I should start drying greens. And lichen. And mushrooms. And roots. I won't have to dry all the roots, some will keep for a long time in the back of the cave. Should I get more pigweed seeds? They're so small, it never seems like much. Grain is worth the effort, though, and some seed heads in the meadow are ripe. I'll get cherries and grain today, but I'm going to need more storage baskets. Maybe I can make some containers out of birchbark. Wish I had some rawhide to make those big cases.
There always seemed to be extra skins around for rawhide when I lived with the clan. Now I'd be happy if I had one more warm fur for winter. Rabbits and hamsters aren't big enough to make a good fur wrap, and they're so lean. If I could hunt a mammoth, I'd have plenty of fat, even enough for lamps. And nothing is as good and rich as mammoth meat. Wonder if that trout is done yet? She moved aside a limp leaf and poked at the fish with a stick. Just a little more.
It would be nice to have a little salt, but there's no sea around here. Coltsfoot tastes salty, and other herbs can add flavor. Iza could make anything taste good. Maybe I'll go out on the steppes and see if I can find some ptarmigan, and then make it the way Creb always liked it.
She felt a lump in her throat thinking about Iza and Creb, and shook her head as though she were trying to stop the thoughts, or at least the impending tears.
I need a drying rack for herbs and teas, and medicines, too. I could get sick. I can chop down some trees for posts, but I need fresh thongs to bind them together. Then, when they dry and shrink, it'll hold. With all the deadfall and driftwood, I don't think I'll have to cut down trees for firewood, and there will be dung from the horses. It burns well when it's dry. I'll start bringing wood up to the cave today, and I should make some tools soon. It's lucky I found flint. That fish must be done.
Ayla ate the trout straight off the bed of hot rocks on which it had cooked, and she thought about looking through the pile of bones and driftwood for some flat pieces of wood or bone to use for plates; pelvic or shoulder bones worked well. She emptied her small waterbag into her cooking bowl and wished she had the waterproof stomach of a larger animal to make a more capacious waterbag for the cave. She added hot stones from the fire to start the water in her cooking bowl heating, then sprinkled some dried rosehips from her medicine bag into the steaming water. She used rosehips as a remedy for minor colds, but they also made a pleasant tea.
The arduous task of collecting, processing, and storing the abundance of the valley was no deterrent; rather, she looked forward to it. It would keep her busy; she wouldn't have time to think about being lonely. She only had to preserve enough for herself, but there were no extra hands to make the task go faster, and she worried whether there was enough of the season left to lay in an adequate supply. Something else bothered her, too.
Sipping tea while she finished the basket, Ayla considered the requirements she would need to survive the long cold winter. I should have another fur for my bed this winter, she was thinking. And meat, of course. What about fat? I should have some in winter. I could make birchbark containers much faster than baskets, if only I had some hooves, bones, and hide scraps to boil for glue. And where will I get a large waterbag? Thongs to bind the posts for a drying rack? I could use sinew, and intestines for storing the fat, and…
Her rapidly moving fingers stopped. She stared into space as though seeing the vision of a revelation. I could get all that from one large animal! Just one is all I'd need to kill. But how?
She finished the small basket and put it inside her collecting basket, which she tied to her back. She put her tools in the folds of her wrap, picked up her digging stick and sling, and headed for the meadow. She found the wild cherry tree, picked as many as she could reach, then climbed up to get more. She ate her share, too; even overripe, they were tart-sweet.
When she climbed down, she decided to get cherry bark for coughs. With her hand-axe, she chopped away a section of the tough outer bark, then scraped off the inner cambium layer with a knife. It reminded her of the time when she was a girl and had gone to collect wild cherry bark for Iza. She had spied on the men practicing with their weapons in the field. She knew it was wrong, but she was afraid they might see her leaving, end she became intrigued when old Zoug began teaching the boy to use a sling.
She knew women weren't supposed to touch weapons, but when they left the sling behind, she couldn't resist. She wanted to try it, too. Would I be alive today if I hadn't picked up that sling? Would Broud have hated me so much if I hadn't learned to use it? Maybe he wouldn't have made me leave if he didn't hate me so much. But if he hadn't hated me, he wouldn't have enjoyed forcing me, and maybe Durc would not have been born.
Maybe! Maybe! Maybe! she thought angrily. What's the sense of thinking about what might have been? I'm here now, and that sling isn't going to help me hunt a big animal. For that I need a spear!
She picked her way through a stand of young aspen to get a drink and wash the sticky cherry juice off her hands. There was something about the tall, straight young trees that made her stop. She grasped the trunk of one; then it struck her. This would work! This would make a spear.
She quailed for a moment. Brun would be furious, she thought. When he allowed me to hunt, he told me I must never hunt with anything but a sling. He'd…
What would he do? What could he do? What more can any of them do to me, even if they knew? I'm dead. I'm already dead. There's no one here except me.
Then, like a cord pulled so taut it breaks from the strain, something inside her snapped. She fell to her knees. Oh, how I wish there were someone here besides me. Someone. Anyone. I'd even be glad to see Broud. I'd never touch a sling again if he'd let me go back, if he'd let me see Durc again. Kneeling at the base of the slender aspen, Ayla buried her face in her hands, heaving and choking.
Her sobs fell on indifferent ears. The small creatures of meadow and woodland only avoided the stranger in their midst and her incomprehensible sounds. There was no one else to hear, no one to understand. While she had been traveling, she had nursed the hope of finding people, people like herself. Now that she had decided to stop, she had to put that hope aside, accept her solitude, and learn to live with it. The gnawing worry of survival, alone, in an unknown place through a winter of unknown severity, added to the strain. The crying relieved the tension.
When she got up, she was shaking, but she took out her hand-axe and hacked angrily at the base of the young aspen, then attacked a second sapling. I've watched the men make spears often enough, she said to herself as she stripped off the branches. It didn't look that hard. She dragged the poles to the field and left them while she gathered seed heads of einkorn wheat and rye for the rest of the afternoon, then dragged them back to the cave.
She spent the early evening stripping bark and smoothing shafts, stopping only to cook herself some grain to have with the rest of her fish, and to spread the cherries out to dry. By the time it was dark, she was ready for the next step. She took the shafts into her cave, and, remembering how the men had done it, she measured off a length on one somewhat taller than herself and marked it. Then she put the marked section in the fire, turning the shaft to char it all around. With a notched scraper, she shaved away the blackened section and continued to char and scrape until the upper piece broke off. More charring and scraping brought it to a sharp, fire-hardened point. Then she started on the next one.
When she finished, it was late. She was tired, and glad of it. It would bring sleep more easily. Nights were the worst time. Ayla bunked her fire, walked to the opening, gazed out at the star-spattered sky, and tried to think of some reason to delay going to bed. She had dug a shallow trench, filled it with dry grass, and covered it with her fur. She walked toward it with slow steps. She lowered herself onto it and stared at the faint glow of the fire, listening to the silence.