Clan of the Cave Bear (15 page)

Creb was already awake. She wondered if he had slept at all; he was still sitting in the same place she left him the night before, staring in contemplative silence at the fire. She started heating water, and by the time she brought him his morning tea of mint, alfalfa, and nettle leaves, Ayla was up and sitting beside the crippled man. Iza brought the child a breakfast of leftovers from the previous evening’s meal. The men and women would not eat that day until the ritual feast.

By late afternoon, delicious smells were drifting away from the several fires where food was cooking, and pervading the area near the cave. Utensils and other cooking paraphernalia that had been salvaged from their former cave and carried in the bundles by the women had been unpacked. Finely made, tightly woven waterproof baskets of subtle texture and design, created by slight alterations in weaving, were used to dip water from the pool and as cooking pots and containers. Wooden bowls were used in similar ways. Rib bones were stirrers, large flat pelvic bones were plates and platters along with thin sections of logs. Jaw and head bones were ladles, cups, and bowls. Birch-bark glued together with balsam gum, some reinforced with a well-placed knot of sinew, were folded into shapes for many uses.

In an animal hide, hung from a thong-lashed frame set over a fire, a savory broth bubbled. Careful watch was kept to make sure the liquid didn’t boil down too far. As long as the level of boiling broth was above the level reached by the flames, it kept the temperature of the skin pot too low to burn. Ayla watched Uka stir up chunks of the meat and bone from the neck of the bison that were cooking with wild onion, salty coltsfoot, and other herbs. Uka tasted it, then added peeled thistle stalks, mushrooms, lily buds and roots, watercress, milkweed buds, small immature yams, cranberries carried from the other cave, and wilted flowers from the previous day’s growth of day lilies for thickening.

The hard fibrous old roots of cattails had been crushed and the fibers separated and removed. Dried blueberries they had carried with them and parched ground grains were added to the resulting starch that settled in the bottom of the baskets of cold water. Lumps of the flat, dark, unleavened bread were cooking on hot stones near the fire. Pigweed greens, lamb’s-quarter, young clover, and dandelion leaves seasoned with coltsfoot were cooking in another pot, and a sauce of dried, tart apples mixed with wild rose petals and a lucky find of honey steamed near another fire.

Iza had been especially pleased when she saw Zoug returning from a trip to the steppes with a clutch of ptarmigan. The low-flying, heavy birds, easily brought down with stones from the marksman’s sling, were Creb’s favorite. Stuffed with herbs and edible greens that nested their own whole eggs, and wrapped in wild grape leaves, the savory fowl were cooking in a smaller stone-lined pit. Hares and giant hamsters, skinned and skewered, were roasting over hot coals, and mounds of tiny, fresh wild strawberries glistened bright red in the sun.

It was a feast worthy of the occasion.

Ayla wasn’t sure she could wait. She had been wandering aimlessly around the fringes of the cooking area all day. Both Iza and Creb were off somewhere most of the time, and when Iza was around she was busy. Oga, too, was busily working with the women preparing the feast and no one had time or inclination to bother with the girl. After a few gruff words and not-so-gentle nudges from the harried women, she tried to stay out of the way.

As the long shadows of the late afternoon sun lay across the red soil that fronted the cave, a hush of anticipation descended on the clan. Everyone gathered around the large pit in which the haunches of bison were cooking. Ebra and Uka began removing the warm soil from the top. They pulled back limp, scorched leaves and exposed the sacrificial beast in a cloud of mouth-watering steam. So tender it almost fell from the bones, the meat was carefully raised. To Ebra, as the leader’s mate, fell the duty of carving and serving, and her pride was obvious when she gave the first piece to her son.

Broud evidenced no false modesty as he stepped forward to receive his due. After all the men were served, the women received their share and then the children. Ayla was last, but there was more than enough for everyone, with
leftovers to spare. The next hush that descended was the result of the hungry clan busily devouring the meal.

It was a leisurely feast, with one person or another going back to pick at a bit more bison or a second helping of a favorite dish. The women had worked hard, but their reward was not only the comments from the satisfied clan; they would not have to cook again for a few days. They all rested afterward, getting ready for a long evening.

When the lengthening shadows merged into the dull gray half-light of approaching darkness, the mood of the lazy afternoon subtly altered, became charged with expectation. At a glance from Brun, the women quickly cleared away the remains of the feast and took up places around an unlit fireplace at the mouth of the cave. The random look of the group belied the formality of their positions. The women stood in relation to each other according to their status. The men who gathered on the other side fell into a pattern according to their hierarchical place within the clan, but Mog-ur was not in sight.

Brun, closest to the front, signaled Grod, who stepped forward with slow dignity and from his aurochs horn produced a glowing coal. It was the most important in the long line of coals that began with the fire lighted in the debris of the old cave. A continuation of that fire symbolized the continuation of the life of the clan. Lighting this fire at the entrance would lay claim to the cave, establish it as their place of residence.

Controlled fire was a device of man, essential to life in a cold climate. Even smoke had beneficial properties; the smell alone evoked a feeling of safety and home. The smoke from the cave fire, filtering up through the cavern to the high-vaulted ceiling, would find its way out through cracks and on drafts through the opening. It would take away with it any unseen forces that might be inimical to them, purge the cave, and permeate it with their essence, the essence of human.

Lighting the fire was sufficient ritual to purify and lay claim to the cave, but certain other rituals were performed so often along with it, they were almost considered a part of the cave ceremony. One was familiarizing the spirits of their protective totems with their new home, usually done in private by Mog-ur with an audience of men only.
Women were allowed their own celebration, which gave Iza reason to make a special drink for the men.

The successful hunt had already shown that their totems approved of the site, and the feast confirmed their intention to make it a permanent home, though the clan might be gone for extended periods at certain times. Totemic spirits traveled too, but as long as members of the clan had their amulets, their totems could track them from the cave and come when they were needed.

Since the spirits would be present at the cave ceremony anyway, other ceremonies could be included, and often were. Any ceremony was enhanced by association with the establishment of a new home and, in turn, added to the clan’s territorial bond. Though each kind of ceremony had its own traditional ritual which never changed, ceremonial occasions had different characters depending upon which rituals were conducted.

Mog-ur, usually in consultation with Brun, decided how the various parts would be put together to form the total celebration, but it was an organic thing that depended on how they felt. This one would include Broud’s manhood ceremony and one to name the totems of certain youngsters, since that needed to be done and they had a desire to please the spirits. Time was not an important factor—it would take as long as it took—but had they been harassed or in danger, simply lighting a fire would have made the cave theirs.

With gravity befitting the importance of the task, Grod kneeled down, put the glowing ember on the dry tinder, and began to blow. The clan leaned forward anxiously and expelled their breath in one communal sigh as flaming tongues licked the dry sticks in their first fatal taste. The fire took hold and, suddenly, appearing from nowhere, a frightful figure was seen standing so close to the bonfire, its roaring flames seemed to envelop him in their midst. It had a bright red face surmounted by an eerie white skull that appeared to hang within the fire itself unscathed by the leaping tendrils of lambent energy.

Ayla didn’t see the fiery apparition at first and gasped when she caught sight of it. She felt Iza squeeze her hand in reassurance. The child felt the vibrations of the dull thud of spear butts pounding the ground and jumped back when the newest hunter leaped to the area in front of the flames just as Dorv beat a sharp tattoo in rhythmic counterpoint
on a large wooden bowl-shaped instrument, turned face down against a log.

Broud crouched down and looked far into the distance, his hand shading his eyes from a nonexistent sun, as other hunters leaped up to join him in a reenactment of the bison hunt. So evocative was their skill at pantomime, polished by generations of communicating by gesture and signal, the intense emotion of the hunt was re-created. Even the five-year-old stranger was captivated by the impact of the drama. The women of the clan, perceptive of the fine nuances, were transported to the hot dusty plains. They could feel the thundering hooves vibrating the earth, taste the choking dust, share the exultation of the kill. It was a rare privilege for them to be allowed this glimpse into the sacrosanct life of the hunters.

From the first, Broud took command of the dance. It had been his kill, and it was his night. He could sense the empathetic emotions, feel the women quivering with fear, and he responded with more passionately intense dramatics. Broud was a consummate actor and never more in his element than when he was the center of attention. He played on the emotions of his audience, and the ecstatic shudder that passed through the women as he replayed his final thrust had an erotic quality. Mog-ur, watching from behind the fire, was no less impressed: he often saw the men talk of hunting, but only during these infrequent ceremonies was he able to share the experience in anything close to its full range of excitement. The lad did well, the magician thought, moving around to the front of the fire; he earned his totem mark. Perhaps he deserves to swagger a little.

The young man’s final lunge brought him directly in front of the powerful man of magic as the dull thudding rhythm and the excited staccato counterpoint ended with a flourish. The old magician and the young hunter stood facing each other. Mog-ur knew how to play his role, too. The master of timing waited, letting the excitement of the hunt dance subside and a sense of expectancy rise. His hulking, lopsided figure, cloaked in a heavy bearskin, was silhouetted against the blazing fire. His ochre-reddened face was shadowed by his own frame, masking his features to an indefinable blur with the baleful, asymmetrical eye of a supernatural daemon.

The stillness of the night was disturbed only by the crackling fire, a soft wind soughing through the trees, and
the whooping cackle of a hyena in the distance. Broud was panting and his eyes glittered, partly from the exertion of the dance, partly from the excitement and his pride, but more from a growing, disquieting fear.

He knew what came next, and the longer it took, the more he fought to control a chill that wanted to be a tremble. It was time for Mog-ur to carve his totem mark into his flesh. He hadn’t let himself think about it, but now that the time had come, Broud found himself dreading more than the pain. The magician projected an aura that filled the young man with a much greater fear.

He was treading on the threshold of the spirit world; the place that encompassed beings far more terrifying than gigantic bison. For all their size and strength, bison were at least solid, substantial creatures of the physical world, creatures that a man could come to grips with. But the invisible yet far more powerful forces that could make the very earth shake were another matter entirely. Broud was not the only one present who stifled a shudder as thoughts of the recently experienced earthquake suddenly imploded on their minds. Only holy men, mog-urs, dared to face that insubstantial plane, and the superstitious young man wished this greatest of all mog-urs would hurry and get it over with.

As though in answer to Broud’s silent plea, the magician lifted his arm and stared up at the crescent moon. Then with smooth-flowing motions, he began an impassioned appeal. But his audience was not the mesmerized watching clan. His eloquence was directed to the ethereal, though no less real, world of the spirits—and his motions were eloquent. Using every subtle trick of posture, every nuance of gesture, the one-armed man had overcome his handicap to his own language. He was more expressive with his single arm than most men were with two. By the time he was through, the clan knew they were surrounded by the essence of their protective totems and a host of other unknown spirits, and Broud’s chill became a shiver.

Then quickly, with a suddenness that brought a gasp to a few lips, the magician whipped out a sharp stone knife from a fold of his wrap and held it high over his head. He brought the sharp tool down swiftly, plunging it toward Broud’s chest. In a movement that was under absolute control, Mog-ur stopped short of fatal penetration. Instead, with quick strokes, he carved two lines into the young
man’s flesh, both curved in the same direction and joined in a point like the great curved horn of a rhinoceros.

Broud closed his eyes but didn’t flinch as the knife pierced his skin. Blood welled to the surface and overflowed, spilling down his chest in red rivulets. Goov appeared at the magician’s side holding a bowl of salve made from the rendered fat of the bison mixed with antiseptic ashes from the wood of an ash tree. Mog-ur smeared the black grease into the wound, stopping the flowing blood and assuring that a black scar would form. The mark announced to all who saw him that Broud was a man; a man forever under the protection of the Spirit of the formidable, unpredictable Woolly Rhinoceros.

The young man returned to his place, acutely conscious of the attention focused on him and thoroughly enjoying it, now that the worst was over. He was sure his bravery and hunting skill, his evocative performance during the dance, his unflinching acceptance of his totem mark, would be the subject of animated talk of both men and women for a long time. He thought it might become a legend, a story repeated many times during the long cold winters that confined the clan to the cave, and retold at Clan Gatherings. If it wasn’t for me this cave wouldn’t be ours, he said to himself. If I hadn’t killed the bison, we wouldn’t be having a ceremony, we’d still be looking for a cave. Broud had begun to feel the new cave and the whole eventful occasion were entirely due to him.