The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel
The Fox Hearth had only two men, and both Wymez and Ranec hunted, but none from the Mammoth Hearth did, except for the visitors, Ayla and Jondalar. Mamut was too old.
Though he would like to have gone, Manuv stayed behind so as not to slow them down. Tronie stayed, too, with Nuvie and Hartal. Except for an occasional drive, where even the children could help, she no longer went along on hunting trips either. Tornec was the only hunter from the Reindeer Hearth, just as Frebec was the only hunter from the Hearth of the Crane. Fralie and Crozie stayed at the Camp with Crisavec and Tasher.
Tulie had almost always found a way to join hunting parties, even when she had small children, and the Aurochs Hearth was well represented. Besides the headwoman, Barzec, Deegie, and Druwez all went. Brinan tried his best to convince his mother to let him go, but he was left with Nezzie, along with his sister Tusie, placated with a promise that soon he would be old enough.
The hunters hiked up the slope together, and Talut set a fast pace once they reached the level grassland.
“I think the day is too good to waste, too,” Nezzie said, putting her cup down firmly and speaking to the group which gathered around the outdoor cooking hearth, after the hunters left. They were sipping tea and finishing up the last of breakfast. “The grains are ripe and dry, and I’ve been wanting to go up and collect a last good day’s worth. If we head toward that stand of stone pines by the little creek, we can collect the ripe pine nuts from the cones, too, if there’s time. Does anyone else want to go?”
“I’m not sure if Fralie should walk so far,” Crozie said.
“Oh, Mother,” Fralie said. “A little walk will do me good, and once the weather turns bad, we’ll all have to stay inside most of the time. That will come soon enough. I’d like to go, Nezzie.”
“Well, I’d better go, then, to help you with the children,” Crozie said, as if she was making a great sacrifice, although the idea of an outing sounded good to her.
Tronie wasn’t reluctant to admit it. “What a good idea, Nezzie! I’m sure I can put Hartal in the back carrier, so I can carry Nuvie when she gets tired. There’s nothing I’d like better than spending a day outside.”
“I’ll carry Nuvie. You don’t have to carry two,” Manuv said. “But I think I’ll get the pine nuts first, and leave the grain collecting to the rest of you.”
“I think I’ll join you, too, Nezzie,” Mamut said. “Perhaps Rydag wouldn’t mind keeping an old man company, and maybe teach me more of Ayla’s signs, since he’s so good at them.”
“You very good at signs, Mamut,” Rydag signaled. “You learn signs fast. Maybe you teach me.”
“Maybe we can teach each other,” Mamut signed back.
Nezzie smiled. The old man had never treated the child of mixed spirits any differently from the other children of the Camp, except to show extra consideration for his weakness, and he had often helped her with Rydag. There seemed to be a special closeness between them, and she suspected Mamut was coming along to keep the boy occupied while the rest were working. She knew he would also make sure no one exerted inadvertent pressure on Rydag to move faster than he should. He could slow down if he saw the youngster straining too hard, and blame his advanced age. He had done so before.
When everyone was gathered outside the earthlodge, with collecting and burden baskets and leather tarps, waterbags, and food for a midday meal, Mamut brought out a small figure of a mature woman carved out of ivory and stuck it in the ground in front of the entrance. He said some words understood by no one but him, and made evocative gestures. Everyone in the Camp would be gone, the lodge would be empty, and he was invoking the Spirit of Mut, the Great Mother, to guard and protect the dwelling in their absence.
No one would violate the prohibition against entering signified by the figure of the Mother at the door. Short of absolute need, no one would dare risk the consequences which everyone believed would result. Even if the need was dire—if someone was hurt, or caught in a blizzard and needed shelter—immediate actions would be taken to placate a possibly angry and vengeful protector. Compensation over and above the value of anything used would be paid by the person, or the family or Camp of the person, as promptly as possible. Donations and gifts would be given to members of the Mammoth Hearth to appease the Great Mother Spirit with entreaties and explanations, and promises of future good deeds or compensatory activities. Mamut’s action was more effective than any lock.
When Mamut turned from the entrance, Nezzie hoisted a carrying basket to her back and adjusted the tumpline across her forehead, picked up Rydag and settled him on her ample hip to carry him up the slope, then, herding Rugie, Tusie, and Brinan ahead of her, started up to the steppes. The others followed suit, and soon the other half of the Camp was hiking across the open grasslands for a day of work harvesting the grains and seeds that had been sown and offered to them by the Great Mother Earth. The work and the contribution to their livelihood of the gatherers was counted no less valuable than the work of the hunters, but neither was only work. Companionship and sharing made the work fun.
* * *
Ayla and Latie splashed through one shallow creek, but Ayla slowed the horse before they came to the next somewhat larger watercourse.
“Is this stream we follow?” Ayla asked.
“I don’t think so,” Latie said, then consulted the marks on the piece of ivory. “No. See here, that’s the little one we crossed. We cross this one, too. Turn and follow the next one upstream.”
“Not look deep here. Is good place to cross?”
Latie looked up and down the stream. “There’s a better place up a ways. We only have to take off boots and roll up leggings there.”
They headed upstream, but when they reached the wide shallow crossing where water foamed around jutting rocks, Ayla didn’t stop. She turned Whinney into the water and let the horse pick her way across. On the other side, the mare took off in a gallop, and Latie was smiling again.
“We didn’t even get wet!” the girl exclaimed. “Only a few splashes.”
When they reached the next stream and turned east, Ayla slowed the pace for a while to give Whinney a rest, but even the slower gait of the horse was so much faster than a human could walk, or consistently run, they covered ground quickly. The terrain changed as they continued, getting rougher and gradually gaining in elevation. When Ayla stopped and pointed to a stream coming in on the opposite side, forming a wide V with the one they had been following, Latie was surprised. She didn’t expect to see the tributary so soon, but Ayla had noticed turbulence and was expecting it. Three large granite outcrops could be seen from where they stood, a jagged scarp face across the waterway, and two more on their side, upstream and offset at an angle.
They followed their branch of the stream and noticed that it angled off toward the outcrops, and when they approached the first, saw that the watercourse flowed between them. Some distance after they passed the outcrops that flanked the stream, Ayla noticed several dark shaggy bison grazing on still green sedge and reeds near the water. She pointed, and whispered in Latie’s ear.
“Don’t talk loud. Look.”
“There they are!” Latie said in a muffled squeal, trying to keep her excitement under control.
Ayla turned her head back and forth, then wet a finger and held it up, testing the wind direction. “Wind blows to us from bison. Good. Do not want to disturb until ready to hunt. Bison know horses. On Whinney, we get closer, but not too much.”
Ayla guided the horse, carefully skirting the animals, to check farther upstream, and when she was satisfied, came back the same way. A big old cow lifted her head and eyed them, chewing her cud. The tip of her left horn was broken off. The woman slowed and let Whinney assume movement that was natural to her while her passengers held their breaths. The mare stopped and lowered her head to eat a few blades of grass. Horses did not usually graze if they were nervous, and the action seemed to reassure the bison. She went back to grazing as well. Ayla slipped around the small h
The hunting party was just beyond the first small creek when Jondalar noticed Racer pulling against his halter toward a cloud of dust moving in their direction. He tapped Talut and pointed. The headman looked ahead and saw Ayla and Latie galloping toward them on Whinney. The hunters did not have long to wait before the horse and riders pounded into their midst, and pranced to a stop. The smile on Latie’s face was ecstatic, her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks were flushed with excitement as Talut helped her down. Then Ayla threw her leg over and slid off, as everyone crowded around.
“Couldn’t you find it?” Talut asked, voicing the concern everyone felt. One other person mentioned it at almost the same time, but in a different tone.
“Couldn’t even find it. I didn’t think running ahead on a horse would do any good,” Frebec sneered.
Latie responded to him with surprised anger. “What do you mean, couldn’t even find it? We found the place. We even saw the bison!”
“Are you trying to say you have already been there and back?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Where are the bison now?” Wymez asked the daughter of his sister, ignoring Frebec and blunting his snide remark.
Latie marched to the basket pannier on Whinney’s left side and took out the piece of marked ivory. Then taking the flint knife from the sheath at her waist, she sat on the ground and began scratching some additional marks on the map.
‘The south fork goes between two outcrops, here,” she said. Wymez and Talut sat down beside her and nodded agreement, while Ayla and several others stood behind and around her. “The bison were on the other side of the outcrops, where the floodplain opens out and there is still some green feed near the water. I saw four little ones …” She cut four short parallel marks as she spoke.
“I think, five,” Ayla corrected.
Latie looked up at Ayla, and nodded, then added one more short mark. “You were right, Danug, about the twins. And they’re young ones. And seven cows …” She looked up at Ayla again for confirmation. The woman nodded agreement, and Latie added seven more parallel lines, slightly longer than the first ones. “ … only four with young, I think.” She pondered a moment. “There were more, farther off.”
“Five young males,” Ayla added. “And two, three others. Not sure. Maybe more we not see.”
Latie made five slightly larger lines, somewhat apart from the first ones, then added three more lines, between the two sets, making them a bit smaller again. She cut a little Y tick in the last mark in the line to indicate she was done, that that was the full number of bison they had counted. Her counting marks had cut over some of the other marks that had been etched into the ivory earlier, but it didn’t matter. They had already served their purpose.
Talut took the ivory flake from Latie and studied it. Then he looked at Ayla. “You didn’t happen to notice which way they were heading, did you?”
“Upstream, I think. We go around herd, careful, not disturb. No tracks other side, grass not chewed,” Ayla said.
Talut nodded and paused, obviously thinking. “You said you went around them. Did you go far upstream?”
“Yes.”
“The way I remember it, the floodplain narrows until it disappears, and high rocks close in the stream, and there is no way out. Is that right?”
“Yes … but, maybe way out.”
“A way out?”
“Before high rocks, side is steep, trees, thick brush with thorns, but near rocks is dry streambed. Like steep path. Is way out, I think,” she said.
Talut frowned, looked at Wymez, and Tulie, then laughed out loud. “The way out is also the way in! That’s what Mamut said!”
Wymez looked puzzled for only a moment, then he slowly grinned his understanding. Tulie looked at both of them. Then a dawning look of comprehension appeared on her face.
“Of course! We can go in that way, build a surround to trap them, then go around the other way and drive them into it,” Tulie said, making it clear to everyone else as well. “Someone will have to watch and make sure they don’t get wind of us and go back downstream while we’re building it.”
“That sounds like a good job for Danug and Latie,” Talut said.
“I think Druwez can help them,” Barzec added, “and if you think more help is needed, I’ll go.”
“Good!” Talut said. “Why don’t you go with them, Barzec, and follow the river upstream. I know a faster way to get to the back end. We’ll cut across from here. You keep them hemmed in, and as soon as we get the trap built, we’ll come back around to help chase them in it.”
7
The dry streambed was a swath of dried mud and rock cutting through a steep, wooded, brush-entangled hillside. It led to a level but narrow floodplain beside a rushing stream that gushed out between constraining rock in a series of rapids and low waterfalls. Once Ayla had gone down on foot, she went back for the horses. Both Whinney and Racer were accustomed to the steep path that had led to her cave in the valley, and made their way down with little trouble.
She removed the basket harness from Whinney so she could graze freely. But Jondalar worried about removing Racer’s halter since neither he nor Ayla had much control over him without it, and he was getting old enough to be fractious when the mood struck him. Since it didn’t keep him from grazing, she agreed to keep it on him, though she would have preferred to have given him complete freedom. It made her realize the difference between Racer and his dam. Whinney had always come and gone as she wished, but Ayla had spent all her time with the horse—she’d had no one else. Racer had Whinney, but less contact with her. Perhaps she, or Jondalar, ought to spend more time with him, and try to teach him, she thought.
The corrallike surround was already under construction by the time Ayla went to help. The fence was made of whatever materials they could find, boulders, bones, trees and branches, which were built up and intertwined together. The rich and varied animal life of the cold plains constantly renewed itself, and the old bones scattered across the landscape were often swept away by vagrant streams into jumbled piles. A quick search downstream had revealed a pile of bones a short distance away, and the hunters were hauling large leg bones and rib cages toward the focus of activity: an area near the bottom of the dry stream which they were fencing in. The fence needed to be sturdy enough to contain the herd of bison, but was not intended to be a permanent structure. It would only be used once, and in any case, was not likely to last beyond spring when the rushing stream bloated into a raging torrent.
Ayla watched Talut swinging an enormous axe with a gigantic stone head, as though it were a toy. He had doffed his shirt and was sweating profusely as he chopped his way through a stand of straight young saplings, felling each tree with two or three blows. Tornec and Frebec, who were carrying them away, couldn’t keep up with him. Tulie was supervising their placement. She had an axe nearly as large as her brother’s, and handled it with as much ease, breaking a tree in half, or shattering a bone to make it fit. Few men could match the strength of the headwoman.
“Talut!” Deegie called. She was carrying the front end of a whole curved mammoth tusk that was over fifteen feet in length. Wymez and Ranec supported the middle and back. “We found some mammoth bones. Will you break this tusk?”
The huge red-haired giant grinned. “This old behemoth must have lived a good long life!” he said, straddling the tusk when they put it down.
Talut’s enormous muscles bunched as he lifted the sledgehammer-sized axe, and the air resounded with the blows as splinters and flakes of ivory flew in all directions. Ayla was fascinated just watching the powerful man wield the massive tool with such skillful ease. But the feat was even more astounding to Jondalar, for a reason he never considered. Ayla was more accustomed to seeing men execute pr
Talut put the axe down, hoisted the back half of the tusk to his shoulder, and started toward the enclosure they were building. Ayla picked the huge axe up to move it, and knew she could not have handled it. Even Jondalar found it too heavy to use with skill. It was a tool uniquely suited to the big headman. The two of them lifted the other half-tusk to their shoulders and followed Talut.
Jondalar and Wymez stayed to help wedge the cumbersome pieces of ivory in with boulders; they would present a substantial barrier to any charging bison. Ayla went with Deegie and Ranec to get more bones. Jondalar turned to watch them go, and struggled to swallow his anger when he saw the dark man move beside Ayla and make a comment that caused her and Deegie to laugh. Talut and Wymez both noticed the red, glowering face of their young and handsome visitor, and a significant look passed between them, but neither commented.
The final element of the surround was a gate. A sturdy young tree, stripped of its branches, was positioned upright at one side of an opening in the fence. A hole was dug for the base, and a mound of stones was piled up around it for support. It was reinforced by tying it with thongs to the heavy mammoth tusks. The gate itself was constructed of leg bones, branches, and mammoth ribs lashed firmly to crosspieces of saplings chopped to size. Then with several people holding the gate in place, one end was attached in many places to the upright pole using a crossed-over lashing that allowed it to swing on its leather hinges. Boulders and heavy bones were piled near the other end, ready to be shoved in front of the gate after it was closed.