The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  Her shivering had stopped, but her muscles were so tense that she couldn’t move. She closed her eyes to rest. It felt so good to close her eyes … and rest.

  22

  Ayla was almost unconscious when she felt the solid stones of the riverbed under her. She tried to stumble to her feet as Whinney dragged her across the rocky bottom, taking a few steps onto a beach of smooth round stones at a bend in the river. Then she fell. The rope, still tightly wrapped around her hand, jerked her around and halted the horse.

  Jondalar, too, had shivered through the first stages of hypothermia while crossing the river, but he had reached the opposite shore sooner than she, before he became too uncoordinated or irrational. She would have made it across more quickly, but so much debris had gotten caught up in Whinney’s rope that it had slowed the horse considerably. Even Whinney was beginning to suffer from the cold river before the slip knot, though swollen from the water, finally worked itself loose, freeing her from the encumbering weight.

  Unfortunately, when he first reached the other side, the cold had affected Jondalar enough so that he wasn’t entirely coherent. He pulled his outer fur parka over his wet clothing and started out to look for Ayla, on foot, leading the stallion, but he headed in the wrong direction along the river’s edge. The exercise warmed him and cleared away the confusion. They had both been carried downstream for some distance, but since she had taken longer to get across, she had to be farther downriver. He turned around and walked back. When Racer nickered and he heard an answering whinny, he started to run.

  When Jondalar saw Ayla, she was lying on her back on the rocky shore, beside the patient mare, her arm held up by the rope entangled around her hand. He rushed to her, his heart racing with fear. After first making sure she was still breathing, he gathered her up in his arms and held her close, tears filling his eyes.

  “Ayla! Ayla! You’re alive!” he cried. “I was so afraid you were gone. But you’re so cold!”

  He had to get her warm. He loosened the rope from her hand and picked her up. She stirred and opened her eyes. Her muscles were tense and rigid, and she could hardly speak, but she was straining to say something. He bent closer.

  “Wolf. Find Wolf,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  “Ayla, I have to take care of you!”

  “Please. Find Wolf. Lose too many sons. Not Wolf, too,” she said through a clenched jaw.

  Her eyes were so full of sorrow and pleading that he couldn’t refuse. “All right. I’ll look for him, but I have to get you into a shelter first.”

  It was raining hard as he carried Ayla up a gentle slope. It leveled out in a small terrace with a stand of willows, some brush and sedge, and, near the back, a few pines. He looked for a flat place with no water running across it, then quickly set up the tent. After putting down the mammoth hide on top of the ground cover for extra protection from the saturated soil, he brought Ayla in, then the packs, and laid out their sleeping furs. He stripped off her wet clothes and his own as well, put her between the furs, and crawled in with her.

  She wasn’t quite unconscious, but in a dazed stupor. Her skin was cold and clammy, her body stiff. He tried to cover her with his body to warm her. When she began to shiver again, Jondalar breathed a little easier. It meant she was warming inside, but with the beginnings of a return to more awareness, she also remembered Wolf, and irrationally, almost wildly, she insisted that she was going to find him.

  “It’s my fault,” she said through chattering teeth. “I told him to jump in the river. I whistled. He trusted me. I have to find Wolf.” She struggled to get up.

  “Ayla, forget about Wolf. You don’t even know where to begin to look,” he said, trying to hold her down.

  Shivering and sobbing hysterically, she tried to get out of the sleeping furs. “I’ve got to find him,” she cried.

  “Ayla, Ayla, I’ll go. If you stay here, I’ll go look for him,” he said, trying to convince her to stay under the warm furs. “But promise me you will stay here, and stay covered.”

  “Please find him,” she said.

  He quickly put on dry clothes and his outer parka. Then he took out a couple of squares of traveling food, full of energy-rich fat and protein. “I’m going now,” he said. “Eat this, and stay in the furs.”

  She grabbed his hand as he turned to go. “Promise me you will search for him,” she said, looking into his troubled blue eyes. She was still shivering, but she seemed to be talking with more ease.

  He looked back into her gray-blue eyes, full of worry and pleading and clutched her to him, hard and close. “I was so afraid you were dead.”

  She held on to him, reassured by his strength, and his love. “I love you, Jondalar, I would never want to lose you, but, please, find Wolf. I couldn’t bear to lose him. He’s like … a child … a son. I can’t give up another son.” Her voice cracked and tears filled her eyes.

  He pulled back and looked down at her. “I’ll look for him. But I can’t promise I’ll find him, Ayla, and even if I do, I can’t promise he’ll be alive.”

  A look of fear and horror filled her eyes; then she closed them and nodded. “Just try to find him,” she said, but as he started to move away, she clung to him.

  He wasn’t sure if he had really planned to search for the wolf when he first started to get up. He had wanted to get some wood for a fire to get some warm tea or soup into her and see to the horses, but he had promised. Racer and Whinney were standing within the grove of willows, their riding blankets and Racer’s halter still on, but the sturdy animals seemed fine for the moment, so he headed down the slope.

  He didn’t know which direction to go when he reached the river, but he finally decided to try downstream. Pulling his hood down farther to keep off the rain, he started hiking along the bank, checking through piles of driftwood and concentrations of debris. He found many dead animals and saw as many carnivores and scavengers, both four-legged and winged, feasting on the river’s leavings, even a pack of southern wolves, but none that looked like Wolf.

  Finally he turned around and headed back. He would go upstream a way, but he doubted if he’d have any better luck. He didn’t really expect to find the animal, and he realized that it saddened him. Wolf could be troublesome sometimes, but he had developed a real affection for the intelligent beast. He would miss him, and he knew Ayla would be distraught.

  He reached the rocky shore where he had found Ayla and walked around the bend, not sure how far he ought to go in the other direction, especially when he noticed that the river was rising. He decided they would move the tent farther away from the river as soon as Ayla was fit to travel. Maybe I ought to forget about looking upstream and make sure she is all right, he said to himself, hesitating. Well, maybe I’ll go a short distance; she’ll ask if I searched in both directions.

  He started up the river, working his way around a pile of logs and branches, but when he saw the majestic silhouette of an imperial eagle gliding on outstretched wings, he stopped and watched with awe. Suddenly the large, graceful bird folded his powerful wings and dropped rapidly to the bank of the river, then swooped up again with a large suslik hanging from its talons.

  A little farther on, where the bird had found its meal, a healthy tributary, widening into a slight delta, added its share to the waters of the Sister. He thought he saw something familiar on the wide stretch of sandy beach where they came together, and he smiled with recognition. It was the bowl boat, but when he looked closer, he frowned and started running toward it. Beside the boat, Ayla was sitting in the water holding Wolf’s head in her lap. A wound above his left eye was still seeping blood.

  “Ayla! What are you doing here? How did you get here?” he stormed, more in fear and worry than in anger.

  “He’s alive, Jondalar,” she said, shaking with cold and at the same time sobbing so hard that she was almost incoherent. “He’s hurt, but he’s alive.”

  After Wolf had jumped into the river, he swam toward Ayla, but when he reached the l
ightweight, empty bowl boat skimming over the water, he rested his paws across the poles that were attached to it. He stayed there with the familiar objects, letting the buoyant boat and poles support him. It wasn’t until the slip knot came loose, and the boat and poles started careening wildly over the choppy waves, that he was slammed into the heavy, waterlogged tree trunk. By then they were almost at the other side. The boat skittered up on the sandy bank, dragging the poles with the wolf draped across them partially out of the water. The blow had stunned him, but being half-submerged in cold water was worse. Even wolves were subject to hypothermia and death from exposure.

  “Come on, Ayla, you’re shivering again. We have to get you back. Why did you come out? I told you I’d look for him,” Jondalar said. “Here, I’ll take him.” He lifted the wolf from her lap and then tried to help her up.

  After a few steps, he knew they were going to have a difficult time making it back to the tent. Ayla was hardly able to walk, and the wolf was a large, heavy animal. His waterlogged fur added even more weight. The man could not carry both of them, and he knew Ayla would never let him leave Wolf and come back for him later. If only he could whistle for the horses the way Ayla did … but why couldn’t he? Jondalar had developed a whistle for Racer, but he hadn’t really worked very hard at training him to respond. He’d never had to. The young stallion always came with his dam when Ayla called Whinney.

  Maybe Whinney would come to him if he whistled. At least he could try. He mimicked Ayla’s signal, hoping he had managed to come close enough, but, just in case they didn’t respond, he was determined to keep going. He shifted Wolf in his arms, and he tried to put an arm around Ayla to give her more support.

  They hadn’t even reached the pile of driftwood and he was already tiring from the effort. He was holding his own exhaustion off by sheer effort of will. He, too, had swum the mighty river, and then had carried Ayla up the slope and set up the tent. And then he had tramped up and down the riverbank searching for the wolf. When he heard a neigh, he looked up. Relief and joy flooded through him at the sight of the two horses.

  He laid the wolf across Whinney’s back, since she had carried him before and was used to it; then he helped Ayla up on Racer and led him toward the rocky beach. Whinney followed. Ayla, shivering in her wet clothes as the rain began to pour down harder, had trouble staying on the horse when they started up the slope. But, taking it slowly, they made it back to the tent near the grove of trees.

  Jondalar helped Ayla down and got her into the tent, but hypothermia was making her irrational again and she was getting hysterical about the wolf. He had to bring him in immediately, then had to promise he would dry him off. He searched through the packs for something with which to rub him down. But when she wanted to bring him into their sleeping roll, he adamantly refused, though he did find a cover for him. While she sobbed uncontrollably, he helped Ayla undress and wrapped her with the furs.

  He went out again, removed Racer’s halter and the riding blankets from both horses, patted them gratefully, and gave them some words of thanks. Even though horses normally lived outside in all kinds of weather, and were adapted to the cold, he knew they didn’t care much for rain, and he hoped they would not suffer for it. Then, finally, Jondalar went into the tent, undressed, and crawled in beside the violently shaking woman. Ayla huddled close to Wolf, while Jondalar cuddled her back, wrapping himself around her. After a time, with the warming body of a wolf on one side and the man on the other, the woman’s shaking stopped, and they both gave in to their exhaustion and fell asleep.

  Ayla woke up to a wet tongue licking her face. She pushed Wolf away, smiling with joy, then hugged him. Holding his head between her hands, she looked at his wound closely. The rain had washed the dirt away from the injury, and he had stopped bleeding. Though she wanted to treat him with some medicines later, he seemed fine for now. It wasn’t so much the bump on the head, but the cold river that had weakened him. Sleep and warmth had been the best medicine. She became conscious that Jondalar had his arms around her, even though he was sleeping, and she lay still being held and holding Wolf, listening to the rain drumming on the tent.

  She was remembering bits and pieces of the day before: stumbling through the brush and driftwood, searching the riverbank for Wolf; her hand hurting because the rope wrapped around it had become so tight; Jondalar carrying her. She smiled at the thought of him so close to her, then remembered watching him set up the tent. She felt a little ashamed that she had not helped him more, even though she had been so rigid with cold that she couldn’t move.

  Wolf wriggled out of her constraining hold and went out, nosing his way around the tent flap. She heard Whinney nicker and, with a feeling of joy, almost answered her, but then she remembered Jondalar sleeping. She began to worry about the horses out in the rain. They were used to dry weather, not this wet, soggy rain. Even freezing cold was fine if it was dry. But she recalled that she had seen horses, so some must live in this region. Horses did have undercoats that were thick, dense, and warm even when wet. She supposed they could cope with it, so long as it didn’t rain all the time.

  She realized that she didn’t like the heavy autumn rains that fell in this southern region, though she had welcomed the long wet northern springs, with their warming mists and drizzles. The cave of Brun’s clan was south, and it had rained quite a lot in autumn, but she didn’t remember such drenching downpours. The southern regions were not all the same. Ayla thought about getting up, but before she got around to it, she went back to sleep.

  When she awoke the second time, the man beside her was stirring. As she lay in the furs, there was a difference she couldn’t quite place. Then she realized the sound of the rain had stopped. She got up and went outside. It was late afternoon and rather more cool than it had been, and she wished she had put on something warm. She passed her water near a bush, then walked toward the horses that were grazing on sedge grass near the willows where a creek ran through. Wolf was with them. They all came toward her as she approached, and she spent some time stroking and scratching and talking to them. Then she went back in the tent, and into the sleeping furs beside the warm man.

  “You’re cold, woman!” he said.

  “And you’re nice and warm,” she said, snuggling up to him.

  He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck, relieved that her warmth was returning so quickly. It had taken so long for her to warm up after being chilled by the water. “I don’t know what I could have been thinking of, letting you get so wet and cold,” Jondalar said. “We shouldn’t have tried to cross that river.”

  “But Jondalar, what else could we do? You were right. As hard as it was raining, we would have had to cross some river, and it would have been worse trying to get across one that was coming down the mountain,” she said.

  “If we had left the Sharamudoi sooner, we would have missed the rain. Then the Sister wouldn’t have been nearly as hard to cross,” Jondalar said, continuing to berate himself.

  “But it was my fault we didn’t leave sooner, and even Carlono thought we would make it here before the rains.”

  “No, it was my fault. I knew what this river was like. If I had made the effort, we would have left earlier. And if we had left that boat behind, it wouldn’t have taken so long to get over the mountain, or slowed you down in the river. I was so stupid!”

  “Jondalar, why are you blaming yourself?” Ayla asked. “You are not stupid. You could not foresee what would happen. Not even One Who Serves the Mother can do it very well. It’s never clear. And we did make it. We’re here now, and everyone is all right, thanks to you, including Wolf. We even have the boat, and who knows how useful that might still be.”

  “But I almost lost you,” he said, burying his head in her neck and clutching her so hard that it hurt, though she did not stop him. “I can’t tell you how much I love you. I care about you so much, but the words that say it are so small. They are not enough to say what I feel for you.” He held her close as
if he thought that by holding her tight enough, he could somehow make her part of him, and would therefore never lose her.

  She held him tightly, too, loving him and wishing she could do something to relieve his anguish and suddenly overwhelming need. Then she realized she knew what to do. She breathed in his ear and kissed his neck. His response was immediate. He kissed her with a fierce passion, caressing her arms and molding her breasts in his hands, sucking on her nipples with a hungry need. She put her leg around him, and rolled him over on top of her, then opened her thighs. He backed away, prodding and groping with his full member, trying to find her opening. She reached down and helped to guide him in, and she found herself as eager for him as he was for her.

  As he plunged in and felt the warm embrace of her deep well, he moaned with the sudden indescribable sensation. All his nightmarish thoughts and fearful worries fled for the moment as the sensuous joy of this wondrous Gift of Pleasure from the Mother filled him, leaving no room for any other thoughts except his love for her. He pulled out, and then he felt her motion match his as they came together again. Her response incited stronger passions in him.

  As they backed away and drew together again, he felt so right that she didn’t think at all. His body and hers flowed apart and back together in a rhythmic pattern that she gave herself up to completely as it grew faster, glorying in the senses of that moment. Individual fires of feeling raced through her, centering deep within, as they moved back and forth.

  He was feeling himself build with volcanic power, waves of excitement washing over him, engulfing him, and then almost before he knew it, bursting through with sweet release. As he moved the last few times, he felt a few aftershocks from the violent eruption, and then the warm and glowing feeling of utter relaxation.

  He lay on top of her, catching his breath after the sudden and powerful exertion. She closed her eyes with contentment. After a time he rolled off and cuddled next to her, as she backed into him. Nesting together like two ladles, they lay quietly, happily entwined together.