Ayla and Jondalar stayed at the abandoned summer camp through the next day, and the next. By the morning of the third day, the rain finally slacked off. The dull, solid gray cloud cover broke up, and by afternoon bright sunlight beamed through the blue patches stitched between fleecy white clouds. A brisk wind puffed and sputtered from one direction and then another, as if trying out different positions unable to decide which would best suit the occasion.
Most of their things were dry, but they opened the ends of the dwelling to let the wind blow through to dry completely the last few heavy pieces and air everything out. Some of their leather items had stiffened. They would need working and stretching, though regular use would probably be sufficient to make them supple again, but they were essentially undamaged. Their woven pack baskets, however, were another matter. They had dried misshapen and badly frayed, and a rotting mildew had developed. The moisture had softened them, and the weight of their contents had caused them to sag and the fibers to pull apart and break.
Ayla decided she would have to make new ones, even though the dried grasses, plants, and trees of autumn were not the strongest or best materials to use. When she told Jondalar, he brought up another problem.
“Those pack baskets have been bothering me, anyway,” he said. “Every time we cross a river deep enough for the horses to have to swim, if we don’t take them off, the baskets get wet. With the bowl boat and the pole drag, it hasn’t been much of a problem. We just put the baskets in the boat, and as long as we’re in open country, it’s easy enough to use the drag. Most of the way ahead is open grassland, but there will be some woods and rough country. Then, just like in these mountains, it might not be so easy to drag those poles and the boat. Sometime we may decide to leave them behind, but if we do, we need pack baskets that won’t get wet when the horses have to swim a river. Can you make some like that?”
Now it was Ayla’s turn to frown. “You’re right, they do get wet. When I made the pack baskets, I didn’t have to cross many rivers, and those I did weren’t very deep.” She wrinkled her forehead in concentration; then she remembered the pannier she had first devised. “I didn’t use pack baskets in the beginning. The first time I wanted Whinney to carry something on her back, I made a big, shallow basket. Maybe I can work out something like that again. It would be easier if we didn’t ride the horses, but …”
Ayla closed her eyes, trying to visualize an idea she was getting. “Maybe … I could make pack baskets that could be lifted up to their backs while we’re in the water.… No, that wouldn’t work if we were riding at the same time … but … maybe, I could make something the horses could carry on their rumps, behind us …” She looked at Jondalar. “Yes, I think I can make carriers that will work.”
They gathered reed and cattail leaves, osier willow withes, long thin spruce roots, and whatever else Ayla saw that she thought could be used as material for baskets or for cordage to construct woven containers. Trying various approaches and fitting it on Whinney, Ayla and Jondalar worked on the project all day. By late afternoon they had made a sort of pack-saddle basket that was sufficient to hold Ayla’s belongings and traveling gear, that could be carried by the mare while she was riding, and that would stay reasonably dry when the horse was swimming. They started immediately on another one for Racer. His went much faster because they had worked out the method and the details.
In the evening the wind picked up and shifted, bringing a sharp norther that was fast blowing the clouds south. As twilight turned to dark, the sky was almost clear, but it was much colder. They planned to leave in the morning, and both of them decided to go through their things to lighten their load. The pack baskets had been bigger and it was a tighter fit in the new pack-saddle carriers. No matter how they tried to arrange it, there just wasn’t as much room. Some things had to go. They spread everything out that both of them were carrying.
Ayla pointed to the slab of ivory on which Talut had carved the map showing the first part of their Journey. “We don’t need that anymore. Talut’s land is far behind us,” she said, feeling a touch of sadness.
“You’re right, we don’t need it. I hate to leave it, though,” Jondalar said, grimacing at the thought of getting rid of it. “It would be interesting to show the kind of maps the Mamutoi make, and it reminds me of Talut.”
Ayla nodded with understanding. “Well, if you have the room, take it, but it isn’t essential.”
Jondalar glanced at Ayla’s array spread out on the floor, and picked up the mysterious wrapped package he had seen before. “What is this?”
“It’s just something I made last winter,” she said, taking it out of his hands and looking away quickly as a flush rose to her face. She put it behind her, shoving it under the pile of things she was taking. “I’m going to leave my summer traveling clothes, they’re all stained and worn anyway, and I’ll be wearing my winter ones. That gives me some extra room.”
Jondalar looked at her sharply, but he made no further comment.
It was cold when they awoke the next morning. A fine cloud of warm mist showed every breath. Ayla and Jondalar hurriedly dressed, and after starting a fire for a morning cup of hot tea, they packed their bedding, eager to be off. But when they went outside, they stopped and stared.
A thin coat of shimmering hoarfrost had transformed the surrounding hills. It sparkled and glinted in the bright morning sun with an unusual vividness. As the frost melted, each drop of water became a prism reflecting a brilliant bit of rainbow in a tiny burst of red, green, blue, or gold, which flickered from one color to another when they moved and saw the spectrum from a different angle. But the beauty of the frost’s ephemeral jewels was a reminder that the season of warmth was little more than a fleeting flash of color in a world controlled by winter, and the short hot summer was over.
When they were packed and ready to go, Ayla looked back at the summer camp that had been such a welcome refuge. It was even more dilapidated, since they had torn down parts of the smaller shelters to fuel their fireplace, but she knew the flimsy temporary dwellings wouldn’t last much longer anyway. She was grateful they had found them when they did.
They continued west toward the Sister River, dropping down a slope to another level terrace, though they were still high enough in elevation to see the wide grasslands of the steppes on the other side of the turbulent waterway they were approaching. It gave them a perspective of the region as well as showing the extent of the river floodplain ahead. The level land that was usually under water during times of flood was about ten miles across, but broader on the far bank. The foothills of the near side limited the floodwaters’ normal expansion, though there were elevations, hills and bluffs, across the river, too.
In contrast to the grasslands, the floodplain was a wilderness of marshes, small lakes, woods, and tangled undergrowth with the river churning through it. Though it lacked meandering channels, it reminded Ayla of the tremendous delta of the Great Mother River, but on a smaller scale. The sallows and seasonal brush that seemed to be growing out of the water along the edges of the swiftly flowing stream indicated both the amount of flooding caused by the recent rains and the sizable portion of land already given up to the river.
Ayla’s attention was brought back to her immediate surroundings when Whinney’s gait suddenly changed, caused by her hooves sinking into sand. The small streams that had cut across the terraces above had become deeply entrenched riverbeds between shifting dunes of sandy marl. The horses floundered as they proceeded, kicking up fountains of loose, calcium-rich soil with each step.
Near evening, as the setting sun, nearly blinding in its intensity, approached the earth, the man and woman, trying to shade their eyes, peered ahead, looking for a place to make camp. Drawing nearer to the floodplain, they noticed that the fine shifting sand was developing a slightly different character. Like the upper terraces, it was primarily loess—rock dust created by the grinding action of the glacier and deposited by the wind—but occasionally the river’s flooding was extreme enough to reach their elevation. The clayey silt that was added to the soil hardened and stabilized the ground. When they began to see familiar steppe grasses growing beside the stream they were following, one of the many that were racing down the mountain toward the Sister, they decided to stop.
After they set up their tent, the woman and man went in separate directions to hunt for their dinner. Ayla took Wolf, who ran ahead and in a short time flushed up a covery of ptarmigan. He pounced on one as Ayla whipped out her sling and brought down another that thought it had reached the safety of the sky. She considered allowing Wolf to keep the bird he had caught, but when he resisted giving it up at once, she decided against it. Though one fat fowl could certainly have satisfied both her and Jondalar, she wanted to reinforce to the wolf the understanding that, when she expected it, he would have to share his kills with them, because she didn’t know what lay ahead.
She didn’t fully reason it out, but the nippy air had made her realize that they would be traveling during the cold season into an unknown land. The people she had known, both the Clan and the Mamutoi, seldom traveled very far during the severe glacial winters. They settled into a place that was secure from bitter cold and wind-driven blizzards, and they ate food they had stored. The idea of traveling in winter made her uneasy.
Jondalar’s spear-thrower had found a large hare, which they decided to save for later. Ayla wanted to roast the birds on a spit over a fire, but they were camped on the open steppes, beside a stream with only scanty brush beside it. Looking around, she spied a couple of antlers, unequal in size and obviously from different animals, that had been discarded the previous year. Though antler was much harder to break than wood, with Jondalar’s help, sharp flint knives, and the small axe he kept in his belt, they broke them apart. Ayla used part to skewer the birds, and the broken-off tines became forks to support the spit. After all the effort, she decided she would keep them to use again, especially since antler was slow to catch fire.
She gave Wolf his share of the cooked fowl, along with a portion of some large reed roots she had dug from a backwater ditch beside the stream, and the meadow mushrooms that she recognized as edible and tasty. After their evening meal, they sat next to the fire and watched the sky grow dark. The days were getting shorter, and they weren’t as tired at night, especially since it was so much easier riding the horses across the open plains than it had been making their way over the wooded mountains.
“Those birds were good,” Jondalar said. “I like the skin crisp like that.”
“This time of year, when they’re so nice and fat, that’s the best way to cook them,” Ayla said. “The feathers are changing color already, and the breast down is so thick. I wanted to take it with us. It would make a nice soft filling for something. Ptarmigan feathers make the lightest and warmest bedding, but I don’t have room for them.”
“Maybe next year, Ayla. The Zelandonii hunt ptarmigan, too,” Jondalar said, as a gentle encouragement, something for her to anticipate at the end of their Journey.
“Ptarmigan were Creb’s favorite,” Ayla said.
Jondalar thought she seemed sad, and when she said nothing more, he kept on talking, hoping it would take her mind off whatever was bothering her. “There’s even one kind of ptarmigan, not around our Caves, but south of us, that doesn’t turn white. All year it looks like a ptarmigan does in summer, and it tastes like the same kind of bird. The people who live in that region call it a red grouse, and they like to use the feathers on their headwear and clothes. They make special costumes for a Red Grouse ceremony, and they dance with the bird’s movements, stamping their feet and everything, like the males do when they are trying to entice the females. It’s part of their Mother Festival.” He paused, but when she still had no comment to make, he continued, “They hunt the birds with nets, and get many at one time.”
“I got one of these with my sling, but Wolf got the other one,” Ayla said. When she said nothing more, Jondalar decided she just didn’t feel like talking, and they sat in silence for a while, watching the fire consume brush and dried dung that had redried after the rains enough to burn. Finally she spoke again. “Remember Brecie’s throwing stick? I wish I knew how to use something like that. She could bring down several birds at one time with it.”
The night cooled quickly, and they were glad for the tent. Though Ayla had seemed unusually silent, full of sadness and remembering, she was warmly responsive to his touch, and Jondalar soon stopped worrying about her quiet mood.
In the morning the air was still brisk, and the condensed moisture had brought a ghostly shimmer of frost to the land again. The icy stream was cold but invigorating when they used it to wash. They had buried Jondalar’s hare, encased in its furry hide, under the hot coals to cook overnight. When they peeled off the blackened skin, the rich layer of winter fat just underneath had basted the usually lean and often stringy meat, and slow cooking within its natural container made it moist and tender. It was the best time of the year to hunt the long-eared animals.
They rode side by side through the tall ripe grass, not rushing but keeping a steady pace, talking occasionally. Small game was plentiful as they headed toward the Sister, but the only large animals they saw all morning were across the river in the distance: a small band of male mammoths, heading north. Later in the day they saw a mixed herd of horses and saiga antelope, also on the other side. Whinney and Racer noticed them, too.
“Iza’s totem was the Saiga,” Ayla said. “That was a very powerful totem for a woman. Even stronger than Creb’s birth totem, the Roe Deer. Of course, the Cave Bear had chosen him and was his second totem before he became Mog-ur.”
“But your totem is the Cave Lion. That’s a much more powerful animal than a saiga antelope,” Jondalar said.
“I know. It’s a man’s totem, a hunter’s totem. That’s why it was so hard for them to believe it, at first,” Ayla said. “I don’t really remember, but Iza told me that Brun even got angry at Creb when he named it at my adoption ceremony. That’s why everyone was sure I would never have any children. No man had a totem powerful enough to defeat the Cave Lion. It was a big surprise when I got pregnant with Durc, but I’m sure it was Broud who started him, when he forced me.” She frowned at the unpleasant thought. “And if totem spirits have something to do with starting babies, Broud’s totem was the Woolly Rhinoceros. I remember the Clan hunters talking about a woolly rhino that killed a cave lion, so it could have been strong enough, and, like Broud, they can be mean.”
“Woolly rhinos are unpredictable and can be vicious,” Jondalar said. “Thonolan was gored by one not far from here. He would have died then if the Sharamudoi hadn’t found us.” The man closed his eyes with the painful memory, letting Racer carry him along. They didn’t speak for a while, then he asked, “Does everyone in the Clan have a totem?”
“Yes,” Ayla replied. “A totem is for guidance and protection. Each clan’s mog-ur discovers every new baby’s totem, usually before the end of the birthing year. He gives the child an amulet with a piece of the red stone inside it at the totem ceremony. The amulet is the totem spirit’s home.”
“You mean like a donii is a place for the Mother spirit to rest?” Jondalar asked.
“Something like that, I think, but a totem protects you, not your home, although it is happier if you live in a place that’s familiar. You have to keep your amulet with you. It is how your totem spirit recognizes you. Creb told me that the spirit of my Cave Lion would not be able to find me without it. Then I would lose his protection. Creb said if I ever lost my amulet, I would die,” Ayla explained.
Jondalar hadn’t understood the full implications of Ayla’s amulet before, or why she was so protective of it. He had occasionally thought she carried it too far. She seldom took it off, except to bathe or swim, and sometimes not even then. He had supposed it was her way of clinging to her Clan childhood, and he hoped she would someday get over it. Now he realized there was more to it than that. If a man of great magical power had given him something, and told him he would die if he ever lost it, he would be protective of it, too. Jondalar no longer doubted that the holy man of the Clan, who had raised her, possessed true power derived from the spirit world.
“It’s also for the signs your totem leaves for you if you make the right decision about something important in your life,” Ayla continued. A nagging worry that had been bothering her suddenly struck her with more force. Why hadn’t her totem given her a sign to confirm that she had made the right choice when she decided to go with Jondalar to his home? She had not found a single object that she could interpret as a sign from her totem since they left the Mamutoi.
“Not very many Zelandonii have personal totems,” Jondalar said, “but some do. It’s usually considered lucky. Willomar has one.”
“He’s your mother’s mate, right?” Ayla asked.
“Yes. Thonolan and Folara were both born to his hearth, and he always treated me as though I was.”
“What is his totem?”
“It’s the Golden Eagle. The story is told that when he was a baby, a golden eagle swooped down and picked him up, but his mother grabbed him before he could be taken away. He still bears the scars from the talons on his chest. Their zelandoni said that the eagle recognized him as his own and came for him. That’s how they knew it was his totem. Marthona thinks that’s why he likes to travel so much. He can’t fly like the eagle, but he has a need to see the land.”
“That’s a powerful totem, like the Cave Lion, or the Cave Bear,” Ayla commented. “Creb always said that powerful totems were not easy to live with, and it’s true, but I have been given so much. He even sent you to me. I think I have been very lucky. I hope the Cave Lion will be lucky for you, Jondalar. He is also your totem now.”
Jondalar smiled. “You’ve said that before.”
“The Cave Lion chose you, and you have the scars to prove it. Just as Willomar was marked by his totem.”
Jondalar looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps you are right. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Wolf, who had been off exploring, suddenly appeared. He yipped to get Ayla’s attention, then fell into place beside Whinney. She watched him, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, ears perked up, running with the wolf’s usual untiring, ground-covering pace through the standing hay, which sometimes hid him from view. He seemed so happy and alert. He loved to go off and explore on his own, but he always returned, which made her happy. Riding with the man and the stallion beside her made her happy, too.
“From the way you always talk about him, I think your brother must have been like the man of his hearth,” Ayla said, resuming the conversation. “Thonolan liked to travel, too, didn’t he? Did he look like Willomar?”
“Yes, but not as much as I resemble Dalanar. Everyone remarks on it. Thonolan had a lot more of Marthona in him,” Jondalar smiled, “but he was never chosen by an eagle, so that doesn’t explain his travel urge.” The smile faded. “My brother’s scars were from that unpredictable woolly rhinoceros.” He was thoughtful for a while. “But then Thonolan always was a bit unpredictable. Maybe it was his totem. It didn’t seem to be very lucky for him, although the Sharamudoi did find us, and I never saw him as happy as he was after he met Jetamio.”
“I don’t think the Woolly Rhino is a lucky totem,” Ayla said, “but I think the Cave Lion is. When he chose me, he even gave me the same marks the Clan uses for a Cave Lion totem, so Creb would know. Your scars are not Clan marks, but they are clear. You were marked by a Cave Lion.”
“I definitely do have the scars to prove that I was marked by your cave lion, Ayla.”
“I think the spirit of the Cave Lion chose you so that your totem spirit would be strong enough for mine, so that someday I will be able to have your children,” Ayla said.
“I thought you said it was a man who made a baby start growing inside a woman, not spirits,” Jondalar said.
“It is a man, but maybe spirits need to help. Since I have such a strong totem, the man who is my mate would need a strong one, too. So maybe the Mother decided to tell the Cave Lion to choose you, so we can make babies together.”
They rode together in silence again, thinking their own thoughts. Ayla was imagining a baby that looked like Jondalar, except a girl, not a boy. She didn’t seem to be lucky with sons. Maybe she’d be able to keep a daughter.
Jondalar was thinking about children, too. If it was true that a man started life with his organ, they had certainly given a baby plenty of chances to start. Why wasn’t she pregnant?
Was Serenio pregnant when I left? he thought. I’m glad she found someone to be happy with, but I wish she had said something to Roshario. Are any children in the world in some way a part of me? Jondalar tried to think of the women he had known and remembered Noria, the young woman of Haduma’s people with whom he shared First Rites. Both Noria and the old Haduma herself had seemed convinced that his spirit had entered her and that a new life had begun. She was supposed to give birth to a son with blue eyes like his. They were even going to name him Jondal. Was it true? he wondered. Had his spirit mixed with Noria’s to begin a new life?
But Haduma’s people didn’t live so far away, and in the right direction, to the north and west. Maybe they could stop for a visit, except, he suddenly realized, he didn’t really know how to find them. They had come to where he and Thonolan had been camped. He knew their home Caves were not only west of the Sister, they were west of the Great Mother River, but he didn’t know where. He did recall that they sometimes hunted in the region between the two rivers, but that was of little help. He would probably never know if Noria had that baby.
Ayla’s thoughts had turned from waiting until they reached Jondalar’s home before they started having children, to his people, and what they were like. She wondered if they would find her acceptable. She felt a little more confident, after meeting the Sharamudoi, that there would be a place for her somewhere, but she wasn’t sure if it would be with the Zelandonii. She remembered that Jondalar had reacted with strong revulsion when he first discovered she had been raised by the Clan, and then she recalled his strange behavior the previous winter while living with the Mamutoi.
Some of it was because of Ranec. She came to know that before they left, though she hadn’t understood it in the beginning. Jealousy was not a part of her upbringing. Even if they had felt such an emotion, no man of the Clan would ever show jealousy over a woman. But part of Jondalar’s strange behavior also stemmed from his concern about how his people would accept her. She knew now that, though he loved her, he had been ashamed of her living with the Clan and, especially, he had been ashamed of her son. True, he did not seem concerned anymore. He was protective of her and not at all uneasy when her Clan background came out when they were with the Sharamudoi, but he must have had some reason for feeling that way in the first place.
Well, she loved Jondalar and wanted to live with him, and besides, it was too late now to change her mind, but she hoped she had done the right thing in coming with him. She wished once again that her Cave Lion totem would give her a sign so that she would know she had made the right decision, but no sign seemed to be forthcoming.
As the travelers neared the turbulent expanse of water at the confluence of the Sister River with the Great Mother River, the loose, crumbly marls—sands and clays rich in calcium—of the upper terraces gave way to gravels and loess soils on the low levels.
In that wintry world, glaciered mountain crests filled streams and rivers during the warmer season with meltwater. Near the end of the season, with the addition of heavy rains that accumulated as snow in the higher elevations, which sharp temperature changes could release suddenly, the swift streams became torrential floods. With no lakes on the western face of the mountains to hold back the gathering deluge in a natural reservoir and dole the outpour in more measured tribute, the increasing tide fell over itself down the steep slopes. The cascading waters gouged sand and gravel out of the sandstones, limestones, and shales of the mountains, which was washed down to the mighty river and deposited on the beds and floodplains.
The central plains, once the floor of an inland sea, occupied a basin between two massive mountain ranges on the east and west and highlands to the north and south. Almost equal in volume to the burgeoning Mother as she neared their meeting, the swollen Sister held the drainage of part of the plains, and the entire western face of the mountain chain that curved around in a great arc toward the northwest. The Sister River raced along the lowest depression of the basin to deliver her offering of floodwater to the Great Mother of Rivers, but her surging current was rebuffed by the higher water level of the Mother, already filled to capacity. Forced back on herself, she dissipated her offertory in a vortex of countercurrents and destructive spreading overflow.
Near midday, the man and woman approached the marshy wilderness of half-drowned underbrush and occasional stands of trees with their lower trunks beneath the water. Ayla thought the similarity to the soggy marshland of the eastern delta grew stronger as they drew closer, except that the currents and countercurrents of the joining rivers were swirling maelstroms. With the weather much cooler, the insects were less bothersome, but the carcasses of bloated, partially devoured, and rotting animals that had been caught up by the flood collected their share. To the south, a massif with densely forested slopes was rising out of a purple mist caused by the surging eddies.
“Those must be the Wooded Hills Carlono told us about,” Ayla said.
“Yes, but they are more than hills,” Jondalar said. “They are higher than you think, and they extend for a long way. The Great Mother River flows south until she reaches that barrier. Those hills turn the Mother east.”
They rode around a large quiet pool, a backwater that was separated from the moving waters, and stopped at the eastern edge of the swollen river, somewhat upstream from the confluence. As Ayla stared across the mighty flood at the other side, she began to understand Jondalar’s warnings about the difficulty of crossing the Sister.
The muddy waters, swirling around the slender trunks of willows and birches, tore loose those trees whose roots were not as securely anchored into the soil of low islands that were surrounded by channels in drier seasons. Many trees were pitched at precarious angles, and naked branches and boles that had been wrenched from upstream woods were trapped in muck along the banks or circled in a dizzy dance in the river.
Ayla silently wondered how they would ever get across the river, and she asked, “Where do you think we should cross?”
Jondalar wished the large Ramudoi boat that had rescued Thonolan and him a few years before would appear and take them to the other side. The reminder of his brother again brought a piercing stab of grief, but also a sudden concern for Ayla.
“I think it’s obvious we can’t cross here,” he said. “I didn’t know it would be this bad so soon. We’ll have to go upstream to look for an easier place to attempt it. I just hope it doesn’t rain again before we find it. Another rainstorm like the last one, and this whole floodplain will be under water. No wonder that summer camp was abandoned.”
“This river wouldn’t go up as high as that, would it?” Ayla asked, her eyes open wide.
“I don’t think it would, yet, but it might. All the water falling on those mountains will eventually end up here. Besides, flash floods could easily come down the stream that ran so near the camp. And probably do. Frequently. I think we should hurry, Ayla. This is not a safe place to be if it starts to rain again,” Jondalar said, looking up at the sky. He urged the stallion to a gallop and kept to such a fast pace that Wolf was hard pressed to keep up with them. After a while he slowed down again, but not to the leisurely pace they had maintained before.
Jondalar stopped occasionally and studied the river and its far bank before continuing north, glancing at the sky anxiously. The river did seem narrower in some places and wider in others, but it was so full and broad that it was hard to tell for sure. They rode until it was nearly dark without finding a suitable crossing place, but Jondalar insisted that they ride to higher ground to make camp for the night, and they halted only when it became too dark to travel safely.
“Ayla! Ayla! Wake up!” Jondalar said, shaking her gently. “We have to get moving.”
“What? Jondalar! What’s wrong?” Ayla said.
She was usually awake before him, and she felt disconcerted to be awakened so early. When she moved the sleeping fur aside, she felt a chill breeze, and then she noticed the tent flap was open. The diffused radiance of seething clouds was outlined by the opening, providing the only illumination inside their sleeping quarters. She could barely make out Jondalar’s face in the dim gray light, but it was enough to see that he was worried, and she shivered with foreboding.
“We have to go,” Jondalar said. He had hardly slept all night. He couldn’t exactly say why he felt they had to get across the river as soon as possible, but the feeling was so strong that it gave him a knot of fear in the pit of his stomach, not for himself, but for Ayla.
She got up, not asking why. She knew he would not have awakened her if he didn’t think their situation was serious. She dressed quickly, then got out her fire-making kit.
“Let’s not take the time for a fire this morning,” Jondalar said.
She frowned, then nodded and poured out cold water for them to drink. They packed while eating cakes of traveling food. When they were ready to leave, Ayla looked for Wolf, but he was not in camp.
“Where is Wolf,” Ayla said, a note of desperation in her voice.
“He’s probably hunting. He’ll catch up with us, Ayla. He always does.”
“I’ll whistle for him,” she said, then pierced the early morning air with the distinctive sound she used to call him.
“Come on, Ayla. We need to go,” Jondalar said, feeling a familiar irritation over the wolf.
“I’m not going without him,” she said, whistling again louder, giving the tone more urgency.
“We have to find a place to cross this river before the rain starts, or we might not get across,” Jondalar said.
“Can’t we just keep on going upstream? This river is bound to get smaller, isn’t it?” she argued.
“Once it starts to rain, it will only get bigger. Even upstream it will be bigger than it is here now, and we don’t know what kind of rivers will be coming down off those mountains. We could easily get caught by a flash flood. Dolando said they were common once the rains started. Or we could be stopped by a large tributary. Then what do we do? Climb back up the mountain to get around it? We need to get across the Sister while we can,” Jondalar said. He mounted the stallion and looked down at the woman standing beside the mare with the travois trailing behind her.
Ayla turned her back and whistled again.
“We have to go, Ayla.”
“Why can’t we wait a little while? He’ll come.”
“He’s only an animal. Your life is more important to me than his.”
She turned around and looked up at him, then looked back down, frowning deeply. Was it as dangerous to wait as Jondalar thought? Or was he just being impatient? If it was, shouldn’t his life be more important to her than Wolf’s, too? Just then, Wolf loped into sight. Ayla breathed a sigh of relief and braced as he jumped up to greet her, putting his paws on her shoulders and licking her jaw. She climbed up to Whinney’s back, using one of the travois poles to assist her. Then, signaling Wolf to stay close, she followed Jondalar and Racer.
There was no sunrise. The day just kept getting imperceptibly lighter, but never bright. The cloud cover hung low, giving the sky a uniform gray, and there was a cool dampness in the air. Later in the morning they stopped to rest. Ayla made a hot tea to warm them, then a rich soup out of a cake of traveling food. She added lemony sorrel leaves and wild rose hips, after removing the seeds and the sharp bristly hairs from inside, and a few leaves from the tips of the clump of field roses growing nearby. For a while, the tea and the warm soup seemed to relieve Jondalar’s concerns, until he noticed darker clouds gathering.
He urged her to pack her things quickly, and they started out again. Jondalar anxiously watched the sky to note the progress of the oncoming storm. He watched the river, too, looking for a place to cross. He hoped for some abatement of the swift churning current: a wider, shallower spot, or an island or even a sandbar between the two banks. Finally, fearing the storm would not hold off much longer, he decided they would have to take a chance, though the tumultuous Sister looked no different than it had all along. Knowing that once the rains began, the situation would only get worse, he headed toward a section of bank that offered fairly easy access. They stopped and dismounted.
“Do you think we should try to ride the horses across?” Jondalar asked, glancing nervously at the threatening sky.
Ayla studied the racing river and the debris it carried along. Often large whole trees floated by, along with many broken ones, that had been washed down from stands higher in the mountains. She shuddered when she noticed a large, bloated deer carcass, its antlers caught and entwined in the branches of a tree that was lodged near the shore. The dead animal made her fear for the horses.
“I think it would be easier for them to cross if we are not on their backs,” she said. “I think we should swim beside them.”
“That’s what I thought,” Jondalar said.
“But we’ll need a rope to hold on,” she said.
They got out short lengths of rope, then checked over the harnesses and baskets to make sure their tent, food, and few precious belongings were secure. Ayla unhitched the travois from Whinney, deciding it might be too dangerous for her to try to swim the tumultuous river in full harness, but they did not want to lose the poles and bowl boat, if they could help it.
With that in mind, they bound the long poles together with cordage. While Jondalar fastened one end to the side of the bowl boat, Ayla secured the other end to the harness that was used to hold on Whinney’s pack-saddle basket. She used a slip knot that could readily be released if she felt it was necessary. Then, to the flat braided cord that went down around behind the mare’s front legs and up across her chest, used to hold Ayla’s riding blanket on the mare, the woman attached another rope, much more securely.
Jondalar attached a similar rope to Racer; then he took off his boots, his inner foot-coverings, and his heavy outer clothes and furs. When soaked, they would weigh him down, making swimming all but impossible. He wrapped them together and piled them on top of the pack saddle, but he kept his under tunic and leggings on. Even when wet, the leather would provide some warmth. Ayla did the same.
The animals sensed the urgency and anxiety of the humans and were disturbed by the roiling water. The horses had shied away from the dead deer, and they were prancing around with short steps, tossing their heads and rolling their eyes, but their ears were perked up and alertly forward. Wolf, on the other hand, had gone to the edge of the water to investigate the deer, but he didn’t go in.
“How do you think the horses will do, Ayla?” Jondalar asked, as big sloppy raindrops began to fall.
“They’re nervous, but I think they’ll be all right, especially since we will be with them, but I’m not so sure about Wolf,” Ayla said.
“We can’t carry him across. He has to make it on his own—you know that,” Jondalar said. But seeing her distress, he added, “Wolf’s a strong swimmer, he should be all right.”
“I hope so,” she said, kneeling down to give the wolf a hug.
Jondalar noticed that the raindrops were falling thicker and faster. “We better get started,” he said, taking hold of Racer’s halter directly, since the lead rope was fastened farther back. He closed his eyes for a moment and wished for good luck. He thought of Doni, the Great Earth Mother, but he couldn’t think of anything to promise Her in return for their safety. He made a silent request for help in crossing the Sister anyway. Though he knew he would someday, he did not want to meet the Mother just yet, but even more, he did not want to lose Ayla.
The stallion tossed his head and tried to rear as Jondalar led him toward the river. “Easy now, Racer,” the man said. The water was cold as it swirled around his bare feet, and up his covered calves and thighs. Once in the water, Jondalar let go of Racer’s halter, giving him his head, and he wrapped the dangling rope around his hand, relying on the sturdy young stallion to find his way across.
Ayla wrapped the rope that was attached at the top of the mare’s withers around her hand several times, tucking the end in and around, and she closed her fist tightly to hold it. Then she started in behind the tall man, walking beside Whinney. She pulled on the other rope, the one that was fastened to the poles and boat, making sure it did not get tangled as they entered the river.
The young woman felt the cold water and the tug of the strong current immediately. She looked back toward the land. Wolf was still on the riverbank, advancing and retreating, whining anxiously, hesitant to enter the fast-moving river. She called to him, encouragingly. He paced back and forth, looking at the water and the widening distance between him and the woman. Suddenly, just as the rain began to fall in earnest, he sat down and howled. Ayla whistled to him and, after a few more false starts, he finally plunged in and started paddling toward her. She turned her attention back to the horse and the river ahead.
The rain, coming down harder, seemed to flatten out the choppy waves in the distance, but nearby the wild water was even more cluttered with debris than she had thought. Broken trunks and branches swirled around or bumped into her, some still with leaves, others waterlogged and almost hidden. The bloated animals were worse, often torn open by the violence of the flood that had caught them and swept them down the mountain and into the muddy river.
She saw several birch mice and pine voles. A large ground squirrel was harder to recognize; its pale brown pelt was dark and the thick fluffy tail was plastered down. A collared lemming, long white winter hair, lank but shiny, growing out through fur of summer gray that looked black, showed the bottom of its feet already covered with white fur. It had probably come from high on the mountain near the snow. The large animals showed more damage. A chamois floated past with a horn broken off and the fur gone from half its face, exposing pinkish muscle. When she saw the carcass of a young snow leopard, she looked back again for Wolf, but he was not in sight.
She noticed, however, that the rope dragging behind the mare was hauling along a snag as well as the poles and boat. The broken stump with spreading roots was adding an unnecessary burden and slowing Whinney down. Ayla pulled and tugged on the rope, trying to bring it closer to her, but it suddenly came loose by itself. A small forked branch was still clinging, but it was nothing to worry about. She was concerned about not seeing any sign of Wolf, even though she was so low in the water that she couldn’t see much. It upset her, especially since there was nothing she could do about it. She whistled for him once, but she wondered if he would hear it above the noise of the rushing water.
She turned back and took a critical look at Whinney, worried that the heavy snag might have tired her, but she was still swimming strongly. Ayla looked ahead and was relieved to see Racer with Jondalar bobbing along beside him. She kicked and pulled with her free arm, trying not to be a greater burden than she had to be. But as they continued, more and more she just hung on to the rope, beginning to shiver. She began to feel that it was taking an unreasonably long time to cross the river. The opposite shore still seemed so far ahead. The shivering wasn’t too bad at first, but with more time in the cold water, it became more intense and wouldn’t stop. Her muscles were becoming very tense, and her teeth were chattering.
She looked back for Wolf again, but she still did not see him. I should go back for him, he’s so cold, she thought, as she shivered violently. Maybe Whinney can turn around and go back. But when she tried to speak, her jaw was so tense and chattering that she could not get the words out. No, Whinney shouldn’t have to go. I’ll do it. She tried to unwrap the rope from around her hand, but it was tight and tangled, and her hand was so numb that she could hardly feel it. Maybe Jondalar can go back for him. Where is Jondalar? Is he in the river? Did he go back for Wolf? Oh, there’s a log caught up in the rope again. I have to … something … pull something … take rope away … heavy for Whinney.
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.