"Hooves are hard, but they're not like stone. More like fingernails. They can be damaged. Jondalar, they can't go on. They'll be so crippled in another day that they won't be able to walk at all," Ayla said. "We've got to help them."
"But what can we do?" Jondalar said.
"Well, I still have my medicine bag. I can treat their injuries."
"But we can't stay here until they're healed. And as soon as they start walking again, it will be just as bad." The man stopped and closed his eyes. He didn't even want to think what he was thinking, much less say it, but he could see only one way out of their dilemma. "Ayla, we're going to have to leave them," the man said, as gently as he could.
"Leave them? What do you mean, 'leave them'? We can't leave Whinney, or Racer. Where would they find water? Or food? There's nothing to graze on the ice, not even twig tips. They'd starve, or freeze. We can't do that!" Ayla said, her face showing her distress. "We can't leave them here like that! We can't, Jondalar!"
"You're right, we can't leave them here like that. It wouldn't be fair. They would suffer too much… but… we do have spears and the spear-throwers…"Jondalar said.
"No! No!" Ayla screamed. "I won't let you!"
"It would be better than leaving them here to die slowly, to suffer. It's not like horses haven't been… hunted before. That's what most people do."
"But these aren't like other horses. Whinney and Racer are friends. We've been through so much together. They've helped us. Whinney saved my life. I can't leave her."
"I don't want to leave them any more than you do," Jondalar said, "but what else can we do?" The idea of killing the stallion after traveling so far together was almost more than he could bear, and he knew how Ayla felt about Whinney.
"We'll go back. We'll just have to turn back. You said there was another way around!"
"We've already traveled two days on this ice, and the horses are almost crippled. We can try to go back, Ayla, but I don't think they will make it," Jondalar said. He wasn't even sure if Wolf would be able to make it. Guilt and remorse filled him. "I'm sorry, Ayla. It's my fault. It was stupid of me to think we could cross this glacier with the horses. We should have gone the long way around, but I'm afraid it's too late now."
Ayla saw tears in his eyes. She had not often seen him in tears. Though it was not so unusual for men of the Others to cry, it was his nature to hide those emotions. In a way, it made his love for her more intense. He had given of himself, almost completely, only to her, and she loved him for it, but she could not give up Whinney. The horse was her friend; the only friend she had had in the valley, until Jondalar came.
"We've got to do something, Jondalar!" she sobbed.
"But what?" He had never felt so desolate, so totally frustrated at his inability to find some solution.
"Well, for now," Ayla said, wiping her eyes, her tears freezing on her face, "I'm going to treat their injuries. I can do that much, anyway." She got out her otter-skin medicine bag. "We'll have to make a good fire, hot enough to boil water, not just melt ice."
She took the mammoth hide off the brown burning stones and spread it out on the ice. She noticed some scorch marks on the supple leather, but they hadn't damaged the tough old hide. She put the river rocks on a different spot, but near the middle, as a base upon which to build a fire. At least they didn't have to worry about conserving fuel any more. They could leave most of it behind.
She didn't talk, she couldn't, and Jondalar had nothing to say either. It seemed impossible. All the thought, planning, and preparation that had gone into the trek across this glacier, only to be stopped by something they hadn't even considered. Ayla stared at the small fire. Wolf crawled up to her and whined, not in pain, but because he knew something was wrong. Ayla checked his paws again. They weren't as bad. He had more control over where he put his feet, and he carefully licked off snow and ice when they stopped to rest. She didn't want to think about losing him, either.
She hadn't consciously thought of Durc for some time, though he was always there, a memory, a cold pain that she would never forget. She found herself musing about him. Has he started to hunt with the clan, yet? Has he learned to use a sling? Uba would be a good mother to him, she would take care of him, make his food, make him warm winter clothes.
Ayla shivered, thinking about the cold, then thought about the first winter clothes Iza had made for her. She had loved the rabbit skin hat with the fur worn on the inside. The winter foot-coverings had fur inside too. She recalled stomping around in a pair of new ones, and she remembered how the simple foot-coverings were made. It was just a piece of hide, gathered up and tied at the ankle. They conformed to the shape of the foot after a while, though at first they were rather clumsy, but that was part of the fun of new ones.
Ayla kept staring at the fire, watching the water start to simmer. Something was nagging her. Something important, she was sure. Something about…
Suddenly she drew in her breath. "Jondalar! Oh, Jondalar!"
She seemed agitated to him. "What's the matter, Ayla?"
"It's not what's wrong, it's what's right," she cried. "I just remembered something!"
He thought she was acting strangely. "I don't understand," he said. He wondered if the thought of losing her two horses was too much for her. She pulled at the heavy tarp of mammoth hide under the fire, knocking a hot coal directly onto the leather.
"Give me a knife, Jondalar. Your sharpest knife."
"My knife?" he said.
"Yes, your knife," she said. "I'm going to make boots for the horses!"
"You're going to do what?"
"I'm going to make boots for the horses, and Wolf, too. Out of this mammoth hide!"
"How do you make horse boots?"
"I'll cut circles out of the mammoth leather, then cut holes around the edges, thread some cord through, and tie it around the horses' ankles. If mammoth hide can keep our feet from getting cut up by the ice, it's bound to protect theirs," Ayla explained.
Jondalar thought for a moment, visualizing what she described; then he smiled. "Ayla! I think it will work. By the Great Mother, I think it will work! What a wonderful idea! Whatever made you think of it?"
"That's the way Iza made boots for me. That's how the people of the Clan make foot-coverings. Hand-coverings, too. I'm trying to remember if that's the kind Guban and Yorga wore. It's hard to tell, because after a while they shape to your feet."
"Will that hide be enough?"
"It should be. While I've got the fire going, I'll finish preparing this remedy for the cuts, and maybe some hot tea for us. We haven't had any for a couple of days, and we probably won't again until we get down off this ice. We're going to have to conserve fuel, but I think a cup of hot tea would taste very good right now."
"I think you're right!" Jondalar agreed, smiling again and feeling good.
Ayla very carefully examined each hoof on both horses, trimmed away the rough places, applied her medication, then tied the mammoth-hide horse boots on them. They tried to shake off the strange foot-coverings at first, but they were tied on securely, and the horses quickly got used to them. Then she took the set she had made for Wolf and tied them on. He chewed and gnawed at them, trying to get rid of the unfamiliar encumbrances, but after a while he stopped fighting them, too. His oversize wolf feet were in much better shape.
The next morning they loaded a slightly lighter pack on the horses; they had burned some of the brown coal, and the heavy mammoth hide was now on their feet. Ayla unloaded them when they stopped for a rest, and she took on a little more of the load herself. But she couldn't begin to carry what the sturdy horses could. In spite of traveling, their hooves and feet seemed much improved by that night. Wolf's seemed perfectly normal, which was a great relief for both Ayla and Jondalar. The boots provided an unexpected benefit: they acted as a kind of snowshoe when there was deep snow, and the large, heavy animals didn't sink in as far.