THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE ec-4

by Jean M. Auel

  The rough wooden shelters, little more than lean-tos, obviously put together quickly, looked ramshackle, but they offered some protection from the constantly falling water and were a welcome sight to the travelers. Ayla and Jondalar hurried toward them. They dismounted, conscious of the fear that the tame animals might cause people to feel, and called out in Sharamudoi, hoping it would be a familiar language. But there was no answer, and when they looked closer, it was obvious that no one was about.

  "I'm sure the Mother realizes we need shelter. Doni will not object if we go in," Jondalar said, stepping inside one of the shacks and looking around. It was completely empty, except for a leather thong hanging from a peg, and its dirt floor was sloppy mud where a stream had run through it before it was diverted. They went out and headed for the largest one.

  As they approached it, Ayla became aware that something important was missing. "Jondalar, where is the donii? There is no figure of the Mother guarding the entrance."

  He looked around and nodded. "This must be a temporary summer camp. They did not leave a donii because they did not call upon Her to protect it. Whoever built these doesn't expect them to last the winter. They have abandoned this place, gone and taken everything with them. They probably moved to higher ground when the rains began."

  They entered the larger structure and found it was more substantial than the other. There were unfilled cracks in the walls, and the rain leaked through the roof in several places, but the rough wooden floor was raised above the level of the sticky mud, and a few pieces of wood were scattered near a hearth built up with stones to floor height. It was the driest, most comfortable place they had seen for days.

  They went out, unharnessed the travois, and brought the horses in. Ayla started a fire while Jondalar went into one of the smaller structures and began tearing wood from the dry inner walls for firewood. By the time he returned, she had strung heavy cordage across the room from pegs she found in the wall, and she was draping wet clothes and bedding over them. Jondalar helped her spread the tent across a rope, but they had to bunch it up to avoid a steady stream from a leak.

  "We ought to do something about the leaks in the roof," Jondalar said.

  "I saw cattails growing nearby," Ayla said. "It wouldn't take long to weave the leaves into mats that we could cover the holes with."

  They went out to gather the tough, rather stiff, cattail leaves to patch the leaking roof, both cutting down an armload of the plants. The leaves that were wrapped around the stem averaged about two feet long, about an inch or more in width, tapering to a point. Ayla had been teaching Jondalar the basics of weaving, and after watching her to see the method she was using to make square sections of flat mats, he began to make one like them. Ayla looked down at her work, smiling to herself. She couldn't help it. She still felt a sense of surprise that Jondalar was able to do woman's work, and she was delighted by his willingness. With both of them working, they soon had as many patches made as there were leaks.

  The structures were made of a rather thin thatch of reeds fastened to a basic frame of long tree trunks, not much more than saplings, lashed together. Though not made of planks, they were similar to the A-shaped dwellings made by the Sharamudoi, except the ridgepole did not slope and they were asymmetrical. The side with the entrance opening, facing the river, was nearly vertical; the opposite side leaned against it at a sharp angle. The ends were closed, but they could be propped up somewhat like awnings.

  They went out and attached the mats, tying them down with lengths of the tough, stringy cattail leaves. There were two leaks near the peak that were difficult to reach even with Jondalar's six-foot-six-inch height, and they did not think the structure would bear the weight of either of them. They decided to go back inside and try to think of a way to patch them, remembering at the last moment to till a waterbag and some bowls with water for drinking and cooking. When Jondalar reached up and blocked one of the leaks with his hand, it finally occurred to them to fasten the patch from the inside.

  After they covered the entrance with the mammoth hide tarp, Ayla looked around the darkened interior, lit only by the fire that was starting to warm the place, feeling snug. The rain was outside and they were inside a place that was dry and warm, though it was starting to get steamy as the wet things began to dry, and there was no smokehole in the summer dwelling. The smoke from fires had usually escaped through the less-than-airtight walls and ceiling, or the ends, which were often left open in warmer weather. But the dried grass and reeds had expanded with the moisture, making it harder for smoke to escape, and it began to accumulate along the ridgepole at the ceiling.

  Though horses were accustomed to being out in the elements and usually preferred it, Whinney and Racer had been raised around people and were used to sharing human habitations, even darkened smoky ones. They stayed at the end that Ayla had decided would be their place, and even they seemed glad to be out of the waterlogged world. Ayla put cooking rocks in the fire; then she and Jondalar rubbed down the horses and Wolf, to help them dry.

  They opened all the packages and bundles to see if anything had been damaged by the excess moisture, found dry clothes and changed into them, and sat by the fire drinking hot tea, while a soup, made from the compressed traveling food, was cooking. When the smoke began to fill the upper levels of the dwelling, they broke holes through the light thatch of both ends near the top, which cleared it out and added a little more light.

  It felt good to relax. They hadn't realized how tired they were, and before it was even fully dark, the woman and man crawled into their still slightly damp sleeping furs. But as tired as he was, Jondalar could not go to sleep. He remembered the last time he had faced the swift and treacherous river called the Sister, and in the dark he felt a chill of dread at the thought of having to cross her with the woman he loved.

  21

  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 f
irst 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 any more. 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 covey 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."