rifts as it slowly crept along, the glacial ice left behind outwashing sheets and terraces of gravel, and it carved sharp projecting towers of stone out of the rough-hewn younger pinnacles. Snow and ice also covered the northern highlands in winter. But only the highest elevation, nearest the frosted mountains, sustained an actual glacier, an enduring layer of ice that persisted summer and winter.
With the rounded roots of the eroded mountains to the north sprawling out in comparatively level tablelands and terraces, the upper courses of the rivers that flowed across the ancient land had shallow valleys and gentle grades, though they became more rugged through the middle of their courses. Except for those that fell directly off the face of the massif, rivers coming down the steeper slopes of the southern side flowed faster. The demarcation between the gentle northern highland and the mountainous south was the fertile land of rich loess through which the Great Mother River flowed.
Ayla and Jondalar were heading almost due west as they continued their Journey, traveling along the northern bank of the waterway through the open plains of the river valley. While no longer the huge voluminous Mother of rivers that she had been downstream, the Great Mother River was still substantial, and after a few days, true to character, she separated once again into several channels.
Half a day's travel beyond, they reached another large tributary whose roiling confluence, tumbling down from higher ground, looked formidable, with icicles extended into frozen curtains and mounds of broken ice lining both banks. No longer were the rivers joining on the north coming from the uplands and foothills of the familiar mountains they were leaving behind. This water came from the unfamiliar terrain to the west. Rather than cross the perilous river, or attempt to follow it upstream, Jondalar decided to backtrack and cross the several branches of the Mother instead.
It turned out to be a good choice. Though some of the channels were wide and choked with ice along the edges, for the most part the frigid water barely reached as high as the horses' flanks. They didn't think much about it until later that evening, but Ayla and Jondalar, the two horses, and the wolf had finally crossed the Great Mother River. After their dangerous and traumatic adventures on other rivers, they accomplished it with so little incident that it seemed an anticlimax, but they were not sorry.
In the deep cold of winter, simply traveling was dangerous enough. Most people were snugly settled in warm lodges, and friends and kin would come looking if anyone was outside for too long. Ayla and Jondalar were entirely on their own. If anything happened, they had only each other, and their animal companions, to depend on.
The land gradually sloped upward, and they began to notice a subtle shift in the vegetation. Fir and larch appeared among the spruce and pine near the river. The temperature on the plains of the river valleys was extremely cold; due to atmospheric inversions, often colder than it was higher in the surrounding mountains. Although snow and ice whitened the highlands that flanked them, snow seldom fell on the river valley. The few light, dry siftings that did produced little buildup on the frozen ground, except in hollows and depressions, and sometimes not even there. When snow was lacking, the only way t
hey could get drinking water for themselves and the animals was to use their stone axes to chop ice from the frozen river and then melt it.
It made Ayla more aware of the animals that roamed the plains along the valley of the Mother. They were the same varieties as those they had seen on the steppes all along the way, but the cold-loving creatures predominated. She knew these animals could subsist on the dry vegetation that was easily available on the subfreezing but essentially snow-less plains, but she wondered how they found water.
She thought that wolves and other carnivores probably derived some of their liquid requirement from the blood of those they hunted for food, and they ranged over a large territory and could find pockets of snow or loose ice to chew. But what about horses and the other grazing and browsing animals? How did they find water in a land that in winter was a frozen desert? There was enough snow in some areas, but others were barren regions of rock and ice. Yet no matter how dry, if there was some kind of fodder, it was inhabited by animals.
Although still rare, Ayla saw more woolly rhinoceroses than she had ever seen in one place, and though they didn't herd together, whenever she saw rhinos, they often saw musk-oxen, too. Both species preferred the open, windy, dry land, but the rhinos liked grass and sedge, and musk-oxen, true to the goatlike creatures they were, browsed on woodier brush. Large reindeer and the gigantic megaceroses with massive antlers also shared the frozen land, and horses with thick winter coats, but if there was one animal that stood out among the populations in the valley of the upper course of the Great Mother River, it was mammoths.
Ayla never grew tired of watching the huge beasts. Though they were occasionally hunted, they were so unafraid that they seemed almost tame. They often allowed the woman and man to come quite close, sensing no danger from them. The danger was, if anything, to the humans. Though woolly mammoths were not the most gigantic examples of their species, they were the most gigantic animals the humans had ever seen – or that most people were ever likely to see – and with their shaggy coats even more filled out for winter, and their immense curved tusks, they looked bigger, up close, than Ayla remembered.