The Mammoth Hunters ec-3

by Jean M. Auel

  "Right here," Nezzie said, coming up to greet the Mammoth Camp's headwoman next. She had been very interested in the exchange between Tulie and Vincavec, and had noted his expression, too. It was not going to make Ranec happy to know Vincavec was going to make an offer for Ayla, but Nezzie wasn't at all sure that the Mamut-headman of the Mammoth Camp was going to find Ayla all that easy to convince, no matter what he offered.

  "You're here? So far away from everything?" Avarie said.

  "With the animals, it's the best place for us. They get nervous around crowds," Tulie said, as though it had been chosen on purpose.

  "Vincavec, if Lion Camp is here, why don't we Camp nearby?" Avarie said.

  "It is not a bad place. There are advantages, more room to spread out." Nezzie said. If both Lion Camp and Mammoth Camp are here, she thought, some of the interest from the center will move here, too.

  Vincavec smiled at Ayla. "I can think of nothing I'd rather do than set up near Lion Camp," he said.

  Talut came striding into Camp then, and greeted the co-leaders of Mammoth Camp in his booming voice. "Vincavec! Avarie! You finally made it! What held you up?"

  "We made some stops along the way," Vincavec said.

  "Ask Tulie to show you what he brought her," Nezzie said.

  Tulie still felt a little embarrassed, and wished Nezzie hadn't said anything, but she opened her hand and held out the amber for her brother to see.

  "Those are beautiful pieces," Talut said. "You decided to do some trading, I see. Did you know Willow Camp has white spiral seashells?"

  "Vincavec wants more than seashells," Nezzie said. "He wants to make an offer for Ayla… for his hearth."

  "But she's Promised to Ranec," Talut said.

  "A Promise is only a promise," Vincavec said.

  Talut looked at Ayla, then Vincavec, then Tulie. Then he laughed. "Well, this is one Summer Meeting that won't be forgotten for a long time."

  "It wasn't only the stop at Amber Camp," Avarie said. "Seeing you, Talut, with your big red mane reminds me. We kept trying to go around a cave lion with a reddish mane, but he seemed to be heading in the same direction we were. I didn't see a pride, but I think we'd better warn people there are lions around."

  "There are always lions around," Talut said.

  "Yes, but this one was acting strange. Lions don't usually bother with people that much, but for a while, I thought he was stalking us. He came so close I had trouble sleeping one night. He was the biggest cave lion I ever saw. I still shake when I think about it," Avarie said.

  Ayla listened carefully, frowning, then shook her head. No. Just coincidence, she thought. There are a lot of big cave lions.

  "When you get set up, come up to the clearing. We're talking about the mammoth hunt and the Mammoth Hearth is planning the Hunting ceremony. It won't hurt to have another good Caller. I'm sure you will want mammoth meat for the Matrimonial Feast, since you plan to be a part of it, Vincavec!" Talut said. He started to leave, then he turned around to Ayla. "Since you are going to hunt mammoth with us, why don't you come back with me, and bring your spearthrower. I was going to come and get you, anyway."

  "I'll walk with you," Tulie said. "I have to go to the Womanhood Camp and see Latie."

  "This is good quality. Especially for blade tools like chisels, scrapers, drills," Jondalar said, hunkering down on one knee, examining the smooth gray interior face of fine-structured flint. He had used a specially shaped piece of fresh antler, strong and resilient enough to resist breaking, as a digger and a lever to pry out the exposed lump of hard silica from its chalky matrix. Then he broke it open with a hammerstone.

  "Wymez says some of the best flint comes from here," Danug said.

  Jondalar motioned up at the perpendicular cliff face of a river gorge that had been worn down over time by the churning water. More lumps of the hard flint encased in a white opaque crust jutted out from the somewhat less hard chalky stone. "Flint is always best if you can get it from the source. This is similar to Dalanar's flint mine and his is the best stone in our region."

  "The Wolf Camp certainly thinks this is the best flint," Tarneg said. "The first time I came here, I was with Valez. You should have heard him rave. With this place so close to their Camp, they count these workings as theirs. You did the right thing in asking their permission to come, Jondalar."

  "It's only courtesy. I know how Dalanar feels about his mine."

  "What's so special about this stone? I've often seen flint on river floodplains," Tarneg said.

  "Sometimes you can find good nodules that were recently washed out, on floodplains, and they are a lot easier to get. It's work digging them out of the rock. But flint tends to dry out if it lies in the open very long," Jondalar said. "Then the flakes come off shorter, more abruptly."

  "If it's been on the surface too long, Wymez sometimes buries flint in damp soil for a while to make it easier to work," Danug said.

  "I've done that. It can help, but it depends on the size of the nodule, and how dry it is. If it's a big piece, it can't be too old. It works best for small ones, even down to egg size, but those are hardly worthwhile to work, unless they are really fine quality."

  "We do something similar with mammoth tusk," Tarneg said. "As a first step we wrap the tusk in damp skins and bury it with hot ashes. The ivory changes, becomes denser but easier to work, and easier to bend. It's the best way to straighten a whole tusk."

  "I wondered how you did that," Jondalar said, then he paused, obviously thinking. "My brother would have wanted to learn about it. He was a spear maker. He could make a good straight shaft, but he understood the properties of wood, how to bend and shape it. I think he would have understood your process, too. Perhaps knowledge of your methods is one reason Wymez was so quick to grasp the idea of heating flint to make it more workable. He is one of the best workers of flint I've ever known."

  "You're a good flint man, too, Jondalar," Tarneg said. "Even Wymez speaks highly of you, and he doesn't praise easily. You know, I've been thinking. I'm going to need a good flint worker for Aurochs camp. I know you've been saying you are going back to your home, but it sounds like a long trip. Would you consider staying if you had a place to stay? What I mean is, how would you like to join my Camp?"

  Jondalar's forehead furrowed as he tried to think of a way to refuse Tarneg's offer without offending. "I'm not sure. I'd have to think about it."

  "I know Deegie likes you, I'm sure she'd agree. And you wouldn't have any trouble finding someone to make a hearth with," Tarneg encouraged. "I've been noticing the women around you, even the red-foots. First it was Mygie, now all the rest of them find reasons to visit the flint-workers' area. It must be because you are new around here. Women are always curious about men they don't know." He smiled. "I've heard more than one man wishing he was a tall, blond stranger. They'd all like to get a red-foot interested again, but it's Danug's turn, this time." Tarneg smirked knowingly at his young cousin.

  Jondalar and Danug both looked uncomfortable. Jondalar stood up, and looked away to shift attention elsewhere, and in an incidental way, he noticed that around these two men, he was not exceptionally tall. The three of them were near the same size, and Danug still had some growing in him. He was going to be a second Talut. But there were all sizes of men at the Meeting, just as there were at Zelandonii Summer Meetings.

  "Well, I wish you would think about Aurochs Camp, Jondalar. Now that Deegie and Branag are finally going to be joined, we'll be building this fall, though I haven't decided yet whether to make a single lodge, like Lion Camp, or the smaller individual ones for each family. I tend to be old-fashioned. I like the big ones best, but a lot of the younger people want a place with just their own relations, and I admit, when people start arguing, it could be nice to have your own place to go."

  "I appreciate the offer, Tarneg," Jondalar said. "I mean that, but I don't want to give you a false impression. I am going home. I have to go back. I could give you a lot of reasons, that I need to bring
back word of my brother's death, for example. But the truth is, I don't know why I have to go. I just do."

  "Is it because of Ayla?" Danug asked with a worried frown.

  "That's part of it. I admit, I don't look forward to seeing her sharing a hearth with Ranec, but I was trying to convince her to come back with me when we met you. Now it looks like I'll be going back alone anyway… I'm not looking forward to that either, but that doesn't change anything. I still have to go."

  "I'm not sure I understand, but I wish you good fortune, and may the Mother smile on your Journey. When do you think you'll leave?" Tarneg said.

  "Soon after the mammoth hunt."

  "Speaking of the mammoth hunt, we should be getting back. They are planning it this afternoon," Tarneg said.

  They started walking along the river that was a tributary to the major waterway near the settlement, and began clambering over rocks at a place where the walls narrowed in. Working their way out of the gorge around a precipitous ledge, they came upon a group of young men shouting words of insult or encouragement to two of them who were fighting. Druwez was among the spectators.

  "What's going on here?" Tarneg said, wading into their midst and pulling the fighters apart. One was bleeding from the mouth, the other had an eye that was swelling shut.

  "They're just having a… competition," someone said.

  "Yes, they're… uh… practicing… for the wrestling games."

  "This is no competition," Tarneg said. "This is a fight."

  "No, honest, we weren't fighting," the boy with the puffy eye said, "just playing around a little."

  "You call black eyes and broken teeth playing around? If you were just practicing, you wouldn't have to come here to this out-of-the-way place where no one would see you. No, this was planned. I think you'd better tell me what's going on."

  No one volunteered an answer, but there was a lot of shuffling of feet.

  "What about the rest of you?" Tarneg said, eying the other youths. "What are all of you doing here? Including you, Druwez. What do you think Mother and Barzec are going to do when they find out you were here, encouraging a fight? I think you'd better tell me what's going on here."

  Still no one would say.

  "I think we'd better take you back and let the Councils decide what to do with you. The Sisters will find some way to let you work off your urge to fight, and make a good example of you, besides. Maybe they'll even ban all of you from mammoth hunts."

  "Don't tell on them, Tarneg," Druwez pleaded. "Dalen was only trying to stop them."

  "Stop them? Maybe you should tell me what this fight is about," Tarneg said.

  "I think I know," Danug said. Everyone turned to look at the tall young man. "It's because of the raid."

  "What raid?" Tarneg said. This was sounding serious.

  "Some people were talking about making a raid on a Sungaea Camp," Danug explained.

  "You know raiding has been banned. The Councils have been trying to negotiate a friendship fire and establish trading with the Sungaea. I hate to think of the trouble a raid would cause," Tarneg said. "Whose idea was this raid?"

  "I don't know," Danug said. "One day everyone was talking about it. Someone discovered a Sungaea Camp a few days' away. The plan was to say they were going hunting, and instead go and wreck their Camp, steal their food, and chase them away. I told them I wasn't interested, and I thought they were stupid to do it. They would just make trouble for themselves and everyone else. Besides, we stopped at a Sungaea Camp on our way here. A brother and sister had just died. Maybe it isn't the same Camp, but they probably all are feeling bad about it. I didn't think it was right to raid them."

  "Danug can do that," Druwez said. "No one's going to call him a coward, because no one wants to fight him. But when Dalen said he wasn't going on any raid, either, then a whole bunch of them started saying he was afraid of a fight. That's when he said he'd show them he wasn't afraid to fight anyone. We said we'd come with him so they wouldn't gang up on him."

  "Which one of you is Dalen?" Tarneg said. The boy with the broken tooth and bleeding mouth stepped forward. "Who are you?" he said to the other one, whose eye was already turning black and blue. He refused to answer.

  "They call him Cluve. He's Chaleg's nephew," Druwez volunteered.

  "I know what you're trying to do," Cluve said sullenly. "You're going to put all the blame on me just because Druwez is your brother."

  "No, I wasn't going to put blame on anyone. I'm going to let the Council of Brothers decide. You can all expect to get a summons from them, including my brother. Now, I think you'd better clean yourselves up. If you go back to the Meeting looking like that, everyone will know you were fighting, and no one would be able to keep it from the Sisters. I don't have to tell you what will happen to you if they find out you were fighting about a raid."

  The young men hurried to leave before Tarneg changed his mind, but they left in two groups, one with Cluve, the other with Dalen. Tarneg made a point of noticing who went with whom. Then the three of them continued back to the Meeting.

  "There's something I'd be interested in knowing, if you don't mind," Jondalar said. "Why would you let the Council of Brothers decide what to do with these young men? Would they really keep it from the Council of Sisters?"

  "The Sisters have no tolerance for fighting, and won't listen to any excuses, but many of the Brothers went on raids when they were young men, or were in a fight or two, just to make a little excitement. Didn't you ever fight someone when you weren't supposed to, Jondalar?"

  "Well, yes, I guess I did. And got caught, too."

  "The Brothers are more lenient, especially toward the one who was fighting in a good cause, even though Dalen should have told someone about the raid rather than fighting to show them he wasn't afraid. It seems easier for a man to condone that sort of thing. The Sisters say fighting always leads to more fighting, and that may be true, but Cluve was right about one thing," Tarneg said. "Druwez is my brother. He wasn't really encouraging the fight, he was trying to help out his friend. I hate to see him get into trouble for that."

  "Did you ever fight anyone, Tarneg?" Danug asked.

  The future headman looked at his younger cousin for a moment, then nodded. "Once or twice, but not too many men want to challenge me. Like you, I'm bigger than most. Sometimes those competitions are more fight than anyone admits to, though."

  "I know," Danug said, with a thoughtful expression.

  "But at least they are under watchful eyes that won't let anyone get badly hurt, and they don't get carried any further and start a revenge fight." Tarneg glanced at the sky. "It's close to noon, later than I thought. We'd better hurry if we want to hear about the mammoth hunt."

  When Ayla and Talut reached the clearing, he led her toward a slight rise off to one side that lent itself naturally as a gathering place for smaller groups and was used for both casual and special meetings. One was in progress and Ayla scanned the crowd of people looking for a glimpse of Jondalar. That was all she ever saw of him lately. From the moment they arrived, he seemed to lose himself in the throng, leaving Cattail Camp early in the morning, and coming back late, if at all.

  When she did see him, he was often with some woman, usually a different one each time… She found herself making disparaging remarks to Deegie and some others about his many partners. She was not the only one. She'd heard Talut remark that he wondered if Jondalar was trying to make up for the whole winter in one short season. His exploits were talked about by many around the Camps, often with humor and a backhanded sort of admiration, both for his apparent stamina, and his obvious appeal. It wasn't the first time that his attractiveness to women was the subject of talk, but it was the first time he didn't really care.

  Ayla laughed at the comments, too, but in the darkness of night, she held back tears and wondered what was wrong with her. Why didn't he ever choose her? Yet there was a strange comfort in seeing him with many different women. At least she knew he hadn't found any particula
r one to replace her.

  She didn't know that Jondalar was trying to stay away from Cattail Camp as much as possible. In the closer quarters of the tent, he was much more conscious of her and Ranec sleeping together – not in the same bed every night, since she felt she needed the privacy of her own bed sometimes – but next to each other. It was easy enough to stay around the flint-working area during the day, and that led to invitations to meet people and share meals. For the first time since he was a young man, he was making friends on his own, not with the help of his brother, and he discovered it wasn't so difficult.

  The women gave him an excuse to stay away at night, too, if not all night, at least until late. He had little real feeling for any of them, but he felt guilty about using them for a place to stay, and made up for it in the way he knew best, which made him all the more irresistible. It had been the experience of many women that a man as handsome as Jondalar was more concerned with satisfying himself than her, but he was skilled enough to make any woman feel well cared for. It was a release for him, he wasn't having to fight his own powerful urges as well as trying to cope with his confused feelings, and he enjoyed the women, but in the same way he had always enjoyed women, on a superficial level. He hungered for the deeper feelings he'd always searched for and that no woman aroused in him, except Ayla.

  Ayla saw him coming back from the Wolf Camp's flint mine, along with Tarneg and Danug, and as she often did when she saw him, she felt her heart pound and her throat ache. She noticed Tulie approach the three men, and then saw her walking away with Jondalar while Tarneg and Danug continued toward them. Talut waved the two over.

  "I want to ask you about the customs of your people, Jondalar," Tulie said when they had found a private place to talk. "I know you honor the Mother, and that speaks well for you and your Zela… Zelandonii, but do you also have a ceremonial initiation into womanhood with understanding and gentleness?"

  "First Rites? Yes, of course. How could anyone not care about how a young woman is opened the first time? Our rituals are not quite the same as yours, but I think the purpose is the same," Jondalar said.