Earth's Children 2 - The Valley of Horses (v5.0) by Jean Auel

Author:Jean Auel
Language: eng
Format: epub

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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