The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

Keeper of the Horses felt he might pay a heavy price for this day’s work. “But I am glad that you have changed your view and seen the wisdom of your colleagues. We can now tell Deer that we are as one, all agreed, and with the shade of our departed colleague guiding us to the right decision. The Keeper of the Bison will rest happily, now that Deer has taken his place. Let us go and greet our new brother, our new Keeper.” He rose, saw the other Keepers rise with him, and leaving the Keeper of the Bulls alone, walked back into the cave.

    Deer filled his mouth with the bitter ocher, and putting his cupped hand to his lips began to blow the reddish-brown color onto the calcite. He had mixed it with care, not too brown, for that would look like the background wall of this narrow part of the cave, far around the corner from the great hall of the bulls. The air was bad here, and the lamp flickered feebly, smoking and making his eyes weep. It was a bad place to work, but the old Keeper had chosen this spot for his great work, and Deer must complete the bison. It was the least he could do for the old man, who had shown him such kindness after his early coldness, as if making up for having Deer banished from the cave. But it was also such a pleasure, taking the outline sketch of the two great beasts, back to back, which the old man had left for him to complete.
    He had skill, that old one, thought Deer as he stood back, bracing himself to fill his mouth again with the thick liquid he had brewed. The beast to the front was poised to charge, its horns raised and its massive shoulders tense. The old man had used a flint in the wall to give a different color and texture to the front hoof, a flash of lightness that suggested the ground was about to be pawed. And the other beast to the rear, caught in mid-charge, its mouth gaping open as it sucked air and its horns high and vicious, leaped away. Such movement in both directions, but the whole kept tensely together by that point of stillness where their haunches joined and overlapped. Deer felt ashamed that he had ever doubted the old man’s talent, and humble, for not having seen before the real force of this work he was now completing. Earlier, he had looked at the two beasts separately, and neither one had seemed to him well done. Now that he was working on them himself, he understood that they were not two separate beasts but one mass of force and color held in a balance so tense that he could feel it.
    Deer had traced a great double curve with a carefully shaved charcoal twig to guide him, and filled in the bulk of the bison with a paste of charcoal and the two kinds of hard, dark earth that seemed almost to flow when they were placed in a hot fire. That gave the great looming blackness that had appeared to Deer to be too overwhelming, until he had suddenly thought of making the forward beast appear to be in molt. In one of their last conversations, he had excitedly put the idea to the old man, that a great curving band of reddish brown would lighten the composition, and the curve could be used to balance the power of the other beast’s charging motion. And that was how the beasts looked in spring, when they began fighting for mates. The thick dark winter coat gave way to the reddish brown of summer. The old man had nodded and pondered the proposal. That night, he had plucked a handful of the dark winter hair of the bison from the skin on which he slept, and studied it by the firelight before telling Deer that he was right. They would use the red-brown color to show a molting beast.
    “You are almost done,” said the voice of Little Moon’s father beside him. “But there is still one trick for you to learn.” The Keeper of the Horses leaned forward and cupped his hand along the charcoal line, and called back for one of the apprentices to join them to watch what he did.
    “You can use a hand to guide the blowing of the color, to make a line over which the color will not pass. Otherwise, you will have to paint over it again. See, the line of the hand can follow your charcoal trace. Now you, young apprentice, watch how I put my hand, for you must learn how this is done. Come, Deer, blow your color, just a small amount, so as not to overlap my hand.”
    Deer did as he was told, saw how the line of color stopped. The apprentice stepped forward and replaced the Keeper’s hand with his own. Deer filled his mouth once more and blew again.
    “Your color is good and