The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

would anchor each flank of the line, and then race forward to make the line into a curve, using their bows against the reindeer on the sides of the herd, less to try for a kill than to drive the herd in the desired direction.
    With the rest of the grown men, the Keeper of the Horses began loping toward the riverbank, to set the jaws of the trap that would force the game over the drop. This was the real test of the chief hunter’s skill, less to find the herd than to coordinate the movements of so many boys and men so that they would all be in the right place at the best time. Chief hunters who closed the tribe upon an empty trap did not last long. There were always keen young hunters eager to take over. The Keeper of the Horses found himself hoping that the trap might be empty this time. The tribe would miss a feast, might even go hungry awhile, but another chief hunter might not be so ready to fall in with the strange new rituals of the bull’s skull.
    There was still no sign of the herd when the men reached the cliff above the drop to the river. This was a good place. On this nearer side where they approached, thick trees gave way to a jumble of rocks before the cliff edge. The herd would avoid the trees and the rocks could be held by just a handful of men. The rest of them ran swiftly along the cliff edge, looking for the place to set their fence. Every man carried three poles, each one almost as tall as a man and lashed together at one end with sinew. They spread out the other end of the poles to form a tripod, and then placed each tripod perhaps ten yards apart, from the cliff edge up toward the direction from which the herd would come. They lashed skins to each tripod, to make it look like a solid shape, a small teepee, flimsy but appearing solid enough to dupe the reindeer. Each man then sat behind his tripod, waiting for the time. Some of them tossed blades of grass into the air, testing that the breeze still came toward them. The Keeper of the Horses ambled across to the cliff edge and looked into the drop. It was the height of three or four men. It would serve.
    “So we are now all worshipers of the bull,” grunted a voice behind him. He turned. It was the Keeper of the Bison, looking ancient and leathery. He had done well to keep up with the pace of the hunt.
    “Worship?” he replied. “I respect all men, and pay due tribute to each man’s skill. I honor all beasts, those we hunt and eat and those we watch with caution from afar and those we no longer see in these lands. I bow to the sun for its warmth, to snow for its cold, and to the river for its water. And to the Mother for the gift of life that lies in a woman’s belly. Just as our people have always done.”
    “And I fear lightning and the great sounds of battle in the skies before a storm,” said the old man. “I have lived too long to devote myself to a single beast, or to bow before a single man.”
    “Our Keeper of the Bulls seems to have persuaded many of our people-otherwise. The chief hunter first among them.”
    “Chief hunters don’t last long,” the old man spat. “But what does our Keeper of the Bulls want?”
    The Keeper of the Horses shrugged, and looked back away from the river. The herd should be coming soon, although he could as yet hear no drumming of hooves, no high-pitched cries from the beaters.
    “You must stop him,” said the old man patiently. “Already, we are changing as a people. We are becoming worshipers of the bull, led by the Keeper of the Bulls. Do you see what he is doing?”
    As the Keeper of the Horses nodded, he heard the first piping cry from the far-off beaters, and then the tremor beneath his feet. The herd was coming. “We will talk of this again, old friend,” he said. “Back to our posts.”

    Deer felt exultant, the thrill of the hunt upon him, until he reached the great cloud of dust that was all that he could now see. The hunters had led them at a fast run for as long as it took the sun to move a hand’s width across the sky. One of the advance scouts was waiting for them, leaning on a rock just below the skyline, and he trotted quickly to meet them. The hunters conferred and then fanned out to either flank, and begun the slow walk toward the herd. The scout led the boys, using his bow as a guide to slow them so that the hunters could move ahead and become the points of the great curve that was advancing on the herd. He led them up to just below the ridge, halted them as he looked