The Mammoth Hunters

  Ranec knew Ayla had gone riding with Jondalar. He, too, had gone fishing with some of the others, but he worried the whole day that the tall, handsome man would win her back. In Darnev’s clothes, Jondalar was a striking figure, and the carver, with his well-developed aesthetic sensibility, was quite aware of the visitor’s undeniably compelling quality, particularly for women. He was relieved to see they were still separated, and seemed to be as distant as ever, but when he asked her to come to his bed, she said she was tired. He smiled and told her to get some rest, glad to see that she was, at least, sleeping alone, if she wasn’t going to sleep with him.

  Ayla was not so much tired as emotionally spent when she went to bed, and she lay awake for a long time, thinking. She was glad Ranec hadn’t been at the lodge when she and Jondalar returned, and grateful that he wasn’t angry when she refused him—she still kept expecting anger, and punishment for daring to be disobedient. But Ranec was not demanding, and his understanding almost changed her mind.

  She tried to sort out what had happened, and even more, her feelings about it. Why did Jondalar take her if he didn’t want her? And why had he been so rough with her? He was almost like Broud. Then why was she so ready for Jondalar? When Broud had forced her, it had been an ordeal. Was it love? Did she feel Pleasures because she loved him? But Ranec made her feel Pleasures, and she didn’t love him, or did she?

  Maybe she did, in a way, but that wasn’t it. Jondalar’s impatience made it seem like her experience with Broud, but it was not the same. He was rough, and excited, but he didn’t force her. She knew the difference. Broud had wanted only to hurt her, and make her yield to him. Jondalar wanted her, and she had responded deeply, with every ounce of her being, and felt satisfied and completed. She would not have felt that way if he had hurt her. Would he have forced her if she hadn’t wanted him? No, she thought, he wouldn’t have. She was convinced that if she had objected, if she had pushed him away, he would have stopped. But she hadn’t objected, she had welcomed him, wanted him, and he must have felt it.

  He wanted her, but did he love her? Just because he wanted to share Pleasures with her didn’t mean he still loved her. Maybe love could make Pleasures better, but it was possible to have one without the other. Ranec showed her that. Ranec loved her, she had no doubt about him. He wanted to join with her, wanted to settle with her, wanted her children. Jondalar had never asked her to join, never said he wanted her children.

  He loved her once, though. Maybe she felt Pleasures because she loved him, even if he didn’t love her any more. But he still wanted her, and he took her. Why was he so cold afterward? Why had he rejected her again? Why had he stopped loving her? Once she thought she knew him. Now, she didn’t understand him at all. She rolled over and curled into a tight ball, and wept quietly again, wept with wanting Jondalar to love her again.

  “I’m glad I thought about inviting Jondalar along on the first mammoth hunt,” Talut said to Nezzie as they retired to the Lion Hearth. “He’s been so busy making that spear all night, I think he must really want to go.”

  Nezzie looked at him, raising an eyebrow and shaking her head. “Mammoth hunting is the furthest thing from his mind,” she said, then tucked a fur around the sleeping blond head of her youngest daughter, and smiled with gentle affection at the girl-woman form of her eldest, curled up next to her younger sister. “We’re going to have to think about a separate place for Latie next winter, she’ll be a woman, but Rugie will miss her.”

  Talut glanced back and saw the visitor brushing off chips of flint while he tried to see Ayla through the intervening hearths. When he didn’t see her, he looked toward the Fox Hearth. Talut turned his head and saw Ranec getting into his bed alone, but he, too, kept glancing toward Ayla’s bed. Nezzie is probably right, he thought.

  Jondalar had stayed up until the last person left the cooking hearth, working on a long flint blade that he would haft to a sturdy shaft the same way Wymez did, learning how to make a Mamutoi mammoth hunting spear by first making an exact copy of one. The part of his mind that was always aware of the nuances of his craft had already thought of ideas for possible improvements, or at least interesting experiments, but the work was a familiar process that took little concentration, which was just as well. He couldn’t think about anything but Ayla, and he was only using the work as a way to avoid company and conversation and be alone with his thoughts.

  He felt a great relief when he saw her going to her bed alone earlier; he didn’t think he could have borne it if she had gone to Ranec’s bed. He carefully folded his new clothes, then got into new sleeping furs which were spread out on top of his old traveling roll. He folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the too-familiar ceiling of the cooking hearth. He had lain awake studying it many nights. He still ached with remorse and shame, but not, on this night, with the burning ache of need, and as much as he hated himself for it, he remembered the Pleasure of the afternoon. He thought about it, carefully recalling every moment, turning over every detail in his mind, slowly savoring now what he had not taken time to think about then.

  He was more relaxed than he had been since Ayla’s adoption, and he slipped into a half-dozing, musing reverie. Had he imagined that she had been so willing? He must have; she could not have been that eager for him. Had she really responded with such feeling? Reaching for him as though she had wanted him as much as he wanted her? He felt the pull in his loins as he thought of her again, of filling her, of her deep warmth embracing him fully. But the need was easier, more like a warm afterglow, not the driving, hurting pain that was a combination of repressed desire, powerful love, and burning jealousy. He thought about Pleasuring her—he loved to Pleasure her—and he started to get up to go to her again.

  It was only when he pushed back the cover and sat up, when he started to act on the urge brought on by his dreamy intimate ruminations, that the consequences of the afternoon struck him. He couldn’t go to her bed. Not ever. He could never touch her again. He had lost her. It was no longer a matter of choice. He had destroyed any chance he had that she might choose him. He had taken her by force, against her will.

  Sitting on his sleeping furs, with his feet on a floor mat and his elbows leaning on his bent-up knees, he held his bowed head and felt an agony of shame. His body shook with silent heaves of disgust. Of all the despicable things he had done in his life, this unnatural act was by far the worst.

  There was no worse abomination, not even the child of mixed spirits, or the woman who gave birth to one, than a man who took a woman against her will. The Great Earth Mother Herself decried it, forbade it. One had only to observe the animals of Her creation to know how unnatural it was. No male animal ever took a female against her will.

  In their season the stags might fight each other for the privilege of Pleasuring the does, but when the male deer tried to mount the female, she had only to walk away if she didn’t want him. He could try and try, but she had to allow it, she had to stand for it. He could not force her. It was the same for every animal. The female wolf or the she-lion invited the male of her choice. She rubbed against him, passed her tempting odor before his nose, and moved her tail aside when he mounted, but she would turn angrily on any male who tried to mount against her will. He paid dearly for his audacity. A male could be as persistent as he liked, but the choice was always the female’s. That was the way the Mother meant it to be. Only the human male ever forced a female, only an unnatural, abominable human male.

  Jondalar had often been told, by Those Who Served the Mother, that he was favored by the Great Earth Mother and all women knew it. No woman could refuse him, not even the Mother Herself. That was his gift. But even Doni would turn her back on him now. He hadn’t asked, not Doni, not Ayla, not anyone. He had forced her, taken her against her will.

  Among Jondalar’s people, any man who committed such a perversion was shunned—or worse. When he was growing up, young boys talked among themselves about being painfully unmanned. Though he never knew anyone
who was, he believed it was a fitting punishment. Now, he was the one who should be punished. What could he have been thinking of? How could he have done such a thing?

  And you worried about her not being accepted, he said to himself. You were afraid she would be rejected, and you weren’t sure if you could live with that. Who would be rejected now? What would they think of you if they knew? Especially after … what happened before. Not even Dalanar would take you in now. He would strike you from his hearth, turn you away, disclaim all ties. Zolena would be appalled. Marthona … he hated to think how his mother would feel.

  Ayla had been talking to Mamut. She must have told him, that must have been why she was crying. He leaned his forehead against his knees and covered his head with his arms. Whatever they did to him, he deserved. He saw hunched over for some time, imagining the terrible punishments they would impose on him. He even wished they would do something terrible to him, to relieve the burden of guilt that weighed him down.

  But eventually reason prevailed. He realized that no one had said a word to him about it all evening. Mamut even spoke to him about the Spring Festival and never brought it up. Then what had she been crying about? Maybe she was crying about it, but just never said anything. He lifted his head and looked across the darkened hearths in her direction. Could that be? Of all people, she had more right than anyone to claim redress. She had already had more than her share of unnatural acts forced on her by that brutal flathead.… What right did he have to speak ill of that other man? Was he any better?

  Yet, she had kept it to herself. She did not denounce him, did not demand his punishment. She was too good for him. He didn’t deserve her. It was right that she and Ranec should Promise, Jondalar thought. Even as the thought entered his mind, he felt a tight knot of pain, as he understood that would be his punishment. Doni had given him what he had wanted most. She had found him the only woman he could ever love, but he couldn’t accept her. And now he had lost her. It was his own fault, he would accept his punishment, but not without grieving.

  As long as he could remember, Jondalar had fought for self-control. Other men showed emotion—laughed, or angered, or wept—far more easily than he, but above all, he resisted tears. Since the time he had been sent away and lost his tender credulous youth in a night of crying for the loss of home and family, he had wept only once: in Ayla’s arms for the loss of his brother. But once again, on that night, he grieved. In the dark earthlodge of people who lived a year’s Journey away from his home, he wept silent, unstoppable tears for the loss he felt most keenly of all. The loss of the woman he loved.

  The long-awaited Spring Festival was both a new year’s celebration and a festival of thanksgiving. Held not at the beginning, but at the height of the season when the first green buds and shoots were well established and could be harvested, it marked the start of the yearly cycle for the Mamutoi. With fervent joy and unspoken relief, that could only be fully appreciated by those who lived on the edge of survival, they welcomed the greening of the earth, which guaranteed life for themselves arid the animals with whom they shared the land.

  On the deepest, coldest nights of the harsh glacial winter, when it seemed the air itself would freeze, doubt that warmth and life would ever return again could arise in the most believing heart. Those times when spring seemed most remote, memories and stories of previous Spring Festivals relieved deep-seated fears and gave renewed hope that the Earth Mother’s cycle of seasons would indeed continue. They made each Spring Festival as exciting and memorable as possible.

  For the big Spring Feast, nothing left over from the previous year would be eaten. Individuals and small groups had been out for days fishing, hunting, trapping, and gathering. Jondalar had put his spear-thrower to good use and was pleased to contribute a pregnant bison entirely by himself, thin and gaunt though she was. Every edible vegetable product they could find was collected. Birch and willow catkins; the young unfolding stems of ferns as well as the old rootstocks which could be roasted, peeled, and pounded into flour; the juicy inner cambium bark of pines and birch, sweet with new rising sap; a few purplish-black curlewberries, filled with hard seeds, growing beside the small pink flowers on the ever-bearing low shrub; and from sheltered areas, where they had been covered with snow, bright red lingonberries, frozen and thawed to a soft sweetness, lingered with the dark leathery leaves on low tufted branches.

  Buds, shoots, bulbs, roots, leaves, flowers of every description; the earth abounded with delicious fresh foods. Shoots and young pods of milkweed were used for vegetables, while the flower, full of rich nectar, was used for sweetening. New green leaves of clover, pigweed, nettles, balsam root, dandelion, and wild lettuce would be cooked or eaten raw; thistle stalks and, especially, sweet thistle roots were searched out. Lily bulbs were a favorite, and cattail shoots and bulrush stems. Sweet, flavorful licorice roots could be eaten raw or roasted in ashes. Some plants were collected for sustenance, others mainly for the flavor they imparted, and many were used for teas. Ayla knew the medicinal qualities of most of them, and gathered some for her uses, as well.

  On rocky slopes, the narrow tubular new shoots of wild onion were picked, and in dry, bare places, small leaves of lemony sorrel. Coltsfoot was collected from damp open ground near the river. Its slightly salty taste made it useful for seasoning, though Ayla gathered some for coughs and asthma. Garlicky-tasting ramson greens were picked for taste and flavor, as were tart juniper berries, peppery tiger lily bulbs, flavorful basil, sage, thyme, mint, linden, which grew as a prostrate shrub, and a variety of other herbs and greens. Some would be dried and stored, some used to season the recently caught fish and the various kinds of meats brought back for the feast.

  The fish were plentiful, and favored at this time of year, since most of the animals were still lean from the ravages of winter. But fresh meat, including at least one, symbolic, spring-born young animal—this year a tender bison calf—was always included in the feast. To make a feast of only the fresh products of the earth showed that the Earth Mother was offering Her full bounty again, that She would continue to provide for and nurture Her children.

  With the foraging and collecting of foods for the feast, the anticipation of the Spring Festival had been building up for days. Even the horses could sense it. Ayla noticed they were nervous. In the morning she took them outside, some distance from the earthlodge, to curry and brush them. It was an activity that relaxed Whinney and Racer and that relaxed her, and it gave her an excuse to get off by herself to think. She knew she should give Ranec an answer today. Tomorrow was the Spring Festival.

  Wolf was curled up nearby, watching her. He sniffed the air, lifted his head and looked, and banged his tail against the ground, signaling the approach of someone friendly. Ayla turned, and felt her face flush and her heart pound.

  “I was hoping I’d find you alone, Ayla. I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind,” Jondalar said, in a strangely subdued voice.

  “No, I don’t mind,” she said.

  He was shaved, his light hair pulled back neatly and tied at the nape of his neck, and he was wearing one of his new outfits from Tulie. He looked so good to her—handsome was the word Deegie used—he almost took her breath away, and her voice caught in her throat. But it was more than his appearance that moved Ayla. Even when he was wearing Talut’s hand-me-downs, he looked good to her. His presence filled the space around him and touched her, as though he were a glowing ember that warmed her, even standing apart. It was a warmth that was not heat, but larger, more filling, and she wanted to touch that warmth, ached to feel it enfold her, and swayed toward him. But something in his eyes held her back, something ineffably sad that she had not seen there before. She stood quietly, waiting for him to speak.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts, not sure how to begin. “Do you remember, when we were together in your valley, before you could speak very well, you wanted to tell me something once that was important, but you didn’t know the words for it? You be
gan to speak to me in signs—I remember thinking your movements were beautiful, almost like a dance.”

  She remembered only too well. She had been trying to tell him then what she wished she could tell him now: how she felt about him, how he filled her with a feeling that she still had no words for. Even to say she loved him was not enough.

  “I’m not sure there are words to say what I need to say. ‘Sorry’ is just a sound that comes out of my mouth, but I don’t know how else to say it. I’m sorry, Ayla, more than I can say. I had no right to force you, but I can’t take back what has already been done. I can only say it won’t ever happen again. I’ll be leaving soon, as soon as Talut thinks it’s safe to travel. This is your home. People here care about you … love you. You are Ayla of the Mamutoi. I am Jondalar of the Zelandonii. It’s time for me to go home.”

  Ayla couldn’t speak. She looked down, trying to hide the tears she couldn’t hold back, then turned around and began to rub down Whinney, unable to look at Jondalar. He was leaving. He was going home and he hadn’t asked her to go with him. He didn’t want her. He didn’t love her. She swallowed her sobs as she rubbed the brush over the horse. Not since she’d lived with the Clan had she fought so hard to hold back tears, struggled not to show them.

  Jondalar stood there, staring at her back. She doesn’t care, he thought. I should have left a long time ago. She had turned her back on him; he wanted to turn around and leave her to her horses, but the silent body language of her motions signaled a message that he couldn’t put into words. It was only a sense, a feeling that something wasn’t right, but it made him reluctant to go.

  “Ayla …?”

  “Yes,” she said, keeping her back turned and struggling to keep her voice from cracking.

  “Is there … anything I can do before I leave?”