The Clan Of The Cave Bear_ A Novel Part 14

"Brun, you will need all your hunters," Zoug motioned. "My legs may not be fast enough to hunt mammoth, but my arm is still strong enough to wield a spear. The sling is not the only weapon I can use. Dorv's sight is failing, but his muscles are not weak and he's not blind yet. He can still use a club or a spear, at least well enough to protect the cave. As long as we keep the fire going, no animal is going to come too close. You don't need to worry about the cave, we can protect it. You will have enough to worry about hunting mammoth. The decision is not mine, of course, but I think you should take all the hunters."

"I agree, Brun," Dorv added, leaning forward and squinting a little. "Zoug and I can protect the cave while you are gone."

Brun looked from Zoug to Dorv and back to Zoug. He didn't want to leave any of his hunters behind. He didn't want to do anything that might jeopardize his chances for success.

"You're right, Zoug," Brun finally gestured. "Just because you and Dorv can't hunt mammoth doesn't mean you are not strong enough to protect the cave. The clan is fortunate you are both still so able, and I am fortunate that the second-in-command to the leader-before-me is still with us to give me the benefit of his wisdom, Zoug." It never hurt to let the old man know he was appreciated.

The rest of the hunters relaxed. None of them would be left behind. They felt sorry for the old men who could not share in the great hunt, but grateful it was they who would be left to guard the cave. It was understood that Mog-ur would not make the trek, either; he was no hunter. But Brun had, on occasion, seen the old cripple brandish his stout walking stick with some force in self-protection, and mentally added the magician to the cave protectors. Certainly the three of them could do as well as a single hunter.

"Now, which of the women will we take with us?" Brun asked. "Ebra will come."

"Uka, too," Grod added. "She is strong and experienced and has no small children."

"Yes, Uka is a good choice," Brun approved, "and Ovra," he said, looking at Goov. The acolyte nodded in agreement.

"What about Oga?" Broud asked. "Brac is walking now and he'll soon reach his weaning year; he doesn't take much of her time."

Brun thought a moment. "I don't see why not. The other women can help watch him, and Oga is a good worker. We can use her."

Broud looked pleased. He liked to know his mate was well thought of by the leader; it was a compliment to his good training.

"Some women must stay to watch the children," Brun motioned. "What about Aga and Ika; Groob and Igra are still young to travel so far."

"Aba and Iza could watch them," Crug volunteered. "Igra is not much trouble for Ika." Most men liked to have their own mates along on an extended hunt, then they didn't have to depend on another man's mate to serve them.

"I don't know about Ika," Droog commented, "but I think Aga would rather stay this time. Three of the children are hers, and even if she takes Groob, I know Ona would miss her. Vorn would like to come with us, though."

"I think both Aga and Ika should stay," Brun decided, "and Vorn, too. There will be nothing for him to do, he's not old enough to hunt, and he wouldn't be very eager to help the women, especially without his mother to keep after him. There will be other mammoth hunts for him."

Mog-ur hadn't volunteered any comment up till then, but felt the time was right. "Iza is too weak to go, and she needs to stay and take care of Uba, but there's no reason Ayla can't go."

"She's not even a woman," Broud interjected, "and, besides, the spirits might not like it if the strange one is with us."

"She's bigger than a woman, and as strong," Droog contended, "a hard worker, good with her hands, and the spirits favor her. What about the cave? And Ona? I think she will bring luck."

"Droog is right. She's a fast worker and as strong as a woman. She doesn't have any children to worry about, and she's had some training as a medicine woman. That could be useful, though if Iza were stronger, I'd rather take her. Ayla comes with us," Brun gestured with finality.

Ayla was so excited when she found out she was going along on the mammoth hunt, she couldn't sit still. She pestered Iza with questions of what to take with her and had her basket packed and repacked several times in the final days before they planned to leave.

"You don't want to take too much, Ayla. Your load is going to be much heavier on the way back, if the hunt is successful. But I do have something for you that I think you should take. I just finished making it."

Tears of happiness came to Ayla's eyes as she saw the pouch Iza held out. It was made from the whole skin of an otter, cured with the fur, head, tail, and feet left intact. Iza had asked Zoug to get one for her and she had kept it hidden at Droog's hearth, including Aga and Aba in on her surprise.

"Iza! My own medicine bag!" Ayla cried, and hugged the woman. She immediately sat down and removed all the small pouches and packets, setting them out in rows as she had seen Iza do so many times. She opened each one and sniffed at the contents, then tied them all back up with exactly the same knots with which they had been tied originally.

It was difficult to distinguish between many dried herbs and roots by smell alone, though particularly dangerous ones were often mixed with an innocuous but strong-smelling herb to prevent accidental misuse. The real system of cla.s.sification was the type of cord or thong that held the pouches closed and an intricate combination of knots. Certain cla.s.ses of herbal remedies were tied with cord made of horsehair, others with the hair of bison or some other animal whose hair had a distinctive color and texture, still others were tied with sinew or the cords made of stringy barks or vines, and some with leather thongs. Part of memorizing the uses of a particular plant was knowing the type of cord and the system of knots used to close the pouch or packet that held it.

Ayla put the pouches back into her medicine bag, then tied it to the cord at her waist, admiring it. She took it off and put it near her collecting basket along with the large bags that would be used to hold the mammoth meat they hoped to bring back. Everything was ready. The only problem that gave Ayla any cause for concern was what to do with her sling. She would have no use for it, but she was afraid to leave it behind for Iza or Creb to find. She thought of hiding it in the woods, but thought some animal might dig it up or the exposure might ruin it. Finally, she decided to take it with her, but keep it well hidden in a fold of her wrap.

It was still dark when the clan got up on the day of the hunters' departure, and the multihued leaves were just starting to show their true colors as the sky lightened when they started out. But as they pa.s.sed beyond the ridge east of the cave, the radiant gleam of the rising sun broached the horizon, illuminating the broad plain of standing hay below with an intense golden glow. They trooped down the wooded flanks of the foothills and reached the steppes while the sun was still low. Brun set a fast pace, nearly as rapid as when the men went out alone. The women's burdens were light, but unused to the rigors of rapid travel, they had to push to keep up.

They traveled from sunup to sundown, covering a much greater distance in a day than when the entire clan was looking for a new cave. They did no cooking except to boil water for tea, and little was required of the women. No game was hunted along the way; they all ate the traveling food the men usually took hunting: dried meat ground to a coa.r.s.e meal, mixed with clean rendered fat and dried fruit, formed into small cakes. The highly concentrated traveling food supplied their nutritional needs more than adequately.

It was cold on the open windy prairie and got colder rapidly as they traveled north. Even so, shortly after they started out in the mornings, they removed layers of their clothing. Their pace warmed them quickly and only when they stopped for short rests did they notice the frigid temperature. The aching muscles of the first few days, especially the women's, soon disappeared as they hit a stride and developed traveling legs.

The terrain of the northern part of the peninsula was rougher. Broad flat plateaus suddenly disappeared into steep ravines or ab.u.t.ted sheer cliffs-the result of rumbling upheavals in the violent earth of earlier times shaking free the constraints of limestone bonds. Narrow canyons were walled with jagged rocky faces, some dead-ending where the walls conjoined and some strewn with the rubble of sharp-edged fallen boulders cleaved from the surrounding bulwarks. Others channeled occasional waterways ranging from small seasonal streams to rushing rivers. Only near watercourses did a few wind-twisted pines, larches, and firs, crowded by birches and willows stunted to little more than brush, relieve the monotony of the gra.s.sy steppes. In rare instances where a ravine opened into a watered valley, sheltered from the incessant, driving wind and supplied with sufficient moisture, the coniferous and small-leafed deciduous trees more closely approached their true proportions.

The journey was uneventful. They traveled at the steady, fast pace for ten days before Brun began sending out men to scout the surrounding area, slowing their progress for the next few days. They were close to the broad neck of the peninsula. If they were going to find mammoth, they should begin to see them soon.

The hunting party had stopped at a small river. Brun had sent Broud and Goov out earlier in the afternoon, and he was a short distance off from the rest looking in the direction they had gone. He would have to make a decision soon whether they would camp beside this river or continue farther before they stopped for the night. The late afternoon shadows were lengthening into evening, and if the two young men did not return soon, the decision would be made for him. He squinted his eyes as he faced directly into the sharp east wind that whipped his long fur wrap around his legs and flattened his bushy beard against his face.

Far in the distance he thought he saw movement, and as he waited, the running figures of two men became more distinct. He felt a sudden twinge of excitement. Perhaps it was intuition, or perhaps it was his sensitive attunement to the way their bodies moved. They saw the solitary figure and put on a fresh burst of speed, waving their arms. Brun knew long before their voices could be heard.

"Mammoth! Mammoth!" the men shouted, out of breath as they raced toward the group. Everyone crowded around the exultant men.

"A large herd, to the east," Broud gestured excitedly.

"How far?" Brun asked.

Goov pointed straight up, then moved his arm down in a short arc. "A few hours," the signal indicated.

"Show the way," Brun motioned and signaled the rest to follow. There were still enough hours of daylight left to move closer to the herd.

The sun was crowding the horizon before the hunting party saw the dark blur of movement in the distance. It is a large herd, Brun thought, as he called a halt. They would have to make do with the water they carried from the previous stop; it was too dark to look for a stream. In the morning they could find a better campsite. The important thing was that they had found mammoth. Now it was up to the hunters.

After the troupe moved to a new encampment beside a meandering creek defined by a double row of scraggly brush along each bank, Brun took his hunters to reconnoiter the possibilities. A mammoth could not be run down like a bison, or tripped with bolas. A different tactic had to be devised to hunt the woolly pachyderms. Brun and his men scouted the ravines and canyons in the vicinity. He was looking for a particular formation, a blind canyon that narrowed to a close defile with boulders lining the sides and piled up at the closed end, not too far from the slowly moving herd.

Early in the morning of the second day, Oga nervously sat down in front of Brun, head bowed, while Ovra and Ayla waited anxiously behind her.

"What do you want, Oga?" Brun motioned as he tapped her shoulder.

"This woman would make a request," she began hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"This woman has never seen a mammoth. Neither have Ovra or Ayla. Would the leader allow us to go closer so we can get a better look?"

"What about Ebra and Uka, do they want to see a mammoth, too?"

"They say they will see enough mammoth before we are through to satisfy them. They have no wish to go," Oga replied.

"They are wise women, but then, they have seen mammoth before. We are downwind; it should not disturb the herd if you do not go too close and do not try to circle around."

"We will not go too close," Oga promised.

"No, I think when you see them, you will not want to go too close. Yes, you may go," he decided.

It won't hurt to let the young women make a small excursion, he thought. They have little to do now, and they will be busy enough later-if the spirits favor us.

The three were excited about their proposed adventure. It was Ayla who finally convinced Oga to ask, though they had all talked about it. The hunting trip had thrown them into a closer a.s.sociation than they normally had at the cave, and it gave them an opportunity to get to know each other better. Ovra, who was quiet and reserved by nature, had always considered Ayla one of the children and did not seek her out for companionship. Oga did not encourage too much social contact, knowing how Broud felt about her, and neither of the young women felt they had much in common with the girl. They were mated women, adults, mistresses of their men's hearths; Ayla was still a child who did not have the same responsibilities.

It was only that summer, when Ayla a.s.sumed a quasi-adult status and began going on hunting trips, that the women began to think of her as more than a child, and especially during the trek to hunt for mammoth. Ayla was taller than any of the women, which gave her the appearance of an adult, and she was treated in most ways as though she were a woman by the hunters. Crug and Droog in particular called upon her. Their mates were back at the cave, and Ayla was unmated. They didn't have to make their requests through another man, or with his permission, however informally it was asked or granted. With the common interest of the hunt, a friendlier relationship developed among the three younger females. Ayla's closest a.s.sociations before were with Iza, Creb, and Uba, and she enjoyed the newfound warmth of friendship with the women.

Shortly after the men left in the morning, Oga left Brac with Ebra and Uka and the three started out. It was a pleasant hike. They soon fell into animated conversation with rapidly moving hands and emphatic words. As they drew closer to the animals, their conversation fell off and soon ceased altogether. They stopped and gawked at the ma.s.sive creatures.

The woolly mammoths were well adapted to the harsh periglacial climate of their cold environment. Their thick hides were covered with an undercoat of dense soft fur and an overlayer of s.h.a.ggy, long, reddish brown hair up to twenty inches in length. They were further insulated by a three-inch layer of subcutaneous fat. The cold had caused modifications in their body structure, too. They were compact for their species, averaging ten feet high at the withers. Their ma.s.sive heads, large in proportion to their overall height and more than half the length of their trunks, rose high above their shoulders in a peaked dome. They had small ears, short tails, and relatively short trunks with two fingers at the end, an upper and a lower one. In profile, they had a deep depression at the nape of the neck between their domed heads and a high hump of stored fat on the withers. Their backs sloped down sharply to the pelvis and somewhat shorter hind legs. But most impressive were their long, curved tusks.

"Look at that one!" Oga gestured and pointed to an old bull. His ivory tusks originated close together, pointed steeply downward, curved sharply outward, upward, then inward, crossing over in front of him and continuing on for a full sixteen feet.

The mammoth was tearing out swaths of gra.s.s, herbs, and sedge with his trunk and stuffing the tough, dry fodder into his mouth to break it down with efficient rasplike grinders. A younger animal, one whose tusks were not so long and still useful, uprooted a larch and began to strip it of twigs and bark.

"They're so big!" Ovra motioned with a shudder. "I didn't think any animal could be so big. How are they ever going to kill one? They can't even reach one with a spear."

"I don't know," Oga said, just as apprehensive.

"I almost wish we hadn't come," Ovra said. "It will be a dangerous hunt. Someone could get hurt. What will I do if something happens to Goov?"

"Brun must have a plan," Ayla said. "I don't think he'd even try to hunt them if he didn't think the men could. I wish I could watch," she added wistfully.

"I don't," Oga said. "I don't want to be anywhere near. I'll just be glad when it's over." Oga remembered her mother's mate had been killed in a hunting accident just before the earthquake that took her mother. She was well aware of the dangers in spite of the best of plans.

"I think we should go back now," Ovra said. "Brun didn't want us to get too close. This is closer than I want to be."

The three of them turned to go. Ayla looked back a few times as they hurried away. They were more quiet on the return trip, each lost in her own thoughts and not in the mood for much talk.

When the men returned, Brun directed the women to break camp and move after the hunters left the next morning. He had found a suitable location, they would hunt tomorrow, and he wanted the women well out of the way. He had seen the canyon early the day before. It was an ideal site but too far from the mammoths. He considered it a particularly good omen that the herd, moving slowly in a southwesterly direction, had wandered close enough by the end of the second day to make the site feasible.

A light, dry, powdery snow whipped up by gusting east winds greeted the hunting party as they unrolled from their warm furs and poked their noses out of low tents. The dismal gray sky, hiding the glowing sun that lighted the planet, could not dampen the keen antic.i.p.ation. On this day they would hunt mammoth. The women scurried to make tea; like athletes finely tuned for the game, the hunters would take nothing else. They stamped around, making practice lunges into the air with their spears to stretch and loosen taut muscles. The tension they projected charged the air with excitement.

Grod took a glowing coal from the fire and put it in the aurochs horn attached to his waist. Goov took another. They wrapped furs securely around themselves. Not the usual heavy outer wraps, but lighter garments that would not restrict them. None of them felt the cold; they were too keyed up. Brun went over the plan quickly, one last time.

Each man closed his eyes and clutched his amulet, picked up an unlit torch they had made the evening before, and set out. Ayla watched them go, wishing she dared to follow them. Then she joined the women who had begun to collect dried gra.s.s, dung, brush, and wood for fires before they broke camp.

The men reached the herd quickly. The mammoths had already begun to move again after resting for the night. The hunters squatted down in the tall gra.s.s to wait while Brun appraised the animals that moved past. He saw the old bull with the ma.s.sive curving tusks. What a prize he would be, he said to himself, but rejected the beast. They had a long distance to travel back to the cave and the huge tusks would weigh them down unnecessarily. The tusks of a younger animal would be easier to carry and the meat more tender, besides. That was more important than the glory of displaying ma.s.sive tusks.

Younger bulls were more dangerous, though. Their shorter tusks were not only useful for uprooting trees, they were very effective weapons. Brun waited patiently. He had not made all the preparations and the long trip in order to rush now. He knew the circ.u.mstances he was looking for and would rather return the next day than risk their chance for success. The rest of the hunters waited, too, not all of them as patiently.

The rising sun had warmed the dull overcast sky and scattered the clouds. The snow stopped and bright rays broke through open s.p.a.ces.

"When is he going to give the signal?" Broud motioned silently to Goov. "Look how high the sun is already. Why start out early and just sit here? What is he waiting for?"

Grod caught Broud's gestures. "Brun is waiting for the right time. Would you rather go back empty-handed or wait awhile? Be patient, Broud, and learn. Someday it will be you who must decide when the time is right. Brun is a good leader, a good hunter. You are fortunate to have him to teach you. It takes more than bravery to be a leader."

Broud wasn't too pleased with Grod's lecture. He will not be my second-in-command when I am leader, he thought. He's getting too old, anyway. The young man shifted his position, shivered a little from a strong gust of wind, and settled down to wait.

The sun was high in the sky when Brun finally gave a "get ready" signal. Every hunter felt a sharp stab of excitement. A female, heavy with young, was near the periphery of the herd, and edging farther out. She was fairly young, but by the length of her tusks, the pregnancy was probably not her first. She was far enough along in it to make her ponderous. She wouldn't be as fast or agile, and fetal meat would be a succulent bonus.

The mammoth spied a stand of gra.s.s not yet encountered by the rest and moved toward it. For a moment, she stood alone, a solitary animal away from the protection of the herd. It was the moment Brun was waiting for. He gave the signal.

Grod had the hot coal out and a torch held in readiness. The moment Brun signaled, he held the torch to the ember and blew until it caught and leaped into flames. Droog lit two others from the first and gave one to Brun. The three younger hunters had dashed toward the canyon the moment they saw the signal. Their part would come later. As soon as the torches were lit, Brun and Grod ran behind the mammoth and laid the fiery brands to the dry gra.s.s of the prairie.

Full-grown mammoths had no natural enemies; only the very young and very old ever fell prey to any predator-except man. But they feared fire. Prairie fires from natural causes sometimes raged unchecked for days, destroying everything in their path. A man-caused fire was no less devastating. The moment they sensed danger, the herd instinctively closed in. The fire had to take hold quickly to prevent the female from rejoining the rest, and Brun and Grod were between the she-mammoth and the herd. They could be charged from either direction or caught in a stampede of behemoths.

The scent of smoke turned the peacefully grazing animals into a bedlam of trumpeting confusion. The female turned toward the herd, but it was too late. A wall of fire separated her. She sirened for help, but the flames, fanned by the brisk east wind, had converged on the milling animals. They were already stampeding to the west, trying to outdistance the fast-encroaching blaze. The prairie fire was out of control, but that was of little concern to the men. The wind would carry the destruction away from the place they wanted to go.

The she-mammoth, screaming her fright, lurched in panic toward the east. Droog waited until he saw the flames take hold, then raced away. When he saw the mammoth begin her charge, he ran toward the confused and frightened beast, shouting and waving his torch, veering her to the southeast.

Crug, Broud, and Goov, the youngest and fastest of the hunters, were pelting away at top speed in front of her. They were afraid the frantic mammoth would outpace them even with their head start. Brun, Grod, and Droog raced behind her, trying to keep up and hoping she wouldn't alter her course. But once started, the behemoth charged blindly straight ahead.

The three young hunters reached the box canyon and Crug turned into it. Broud and Goov stopped at the south wall. Nervous and out of breath, Goov reached for the aurochs horn, sending an unspoken plea to his totem that the coal had not died. It was live, but neither of them had much breath to blow flame to the torch. The brisk wind provided an a.s.sist. They both lit two torches, holding one in each hand, and moved out from the wall, trying to antic.i.p.ate where the mammoth would approach. The wait was not long. With a silent prayer to their totems as the frightened, trumpeting, gigantic animal stampeded toward them, the brave young men raced into the face of the charging mammoth waving smoky torches in front of them. They had the difficult and dangerous job of turning the petrified animal into the canyon.

The panic-stricken pachyderm, already running in fear from the fire and confronted with the smell of smoke ahead, looked for an escape. She swerved and pounded into the canyon, with Broud and Goov right behind her. The bellowing behemoth plowed through the canyon, reached the narrow defile, and found her way blocked. Unable to move ahead or to turn in the tight s.p.a.ce, she screamed her frustration.

Broud and Goov sprinted up breathlessly. Broud had a knife in his hand, one carefully shaped by Droog and charmed by Mog-ur. In a swift, reckless dash, Broud ran for her left hind leg and with the sharp blade slashed her tendons. Her strident cry of pain split the air. She could not move forward, she could not turn sideward, and now she could not move backward. Goov followed Broud and hamstrung her right foot. The great beast fell to her knees.

Then Crug jumped up from behind the boulder in front of the faltering mammoth trumpeting in agony, and plunged his long, pointed spear straight into her open mouth. Instinctively she tried to attack and spewed blood over the weaponless man. But he was not weaponless for long. Other spears had been stashed behind the rocks. As Crug reached for another spear, Brun, Grod, and Droog reached the canyon and raced to the blind end, leaping up on the rocks at either side of the huge, pregnant mammoth. They lunged their spears into the wounded creature almost simultaneously. Brun's penetrated one small eye, spurting him with warm scarlet. The animal lurched. With her last burst of life, the mammoth trumpeted a defiant scream, and slumped to the ground.

Realization came slowly to the exhausted men. In the sudden silence, the hunters looked at each other. Their hearts beat faster with a new kind of excitement. A formless, primal urge from deep within rose and exploded from their mouths in a cry of victory. They did it! They killed the mighty mammoth!

Six men, pitifully weak by comparison, using skill and intelligence and cooperation and daring, had killed the gigantic creature no other predator could. No matter how fast or how strong or how cunning, no four-legged hunter could match their feat. Broud leaped up on the rock beside Brun, then jumped onto the fallen animal. In a moment, Brun was beside him, clapped him warmly on the shoulder, then pulled his spear from the mammoth's eye and held it aloft. The other four quickly joined them and, moving to the rhythm of their own heartbeats, they jumped and danced their elation on the back of the ma.s.sive beast.

Then Brun leaped down and circled the mammoth nearly filling the narrow s.p.a.ce. Not one man was wounded, he thought. Not one man has so much as a scratch. This was a very lucky hunt. Our totems must be pleased with us.

"We must let the spirits know we are grateful," he announced to the men. "When we return, Mog-ur will hold a very special ceremony. For now, we will take the liver-each man will have his piece and we will bring back a piece for Zoug and Dorv and Mog-ur. The rest will be given to the Spirit of the Mammoth, it is what Mog-ur told me to do. We will bury it here where she fell, and the liver of the young mammoth inside her, too. And Mog-ur said we are not to touch the brain, that must be left where it is for the Spirit to keep. Who struck the first blow, Broud or Goov?"

"Broud did," Goov responded.

"Then Broud will get the first piece of liver, but the kill is credited to all."

Broud and Goov were sent to bring the women. In one burst of energy, the men's job was completed. Now it was up to the women. To them fell the tedious task of butchering and preserving. The men remaining behind eviscerated the huge mammoth while they waited for them and removed the nearly full-term fetus. After the women arrived, the men helped them skin the animal. It was so large, it took the effort of all. Selected favorite parts were cut out and stored in stone caches, to freeze. Fires were built around the rest, partly to keep it from freezing and partly to keep away the inevitable scavengers drawn to the smell of blood and raw meat.

The tired but happy hunting party sank gratefully into their beds of warm furs after their first meal of fresh meat since leaving the cave. In the morning, while the men gathered together to relive the exciting hunt and admire each other's bravery, the women went to work. There was a stream close by but enough of a distance from the canyon that it presented a minor inconvenience. Once they had the carca.s.s divided into large haunches, they moved closer to the stream, leaving most of the bones with bits of meat still clinging to them to the prowling and flying scavengers, but little else.

The clan used nearly every part of the animal. The tough mammoth hide could be made into foot coverings-st.u.r.dier and longer lasting than the skin of other animals-windbreaks for the mouth of the cave, cooking pots, st.u.r.dy thongs for lashings, outdoor shelters. The soft undercoat of downy hair could be beaten into a kind of felt material, used for stuffing pillows or pallets for beds, even as absorbent filling for babies' swaddling. The long hair was twisted into st.u.r.dy cord, the tendons into strands of sinew; bladders, stomach, intestines could be used as water containers, soup pots, food storage, even waterproof rainwear. Little was wasted.

Not only were meat and other parts used, the fat was particularly essential. It made up the balance of necessary calories to fuel their energy requirements, which included metabolic warmth in winter as well as vigorous activity during warmer seasons; it was used as a dressing to cure hides, since many of the animals they killed-deer, horses, range-grazing aurochs and bison, rabbits, and birds-were essentially lean; it supplied fuel for stone lamps that added an element of warmth as well as light; it was used for waterproofing and as a medium for salves, unguents, and emollients; it could be used to help start fires in wet wood, for long-burning torches, even as fuel to cook with in the absence of other fuels. The uses for fat were many.

Every day, while the women worked, they watched the sky. If the weather was clear, the meat would dry in about seven days aided by the winds which blew continually. There was no need for smoky fires-it was too cold for blowflies to spoil the meat-and it was just as well. Fuel was far more scarce on the steppes than on the wooded hillsides of their cave or even the warmer southern steppes which supported more trees. With intermittent clouds, overcast sky, or precipitation, it might take up to three times as long for the thin strips of meat to dry. The light powdery snow whipped about by the gusting winds was not a major problem; only if the weather turned unseasonably warm and wet would the work be halted. They hoped for dry, clear, cold weather. The only way the mountains of flesh could be hauled back to the cave was if it was dried before they left.

The heavy, s.h.a.ggy skin with its thick layer of fat and connective blood vessels, nerves, and follicles was sc.r.a.ped clean. Thick slabs of the cold-hardened fat were placed in a large skin pot set over a fire and the rendered fat poured into sections of the cleaned intestines and tied off like large fat sausages. The hide, with the hair left on, was cut into manageable sections and tightly rolled, then allowed to freeze hard for the return trip. Later in the winter, back at the cave, it would be dehaired and cured. The tusks were broken off and proudly displayed at the campsite. They, too, would be carried back.

During the days while the women worked, the men hunted smaller game or kept watch in a desultory fashion. Moving closer to the stream had eliminated one inconvenience, but there was another, harder to remedy. The scavengers drawn to the fresh kill followed the hunting party to their new location. The strips of meat draped over lines of cords and thongs had to be constantly watched. One huge spotted hyena was more than persistent. It had been driven off many times, but it continued to lurk on the fringes of the camp, eluding the halfhearted efforts of the men to kill it. The fierce-looking creature was just crafty enough to s.n.a.t.c.h a mouthful of drying mammoth meat several times a day. It was a nuisance.

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.