The Mammoth Hunters

22

Two sets of hooves pounded in unison across the hard ground. Ayla crouched low over the mare's withers, squinting into a wind burning cold on her face. She rode lightly, the controlling interplay of tension in her knees and hips in perfect accord with the powerful, striving muscles of the galloping horse. She noticed a change in the rhythm of the other hoofbeats, and glanced at Racer. He had pulled ahead but, showing unmistakable signs of tiring, he was falling back. She brought Whinney to a gradual stop, and the young stallion halted, as well. Enveloped in clouds of steam from their hard breathing, the horses hung their heads. Both animals were tired, but it had been a good run.

Sitting upright and bouncing easily in rhythm with the horse's gait, Ayla headed back toward the river at a comfortable pace, enjoying the opportunity to be outside. It was cold, but beautiful, with the glare of an incandescent sun made brighter by sparkling ice and the white of a recent blizzard.

As soon as Ayla had stepped outside the earthlodge that morning, she decided to take the horses for a long run. The air itself enticed her out. It seemed lighter, as though an oppressive burden had been lifted. She thought the cold was not as intense, though nothing was visibly changed. The ice was just as frozen, the tiny pellets of wind-driven snow just as hard.

Ayla had no absolute means of knowing that the temperature had risen and the wind blew with less force, but she had detected subtle differences. Though it might have been interpreted as intuition, a feeling, it was in reality an acute sensitivity. To people who lived in climates of extreme cold, conditions even a little less severe were noticeable, and often greeted with exuberant good feelings. It wasn't yet spring, but the relentless grip of the deep grinding cold had eased, and the slight but noticeable warming brought with it the promise that life would stir again.

She smiled when the young stallion pranced ahead, his neck arched proudly and his tail held out. She still thought of Racer as the baby she had helped deliver, but he wasn't a baby any more. Though still not filled out completely, he was bigger than his dam, and he was a racer. He loved to run, and he was fast, but there was a difference in the running patterns of the two horses. Racer was invariably faster than his dam in a short run, easily outdistancing her at the start, but Whinney had more endurance. She could run hard longer, and if they went on for any distance, she inevitably caught up and surged ahead of him.

Ayla dismounted, but stopped momentarily before pushing aside the drape and entering the earthlodge. She'd often used the horses as an excuse to get away, and on that morning she had been particularly relieved that the weather felt right for a long run. As happy as she was to have found people again, and to be accepted as one of them and included in their activities, she needed to be alone occasionally. It was especially true when uncertainties and unresolved misunderstandings heightened tensions.

Fralie had been spending much of her time at the Mammoth Hearth with the young people, to Frebec's growing annoyance. Ayla had been hearing arguments from the Crane Hearth, or rather, harangues by Frebec complaining of Fralie's absence. She knew he didn't like Fralie to associate too closely with her, and was sure the pregnant woman would stay away more to keep the peace. It bothered Ayla, particularly since Fralie had just confided that she had been passing blood. She had warned the woman that she could lose the baby if she didn't rest, and promised her some medicine, but now it would be more difficult to treat her with Frebec hovering disapprovingly.

Added to that was her growing confusion about Jondalar and Ranec. Jondalar had been distant, but recently he seemed more like himself. A few days before, Mamut had asked him to come and talk to him about a particular tool he had in mind, but the shaman had been busy all day, and only found time to discuss his project in the evening, when the young people usually gathered at the Mammoth Hearth. Though they sat quietly off to the side, the laughter and usual banter were easily overheard.

Ranec was more attentive than ever, and had been pressing Ayla lately, in the guise of teasing and joking, to come to his bed again. She still found it difficult to refuse him outright; acquiescence to a man's wishes had been too thoroughly ingrained in her to overcome easily. She laughed at his jokes – she was understanding humor more all the time, even the serious intent it sometimes masked – but skillfully evaded his implied invitation, to a chorus of laughter at Ranec's expense. He laughed as well, enjoying her wit, and she felt attracted to his easy friendliness. He was comfortable to be with.

Mamut noticed that Jondalar smiled, too, and nodded his head approvingly. The flint knapper had avoided the gathering of young people, only watching the friendly joking from a distance, and the laughter had only increased his jealousy. He didn't know that it was often sparked by Ayla's refusals of Ranec's offers, though Mamut did.

The next day, Jondalar smiled at her, for the first time in too long, Ayla thought, but she felt her breath catch in her throat and her heart speed up. During the next few days, he began coming back to the hearth earlier, not always waiting until she was asleep. Though she was reluctant to push herself on him still, and he seemed hesitant to approach her, she was beginning to hope that he was getting over whatever had been bothering him. Yet she was afraid to hope.

Ayla took a deep breath, then pulled back the heavy drape, and held it aside for the horses. After shaking out her parka and hanging it on a peg, she went inside. For a change, the Mammoth Hearth was nearly empty. Only Jondalar was there, talking to Mamut. She was pleased, but surprised to see him, and it made her realize how little she had seen of him lately. She smiled and hurried toward them, but Jondalar's scowl pulled down the corners of her mouth. He did not seem very happy to see her.

"You've been gone all morning, alone!" he blurted. "Don't you know it's dangerous to go out alone? You worry people. Soon someone would have had to go looking for you." He didn't say he had been the one who was worried, or that he was the one who was considering going out to look for her.

Ayla backed off at his vehemence. "I was not alone. I was with Whinney and Racer. I took them for a run. They needed it."

"Well, you shouldn't have gone out like that when it's so cold. It is dangerous to go out alone," he said, rather lamely, glancing at Mamut, hoping for support.

"I said I was not alone. I was with Whinney and Racer, and it is nice out, sunny, not as cold." She was flustered by his anger, not realizing that it masked a fear for her safety that was almost unbearable. "I have been out alone in winter before, Jondalar. Who do you think went out with me when I lived in the valley?"

She's right, he thought. She knows how to take care of herself. I shouldn't keep trying to tell her when and where she can go. Mamut did not seem overly concerned when he had asked where Ayla was, and she is the daughter of his hearth. He should have paid more attention to the old shaman, Jondalar thought, feeling foolish, as though he had made a scene over nothing.

"Uh… well… maybe I should go look at the horses," he mumbled, backing away and hurrying toward the annex.

Ayla watched him go, wondering if he thought she wasn't looking after them. She was confused and upset. It seemed impossible to understand him at all.

Mamut was watching her closely. Her hurt and distress were plain to see. Why was it that the people who were involved found it so hard to understand their own problems? He was inclined to confront them and force them to see what seemed obvious to everyone else, but he resisted. He had already done as much as he felt he should. He had sensed from the beginning an undercurrent of tension in the Zelandonii man, and was convinced that the problem was not as obvious as it seemed. It was best to let them work it out for themselves. They would all learn more from the experience if left to find their own solutions. But he could encourage Ayla to talk to him about it or, at least, help her to discover her choices, and know her own wishes and potential.

"Did you say it is not as cold out, Ayla?" Mamut asked.

It took a moment for the question to find its way through the maze of other pressing thoughts that worried her. "What? Oh… yes. I think so. It doesn't really feel warmer, it just doesn't seem as cold."

"I was wondering when She would break the back of winter," Mamut said. "I thought it should be getting close."

"Break the back? I do not understand."

"It's just a saying, Ayla. Sit down, I'll tell you a winter story about the Great Bountiful Earth Mother who created all that lives," the old man said, smiling. Ayla sat beside him on a mat near the fire.

"In a great struggle, the Earth Mother took a life force from Chaos, which is a cold and unmoving emptiness, like death, and from it She created life and warmth, but She must always fight for the life She created. When the cold season is coming on, we know the struggle has begun between the Bountiful Earth Mother who wants to bring forth warm life, and cold death of Chaos, but first She must care for Her children."

Ayla was warming to the story, now, and smiled encouragingly. "What does She do to care for Her children?"

"Some She puts to sleep, some She dresses warmly to resist the cold, some She bids gather food and hide. As it gets colder and colder, death seems to be winning, the Mother is pushed back farther and farther. In the depths of the cold season, when the Mother is locked in the battle of life and death, nothing moves, nothing changes, everything seems to be dead. For us, without a warm place to live and the food that is stored, death would win in winter; sometimes, if the battle goes on longer than usual, it does. No one goes out much, then. People make things, or tell stories, or talk, but they don't move around much and they sleep more. That's why winter is called the little death.

"Finally, when the cold has pushed Her down as far as She will go, She resists. She pushes and pushes until She breaks the back of winter. It means spring will return but it is not spring, yet. She has had a long fight, and She must rest before She can bring forth life again. But you know She has won. You can smell it, you can feel it in the air."

"I did! I did feel it, Mamut! That's why I had to take the horses for a run. The Mother broke the back of winter!" Ayla exclaimed. The story seemed to explain exactly how she felt.

"I think it's time for a celebration, don't you?"

"Oh, yes. I think so!"

"Perhaps you would be willing to help me arrange it?" He waited only long enough for Ayla to nod. "Not everyone feels Her victory, yet, but they will soon. We can both watch for the signs, and then decide when the time is right."

"What signs?"

"As life begins to stir again, each person feels it in a different way. Some get happy and want to go outside, but it's still too cold to go out very much, so they get edgy, or irritated. They want to acknowledge the life stirrings within them, but there are many big storms yet to come. Winter knows all is lost and gets angriest at this time of year, and people feel it and get angry, too. I'm glad you have alerted me. Between now and spring, people will be more restless. I think you will notice it, Ayla. That's when a celebration is best. It gives people a reason to express happiness instead of anger."

I knew she would notice, Mamut thought, when he saw her frown. I have barely begun to feel the difference, and she has recognized it already. I knew she was gifted, but her abilities still astound me, and I'm sure I have not yet discovered her full range. I may never know; her potential could be far greater than mine. What did she say about that root, and the ceremony with the mog-urs? I'd like to get her prepared… the hunting ceremony with the Clan! It changed me, the effects were profound. It lives with me still. She, too, had an experience… could that have changed her? Enhanced her natural tendencies? I wonder… the Spring Festival, is it too soon to bring up the root again? Maybe I should wait until after she works with me on the Back Breaking Celebration… or the next one… there will be many between now and spring…

Deegie walked down the passageway toward the Mammoth Hearth carrying heavy outer wear.

"I was hoping I would find you, Ayla. I want to check those snares I set to see if I caught any white foxes to trim Branag's parka. Do you want to come with me?"

Ayla, just waking up, looked up at the partially uncovered smoke hole. "It does look nice out. Let me get dressed."

She pulled back the covers, sat up, stretched and yawned, then went to the curtained-off area near the horse annex. On her way, she passed by a platform bed on which a half-dozen children were sleeping, sprawled on top of each other in a heap, like a litter of wolf pups. She saw Rydag's large brown eyes open, and smiled at him. He closed them again, and snuggled down between the youngest, Nuvie, almost four years, and Rugie, who was approaching eight. Crisavec, Brinan, and Tusie were also in the pile, and lately, she had seen Fralie's youngest, Tasher, who was not yet three, beginning to take notice of the other youngsters. Latie, verging on womanhood, Ayla noticed, played with them less and less.

The children were benevolently spoiled. They could eat and sleep where and when they wanted. They seldom observed the territorial customs of their elders; the entire lodge was theirs. They could demand the attention of adult members of the Camp, and often found it was welcomed as an interesting diversion; no one was in any particular hurry or had anyplace to go. Wherever their interests led the children, an older member of the group was ready to assist or explain. If they wanted to sew skins together, they were given the tools, and scraps of leather, and strings of sinew. If they wanted to make stone tools, they were given pieces of flint, and stone or bone hammers.

They wrestled and tumbled, and invented games, which were often versions of adult activities. They made their own small hearths, and learned to use fire. They pretended to hunt, spearing pieces of meat from the cold storage chambers, and cooked it. When playing "hearths" extended to mimicking the copulating activities of their elders, the adults smiled indulgently. No part of normal living was singled out as something to be hidden or repressed; all of it was necessary instruction to becoming an adult. The only taboo was violence, particularly extreme or unnecessary violence.

Living so closely together, they had learned that nothing could destroy a Camp, or a people, like violence, particularly when they were confined to the earthlodge during the long, cold winters. Whether by accident or design, every custom, manner, convention, or practice, even if not overtly directed at it, was aimed at keeping violence to a minimum. Sanctioned conduct allowed a wide range of individual differences in activities that did not, as a rule, lead to violence, or that might be acceptable outlets for draining off strong emotions. Personal skills were fostered. Tolerance was encouraged; jealousy or envy, while understood, was discouraged. Competitions, including arguments, were actively used as alternatives, but were ritualized, strictly controlled, and kept within defined boundaries. The children quickly learned the basic rules. Yelling was acceptable; hitting was not.

As Ayla checked the large waterbag, she smiled again at the sleeping children, who had been up until late the night before. She enjoyed having children around again. "I should get snow before we leave. We are low on water, and it hasn't snowed for a while. Clean snow nearby is getting hard to find."

"Let's not take the time," Deegie said. "We have water at our hearth, and so does Nezzie. We can get more when we come back." She was putting on her warm winter outdoor clothes while Ayla was dressing. "I have a waterbag, and some food to take with us, so if you're not hungry, we can just go."

"I can wait for the food, but I need to make some hot tea," Ayla said. Deegie's eagerness to leave was infecting her. They were still just beginning to stir around outside the lodge, and spending some time alone just with Deegie seemed like fun.

"I think Nezzie has some hot tea, and I don't think she'd mind if we had a cup."

"She makes mint in the morning; I will just get something to add to it… something I like to drink in the morning. I think I will get my sling, too."

Nezzie insisted that the two young women eat some hot cooked grains as well, and gave them slices of meat from her roast of the night before to take along. Talut wanted to know which way they planned to go, and the general location of Deegie's snares. When they stepped outside the main entrance, the day had begun; the sun had risen above a bank of clouds on the horizon, and begun its journey across a clear sky. Ayla noticed the horses were already out. She didn't blame them.

Deegie showed Ayla the quick twist of the foot that turned the leather loop, attached to the elongated circular frame woven across with sturdy willow withes, into a convenient snowshoe hitch. With a little practice, Ayla was soon striding across the top of the snow alongside Deegie.

Jondalar watched them leaving from the entrance to the annex. With a frown, he looked at the sky and considered following them, then changed his mind. He saw a few clouds, but nothing to portend danger. Why was he always so worried about Ayla whenever she left the earthlodge? It was ridiculous for him to follow her around. She wasn't going out alone, Deegie was with her, and the two young women were perfectly able to take care of themselves… even if it did snow… or worse. They'd notice him following after a while, and then he'd just be in the way when they wanted to be off by themselves. He let the drape fall, and turned back inside, but he couldn't shake his feeling that Ayla might be in danger.

"Oh, look, Ayla!" Deegie cried, on her knees examining the frozen solid white-furred carcass dangling from a noose pulled tight around its neck. "I set other traps. Let's hurry and check them."

Ayla wanted to stay and examine the snare, but she followed after Deegie. "What are you going to do with it?" she asked when she caught up.

"It depends on how many I get. I wanted to make a fringe on a fur parka for Branag, but I'm making him a tunic, too, a red one – not as bright as your red. It will have long sleeves and take two hides, and I'm trying to match the color of the second skin to the first. I think I'd like to decorate it with the fur and teeth of a winter fox. What do you think?"

"I think it will be beautiful." They shussed through the snow for a while, then Ayla said, "What do you think would be best for a white tunic?"

"It depends. Do you want other colors or do you want to keep it all white?"

"I think I want it to be white, but I'm not sure."

"White fox fur would be nice."

"I thought about that, but… I don't think it would be quite right," Ayla said. It wasn't so much the color that was bothering her. She remembered that she had selected white fox furs to give to Ranec at her adoption ceremony, and didn't want any reminders about that time.

The second snare had been sprung, but it was empty. The sinew noose had been bitten through, and there were wolf tracks. The third had also caught a fox, and it had apparently frozen hard in the snare, but it had been gnawed at, most of it was eaten, in fact, and the fur was useless. Again Ayla pointed out wolf tracks.

"I seem to be trapping foxes for wolves," Deegie said.

"It looks like only one, Deegie," Ayla said.

Deegie was beginning to fear she would not get another good fur, even if one had been caught in her fourth snare. They hurried to the place where she had set it.

"It should be over there, near those bushes," she said as they approached a small wooded copse, "but I don't see…"

"There it is, Deegie!" Ayla shouted, hurrying ahead. "It looks good, too. And look at that tail!"

"Perfect!" Deegie sighed with relief. "I wanted at least two." She untangled the frozen fox from the noose, tied it together with the first fox, and slung them over the branch of a tree. She was feeling more relaxed now that she had trapped her two foxes. "I'm hungry. Why don't we stop and have something to eat here?"

"I do feel hungry, now that you say it."

They were in a sparsely wooded glen, more brush than trees, formed by a creek that had cut through thick deposits of bess soil. A sense of bleak and weary exhaustion pervaded the small vale in the waning days of the long harsh winter. It was a drab place of blacks and whites and dreary grays. The snow cover, broken by the woody underbrush, was old and compacted, disturbed by many tracks, and seemed used and grimy. Broken branches exposing raw wood showed the ravages of wind, snow, and hungry animals. Willow and alder clung close to the earth, bent by the weight of climate and season to prostrate shrubs. A few scrawny birch trees stood tall and thin, scraping bare branches noisily together in the wind, as though clamoring for the fulfilling touch of green. Even the conifers had lost their color. The twisted pines, bark scabbed with patches of gray lichen, were faded, and the tall larches were dark and sagged heavily from their burden of snow.

Dominating one shallow slope was a mound of snow armed with long canes spiked with sharp thorns – the dry, woody stems of runners which had been sent out the previous summer to claim new territory. Ayla noted it in her mind, not as an impenetrable thicket of thorny briars, but as a place to look for berries and healing leaves in their proper season. She saw beyond the bleak, tired scene to the hope it held, and after the long confinement, even a winter-weary landscape looked promising, especially with the sun shining.

The two young women piled snow together to make seats on what would be the bank of a little stream if it were summer. Deegie opened her haversack and took out the food she had packed, and even more important, the water. She opened a birchbark packet and gave Ayla a compact cake of traveling food – the nutritious mixture of dried fruits and meat and energy-giving essential fat, shaped into a round patty.

"Mother made some of her steamed loaves with pine nuts last night and gave me one," Deegie said, opening another packet and breaking off a piece for Ayla. They had become a favorite of hers.

"I will have to ask Tulie how to make these," Ayla said, taking a bite before she unwrapped the slices of Nezzie's roast, and put some down beside each of them. "I think we are having a feast out here. All we need are some fresh spring greens."

"That would make it perfect. I can hardly wait for spring. Once we have the Back Breaking Celebration, it seems to get harder and harder to wait," Deegie replied.

Ayla was enjoying the companionable outing with just herself and Deegie, and was even beginning to feel warm in the shallow depression, protected from winds. She untied the thong at her throat and pushed back her hood, then straightened her sling around her head. She closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the sun. She saw the circular afterimage of the dazzling orb against the red background of her lowered eyelids, and felt the welcoming warmth. After she opened her eyes again, she seemed to see with greater clarity.

"Do people always wrestle at Back Breaking Celebrations?" Ayla asked. "I have never seen anyone wrestle without moving his feet before."

"Yes, it's to honor…"

"Look, Deegie! It is spring!" Ayla interrupted, jumping up and rushing toward a willow shrub nearby. When the other woman joined her, she pointed to the hint of swelling buds along a slender twig, and one, coming into season too early to survive, that had burst forth in bright spring green. The women smiled at each other in wonder, full of the discovery, as though they had invented spring themselves.

The sinew snare loop still dangled not far from the willow. Ayla held it up. "I think this is a very good way to hunt. You do not have to look for animals. You make a trap and come back later to get them, but how do you make it, and how do you know that you will catch a fox?"

"It's not hard to make. You know how sinew gets hard if you wet it and let it dry, just like leather that is not treated?"

Ayla nodded.

"You make a little loop at the end," Deegie continued, showing her the loop. "Then you take the other end and put it through to make another loop, just big enough for a fox's head to go through. Then you wet it, and let it dry with the loop open so it will stay open. Then you have to go where the foxes are, usually where you've seen them or caught them before. My mother showed me this place. Usually there are foxes here every year, you can tell if there are tracks. They often follow the same paths when they are near their dens. To set the snare, you find a fox trail, and where it goes through bushes or near trees, you set the loop right across the trail, at about the height of their heads, and fasten it, like this, here and here," Deegie demonstrated as she explained. Ayla watched, her forehead furrowed in concentration.

"When the fox runs along the trail, the head goes through the loop, and as he runs, it tightens the noose around his neck. The more the fox struggles, the tighter the noose gets. It doesn't take long. Then the only problem is finding the fox before something else does. Danug was telling me about the way people to the north have started setting snares. He says they bend down a young sapling and tie it to the noose so that it comes loose as soon as the animal is caught, and jerks it up when the tree springs back. That keeps the fox off the ground until you get back."

"I think that's a good idea," Ayla said, walking back toward their seats. She looked up, then suddenly, to Deegie's surprise, she whipped her sling off her head and was scanning the ground. "Where is a stone?" she whispered. "There!"

With a movement so swift Deegie could hardly follow, Ayla picked up the stone, set it in her sling, whipped it around and let fly. Deegie heard the stone land, but only when she got back to the seats did she see the object of Ayla's missile. It was a white ermine, a small weasel about fourteen inches long overall, but five of the inches was a white furry tail with a black tip. In summer the elongated, soft-furred animal would have a rich brown coat with a white underbelly, but in winter the sinuous little stoat turned pure silky white, except for its black nose, sharp little eyes, and the very tip of its tail.

"It was stealing our roast meat!" Ayla said.

"I didn't even see it next to that snow. You've got good eyes," Deegie said. "And you're so quick with that sling, I don't know why you need to worry about snares, Ayla."

"A sling is good for hunting when you see what you want to hunt, but a snare can hunt for you when you are not even there. Both are useful to know," Ayla replied, taking the question seriously.

They sat down to finish their meal. Ayla's hand kept returning to rub the soft thick fur of the little weasel as they talked. "Ermines have the nicest fur," she said.

"Most of those long weasels do," Deegie said. "Minks, sables, even wolverines have good fur. Not so soft, but the best for hoods, if you don't want frost clinging around your face. But it's hard to snare them, and you can't really hunt them with a spear. They're quick and vicious. Your sling seemed to work, though I still don't know how you did it."

"I learned to use the sling hunting those kinds of animals. I only hunted meat eaters in the beginning and learned their ways first."

"Why?" Deegie asked.

"I was not supposed to hunt at all, so I did not hunt any animals that were food, only those that stole food from us." She snorted a wry chuckle of realization. "I thought that would make it all right."

"Why didn't they want you to hunt?"

"Women of the Clan are forbidden to hunt… but they finally allowed me to use my sling." Ayla paused for an instant, remembering. "Do you know, I killed a wolverine long before I killed a rabbit?" She smiled at the irony.

Deegie shook her head in amazement. What a strange childhood Ayla must have had, she thought.

They got up to leave, and as Deegie went to get her foxes, Ayla picked up the soft, white little ermine. She rubbed her hand along the body all the way to the tip of the tail.

"That is what I want!" Ayla said, suddenly. "Ermine!"

"But that's what you have," Deegie said.

"No. I mean for the white tunic. I want to trim it with white ermine fur, and the tails. I like those tails with the little black tips."

"Where are you going to get enough ermine to decorate a tunic?" Deegie asked. "Spring is coming, they will be changing color again soon."

"I do not need very many, and where there is one, there are usually more nearby. I will hunt them. Now," Ayla said. "I need to find some good stones." She started pushing snow out of the way, looking for stones near the bank of the frozen creek.

"Now?" Deegie said.

Ayla stopped and looked up. She had almost forgotten Deegie's presence in her excitement. She could make tracking and stalking more difficult. "You do not have to wait for me, Deegie. Go back. I will find my way."

"Go back? I wouldn't miss this for anything."

"You can be very quiet?"

Deegie smiled. "I have hunted before, Ayla."

Ayla blushed, feeling she said the wrong thing. "I did not mean…"

"I know you didn't," Deegie said, then smiled. "I think I could learn some things from someone who killed a wolverine before she killed a rabbit. Wolverines are more vicious, mean, fearless, and spiteful than any animal alive, including hyenas. I've seen them drive leopards away from their own kills, they'll even stand up to a cave lion. I'll try to stay out of your way. If you think I'm scaring the ermine off, tell me, and I'll wait for you here. But don't ask me to go back."

Ayla smiled with relief, thinking how wonderful it was to have a friend who understood her so quickly. "Ermine are as bad as wolverines. They are just smaller, Deegie."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"We still have roast meat left. It might be useful, but first we must find tracks… after I get a good supply of stones."

When Ayla had accumulated a pile of satisfactory missiles and put them in a pouch, which was attached to her belt, she picked up her haversack, and slung it over her left shoulder. Then she stopped and studied the landscape, looking for the best place to begin. Deegie stood beside her and just a step behind, waiting for her to take the lead. Almost as though she was thinking out loud, Ayla began speaking to her in a quiet voice.

"Weasels do not make dens. They use whatever they find, even a rabbit's burrow – after they kill the rabbits. Sometimes I think they would not need a den, if they did not have young. They are always moving: hunting, running, climbing, standing up and looking, and they are always killing, day and night, even after they have just eaten, though they might leave it. They eat everything, squirrels, rabbits, birds, eggs, insects, even dead and rotten meat, but most meat they kill and eat fresh. They make stinky musk when they are cornered, not to squirt like a skunk, but smells as bad, and they make sound like this…" Ayla uttered a cry that was half-strangled scream and half-grunt. "In the season of their Pleasures, they whistle."

Deegie was utterly astonished. She had just learned more about weasels and ermine than she had learned in her entire life. She didn't even know they made a sound at all.

"They are good mothers, have many babies, two hands…"

Ayla stopped to think of the name of the counting word. "Ten, more sometimes. Other times, only few. Young stay with mother until almost grown." She stopped again to eye the landscape critically. "This time of year, litter might still be with mother. We look for track… I think near cane-brake." She started toward the mound of snow that covered, more or less, the tangled mass of stems and runners that had been growing from the same place for many years.

Deegie followed her, wondering how she could have learned so much, when Ayla wasn't much older than she was. Deegie had noticed that Ayla's speech had lapsed just slightly – it was the only sign of her excitement – but it made her realize how well Ayla did speak now. She seldom spoke fast, but her Mamutoi was close to perfect, except for the way she said certain sounds. Deegie thought she might never lose that speech mannerism, and rather hoped she wouldn't. It made her distinctive… and more human.

"Look for small tracks with five toes, sometimes only four show, they make the smallest tracks of any meat eater, and the back paws go in the same tracks that front feet paws were in."

Deegie hung back, not wanting to trample delicate spoor, watching. Ayla slowly and carefully scanned each area of the space around her with every step she took, the snow-covered ground and each fallen log, each twig on each bush, the slender boles of bare birches and the weighted boughs of dark-needled pines. Suddenly her eyes stopped their constant vigilance, stilled by a sight that caught her breath. She lowered her foot slowly while reaching into the haversack for a large piece of rare roast bison, and laid it on the ground in front of her. Then she backed off carefully, and reached into the pouch of stones.

Deegie looked beyond Ayla without moving, trying to see what she saw. Finally she noticed movement, and then focused on several small white shapes sinuously moving toward them. They raced with surprising speed though they were climbing over deadfall, up and down trees, through brush, in and around small pockets and cracks, and devouring everything they found in their path. Deegie had never taken the time to notice the small voracious carnivores before, and she watched in rapt fascination. They stood up occasionally, shiny black eyes alert, ears cocked for every sound, but drawn unerringly by scent to their hapless prey.

Squirming through nests of voles and mice, under tree roots for hibernating newts and frogs, and darting after small birds too chilled and hungry to flee, the ravaging horde of eight or ten small white weasels closed in. Heads weaving back and forth, black little beads of eyes eager, they pounced with deadly accuracy at the brain, the nape of the neck, the jugular vein. Striking without compunction, they were the most efficient, bloodthirsty killers of the animal world, and Deegie was suddenly very glad they were small. There seemed no reason for such wanton destruction but a lust to kill – except the need to keep a continuously active body fueled in the way they were intended and ordained by nature to do.

The ermine were drawn to the slab of rare meat, and without hesitation began to make short work of it. Suddenly there was confusion, hard-flung stones landed among the feeding weasels, striking some down, and the unmistakable scent of weasel musk choked the air. Deegie had been so absorbed in watching the animals she had missed Ayla's carefully controlled preparations and swift casts.

Then, out of nowhere, a large black animal bounded among the white weasels, and Ayla was stunned to hear a menacing growl. The wolf went after the slab of bison, but was held off by two bold and fearless ermine. Backing off only a bit, the black carnivore spied an ermine recently made harmless, and grabbed for it instead.

But Ayla was not about to let the black wolf steal her ermine; she had put in too much effort to get them. They were her kills and she wanted them for the white tunic. As the wolf was trotting away with the small white weasel in its mouth, Ayla went after it. Wolves were also meat eaters. She had studied them just as closely as weasels when she was teaching herself to use a sling. She understood them, too. She picked up a fallen branch as she ran after the animal. A single wolf usually gave way in the face of a determined charge and might drop the ermine.

If it had been a pack, or even just two wolves, she would not have tried such a reckless assault, but when the black wolf paused to reposition the ermine in its mouth, Ayla went after it with the branch, hauling back to give it a solid blow. She didn't think of the branch as much of a weapon, but she planned only to scare the wolf off, and startle it into dropping the small furry animal it held. But Ayla was the one who was startled. The wolf dropped the ermine at its feet, and with a mean and ugly snarl, sprang straight for her.

Her instant reaction was to throw the branch across her as a defense, to hold off the attacking wolf, and her quick surge of energy said run. But in the wooded copse, the cold and brittle branch broke as she pulled it around and hit a tree. She was left holding a rotten stump, but the broken end flew into the wolf's face. It was enough to hold it off. The wolf had been bluffing, too, and wasn't very eager to attack. Stopping to pick up the dead ermine, the wolf climbed out of the wooded glen.

Ayla was frightened, but angry, and in shock, too. She couldn't just let that ermine go like that. She chased after the wolf once more.

"Let it go!" Deegie shouted. "You've got enough! Let the wolf have it."

But Ayla didn't hear; she wasn't paying attention. The wolf was heading for open ground and she was close behind. Reaching for another stone, and finding only two left, Ayla ran after the wolf. Though she expected that the large carnivore would soon outdistance her, she had to give it one more try. She loaded a stone in her sling and hurled it after the fleeing canine. The second stone that followed soon afterward finished what the first had begun. Both found their mark.

She felt a sense of satisfaction when the wolf dropped. That was one animal that would not be stealing anything from her again. As she ran to get the ermine, she decided she might as well take the wolf pelt, too, but when Deegie found her, Ayla was sitting beside the dead black wolf, and the white ermine, and hadn't moved. The expression on her face gave Deegie cause for concern.

"What's wrong, Ayla?"

"I should have let her have it. I should have known she had a reason for going after that roast meat, even though the ermine wanted it. Wolves know how vicious weasels are, and usually a lone wolf will back down without attacking in an unfamiliar place. I should have let her have that ermine."

"I don't understand. You got your ermine back, and a black wolf pelt besides. What do you mean you should have let her have it?"

"Look," Ayla said, pointing to the black wolf's underbelly. "She's nursing. She's got pups."

"Isn't it early for wolves to whelp?" Deegie asked.

"Yes. She's out of season. And she's a loner. That is why she was having so much trouble finding enough to eat. And why she came for the roast meat, and wanted the ermine so much. Look at her ribs. The pups have been taking a lot out of her. She's hardly more than bones and fur. If she lived with a pack, they'd be helping her feed those pups, but if she lived with a pack, she would not have had pups. Only the female leader of a pack has pups, usually, and this wolf is the wrong color. Wolves get used to certain colors and marks. She's like that white wolf I used to watch when I was learning about them. They didn't like her either. She was always trying to make up to the female leader and the male leader, but they didn't want her around. After the pack got so big, she left. Maybe she got tired of no one liking her."

Ayla looked down at the black wolf. "Like this one did. Maybe that's why she wanted to have pups, because she was lonely. But she shouldn't have had them so early. I think this is the same black wolf I saw when we hunted bison, Deegie. She must have left her pack to look for a lone male to start her own pack, new packs get started that way. But it's always hard on the loners. Wolves like to hunt together, and they take care of each other. The male leader always helps the female leader with her pups. You should see them sometimes, they like to play with the babies. But where is her male? Did she ever find one? Did he die?"

Deegie was surprised to see that Ayla was fighting tears, over a dead wolf. "They all die some time, Ayla. We all go back to the Mother."

"I know, Deegie, but first she was different, and then she was alone. She should have had something while she lived, a mate, a pack to belong to, at least some babies."

Deegie thought she was beginning to understand why Ayla was feeling so strongly about a scrawny old black wolf. She was putting herself in the wolf's place. "She did have pups, Ayla."

"And now they are going to die, too. They don't have a pack. Not even a male leader. Without a mother, they will die." Suddenly Ayla jumped up. "I'm not going to let them die!"

"What do you mean? Where are you going?"

"I'm going to go find them. I'm going to track the black wolf back to her den."

"That could be dangerous. Maybe there are other wolves around. How can you be sure?"

"I'm sure, Deegie. I just have to look at her."

"Well, if I can't change your mind, I only have one thing to say, Ayla."

"What?"

"If you expect me to tramp all over the place chasing after wolf tracks with you, you can carry your own ermine," Deegie said, dumping out five white weasel carcasses from her haversack. "I've got enough to carry with my foxes!" Deegie was grinning with delight.

"Oh, Deegie," Ayla said, smiling back with warmth and affection. "You brought them!" The two young women hugged each other out of their fullness of love and friendship.

"One thing is certain, Ayla. Nothing is ever dull around you!" Deegie helped load Ayla's haversack with the ermine. "What are you going to do about the wolf? If we don't take her, something else will, and a black wolf pelt is not too common."

"I'd like to take her, but I want to find her pups, first."

"All right, I'll carry her," Deegie said, hoisting the limp carcass over her shoulder. "If we have time later, I'll skin it out." She started to ask one more question, then changed her mind. She'd find out soon enough exactly what Ayla planned to do if she found any wolf pups left alive.

They had to go back to the vale to pick up the correct set of tracks. The wolf had done a good job of covering her trail, knowing how precarious was the life she was leaving untended. Several times, Deegie was sure they'd lost it and she was a good tracker herself, but Ayla was motivated to persist until she found it again. By the time they had found the place that Ayla was sure was the den, the sun was showing late afternoon.

"I have to be honest, Ayla. I don't see any signs of life."

"That's the way it should be if they are alone. If there were signs of life, it would just invite trouble."

"You might be right, but if there are pups in there, how are you going to get them to come out?"

"I guess there is only one way. I'll have to go in after them."

"You can't do that, Ayla! It's one thing to watch wolves from a distance, but you can't go into their dens. What if there are more than pups? There could be another adult wolf around."

"Have you seen any other adult tracks besides the black's?"

"No, but I still don't like the idea of you going into a wolf's den."

"I haven't come this far to go away without finding out if there are any wolf pups around. I have to go in, Deegie."

Ayla put down her haversack and headed for the small dark hole in the ground. It was dug out of an old lair, abandoned long before because it was not the most favorable location, but it was the best the black wolf could find after her mate, an old lone wolf drawn to her too-early heat, died in a fight. Ayla got down on her belly, and started to wriggle in.

"Ayla, wait!" Deegie called. "Here, take my knife."

Ayla nodded, put the knife in her teeth, and started into the dark hole. It sloped downward at first, and the passage was narrow. Suddenly she found herself stuck and had to back out.

"We better go, Ayla. It's getting late, and if you can't get in, you can't get in."

"No," she said, pulling her parka off over her head. "I'll get in."

She shivered with the cold until she was inside the den, but it was a tight fit through the first tunnel section, where it sloped down. Near the bottom, where it leveled out, there was more room, but the den seemed deserted. With her own body still blocking the light, it took awhile for her eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, but it wasn't until she started to back out that she thought she heard a sound.

"Wolf, little wolf, are you here?" she called, then remembering the many times she had watched and listened to wolves, she voiced a pleading whine. Then she listened. A tiny soft whimper came from the deepest, dark recess of the den, and Ayla felt like shouting for joy.

She wormed her way closer to the sound, and whined again. The whimper was closer, and then she saw two shining eyes, but when she reached for the pup, he backed up and hissed a little snarl, and she felt sharp needle teeth bite her hand.

"Ow! You've got some fight in you," Ayla said, and then smiled; "some life in you, yet. Come on now, little wolf. It's going to be all right. Come on." She reached for the wolf pup again, making her pleading whine, and felt a fuzzy ball of fur. Getting a good hold, she pulled the pup, spitting and fighting all the way, toward her. Then she backed up out of the den.

"Look what I found, Deegie!" Ayla said, grinning triumphantly as she held up a little gray fuzzy wolf puppy.