Jean M. Auel - 2 - The Valley of Horses

Earth's Children #2 -- The Valley Of Horses -- Jean M. Auel

(Version 2002.08.11 -- Done)

1

She was dead. What did it matter if icy needles of freezing rain flayed her

skin raw. The young woman squinted into the wind, pulling her wolverine hood

closer. Violent gusts whipped her bearskin wrap against her legs.

Were those trees ahead? She thought she remembered seeing a scraggly row

of woody vegetation on the horizon earlier, and wished she had paid more

attention, or that her memory was as good as that of the rest of the Clan. She

still thought of herself as Clan, though she never had been and now she was

dead. She bowed her head and leaned into the wind. The storm had come upon her

suddenly, hurtling down from the north, and she was desperate for shelter. But

she was a long way from the cave, and unfamiliar with the territory. The moon

had gone through a full cycle of phases since she left, but she still had no

idea where she was going.

North, to the mainland beyond the peninsula, that was all she knew. The

night Iza died, she had told her to leave, told her Broud would find a way to

hurt her when he became leader. Iza had been right. Broud had hurt her, worse

than she ever imagined.

He had no good reason to take Durc away from me, Ayla thought. He's my

son. Broud had no good reason to curse me, either. He's the one who made the

spirits angry. He's the one who brought on the earthquake. At least she knew

what to expect this time. But it happened so fast that even the clan had taken

a while to accept it, to close her out of their sight. But they couldn't stop

Durc from seeing her, though she was dead to the rest of the clan.

Broud had cursed her on impulse born of anger. When Brun had cursed her,

the first time, he had prepared them. He'd had reason; they knew he had to do

it, and he'd given her a chance.

She raised her head to another icy blast, and noticed it was twilight.

It would be dark soon, and her feet were numb. Frigid slush was soaking

through her leather foot coverings despite the insulating sedge grass she had

stuffed in them. She was relieved to see a dwarfed and twisted pine.

Trees were rare on the steppes; they grew only where there was moisture

enough to sustain them. A double row of pines, birches, or willows, sculptured

by wind into stunted asymmetrical shapes, usually marked a watercourse. They

were a welcome sight in dry seasons in a land where groundwater was scarce.

When storms howled down the open plains from the great northern glacier, they

offered protection, scant though it was.

A few more steps brought the young woman to the edge of a stream, though

only a narrow channel of water flowed between the ice-locked banks. She turned

west to follow it downstream, looking for denser growth that would give more

shelter than the nearby scrub.

She plodded ahead, her hood pulled forward, but looked up when the wind

ceased abruptly. Across the stream a low bluff guarded the opposite bank. The

sedge grass did nothing to warm her feet when the icy water seeped in crossing

over, but she was grateful to be out of the wind. The dirt wall of the bank

had caved in at one place, leaving an overhang thatched with tangled grass

roots and matted old growth, and a fairly dry spot beneath.

She untied the waterlogged thongs that held her currying basket to her

back and shrugged it off, then took out a heavy aurochs hide and a sturdy

branch stripped of twigs. She set up a low, sloping tent, held down with rocks

and driftwood logs. The branch held it open in front.

She loosened the thongs of her hand coverings with her teeth. They were

roughly circular pieces of fur-lined leather, gathered at the wrist, with a

slit cut in the palms to poke her thumb or hand through when she wanted to

grasp something. Her foot coverings were made the same way, without the slit,

and she struggled to untie the swollen leather laces wrapped around her

ankles. She was careful to salvage the wet sedge grass when she removed them.

She laid her bearskin wrap on the ground inside the tent, wet side down,

put the sedge grass and the hand and foot coverings on top, then crawled in

feet first. She wrapped the fur around her and pulled the carrying basket up

to block the opening. She rubbed her cold feet, and, when her damp fur nest

warmed, she curled up and closed her eyes.

Winter was gasping its last frozen breath, reluctantly giving way to

spring, but the youthful season was a capricious flirt. Amid frigid reminders

of glacial chill, tantalizing hints of warmth promised summer heat. In an

impulsive shift, the storm broke during the night.

Ayla woke to reflections of a dazzling sun glinting from patches of snow

and ice along the banks, and to a sky deep and radiantly blue. Ragged tatters

of clouds streamed far to the south. She crawled out of her tent and raced

barefoot to the water's edge with her waterbag. Ignoring the icy cold, she

filled the leather-covered bladder, took a deep drink, and ran back. After

relieving herself beside the bank, she crawled inside her fur to warm up

again.She didn't stay long. She was too eager to be out, now that the danger

of the storm had passed and the sunshine beckoned. She wrapped on foot

coverings that had been dried by body heat and tied the bearskin over the

fur-lined leather wrap she had slept in. She took a piece of dried meat out of

the basket, packed the tent and hand coverings, and went on her way, chewing

on the meat.

The stream's course was fairly straight and slightly downhill, and the

going was easy. Ayla hummed a tuneless monotone under her breath. She saw

flecks of green on the brush near the banks. An occasional small flower,

bravely poking its miniature face through melting patches of snow, made her

smile. A chunk of ice broke loose, bumped along beside her for a pace, then

raced ahead, carried by the swift current.

Spring had begun when she left the cave, but it was warmer at the

southern end of the peninsula and the season started earlier. The mountain

range was a barrier to the harsh glacial winds, and maritime breezes off the

inland sea warmed and watered the narrow coastal strip and south-facing slopes

into a temperate climate.

The steppes were colder. She had skirted the eastern end of the range,

but, as she traveled northward across the open prairie, the season advanced at

the same pace. It never seemed to get warmer than early spring.

The raucous squeals of terns drew her attention. She glanced up and saw

several of the small gull-like birds wheeling and gliding effortlessly with

wings outstretched. The sea must be close, she thought. Birds should be

nesting now -- that means eggs. She stepped up her pace. And maybe mussels on

the rocks, and clams, and limpets, and tide pools full of anemones.

The sun was approaching its zenith when she reached a protected bay

formed by the southern coast of the mainland and the northwestern flank of the

peninsula. She had finally reached the broad throat connecting the tongue of

land to the continent.

Ayla shrugged off her carrying basket and climbed a craggy outcrop that

soared high above the surrounding landscape. Pounding surf had cleaved jagged

chunks of the massive rock on the seaward side. A bevy of dovekies and terns

scolded with angry squawks when she collected eggs. She broke open several and

wallowed them, still warm from the nest. She tucked several more into a fold

of her wrap before climbing down.

She took off her footwear and waded into the surf to wash sand from

mussels pried loose from the rock at water level. Flowerlike sea anemones drew

in mock petals when she reached to pluck them from the shallow pools left

stranded by the receding tide. But these had a color and shape that were

unfamiliar. She rounded out her lunch with a few clams instead, dug from the

sand where a slight depression gave them away. She used no fire, enjoying her

gifts raw from the sea.

Surfeited on eggs and seafood, the young woman relaxed at the foot of

the high rock, then scaled it again to get a better view of the coast and

mainland. Hugging her knees, she sat on top of the monolith and looked out

across the bay. The wind in her face carried a breath of the rich life within

the sea.

The southern coast of the continent curved in a gentle arc toward the

west. Beyond a narrow fringe of trees, she could see a broad land of steppes,

no different from the cold prairie of the peninsula, but not a single sign of

human habitation.

There it is, she thought, the mainland beyond the peninsula. Where do I

go now, Iza? You said Others were there, but I don't see anyone at all. As she

faced the vast empty land, Ayla's thoughts drifted back to the dreadful night

Iza died, three years before.

"You are not Clan, Ayla. You were born to the Others; you belong with

them. You must leave, child, find your own kind."

"Leave! Where would I go, Iza? I don't know the Others, I wouldn't know

where to look for them."

"North, Ayla. Go north. There are many of them north of here, on the

mainland beyond the peninsula. You cannot stay here. Broud will find a way to

hurt you. Go and find them, my child. Find your own people, find your own

mate."

She hadn't left then, she couldn't. Now, she had no choice. She had to

find the Others, there was no one else. She could never go back; she would

never see her son again.

Tears streamed down Ayla's face. She hadn't cried before. Her life had

been at stake when she left, and grief was a luxury she could not afford. But

once the barrier was breached, there was no holding back.

"Durc...my baby," she sobbed, burrowing her face in her hands. Why did

Broud take you away from me?

She cried for her son, and for the clan she had left behind; she cried

for Iza, the only mother she could remember; and she cried for her loneliness

and fear of the unknown world awaiting her. But not for Creb, who had loved

her as his own, not yet. That sorrow was too fresh; she wasn't ready to face

it. When the tears had run their course, Ayla found herself staring at the

crashing surf far below. She watched the rolling breakers spout up in jets of

foam, then swirl around the jagged rocks.

It would be so easy, she thought.

No! She shook her head and straightened up. I told him he could take my

son away, he could make me leave, he could curse me with death, but he could

not make me die!

She tasted salt, and a wry smile crossed her face. Her tears had always

upset Iza and Creb. The eyes of people in the Clan did not water, unless they

were sore, not even Durc's. There was much of her in him, he could even make

sounds the way she could, but Durc's large brown eyes were Clan.

Ayla climbed down quickly. As she hoisted her carrying basket to her

back, she wondered if her eyes were really weak, or if all the Others had

watering eyes. Then another thought echoed in her mind: Find your own people,

find your own mate.

The young woman traveled west along the coast, crossing many streams and

creeks that found their way to the inland sea, until she reached a rather

large river. Then she veered north, following the rushing waterway inland and

looking for a place to cross. She passed through the coastal fringe of pine

and larch, woods which boasted an occasional giant dominating dwarfed cousins.

When she reached the continental steppes, brush of willows, birches, and

aspens joined the cramped conifers that edged the river.

She followed every twist and turn of the meandering course, growing more

anxious with each passing day. The river was taking her back east in a general

northeasterly direction. She did not want to go east. Some clans hunted the

eastern part of the mainland. She had planned to veer west on her northward

trek. She did not want to chance meeting anyone who was Clan -- not with a

death curse on her! She had to find a way to cross the river.

When the river widened and broke into two channels around a small

gravel-strewn island with brush clinging to rocky shores, she decided to risk

a crossing. A few large boulders in the channel on the other side of the

island made her think it might be shallow enough to wade. She was a good

swimmer, but she didn't want to get her clothes or basket wet. It would take

too long for them to dry, and the nights were still cold.

She walked back and forth along the bank, watching the swift water. When

she decided upon the shallowest way, she stripped, piled everything into her

basket, and, holding it up, entered the water. The rocks were slippery

underfoot, and the current threatened to unbalance her. Midway across the

first channel, the water was waist high, but she gained the island without

mishap. The second channel was wider. She wasn't sure if it was fordable, but

she was almost halfway and didn't want to give up.

She was well past the midpoint when the river deepened until she was

walking on tiptoe with the water up to her neck, holding the basket over her

head. Suddenly the bottom dropped. Her head bobbed down and she took an

involuntary swallow. The next moment she was treading water, her basket

resting on top of her head. She steadied it with one hand, trying to make some

progress toward the opposite shore with the other. The current picked her up

and carried her, but only for a short distance. Her feet felt rocks, and, a

few moments later, she walked up the far bank.

Leaving the river behind, Ayla traveled the steppes again. As days of

sunshine outnumbered those of rain, the warming season finally caught up and

outpaced her northward trek. The buds on trees and brush grew into leaves, and

conifers extended soft, light green needles from the ends of branches and

twigs. She picked them to chew along the way, enjoying the light tangy pine

flavor.

She fell into a routine of traveling all day until, near dusk, she found

a creek or stream, where she made camp. Water was still easy to find. Spring

rains and winter melt from farther north were overflowing streams and filling

draws and washes that would be dry gullies or, at best, sluggish muddy runnels

later. Plentiful water was a passing phase. The moisture would be quickly

absorbed, but not before it caused the steppes to blossom.

Almost overnight, herbaceous flowers of white, yellow, and purple --

more rarely a vivid blue or bright red -- filled the land, blending in the

distance to the predominant young green of new grass. Ayla delighted in the

beauty of the season; spring had always been her favorite time of year.

As the open plains burgeoned with life, she relied less on the meager

supply of preserved food she carried with her and began to live off the land.

It slowed her down hardly at all. Every woman of the Clan learned to pluck

leaves, flowers, buds, and berries while traveling, almost without stopping.

She trimmed leaves and twigs from a sturdy branch, sharpened one end with a

flint knife, and used the digging stick to turn up roots and bulbs as quickly.

Gathering was easy. She had only herself to feed.

But Ayla had an advantage women of the Clan normally did not. She could

hunt. Only with a sling, to be sure, but even the men agreed -- once they

accepted the idea of her hunting at all -- that she was the most skilled

sling-hunter in the clan. She had taught herself, and she had paid dearly for

the skill.

As the sprouting herbs and grasses tempted burrowing ground squirrels,

giant hamsters, great jerboas, rabbits, and hares from winter nests, Ayla

started wearing her sling again, tucked into the thong that held her fur wrap

closed. She carried the digging stick slipped into the thong, too, but her

medicine bag, as always, was worn on the waist thong of her inner wrap.

Food was plentiful; wood, and fire, were a little more difficult to

obtain. She could make fire, and brush and small trees managed to survive

along some of the seasonal streams, often accompanied by deadfall. Whenever

she came across dry branches or dung, she collected that, too. But she didn't

make a fire every night. Sometimes the right materials were not available, or

they were green, or wet, or she was tired and didn't want to bother.

But she didn't like sleeping out in the open without the security of a

fire. The extensive grassland supported an abundance of large grazing animals,

and their ranks were thinned by a variety of four-legged hunters. Fire usually

held them off. It was common practice in the Clan for a high-ranking male to

carry a coal when they traveled to start the next fire, and it didn't occur to

Ayla to carry fire-making materials with her at first. Once it did, she

wondered why she hadn't done it sooner.

The fire drill stick and flat wood hearth-platform didn't make it any

easier to start a fire, though, if tinder or wood was too green or damp. When

she found the skeleton of an aurochs, she thought her problems were solved.

The moon had gone through another cycle of its phases, and the wet

spring was warming into early summer. She was still traveling on the broad

coastal plain that sloped gently toward the inland sea. Silt carried down by

the seasonal floods often formed long estuaries, partially closed by sandbars,

or sealed off completely to form lagoons or pools.

Ayla had made a dry camp and stopped at a small pool at midmorning. The

water looked stagnant and not potable, but her waterbag was low. She dipped in

a hand to sample it, then spat out the brackish liquid and took a small sip

from her waterbag to wash out her mouth.

I wonder if that aurochs drank this water, she thought, noticing the

bleached bones and skull with long tapering horns. She turned away from the

stagnant pool with its specter of death, but the bones would not leave her

thoughts.

She kept seeing the white skull and the long horns, the curved hollow

horns.She stopped at a stream near noon and decided to make a fire and roast a

rabbit she had killed. Sitting in the warm sun, spinning the fire drill

between her palms against the wood platform, she wished Grod would appear with

the coal he carried in...

She jumped up, piled the fire drill and hearth into her basket, put the

rabbit on top, and hurried back the way she had come. When she reached the

pool, she looked for the skull. Grod usually carried a live coal wrapped in

dried moss or lichen in the long hollow horn of an aurochs. With one, she

could carry fire.

But while she was tugging at the horn, she felt a twinge of conscience.

Women of the Clan did not carry fire; it was not allowed. Who will carry it

for me if I don't? she thought, jerking hard and breaking the horn away. She

left quickly, as though thinking of the prohibited act alone had conjured up

watchful, disapproving eyes.

There had been a time when her survival depended on conforming to a way

of life foreign to her nature. Now it depended on her ability to overcome her

childhood conditioning and think for herself. The aurochs horn was a

beginning, and it boded well for her chances.

There was more to the business of carrying fire than she realized,

however. In the morning she looked for dry moss to wrap her coal in. But moss,

so plentiful in the wooded region near the cave, was not to be had on the dry

open plains. Finally she settled for grass. To her dismay, the ember was dead

when she was ready to make camp again. Yet she knew it could be done, and she

had often banked fires to last the night. She had the necessary knowledge. It

took trial and error, and many dead coals, before she discovered a way to

preserve a bit of the fire from one camp to the next. She carried the aurochs

horn tied to her waist thong, too.

Ayla always found ways to cross the streams in her path by wading, but

when she came upon the large river, she knew another way would have to be

found. She had followed it upstream for several days. It doubled back to the

northeast, and did not decrease in size.

Though she thought she was out of the territory that might be hunted by

members of the Clan, she did not want to go east. Going east meant going back

toward the Clan. She could not go back, and she didn't even want to head in

that direction. And she could not stay where she was camped in the open beside

the river. She had to cross; there was no other way to go.

She thought she could make it -- she had always been a strong swimmer --

but not holding a basket with all her possessions over her head. Her

possessions were the problem.

She was sitting beside a small fire in the lee of a fallen tree whose

naked branches trailed the water. The afternoon sun glinted in the constant

motion of the swiftly flowing current. Occasional debris floated past. It

brought to mind the stream that flowed near the cave, and fishing for salmon

and sturgeon where it emptied into the inland sea. She used to enjoy swimming

then, though it had worried Iza. Ayla didn't remember learning how to swim; it

just seemed she always knew.

I wonder why no one else ever liked to swim, she mused. They thought I

was strange because I liked to go so far out...until the time Ona almost

drowned.

She remembered everyone had been grateful to her for saving the child's

life. Brun even helped her out of the water. She had felt a warm sense of

acceptance then, as though she really belonged. Legs that were long and

straight, a body too thin and too tall, blond hair and blue eyes and a high

forehead hadn't mattered. Some of the clan tried to learn to swim after that,

but they didn't float well and had a fear of deep water.

I wonder if Durc could learn? He never was as heavy as anyone else's

baby, and he'll never be as muscular as most men. I think he could...

Who would teach him? I won't be there, and Uba can't. She will take care

of him; she loves him as much as I do, but she can't swim. Neither can Brun.

Brun will teach him to hunt, though, and he'll protect Durc. He won't let

Broud hurt my son, he promised -- even if he wasn't supposed to see me. Brun

was a good leader, not like Broud...

Could Broud have started Durc growing inside me? Ayla shuddered,

remembering how Broud had forced her. Iza said men did that to women they

liked, but Broud only did it because he knew how much I hated it. Everyone

says it's the spirits of totems that make babies start. But none of the men

have a totem strong enough to defeat my Cave Lion. I didn't get pregnant until

after Broud kept forcing me, and everyone was surprised. No one thought I'd

ever have a baby...

I wish I could see him when he grows up. He's already tall for his age,

like I am. He'll be the tallest man in the clan, I'm sure of that...

No I'm not! I'll never know. I'll never see Durc again.

Stop thinking about him, she commanded herself, wiping a tear away. She

got up and walked to the edge of the river. It doesn't do any good to think

about him. And it doesn't get me across this river!

She had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she didn't notice the

forked log drifting close to the bank. She stared with detached awareness as

the outstretched limbs of the fallen tree snared it in its tangled branches,

and watched, without seeing, the log bumping and straining to break loose for

long moments. But as soon as she saw it, she also saw its possibilities.

She waded into the shoal and dragged the log onto the beach. It was the

top portion of the trunk of a good-size tree, freshly broken by violent

flooding farther upriver, and not too waterlogged. With a flint hand-axe,

which she carried in a fold of her leather wrap, she hacked off the longer of

the two forking branches fairly even with the other one, and trimmed away

obstructing limbs, leaving two rather long stubs.

After a quick look around, she headed for a clump of birch trees draped

with clematis vines. Tugging on a fresh woody vine loosened a long tough

strand. She walked back pulling off the leaves. Then she spread her hide tent

out on the ground and dumped out the contents of her carrying basket. It was

time to take stock and repack.

She put her fur leggings and hand coverings in the bottom of the basket

along with the fur-lined wrap now that she wore her summer wrap; she wouldn't

need them until next winter. She paused for a moment wondering where she would

be next winter, but she did not care to dwell on that. She paused again when

she picked up the soft supple leather cloak she had used to help support Durc

on her hip when she carried him.

She didn't need it; it was not necessary for her survival. She had only

brought it with her because it was something that had been close to him. She

held it to her cheek, then carefully folded it and put it in the basket. On

top of it she put the soft absorbent leather straps she took along to use

during her menstrual flow. Next her extra pair of foot coverings went in. She

went barefoot now, but still wore a pair when it was wet or cold, and they

were wearing out. She was glad she had brought a second pair.

She checked her food next. There was one birchbark packet of maple sugar

left. Ayla opened it, broke off a piece, and put it in her mouth, wondering if

she'd ever taste maple sugar again after this was gone.

She still had several cakes of traveling food, the kind the men took

when they went hunting, made of rendered fat, ground-up dried meat, and dried

fruit. Thoughts of the rich fat made her mouth water. The small animals she

killed with her sling were lean, for the most part. Without the vegetable food

she collected, she would slowly starve on a diet of pure protein. Fats or

carbohydrates in some form were necessary.

She put the traveling cakes in the basket without indulging her taste,

saving them for emergencies. She added some strips of dried meat -- tough as

leather but nourishing -- a few dried apples, some hazelnuts, a few pouches of

grain plucked from the grasses of the steppes near the cave, and threw away a

rotten root. On top of the food she put her cup and bowl, her wolverine hood,

and the worn foot coverings.

She untied her medicine bag from her waist thong and rubbed her hand

over the sleek waterproof fur of the otter skin, feeling the hard bones of the

feet and tail. The thong that pulled the pouch closed was threaded around the

neck opening, and the oddly flattened head, still attached at the back of the

neck, served as a cover flap. Iza had made it for her, passing the legacy from

mother to daughter when she became the clan's medicine woman.

Then, for the first time in many years, Ayla thought of the first

medicine bag Iza had made for her, the one Creb had burned the first time she

was cursed. Brun had to do it. Women were not allowed to touch weapons, and

Ayla had been using her sling for several years. But he had given her a chance

to return -- if she could survive.

Maybe he gave me more of a chance than he knew, she thought I wonder if

I'd be alive now if I hadn't learned how a death curse makes you want to die.

Except for leaving Durc, I think it was harder the first time. When Creb

burned all my things, I wanted to die.

She hadn't been able to think about Creb; the grief was too new, the

pain too raw. She had loved the old magician as much as she loved Iza. He had

been Iza's sibling, and Brun's too. Missing an eye and part of an arm, Creb

had never hunted, but he was the greatest holy man of all the clans. Mog-ur,

feared and respected -- his scarred, one-eyed old visage could inspire dread

in the bravest hunter, but Ayla knew his gentle side.

He had protected her, cared for her, loved her as the child of the mate

he never had. She'd had time to adjust to Iza's death three years before, and

though she grieved for the separation, she knew Durc was still alive. She

hadn't grieved for Creb. Suddenly, the pain she had kept inside since the

earthquake that killed him, would stay inside no more. She cried out his name.

"Creb...Oh, Creb..." Why did you go back in the cave? Why did you have

to die?

She heaved great sobs into the waterproof fur of the otter-skin pouch.

Then, from deep within, a high-pitched wail rose to her throat. She rocked

back and forth keening her anguish, her sorrow, her despair. But there was no

loving clan to join their wails with hers and share her misery. She grieved

alone, and she grieved for her loneliness.

When her wails subsided, she felt drained, but a terrible ache was

relieved. After a while she went to the river and washed her face, then put

her medicine bag inside the basket. She didn't need to check the contents. She

knew exactly what it contained.

She snatched up the digging stick, then threw it aside as anger welled

up to replace the grief and added fire to her determination. Broud will not

make me die!

She took a deep breath and willed herself to continue packing the

basket. She put the fire-making materials and aurochs horn into it, then took

several flint tools out of the folds of her wrap. From another fold she took a

round pebble, tossed it in the air, and caught it again. Any stone of the

right size could be hurled with a sling, but accuracy was better with smooth

round missiles. She kept the few she had.

Then she reached for her sling, a deerskin strap with a bulge in the

middle for holding stones, and long tapered ends twisted from use. No question

about keeping it. She untied a long lace of leather that was wound around her

soft chamois-skin wrap in such a way as to create the folds in which she

carried things. The wrap came off. She stood naked except for the small

leather pouch fastened to a cord around her neck -- her amulet. She slipped it

over her head and shivered, feeling more naked without her amulet than she did

without her wrap, but the small hard objects within it were reassuring.

That was it, the sum total of her possessions, all she needed to survive

-- that and knowledge, skill, experience, intelligence, determination, and

courage.

Quickly, she rolled up her amulet, tools, and sling in her wrap and put

them in the basket, then wrapped the bearskin around it and tied it with the

long thong. She enfolded the bundle with the aurochs-hide tent and tied it

behind the fork of the log with the vine.

She stared at the wide river and the far shore for a while, and thought

of her totem, then kicked sand on the fire and shoved the log with all her

precious possessions into the river downstream of the entangling tree. Lodging

herself at the forked end, Ayla grabbed the protruding stubs of former

branches and launched her raft with a push.

Still chilled by melt from the glacier, the icy water enveloped her

naked body. She gasped, hardly able to breathe, but a numbness set in as she

became inured to her frigid element. The powerful current grabbed the log,

trying to finish its job of transporting it to the sea, and tossed it between

swells, but the forked branches kept it from rolling. Kicking hard, she

struggled to force her way across the surging flow, and veered at an angle

toward the opposite shore.

But progress was agonizingly slow. Every time she looked, the other side

of the river was farther than she expected. She was moving much faster

downstream than across. By the time the river swept her past the place she had

thought to land, she was tired, and the cold was lowering her body

temperature. She was shivering. Her muscles ached. It felt as though she had

been kicking forever with rocks tied to her feet, but she forced herself to

keep on.

Finally, exhausted, she surrendered to the inexorable force of the tide.

The river, taking its advantage, swept the makeshift raft back in the

direction of the stream, with Ayla clinging on desperately as the log now

controlled her.

But ahead, the river's course was changing, its southerly direction

swerving sharply west as it curved around a jutting spit of land. Ayla had

traversed more than three-quarters of the way across the racing torrent before

giving in to her fatigue, and when she saw the rocky shore, with a resolute

effort, she took control.

She forced her legs to kick, pushing to reach the land before the river

carried her around the point. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on keeping

her legs moving. Suddenly, with a jolt, she felt the log grate against the

bottom and come to a stop.

Ayla couldn't move. Half submerged, she lay in the water still clinging

to the branch stubs. A swell in the turbulent stream lifted the log free of

the sharp rocks, filling the young woman with panic. She forced herself to her

knees and shoved the battered tree trunk forward, anchoring it to the beach,

then fell back into the water.

But she couldn't rest long. Shivering violently in the cold water, she

made herself crawl onto the rocky spit. She fumbled with the knots in the

vine, and, with that loosened, she hauled the bundle to the beach. The thong

was even more difficult to untie with her trembling fingers.

Providence helped. The thong broke at a weak spot. She clawed the long

leather strap away, pushed the basket aside, and crawled on the bearskin and

wrapped it around her. By the time her shivering stopped, the young woman was

asleep.

Ayla headed north and slightly west after her perilous river crossing.

The summer days warmed as she searched the open steppeland for some sign of

humanity. The herbal blossoms that had brightened the brief spring faded, and

the grass neared waist high.

She added alfalfa and clover to her diet, and welcomed the starchy,

slightly sweet groundnuts, finding the roots by tracing rambling surface

vines. Milk-vetch pods were swelling with rows of oval green vegetables in

addition to edible roots, and she had no trouble distinguishing between them

and their poisonous cousins. When the season for the buds of day lilies

passed, the roots were still tender. A few early-ripening varieties of

low-crawling currents had begun to turn color, and there were always a few new

leaves of pigweed, mustard, or nettles for greens.

Her sling did not lack for targets. Steppe pikes, souslik marmots, great

jerboas, varying hares -- gray brown now instead of winter white -- and an

occasional, omnivorous, mouse-hunting giant hamster abounded on the plains.

Low-flying willow grouse and ptarmigan were a special treat, though Ayla could

never eat ptarmigan without remembering that the fat birds with the feathered

feet had always been Creb's favorite.

But those were only the smaller creatures feasting on the plain's summer

bounty. She saw herds of deer -- reindeer, red deer, and enormous antlered

giant deer; compact steppe horses, asses, and onagers, which resembled both;

huge bison or a family of saiga antelope occasionally crossed her path. The

herd of reddish brown wild cattle, with bulls six feet at the withers, had

spring calves nursing at the ample udders of cows. Ayla's mouth watered for

the taste of milk-fed veal, but her sling was not an adequate weapon to hunt

aurochs. She glimpsed migrating woolly mammoths, saw musk oxen in a phalanx

with their young at their backs facing down a pack of wolves, and carefully

avoided a family of evil-tempered woolly rhinoceroses. Broud's totem, she

recalled, and suitable, too.

As she continued northward, the young woman began to notice a change in

the terrain. It was becoming drier and more desolate. She had reached the

ill-defined northern limit of the wet, snowy continental steppes. Beyond, all

the way to the sheer walls of the immense northern glacier, lay the arid loess

steppes, an environment that existed only when glaciers were on the land,

during the Ice Age.

Glaciers, massive frozen sheets of ice that spanned the continent,

mantled the Northern Hemisphere. Nearly a quarter of the earth's surface was

buried under their unmeasurable crushing tons. The water locked within their

confines caused the level of the oceans to drop, extending the coastlines and

changing the shape of the land. No portion of the globe was exempt from their

influence, rains flooded equatorial regions and deserts shrunk, but near the

borders of the ice the effect was profound.

The vast ice field chilled the air above it, causing moisture in the

atmosphere to condense and fall as snow. But nearer the center high pressure

stabilized, creating extreme dry cold and pushing the snowfall out toward the

edges. The huge glaciers grew at their margins; the ice was nearly uniform

across its full sweeping dimensions, a sheet of ice more than a mile thick.

With most of the snow falling on the ice and nourishing the glacier, the

land just south of it was dry -- and frozen. The constant high pressure over

the center caused an atmospheric chute funneling the cold dry air toward lower

pressures; wind, blowing from the north, never stopped on the steppes. It only

varied in intensity. Along the way it picked up rock that had been pulverized

to flour at the shifting border of the grinding glacier. The airborne

particles were sifted to a texture only slightly coarser than clay -- loess --

and deposited over hundreds of miles to depths of many feet, and became soil.

In winter, howling winds whipped the scant snowfall across the bleak

frozen land. But the earth still spun on its tilted axis, and seasons still

changed. Average yearly temperatures only a few degrees lower trigger the

formation of a glacier; a few hot days have little effect if they don't alter

the average.

In spring the meager snow that fell on the land melted, and the crust of

the glacier warmed, seeping down and out across the steppes. The meltwater

softened the soil enough, above the permafrost, for shallow rooting grasses

and herbs to sprout. The grass grew rapidly, knowing in the heart of its seed

that life would be short. By the middle of summer, it was dry standing hay, an

entire continent of grassland, with scattered pockets of boreal forest and

tundra nearer the oceans.

In the regions near the borders of the ice, where the snow cover was

light, the grass supplied fodder the year around for uncountable millions of

grazing and seed-eating animals who had adapted to the glacial cold -- and to

predators who can adapt to any climate that supports their prey. A mammoth

could graze at the foot of a gleaming, blue-white wall of ice soaring a mile

or more above it.

The seasonal streams end rivers fed by glacial melt cut through the deep

loess, and often through the sedimentary rock to the crystalline granite

platform underlying the continent. Steep ravines and river gorges were common

in the open landscape, but rivers provided moisture and gorges shelter from

the wind. Even in the arid loess steppes, green valleys existed.

The season warmed, and, as one day followed the next, Ayla grew tired of

traveling, tired of the monotony of the steppes, tired of the unrelenting sun

and incessant wind. Her skin roughened, cracked, and peeled. Her lips were

chapped, her eyes sore, her throat always full of grit. She came across an

occasional river valley, greener and more wooded than the steppes, but none

tempted her to stay, and all were empty of human life.

Though skies were usually clear, her fruitless search cast a shadow of

fear and worry. Winter always ruled the land. On the hottest day of summer,

the harsh glacial cold was never far from thought. Food had to be stockpiled

and protection found to survive the long bitter season. She had been wandering

since early spring and was beginning to wonder if she were doomed to roam the

steppes forever -- or die after all.

She made a dry camp at the end of another day that was so like the days

that had gone before it. She had made a kill, but her coal was dead, and wood

was getting more scarce. She ate a few bites raw rather than bothering with a

fire, but she had no appetite. She threw the marmot aside, although game

seemed more scarce too -- or she wasn't keeping as sharp an eye out for it.

Gathering was more difficult as well. The ground was hard-packed and matted

with old growth. And there was always the wind.

She slept poorly, troubled by bad dreams, and awoke unrested. She had

nothing to eat; even her discarded marmot was gone. She took a drink -- stale

Jean M. Auel - 2 - The Valley of Horses

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