The Earth's Children Series 6-Book Bundle

by Jean M. Auel

  The distant mountains that surrounded them were magnificent, but the most heart-stopping sight was closer at hand. Down below, in the deep gorge, the course of the Great Mother River had changed direction. It was now coming from the west. As Ayla and Jondalar stared down from the ridge and looked upstream at the wavering course of the river, they, too, felt as though they had reached a turning point.

  “The glacier we have to cross is due west of here,” Jondalar said, his voice taking on a faraway tone that matched his thoughts, “but we’ll follow the Mother and she’ll veer a little to the northwest after a while, then southwest again until we reach it. It’s not a huge glacier and, except for a higher region in the northeast, nearly flat once we get up to it, like a big high plain made out of ice. After we get across it, we’ll head slightly southwest again, but essentially, from here on, we’ll be traveling west all the way home.”

  In breaking through the ridge of limestone and crystalline rock, the river, as though hesitating, unable to make up her mind, jogged north, then dipped south, and then north again, forming a lobe that the river traced, before finally heading south through the plain.

  “Is that the Mother?” Ayla asked. “All of her, I mean, not just a channel?”

  “That’s all of her. She’s still a good-size river, but nothing like she was,” Jondalar conceded.

  “We’ve been beside her for quite a while, then. I didn’t know that. I’m used to seeing the Great Mother River so much more full, when she isn’t all spread out. I thought we were following a channel. We’ve crossed feeders that were greater,” Ayla said, feeling a little disappointed that the enormous swollen Mother of rivers had become just another large waterway.

  “We’re up high. She looks different from here. There is more to her than you think,” he said. “We have some large tributaries to cross, yet, and there will be stretches where she breaks into channels again, but she will keep getting smaller.” Jondalar stared toward the west in silence for a time; then he added, “This is just the beginning of winter. We should make it to the glacier in plenty of time … if nothing happens to delay us.”

  The Journeyers turned west along the high ridge, following the outside bend of the river. The elevation continued to increase on the north side of the river until they were looking down from a high point above the little southward lobe. The drop-off toward the west was quite steep, and they headed north down a slightly more gradual slope through scattered brush. At the bottom, a tributary that curled around the base of the lofty prominence from the northeast cut a deep gorge. They traced it upstream until they found a crossing. It was only hilly on the other side, and they rode beside the feeder until they reached the Great Mother again, then continued west.

  In the broad central plain there had been only a few tributaries, but they were now in an area where many rivers and streams fed the Mother from the north. They came upon another large tributary later in the day and their legs got wet in the crossing. It was not like crossing rivers in the warm summertime, when it didn’t matter if they got a little wet. The temperature was dipping down to freezing at night. They were chilled by the icy cold water, and they decided to camp on the far bank to get warm and dry.

  They continued due west. After passing through the hilly terrain, they reached the lowland again, a marshy grassland, but not like the wetlands downstream. These were on acid soils, and more swampy than marshy, with moors of sphagnum mosses that in places were compacting into peat. They discovered the peat would burn when they made camp one day and inadvertently built a fire on top of a dry patch of it. The following day they collected some on purpose for their next fires.

  When they came to a large, fast tributary that fanned into a broad delta at its confluence with the Mother, they decided to follow it upstream a short distance to see if they could find an easier place to cross. They reached a fork where two rivers converged, followed the right branch, and came to another fork where yet another river joined. The horses easily waded across the smaller river, and the middle fork, though larger, wasn’t too difficult. The land between the middle and the left fork was a boggy lowland with sphagnum moors, and it was difficult going.

  The last fork was deep, and there was no way to cross it without getting wet, but on the other side they disturbed a megaceros with an enormous rack of palmate antlers and decided to go after him. The giant deer, with his long legs, easily outdistanced the stocky horses, although Racer and Wolf gave him a good run. Whinney, hauling the pole drag, couldn’t keep up, but the exercise had put them all in a good mood.

  Jondalar, red-faced and windblown, his fur hood thrown back, was smiling when he came back. Ayla felt an unexplainable pang of love and longing as he rode up. He had let his pale yellow beard grow, as he usually did in winter, to help keep his face warm, and she always did like him with a beard. He liked to call her beautiful, but in her mind, he was beautiful.

  “That animal can sure run!” he said. “And did you see that magnificent rack? One of his antlers must be twice as big as I am!”

  Ayla was smiling, too. “He was magnificent, and beautiful, but I’m glad we didn’t get him. He was too big for us, anyway. We couldn’t take all that meat, and it would have been a shame to kill him when we didn’t need it.”

  They rode back to the Mother, and even though their clothes had dried on them somewhat, they were glad to make camp and change. They made a point of hanging their damp clothing near the fire so it could dry further.

  The next day they started out heading west; then the river veered toward the northwest. Some distance beyond, they could see another high ridge. The high prominence that reached all the way to the Great Mother River was the farthest northwest finger, the last they would see, of the great chain of mountains that had been with them almost from the beginning. The range had been west of them then, and they had traveled around its broad southern end following the lower course of the Great Mother River. The whitened mountain peaks had marched along to the east of them in a great curving arc, as they rode up the central plain beside the river’s winding middle course. Going west along the Mother’s upper course, the ridge ahead was the last outlier.

  No tributaries joined the long river until they were almost up to the ridge, and Ayla and Jondalar realized they must have been between channels again. The river that joined from the east at the foot of the rocky promontory was the other end of the northern channel of the Mother. From there the river flowed between the ridge and a high hill across the water, but there was enough lowland riverbank to ride around the base of the high rocky point.

  They crossed another large tributary just on the other side of the ridge, a river whose great valley marked the separation between the two groups of mountain ranges. The high hills to the west were the farthest eastern foreland of the enormous western chain. As the ridge fell behind them, the Great Mother River separated again into three channels. They followed the outer bank of the northernmost stream through the steppes of a smaller northern basin that was a continuation of the central plain.

  In the times when the central basin had been a great sea, this wide river valley of grassy steppes, along with the swampy bogs and moors of the riverside wetlands and the grasslands to the north of them, were all inlets to that ancient inland body of water. The inner curve of the eastern mountain chain contained lines of weakness in the hard crust of the earth that became the vents for great outpourings of volcanic material. That material, combined with the ancient sea deposits and the windblown loess, created a rich and fertile soil. But only the skeletal wood of winter gave evidence of it.

  The bony fingers and leafless limbs of a few birch trees near the river rattled in the rapacious wind from the north. Dry brushwood, reeds, and dead ferns lined the banks, where crusts of ice were forming that would thicken and build up jagged levees; the beginning of spring ice floes. On the northern faces and higher ground of the rolling hills in the valley divide, the wind combed billowing fields of gray standing hay with rhythmic strokes, whil
e dark evergreen boughs of spruce and pine swayed and shivered in erratic gusts that found their way around to the protected south-facing sides. Powdery snow churned around, then settled lightly on the ground.

  The weather had definitely turned cold, but snow flurries were not a problem. The horses, the wolf, and even the people were accustomed to the northern loess steppes with its dry cold and light winter snows. Only in heavy snow, that could bog down and tire the horses, and make feed harder to find, would Ayla begin to worry. She had another worry at the moment. She had seen horses in the distance, and Whinney and Racer had noticed them, too.

  When he happened to look back, Jondalar thought he saw smoke coming from the high hill across the river from the last ridge they had edged around earlier. He wondered if there were people nearby, but he did not see smoke again though he turned around to check several times.

  Toward evening, they followed a small feeder upstream through an open woodland of bare-branched willows and birch, to a stand of stone pines. Frosty nights had given a still pond nearby a transparent layer of ice on top, and had frozen the edges of the little creek, but it still ran freely in the center, and they set up camp beside it. A dry snow blew down and dusted the north-facing slopes with white.

  Whinney had been agitated ever since they had seen the horses in the distance, which in turn made Ayla nervous. She decided to put the halter on her mare that evening, and she fastened it with a long tether to a sturdy pine. Jondalar tied Racer’s lead rope to a tree near her. Then they collected deadfall and snapped off the dead branches still attached to the trunks of the pine trees underneath the living branches; “women’s wood” Jondalar’s people had always called it. It was available on most coniferous trees, and even in the wettest of conditions it was usually dry. It could be collected without having to use an axe or even a knife. They built the fire just outside the entrance of the tent and left the flap open to heat it inside.

  A varying hare, already turned white, dashed through their camp when, by sheer chance, Jondalar happened to be checking the heft of his spear-thrower with a new spear he’d been working on for the past few evenings. He threw almost by instinct, but he was surprised when the shorter spear with a smaller point, made out of flint not bone, found its mark. He walked over, picked up the hare, and tried to pull out the shaft. When it didn’t come easily, he took out his knife, cut out the point, and was pleased to see that the new spear was undamaged.

  “Here’s meat for tonight,” Jondalar said, handing the hare to Ayla. “It almost makes me wonder if this one didn’t come by just to help me test the new spears. They’re light and easy. You’ll have to try one out.”

  “I think it’s more likely that we camped in the middle of his regular run,” Ayla said, “but that was a good throw. I would like to try the light spear. Right now, though, I think I’ll start this cooking and see what I can find for the rest of our meal.”

  She cleaned out the entrails but did not skin the hare, so the winter fat would not be lost. Then she skewered it on a sharpened willow branch and propped it up over the fire between two forked sticks. Next, though she had to break the ice to dig them out, Ayla collected several cattail roots, and the rhizomes from some dormant licorice fern. She pounded both of them together with a rounded stone in a wooden bowl with water to extract the tough, stringy fibers, then let the white starchy pulp settle in the bottom of the bowl while she looked through her supplies to see what else she had.

  When the starch had settled and the liquid was almost clear, she carefully poured off most of it and added dried blue elderberries. While she waited for them to plump up and absorb more of the water, she stripped away the outer bark of a birch tree, scraped off some of the soft, sweet, edible cambium layer underneath, and added it to her root-starch-and-berry mixture. She gathered cones of the stone pines, and when she put them on the fire, she was pleased to see that several of them still had large, hard-shelled pine nuts in them that the heat had helped to crack.

  When the hare was cooked, she broke off some of the blackened skin and rubbed the inside on a few stones she had put in the fire, to spread some fat on them. Then she took small handfuls of the doughy root starch, mixed with the berries, the sweet, flavorful licorice-fern root stalk, and the sweetening and thickening sap from the birch cambium, and dropped them on the hot rocks.

  Jondalar had been watching her. She could still surprise him with her extensive knowledge of growing things. Most people, particularly women, knew where to find edible plants, but he had never met anyone who knew so much. When she had several of the doughy, unleavened biscuits cooked, he took a bite out of one.

  “This is delicious!” he said. “You really are amazing, Ayla. Not very many people can find growing food to eat in the cold of winter.”

  “It’s not the cold of winter, yet, Jondalar, and not so hard to find things to eat now. Wait until the ground is frozen solid,” Ayla said, then took the hare off the spit, peeled back the crispy charcoaled skin, and put the meat on the mammoth-ivory platter, from which they both would eat.

  “I think you could find something to eat even then,” Jondalar said.

  “But maybe not plants,” she said, offering him a tender leg of hare.

  When they finished the hare and the cattail-root biscuits, Ayla gave the leftovers to Wolf, including the bones. She started their herb tea steeping, adding some birch cambium for the wintergreen flavor, then took the pine cones out of the edge of the fire. They sat by the fire for a while, sipping their tea and eating pine nuts, cracked with rocks or sometimes with their teeth. After their meal, they made preparations for an early start, checked to make sure the horses were all right, then settled into their warm furs for the night.

  Ayla looked down the corridor of a long, winding cave, and the line of fires that were showing the way cast light upon beautiful draped and flowing formations. She saw one that resembled the long flowing tail of a horse. As she approached, the dun-yellow animal nickered and swished its dark tail, seeming to beckon her closer. She started to follow, but the rocky cave grew dark, and the stalagmites crowded in.

  She looked down to see where she was going, and when she looked up, it wasn’t a horse that was beckoning, after all. It seemed to be a man. She strained to see who it was, and was startled to see Creb stepping out of the shadows. He motioned her on, urging her to hurry and come with him; then he turned and limped away.

  She started to follow him, then heard a horse whinny. When she turned around to look for the yellow mare, the dark tail disappeared into a herd of dark-tailed horses. She ran after them, but they turned into flowing stone and then into a jumble of stone columns. When she looked back, Creb was disappearing down a dark tunnel.

  She ran after him, trying to catch up with him, until she came to a fork, but she didn’t know which branch Creb had taken. She was in a panic, looking at one and then the other. Finally she started up the right fork, and she found a man standing in the middle of it, blocking her way.

  It was Jeren! He was filing the entire passage, standing with his legs apart and his arms crossed in front of him, shaking his head no. She pleaded with him to let her get by, but he didn’t understand. Then, with a short, carved staff, he pointed toward the wall behind her.

  When she turned to look, she saw a dark yellow horse running and a yellow-haired man running after. Suddenly the herd surrounded the man, bid him from sight. Her stomach churned into a knot of fear. As she ran to him, she heard horses whinnying, and Creb was at the mouth of the cave, beckoning with great urgency, telling her to hurry, before it was too late. Suddenly the pounding hooves of horses were louder. She heard whinnying, neighing, and, with a sinking feeling of horror and panic, the sound of a horse screaming.

  Ayla bolted awake. Jondalar was up, too. There was a commotion outside the tent, horses neighing and hooves stamping. They heard Wolf snarling, then a yelp of pain. They threw back their covers and rushed out of the tent.

  It was very dark, with only a sliver of a moon
, which shed little light, but there were more horses in the pine woods than the two they had left there. They could tell from the sounds, though they couldn’t see anything. As she ran toward the sounds of horses, Ayla tripped on an exposed root and fell heavily to the ground, knocking the wind out of her.

  “Ayla! Are you all right?” Jondalar said, searching for her in the dark. He’d only heard her fall.

  “Here I am,” she said, her voice hoarse, trying to catch her breath. She felt his hands on her, and she tried to get up. When they heard the sounds of horses racing off into the night, she pulled herself up and they ran toward the place where the horses were tied. Whinney was gone!

  “She’s gone,” Ayla cried. She whistled and called her name. There was an answering whinny in the distance.

  “That’s her! That’s Whinney! Those horses, they’ve taken her. I have to get her back!” The woman started after the horses, stumbling through the woods in the dark.

  Jondalar caught up to her in a few strides. “Ayla, wait! We can’t go now, it’s dark. You can’t even see where you’re going.”

  “But I have to get her back, Jondalar!”

  “We will. In the morning,” he said, taking her in his arms.

  “They’ll be gone by then,” the woman wailed.

  “But it’ll be light then, and we’ll see their tracks. We’ll follow them. We’ll get her back, Ayla. I promise, we’ll get her back.”