The Valley of Horses (48 page)

“I’m fine,” he said. He smiled and tried to look healthy.

“Then I think I’ll go back and sit with Jetamio.”

When she left, he put the cup aside and lay down again. His nose was stuffed and his head ached. He couldn’t exactly say what it was, but Serenio’s answer disturbed him. He didn’t want to think about it anymore—it gave him another ache deep in the pit of his stomach. It must be this cold, he thought.

Spring ripened into summer, and the fruits of the earth with it. As they matured, the young woman gathered them. It was habit more than need. She could have spared herself the effort. She already had abundance; there was food left over from the preceding year. But Ayla had no use for leisure time. She had no way to fill it.

Even with the additional activity of winter hunting, she hadn’t been able to keep herself busy enough, though she had cured the hide of nearly every animal they killed, sometimes making furs, other times dehairing to make leather.
She had continued making baskets, mats, and carved bowls, and had accumulated enough tools, implements, and cave furnishings to satisfy a clan. She had looked forward to the summer’s food-gathering activities.

She had also looked forward to summer hunting and discovered that the method she had developed with Baby—with some adaptation to accommodate her lack of a horse—was still effective. The lion’s increasing skill made up the difference. If she had wished, she could have refrained from hunting. She not only had dried meat left over, but when Baby hunted alone successfully—which was more often the case than not—she didn’t hesitate to take a share of his kill. There was a unique relationship between the woman and the lion. She was mother, and therefore dominant; she was hunting partner, and therefore equal; and he was all she had to love.

Watching the wild lions, Ayla made some astute observations about their hunting habits, which Baby confirmed. Cave lions were nocturnal stalkers during the warm season, diurnal during the winter. Although he shed in spring, Baby still had a thick coat, and during the heat of a summer day, it was too hot to hunt. The energy expended during the chase made him too warm. Baby wanted nothing more than to sleep, preferably in the cool dark recesses of the cave. In winter, when winds howled off the northern glacier, nighttime temperatures dropped to a cold that could kill, despite a new heavy coat. Then, cave lions were happy to curl up in a windless cave. They were carnivores and adaptable. Thickness and coloration of coat could adapt with the climate, hunting habits with conditions, as long as there was sufficient prey.

She made one decision the morning after Whinney left, when she awoke and found Baby sleeping beside her with the carcass of a dappled fawn—the young of a giant deer. She would leave, there was no question in her mind about that, but not that summer. The young lion still needed her; he was too young to be left alone. No wild pride would accept him; the pride male would kill him. Until he was old enough to mate and start his own pride, he needed the security of her cave as much as she did.

Iza had told her to look for her own kind, to find her own mate, and she would, someday, continue her search. But she was relieved that she didn’t have to give up her freedom yet, for the company of people with unfamiliar ways. Though she wouldn’t admit it, she had a deeper reason. She
didn’t want to leave until she was sure Whinney would not return. She missed the horse desperately. Whinney had been with her from the beginning, and Ayla loved her.

“Come on, you lazy thing,” Ayla said. “Let’s go for a walk and see if we can find anything to hunt. You didn’t go out last night.” She prodded the lion, then went out of the cave, signaling to him to follow. He lifted his head, made a huge yawn that exposed his sharp teeth, then got up and padded after her, reluctantly. Baby was no more hungry than she was, and would much rather have slept.

She had collected medicinal plants the day before, a task she enjoyed—and one filled with pleasant associations. During her young years with the Clan, gathering medicines for Iza had given her a chance to get away from the ever-watchful eyes that were so quick to disapprove of improper actions. It gave her a little breathing space to follow her natural inclinations. Later, she collected the plants for the joy of learning the medicine woman’s skills, and the knowledge was now part of her nature.

To her, the medicinal properties were so closely associated with each plant that she distinguished them as much by use as by appearance. The bunches of agrimony hanging head downward inside the warm dark cave were an infusion of the dried flowers and leaves useful for bruises and injuries to internal organs, as much as they were tall slender perennials with toothed leaves and tiny yellow flowers growing on tapering spikes.

Coltsfoot leaves, which resembled their name, spread out on woven drying racks, were asthma relief when smoke from the burning dried leaves was breathed, and a cough remedy with other ingredients in tea, and a pleasant seasoning for food. Bone mending and wound healing came to mind when she saw the large downy comfrey leaves beside the roots drying outside in the sun, and the colorful marigolds were healing for open wounds, ulcers, and skin sores. Chamomile was an aid to digestion and a mild wash for wounds, and the wild rose petals floating in a bowl of water in the sun were a fragrant astringent skin lotion.

She had gathered them to replace with fresh material herbs that had not been used. Though she had very little need for the full pharmacopoeia she maintained, she enjoyed it, and it kept her skills sharp. But with leaves, flowers, roots, and barks in various stages of preparation spread out everywhere,
there was no point in gathering more—there was no room for them. She had nothing to do just then and she was bored.

She strolled down to the beach, then around the jutting wall and along the brush that bordered the stream, with the huge cave lion padding beside her. As he walked, he grunted the
hnga, hnga
sound that Ayla had learned was his normal speaking voice. Other lions made similar sounds, but each was distinctive, and she could recognize Baby’s voice from a long way off, just as she could identify his roar. It started deep in his chest with a series of grunts, then rose to a sonorous thunder at its full bass range that made her ears ring if she was too close.

When she came to a boulder that was a usual resting place, she stopped—not really interested in hunting, but not sure what she wanted to do. Baby pushed against her, looking for attention. She scratched around his ears and deep in his mane. His coat was a shade darker than it had been in winter, though still beige, but his mane had grown in rufous, a deep rusty tan not far from the color of red ochre. He lifted his head so she could get under his chin, making a low rumbling growl of contentment. She reached to scratch the other side, then looked at him with new awareness. The level of his back reached just below her shoulder. He was nearly the height of Whinney but much more massive. She hadn’t realized he’d gotten so big.

The cave lion that roamed the steppes of that cold land broached by glaciers lived in an environment ideal for the style of hunting to which he was best suited. It was a continent of grassland crowded with a great abundance and variety of prey. Many of the animals were huge—bison and cattle half again as large as their later counterparts; giant deer with eleven-foot racks; woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. Conditions were favorable for at least one species of carnivore to develop to a size capable of hunting such large animals. The cave lion filled that niche, and filled it admirably. The lions of later generations were half the size, puny by comparison; the cave lion was the largest feline that ever lived.

Baby was a superior example of that supreme predator—huge, powerful, his coat sleek with youthful health and vigor—and totally complaisant under the delightful scratching of the young woman. She would have been defenseless had he chosen to attack, yet she didn’t think of him as dangerons;
he was no more menacing than an overgrown kitten—and that was her defense.

Her control over him was unconscious, and he accepted it on those terms. Lifting and moving his head aside to show her where, Baby submitted to the sensuous ecstasy of her scratching, and she was enjoying it because he did. She stepped up on the boulder to reach over to his other side and was leaning over his back when another thought occurred to her. She didn’t even stop to consider it; she simply put her leg over and straddled his back as she had done so often with Whinney.

It was unexpected, but the arms around his neck were familiar and her weight was negligible. For a while, neither moved. As they hunted together, Ayla had adapted her signal from casting a stone with a sling to an arm motion and her word for “Go.” The moment she thought of it, without hesitation, she made the signal and shouted the word.

Feeling his muscles bunch beneath her, she grasped his mane as he sprang ahead. With the sinewy grace of his kind, he sped down the valley with the woman on his back. She squinted at the wind in her face. Tendrils of hair that had escaped her braids streamed behind her. She had no control. She did not direct Baby as she had Whinney—she went where he took her, and went gladly, feeling an exhilaration beyond anything she had ever known.

The quick burst of speed was short-lived, as was his way even in the attack. He slowed down, made a wide circle, and loped back to the cave. With the woman still on his back, he climbed the steep path and stopped at her place in the cave. She slid off and hugged him, knowing no other way to express the deep unnamable emotions she felt. When she let go, he flicked his tail, then headed for the back of the cave. He found his favorite spot, stretched out, and very quickly went to sleep.

She watched him, smiling. You’ve given me my ride and now you’re through for the day, is that it? Baby, after that, you can sleep as long as you want.

Toward the end of summer, Baby’s hunting absences became longer. The first time he was gone for more than a day, Ayla was beside herself with worry, and so anxious that she didn’t sleep the second night. She was as tired and bedraggled as he looked when he finally appeared the next morning. He brought no kill with him, and when she gave
him dried meat from her stored supply, he tore into it, though usually he toyed with the brittle strips. As tired as she was, she went out with her sling and brought back two hares. He awoke from his exhausted sleep, ran to the cave entrance to greet her, and took one hare to the rear of the cave. She carried the other to the back, then went to her own sleeping place.

The time he was gone three days, she didn’t worry as much—but as the empty days passed, her heart grew heavier. He returned with gashes and scratches, and she knew he had skirmished with other lions. She suspected he was mature enough to be aware of females. Unlike horses, lionesses had no special season; they could come into heat any time of the year.

The young cave lion’s longer absences became still more frequent as fall progressed, and when he did return it was usually to sleep. Ayla was sure he was sleeping elsewhere as well, but didn’t feel as secure there as he did in her cave. She never knew when to expect him, or from which direction. He would just appear, either padding up the narrow path from the beach or, more dramatically, in a sudden leap down from the steppes above her cave to the ledge in front.

She was always happy to see him, and his greetings were always affectionate—sometimes a little too affectionate. After he leaped up to put heavy forepaws on her shoulders and knocked her down, she was quick to signal “stop” if he seemed a little too enthusiastically delighted to see her.

Usually, he’d stay a few days; sometimes they would hunt together, and he still brought a kill back to the cave now and then. Then he’d get restless again. She was sure Baby was hunting for himself and defending his kills against the hyenas, or wolves, or carrion birds that would try to steal them. She learned that once he started pacing, she could expect him to leave shortly afterward. The cave felt so empty when the lion was gone that she began to dread the coming of winter. She was afraid it was going to be a lonely one.

The fall was unusual—warm and dry. Leaves turned yellow, then brown, skipping over the bright hues that a kiss of frost could bring. They clung to the trees in drab withered clusters that rattled in the wind long beyond the time they would usually have littered the ground. The peculiar weather was unsettling—autumn should be wet and cool, full of blustery winds and sudden showers. Ayla couldn’t avoid a sense of dread, as though summer would hold off the seasonal
change until overcome by the sudden onslaught of winter.

Every morning she went outside, expecting some drastic change, and was almost disappointed to see a warm sun rising in a remarkably clear sky. Evenings she spent outside on the ledge, watching the sun drop below the edge of the earth with only a haze of dust glowing dull red instead of a glorious display of color on water-laden clouds. When the stars winked on, they filled the darkness so that the sky looked shattered and cracked with their profusion.

She had been staying close to the valley for days, and when yet another day dawned warm and clear, it seemed foolish to have wasted the beautiful weather when she could have been out enjoying it. Winter would come soon enough to keep her confined to a lonely cave.

Too bad Baby’s not here, she thought. It would be a good day to go hunting. Maybe I can go hunting myself. She hefted a spear. No. Without Baby or Whinney, I’ll have to find a new way to hunt. I’ll just take my sling. I wonder if I should take a fur? It’s so warm, I’d just sweat in it, I could carry it, maybe take the gathering basket. But I don’t need anything—I’ve got more than enough. All I want is a nice long walk. I don’t need to carry a basket for that, and I won’t need a fur either. A brisk walk will keep me warm enough.

Ayla started down the steep trail feeling strangely unencumbered. She had no burdens to carry, no animals to be concerned for, a well-stocked cave. She had nothing to worry about but herself, but she wished she had. The utter lack of responsibility gave her mixed feelings: an unaccustomed sense of freedom and an unaccountable frustration.