Earth's Children 02 - The Valley Of Horses by Jean M. Auel

Author:Jean M. Auel
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

Spring followed close on the heels of a heavy snow. Flooding kept them all restricted, Whinney more than the others. Ayla could climb to the steppes above, and Baby could leap there with ease, but the slopes was too steep for the horse. The water finally receded, the beach and the bone pile had new contours again, and Whinney could finally go down the path to the meadow once more. But she was irritable.

Ayla first noticed something out of the ordinary when Baby yelped from an equine kick. The woman was surprised. Whinney had never been impatient with the young lion; perhaps a nip now and then to keep him in line, but certainly not enough to kick him. She thought the unusual behavior was a consequence of her enforced inactivity, but Baby tended to stay away from her place in the cave as he got older, sensitive of Whinney's territory, and Ayla wondered what had drawn him there. She went to see, then became conscious of a strong odor she'd been vaguely aware of all morning. Whinney was standing with her head down, her hind legs spread apart, and her tail held to the left. Her vaginal opening was swollen and pulsating. She looked up at Ayla and squealed.

The series of emotions that came over Ayla in quick succession pulled her to opposite extremes. First it was relief. So that's your problem. Ayla knew about estrus cycles in animals. In some, the time of pairing occurred more frequently, but for grazers, once a year was usual. This was the season when males often fought for the right to couple, and it was the one time when the males and females mingled, even those who normally hunted separately or herded in different groups.

Pairing season was one of those mysterious aspects of animal behavior that puzzled her, like deer dropping their antlers and growing new and bigger ones every year. The kinds of things that made Creb complain that she asked too many questions about, when she was younger. He didn't know why animals paired, either, though he had once volunteered that it was the time for the males to show their dominance over females, or perhaps, like people, the males had to relieve their needs.

Whinney had had a pairing season the previous spring, but at the time, though she heard a stallion neighing on the steppes above, Whinney couldn't get up to him. The young mare's need seemed stronger this time, too. Ayla didn't remember so much swelling and squealing. Whinney submitted to the young woman's pats and hugs; then the horse dropped her head and squealed again.

Suddenly, Ayla's stomach churned into a knot of anxiety. She leaned against the horse, the way Whinney sometimes did against her when she was upset or frightened. Whinney was going to leave her! It was so unexpected. Ayla hadn't had time to prepare for it, though she should have. She'd been thinking about Baby's future, and her own. Instead, Whinney's pairing season had come.

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