The Mammoth Hunters

When Mamut turned from the entrance, Nezzie hoisted a carrying basket to her back and adjusted the tumpline across her forehead, picked up Rydag and settled him on her ample hip to carry him up the slope, then, herding Rugie, Tusie, and Brinan ahead of her, started up to the steppes. The others followed suit, and soon the other half of the Camp was hiking across the open grasslands for a day of work harvesting the grains and seeds that had been sown and offered to them by the Great Mother Earth. The work and the contribution to their livelihood of the gatherers was counted no less valuable than the work of the hunters, but neither was only work. Companionship and sharing made the work fun.

Ayla and Latie splashed through one shallow creek, but Ayla slowed the horse before they came to the next somewhat larger watercourse.

"Is this stream we follow?" Ayla asked.

"I don't think so," Latie said, then consulted the marks on the piece of ivory. "No. See here, that's the little one we crossed. We cross this one, too. Turn and follow the next one upstream."

"Not look deep here. Is good place to cross?"

Latie looked up and down the stream. "There's a better place up a ways. We only have to take off boots and roll up leggings there."

They headed upstream, but when they reached the wide shallow crossing where water foamed around jutting rocks, Ayla didn't stop. She turned Whi

"We didn't even get wet!" the girl exclaimed. "Only a few splashes."

When they reached the next stream and turned east, Ayla slowed the pace for a while to give Whi

They followed their branch of the stream and noticed that it angled off toward the outcrops, and when they approached the first, saw that the watercourse flowed between them. Some distance after they passed the outcrops that flanked the stream, Ayla noticed several dark shaggy bison grazing on still green sedge and reeds near the water. She pointed, and whispered in Latie's ear.

"Don't talk loud. Look."

"There they are!" Latie said in a muffled squeal, trying to keep her excitement under control.

Ayla turned her head back and forth, then wet a finger and held it up, testing the wind direction. "Wind blows to us from bison. Good. Do not want to disturb until ready to hunt. Bison know horses. On Whi

Ayla guided the horse, carefully skirting the animals, to check farther upstream, and when she was satisfied, came back the same way. A big old cow lifted her head and eyed them, chewing her cud. The tip of her left horn was broken off. The woman slowed and let Whi

The hunting party was just beyond the first small creek when Jondalar noticed Racer pulling against his halter toward a cloud of dust moving in their direction. He tapped Talut and pointed. The headman looked ahead and saw Ayla and Latie galloping toward them on Whi

"Couldn't you find it?" Talut asked, voicing the concern everyone felt. One other person mentioned it at almost the same time, but in a different tone.

"Couldn't even find it. I didn't think ru

Latie responded to him with surprised anger. "What do you mean, 'couldn't even find it'? We found the place. We even saw the bison!"

"Are you trying to say you have already been there and back?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Where are the bison now?" Wymez asked the daughter of his sister, ignoring Frebec and blunting his snide remark.

Latie marched to the basket pa

"The south fork goes between two outcrops, here," she said. Wymez and Talut sat down beside her and nodded agreement, while Ayla and several others stood behind and around her. "The bison were on the other side of the outcrops, where the floodplain opens out and there is still some green feed near the water. I saw four little ones…" She cut four short parallel marks as she spoke.

"I think, five," Ayla corrected.

Latie looked up at Ayla, and nodded, then added one more short mark. "You were right, Danug, about the twins. And they're young ones. And seven cows." She looked up at Ayla again for confirmation. The woman nodded agreement, and Latie added seven more parallel lines, slightly longer than the first ones. "…only four with young, I think." She pondered a moment. "There were more, farther off."

"Five young males," Ayla added. "And two, three others. Not sure. Maybe more we not see."

Latie made five slightly larger lines, somewhat apart from the first ones, then added three more lines, between the two sets, making them a bit smaller again. She cut a little Y tick in the last mark in the line to indicate she was done, that that was the full number of bison they had counted. Her counting marks had cut over some of the other marks that had been etched into the ivory earlier, but it didn't matter. They had already served their purpose.

Talut took the ivory flake from Latie and studied it. Then he looked at Ayla. "You didn't happen to notice which way they were heading, did you?"

"Upstream, I think. We go around herd, careful, not disturb. No tracks other side, grass not chewed," Ayla said.

Talut nodded and paused, obviously thinking. "You said you went around them. Did you go far upstream?"

"Yes."

"The way I remember it, the floodplain narrows until it disappears, and high rocks close in the stream, and there is no way out. Is that right?"

"Yes… but, maybe way out."

"A way out?"

"Before high rocks, side is steep, trees, thick brush with thorns, but near rocks is dry streambed. Like steep path. Is way out, I think," she said.

Talut frowned, looked at Wymez, and Tulie, then laughed out loud. "The way out is also the way in! That's what Mamut said!"

Wymez looked puzzled for only a moment, then he slowly gri

"Of course! We can go in that way, build a surround to trap them, then go around the other way and drive them into it," Tulie said, making it clear to everyone else as well. "Someone will have to watch and make sure they don't get wind of us and go back downstream while we're building it."