Clan of the Cave Bear (34 page)

She heaved a sigh. I knew it, I knew it all along, she said to herself. Even before I started to hunt, before I ever picked up that sling, I knew I wasn’t supposed to. The bravest of the young gluttons came out of its hiding place, tentatively sniffing at the dead animal. Those young ones are going to give us as much trouble as their mother, Ayla thought. They’re close enough to full grown that a couple of them will survive. I’d better get rid of this carcass. If I drag it far away, the young will probably follow her scent. Ayla got up and began to haul the dead wolverine by its tail deeper into the woods. Then she started looking for plants to gather.

The wolverine was only the first of the smaller predators and scavengers to fall to her sling. Martens, minks, ferrets, otters, weasels, badgers, ermines, foxes, and the small, gray-and-black tabby-striped wildcats became fair game for her swift stones. She didn’t realize it, but Ayla’s decision to hunt predators had one important effect. It speeded up her learning process and honed her skill far more than hunting the gentler herbivorous animals would have. Carnivores were faster, more crafty, more intelligent, and more dangerous.

She quickly surpassed Vorn with her chosen weapon. It wasn’t only that he tended to look upon the sling as an old man’s weapon and lacked the determination to master it, it was more difficult for him. He didn’t have her physical build with its free-swinging arm movement better adapted to throwing. Her full leverage and practiced hand-and-eye coordination gave her speed, force, and accuracy. She no longer compared herself with Vorn; in her mind it was Zoug whose ability she challenged, and the girl was fast approaching the old hunter’s skill. Too fast. She was getting overconfident.

Summer was nearing its end with its full charge of crackling heat and a bumper crop of lightning-singed thunderstorms. The day was hot, unbearably hot. Not the hint of a breeze stirred the still air. The previous evening’s storm, with its fantastic displays of arcing flashes illuminating the mountain crests and with hail the size of small stones, had sent the clan scurrying into the cave. The damp forest, normally cool from the shade of the trees, was humid and stifling. Flies and mosquitoes droned interminably around the
slimy ooze of the drying creek’s backwater, trapped by lowered water levels into stagnant ponds and algae-coated puddles.

Ayla was following the spoor of a red fox, moving silently through the woods near the edge of a small glade. She was hot and sweaty, not especially interested in the fox, and thinking about giving it up and going back to the cave to take a swim in the stream. Walking across the seldom-exposed rocky bed, she stopped for a drink where the creek still ran freely between two large boulders that forced the meandering trickle into an ankle-deep pool.

She stood up and, as she looked straight ahead, caught her breath in her throat. Ayla stared apprehensively at the distinctive head and tufted ears of a lynx crouched on the rock just in front of her. He was eyeing her warily, his short tail whipping back and forth.

Smaller than most large felines, the long-bodied, short-legged Pardel lynx, like his northern cousin of later years, was capable of fifteen-foot standing leaps. He subsisted mainly on hares, rabbits, large squirrels, and other rodents, but could bring down a small deer if he felt so inclined; and an eight-year-old girl was easily within his range. But it was hot, and humans were not his normal prey. He would probably have let the girl go on her way.

Ayla’s first tingle of fear was replaced by a chill of excitement as she watched the unmoving cat watching her. Didn’t Zoug tell Vorn a lynx could be killed with a sling? He said not to try for anything larger, but he did say a stone from a sling could kill a wolf or hyena or lynx. I remember him saying
lynx
, she thought. She had not hunted the medium-sized predators, but she wanted to be the best sling-hunter in the clan. If Zoug could kill a lynx, she could kill a lynx, and here, right in front of her, was the perfect target. On impulse, she decided the time had come for larger game.

She reached slowly into the fold of her short summer wrap, never taking her eyes off the cat, and felt for her largest stone. Her palms were sweaty, but she gripped the two ends of the leather strap together tighter while she put the stone in the pocket. Then, quickly, before she lost her nerve, she aimed for a spot just between his eyes and flung the stone. But the lynx caught the motion as she raised her arm. He turned his head as she hurled. The rock grazed the
side of his head, causing a sharp pain at the point-blank range, but little more.

Before Ayla could think of reaching for another stone, she saw the cat’s muscles bunch under him. It was with sheer reflex that she threw herself to the side as the annoyed lynx leaped for his attacker. She landed in the mud near the creek and her hand fell on a stout driftwood branch, churned clean of leaves and twigs by its journey downstream, water-logged and heavy. Ayla clutched it and rolled over just as the angry lynx with fangs bared pounced again. Swinging wildly, with all the strength fear poured into her, she struck a solid blow, knocking his head aside. The stunned lynx rolled over, crouched for a moment shaking his head, then moved silently into the forest. He’d had enough hurting blows to his head.

Ayla was shaking as she sat up, breathing hard. Her knees felt like water when she went to retrieve her sling and she had to sit down again. Zoug had never imagined that anyone would attempt to hunt a dangerous predator with just a sling, with no other hunter or even another weapon as backup. But Ayla hardly ever missed her targets anymore, she had become too sure of her skill, she didn’t think about what might happen if she missed. She was in such a state of shock as she walked back to the cave, she almost forgot to get her collecting basket from the place she had hidden it before deciding to track the fox.

“Ayla! What happened to you? You’re all muddy!” Iza motioned when she saw her. The girl’s face was ashen, something must have scared her.

Ayla didn’t answer, she just shook her head and went into the cave. Iza knew there was something the girl didn’t want to tell her. She thought of pressing her further, then changed her mind, hoping the child would tell her voluntarily. And Iza wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.

It bothered the woman when Ayla went off by herself, but someone needed to gather her medicinal plants; they were necessary. She couldn’t go, Uba was too young, and none of the other women knew what to look for or had any inclination to learn. She had to let Ayla go, but if the girl told her of some frightening incident, it would worry her all the more. She just wished Ayla wouldn’t stay out so long.

Ayla was subdued that evening and went to bed early, but she couldn’t sleep. She lay awake thinking about the incident
with the lynx, and in her imagination it became even more frightening. It was early morning before she finally dozed off.

She woke up screaming!

“Ayla! Ayla!” She heard Iza call her name as the woman shook her gently to bring her back to reality. “What’s wrong?”

“I dreamed I was in a little cave and a cave lion was after me. I’m all right now, Iza.”

“You haven’t had bad dreams for a long time, Ayla. Why should you have them now? Did something frighten you today?”

Ayla nodded and bowed her head but didn’t explain. The dark of the cave lit only by the dim glow of red coals hid her guilty expression. She hadn’t felt guilty about hunting since she found the sign from her totem. Now, she wondered if it really was a sign. Maybe she just thought it was. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to hunt after all. Especially such dangerous animals. What ever made her think a girl should be trying to hunt lynxes?

“I never have liked the idea of your going out alone, Ayla. You’re always gone so long. I know you like to get off by yourself sometimes, but it worries me. It’s not natural for girls to want to be alone so much. The forest can be dangerous.”

“You’re right, Iza. The forest can be dangerous,” Ayla motioned. “Maybe next time I can take Uba with me, or maybe Ika would like to go.”

Iza was relieved to see that Ayla seemed to be taking her advice to heart. She hung around the cave, and when she did go out after medicinal plants, she returned quickly. When she couldn’t get someone to go with her, she was nervous. She kept expecting to see a crouching animal ready to spring. She began to understand why women of the clan didn’t like to go out alone to gather food, and why her eagerness to be off by herself always surprised them. When she was younger, she was just too innocent of the dangers. But it took only one attack, and most of the women had felt threatened at least once, to make her look upon her environment with more respect. Even a non-predator could be dangerous. Boars with sharp canines, horses with hard hooves, stags with heavy antlers, mountain goats and sheep with lethal horns, all of them could inflict
serious damage if aroused. Ayla wondered how she ever dared to think about hunting. She was afraid to go again.

There was no one Ayla could talk to about it, no one to tell her a little fear sharpened the senses, especially when stalking dangerous game, no one to encourage her to go out again before the fear inhibited her. The men understood fear. They didn’t talk about it, but every one of them had known it many times in their lives, beginning with their first major hunt that elevated them to men. Small animals were for practice, to gain skill with their weapons, but manhood status was not granted until they had known and overcome fear.

For a woman, her days spent alone away from the safety of the clan were no less a test of bravery, though more subtle. In some ways, it required more courage to face those days and nights alone, knowing that no matter what happened, she was on her own. From the time she was born, a girl always had other people around her, protecting her. But she had no weapons to bring to her own defense, and no weapon-bearing protective male to save her during her rites of passage. Girls, as well as boys, did not become adults until they had faced and overcome fear.

For the first few days, Ayla had no desire to wander far from the cave, but after a while she became restless. In winter she had no choice and accepted her confinement to the cave with the rest, but she had grown accustomed to roaming freely when the weather was warm. Ambivalence tormented her. When she was alone in the forest away from the security of the clan, she was uneasy and apprehensive; when she was with the clan near the cave, she longed for the privacy and freedom of the forest.

One foraging expedition when she was out alone brought her close to her private retreat, and she climbed the rest of the way to the high meadow. The place had a soothing effect on her. It was her private world, her cave, her meadow, she felt possessive about the small herd of roe deer that frequently grazed there. They had become so tame, she could get close enough to almost touch one before it pranced out of range. The open field gave her a sense of security, lacking now in the dangerous woods that hid lurking beasts. She hadn’t visited the place at all this season and memories came flooding back. This was where she first taught herself to use the sling, where she hit the porcupine, and where she had found the sign from her totem.

She had her sling with her—she didn’t dare leave it in the cave for Iza to find—and after a while she picked up a few pebbles and made a few practice shots. But that was far too tame a sport to interest her for long now. Her mind went back to the incident with the lynx.

If only I’d had another stone in the sling, she thought. If I could have hit him right away, right after the stone that missed, I might have gotten him before he had a chance to jump. She had two pebbles in her hand and looked at them both. If there was only a way to throw one right after the other. Had Zoug ever said anything like that to Vorn? She racked her brain trying to remember. If he had, it must have been when I wasn’t around, she decided. She pondered the idea. If I could get a second stone in the pocket on the downstroke after the first hurl, without stopping it, I could throw it on the next upstroke. I wonder if that would work?

She began making a few tries and felt as clumsy as she had the first time she tried to use a sling. Then she began to develop a rhythm: throw the first stone; catch the sling as it comes down, with the second stone ready; get it in the pocket while it is still moving; throw the second stone. The pebbles dropped often, and even after she began to lob them her accuracy on both shots suffered. But she was satisfied that it could be done. She returned every day after that to practice. She still felt uneasy about hunting, but the challenge of working out the new technique renewed her interest in the weapon.

By the time the forested hillsides were ablaze with the turning season, she was as accurate with two stones as she had been with one. Standing in the middle of the field hurling stones at a new post she had pounded into the ground, she felt a warm sense of accomplishment when a satisfactory
thwack, thwack
told her both stones had hit the mark. No one told her it was impossible to rapid-fire two stones from a sling, because it had never been done before, and since no one told her she couldn’t, she taught herself to do it.

Early one warm day in late fall, nearly a year from the time she first made her decision to hunt, Ayla decided to climb to the high pasture to collect the mature hazelnuts that had fallen to the ground. As she drew near the top, she heard the whooping and cackling and snuffling of a hyena,
and when she reached the meadow, she saw one of the ugly beasts half buried in the bloody entrails of an old roe deer.

It made her mad. How dare that noisome creature defile
her
meadow, attack
her
deer? She started to run toward the hyena to scare him off, then thought better of it. Hyenas were predators, too, with jaws strong enough to crack the large leg bones of grazing ungulates, and not easily chased from their own prey. She quickly shrugged off her basket and reached to the bottom of it for her sling. She scanned the ground for stones as she edged toward an outcrop near the rock wall. The old stag was half devoured, but her movement caught the attention of the scraggly spotted animal, nearly as large as the lynx. The hyena looked up, found her scent, and turned in her direction.