The Valley Of Horses_ A Novel Part 26

"If we keep going, we could probably find the Mamutoi Camp before dark."

"Thonolan, I don't think I can."

"How bad is it?" Thonolan asked. Jondalar lifted his tunic. A wound on his rib was discoloring around a gash that had no doubt bled, but had been closed off by water-swelled tissue. He noticed the hole punctured in the leather then, wondering if his rib was broken.

"I wouldn't mind a rest and a fire."

They looked around them at the wild expanse of swirling muddy water, s.h.i.+fting sandbars, and an unkempt profusion of vegetation. Tangled tree limbs attached to dead trunks were pulled by the current unwillingly toward the sea, digging in wherever they could find purchase in the fluctuating bottom. In the distance a few stands of greening brush and trees were anch.o.r.ed to some of the more stable islands.

Reeds and marsh gra.s.ses took hold anywhere they could root. Nearby, three-foot tussocks of sedge, whose clumps of sprawling gra.s.sy leaves looked st.u.r.dier than they were, matched in height by the straight sword-shaped leaves of sweetflag, grew between mats of spike rush that was barely an inch tall. In the marsh near the water's edge, ten-foot-tall scouring rushes, cattails, and bulrushes dwarfed the men. Soaring over all, stiff-leafed phragmite reeds with tops of purple plumes reached thirteen feet or more.

The men had only the clothes on their backs. They had lost everything when the boat went down, even the backframes they had traveled with from the beginning. Thonolan had adopted the dress of the Shamudoi, and Jondalar wore the Ramudoi variation, but after his dunking in the river when he met the flatheads, he had kept a pouch of tools tied to his belt. He was grateful for it now.

"I'm going to see if there are some old stalks on those Cattails that are dry enough for a fire drill," Jondalar said, trying to ignore the pain in his side. "See if you can find some dry wood."

The cattails provided more than an old-growth woody stalk for a fire drill. The long leaves woven around an alder-wood frame made a lean-to, which helped contain the heat from the fire. The green tops and young roots, baked in the coals along with the sweet rhizomes of the sweetflag and the underwater base of the bulrushes, supplied the beginning of a meal. A slender alder sapling, sharpened to a point and hurled with the accuracy of hunger, brought a couple of ducks to the fire as well. The men made flexible mats of the large, soft-stemmed bulrushes, then used them to extend the lean-to and to wrap around themselves while they dried their wet clothes. Later, they slept on the mats.

Jondalar did not sleep well. His side was sore and tender, and he knew there was something wrong inside, but he couldn't think of stopping now. They had to find their way to solid ground first.

In the morning, they seined fish out of the river with wide mesh baskets made of cattail leaves and alder branches and cords made of stringy bark. They rolled the fire-making materials and flexible baskets inside the sleeping mats, tied them with the cord, and slung them over their backs. Taking their spears, they started out. The spears were only pointed sticks, but they had provided one meal-and the fish baskets had supplied another. Survival depended not so much on equipment as knowledge.

The two brothers had a small difference of opinion over which direction to go in. Thonolan thought they were across the delta and wanted to go east, toward the sea. Jondalar wanted to go north, sure there was yet another channel of the river to cross. They compromised and headed northeast. Jondalar was proved right, though he would have been much happier if he had been wrong. Near noon they reached the northernmost channel of the great river.

"Time to go swimming again," Thonolan said. "Are you able?"

"Do I have any choice?"

They started for the water, then Thonolan stopped. "Why don't we tie our clothes to a log, the way we used to. Then we won't have to dry clothes."

"I don't know," Jondalar said. Clothes, even wet, would keep them warmer, but Thonolan had been trying to be reasonable, though his voice betrayed frustration and exasperation. "But, if you want..." Jondalar shrugged acquiescence.

It was chilly standing naked in the cool damp air. Jondalar was tempted to retie his tool pouch around his bare waist, but Thonolan had already wrapped it in his tunic and was tying everything to a log he had found. On his bare skin, the water felt colder than he remembered, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out when he plunged in and tried to swim, but water numbed the pain of his wound somewhat. He favored his side while swimming and lagged behind his brother, though Thonolan was pulling the log.

When they crawled out of the water and stood on a sandbar, their original destination-the end of the Great Mother River-was in sight. They could see the water of the inland sea. But the excitement of the moment was lost. The journey had lost its purpose, and the end of the river was no longer their goal. Nor were they yet on solid ground. They were not quite across the delta. The sandbar where they stood had once been in midchannel, but the channel had s.h.i.+fted. An empty riverbed still had to be crossed.

A high wooded bank, with exposed roots dangling from the underside where a swift current had once undercut, beckoned from the other side of the vacated channel. It had not been vacated long. Water still puddled in the middle, and vegetation had barely taken root. But insects had already discovered the stagnant pools, and a swarm of mosquitoes had discovered the two men.

Thonolan untied the clothes from the log. "We still have to get through those puddles down there, and the bank looks muddy. Let's wait until we get across before we put these back on."

Jondalar nodded agreement, in too much pain to argue. He thought he'd strained something while swimming, and he was having trouble standing up straight.

Thonolan slapped a mosquito as he started down the gentle gradient which had once been the slope leading from the bank into the river channel.

They'd been told often enough. Never turn your back on the river; never underestimate the Great Mother River. Though she had left it for a time, the channel was still hers, and, even in her absence, she left a surprise or two behind. Millions of tons of silt were brought down to the sea and spread over the thousand or more square miles of her delta every year. The vacated channel, subject to tidal inundation from the sea, was a soggy salt marsh with poor drainage. The new green gra.s.s and reeds had set roots in wet silty clay.

The two men slid and slipped down the slope on the finegrained sticky mud, and, when they reached level ground, it sucked at their bare feet. Thonolan hurried ahead, forgetting that Jondalar was not quite up to his usual long-strided pace. He could walk, but the slippery descent had hurt. He was picking his way carefully, feeling a bit foolish to be wandering through the marsh naked, making an offering of his tender skin to the hungry insects.

Thonolan had gotten so far ahead that Jondalar was about to call out to him. But he looked up just as he heard his brother's cry for help and saw him go down. Pain forgotten, Jondalar ran toward him. Fear clutched when he saw Thonolan floundering in quicksand.

"Thonolan! Great Mother!" Jondalar cried, rus.h.i.+ng to him.

"Stay back! You'll get caught too!" Thonolan, struggling to free himself from the mire, was sinking deeper instead.

Jondalar looked around frantically for something to help Thonolan out. His s.h.i.+rt! He could throw him an end, he thought, then remembered that was impossible. The bundle of clothes was gone. He shook his head, then saw the dead stump of an old tree half buried in the muck and ran to see if he could break off one of the roots, but any roots that might have come free had long since been torn off in the violent journey downstream.

"Thonolan, where is the clothes bundle? I need something to pull you out!"

The desperation in Jondalar's voice had an unwanted effect. It filtered through Thonolan's panic to remind him of his grief. A calm acceptance came over him. "Jondalar, if the Mother wants to take me, let Her take me."

"No! Thonolan, no! You can't give up like that. You can't just die. O Mother, Great Mother, don't let him die like that!" Jondalar sank to his knees and, stretching out full, reached out his hand. "Take my hand, Thonolan, please, take my hand," he begged.

Thonolan was surprised at the grief and pain on his brother's face, and something more that he'd seen before only in infrequent pa.s.sing glances. In that instant, he knew. His brother loved him, loved him as much as he had loved Jetamio. It was not the same, but as strong. He understood at an instinctive level, by intuition, and he knew as he reached for the hand stretching toward him that, even if he couldn't get out of the mire, he had to clasp his brother's hand.

Thonolan didn't know it, but when he ceased struggling, he didn't sink as fast. When he stretched out to reach for his brother's hand, he spread out into a more horizontal position, displacing his weight over the water-filled, loose, silty sand, almost as though floating on water. He reached until they touched fingers. Jondalar inched forward until he had a firm grasp.

"That's the way! Hold on to him! We're coming!" said a voice speaking Mamutoi.

Jondalar's breath exploded, his tension punctured. He discovered he was shaking but held Thonolan's hand firmly. In a few moments, a rope was pa.s.sed to Jondalar to tie around his brother's hands.

"Relax now," Thonolan was instructed. "Stretch out, like swimming. You know how to swim?"

"Yes."

"Good! Good! You relax, we will pull."

Hands pulled Jondalar back from the edge of the quicksand and soon had Thonolan out as well. Then they all followed a woman who prodded the ground with a long pole to avoid other sinkholes. Only after they reached solid ground did anyone seem to notice that the two men were entirely naked.

The woman who had directed the rescue stood back and scrutinized them. She was a big woman, not so much tall or fat as burly, and she had a bearing that commanded respect. "Why do you have nothing on?" she asked finally. "Why are two men traveling naked?"

Jondalar and Thonolan looked down at their nude, mud-caked bodies.

"We got in the wrong channel; then a log hit our boat," Jondalar began. He was feeling uncomfortable, unable to stand straight.

"After we had to dry our clothes, I thought we might as well take them off to swim the channel, and then to cross the mud. I was carrying them, ahead because Jondalar was hurt, and..."

"Hurt? One of you is hurt?" the woman asked.

"My brother," Thonolan said. At the mention of it, Jondalar became acutely aware of the aching, throbbing pain.

The woman saw him blanch. "Mamut must see to him," she said to one of the others. "You are not Mamutoi. Where did you learn to speak?"

"From a Mamutoi woman living with the Sharamudoi, my kin," Thonolan said.

"Tholie?"

"Yes, you know her?"

"She is my kin, too. The daughter of a cousin. If you are her kin, you are my kin," the woman said. "I am Brecie, of the Mamutoi, leader of the Willow Camp. You are both welcome."

"I am Thonolan, of the Sharamudoi. This is my brother, Jondalar, of the Zelandonii."

"Zel-an-don-yee?" Brecie said the unfamiliar word. "I have not heard of those people. If you are brothers, why are you Sharamudoi, and he this...Zelandonii? He does not look well," she said, briskly dismissing further discussion until a more appropriate time. Then she said to one of the others, "Help him. I'm not sure he can walk."

"I think I can walk," Jondalar said, suddenly dizzy with pain, "if it's not too far."

Jondalar was grateful when one of the Mamutoi men took an arm while Thonolan supported the other.

"Jondalar, I would have gone long ago if you hadn't made me promise to wait until you were well enough to travel. I'm leaving. I think you should go home, but I won't argue with you."

"Why do you want to go east, Thonolan? You've reached the end of the Great Mother River. Beran Sea, it's right there. Why not go home now?"

"I'm not going east, I'm going north, more or less. Brecie said they will all be going north to hunt mammoth soon. I'm going ahead, to another Mamutoi Camp. I'm not going home, Jondalar. I'm going to travel until the Mother takes me.

"Don't talk like that! You sound like you want to die!" Jondalar shouted, sorry the instant he said it for fear the mere suggestion would make it true.

"What if I do?" Thonolan shouted back. "What do I have to live for...without Jetamio." His breath caught in his throat, and her name came out with a soft sob.

"What did you have to live for before you met her? You're young, Thonolan. You have a long life ahead of you. New places to go, new things to see. Give yourself a chance to meet another woman like Jetamio," Jondalar pleaded.

"You don't understand. You've never been in love. There is no other woman like Jetamio."

"So you're going to follow her to the spirit world and drag me along with you!" He didn't like saying it, but if the only way to keep his brother alive was to play on his guilt, he'd do it.

"No one asked you to follow me! Why don't you go home and leave me alone."

"Thonolan, everyone grieves when they lose people they love, but they don't follow them to the next world."

"Someday it will happen to you, Jondalar. Someday you'll love a woman so much, you'd rather follow her to the world of the spirits than live without her."

"And if it were me, now, would you let me go off alone? If I had lost someone I loved so much I wanted to die, would you abandon me? Tell me you would, Brother. Tell me you'd go home if I was sick to death with grief."

Thonolan looked down, then into the troubled blue eyes of his brother. "No, I guess I wouldn't leave you if I thought you were sick to death with grief. But you know, Big Brother"-he tried to grin but it was a contortion on his pain-ravaged face-"if I decide to travel for the rest of my life, you don't have to follow me forever. You are sick to death of traveling. Sometime you have to go home. Tell me, if I wanted to go home, and you didn't, you'd want me to go, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I'd want you to go. I want you to go home now. Not because you want to, or even because I do. You need your own Clave, Thonolan, your family, people you've known all your life, who love you."

"You don't understand. That's one way we're different. The Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii is your home, it always will be. My home is wherever I want to make it. I am just as much Sharamudoi as I ever was Zelandonii. I just left my Cave, and people I loved as much as my Zelandonii family. That doesn't mean I don't wonder if Joharran has any children at his hearth yet, or if Folara has grown up to be as beautiful as I know she will be. I'd like to tell Willomar about our Journey and find out where he plans to go next. I still remember how excited I was when he returned from a trip. I'd listen to his stories and dream about traveling. Remember how he always brought something back for everyone? Me, and Folara, and you too. And always something beautiful for Mother. When you go back, Jondalar, take her something beautiful."

The mention of familiar names filled Jondalar with poignant memories. "Why don't you take her something beautiful, Thonolan? Don't you think Mother wants to see you again?"

"Mother knew I wasn't coming back. She said 'Good journey' when we left, not 'Until you return.' It's you who must have upset her, perhaps more than you upset Marona."

"Why would she be more upset about me than you?"

"I'm the son of Willomar's hearth. I think she knew I'd be a traveler. She might not have liked it, but she understood. She understands all her sons-that's why she made Joharran leader after her. She knows Jondalar is a Zelandonii. If you made a Journey alone, she'd know you would return-but you left with me, and I wasn't going back. I didn't know it when I left, but I think she did. She would want you to return; you're the son of Dalanar's hearth."

"What difference does that make? They severed the knot long ago. They're friends when they see each other at Summer Meetings."

"They may be just friends now, but people still talk about Marthona and Dalanar. Their love must have been very special to be so long remembered, and you are all she has to remind her, the son born to his hearth. His spirit, too. Everyone knows that; you look so much like him. You have to go back. You belong there. She knew it, and so do you. Promise you'll go back someday, Brother."

Jondalar was uneasy about such a promise. Whether he continued to travel with his brother or decided to return without him, he would be giving up more than he wanted to lose. As long as he made no commitment either way, he felt he could still have both. A promise to return implied that his brother would not be with him.

"Promise me, Jondalar."

What reasonable objection could he make. "I promise," he acquiesced. "I will go home-someday."

"After all, Big Brother," Thonolan said with a smile, "someone has to tell them we made it to the end of the Great Mother River. I won't be there, so you'll have to."

"Why won't you be there? You could come with me."

"I think the Mother would have taken me at the river-if you hadn't begged Her. I know I can't make you understand, but I know She will come for me soon, and I want to go."

"You are going to try to get yourself killed, aren't you?"

"No, Big Brother." Thonolan smiled. "I don't have to try. I just know the Mother will come. I want you to know I'm ready."

Jondalar felt a knot tightening inside him. Ever since the quicksand accident, Thonolan had had a fatalistic certainty he was going to die soon. He smiled, but it wasn't his old grin. Jondalar preferred the anger to this calm acceptance. There was no fight in him, no will to live.

"Don't you think we owe something to Brecie and the Willow Camp? They've given us food, clothing, weapons, everything. Are you willing to take it all and not offer anything in return?" Jondalar wanted to make his brother angry, to know there was something left. He felt he'd been tricked into a promise that relieved his brother of his final obligation. "You are so sure the Mother has some destiny for you that you have stopped thinking of anyone but yourself! Just Thonolan, right? No one else matters."

Thonolan smiled. He understood Jondalar's anger and could not blame him. How would he have felt if Jetamio had known she was going to die, and had told him?

"Jondalar, I want to tell you something. We were close..."

"Aren't we still?"

"Of course, because you can relax with me. You don't have to be so perfect all the time. Always so considerate..."

"Yes, I'm so good, Serenio wouldn't even be my mate," he said with bitter sarcasm.

"She knew you were leaving and didn't want to get hurt any worse. If you had asked her sooner, she would have mated you. If you had even pushed her a little when you did ask, she would have-even knowing you didn't love her. You didn't want her, Jondalar."

"So how can you say I'm so perfect? Great Doni, Thonolan, I wanted to love her."

"I know you did. I learned something from Jetamio, and I want you to know it. If you want to fall in love, you can't hold everything in. You have to open up, take that risk. You'll be hurt sometimes, but if you don't, you'll never be happy. The one you find may not be the kind of woman you expected to fall in love with, but it won't matter, you'll love her for exactly what she is."

"I wondered where you were," Brecie said, approaching the two brothers. "I've planned a little farewell feast for you since you're determined to leave."

"I feel an obligation, Brecie," Jondalar said. "You've taken care of me, given us everything. I don't think it's right to leave without making some repayment."

"Your brother has done more than enough. He hunted every day while you were recovering. He takes a few too many chances, but he's a lucky hunter. You leave with no obligation."

Jondalar looked at his brother, who was smiling at him.