Clan of the Cave Bear (41 page)

Ebra and Oga were hurrying to finish slicing the last of the huge chunks of meat into thin strips to start them drying. Uka and Ovra were pouring fat into a section of intestine, and Ayla was at the stream flushing out another section. A crust of ice had formed at the edges, but the water was still flowing. The men were standing near the tusks trying to decide if they wanted to hunt jerboas with their slings.

Brac had been sitting near his mother and Ebra playing with pebbles. He became bored with the stones and got up to find something more interesting to do. The women were concentrating on their task and didn’t notice him wandering off toward the open plains, but another pair of eyes watched him.

Every head in the camp turned at the sound of his terrified, high-pitched scream.

“My baby!” Oga cried. “The hyena has my baby!”

The loathsome scavenger, which was also a predator and always ready to attack the unwary young or enfeebled old, had seized the child by his arm with powerful jaws and was quickly retreating, dragging the small boy with him.

“Brac! Brac!” Broud was shouting as he ran after them, followed by the rest of the men. He reached for his sling—
he was too far away for a spear—and stooped to pick up a stone, hurrying before the beast got out of his range.

“No! Oh, no!” he cried in despair as the stone fell short and the hyena kept going. “Brac! Braaac!”

Suddenly, from another direction came the
thwack, thwack
of two stones fired in quick succession. They landed squarely on the animal’s head and the hyena dropped in his tracks.

Broud stood in open-mouthed amazement that turned to stunned astonishment when he saw Ayla running toward the wailing child with her sling still in her hand and two more stones held ready. The hyena was her prey. She had studied these animals, knew their habits and their weak spots, trained herself until hunting such quarry was second nature. When she heard Brac scream, she didn’t think of the consequences, she just reached for her sling, quickly grabbed two pebbles, and hurled them. Her only thought was to stop the hyena that was dragging Brac away.

It was only after she reached the child, extracted him from the dead hyena’s grip, and turned to face the staring eyes of the others that the full impact hit her. Her secret was out. She had given herself away. They knew she could hunt. A wave of cold fear washed over her. What will they do to me? she thought.

Ayla cuddled the baby, avoiding the unbelieving stares as she walked back to the campsite. Oga came out of her shock first. She ran toward them, holding out her arms, and gratefully accepted her baby boy from the girl who had saved his life. As soon as they reached the camp, Ayla began examining the child, as much to keep from looking at anyone else as to determine the extent of his injuries. Brac’s arm and shoulder were mangled, and his upper arm bone was broken, but it looked like a clean break.

She had never set an arm, but she had watched Iza do it, and the medicine woman had talked to her about what to do if an emergency came up. Iza’s concern had been for the hunters; it didn’t occur to her that something might happen to the baby. Ayla stirred up the fire, started water boiling, and got her medicine bag.

The men were silent, still stunned, not quite able, or willing, to accept what they had just seen. For the first time in his life, Broud felt grateful to Ayla. His thoughts didn’t go much beyond relief that the son of his mate had been saved from a certain and ugly death. But Brun’s did.

The leader was quick to grasp the implications and knew he was suddenly faced with an impossible decision. By Clan tradition, in effect, Clan law, the punishment for any woman who used a weapon was no less than death. It was clear-cut. There were no provisions for unusual circumstances. The custom was so ancient and so well understood, it hadn’t even been invoked for generations beyond count. The legends surrounding it were closely linked with the legends about a time when women controlled the access to the world of the spirits before the men took them over.

That custom was one of the forces that had caused the marked differentiation between Clan men and Clan women, since no woman with an unfeminine desire to hunt was allowed to survive. Over countless ages, only those with properly female attitudes and actions were left. As a result the adaptability of the race—the very trait upon which survival depends—was curtailed. But it was the Clan way, Clan law, even though there were no longer deviant Clan women. But Ayla was not born to the Clan.

Brun loved the son of Broud’s mate. Only with Brac did the leader’s stoic reserve soften. The baby could do anything to him: pull his beard, poke curious fingers in his eyes, spit up all over him. It didn’t matter. Brun was never so gentle, so pliable, as when the small boy fell asleep with the peaceful assurance of security in the proud and stiff leader’s arms. He had no doubt Brac would not be alive if Ayla had not killed the hyena. How could he condemn to death the girl who had saved Brac’s life? She had saved him with the weapon she must die for using.

How had she done it? he wondered. The beast was out of range and she was farther away from it than the men. Brun walked over to where the slain hyena still lay and touched the drying blood that oozed from the fatal wounds. Wounds? Two wounds? His eyes hadn’t been deceived. He thought he had seen two stones. How had the girl learned to use a sling with such skill? Not Zoug, or anyone he ever heard of, could fire two stones from a sling so rapidly, so accurately, and with such force. Force enough to kill a hyena from that distance.

No one ever used a sling to kill a hyena, anyway. He had been sure from the start that Broud’s attempt would be a futile gesture. Zoug always said it could be done, but privately Brun wasn’t sure. He had never contradicted the man; Zoug was still too valuable an asset to the clan, there
was no point in belittling him. Well, Zoug had been proved right. Could a sling be used to kill a wolf or a lynx, too, as Zoug so stoutly maintained? Brun mused. Suddenly his eyes opened wide, then narrowed. A wolf or a lynx? Or a wolverine, or wildcat, or badger, or ferret, or a hyena! Brun’s mind raced. Or all the other predators that have been found dead lately?

“Of course!” Brun’s motion emphasized his thought. She did it! Ayla’s been hunting for a long time. How else could she have gained such skill? But she’s female, she learned the women’s skills easily, how could she learn to hunt? And why predators? And why such dangerous ones? And why at all?

If she were a man, she’d be the envy of every hunter. But she’s not a man. Ayla is female and she used a weapon and she must die for it or the spirits will be very angry. Angry? She’s been hunting for a long time, why aren’t they angry? They’re anything but angry. We just killed a mammoth in a hunt so lucky not one man was even injured. The spirits are pleased with us, not angry.

The confused leader shook his head. Spirits! I don’t understand spirits. I wish Mog-ur were here. Droog says she carries luck; I half think he’s right, things have never gone so well since we found her. If they favor her so much, would it make them unhappy if she was killed? But it’s the Clan way, he agonized. Why did she have to be found by my clan? She may be lucky, but she’s given me more headaches than I ever thought possible. I can’t make a decision without talking to Mog-ur. I’ll just have to let it wait until we get back to the cave.

Brun strode back to the camp. Ayla had given the boy painkilling medicine that put him to sleep, then cleaned his wounds with an antiseptic solution, set the arm, and put on a cast of dampened birch bark. It would dry stiff and hard and hold the bones in place. She’d have to watch it, though, in case it swelled too much. She watched Brun coming back from examining the hyena and trembled as he approached. But he walked past her without a sign, ignoring her completely, and she realized she would not learn her fate until they got back to the cave.

15

The seasons changed in reverse as the hunting party traveled south, from winter to fall. Threatening clouds and the smell of snow hurried their departure; they had no desire to be caught by the first real blizzard of the peninsula’s northern winter. The warmer weather at the southern end gave a false feeling of approaching spring, with an unsettling twist. Rather than new shoots and budding wild flowers, tall grass swayed in golden waves on the steppes, and the bloom of the temperate trees at the protected tip was in shades of crimson and amber patchworked with evergreen. But the view from the distance was deceiving. Most deciduous trees had dropped their leaves and the onslaught of winter was close behind.

It took longer to return than to reach the site of the mammoth herd. The fast, distance-devouring pace was impossible with their heavy loads. But Ayla was weighed down with more than mammoth. Guilt, anxiety, and depression were far heavier burdens. No one spoke of the incident, but it wasn’t forgotten. Often, her casual glance caught someone staring at her before they turned aside, quickly, and few spoke to her unless it was necessary. She felt isolated, lonely, and more than a little frightened. As little conversation as she had, it was enough for her to learn the penalty for her crime.

The people left behind at the cave had been watching for the return of the hunters. From the time of their earliest expected arrival, someone was posted near the ridge where there was a good view of the steppes, most often one of the children.

When Vorn first took his turn early in the day, he stared out at the distant panorama conscientiously, but then he got bored. He didn’t like being off by himself without even Borg to play with. He devised imaginary hunts and jabbed his not quite full-sized spear into the ground so often that
the point became frayed despite fire hardening. It was only by accident that he happened to glance down the hill as the hunting party came into view.

“Tusks! Tusks!” Vorn shouted, racing back to the cave.

“Tusks?” Aga asked. “What do you mean, ‘tusks’?”

“They’re back!” Vorn gesticulated excitedly. “Brun and Droog and the rest, and I saw them carrying tusks!”

Everyone ran halfway to the steppes to greet the victorious hunters. But when they reached them, it was apparent something was wrong. The hunt was successful, the hunters should have been jubilant. Instead their step was heavy and their manner subdued. Brun was grim, and Iza needed only one look at Ayla to know something terrible had happened that involved her daughter.

While the hunting party unloaded some of their burden on those who had remained behind, the reason for the somber silence unfolded. Ayla trudged up the slope with bowed head, oblivious to the surreptitious glances cast in her direction. Iza was dumbfounded. If she had ever worried over the unorthodox actions of her adopted daughter before, it was nothing to the icy shaft of fear she felt for her now.

When they reached the cave, Oga and Ebra brought the child to Iza. She cut away the birchbark cast and examined the boy.

“His arm should be as good as new before long,” she pronounced. “He’ll be scarred, but the wounds are healing and the arm is set well. I’d better put another cast on it, though.”

The women breathed easier. They knew Ayla was inexperienced, and though they had little choice but to allow the girl to treat Brac, they were concerned. A hunter needed two good strong arms. If Brac lost the use of one, he would never become a leader as he was destined. If he was unable to hunt, he would not even become a man, but would live out his life in the ambiguous limbo in which older boys, who had reached physical maturity but had not made their first kill, existed.

Brun and Broud were relieved, too. But for Brun, at least, the news was received with mixed emotions. It made his decision more difficult. Ayla had not only saved Brac’s life, she had assured his useful existence. The matter had been put off long enough. He signaled Mog-ur and they walked off together.

The story, as Brun explained it, left Creb deeply troubled. Ayla was his responsibility to raise and train and he had obviously failed. But there was something else that troubled him even more. When he first learned of the animals the men kept finding, he felt it had nothing to do with spirits. He even wondered if Zoug or one of the other men was playing some kind of elaborate joke on the rest. It seemed unlikely, but his intuition told him the deaths were caused by a human agent. He had also been aware of changes in Ayla, changes he should have recognized now that he thought about it. Women did not walk with the quiet stealth of a hunter, they made noise and with good reason. More than once, Ayla had startled him by approaching so silently he didn’t hear her coming. There were other things, too, small things that should have made him suspicious.

But he was blinded by his love for her. He didn’t allow himself to imagine she could be hunting, he was far too aware of the consequences. It caused the old magician to question his own integrity, his ability to perform his function. He had let his feeling for the girl come before the spiritual safekeeping of the clan. Did he still merit their trust? Was he still worthy of Ursus? Could he still justifiably continue as Mog-ur?

Creb took the blame for her actions on himself. He should have questioned her; he should not have let her roam so freely; he should have disciplined her more severely. But all his anguish over what he should have done didn’t change in the least what he still had to do. The decision was Brun’s, but it was his function to carry it out, his duty to kill the child he loved.