Mammoth Hunters (97 page)

“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 CI uve 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 particular 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.

“Good. I have been talking with some women. They speak highly of you, you’ve been recommended several times, and that’s important, but more important is that Latie has asked for you. Would you be willing to be a part of her initiation?”

Jondalar realized he should have known what was coming. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been asked before, but for some reason he thought she just wanted to know about the customs of his people. In the past, he had always been more than willing to participate and he was tempted, but this time he hesitated. He had also felt a terrible guilt afterward, for using the deeply sacred ceremony to satisfy his own needs for the deeper feelings it evoked. He wasn’t sure he could handle those mixed feelings right now, particularly with someone he liked as much as Latie.

“Tulie, I have participated in similar rituals, and I understand the honor you and Latie have offered me, but I think I must refuse. I realize we have no real relationship, but I have lived with Lion Camp all winter, and in that time I have come to regard Latie as a sister,” Jondalar said, “a special younger sister.”

Tulie nodded. “That’s too bad, Jondalar. In many ways, you would be the perfect one. You come from so far away, there is no possible relationship between you. But I can understand how she could come to feel like a sister. You haven’t exactly shared the same hearth, but Nezzie has treated you with the affection of a son, and Latie is a person with much promise. There is no worse abomination in the eyes of the Mother than for a man to initiate a woman born of his own mother. If you feel like a brother, I’m afraid it would taint the ceremony. I’m glad you told me this.”

They walked back together toward the people sitting and standing on the slope and where it leveled out into the clearing. Jondalar noticed that Talut was talking, and even more interesting, Ayla was standing beside him with her spear-thrower.

“You’ve seen how far Ayla can throw a spear with this spear-throwing weapon,” Talut was saying, “but I’d like to have them both show it to you under better circumstances, where you can really see what it can do. I know most of us like to use a larger spear with the shaped points Wymez developed for hunting mammoths, but this throwing weapon has some real advantages. Some of us at Lion Camp have experimented with it. This will throw a good-sized spear, but
it takes practice, just like throwing a spear by hand does. Most grow up throwing spears, in games and hunting. They are used to throwing, but if they could see how well it works, I’m sure many people would give it a try. Ayla says she plans to use it on the mammoth hunt, and I’m sure Jondalar will, too, so some people will see what it can do. We’ve talked about a contest, but it hasn’t quite worked out yet. When we return from the hunt, I think we should plan to have a big contest, with all kinds of competitions.”

There were general expressions of agreement to his suggestion, then Brecie said, “I think a big contest is a good idea, Talut. I wouldn’t mind seeing two or three days of it. We’ve been working on a throwing stick. Some of us have gotten several birds from a flock with one throw. In the meantime, I think we should let the mamuti work out the best day to leave, and do some Calling for mammoths. And if we have nothing more to talk about, I have to get back to my Camp.”

The meeting started to break up, then there was a sudden flurry of interest as Vincavec strode into the clearing, followed by his Camp, the delegation that had been talking about adopting Ayla, and the last of Lion Camp, Nezzie and Rydag. The people from the delegation began to spread the news that the Mamut-headman of the Mammoth Camp was willing to pay any Bride Price Tulie wanted for Ayla, in spite of the fact that she was already Promised.

“You know he claims the right to name his Camp after the Mammoth Hearth, just because he’s Mamut,” Jondalar heard a woman saying to another woman nearby, “but he can’t claim any hearth until he’s joined. The woman brings the hearth. He just wants her because she’s a daughter of the Mammoth Hearth, to make his so-called Mammoth Camp acceptable.”

Jondalar happened to be standing near Ranec when he overheard someone tell him. He was surprised to feel a sense of compassion when he saw the dark man’s expression. It occurred to him that if anyone knew how Ranec was feeling at that moment, he did. But at least he knew that the man who had convinced Ayla to live with him loved her. It seemed obvious that Vincavec wanted Ayla just to serve his own purposes, not because he cared about her.

Ayla, too, was overhearing pieces of conversation in which her name was mentioned. She didn’t like overhearing. In the Clan, she could have averted her eyes so as not to eavesdrop,
but when communication was entirely verbal, she could not close her ears.

And then, suddenly, she wasn’t hearing anyone, except the tone of taunting voices from several older children, and the word “flathead.”

“Look at that animal, all dressed up like people,” an older boy said, pointing his finger at Rydag, and laughing.

“They dress the horses, why not the flathead?” someone else added, with more laughter.