The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

over again, and then waved the two points of the horn forward. His arms outstretched above his head, the bow clutched between them, he held the impatient boys for as long as a man could hold his breath, and then turned with a great cry and led the rush over the ridge and down toward the startled herd.
    There were more than a man could count, a great gray mass that turned as one to stare at the sudden shock of shrieking boys, and then raced away. As the movement began, the great mass broke up; Deer saw individual reindeer trotting back and forth along the rear of the herd, as if steering them on. He saw bigger reindeer edge out to the side of the herd, as if taking guard on the vulnerable flanks. But still the mass moved, gathering speed, not panicked yet, but moving just slightly faster than the running boys.
    It had seemed easy to yell and shriek as he ran, as if his lungs contained all the breath in the world, until they reached the dust the herd had left behind them. Dust in his eyes and mouth, fresh dung beneath his feet. Suddenly Deer could see nothing, choked as he tried to shout, stumbled as his foot slipped in some moist mess. Disoriented, he kept running, glancing to either side to see if he was still in line, and found two smaller boys edging toward him, as if for company. As long as he was in the dust, he must be behind the herd, running in the right track. He hawked the dust from his throat, and whooped feebly, hardly a sound at all to match the drumming of the hooves. He choked again, bent and picked a pebble to suck to get some moisture to his tongue, and carried on running, the boys at his side now.
    Suddenly a crazed reindeer with an arrow in its belly appeared before him, panicked into running the wrong way. He pointed his spear, but ran to one side. It darted past him, blood splashing into the dust. Some always broke free. On again. How much farther? He had seen the cliff and the distant hills beyond the river when they rose above the ridge. No distance at all. They must be almost at the funnel the men would have formed.
    Another beast came at him, an arrow in its eye. It was almost upon him. He darted to the side, bowling over one of the boys, but the rough flank of the reindeer slammed his chest, sending him spinning into the dust. A sudden cry of human pain, and he saw the other boy tumbling beneath the beast’s hooves, as it stamped and trampled to free itself from this sudden obstruction.
    Deer picked himself up, helped to his feet the boy he had knocked over, cuffed him away from the sight of the trampled youth, and ran on. It was the firmest rule. The line of the beaters must always drive on. It must never flag, never turn aside to help a wounded friend, and never allow gaps to appear through which the herd might escape. Deer ran on, the dust thicker, the haunches of the herd suddenly looming close as the narrowing funnel slowed them. Now he could hear the cries of the men on both sides. Now was the crucial moment. Leaping forward, he jabbed his spear into the haunches ahead of him, great gray bulk after brownish mass, jabbing to keep them moving, to keep up the momentum and panic that would finally take the beasts over the cliff to their deaths.
    This was the most dangerous time. Crowded together, their pace slowing as the pressure of beasts increased, this was the moment when the reindeer would be forced against the flimsy barriers of men and the skin-covered tripods. Some of them would find this was little enough barrier and burst through the line. Others would flee to the rear. This was when men and boys started to die, as the hunted took revenge on the hunters. This was the moment when safety lay only in the relentless jabbing of the spear, and the trust that the boy beside you would be jabbing too, holding the line with the discipline that was the mark of man against the beast.
    His chest aching from the slamming of the escaped reindeer, his throat dry and his vision blurred, Deer knew that his breath was coming in raw and grating sobs. But he could smell the sudden taint of blood amid the dung, and staggered as his foot almost tripped over the fallen body of a young beast. If they were trampling their young, the panic was complete. Jab again, and again.
    Suddenly they broke. The herd found space and ran forward. Enough of their leaders had fallen down the cliff to make a ramp of their own dead and broken bodies. Slipping and sliding, skidding and scampering, the rest of the herd