The Land of Painted Caves ec-6

by Jean M. Auel

  Willamar just shook his head. Who could really know a Zelandoni? 'Well, Demoryn, if you can get some people to help us unload the meat we brought, and go back with us to get what's left, then the rest of our travellers can come and visit, too.'

  As she helped Zelandoni unload her personal travel things, Ayla asked, 'Did you know there was going to be a gathering of the zelandonia near here?'

  'I wasn't certain, but meetings do tend to take place in a sequence of a certain number of years, and I thought this might be the right year for one in this region. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to create any expectations in case I was mistaken, or missed the timing.'

  'It looks like you were right,' Ayla said.

  'Amelana's mother seemed nervous about the horses, so I didn't rush to introduce you yet,' the First said.

  'If she's nervous about the horses, what is she going to think about Wolf?' Ayla said. 'We can deal with formal introductions later. I'll take your pole-drag off Whinney and go back with her and Grey. We can make a new pole-drag for her to help bring the meat here. There's still so much left. I'd forgotten how big a bison was. Maybe we can bring some of it to the zelandonia gathering.'

  'That would be a good idea. I can ride in behind Whinney on my pole-drag, and Jondalar and Jonayla can bring in some meat on theirs,' Zelandoni said.

  Ayla thought a smile to herself. Arriving on the special travois with a horse pulling her always seemed to cause a commotion, and the First did like making an entrance. Everyone seemed to think it was some kind of magic. Why was it so amazing? Why couldn't people realise that they could make friends with a horse? Especially after seeing not only Jondalar and herself, but Jonayla riding? There was nothing magic about it. It took determination and effort and patience, but not magic.

  When Ayla jumped up on Whinney's back, it brought even more expressions of surprise. She had been leading the horses, not riding, when they arrived. Since the rest of the visitors were walking, Ayla decided she would too. Tivonan and Palidar would walk back and lead the helpers from the Cave, but Ayla could get there faster and start making a new travois.

  'Where is everyone else?' Jondalar said when she got to the campsite.

  'They're coming. I came ahead to make another pole-drag for Whinney to help get the meat moved. We're going to bring some to another Cave. They call themselves the Zelandonii That Watches Over the Most Ancient Sacred Site. Amelana is from the Third Cave, but we're going to the First Cave. There is a gathering of the zelandonia, and the First knew it! Or at least she guessed there might be. It's hard to believe how much she knows. Where's Jonayla?'

  'Beladora and Levela are watching her along with their children. That meat has drawn every meat-eater in the region, on legs and wings, and we thought it would be a good idea to keep the little ones in a tent, out of sight. It's been keeping all of us busy protecting that "lucky" hunt,' Jondalar said.

  'Have you killed anything?' Ayla asked.

  'Mostly we've just been trying to scare them off, shouting and throwing stones.'

  Just then a pack of hyenas appeared and, drawn by the scent of meat, went straight for the pile of bison. Without even giving it a second thought, Ayla pulled her sling off her head, reached for a couple of stones from her pouch, and in a smooth motion had a stone in the air aimed at the animal in the lead. A second stone quickly followed it. The leader was down when the second hyena gave a yelp that ended in the sound of a cackling laugh. The leaders of hyena packs were female, but all females had pseudo male organs and tended to be larger than the males. The hyena pack stopped advancing and were running back and forth thrashing about, grunting and howling their peculiar laughing sound, at a loss without their leader. The woman armed her spear-thrower and started for the indecisive pack.

  Jondalar jumped in ahead of her. 'What are you doing?' he said.

  'Chasing off that dirty pack of hyenas,' she said, her face screwed up in an expression of disgust and the sound of loathing in her voice.

  'I know you hate hyenas, but you don't have to kill every one you see. They're just animals like any other, and have their place among the Mother's children. If we drag the leader off, the rest will likely follow,' Jondalar said.

  Ayla stopped and looked at him, then felt her tension leave. 'You are right, Jondalar. They are just animals.'

  With spear-throwers armed, Jondalar picked up one hind foot and Ayla the other and started dragging. She noticed the hyena was still nursing, but she knew that hyenas often nursed for a year until the young were nearly full grown and the only way to tell the difference was in coat colour. Young ones were darker. The snuffling, snorting, laughing pack followed; the other one she had hit was limping badly. They dumped the animal far away from the camp and as they walked back, they noticed that some of the other carnivores had followed them.

  'Good!' Ayla said. 'Maybe that will keep some of them away. I'm going to wash my hands. Those animals smell bad.'

  Most of the time Ayla's Zelandonii friends and relatives thought of her as an ordinary woman and mother, and didn't even notice her accent, but when she did something like walking into a pack of hungry hyenas and killing their leader with a stone from her sling without seeming to give it a second thought, then they suddenly became aware of her differences. She was not born to the Zelandonii, her upbringing had been totally unlike any of theirs, and her unusual way of speaking became noticeable.

  'We need to cut down some small trees for a new pole-drag. It was Zelandoni's suggestion. I don't think she wants blood on hers. She does consider it hers, you know,' Ayla said.

  'It is hers. No one else would think of using it,' Jondalar said.

  It took two trips to haul all the meat from the auspicious hunt away, most of it dragged by the horns and pushed by the neighbouring people. By the time the travellers had packed up their campsite, the sun was working its way down to meet the horizon, with shades of orange and red blazoned across the sky. They took the meat they were keeping for themselves and headed for the Cave. Ayla and Jondalar lingered for a while — with the horses they could catch up easily enough. They were making a final tour of the abandoned camp to see if anyone had left anything important behind.

  It was obvious that people had been there. Trails between tents had worn paths that now led to flattened and yellow patches of grass; fireplaces were black circles of charcoal; some trees had raw scars of light-coloured wood where branches had been torn off and pointed stumps that looked as though they had been chewed down by a beaver showed where trees had once grown. There was some trash around, a shredded and torn basket near one of the fireplaces, and a small and well-used sleeping roll that Jonlevar had outgrown was open and discarded in the middle of a flattened patch where a tent had been. Scattered chips of flint and broken points, and some piles of bone and vegetable peelings were lying around, but they would soon degrade back into the soil. Yet the vast stretches of cattails and reeds, though well harvested, showed little change, the yellowed grass and the black lenses of firepits would soon be covered with new green, and the trees that were removed made room for new ones to sprout. The people lived lightly on the land.

  Ayla and Jondalar checked their waterbags and took a drink; then Ayla felt the urge to pass her water before they started back, and walked around the perimeter of the trees. If they were snowbound in the middle of winter, Ayla wouldn't hesitate to relieve herself in a night basket no matter who was there watching, but if it was possible, she preferred privacy, especially since she had to take down her leggings and not just move aside a loose dress.

  She untied the waist thong and squatted down, but when she stood up to pull her leggings back on, she was surprised to see four strange men staring at her. She was more offended than anything. Even if they had come upon her accidentally, they should not have stood there and stared at her. It was very rude. Then she noticed details: a certain griminess in their clothing, rather unkempt beards, stringy long hair, and mostly, lewd expressions. The last made her angry, though they ex
pected her to be frightened.

  Perhaps she should have been.

  'Don't you have the courtesy to look away when a woman needs to pass her water?' Ayla said giving them a look of disdain as she retied her waist thong.

  Her disparaging remarks surprised the men. First because they expected fear, then because they heard her accent. They drew their own conclusions.

  One looked at the others with a deriding grin. 'She's a stranger. Probably visiting. Won't be many of her kind around.'

  'Even if there are, I don't see any around here,' another man said, then turned to leer at her, as he started toward her.

  Ayla suddenly remembered the time they stopped to visit the Losadunai on their Journey here; there had been a band of hoodlums who had been harassing women. She slipped her sling off her head and reached in her pouch for a stone, then whistled loud for Wolf, and followed it by the whistles for both horses.

  The whistles startled the men, but the stones did more than startle. The man who was moving toward her yelped with pain as a stone landed soundly on his thigh, another stone hit the upper arm of a second man with a similar response. Both men grabbed their bodies at the points of impact.

  'How in Mother's Underworld did she do that?' the first man said angrily. Then looking at the men he said, 'Don't let her get away. I want to give her something back for that.'

  In the meantime Ayla had reached for her spear-thrower and armed it with a spear that was aimed at the first man. A voice came from the other side of the stand of trees.

  'Just be glad she didn't aim for your head, or you'd be walking the next world now. She just killed a hyena with one of her stones.'

  The men turned to face a tall blond man who had a spear in another one of those strange devices aimed at them. He had spoken Zelandonii, but he too had an accent, not the same as the woman's but as though he came from some distance.

  'Let's get away from here,' another man said, and started running.

  'Stop him, Wolf!' Ayla commanded.

  Suddenly a large wolf they hadn't seen raced after the man. He grabbed an ankle with his teeth and brought him down, then stood over him snarling.

  'Anyone else feel like running away?' Jondalar said. He looked the four men over and quickly summed up the situation. 'I have a feeling you've been causing lots of trouble around here. I think we need to bring you to the nearest Cave and see what they think.'

  With Wolf nearby, he took away the few spears they had among them, and their knives. They weren't used to being compelled to doing anything they didn't want to, but when they resisted, Ayla set Wolf on them again. None of them felt like going against the snarling beast. As they started walking, Wolf herded them, nipping at their heels and snarling. With Ayla on the back of her dun-yellow mare on one side of them and Jondalar on his dark brown stallion on the other, they had little chance to go anyplace but where they were led.

  At one point along the way, two of the men decided to make a break for it running in different directions. Jondalar's spear whizzed just past the ear of the man who appeared to be the leader and stopped him short. Ayla's caught a flap of loose clothing of the other man and the momentum unbalanced him and brought him down to the ground.

  'I think we should tie the hands of those two together, and maybe the other two as well,' Jondalar said. 'I don't think they want to face the people who live near here.'

  They were later coming back than expected. The sun was making a show of fading purples and deep reds in the western sky when they arrived at the stone shelter where the Cave lived.

  'They're the ones who did it!' a woman cried when she saw the men. 'They're the ones who forced me and killed my mate when he tried to stop them. Then they took our food and sleeping rolls, and left me there. I walked home, but I was pregnant and lost the baby.'

  'How did you meet up with them?' Demoryn asked Jondalar and Ayla.

  'Just before we were ready to leave, Ayla went around the stand of trees near our camp to pass water; then I heard her whistle for Wolf and the horses. I went to see what was wrong and found her holding off these four. When I got there, two of them were nursing the bruises she gave them with stones from her sling and she had her spear-thrower armed and ready,' Jondalar said.

  'Bruises! Is that all? She killed a hyena with her stones,' Tivonan said.

  'I wasn't trying to kill them, just stop them,' Ayla said.

  'On our way home from our Journey, there were some young men causing trouble for the people on the other side of the glacier to the west. They had forced one young woman before her First Rites. I wondered if these men might be disturbing people around here,' Jondalar said.

  'They've been doing a lot more than disturbing, and they aren't young. It's been going on for years, stealing, forcing women, killing people, but no one has been able to find them,' Syralana said.

  'The question is, what do we do with them now?' Demoryn said.

  'You take them to the meeting of the zelandonia,' the First said.

  'Good idea,' Willamar said.

  'But first you should tie them down better than they are. They already tried to run away on our way here. I took away the spears and knives I could find, but I might not have found them all. And someone should guard them overnight. Wolf can help,' Ayla said.

  'Yes, you are right. These are dangerous men,' Demoryn said as he walked back toward the shelter. 'The zelandonia can decide what to do, but they need to be stopped, whatever it takes.'

  'Remember Attaroa, Jondalar?' Ayla said, both of them falling in beside the leader of the Cave.

  'I'll never forget her. She nearly killed you. If it hadn't been for Wolf, she would have. She was vicious, I'd even say evil. Most people are decent. They are willing to help people, especially if they are in trouble, but there always seem to be a few who take what they want and hurt people and don't seem to care,' Jondalar said.

  'I think Balderan enjoys hurting people,' Demoryn said.

  'So that's his name,' Jondalar said.

  'He always had a temper,' Demoryn continued. 'Even as a child he liked to pick on those who were weaker, and inevitably there were always a few boys who followed him, and did what he said.'

  'Why do some go along with people like that?' Ayla said.

  'Who knows?' Jondalar said. 'Maybe they're afraid of them and think if they go along, they won't be the ones who are picked on. Or maybe they don't have much status and making other people afraid makes them feel more important.'

  'I think we need to select some people to watch them closely,' Demoryn said. 'And guard them in shifts, so the watchers don't get sleepy.'

  'They should also be searched again. Some of them may keep hidden knives that they can use to cut the ropes and perhaps hurt people,' Ayla said. 'I'll take a shift, and as I said, Wolf can help. He's very good at guarding. It's like he sleeps with one eye open.'

  When they were searched, each of the men had hidden at least one knife, which they claimed were just eating knives. Demoryn had been considering whether to untie their hands at night so they could sleep more comfortably, but finding the knives made him change his mind. They were given a meal and watched closely while they ate. Ayla collected their eating knives when they were through. Balderan did not want to give his up, but a signal to Wolf, which brought him to his feet with a menacing snarl caused the man to let go of the sharp-edged tool. When she got close to him she could see his seething anger. He could barely keep it under control. He had been able to exercise his free will for most of his life. He had taken what he wanted with impunity, including the lives of other people. Now he was physically restrained and forced to do something he didn't want to do, and he didn't like it.

  The visitors and most of the Third Cave of the Zelandonii That Watched Over the Most Ancient Sacred Site followed a trail upstream beside the meandering river that had cut deep into the limestone, creating a deep gorge that now constrained the river. Ayla noticed that the people of the local Cave began glancing at each other and smiling as though they
shared a secret or were anticipating some amusing surprise. They rounded a sharp turn and behind the high gorge walls the visitors were astounded to see high above them a stone arch, a natural bridge spanning the river. The ones who had not seen it before stopped to gaze in wonder at the formation that had been created by the Great Earth Mother. They had never seen anything like it; no one had. It was unique.

  'Does it have a name?' Ayla asked.

  'It has many names,' Demoryn said. 'Some people name it for the Mother, or for spirits of the next world. Some people think it looks something like a mammoth. We just call it the Arch or the Bridge.'

  Some four hundred thousand years before, the force of a subterranean stream carved through the limestone, eventually wearing the calcium carbonate rock away, creating caves and passageways. In the course of time, the level of the water lowered and the land uplifted, and the conduit that had broached the wall of stone had become a natural arch. The present river flowed through what had been a barrier and was now a bridge across the river, but so high it was seldom used. The high stone arch spanning the river was an awe-inspiring formation. Nothing like it existed anywhere else.

  The top of the span was approximately on the same level as the top of the high cliffs closest to it, but the ancient channel had also carved out meanders nearer the river that had become level ground. During the wet season, when the river was running high, the sides of the limestone barrier sometimes restricted the flow of the water and caused flooding, but most of the time the river that had once created caves and worn its way through the limestone obstruction was placid and calm.

  The field between the stone shelter of the First Cave of the Zelandonii Watchers and the river had a circular shape enclosed by the cliff walls of the deep gorge. Many aeons before, it had been the loop of an oxbow that was the former riverbed, but it was now home to a meadow of mixed grasses, aromatic artemisia shrubs, and a plant whose edible green leaves resembled the feet of the ducks and geese that navigated the river waters in summer — goosefoot — and which bore multitudes of small black seeds that could also be ground between stones, then cooked and eaten.