"I think your he he is a is a she she, Oga, and probably has a nest somewhere nearby. I'd guess she has several hungry babies that must be getting pretty big by now."

"That's all we need! A bunch of them." Angry words punctuated her gestures. "Zoug and Dorv took Vorn with them early this morning. I wish they'd gone hunting for that wolverine instead of hamsters and ptarmigan down below. Gluttons are good for nothing!"

"They're good for something, Oga. Their fur doesn't frost up from your breath in winter. Their pelts make good hats and hoods."

"I wish that one were a pelt!"

Ayla started back to the hearth. There was really nothing she had to do then, and Iza did say she was running low on a few things. Ayla decided to go out and find the wolverine's nest. She smiled to herself and quickened her step, and shortly afterward left the cave with her basket, heading into the forest not far from the place where the animal had gone.

Scanning the ground, she spied the print of a claw with long sharp nails in the dust; a little farther on, a bent stem. Ayla started trailing the creature. In a few moments, she heard scuttling sounds, surprisingly close to the cave. She moved ahead softly, hardly disturbing a leaf, and caught sight of the wolverine with four half-grown young, snarling and bickering over the strip of stolen meat. Carefully, she withdrew her sling from a fold of her wrap and fitted a stone into the bulging pocket.

She waited, watching for a chance at a clean shot. A stray shift in the wind brought a strange scent to the wily glutton. She looked up, sniffing the air, alerted to possible danger. It was the moment Ayla was waiting for. Quickly, even as the animal caught the movement, she hurled the stone. The wolverine slumped to the ground as the four young bounded off, startled by the bouncing rock.

She stepped out of the concealing brush and stooped to examine the scavenger. The bearlike weasel was about three feet long from its nose to the tip of its bushy tail, with coa.r.s.e, long, blackish brown fur. Wolverines were intrepid, sc.r.a.ppy scavengers, fierce enough to drive away predators larger than themselves from their kills, fearless enough to steal drying meat or anything portable they could carry off, and wily enough to break into storage caches. They had musk glands that left behind a skunklike odor and were a bane to the clan even worse than the hyena, who was as much predator as scavenger and didn't depend for his survival on the kills of others.

The stone from Ayla's sling had landed above the eye, just where she aimed. This is one wolverine that won't steal from us anymore, Ayla thought, filled with a glow of satisfaction that verged on exultation. It was her first kill. I think I'll give the pelt to Oga, she thought, reaching for her knife to skin the animal. Won't she be glad to know it won't bother us anymore. The girl stopped.

What am I thinking of? I can't give Olga this pelt. I can't give it to anyone, I can't even keep it. I'm not supposed to hunt. If anyone found out I killed this wolverine, I don't know what they'd do. Ayla sat down beside the dead glutton, pulling her fingers through its long coa.r.s.e coat. Her elation was gone.

She had made her first kill. Maybe it wasn't a great bison killed with a heavy sharp spear, but it was more than Vorn's porcupine. There would be no celebration marking her entrance into the ranks of the hunters, no feast held in her honor, not even the looks of praise and congratulations Vorn received when he proudly showed off his small game. If she returned to the cave with the wolverine, all she could expect would be shocked looks and severe punishment. It mattered little that she wanted to help the clan or that she was able to hunt and showed promise of doing well. Women did not hunt, women did not kill animals. Men did.

She heaved a sigh. I knew it, I knew it all along, she said to herself. Even before I started to hunt, before I ever picked up that sling, I knew I wasn't supposed to. The bravest of the young gluttons came out of its hiding place, tentatively sniffing at the dead animal. Those young ones are going to give us as much trouble as their mother, Ayla thought. They're close enough to full grown that a couple of them will survive. I'd better get rid of this carca.s.s. If I drag it far away, the young will probably follow her scent. Ayla got up and began to haul the dead wolverine by its tail deeper into the woods. Then she started looking for plants to gather.

The wolverine was only the first of the smaller predators and scavengers to fall to her sling. Martens, minks, ferrets, otters, weasels, badgers, ermines, foxes, and the small, gray-and-black tabby-striped wildcats became fair game for her swift stones. She didn't realize it, but Ayla's decision to hunt predators had one important effect. It speeded up her learning process and honed her skill far more than hunting the gentler herbivorous animals would have. Carnivores were faster, more crafty, more intelligent, and more dangerous.

She quickly surpa.s.sed Vorn with her chosen weapon. It wasn't only that he tended to look upon the sling as an old man's weapon and lacked the determination to master it, it was more difficult for him. He didn't have her physical build with its free-swinging arm movement better adapted to throwing. Her full leverage and practiced hand-and-eye coordination gave her speed, force, and accuracy. She no longer compared herself with Vorn; in her mind it was Zoug whose ability she challenged, and the girl was fast approaching the old hunter's skill. Too fast. She was getting overconfident.

Summer was nearing its end with its full charge of crackling heat and a b.u.mper crop of lightning-singed thunderstorms. The day was hot, unbearably hot. Not the hint of a breeze stirred the still air. The previous evening's storm, with its fantastic displays of arcing flashes illuminating the mountain crests and with hail the size of small stones, had sent the clan scurrying into the cave. The damp forest, normally cool from the shade of the trees, was humid and stifling. Flies and mosquitoes droned interminably around the slimy ooze of the drying creek's backwater, trapped by lowered water levels into stagnant ponds and algae-coated puddles.

Ayla was following the spoor of a red fox, moving silently through the woods near the edge of a small glade. She was hot and sweaty, not especially interested in the fox, and thinking about giving it up and going back to the cave to take a swim in the stream. Walking across the seldom-exposed rocky bed, she stopped for a drink where the creek still ran freely between two large boulders that forced the meandering trickle into an ankle-deep pool.

She stood up and, as she looked straight ahead, caught her breath in her throat. Ayla stared apprehensively at the distinctive head and tufted ears of a lynx crouched on the rock just in front of her. He was eyeing her warily, his short tail whipping back and forth.

Smaller than most large felines, the long-bodied, short-legged Pardel lynx, like his northern cousin of later years, was capable of fifteen-foot standing leaps. He subsisted mainly on hares, rabbits, large squirrels, and other rodents, but could bring down a small deer if he felt so inclined; and an eight-year-old girl was easily within his range. But it was hot, and humans were not his normal prey. He would probably have let the girl go on her way.

Ayla's first tingle of fear was replaced by a chill of excitement as she watched the unmoving cat watching her. Didn't Zoug tell Vorn a lynx could be killed with a sling? He said not to try for anything larger, but he did say a stone from a sling could kill a wolf or hyena or lynx. I remember him saying lynx lynx, she thought. She had not hunted the medium-sized predators, but she wanted to be the best sling-hunter in the clan. If Zoug could kill a lynx, she could kill a lynx, and here, right in front of her, was the perfect target. On impulse, she decided the time had come for larger game.

She reached slowly into the fold of her short summer wrap, never taking her eyes off the cat, and felt for her largest stone. Her palms were sweaty, but she gripped the two ends of the leather strap together tighter while she put the stone in the pocket. Then, quickly, before she lost her nerve, she aimed for a spot just between his eyes and flung the stone. But the lynx caught the motion as she raised her arm. He turned his head as she hurled. The rock grazed the side of his head, causing a sharp pain at the point-blank range, but little more.

Before Ayla could think of reaching for another stone, she saw the cat's muscles bunch under him. It was with sheer reflex that she threw herself to the side as the annoyed lynx leaped for his attacker. She landed in the mud near the creek and her hand fell on a stout driftwood branch, churned clean of leaves and twigs by its journey downstream, water-logged and heavy. Ayla clutched it and rolled over just as the angry lynx with fangs bared pounced again. Swinging wildly, with all the strength fear poured into her, she struck a solid blow, knocking his head aside. The stunned lynx rolled over, crouched for a moment shaking his head, then moved silently into the forest. He'd had enough hurting blows to his head.

Ayla was shaking as she sat up, breathing hard. Her knees felt like water when she went to retrieve her sling and she had to sit down again. Zoug had never imagined that anyone would attempt to hunt a dangerous predator with just a sling, with no other hunter or even another weapon as backup. But Ayla hardly ever missed her targets anymore, she had become too sure of her skill, she didn't think about what might happen if she missed. She was in such a state of shock as she walked back to the cave, she almost forgot to get her collecting basket from the place she had hidden it before deciding to track the fox.

"Ayla! What happened to you? You're all muddy!" Iza motioned when she saw her. The girl's face was ashen, something must have scared her.

Ayla didn't answer, she just shook her head and went into the cave. Iza knew there was something the girl didn't want to tell her. She thought of pressing her further, then changed her mind, hoping the child would tell her voluntarily. And Iza wasn't so sure she wanted to know.

It bothered the woman when Ayla went off by herself, but someone needed to gather her medicinal plants; they were necessary. She couldn't go, Uba was too young, and none of the other women knew what to look for or had any inclination to learn. She had to let Ayla go, but if the girl told her of some frightening incident, it would worry her all the more. She just wished Ayla wouldn't stay out so long.

Ayla was subdued that evening and went to bed early, but she couldn't sleep. She lay awake thinking about the incident with the lynx, and in her imagination it became even more frightening. It was early morning before she finally dozed off.

She woke up screaming!

"Ayla! Ayla!" She heard Iza call her name as the woman shook her gently to bring her back to reality. "What's wrong?"

"I dreamed I was in a little cave and a cave lion was after me. I'm all right now, Iza."

"You haven't had bad dreams for a long time, Ayla. Why should you have them now? Did something frighten you today?"

Ayla nodded and bowed her head but didn't explain. The dark of the cave lit only by the dim glow of red coals hid her guilty expression. She hadn't felt guilty about hunting since she found the sign from her totem. Now, she wondered if it really was a sign. Maybe she just thought it was. Maybe she wasn't supposed to hunt after all. Especially such dangerous animals. What ever made her think a girl should be trying to hunt lynxes?

"I never have liked the idea of your going out alone, Ayla. You're always gone so long. I know you like to get off by yourself sometimes, but it worries me. It's not natural for girls to want to be alone so much. The forest can be dangerous."

"You're right, Iza. The forest can be dangerous," Ayla motioned. "Maybe next time I can take Uba with me, or maybe Ika would like to go."

Iza was relieved to see that Ayla seemed to be taking her advice to heart. She hung around the cave, and when she did go out after medicinal plants, she returned quickly. When she couldn't get someone to go with her, she was nervous. She kept expecting to see a crouching animal ready to spring. She began to understand why women of the clan didn't like to go out alone to gather food, and why her eagerness to be off by herself always surprised them. When she was younger, she was just too innocent of the dangers. But it took only one attack, and most of the women had felt threatened at least once, to make her look upon her environment with more respect. Even a non-predator could be dangerous. Boars with sharp canines, horses with hard hooves, stags with heavy antlers, mountain goats and sheep with lethal horns, all of them could inflict serious damage if aroused. Ayla wondered how she ever dared to think about hunting. She was afraid to go again.

There was no one Ayla could talk to about it, no one to tell her a little fear sharpened the senses, especially when stalking dangerous game, no one to encourage her to go out again before the fear inhibited her. The men understood fear. They didn't talk about it, but every one of them had known it many times in their lives, beginning with their first major hunt that elevated them to men. Small animals were for practice, to gain skill with their weapons, but manhood status was not granted until they had known and overcome fear.

For a woman, her days spent alone away from the safety of the clan were no less a test of bravery, though more subtle. In some ways, it required more courage to face those days and nights alone, knowing that no matter what happened, she was on her own. From the time she was born, a girl always had other people around her, protecting her. But she had no weapons to bring to her own defense, and no weapon-bearing protective male to save her during her rites of pa.s.sage. Girls, as well as boys, did not become adults until they had faced and overcome fear.

For the first few days, Ayla had no desire to wander far from the cave, but after a while she became restless. In winter she had no choice and accepted her confinement to the cave with the rest, but she had grown accustomed to roaming freely when the weather was warm. Ambivalence tormented her. When she was alone in the forest away from the security of the clan, she was uneasy and apprehensive; when she was with the clan near the cave, she longed for the privacy and freedom of the forest.

One foraging expedition when she was out alone brought her close to her private retreat, and she climbed the rest of the way to the high meadow. The place had a soothing effect on her. It was her private world, her cave, her meadow, she felt possessive about the small herd of roe deer that frequently grazed there. They had become so tame, she could get close enough to almost touch one before it pranced out of range. The open field gave her a sense of security, lacking now in the dangerous woods that hid lurking beasts. She hadn't visited the place at all this season and memories came flooding back. This was where she first taught herself to use the sling, where she hit the porcupine, and where she had found the sign from her totem.

She had her sling with her-she didn't dare leave it in the cave for Iza to find-and after a while she picked up a few pebbles and made a few practice shots. But that was far too tame a sport to interest her for long now. Her mind went back to the incident with the lynx.

If only I'd had another stone in the sling, she thought. If I could have hit him right away, right after the stone that missed, I might have gotten him before he had a chance to jump. She had two pebbles in her hand and looked at them both. If there was only a way to throw one right after the other. Had Zoug ever said anything like that to Vorn? She racked her brain trying to remember. If he had, it must have been when I wasn't around, she decided. She pondered the idea. If I could get a second stone in the pocket on the downstroke after the first hurl, without stopping it, I could throw it on the next upstroke. I wonder if that would work?

She began making a few tries and felt as clumsy as she had the first time she tried to use a sling. Then she began to develop a rhythm: throw the first stone; catch the sling as it comes down, with the second stone ready; get it in the pocket while it is still moving; throw the second stone. The pebbles dropped often, and even after she began to lob them her accuracy on both shots suffered. But she was satisfied that it could be done. She returned every day after that to practice. She still felt uneasy about hunting, but the challenge of working out the new technique renewed her interest in the weapon.

By the time the forested hillsides were ablaze with the turning season, she was as accurate with two stones as she had been with one. Standing in the middle of the field hurling stones at a new post she had pounded into the ground, she felt a warm sense of accomplishment when a satisfactory thwack, thwack thwack, thwack told her both stones had hit the mark. No one told her it was impossible to rapid-fire two stones from a sling, because it had never been done before, and since no one told her she couldn't, she taught herself to do it. told her both stones had hit the mark. No one told her it was impossible to rapid-fire two stones from a sling, because it had never been done before, and since no one told her she couldn't, she taught herself to do it.

Early one warm day in late fall, nearly a year from the time she first made her decision to hunt, Ayla decided to climb to the high pasture to collect the mature hazelnuts that had fallen to the ground. As she drew near the top, she heard the whooping and cackling and snuffling of a hyena, and when she reached the meadow, she saw one of the ugly beasts half buried in the b.l.o.o.d.y entrails of an old roe deer.

It made her mad. How dare that noisome creature defile her her meadow, attack meadow, attack her her deer? She started to run toward the hyena to scare him off, then thought better of it. Hyenas were predators, too, with jaws strong enough to crack the large leg bones of grazing ungulates, and not easily chased from their own prey. She quickly shrugged off her basket and reached to the bottom of it for her sling. She scanned the ground for stones as she edged toward an outcrop near the rock wall. The old stag was half devoured, but her movement caught the attention of the scraggly spotted animal, nearly as large as the lynx. The hyena looked up, found her scent, and turned in her direction. deer? She started to run toward the hyena to scare him off, then thought better of it. Hyenas were predators, too, with jaws strong enough to crack the large leg bones of grazing ungulates, and not easily chased from their own prey. She quickly shrugged off her basket and reached to the bottom of it for her sling. She scanned the ground for stones as she edged toward an outcrop near the rock wall. The old stag was half devoured, but her movement caught the attention of the scraggly spotted animal, nearly as large as the lynx. The hyena looked up, found her scent, and turned in her direction.

She was ready. Stepping out from behind the outcrop, she hurled a missile, followed quickly by a second. She didn't know the second was unnecessary-the first had done the job-but it was good insurance. Ayla had learned her lesson. She had a third stone in her sling and a fourth in hand, prepared for a second series if it proved necessary. The cave hyena had crumpled on the spot and didn't move. She looked around to make sure there were no more nearby, then cautiously moved toward the beast, her sling ready. On her way, she picked up a leg bone, a few shreds of red meat still clinging to it and not yet broken. With a skull-cracking blow, Ayla made sure the hyena would not rise again.

She looked at the dead animal at her feet and let the club fall from her hand. Awareness of the implications of her deed came slowly. I killed a hyena, she said to herself as the impact hit her. I killed a hyena with my sling. Not a small animal, a hyena, an animal that could kill me. Does that mean I'm a hunter now? Really a hunter? It wasn't exultation she felt, not the excitement of a first kill or even the satisfaction of overcoming a powerful beast. It was something deeper, more humbling. It was the knowledge that she had overcome herself. It came as a spiritual revelation, a mystical insight; and with a reverence deeply felt, she spoke to the spirit of her totem in the ancient formal language of the Clan.

"I am only a girl, Great Cave Lion, and the ways of the spirits are strange to me. But I think I understand a little more now. The lynx was a test even more than Broud. Creb always said powerful totems are not easy to live with, but he never told me the greatest gifts they give are inside. He never told me how it feels when you finally understand. The test is not just something hard to do, the test is knowing you can do it. I am grateful you chose me, Great Cave Lion. I hope I will always be worthy of you."

As the brilliant polychrome autumn lost its l.u.s.ter and skeletal branches dropped withered leaves, Ayla returned to the forest. She tracked and studied the habits of the animals she chose to hunt, but she treated them with more respect, both as creatures and as dangerous adversaries. Many times, though she crept close enough to hurl a stone, she refrained and merely watched. She developed a stronger feeling that it was a waste to kill an animal who did not threaten the clan and whose pelt she could not use. But she was still determined to be the best sling-hunter in the clan; she didn't realize she already was. The only way she could continue to increase her skill was to hunt. And hunt she did.

The results were beginning to be noticed, and it made the men uneasy.

"I found another wolverine, or what was left of it, not far from the practice field," Crug motioned.

"And there were pieces of fur, looked like a wolf, over the ridge halfway down the hill," Goov added.

"It's always the meat eaters, the stronger animals, not female totems," Broud said. "Grod says we should talk to Mog-ur."

"Small and middle-sized ones, but not the big cats. Deer and horses, sheep and mountain goats, even boars are always hunted by the big cats and wolves and hyenas, but what's hunting the smaller hunters? I've never seen so many of them killed," Crug remarked.

"That's what I'd like to know, what's killing them? It's not that I mind a few less hyenas or wolves around, but if it's not us...Is Grod going to talk to Mog-ur? Do you think it could be a spirit?" The young man quelled a shudder.

"And if it is a spirit, is it a good spirit who is helping us or an evil spirit who is angry at our totems?" Goov asked.

"Leave it to you, Goov, to come up with a question like that. You're Mog-ur's acolyte, what do you think?" Crug returned.

"I think it will take deep meditation and consultation with the spirits to answer that question."

"You already sound like a mog-ur, Goov. Never give a direct answer," Broud quipped.

"Well, what's your answer, Broud?" the acolyte countered. "Can you give one any more direct? What's killing the animals?"

"I'm not a mog-ur, or even training to be one. Don't ask me."

Ayla was working nearby and repressed a desire to smile. So now I'm a spirit, but they can't figure out if I'm a good one or a bad one.

Mog-ur approached unnoticed, but he had seen the discussion. "I don't have an answer yet, Broud," the magician motioned. "It will take meditation. But I will say this, it is not the normal way of spirits."

Spirits, Mog-ur thought to himself, might make it too hot or too cold, or bring too much rain or snow, or drive herds away, or bring disease, or make thunder or lightning or earthquakes, but they don't usually cause the death of individual animals. This mystery has the feel of a human hand. Ayla got up and walked to the cave and the magician watched her go. There's something different about her, she has changed, Creb mused. He noticed Broud's eyes had followed her, too, and they were filled with frustrated malice. Broud's noticed the difference, too. Maybe it's just that she's not really Clan and walks differently, she is growing up. Something nagged at the edge of his mind that made Creb feel that wasn't the answer.

Ayla had changed. As her hunting skill grew, she developed an a.s.surance and sinewy grace unknown to Clan women. She had the silent walk of an experienced hunter, a tight muscular control of her young body, a confidence in her own reflexes, and a far-seeing look in her eye that clouded over imperceptibly whenever Broud began to hara.s.s her, as though she wasn't really seeing him. She jumped just as quickly to his commands, but her response lacked the edge of fear no matter how he cuffed her.

Her composure, her confidence, was far more intangible, but no less apparent to Broud, than the near-open rebellion of earlier times. It was as though she was condescending to obey him, as though she knew something he didn't. He watched her, trying to discern the subtle shift, trying to find something to punish her for, but it eluded him.

Broud didn't know how she did it, but every time he tried to a.s.sert his superiority, she made him feel below her, inferior to her. It frustrated him, infuriated him, but the more he kept after her, the less control he felt over her, and he hated her for it. But gradually, he found himself hara.s.sing her less, even staying away from her, only occasionally remembering to demonstrate his prerogatives. As the season came to an end, his hatred intensified. Someday he would break her, he vowed to himself. Someday he would make her pay for the wounds she inflicted on his self-esteem. Oh, yes, someday she would be sorry.

13*

Winter came, and with it the diminished activity they shared with all living things that followed the cycle of the seasons. Life still pulsed, but at a slower pace. For the first time, Ayla looked forward to the cold season. The rushed and active warm seasons allowed little time for Iza to continue training her. With the first snows, the medicine woman began her lessons again. The pattern of the clan's life repeated itself with only minor variations, and winter again drew to a close.

Spring was late, and wet. The melt from the highlands, abetted by heavy rains, swelled the stream to a surging turbulence overflowing its banks and sweeping along whole trees and brush in its headlong flight to the sea. A logjam downstream diverted its course, taking over part of the path the clan had made. A brief reprieve of warmth, just long enough to unfold tentative blossoms on fruit trees, was reversed by late spring hailstorms that ravaged the delicate blooms, dashing hopes of the promised harvest. Then, as though nature had a change of heart and wanted to make up for the offer of fruits withheld, the early summer crop produced vegetables, roots, squashes, and legumes in bountiful profusion.

The clan missed their accustomed spring visit to the seacoast for salmon, and everyone was pleased when Brun announced they would make the trip to fish for sturgeon and cod. Though members of the clan often walked the ten miles to the inland sea to gather molluscs and eggs from the mult.i.tude of birds that nested on the cliffs, catching the huge fish was one of the few clan activities that was a community effort of both men and women.

Droog had his own reason for wanting to go. The heavy spring runoff had washed down fresh nodules of flint from the chalk deposits of higher elevations and left them stranded on the floodplain. He had scouted the coast earlier and seen several alluvial deposits. The fishing trip would be a good opportunity to replenish their supply of tools with new ones of high-quality stone. It was easier to knap the flint at the site than to carry the heavy rocks back to the cave. Droog hadn't made tools for the clan for some time. They'd had to make do with their own rougher implements when the brittle stone of their favorite ones broke. They could all make usable tools, but few compared with Droog's.

A lighthearted spirit of holiday accompanied their preparations. It wasn't often that the entire clan left the cave at one time, and the novelty of camping on the beach was exciting, especially for the children. Brun planned for one or two of the men to make daily excursions back to make sure nothing was disturbed in their absence. Even Creb looked forward to the change of scene. He seldom wandered very far from the cave.

The women worked on the net, repairing weakened strands and making a new section from cords of fibrous vines, stringy barks, tough gra.s.ses, and long animal hairs to lengthen it. Although it was a strong, tough material, sinew was not used. As with leather, water made it hard and stiff and it didn't absorb the softening fat well.

The ma.s.sive sturgeon, often upward of twelve feet in length and weighing over a ton, migrated from the sea, where it spent most of the year, into freshwater streams and rivers to sp.a.w.n in early summer. The fleshy feelers on the underside of its toothless mouth gave the ancient, sharklike fish a fearsome appearance, but its diet consisted of invertebrates and small fish foraged from the bottom. The smaller cod, usually no more than twenty-five pounds, but ranging up to two hundred pounds and more, migrated seasonally northward into shallower water in summer. Although mostly a bottom feeder, it sometimes swam near the surface and into freshwater outlets when migrating or chasing food.

For the fourteen days of the sturgeon's summer sp.a.w.ning, the mouths of the streams and rivers were full. Though the fish that chose the smaller waterways did not reach the size of the giants that churned their way up the great rivers, the sturgeon that found their way into the clan's net would be more than enough for them to beach. As the time for the migrations neared, Brun sent someone to the seacoast every day. The first of the mighty beluga sturgeon had just broached the stream when he gave the word. They would leave the next morning.

Ayla woke up full of excitement. She had her sleeping fur tied into a bundle, food and cooking gear packed in her collecting basket, and the large hide that would be used as a shelter loaded on top even before breakfast. Iza never left the cave without her medicine bag, and she was still packing it when Ayla ran outside the cave to see if they were ready to leave.

"Hurry, Iza," she encouraged, running back in. "We're almost ready to go."

"Settle down, child. The sea isn't going anywhere," Iza replied after she pulled the drawstring tight.

Ayla lifted the collecting basket to her back and picked up Uba. Iza followed, then turned to look back, trying to remember if she had forgotten anything. She always felt as though she was forgetting something when she left the cave. Well, Ayla can come back for it, if it's important, she thought. Most of the clan were outside and shortly after Iza fell into her proper place, Brun gave the signal to start. They had barely gotten under way when Uba squirmed to get down.

"Uba not baby! Want to walk myself," she motioned with childish dignity. At three and a half, Uba had begun to emulate the adults and older children and to reject the pampering that infants and babies received. She was growing up. In something close to four years, she would likely be a woman. She had much to learn in four short years, and through an inner sense of her rapid maturation she was beginning to prepare herself for the added responsibilities that would be hers so soon.

"All right, Uba," Ayla motioned as she let her down. "But stay close behind me."

They followed the stream down the side of the mountain, working around its altered course along a new path that had already been formed near the logjam. It was an easy hike-though the trip back would take more exertion-and before noon they reached a broad stretch of beach. They set up temporary shelters well back from encroaching tides using driftwood and brush for supports. Fires were started and the net rechecked. They would begin fishing the next morning. After camp was set up, Ayla wandered toward the sea.

"I'm going in the water, mother," she motioned.

"Why do you always want to go in the water, Ayla? It's dangerous, and you always go out so far."

"It's wonderful, Iza. I'll be careful."

It was always the same, when Ayla went swimming, Iza worried. Ayla was the only one who liked to swim; she was the only one who could. The large heavy bones of Clan people made swimming difficult. They didn't float easily and had a great fear of deep water. They waded into the water to catch fish, but they never liked to go in deeper than waist level. It made them uneasy. Ayla's predilection for swimming was considered one of her peculiarities. It was not the only one.

By the time Ayla reached her ninth year, she was taller than any of the women and as big as some of the men, but she still showed no signs of approaching womanhood. Iza sometimes wondered if she would ever stop growing. Her height and lateness in blooming led to speculation in some quarters that her strong male totem would prevent her from blossoming altogether. They wondered if she would live out her life as a sort of neutered female, neither a man nor fully a woman.

Creb limped up to Iza as she was watching Ayla walk toward the sh.o.r.e. Her tough lean body, flat wiry muscles, and long coltish legs made her seem awkward and clumsy, but her supple movement belied her ungainly-seeming gawkiness. Though she tried to mimic the Clan women's subservient scramble, she lacked their short, bowed legs. No matter how she minced her steps, her longer legs took longer, almost masculine strides.

But it wasn't only her long legs that made her different. Ayla radiated a self-confidence that no Clan woman ever felt. She was a hunter. No man of the clan was better than she with her weapon, and by now she knew it. She could not feign a submission to greater male superiority she did not feel. She lacked the commitment of genuine belief that was part of a Clan woman's appeal. In the eyes of the men, her tall, lanky body, devoid of any womanly attributes, and her unconscious att.i.tude of a.s.surance detracted from her already dubious beauty-Ayla was not only ugly, she was unfeminine.

"Creb," Iza gestured. "Aba and Aga say she will never become a woman. They say her totem is too strong."

"Of course she will become a woman, Iza. Don't you think the Others have young? Just because she was accepted into the clan doesn't change who she is. It's probably normal for their women to mature later. Even some Clan girls don't become women until their tenth year. You'd think people would give her at least that long before they start imagining some abnormality. It's ridiculous!" he snorted in annoyance.

Iza was pacified but still wished her adopted daughter would start to show some signs of womanliness. She saw Ayla wade into the water up to her waist, then kick off and head out to sea with long clean strokes.

The girl loved the freedom and buoyancy of the salty water. She never remembered learning how to swim, it just seemed she always knew. The underwater shelf of the coastline dropped off abruptly after a few more feet; she knew when she pa.s.sed the place by the deeper hue and colder water. She flipped over on her back and floated lazily for a while rocked by the motion of the waves. Sputtering from a briny mouthful splashed on her face, she rolled over and turned back to the beach. The tide was going out and she had drifted into the outflowing stream. The force of the combined currents made swimming back harder. She exerted herself and soon regained her footing, then waded back to sh.o.r.e. Rinsing off in the fresh water of the stream, she could feel the swift current pushing against her legs and the unstable sandy bottom crumble beneath her feet. She flopped down near the fire outside their shelter, tired but feeling refreshed.

After they ate, Ayla stared dreamily into the distance wondering what lay beyond the water. Squawking, squealing seabirds swooped and wheeled and dived above the booming surf. White, weathered old bones of once-living trees, sculpted into twisted contours, relieved the flat sands, and the wide expanse of blue gray water glinted in the long rays of the setting sun. The scene had a vacant, surreal, otherworld feeling to it. The contorted driftwood became grotesque silhouettes, then faded into the darkness of the moonless night.

Iza put Uba down in the shelter, then returned to sit beside Ayla and Creb near the small fire that sent wisps of smoke to the star-splattered sky.

"What are they, Creb?" Ayla signaled quietly, motioning upward.

"Fires in the sky. Each one is the hearth of someone's spirit in the otherworld."

"Are there so many people?"

"They are the fires of all the people who have gone to the world of the spirits, and all the people not yet born. They are the fires of totems' spirits, too, but most totems have more than one. See those over there?" Creb pointed. "That is the home of Great Ursus himself. And see those?" He pointed in another direction. "They are the fires of your totem, Ayla, the Cave Lion."