Yet, hunting with her sling had increased her chances when she lived alone in the valley, and gave her the incentive and encouragement to expand on her ability. Ayla had survived because the skills she had learned as a woman of the Clan, and her own intelligence and courage, gave her the ability to take care of herself. But hunting had come to symbolize for her more than the security of depending on and being responsible for herself; it stood for the independence and freedom that were the natural result. She would not easily give it up.
"Ayla, why don't you get your spear-thrower, too," Jondalar said, then turned back to Talut. "I've got more power, but Ayla is more accurate than I am, she can show you what this can do better than I can. In fact, if you want to see a demonstration of accuracy, you ought to see her with a sling. I think her skill with it gives her an advantage with these."
Ayla let out her breath – she didn't know she had been holding it – and went to get her spear-thrower and spears while Jondalar was talking to Talut. It was still hard to believe how easily this man of the Others had accepted her desire and ability to hunt, and how naturally he spoke in praise of her skill. He seemed to assume that Talut and the Lion Camp would accept her hunting, too. She glanced at Deegie, wondering how a woman would feel.
"You ought to let Mother know if you are going to try a new weapon on the hunt, Talut. You know she'll want to see it, too," Deegie said. "I might as well get my spears and packboards out now. And a tent, we'll probably be gone overnight."
After breakfast, Talut motioned to Wymez and squatted down by an area of soft dirt near one of the smaller fireplaces in the cooking hearth, well lit by light coming in through the smoke hole. Stuck in the ground near the edge was an implement made from a leg bone of a deer. It was shaped like a knife or a tapered dagger, with a straight dull edge leading from the knee joint to a point. Holding it by the knob of the joint, Talut smoothed the dirt with the flat edge, then, shifting it, began to draw marks and lines on the level surface with the point. Several people gathered around.
"Wymez said he saw the bison not far from the three large outcrops to the northeast, near the tributary of the small river that empties upstream," the headman began, explaining as he drew a rough map of the region with the drawing knife.
Talut's map wasn't so much an approximate visual reproduction as a schematic drawing. It wasn't necessary to accurately depict the location. The people of the Lion Camp were familiar with their region and his drawing was no more than a mnemonic aid to remind them of a place they knew. It consisted of conventionalized marks and lines that represented landmarks or ideas that were understood.
His map did not show the route which the water took across the land; their perspective was not from such a bird's-eye view. He drew herringbone zigzag lines to indicate the river, and attached them to both sides of a straight line, to show a tributary. At the ground level of their open flat landscape, rivers were bodies of water, which sometimes joined.
They knew where the rivers came from and where they led, and that rivers could be followed to certain destinations, but so could other landmarks, and a rock outcrop was less likely to change. In a land that was so close to a glacier, yet subject to the seasonal changes of lower latitudes, ice and permafrost – ground that was permanently frozen – caused drastic alterations of the landscape. Except for the largest of them, the deluge of glacial runoff could change the course of a river from one season to the next as easily as the ice hill pingos of winter melted into the bogs of summer. The mammoth hunters conceived of their physical terrain as an interrelated whole in which rivers were only an element.
Neither did Talut conceive of drawing lines to scale to show the length of a river or trail in miles or paces. Such linear measures had little meaning. They understood distance not in terms of how far away a place was but how long it would take to get there, and that was better shown by a series of lines telling the number of days, or some other markings of number or time. Even then, a place might be more distant for some people than for others, or the same place might be farther away at one season than another because it took longer to travel to it. The distance traveled by the entire Camp was measured by the length of time it took the slowest. Talut's map was perfectly clear to the members of the Lion Camp, but Ayla watched with puzzled fascination.
"Wymez, tell me where they were," Talut said.
"On the south side of the tributary," Wymez replied, taking the bone drawing knife and adding some additional lines. "It's rocky, with steep outcrops, but the floodplain is wide."
"If they keep going upstream, there are not many outlets along that side," Tulie said.
"Mamut, what do you think?" Talut asked. "You said they haven't wandered far off."
The old shaman picked up the drawing knife, and paused for a moment with his eyes closed. "There is a stream that comes in, between the second and last outcrop," he said as he drew. "They will likely move that way, thinking it will lead out."
"I know the place!" Talut said. "If you follow it upstream, the floodplain narrows and then is hemmed in by steep rock. It's a good place to trap them. How many are there?"
Wymez took the drawing tool and drew several lines along the edge, hesitated, then added one more. "I saw that many, that I can say for certain," he said, stabbing the bone drawing knife in the dirt.
Tulie picked up the marking bone and added three more. "I saw those straggling behind, one seemed quite young, or perhaps it was weak."
Danug picked up the marker and added one more line. "It was a twin, I think. I saw another straggling. Did you see two, Deegie?"
"I don't recall."
"She only had eyes for Branag," Wymez said, with a gentle smile.
"That place is about half a day from here, isn't it?" Talut asked.
Wymez nodded. "Half a day, at a good pace."
"We should start out right away then." The headman paused, thoughtfully. "It's been some time since I've been there. I'd like to know the lay of the land. I wonder…"
"Someone willing to run could get there faster and scout it, then meet us on the way back," Tulie said, guessing what her brother was thinking.
"That's a long run…" Talut said, and glanced at Danug. The tall, gangly youth was about to speak up, but Ayla spoke first.
"That is not long run for horse. Horse runs fast. I could go on Whinney… but I do not know place," she said.
Talut looked surprised at first, then smiled broadly. "I could give you a map! Like this one," he said, pointing at the drawing on the ground. He looked around and spied a cast-off flake of broken ivory near the bone fuel pile, then pulled out his sharp flint knife. "Look, you go north until you reach the big stream." He began incising zigzag lines to indicate water. "There is a smaller one you have to cross first. Don't let it confuse you."
Ayla frowned. "I do not understand map," she said. "I not see map before."
Talut looked disappointed, and dropped the ivory scrap back on the pile.