That was it, the sum total of her possessions, all she needed to survive – that and knowledge, skill, experience, intelligence, determination, and courage.
Quickly, she rolled up her amulet, tools, and sling in her wrap and put them in the basket, then wrapped the bearskin around it and tied it with the long thong. She enfolded the bundle with the aurochs-hide tent and tied it behind the fork of the log with the vine.
She stared at the wide river and the far shore for a while, and thought of her totem, then kicked sand on the fire and shoved the log with all her precious possessions into the river downstream of the entangling tree. Lodging herself at the forked end, Ayla grabbed the protruding stubs of former branches and launched her raft with a push.
Still chilled by melt from the glacier, the icy water enveloped her naked body. She gasped, hardly able to breathe, but a numbness set in as she became inured to her frigid element. The powerful current grabbed the log, trying to finish its job of transporting it to the sea, and tossed it between swells, but the forked branches kept it from rolling. Kicking hard, she struggled to force her way across the surging flow, and veered at an angle toward the opposite shore.
But progress was agonizingly slow. Every time she looked, the other side of the river was farther than she expected. She was moving much faster downstream than across. By the time the river swept her past the place she had thought to land, she was tired, and the cold was lowering her body temperature. She was shivering. Her muscles ached. It felt as though she had been kicking forever with rocks tied to her feet, but she forced herself to keep on.