The Valley of Horses by Jean M Auel

Author:Jean M Auel [Auel, Jean M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: bestseller
ISBN: 9781444713091
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2010-12-21T06:23:28+00:00

"Then I think I'll go back and sit with Jetamio."

When she left, he put the cup aside and lay down again. His nose was stuffed and his head ached. He couldn't exactly say what it was, but Serenio's answer disturbed him. He didn't want to think about it anymore -- it gave him another ache deep in the pit of his stomach. It must be this cold, he thought.

Spring ripened into summer, and the fruits of the earth with it. As they matured, the young woman gathered them. It was habit more than need. She could have spared herself the effort. She already had abundance; there was food left over from the preceding year. But Ayla had no use for leisure time. She had no way to fill it.

Even with the additional activity of winter hunting, she hadn't been able to keep herself busy enough, though she had cured the hide of nearly every animal they killed, sometimes making furs, other times dehairing to make leather. She had continued making baskets, mats, and carved bowls, and had accumulated enough tools, implements, and cave furnishings to satisfy a clan. She had looked forward to the summer's food-gathering activities.

She had also looked forward to summer hunting and discovered that the method she had developed with Baby -- with some adaptation to accommodate her lack of a horse -- was still effective. The lion's increasing skill made up the difference. If she had wished, she could have refrained from hunting. She not only had dried meat left over, but when Baby hunted alone successfully -- which was more often the case than not -- she didn't hesitate to take a share of his kill. There was a unique relationship between the woman and the lion. She was mother, and therefore dominant; she was hunting partner, and therefore equal; and he was all she had to love.

Watching the wild lions, Ayla made some astute observations about their hunting habits, which Baby confirmed. Cave lions were nocturnal stalkers during the warm season, diurnal during the winter. Although he shed in spring, Baby still had a thick coat, and during the heat of a summer day, it was too hot to hunt. The energy expended during the chase made him too warm. Baby wanted nothing more than to sleep, preferably in the cool dark recesses of the cave. In winter, when winds howled off the northern glacier, nighttime temperatures dropped to a cold that could kill, despite a new heavy coat. Then, cave lions were happy to curl up in a windless cave. They were carnivores and adaptable. Thickness and coloration of coat could adapt with the climate, hunting habits with conditions, as long as there was sufficient prey.

She made one decision the morning after Whinney left, when she awoke and found Baby sleeping beside her with the carcass of a dappled fawn -- the young of a giant deer. She would leave, there was no question in her mind about that, but not that summer. The young lion still needed her; he was too young to be left alone.

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