THE SHELTERS OF STONE

"We were hunting a deer," he picked up the story again, "but we didn't know the same deer was being stalked by a lioness. She pounced about the same time that we threw spears. The spears landed first, but the lioness took the kill. Thonolan decided to go after it; he said it was his, not hers. I told him not to argue with a lioness, let her have it, but he insisted on following her back to her den. We waited a while, and when the lioness left, Thonolan decided to go into the canyon and take a piece of the meat. The lioness had a mate, and he wasn't going to let go of that kill. The lion killed him, and mauled me pretty bad, too."

Marthona frowned in concern. "You were mauled by a lion?"

"If it hadn't been for Ayla, I'd be dead," Jondalar said. "She saved my life. She got me away from that lion, and treated my wounds, too. She's a healer."

Marthona looked at Ayla, then back at Jondalar with surprise. "She got you away from a lion?"

"Whinney helped me, and I couldn't have done it if it was just any lion," Ayla tried to explain.

Jondalar understood his mother's confusion. And he knew the explanation wasn't going to make it any easier to believe. "You've seen how Wolf and the horses mind her…"

"You're not telling me…"

"You tell her, Ayla," Jondalar said.

"The lion was one I found when he was a cub," Ayla began. "He'd been trampled by deer and his mother had left him for dead. He almost was. I was the one who had chased those deer, trying to get one to fall into my pit-trap. I did get one, and on the way back to the valley, I found the cub and took him back, too. Whinney wasn't too happy about it, the lion scent scared her, but I got both the deer and the lion cub back to my cave. I treated him, and he recovered, but he couldn't take care of himself alone, so I had to be his mother. Whinney learned to take care of him, too." Ayla smiled, remembering. "It was so funny to watch them together when he was little."

Marthona looked at the young woman and gained a new understanding. "Is that how you do it?" she said. "The wolf. And the horses, too?"

Now it was Ayla's turn to stare in surprise. No one had ever made the connection so quickly before. She was so pleased that Marthona was able to understand, she beamed. "Yes! Of course! That's what I've tried to tell everyone! If you find an animal very young, and feed him and raise him as though he were your own child, he becomes attached to you, and you to him. The lion that killed Thonolan, and mauled Jondalar, was the lion I raised. He was like a son to me."

"But by then he was a full-grown lion, wasn't he? Living with a mate? How could you get him away from Jondalar?" Marthona asked. She was incredulous.

"We hunted together. When he was little, I shared my kills with him, and when he got bigger, I made him share his with me. He always did what I asked. I was his mother. Lions are used to minding their mothers," Ayla said.

"I don't understand it, either," Jondalar said, seeing his mother's expression. "That lion was the biggest lion I have ever seen, but Ayla stopped him in his tracks, just short of attacking me a second time. I saw her ride on his back, more than once. The whole Mamutoi Summer Meeting saw her ride that lion. I've seen it, and I still have trouble believing it."

"I am only sorry that I wasn't able to save Thonolan," Ayla said. "I heard a man's scream, but by the time I got there, Thonolan was already dead."

Ayla's words reminded Marthona of her grief, and they were all wrapped in their own feelings for a while, but Marthona wanted to know more, wanted to understand. "I'm glad to know he found someone to love," she said.

Jondalar picked up the first package he had taken from his traveling pack. "On the day that Thonolan and Jetamio were mated, he told me you knew he would never return, but he made me promise him that someday I would. And he told me when I did to bring you something beautiful, the way Willamar always does. When Ayla and I stopped to visit the Sharamudoi on our way back, Roshario gave this to me for you-Roshario was the woman who raised Jetamio, after her mother died. She said it was Jetamio's favorite," Jondalar said, giving the package to his mother.

Jondalar cut the cord that tied the leather-wrapped package. At first, Marthona thought the gift was the soft chamois skin itself, it was so beautiful, but when she opened it, she caught her breath at the sight of a beautiful necklace. It was made of chamois teeth, the perfect white canines of young animals, pierced through the root, graduated in size and symmetrically matched, each one separated by graduated segments of the backbones of small sturgeons, with a shimmering, iridescent mother-of-pearl pendant that resembled a boat hanging from the middle.