Martin Walker - The Caves of Perigord

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. None of the trees or saplings that he had seen bore the mark of the flint ax. He edged up to the higher ground, in the direction of the setting sun. The trees thinned further there, and he should be able to see both sides of the ridge. It was a low plateau, rising slowly, and as he breasted it cautiously he saw a small herd of reindeer cropping unconcernedly below. The wind was toward him, and with a bow he would have fresh meat. It would take him half a day to make one, and sufficient arrows.

He trotted down the slope toward Moon, still walking up the rising valley to where a rocky outcrop emerged above the trees. He caught his breath with pleasure as he watched the grace with which she moved, seeming to slip from tree to tree. He looked back. Nothing. He caught up with her as she came to the base of the rock cliff, where the sun shone full on a grassy bank and into the shallow recess beneath the overhanging rock. That would keep them dry from rain, and he heard the trickle of water. There was no dung beneath the rock, no sign of bear or even foxes. He put down his pack, took out the pouch, and set his tinder to dry. Deep in the crevice beneath the overhang, windblown twigs and dried leaves would provide him more. He looked carefully for signs of earlier fires. None. He followed the sound of the water and found a small spring trickling from the side of the rock, a scatter of stones around it. One by one, he carried four of them back to the overhang and set them in a loose square to make a hearth, while Moon refilled the water skin.

“Here?” he asked her. She nodded. Here. Swiftly they gathered fallen wood, still damp from the storm, but they stacked it along the back of the overhang where the sun and air would dry it. He took the thongs from his sack, cut them into lengths for his traps, and they strolled together to the warren where he had seen the rabbits. She left him setting traps, and came back with his sack full of young cob nuts, and they strolled back to the rock, a soft shyness growing between them, with the sun still warm and strong in their faces.

When they reached the overhang, she stood unmoving for a long moment, her eyes unseeing on the rock. And then, saying quietly, “This is still damp,” she lifted her tunic over her head and laid it casually on the hearthstones. As he gazed down the long slim length of her back to the perfect flaring curve of her hips, she turned her head slowly and looked over her shoulder at his rapt face. He could not read the flashing look in her eyes, but he moved in a daze toward her, his eyes dreamy but his heart pounding, and stretched out his arms to embrace her. Fast as a fish, she turned into his chest and buried her face in his neck.

“Yours is still damp too,” she murmured, and untied his belt and lifted his tunic and they drew it off together. Then she lifted the knife thong from his neck, and there was only the magical smoothness of her against him and he sank to his knees to run his face against the firm high breasts, and feel his lips drawn to the perfect rosebuds that tipped them. She sank down to join him, and her arms were very strong around him and the fresh young grass rippled warmly around them in the gentle breeze.

It was the next day that they found the cave. They had risen from the grass as the sun began to fall, and made a fire. Deer left her feeding it with the sun-dried wood, and went to look at his traps. He brought back a plump rabbit, and Moon took his knife to skin it and they roasted it on a spit. He kept stretching out his hand to touch her, unable to bear this separation of their flesh, and while they ate she entwined her legs with his and leaned against him, feeding him choice morsels until the hunger of their bellies was appeased and another, fiercer hunger took its place.

When he woke at dawn, the dear, soft length of her against him, he began thinking of all the things he must do. She must have skins to keep her warm, skins to lie on, skins to sling on tripods of sticks that could hold water and be warmed by hot stones. That meant more skins to make the rawhide thongs. And then she must have a tent, which meant more skins and more thongs again. And skins meant reindeer. He must make a bow this day, with the short length of thong that remained to him after making the traps. Arrows he could harden in the fire, but he must find flint and perfect his clumsy skill to make scrapers for her to clean the skins. She would need a knife to cut her food, sharp-pointed awls that could make holes in the skins that she could then sew together with a needle made from reindeer bone. He was thinking of all the tools that he had taken for granted and left far behind in the village, and did not notice her awaken until her hand slipped softly around his neck and pulled him to her.

There were two more rabbits in the traps, and he blew the fire back into life as she skinned them. She began to roast the meat as he went to the stand of saplings by the spring, bending and flexing them to find one sturdy enough to make his bow. His thong was short and his arrows without flintheads, so the bow must be the stronger. His ax cut it down and trimmed it, and then he cut down two more long ones, using creeper to tie their ends together. He leaned them against the rock. The meat they did not eat could hang up there, safe enough from foxes. There was a pine beyond the spring, and he scraped off the resin with his knife, and back at the fire transferred it to one of the hearthstones to soften.

“I would climb the other ridge today, and see what is to be seen there before exploring to the end of this valley,” he said. “Our valley.”

“We must look for flint,” she said, rising to sling the uneaten rabbit on the poles. “I need a knife and scrapers.” Then she took his ax and cut herself a long, stout sapling, trimming to a rough point.

He sat by the fire to shape the ends of his bow and carve the notches for his string as she fed him. He stood to test it, drawing it almost to his shoulder. Now the arrows. He cut four of the straightest saplings, pointed their ends, and showed her how to harden them in the fire, using spit to stop them burning. Then he sliced the thin grooves into their ends for the feathers he had collected, coated the quills with the soft pine resin and slid them home. As he finished, he saw that she was hardening the point of the spear she had made for herself.

His new bow over his shoulder, and Moon on his arm with her spear over her shoulder, they set off down the slope to the stream. It ran fast and babbled, almost wide enough to jump. He paused on the bank, looking to the stillness under the trees for the ripples that would tell where the fish lay. The stream narrowed just below them, and there were stones enough to build a loose dam to trap them, and willows to weave into a light fence that he could use to trap the fish as he splashed them downstream to the dam. More willows could make a loose basket and Moon could then scoop out the trapped fish. Then he saw the reddened clay by the rocks, and the darker earth that would flow when it was burned, and he felt the promise of color that lay trapped within them and he felt a yearning to be at his work again. And then he heard her call lightly to him, and he turned to see her rushing to the stream, her eyes intent as she gathered her legs for a great leap that took her almost across the stream to fall just a little short, and land, splashing and laughing, in the water.