Mammoth Hunters (44 page)

“Who is that for?” Tusie asked, when Ayla began cutting the ties on the largest bundle.

Ayla glanced up at Deegie, and they both smiled, trying not to let Deegie’s little sister notice their somewhat patronizing amusement in hearing Tulie’s tone and inflections in the voice of her youngest daughter.

“I even brought something for the horses,” Ayla said to the little girl as she cut the last cords and the bale of hay burst open. “This is for Whinney and Racer.”

After she spread it out for them, she started to untie the load on the travois. “I should bring the rest of this inside.”

“You don’t have to do it now,” Nezzie said. “You haven’t even taken off your outer clothes. Come in and have something hot to drink, and some food. Everything will be fine here for now.”

“Nezzie is right,” Tulie added. She was just as curious as the rest of the Camp, but Ayla’s packages could wait. “You both need to rest and have something to eat. You look exhausted.”

Jondalar smiled gratefully at the headwoman as he followed Ayla into the lodge.

In the morning, Ayla had many helping hands to carry in her bundles, but Mamut had quietly suggested that she keep her gifts covered until the ceremony that evening. Ayla smiled her agreement, quickly understanding the element of mystery and anticipation he implied, but her evasive replies to Tulie’s hints to show her what she had brought annoyed the headwoman, though she didn’t want to show it.

Once the packages and bundles were piled on one of the empty bed platforms and the drapes closed, Ayla crawled into the private, enclosed space, lit three stone lamps and spaced them for good lighting, and there examined and arranged the gifts she had brought. She made some minor changes to the choices she had made previously, adding or exchanging a few items, but when she snuffed out the lamps and emerged, letting the drapes fall closed behind her, she was satisfied.

She went out through the new opening, a space formerly occupied by a section of an unused platform bed. The floor of the new annex was higher than the floor of the earthlodge, and three wide, four-inch-high steps had been cut for easier access. She paused to look around the addition. The horses were gone. Whinney was accustomed to nosing aside a hide windbreak, and Ayla only had to show her once. Racer picked
up the trick from his dam. Obeying an impulsive urge to check on them—like a mother with children, a part of her mind was always conscious of the horses—the young woman walked through the enclosed space to the mammoth tusk archway, pulled back the heavy hide drape, and looked out.

The world had lost all form and definition; solid color without shadow or shape spilled across the landscape in two hues: blue, rich, vibrant, startling blue sky unbroken by a single wisp of cloud; and white, blinding white snow reflecting a fulgent late morning sun. Ayla squinted against the glare of white; the only evidence of the storm that had raged for days. Slowly, as her eyes adjusted to the light, and a previous sense of depth and distance informed her perception, details filled in. The water, still rippling down the middle of the river, sparkled more brightly than the soft, white snow-covered banks, which blended into jagged white shards of ice, blunted by snow, at the edges of the watercourse. Nearby, mysterious white mounds took on the shapes of mammoth bones and piles of dirt.

She stepped outside a few paces to see around the bend of the river where the horses liked to graze, just out of sight. It was warm in the sun and the top of the snow glistened with a hint of melt. The horses would have to paw the deep, soft, cold layer aside to find the dried grass it covered. As Ayla prepared to whistle, Whinney, stepping into view, raised her head, and saw her. She whinnied a greeting as Racer came out from behind her. Ayla nickered back.

As the woman turned to go, she noticed Talut watching her with a peculiar, almost awed expression.

“How did the mare know you had come out?” he asked.

“I think she did not know, but horse have good nose, smell far. Good ears, hear far. Anything moves, she sees.”

The big man nodded. She made it sound so simple, so logical, but still … He smiled, then, glad they were back. He was looking forward to Ayla’s adoption. She had so much to offer, she would be a welcome, and valuable, Mamutoi woman.

They both went back into the new annex, and as they entered, Jondalar came in from the lodge.

“I notice your gifts are all ready,” he said with a big grin as he strode toward them. He enjoyed the anticipation her mysterious packages had caused, and being in on the surprise. He had overheard Tulie voicing concern about the
quality of her gifts, but he had no doubts. They would be unusual to the Mamutoi, but fine workmanship was fine workmanship, and he felt sure hers would be recognized.

“Everyone is wondering what you have brought, Ayla,” Talut said. He loved the anticipation and excitement as much, or more, than anyone.

“I do not know if my gifts enough,” Ayla said.

“Of course they will be enough. Don’t worry about it. Whatever you brought will be enough. Just the firestones would be enough. Even without firestones, just
you
would be enough,” Talut said, then added with a smile, “Giving us a reason to have a big celebration could be enough!”

“But, you say gifts exchanged, Talut. In Clan, for exchange, must give same kind, same worth. What can be enough to give, for you, for everyone, who make this place for horses?” Ayla said, glancing around at the annex. “Is like cave, but you make it. I do not know how people can make a cave like this.”

“I’ve wondered that myself,” Jondalar said. “I must admit, I’ve never seen anything like it and I’ve seen a lot of shelters: summer shelters, shelters built inside a cave or under an overhanging ledge, but your lodge is as solid as rock itself.”

Talut laughed. “It has to be, to live here, especially in winter. As hard as the wind blows, anything less would get blown away.” His smile faded, and a soft look of something akin to love suffused his face. “Mamutoi land is rich land, rich in game, in fish, in foods that grow. It is a beautiful, a strong land. I wouldn’t want to live any other place …” The smile returned. “But strong shelters are needed to live here, and we don’t have many caves.”

“How do you make a cave, Talut? How do you make a place like this?” Ayla asked, remembering how Brun had searched for just the right cave for his clan, and how homeless she had felt until she found a valley that had a livable cave.

“If you want to know, I will tell you. It is not a big secret!” Talut said, grinning with pleasure. He was delighted with their obvious admiration. “The rest of the lodge is made the same way, more or less, but for this addition, we started by pacing off a distance from the wall outside the Mammoth Hearth. When we reached the center of an area that we thought would be large enough, a stick was put in the ground—that’s where we would put a fireplace, if we decide we need a
fire in here. Then we measured off a rope that same distance, fastened one end to the stick, and with the other end, marked a circle to show where the wall would go.” Talut acted out his explanation, striding through the paces and tying an imaginary rope to a nonexistent stick.

“Next, we cut through the sod, lifted it out carefully, to save it, and then dug down about the length of my foot.” To further clarify his remarks, Talut held up an unbelievably long, but surprisingly narrow and shapely foot encased in a snug-fitting soft shoe. “Then we marked off the width of the bench—the platform that can be beds or storage—and some extra for the wall. From the inside edge of the bench, we dug down deeper, about the depth of two or three of my feet, to excavate the middle for the floor. The dirt was piled up evenly all around the outside in a bank that helps support the wall.”

“That’s a lot of digging,” Jondalar said, eying the enclosure. “I’d say the distance from one wall to the one opposite is, maybe, thirty of your feet, Talut.”

The headman’s eyes opened in surprise. “You’re right! I measured it off exactly. How did you know?”

Jondalar shrugged. “Just a guess.”

It was more than a guess, it was another manifestation of his instinctive understanding of the physical world. He could accurately judge distance with his eye alone, and he measured space with the dimensions of his own body. He knew the length of his stride and the width of his hand, the reach of his arm and the span of his grasp; he could estimate a fraction against the thickness of his thumb, or the height of a tree by pacing its shadow in the sun. It was not something he learned; it was a gift he was born with and developed with use. It never occurred to him to question it.

Ayla thought it was a lot of digging, too. She had dug her share of pit-traps and understood the work involved, and she was curious. “How do you dig so much, Talut?”

“How does anyone dig? We use mattocks to break up the loam, shovels to scoop it out, except for the hard-packed sod on top. We cut that out with the sharpened edge of a flat bone.”

Her puzzled look made it plain she didn’t understand. Perhaps she didn’t know the words for the tools in his language, he thought, and stepping outside the door, returned with some implements. They all had long handles. One had a
piece of mammoth rib bone attached to it, which had been ground to a sharp edge at one end. It resembled a hoe with a long curved blade. Ayla examined it carefully.

“Is like digging stick, I think,” she said, looking to Talut for confirmation.

He smiled. “Yes, it’s a mattock. We use pointed digging sticks, too, sometimes. They are easier to make in a hurry, but this is easier to use.”

Then he showed her a shovel made from the wide palmation of a giant antler of a megaceros, split lengthwise through the spongy center, then shaped and sharpened. Antlers of young animals were used; the antlers of mature giant deer could reach eleven feet in length, and were too big. The handle was attached by means of strong cord strung through three pairs of holes bored down the center. It was used, spongy side down, not to dig, but for scooping up and throwing out the fine loess soil loosened by the mattock, or, if they chose, for snow. He also had a second shovel, more scoop-shaped, made from an outer section of ivory flaked from a mammoth tusk.

“These are shovels,” Talut said, telling her the name. Ayla nodded. She had used flat pieces of bone and antler in much the same way, but her shovels had had no handles.

“I’m just glad the weather stayed nice for a while after you left,” the headman continued. “As it is, we didn’t dig down as far as we usually would. The ground is already hard underneath. Next year, we can dig down deeper and make some storage pits, too, maybe even a sweatbath, when we get back from the Summer Meeting.”

“Weren’t you going to hunt again, when the weather got nice?” Jondalar said.

“The bison hunt was very successful, and Mamut isn’t having much luck Searching. All he seems to find are the few bison we missed, and it isn’t worthwhile to go after them. We decided to make the addition instead, to make a place for the horses, since Ayla and her horse were such a help.”

“Mattock and shovel make easier, Talut, but is work … a lot of digging,” Ayla said, surprised and a little overcome.

“We had a lot of people to work at it, Ayla. Nearly everyone thought it was a good idea and wanted to help … to make you welcome.”

The young woman felt a sudden rush of emotion and closed
her eyes to control tears of gratitude that threatened. Jondalar and Talut saw her, and turned aside out of consideration.

Jondalar examined the walls, still intrigued with the construction. “It looks like you dug it out between the platforms, too,” he commented.

“Yes, for the main supports,” Talut said, pointing to the six enormous mammoth tusks, wedged in at the base with smaller bones—parts of spines and phalanges—with their tips pointing toward the center. They were spaced at regular intervals around the wall on both sides of the two pairs of mammoth tusks, which were used for the arched doorways. The strong, long, curved tusks were the primary structural members of the lodge.

As Talut of the Mammoth Hunters continued describing the construction of the semisubterranean earthlodge, Ayla and Jondalar became even more impressed. It was far more complex than either had imagined. Midway between the center and the tusk wall supports were six wooden posts—tapering trees, stripped of bark and crotched on top. Around the outside of the annex, braced against the bottom of the bank, mammoth skulls stood upright in the ground, supported by shoulder blades, hipbones, spinal bones, and several strategically placed long bones, legs and ribs. The upper part of the wall, consisting mainly of shoulder blades, hipbones, and smaller tusks of mammoth, merged into the roof, which was supported by wooden beams stretched across and between the outer circle of tusks and the inner circle of posts. The mosaic of bones, all deliberately chosen and some trimmed to shape, were wedged in and lashed to the sturdy tusks, creating a curved wall that fit together like interlocking pieces of a puzzle.

Some wood was available from river valleys, but for building purposes mammoth bones were in greater supply. But the mammoths they hunted contributed only a small portion of the bones they used. The great majority of their building materials were selected from the prodigious pile of bones at the bend in the river. Some bones even came from scavenger-stripped carcasses found on the nearby steppes, but the open grasslands were more important for providing materials of another variety.

Each year the migratory herds of reindeer dropped their antlers to make way for the next year’s rack, and each year they were gathered up. To complete the dwelling, the antlers
of the reindeer were bound to one another to make a strong framework of interlaced supports for a domed roof, leaving a hole in the center for smoke to escape. Then, willow boughs from the river valley were tied together into a thick mat, which was laid across and bound securely over and around the antlers, and tapered down the bone wall, to create a sturdy base over the roof and the wall. Next, an even thicker thatch of grass, overlapped to shed water, was fastened to the willows all the way to the ground. On top of the grass thatch was a layer of dense sod. Part of the sod came from the ground that had been excavated for the addition, and part from land nearby.