by Jean M. Auel
The mountain ranges of the massive continent shaped the course of the Great Mother River. She rose out of the highland north of one glacier-covered range and flowed east. Beyond the first chain of mountains was a level plain—in an earlier age the basin of an inland sea—and, farther east, a second range curved around in a great arc. Where the easternmost alpine foreland of the first range met the flysch foothills at the northwestern end of the second, the river broke through a rocky barrier and turned abruptly south.
After dropping down karst highlands, she meandered across grassy steppes, winding into oxbows, breaking into separate channels and rejoining again as she wove her way south. The sluggish, braided river, flowing through flat land, gave the illusion of changelessness. It was only an illusion. By the time the Great Mother River reached the uplands at the southern end of the plain that swung her east again and gathered her channels together, she had received into herself the waters of the northern and eastern face of the first, massive, ice-mantled range.
The great swollen Mother swept out a depression as she curled east in a broad curve toward the southern end of the second chain of peaks. The two men had been following her left bank, crossing the occasional channels and streams still rushing to meet her as they came to them. Across the river to the south the land rose in steep craggy leaps; on their side rolling hills climbed more gradually from the river’s edge.
“I don’t think we’ll find the end of Donau before winter,” Jondalar remarked. “I’m beginning to wonder if there is one.”
“There’s an end, and I think we’ll find it soon. Look how big she is.” Thonolan waved an expansive arm toward the right, “Who would have thought she’d get that big? We have to be near the end.”
“But we haven’t reached the Sister yet, at least I don’t think we have. Tamen said she is as big as the Mother.”
“That must be one of those stories that get bigger with the telling. You don’t really believe there’s another river like that flowing south along this plain?”
“Well, Tamen didn’t say he’d seen it himself, but he was right about the Mother turning east again, and about the people who took us across her main channel. He could be right about the Sister. I wish we’d known the language of that Cave with the rafts; they might have known about a tributary to the Mother as big as she is.”
“You know how easy it is to exaggerate great wonders that are far away. I think Tamen’s ‘Sister’ is just another channel of the Mother, farther east.”
“I hope you’re right, Little Brother. Because if there is a Sister, we’re going to have to cross it before we reach those mountains. And I don’t know where else we’re likely to find a place to stay for the winter.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
A movement, apparently at odds with the natural way of things, which brought it to the level of consciousness, caught Jondalar’s attention. By the sound, he identified the black cloud in the distance, moving with no regard for the prevailing wind, and he stopped to watch as the V-formation of honking geese approached. They swooped lower as a single entity, darkening the sky with their numbers, then broke up into individuals as they neared the ground with lowered feet and flapping wings, braking to a rest. The river swerved around the steep rise ahead.
“Big Brother,” Thonolan said, grinning with excitement, “those geese wouldn’t have set down if there wasn’t a marsh up ahead. Maybe it’s a lake or a sea, and I’ll wager the Mother empties into it. I think we’ve reached the end of the river!”
“If we climb that hill, we should get a better view.” Jondalar’s tone was carefully neutral, but Thonolan had the impression his brother didn’t quite believe him.
They climbed quickly, breathing hard when they reached the top, then caught their breath in amazement. They were high enough to see for a considerable distance. Beyond the turn the Mother widened, and her waters became choppy, and, as she approached a vast expanse of water, she rolled and spumed. The larger body of water was cloudy with mud churned up from the bottom, and filled with debris. Broken limbs, dead animals, whole trees bobbed and spun around, caught by conflicting currents.
They had not reached the end of the Mother, They had met the Sister.
High in the mountains in front of them, the Sister had begun as rivulets and streams. The streams became rivers that raced down rapids, spilled over cataracts, and coursed straight down the western face of the second great mountain range. With no lakes or reservoirs to check the flow, the tumultuous waters gained force and momentum until they gathered together on the plain. The only check to the turbulent Sister was the glutted Mother herself.
The tributary, nearly equal in size, surged into the mother stream, fighting the controlling influence of swift current. She backed up and surged again, throwing a tantrum of crosscurrents and undertows; temporary maelstroms that sucked floating debris in a perilous spin to the bottom and spewed it up a moment later downstream. The engorged confluence expanded into a hazardous lake too large to see across.
Fall flooding had peaked and a marshland of mud sprawled over the banks where the waters had recently receded, leaving a morass of devastation: upturned trees with roots reaching for the sky, waterlogged trunks and broken branches; carcasses and dying fish stranded in drying puddles. Water birds were feasting on the easy pickings; the near shore was alive with them. Nearby, a hyena was making short work of a stag, undisturbed by the flapping wings of black storks.
“Great Mother!” Thonolan breathed.
“It must be the Sister.” Jondalar was too awed to ask his brother if he believed now.
“How are we going to get across?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to go back upstream.”
“How far? She’s as big as the Mother.”
Jondalar could only shake his head. His forehead knotted with concern. “We should have taken Tamen’s advice. It could snow any day; we don’t have time to backtrack very far. I don’t want to be caught in the open when a big storm blows.”
A sudden gust of wind caught Thonolan’s hood and whisked it back, baring his head. He pulled it on again, closer to his face, and shivered. For the first time since they had set out, he had serious doubts about surviving the long winter ahead. “What do we do now, Jondalar?”
“We find a place to make camp.” The taller brother scanned the area from their vantage point. “Over there, just upstream, near that high bank with a stand of alder. There’s a creek that joins the Sister—the water should be good.”
“If we tie both backframes to one log, and attach a rope to both our waists, we could swim across and not get separated.”
“I know you are hardy, Little Brother, but that’s foolhardy. I’m not sure I could swim across, much less pulling a log with everything we have. That river is cold. Only the current keeps it from freezing—there was ice at the edge this morning. And what if we get tangled up in the branches of some tree? We’d get swept downstream, and maybe pulled under.”
“Remember that Cave that lives close to the Great Water? They dig out the centers of big trees and use them to cross rivers. Maybe we could …”
“Find me a tree around here big enough,” Jondalar said, flinging his arm at the grassy prairie, with only a few thin or stunted trees.
“Well … someone told me about another Cave that makes shells out of birchbark … but that seems so flimsy.”
“I’ve seen them, but I don’t know how they’re made, or what kind of glue they use so they won’t leak. And the birch trees in their region grow bigger than any I’ve seen around here.”
Thonolan glanced around, trying to think of some other idea that his brother couldn’t put down with his implacable logic. He noticed the stand of straight tall alders on the high knoll just to the south, and grinned. “How about a raft? All we’d have to do is tie a bunch of logs together, and there are more than enough alders on that hill.”
“And one long enough, and strong enough to make a pole to reach the botto
m of the river to guide it? Rafts are hard to control even on small shallow rivers.”
Thonolan’s confident grin crumpled, and Jondalar had to suppress a smile. Thonolan never could hide his feelings; Jondalar doubted that he ever tried. But it was his impetuous, candid nature that made him so likable.
“That’s really not such a bad idea, though,” Jondalar amended, noting the return of Thonolan’s smile, “once we get upstream far enough so there’s no danger of getting swept into that rough water. And find a place where the river widens and gets shallower, and not so fast, and where there are trees. I hope the weather holds.”
Thonolan was as serious as his brother by the time the weather was mentioned. “Let’s get moving then. The tent is fixed.”
“I’m going to look over those alders first. We still need a couple of sturdy spears. We should have made them last night.”
“Are you still worried about that rhino? He’s well behind us now. We need to get started so we can find a place to cross.”
“I’m going to cut a shaft, at least.”
“You might as well cut one for me then. I’ll start packing.”
Jondalar picked up his axe and examined the edge, then nodded to himself and started up the hill toward the alder grove. He looked over the trees carefully and selected a tall straight sapling. He had chopped it down, stripped the branches, and was looking for one for Thonolan when he heard a commotion. There was snuffling, grunting. He heard his brother shout, and then a sound more terrifying than anything he had ever heard: a scream of pain in his brother’s voice. The silence as his scream was cut short was even worse.
“Thonolan! Thonolan!”
Jondalar raced back down the hill, still clutching the alder shaft and clutched by cold fear. His heart pounded in his ears when he saw a huge woolly rhinoceros, as tall at the shoulders as he, pushing the limp form of a man along the ground. The animal didn’t seem to know what to do with his victim now that he was down. From the depths of his fear and anger, Jondalar didn’t think, he reacted.
Swinging the alder staff like a club, the older brother rushed the beast, careless of his own safety. One hard blow landed on the rhino’s snout, just below the large curving horn, and then another. The rhino backed off, undecided in the face of a berserk man charging him and causing him pain. Jondalar prepared to swing again, pulled back the long shaft—but the animal turned. The powerful whack on his rump didn’t hurt much, but it urged him on, with the tall man chasing after him.
When a swing of the alder shaft whistled through the air as the animal raced ahead, Jondalar stopped and watched the rhino go, catching his breath. Then he dropped the shaft and ran back to Thonolan. His brother was lying face down where the rhino had left him.
“Thonolan? Thonolan!” Jondalar rolled him over. There was a rip in Thonolan’s leather trousers near the groin, and a bloodstain growing larger.
“Thonolan! Oh, Doni!” He put his ear to his brother’s chest, listening for a heartbeat, and was afraid he only imagined hearing it until he saw him breathing.
“Oh, Doni, he’s alive! But what am I going to do?” With a grunt of effort, Jondalar picked up the unconscious man and stood for a moment, cradling him in his arms.
“Doni, O Great Earth Mother! Don’t take him yet. Let him live, O please …” His voice cracked and a huge sob welled up in his breast, “Mother … please … let him live …”
Jondalar bowed his head, sobbed into his brother’s limp shoulder a moment, then carried him back to the tent. He laid him down gently on his sleeping roll, and, with his bone-handled knife, cut away the clothing. The only obvious wound was a raw, jagged rip of skin and muscle at the top of his left leg, but his chest was an angry red, the left side swelling and discoloring. A close examination by touch convinced Jondalar that several ribs were broken; probably there were internal injuries.
Blood was pumping out of the gash in Thonolan’s leg, collecting on the sleeping roll. Jondalar rummaged through his pack, trying to find something to sop it up with. He grabbed his sleeveless summer tunic, wadded it up, and tried to wipe up the blood on the fur, but only succeeded in smearing it around. Then he laid the soft leather on the wound.
“Doni, Doni! I don’t know what to do. I’m not a zelandoni.” Jondalar sat back on his heels, pulled his hand through his hair, and left bloodstains on his face. “Willowbark! I’d better make willowbark tea.”
He went out to heat some water. He didn’t have to be a zelandoni to know about the painkilling properties of willowbark; everyone made willowbark if they had a headache, or some other minor pain. He didn’t know if it was used for serious wounds, but he didn’t know what else to do. He paced nervously around the fire, looking inside the tent with each circuit, waiting for the cold water to boil. He piled more wood on the fire and singed an edge of the wooden frame that supported the cooking hide full of water.
Why is it taking so long! Wait, I don’t have the willowbark. I’d better get it before the water boils. He put his head inside the tent and stared at his brother for a long moment, then ran to the edge of the river. After peeling bark from a bare-leafed tree whose long thin branches trailed the water, he raced back.
He looked first to see if Thonolan had roused, and saw that his summer tunic was soaked with blood. Then he noticed the overfull cooking skin boiling over and putting out the fire. He didn’t know what to do first—tend to the tea, or to his brother—and he looked back and forth from the fire to the tent to the fire. Finally he grabbed a drinking cup and scooped out some water, scalding his hand, then dropped the willowbark in the hide pot. He put a few more sticks on the fire, hoping they would catch. He searched through Thonolan’s backframe, dumped it out in frustration, and picked up his brother’s summer tunic to replace his bloody one.
As he started into the tent, Thonolan moaned. It was the first sound he had heard from his brother. He scrambled out to scoop up a bowl of the tea, noticed there was hardly any liquid left, and wondered if it was too strong. He ducked back into the tent with a cup of the hot liquid, looked frantically for a place to set it, and saw that more was soaked with blood than his summer tunic. It was pooling under Thonolan, discoloring the sleeping roll.
He’s losing too much blood! O Mother! He needs a zelandoni. What am I going to do? He was becoming more agitated and fearful for his brother. He felt so helpless. I need to go for help. Where? Where can I find a zelandoni? I can’t even get across the Sister, and I can’t leave him. Some wolf or hyena will smell the blood and come after him.
Great Mother! Look at all the blood on that tunic! Some animal will smell it. Jondalar snatched the blood-soaked shirt and threw it out of the tent. No, that’s not any better! He dove out of the tent, picked it up again, and looked wildly for some place to put it, away from the camp, away from his brother.
He was in shock, overcome with grief, and, in the depths of his heart, he knew there was no hope. His brother needed help that he could not give, and he could not go for help. Even if he knew where to go, he couldn’t leave. It was senseless to think any bloody tunic would draw carnivorous animals any more than Thonolan himself would, with his open wound. But he didn’t want to face the truth in his heart. He turned away from sense and gave in to panic.
He spied the stand of alder and, in an irrational moment, raced up the hill and stuffed the leather shirt high up in a crook of one of the trees. Then he ran back. He went into the tent and stared at Thonolan, as if by sheer effort of will he could make his brother sound and whole again, and smiling.
Almost as though Thonolan sensed the plea, he moaned, tossed his head, and opened his eyes. Jondalar kneeled closer and saw pain in his eyes, in spite of a weak smile.
“You were right, Big Brother. You usually are. We didn’t leave that rhino behind.”
“I don’t want to be right, Thonolan. How do you feel?”
“Do you want an honest answer? I hurt. How bad is it?” he asked, trying to sit up. The halfhearted grin turned to a grimace of pai
n.
“Don’t try to move. Here, I made some willowbark.” Jondalar supported his brother’s head and held the cup to his lips. Thonolan took a few sips, then lay back down with relief. A look of fear joined the pain in his eyes.
“Tell me straight, Jondalar. How bad is it?”
The tall man closed his eyes and drew a breath. “It’s not good.”
“I didn’t think so, but how bad?” Thonolan’s eyes fell on his brother’s hands and opened wider with alarm. “There’s blood all over your hands! Is it mine? I think you’d better tell me.”
“I don’t really know. You’re gored in the groin, and you’ve lost a lot of blood. The rhino must have tossed you, too, or trampled you. I think you have a couple of broken ribs. I don’t know what else. I’m not a zelandoni…”
“But I need one, and the only chance of finding help is across that river we can’t cross.”
“That’s about it.”
“Help me up, Jondalar. I want to see how bad it is.”
Jondalar started to object, then reluctantly gave in and was immediately sorry. The moment Thonolan tried to sit, he cried out in pain and lost consciousness again.
“Thonolan!” Jondalar cried. The bleeding had slowed, but his effort caused it to flow again. Jondalar folded his brother’s summer tunic and put it over the wound, then left the tent. The fire was nearly out. Jondalar added fuel more carefully and built it up again, set more water to heat, and cut more wood.
He went back to check on his brother again. Thonolan’s tunic was soaked with blood. He moved it aside to look at the wound, and he grimaced remembering how he had run up the hill to get rid of the other tunic. His initial panic was gone, and it seemed so foolish. The bleeding had stopped. He found another piece of clothing, a cold-weather undergarment, laid it over the wound, and covered Thonolan, then picked up the second bloody tunic and walked to the river. He threw it in, then bent to wash the blood off his hands, still feeling ridiculous over his panic.