Jean M. Auel - The Valley of Horses

Auel may be creating one of the most believable characters in English fictionone to rank with Sherlock Holmes, Scarlett OHara and a handful of others.

UPI

A powerful story Auel is a highly imaginative writer. She humanizes prehistory and gives it immediacy and clarity.

The New York Times Book Review

Ayla is an unforgettable heroine of fierce courage, determination, and sensitivity. A wonderful, exciting story.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Entertaining and provocative A kind of prehistoric romance replete with graphic descriptions of Aylas awakening sexual interest An old love story in a totally unpredictable and delightfully drawn setting.

Chicago Tribune Book World

A fascinating and original novel.

Los Angeles Herald Examiner

Auel makes a plot come alive. She writes with innocent sensuousness, good humor, and compassion.

Houston Chronicle

This eBook version of THE VALLEY OF HORSES contains bonus content not found in the printed version.

A Sneak Preview from
Read an exciting preview from Jean M. Auels The Land of Painted Caves, on sale in hardcover in Spring 2011.

Read excerpts from each of the novels in the Earths Children series.

In this special Q&A, Jean M. Auel discusses her bestselling Earths Children series.

This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

THE VALLEY OF HORSES
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Crown Publishers

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Crown edition published September 1982
A Featured Alternate Selection of The Literary Guild / January 1983
Bantam edition / September 1983
Bantam reissue / November 1991
Bantam reissue / March 2002

EARTHS CHILDREN is a trademark of Jean M. Auel

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1982 by Jean M. Auel

Excerpt from The Land of Painted Caves copyright 2010 by Jean M. Auel.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-005123.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Crown Publishers, Inc.,
New York, NY.

eISBN: 978-0-307-76762-2

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Land of Painted Caves. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words Bantam Books and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

v3.1_r2

For KAREN,
who read the first draft of both,
and for ASHER
with Love

Novels by Jean M. Auel

THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR
THE VALLEY OF HORSES
THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS
THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE
THE SHELTERS OF STONE

And the latest novel in the Earths Children series
THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES

In addition to the people mentioned in The Clan of the Cave Bear, whose help has been of continuing assistance for this Earths Children book, and for which I am still grateful, I am further indebted to:

The director, Dr. Denzel Ferguson, and staff of Malheur Field Station, in the high desert steppes country of central Oregon, and most especially to Jim Riggs. He taught, among other things, how a fire is made, how a spear-thrower is used, how bulrushes make sleeping mats, how to pressure-flake a stone tool, and how to squish deer brainswho would have thought that could turn deer hide into velvety soft leather?

Doreen Gandy, for her careful reading and most appreciated comments so I could be assured this book stands alone.

Ray Auel, for support, encouragement, assistance, and doing the dishes.

1. Venus of Lespugue. Ivory restored). Height 14.7 cm/5 in. Found Lespugue (Haute-Garonne), France. Muse de lHomme, Paris.
2. Venus of Willendorf. Limestone with traces of red ochre. Height 11 cm/4 in. Found Willendorf, Wachau, Lower Austria. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna.
3. Venus of Vestonice. Fired clay (with bone). Height 11.4 cm/4 in. Found Dolni Vestonice, Mikulov, Moravia, Czechoslovakia. Moravian Museum, Brno.
4. Female Figurine. Ivory. Height 5.8 cm/2 in. Found Gagarino, Ukraine, USSR. Ethnographic Institute, Leningrad.
5. Lady of Brassempouy. Ivory (fragment). Height 3.2 cm/1 in. Found Grotte du Pape, Brassempouy (Landes), France. Muse des Antiquites Nationales, Saint-Germain-en-laye.

She was dead. What did it matter if icy needles of freezing rain flayed her skin raw. The young woman squinted into the wind, pulling her wolverine hood closer. Violent gusts whipped her bearskin wrap against her legs.

Were those trees ahead? She thought she remembered seeing a scraggly row of woody vegetation on the horizon earlier, and wished she had paid more attention, or that her memory was as good as that of the rest of the Clan. She still thought of herself as Clan, though she never had been, and now she was dead.

She bowed her head and leaned into the wind. The storm had come upon her suddenly, hurtling down from the north, and she was desperate for shelter. But she was a long way from the cave, and unfamiliar with the territory. The moon had gone through a full cycle of phases since she left, but she still had no idea where she was going.

North, to the mainland beyond the peninsula, that was all she knew. The night Iza died, she had told her to leave, told her Broud would find a way to hurt her when he became leader. Iza had been right. Broud had hurt her, worse than she ever imagined.

He had no good reason to take Durc away from me, Ayla thought. Hes my son. Broud had no good reason to curse me, either. Hes the one who made the spirits angry. Hes the one who brought on the earthquake. At least she knew what to expect this time. But it happened so fast that even the clan had taken a while to accept it, to close her out of their sight. But they couldnt stop Durc from seeing her, though she was dead to the rest of the clan.

Broud had cursed her on impulse born of anger. When Brun had cursed her, the first time, he had prepared them. Hed had reason; they knew he had to do it, and hed given her a chance.

She raised her head to another icy blast, and noticed it was twilight. It would be dark soon, and her feet were numb. Frigid slush was soaking through her leather foot coverings despite the insulating sedge grass she had stuffed in them. She was relieved to see a dwarfed and twisted pine.