by Jean M. Auel
"Now I know for sure, I've met others since, but even then it was obvious. He told the youngster who had thrown the stone to return Thonolan's spear and retrieve the stone, then they slipped back into the woods," Jondalar said. "He put everything back the way it was, and thought that settled it. Since no one was hurt, I guess it did."
"Told the youngster? Flatheads can't talk!" the man said.
"In fact, they can," Jondalar said. "They just don't talk like we do. They use hand signs, mostly. I've learned some of them, and I've communicated with them, but Ayla is much better. She knows their language."
"I find that hard to believe," Zelandoni of the Fourteenth said.
Jondalar smiled. "I did at first, too," he said. "I never saw one up close before that encounter. Have you?"
"No, I can't say that I have, and I have no desire to," the woman said. "I understand they rather resemble bears."
"They don't resemble bears, any more than we do. They look like people, a different kind of people, but there is no mistaking them. That hunting party was carrying spears and wearing clothes. Did you ever see bears do that?" Jondalar asked.
"So they are clever bears," she said.
"Don't underestimate them. They are not bears, or any other kind of animal. They are people, intelligent people," Jondalar said.
"You said you communicated with them? When?" asked the man Jondalar couldn't quite place.
"Once, when we were staying with the Sharamudoi, I got into trouble on the Great Mother River. The Sharamudoi live beside her, not too far from the end where she empties into Beran Sea. When you first get down off the glacier, the Mother is hardly a stream, but where they live she is huge, so wide in places, she almost looks like a lake. But though she can seem placid and smooth, she has a deceptively deep, swift, and strong current. By then so many other rivers, large and small, have flowed into her that when you see her from the home of the Sharamudoi, you know why she's called the Great Mother River." Jondalar was getting into Story-Telling mode, and people were listening with rapt attention.
"The Sharamudoi make excellent watercraft out of huge logs that are dug out and shaped to make a shell with pointed ends. I was practicing to control a small dugout boat using a paddle, when I lost control." Jondalar made a deprecating smile that showed his chagrin. "To be honest, I was showing off a little. They usually keep a line – with one end attached to the boat – and a hook with bait ready all the time in their boats, and I wanted to prove to them that I could catch a fish. The trouble is, fish in a river that big match its size, especially sturgeon. The River Men don't call it fishing when they go after the big ones; they say they are hunting sturgeon."
"I once saw a salmon nearly as big as a man," someone called out.
"Some sturgeon near the end of the Great Mother River are bigger than the length of three tall men," Jondalar said. "When I noticed the fishing gear, I threw out a line, but I was not lucky. I caught one! Or rather, a big sturgeon caught me. Because the line was fastened to the boat, when that fish started swimming, he took me with him. I lost the paddles and had no control. I reached for my knife to cut the line, but the boat hit something and knocked it out of my hand. The fish was strong and fast. He tried to dive and almost swamped me a couple of times. All I could do was hang on while that sturgeon pulled me upriver."
"What did you do?"
"How far did you go?"
"How did you stop it?" voices called out.
"It turned out that the hook did injure the fish and was causing it to bleed. It finally wore him out, but by then he had dragged me across a wide part of the river and quite a ways upstream. When he gave up the fight, we happened to be in the arm of a little backwater shoal. I got out and swam to land, grateful to feel something solid under my feet…"
"It's a good story, Jondalar, but what does it have to do with flatheads?" Zelandoni of the Fourteenth said.
He smiled at her, giving her all his attention. "I was just getting to that part. I was on land, but I was soaked and shivering with cold. I didn't have a knife to cut wood, I didn't have anything to make fire, most of the wood on the ground was wet, and I was really getting chilled. Suddenly, standing in front of me was this flathead. He had just the start of a beard, so he couldn't have been very old. He beckoned me to follow him, though I wasn't sure what he meant at first. Then I noticed smoke in the direction he was going, so I followed him and he led me to a fire," Jondalar said.
"Weren't you afraid to go with him? You didn't know what he might do," another voice called out. More people were joining them, Jondalar noticed. Ayla had been aware of the gathering crowd, too.
"By then, I was so cold, I didn't care. All I wanted was that fire. I squatted down, getting as close as I could to it, then I felt a fur being laid across my shoulders. I looked up and saw a woman. When she saw me, she ducked behind a bush and hid, and though I tried, I couldn't see her. From the glimpse I got of her, I think she was older, maybe the young man's mother.
"When I finally warmed up," Jondalar continued, "he led me back to the boat and the fish, belly up near the bank. It wasn't the biggest sturgeon I ever saw, but it wasn't small, at least the length of two men. The young Clan man took out a knife and cut that fish in half, lengthwise. He made some motions to me, which I didn't understand at the time, then wrapped up half that fish in a hide, flung it over his shoulder, and carried it off. Just about then, Thonolan and some River Men came paddling upstream and found me. They had seen me being pulled upriver and came looking for me. When I told them about the young flathead, just like you, Zelandoni of the Fourteenth, they didn't want to believe me, but then they saw the half fish that was left. Those men never stopped teasing me about going fishing and getting only half a fish, but it took three of them to drag the other half fish into the boat, and that young flathead picked it up and carried it away alone."
"Well, that's a good fish story, Jondalar," Zelandoni of the Fourteenth said.
Jondalar looked at her directly, with the full intensity of his amazing blue eyes. "I know it sounds like a fish story, but I promise you it is true. Every word," he said with earnest sincerity, then he shrugged and smiled, adding, "but I can't blame you for doubting.
"I got a bad cold after that dunking," he continued, "and while I was in bed staying warm by a fire, I had time to think about flatheads. That young man probably saved my life. At least he knew I was cold and needed warmth. He may have been just as afraid of me as I was of him, but he gave me what I needed and, in exchange, took half my fish. The first time I saw flatheads, I was surprised that they carried spears and wore clothes. After meeting that young man, and his mother, I knew they used fire and had sharp knives – and were very strong – but more than that, he was smart. He understood I was cold and he helped me, and for that, he thought he had a right to a share of my catch. I would have given him the whole thing, and I think he could have hauled it off, too, but he didn't take it all, he shared it."
"That is interesting," the woman said, smiling at Jondalar.
The unintentional charm and charisma of the decidedly handsome man was beginning to make an impression on the older woman, which was not lost on the One Who Was First. She would remember it for the future. If she could use Jondalar to ease her relationship with Zelandoni of the Fourteenth, she wouldn't hesitate. The woman had been like a canebrake of sharp thorns ever since she was selected to be First, impeding every decision and obstructing every policy she tried to make.
"I could tell you about the boy of mixed spirits that was adopted by the mate of the Mamutoi headman of the Lion Camp, because that was when I learned some of their signs," Jondalar continued, "but I think telling about the man and woman we met just before we started back across the glacier would be more significant, because they live close…"
"I think you should wait with that story, Jondalar," said Marthona, who had joined them. "It should be told to more people, and this meeting is to make decisions about the Matrimonial that is, if no one objects," she added
, looking directly at Zelandoni of the Fourteenth Cave and smiling sweetly. She, too, had seen the effect her captivating son had on the older woman, and she was more than aware of the problems the Fourteenth had given the First. She had been a leader herself and understood.
"Unless you are really interested in hearing all the discussion and details," Joharran said to Jondalar and Ayla, "this might be a good time to look for a place to demonstrate your spear-thrower. I'd like you to do it before the first hunt."
Ayla wouldn't have minded staying. She wanted to learn as much as she could about Jondalar's – and now her – people, but he was eager to follow up on the suggestion. He wanted to share his new hunting weapon with all the Zelandonii. They explored the campsite of the Summer Meeting, Jondalar greeting friends and introducing Ayla. They found themselves the object of attention because of Wolf, but they expected it. Ayla wanted to get the initial disturbance over with as soon as possible. The sooner people started getting used to seeing the animals, the sooner they would begin to take them for granted.
They decided on an area that they thought would work for the spear-thrower demonstration, then they saw one of the young men who had helped hold up the travois when they crossed rivers to keep the goods they were transporting dry. He was from Three Rocks, the West Holding of the Twenty-ninth Cave, also known as Summer Camp, and had traveled with them the rest of the way. They chatted a while, then his mother came along and invited them to have a meal with them. The sun was already high, and they hadn't eaten since early in the day, and gratefully accepted. Even Wolf was given a bone with some meat on it. They were extended a special invitation to help with the pine-nut harvest in the fall.
On their way back to their camp, they passed by the large lodge of the zelandonia. The First was just coming out and stopped to tell them that all the people who were involved with the First Matrimonial that she had spoken with so far were willing to delay the ceremony until the arrival of Dalanar and the Lanzadonii. They were introduced to several of the other zelandonia, and the people from the Ninth Cave observed with interest their various reactions to the wolf.
By the time they started back to the camp of the Ninth Cave, the sun was dropping over the horizon in a blaze of gold coruscating in resplendent beams through red clouds. When they reached the bank of The River, flowing smoothly with hardly a ripple at that point, they continued upstream until they crossed the small creek that joined it. They stopped for a moment to watch the evening sky transform itself in a show of dazzling radiance as gold transmuted into shades of vermilion that waned into shimmering purple, then darkened to deep blue as the first glittering sky fires appeared. Soon the sooty black night became a backdrop to the multitude of blazing lights that filled the summer sky, with a concentrated accumulation wending its way like a path across the vault above. Ayla recalled the line from the Mother's Song, "The Mother's hot milk laid a path through the sky." Is that how it was made? she wondered as they turned toward the welcoming fires of their nearby camp.
When Ayla awoke the next morning, everyone else seemed to be up and gone already and she was feeling uncharacteristically lazy. Her eyes were accustomed to the dim light inside the dwelling, and she lay in her sleeping roll, looking at the designs carved and painted on the sturdy wooden center pole and the smudges of soot that already blackened the edges of the smoke hole, until she had to pass water – she felt the need even more often lately. She didn't know where the community waste trenches had been dug, so she used the night basket. She wasn't the only one who had used it, she noticed. I'll empty it later, she thought. It was one of the unpleasant chores that were shared by those who felt it was a duty and those who were shamed into it if it was noticed that they hadn't recently.
When she walked back to her sleeping roll to shake it out, she looked more closely around the inside of the summer camp shelter. She had been surprised at the structures that had been made while she and Jondalar were visiting the day before. Though she had noticed the lodges of the people who had set up their camps near the main area, she was still expecting to see the traveling tents, but most people did not use the tents they had traveled with at the Summer Meeting camp. During the warm season, the traveling tents would be used by various people for temporary treks to hunt, or gather produce, or visit as they ranged over their territory. The summer lodge was a more permanent structure, a circular, straight-sided, rather substantial dwelling. Though made differently, Ayla understood they were similar in purpose to the lodges used by the Mamutoi during their Summer Meetings.
Though it was dark inside – the only light came from the open entrance and an occasional sliver of sunlight that found its way through cracks in the wall where pieces joined – Ayla saw that, besides the center pole of pine, the dwelling had an interior wall of panels woven out of flattened bullrush stems and painted with designs and animals. They were attached to the inside of poles that encircled the center pole and provided a fairly large enclosed space that could be left open or divided into smaller areas with movable interior panels. The ground was covered with mats, which were made of bullrushes, tall phragmite reeds, cattail leaves, or grasses, and sleeping rolls were spread out around a slightly off-center fireplace. The smoke escaped through a hole above it, near the center pole. A smoke hole cover could be adjusted from the inside with short poles that were attached to it.
She was curious about how the rest of the structure was made and stepped outside. First she glanced around the camp, which was composed of several large circular lodges surrounding a central fireplace, and then she walked around the outside of the dwelling. Poles were lashed together in a way that was similar to the fence of the surround that was erected to capture animals, but instead of the freestanding flexible construction that could yield when an animal bumped or butted into it, the summer lodge fencing was attached to widely spaced anchoring poles of alder that were sunk into the ground.
A wall of sturdy vertical panels made of overlapped cattail leaves, which shed rain, was attached to the outside of the poles, leaving an air space between the outer and inner walls for extra insulation to make it cooler on hot days and, with a fire inside, warmer on cool nights. It also avoided accumulation of moisture condensation on the inside when it was cold out. The roof was a fairly thick thatch of overlapping reeds that sloped down from the center pole. The thatch was not particularly well made, but it kept the rain out and was required only for a season.
Parts of the lodge were brought with them, in particular the woven mats, panels, interior walls, and some of the poles. Generally, each person who was sharing a dwelling carried some sections or pieces, but much of the material was gathered fresh from the surrounding area each year. When they returned home in the fall, the structures were partially dismantled to retrieve the reusable parts but left standing. They seldom lasted through the heavy snows and winds of winter, and by the following summer, there were only collapsed ruins, which disintegrated back into the environment before the same location was used again for a Summer Meeting.
Ayla remembered that the Mamutoi had different names for their summer camps than they did for their winter dwellings. The Lion Camp, for example, was the Cattail Camp at the Summer Meeting, but the same people who lived at Lion Camp lived there. She asked Jondalar if the Ninth Cave had a different summer name. He explained that their location was just called the camp of the Ninth Cave, but living arrangements at Zelandonii Summer Meetings were not quite the same as they were in winter in the shelters of stone.
Each summer dwelling accommodated more people than usually shared the roomier, more permanent structures under the large overhang of the Ninth Cave. As a rule, family members, including those who had separate dwellings in winter, shared a lodge, but some people didn't even stay at the same camp. Instead, it was not uncommon for some to spend the summer with other relatives or friends. For example, young matrons who had moved to their mates' Caves often liked to take their children and spend the summer with their mothers, siblings, or childhood frie
nds, and their mates usually accompanied them.
In addition, young women who would be having their First Rites that year lived together in a separate dwelling near the large central dwelling of the zelandonia, at least for the first part of the summer. Another dwelling nearby was set up for the women who chose to be donii-women that year, to be available for the young men who were approaching puberty.
Most young men who were past puberty – and some men not so young – often chose to band together separately away from their home camps and set up lodges of their own. They were required to be on the periphery of the camp, as far away as possible from the very desirable young women who were being prepared for First Rites. For the most part the men didn't mind. They would have liked to ogle the women, but they rather liked the privacy of being off by themselves, so no one could complain if they were a little loud or rowdy. As a consequence, the men's dwellings were called "the far lodges," usually shortened to fa'lodges. The men who stayed in a fa'lodge were usually unmated or between mates – or wished they were.
Since he didn't rush to greet her when she went out, Ayla assumed that Wolf was with Jondalar. There were not many people outside, most were probably somewhere around the central area, the main focus of the Summer Meeting, but she found some leftover tea near the camp's fireplace. She noticed that the fireplace was not shaped like a big round bonfire, but more like a trench. She had seen the evening before that more people could get closer to a fire if it was extended and longer logs and branches, cut down or deadfall, could be used without having to hack them into smaller pieces. While she was drinking the tea, Salova, Rushemar's mate, came out of her lodge, holding her baby daughter.
"Greetings, Ayla," she said, putting her baby down on a mat.
"Greetings, Salova," Ayla said, coming closer to see the baby. She held out a finger for the infant to grab and smiled at her.
Salova looked at Ayla, hesitated, then asked, "Would you mind watching Marsola for a while? I gathered some materials to make baskets and have some of them soaking in the creek. I'd like to get them and sort them out. I promised some people I would make baskets for them."