by Jean M. Auel
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about Shamio when that wolf is gone,” Markeno said. “She wants him around all the time. She’d sleep with him if I’d let her.”
“Maybe you can find a wolf cub for her,” Carlono said, joining them. He had just come up from the dock.
“I hadn’t thought of that. It wouldn’t be easy, but maybe I could get one cub from a wolf den,” Markeno mused. “At least I could promise her to try. I’m going to have to tell her something.”
“If you do,” Jondalar said, “I’d make sure it’s a young one. Wolf was still nursing when his mother died.”
“How did Ayla feed him without a mother to give him milk?” Carlono asked.
“I wondered that myself,” Jondalar said. “She said a baby can eat whatever its mother eats, but it has to be softer and easier to chew. She cooked up broth, soaked a piece of soft leather in it, and let him suck it, and she cut meat up into tiny pieces for him. He eats anything we eat now, but he still likes to hunt for himself sometimes. He even flushes game for us, and he helped us get that elk we brought with us when we came.”
“How do you get him to do what you want him to?” Markeno asked.
“Ayla spends a lot of time at it. She shows him and goes over it again and again until he gets it right. It’s surprising how much he can learn, and he’s so eager to please her,” Jondalar said.
“Anyone can see that. Do you think it’s just her? After all, she is shamud,” Carlono said. “Could just anybody make animals do what he wants?”
“I ride on Racer’s back,” Jondalar said, “and I’m not shamud.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Markeno said, then laughed. “Remember, I’ve seen you around women. I think you could make any one of them do whatever you wanted.”
Jondalar flushed. He hadn’t really thought about that for a while.
As Ayla walked toward them, she wondered about his red face, but then Dolando joined them, coming from around the wall.
“I’ll go with you part of the way to show you the trails and the best way over the mountains,” he said.
“Thank you. That will be a help,” Jondalar said.
“I’ll go along, too,” Markeno said.
“I would like to come,” Darvalo said. Ayla looked in his direction and saw that he was wearing the shirt Jondalar had given him.
“So would I,” Rakario said.
Darvalo looked at her with an annoyed frown, expecting to see her staring at Jondalar, but she was looking at him instead, with an adoring smile. Ayla watched his expression change from annoyance, to puzzlement, to understanding, and then to a surprised blush.
Almost everyone had congregated in the middle of the field to say farewell to their visitors, and several others voiced a wish to walk along with them for part of the way.
“I won’t be going,” Roshario said, looking at Jondalar and then Ayla, “but I wish you were staying. I wish you both good Journey.”
“Thank you, Roshario,” he said, giving the woman a hug. “We may need your good wishes before we are through.”
“I need to thank you, Jondalar, for bringing Ayla. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to me if she hadn’t come.” She reached for Ayla’s hand. The young medicine woman took it, and then the other hand still in the sling, and squeezed both of them, pleased to feel the strength in the grip of both hands in return. Then they hugged.
There were several other goodbyes, but most of the people planned to follow along the trail for at least a short way.
“Are you coming, Tholie?” Markeno asked, falling into step beside Jondalar.
“No.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I don’t want to go. It won’t be any easier to say goodbye on the trail than it will be right here.” She went up to the tall Zelandonii man. “It’s hard for me to be nice to you right now, Jondalar. I’ve always been so fond of you, and I liked you even more after you brought Ayla here. I wanted so much for you and her to stay, but you won’t do it. Even though I understand why you won’t, it doesn’t make me feel very good.”
“I’m sorry you feel so bad, Tholie,” Jondalar said. “I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better.”
“There is, but you won’t do it,” she said.
It was so like her to say exactly what she was thinking. It was one of the things he liked about her. You never had to guess what she really meant. “Don’t be angry at me. If I could stay, nothing would please me more than to join with you and Markeno. You don’t know how proud you made me feel when you asked us, or how hard it is for me to leave right now, but something pulls me. To be honest, I’m not even sure what it is, but I have to go, Tholie.” He looked at her with his startling blue eyes full of genuine sorrow, concern, and caring.
“Jondalar, you shouldn’t say such nice things and look at me like that. It makes me want you to stay even more. Just give me a hug,” Tholie said.
He bent down and put his arms around the young woman, and he felt her shaking with her effort to control her tears. She pulled away and looked at the tall blond woman beside him.
“Oh, Ayla. I don’t want you to go,” she said with a huge sob as they fell into each other’s arms.
“I don’t want to leave, I wish we could stay. I’m not sure why, but Jondalar has to go, and I have to go with him,” Ayla said, crying as hard as Tholie. Suddenly the young mother broke away, picked up Shamio, and ran back toward the shelters.
Wolf started to go after them. “Stay here, Wolf!” Ayla commanded.
“Wuffie! I want my Wuffie,” the little girl cried out, reaching toward the shaggy, four-legged carnivore.
Wolf whined and looked up at Ayla. “Stay, Wolf,” she said. “We are leaving.”
20
Ayla and Jondalar stood in a clearing that commanded a broad view of the mountain, feeling a sense of loss and loneliness as they watched Dolando, Markeno, Carlono, and Darvalo walking back down the trail. The rest of the large crowd that had started out with them had dropped back by twos and threes along the way. When the last four men reached a turn in the trail, they turned and waved.
Ayla returned their wave in a “come back” motion with the back of her hand toward them, suddenly overcome by the knowledge that she would never see the Sharamudoi again. In the short time she had known them, she had come to love them. They had welcomed her, asked her to stay, and she could have lived with them gladly.
This leaving reminded her of their departure from the Mamutoi early in the summer. They, too, had welcomed her, and she had loved many of them. She could have been happy living with them, except that she would have had to live with the unhappiness she had caused Ranec, and when she left, there had been the excitement of going home with the man she loved. There were no undercurrents of unhappiness among the Sharamudoi, which made the parting all the more difficult, and though she loved Jondalar and had no doubt that she wanted to go with him, she had found acceptance and friendships that were hard to end with such finality.
Journeys are full of goodbyes, Ayla thought. She had even made her last farewell to the son she had left with the Clan … though if she had stayed there, someday she might have been able to go with the Ramudoi in a boat back down the Great Mother River to the delta. Then, perhaps, she could have made a trek around to the peninsula, to look for the new cave of her son’s clan … but there was no point in thinking about it anymore.
There would be no more opportunities to return, no more last chances to hope for. Her life took her in one direction, her son’s life led him in another. Iza had told her “find your own people, find your own mate.” She had found acceptance among her own kind of people and she had found a man to love who loved her. But for all she had gained, there were losses. Her son was one of them; she had to accept that fact.
Jondalar felt desolate as well, watching the last four turning back toward their home. They were all friends he had lived with for several years and had known well. Though their relations
hip was not through his mother and her ties, he felt they were as much kin as his own blood. In his commitment to return to his original roots, they were family he would never see again, and that saddened him.
When the last of the Sharamudoi that had seen them off moved out of sight, Wolf sat on his haunches, lifted his head, and gave voice to a few yips that led to a full, throaty howl, shattering the tranquillity of the sunny morning. The four men appeared again on the trail below and waved one last time, acknowledging the wolf’s farewell. Suddenly there was an answering howl from one of his own kind. Markeno looked to see which direction the second howl came from before they started back down the trail. Then Ayla and Jondalar turned and faced the mountain with its glistening peaks of blue-green glacial ice.
Though not as high as the range to the west, the mountains in which they were traveling had been formed at the same time, in the most recent of the mountain-building epochs—recent only in relation to the ponderously slow movements of the thick stony crust floating on the molten core of the ancient earth. Uplifted and folded into a series of parallel ridges during the orogeny that had brought the whole continent into sharp relief, the rugged terrain of this farthest east expansion of the extensive mountain system was clothed with verdant life.
A skirt of deciduous trees formed a narrow band between the plains below, still warmed by the vestiges of summer, and the cooler heights. Primarily oak and beech with hornbeam and maple also prominent, the leaves were already changing into a colorful tapestry of reds and yellows accented by the deep evergreen of spruce at the higher edge. A cloak of conifers, which included not only spruce, but yew, fir, pine, and the deciduous-needled larch, starting low, climbed to the rounded shoulders of lower prominences and covered the steep sides of higher peaks with subtle variations of green that shaded to the yellowing larch. Above the timberline was a collar of summer-green alpine pasture that turned white with snow early in the season. Capping it was the hard helmet of blue-tinged glacial ice.
The heat that had brushed the southern plains below with the ephemeral touch of the short hot summer was already fading, giving way to the grasping clutch of cold. Though a warming trend had been moderating its worst effects—an interstadial period lasting several thousands of years—the glacial ice was regrouping for one last assault on the land before the retreat would be turned to a rout thousands of years later. But even during the milder lull before the final advance, glacial ice not only coated low peaks and mantled the flanks of high mountains, it held the continent in its grip.
In the rugged forested landscape, with the added hindrance of hauling the round boat on the pole drag, Ayla and Jondalar walked more than they rode the horses. They hiked up sharply pitched slopes, over ridges, across loose patches of scree, and down the steep sides of dry gullies, caused by the spring runoff of melting snow and ice, and the heavy fall rains of the southern mountains. A few of the deep ditches had water at the bottom, oozing through the mulch of rotting vegetation and soft loam, which sucked at the feet of humans and animals alike. Others carried clear streams, but all would soon be filled again with the tempestuous outflow of the downpours of autumn.
At the lower elevations, in the open forest of broad-leafed trees, they were impeded by undergrowth, forcing their way through or finding a way around brush and briars. The stiff canes and thorny vines of the delicious blackberries were a formidable barrier that tore at hair, clothes, and skin as well as hides and fur. The warm shaggy coats of the steppe horses, adapted for living on cold open plains, were easily caught and tangled, and even Wolf took his share of burrs and twigs.
They were all glad when they finally reached the elevation of evergreens, whose relatively constant shade kept the undergrowth to a minimum, although on the steep slopes where the canopy was not as dense, the sun did filter through more than it would have on level ground, allowing some brush to grow. It was not much easier to ride in the thick forest of tall trees, with the horses having to pick their way around the wooded obstacles and passengers dodging low-hanging branches. They camped the first night in a small clearing on a knoll surrounded by needled spires.
It was approaching evening of the second day before they reached the timberline. Finally free of entangling brush and past the obstacle course of taller trees, they set up their tent beside a fast, cold brook on an open pasture. When the burdens were removed from the horses, they were eager to graze. Though their customary coarser dry fodder of the lower, hotter elevations was adequate, the sweet grass and alpine herbs of the green meadow were a welcome treat.
A small herd of deer shared the pasture, the males busily rubbing their antlers on branches and outcrops to free them of the soft coating of skin and nourishing blood vessels called velvet in preparation for the fall rut.
“It will soon be their season for Pleasures,” Jondalar commented as they were setting up the fireplace. “They are getting ready for the fights, and the females.”
“Is fighting a Pleasure for males?” Ayla asked.
“I never thought of it that way, but it may be for some,” he acknowledged.
“Do you like to fight with other men?”
Jondalar frowned as he gave the question serious consideration. “I’ve done my share. Sometimes you get drawn into it, for one reason or another, but I can’t say I liked it, not if it’s serious. I don’t mind wrestling or other competitions, though.”
“Men of the Clan don’t fight with each other. It’s not allowed, but they do have competitions,” Ayla said. “Women do, too, but they are a different kind.”
“How are theirs different?”
Ayla paused to think about it. “The men compete in what they do; the women in what they make,” she said, then smiled, “including babies, though that is a very subtle competition, and nearly everyone thinks she is the winner.”
Farther up the mountain, Jondalar noticed a family of mouflon, and he pointed out the wild sheep with huge horns that curled around close to their heads. “Those are the real fighters,” Jondalar said. “When they run at each other and bang their heads together, it sounds almost like a clap of thunder.”
“When stags and rams run at each other with their antlers or horns, do you think they are really fighting? Or are they competing?” Ayla asked.
“I don’t know. They can hurt each other, but they don’t very often. Usually one just gives up when another one shows he is stronger, and sometimes they just strut around and bellow, and don’t fight at all. Maybe it is more competition than actual fight.” He smiled at her. “You do ask interesting questions, woman.”
A fresh cool breeze turned chilly as the sun dipped below the edge of vision. Earlier in the day, light siftings of snow had drifted down and melted in the open sunny spaces, but some had accumulated in the shady nooks, forecasting the possibility of a cold night, and heavier snows to come.
Wolf disappeared shortly after their hide shelter was set up. When he hadn’t returned by dark, Ayla felt anxious about him. “Do you think I should whistle to call him back?” she asked as they were getting ready to settle down for the night.
“It’s not the first time he’s gone off to hunt by himself, Ayla. You’re just used to him being around because you kept him close to you. He’ll be back,” Jondalar said.
“I hope he’s back by morning,” Ayla said, getting up to look around, trying in vain to see into the dark beyond their campfire.
“He’s an animal; he knows his way. Come back and sit down,” he said. He put another piece of wood on the fire and watched the sparks rising into the sky. “Look at those stars. Did you ever see so many?”
Ayla looked up and a feeling of wonder came over her. “It does seem like a lot. Maybe it’s because we’re closer up here, and we’re seeing more of them, especially the smaller ones … or are they farther away? Do you think they go on and on?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it. Who could ever know?” Jondalar asked.
“Do you think your Zelandonii might?”
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br /> “She might, but I’m not sure she’d tell. There are some things only meant for Those Who Serve the Mother to know. You do ask the strangest questions, Ayla,” Jondalar said, feeling a chill. Though he wasn’t sure it was from the cold, he added, “I’m getting cold, and we need to get an early start. Dolando said the rains could begin any time. That could mean snow up here. I’d like to be down from here before that.”
“I’ll be right there. I just want to make sure Whinney and Racer are all right. Maybe Wolf is with them.”
Ayla was still worried when she crawled into their sleeping furs, and she was slow to fall asleep as she strained to hear any sound that might be the animal returning.
It was dark, too dark to see beyond the many, many stars that were streaming out of the fire into the night sky, but she kept looking. Then two stars, two yellow lights in the dark moved together. They were eyes, the eyes of a wolf who was looking at her. He turned and started walking away and she knew he wanted her to follow, but when she started after him, her path was suddenly blocked by a huge bear.
She jerked back in fear when the bear got up on his hind legs and growled. But when she looked again, she discovered it wasn’t a real bear. It was Creb, The Mog-ur, dressed in his bearskin cloak.
In the distance she heard her son calling out to her. She looked beyond the great magician and saw the wolf, but it wasn’t just a wolf. It was the spirit of the Wolf, Durc’s totem, and it wanted her to follow. Then the Wolf spirit turned into her son, and it was Durc who wanted her to follow. He called out to her once more, but when she tried to go to him, Creb blocked her way again. He pointed to something behind her.
She turned and saw a path leading up to a cave, not a deep cave, but an overhanging shelf of light-colored rock in the side of a cliff, and above it an odd boulder that seemed frozen in the act of falling over the edge. When she looked back, Creb and Durc were gone.