The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

sealed.
    “The Great Mother has done this,” breathed Moon, as Deer stared in disbelief through the driving rain at the tumbling rock fall. He remembered thinking as he saw her frightening drawing that the cave itself must be doomed. The shock of the village, of all the people of the valley, would be terrible. And so would their vengeance. They must get far, far from here.
    Shaking himself, he led them down through the fringe of the woods to the river, where Deer rolled a fallen log into the water. He placed his sack upon his head, and the two of them pushed the log deep into the middle of the current where their feet no longer touched the riverbed, and floated fast downstream, leaving no trial for hunters to follow, as the great storm rolled furiously overhead.

    Deer knew they had gone farther than he had ever traveled before. The river ran faster than a running man and it had been night when they first entered. And now the rain had finally stopped and the sun was rising high into the sky. Moon had straddled the log just after dawn, her teeth chattering and desperately needing to be out of the water. The first time he had tried to join her, he almost tipped her into the river. But then as the sun broke through the thinning clouds they came to some shallows where the water was less than waist-deep. After guiding it through and keeping the log pointed straight downstream, he was able to stretch out and feel the sun on his back while his straddling legs kept the log from spinning. They had seen spirals of smoke from sheltered fires not long after dawn, where the river had curled in series of long bends and there were caves and ledges in sheer cliffs. Then the river ran wide and more slowly, and there were the familiar conical tents on a broad stretch of sand. He had seen them from afar, so he and Moon had slipped from the log into the water, keeping their heads on the side away from the tents, and there had been no cries of greeting or alarm. There had been no sign of people since then, but many of the storm. Uprooted trees floated with them, some with small animals in their branches. There were others toppled on the banks and the river was brown and full.
    It was on another of the long bends that he saw the rolling hills coming close to the bank, and a narrowing where the river raced and a vast tangle of fallen trees seemed to stretch from one side to the other. Once there was a rending sound and perhaps a dozen trees broke away and began rushing downstream at great speed and the water seemed to race toward the spot as if to chase them. He knew enough of the log’s ways to know they could not survive such a rushing of the water and he slipped off and start kicking desperately to steer it toward the shore. His efforts made little difference, and with fear rising like blood to his head he felt the log gather pace. They were saved by the tree that had floated alongside them throughout the morning. It seemed to hit something, and pivoted in the water to slam into the tangle on one side of the gap. Their log went with it, and ground deeply into the dam, spilling them both off, but able to haul themselves from bough to bough and into the shallows where they collapsed on their knees and arms, coughing the water from their lungs and shivering from shock and the river’s cold.
    As their breathing eased, they clambered onto the bank. Sodden but safe, he saw that they were on the side of the river where he had seen the narrow valley, and they made their way along the bank to the point where a smaller stream joined the great river. Automatically, he stopped to pick feathers from the brush, slipping them into his sack. He would need arrows. They followed the small stream between two gentle hills and came into a flatter valley of grassland and thin trees. Moon stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm, and pointed to the bank of thorny brush loaded thickly with berries. As they ate, the sun warm on his face, he looked around with growing confidence. It was the kind of land where he would expect to find reindeer, and there would be fish in the stream. He saw nut trees, and a rabbit darted down one of a series of holes in the bank. He had some thongs in his sack that could make traps. They could live here, if they could find shelter.
    He had seen no sign of people and no smell of man, no ashes from old fires or bones or signs of fish traps along the bank, and no tents here nor the wooden frames his people erected to dry hides.