Free Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel Page A

Only Ranec and I made it across, and one bundle of her belongings.” He paused for a moment before he continued the story. “We were still far from home, and it took a long time, but we finally arrived here, during a Summer Meeting.”
    “How long were you gone?” Jondalar asked.
    “Ten years,” Wymez said, then smiled. “We created quite a stir. No one expected to see me again, much less with Ranec. Nezzie didn’t even recognize me, but my little sister was only a girl when I left. She and Talut had just completed their Matrimonial and were setting up the Lion Camp with Tulie and both of her mates, and their children. They invited me to join them. Nezzie adopted Ranec, though he is still theson of my hearth, and took care of him as though he were her own, even after Danug was born.”
    When he stopped talking, it took a moment to realize he was through. Everyone wanted to hear more. Even though most of them had heard many of his adventures, he always seemed to have new stories or new twists to old stories.
    “I think Nezzie would be everyone’s mother, if she could,” Tulie said, recalling the time of his return. “I had Deegie at the breast then, and Nezzie couldn’t get enough of playing with her.”
    “She does more than mother me!” Talut said, with a playful grin as he patted her broad backside. He had gotten another waterbag of the powerful drink and was passing it on after taking a swallow.
    “Talut! I’ll do more than mother you, all right!” She was trying to sound angry, but stifling a smile.
    “Is that a promise?” he countered.
    “You know what I meant, Talut,” Tulie said, brushing aside the rather obvious innuendos between her brother and his woman. “She couldn’t even let Rydag go. He’s so sickly, he’d have been better off.”
    Ayla’s eye was drawn to the child. Tulie’s comment had bothered him. Her words had not been intentionally unkind, but Ayla knew he didn’t like being spoken of as though he wasn’t there. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, though. He couldn’t tell her how he felt, and without thinking, she assumed that because he couldn’t speak, he didn’t feel.
    Ayla wanted to ask about the child, too, but felt it might be presumptuous. Jondalar did it for her, though it was to satisfy his own curiosity.
    “Nezzie, would you tell us about Rydag? I think Ayla would be particularly interested—and so would I.”
    Nezzie leaned over and took the child from Latie, and held him on her lap while she gathered her thoughts.
    “We were out after megaceros, you know, the giant deer with the great antlers,” she began, “and planned to build a surround to drive them into—that’s the best way to hunt the big-antlered ones. When I first noticed the woman hiding near our hunting camp, I thought it was strange. You seldom see flathead women, and never alone.”
    Ayla was leaning close, listening intently.
    “She didn’t run away when she saw me looking at her,either, only when I tried to get closer. Then I saw she was pregnant. I thought she might be hungry, so I left some food out near the place she was hiding. In the morning it was gone, so I left more before we broke camp.
    “I thought I saw her the next day a few times, but I wasn’t sure. Then that night, when I was by the fire nursing Rugie, I saw her again. I got up and tried to get closer to her. She ran away again, but she moved like she was in pain, and I realized she was in labor. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help, but she kept running away, and it was getting dark. I told Talut, and he got some people together to go after her.”
    “That was strange, too,” Talut said, adding his part to Nezzie’s story. “I thought we’d have to circle around and trap her, but when I yelled at her to stop, she just sat on the ground and waited. She didn’t seem too frightened of me, and when I beckoned to her to come, she got right up and followed behind me, like she knew what to do and