The Boy of the Painted Cave (4 page)

Once again the hare suddenly dashed out of cover. The wolf dog bounded after it, following a zigzag course, twisting and swerving with each turn of its quarry. Tao raised his spear, steadying himself as the wolf drove the rabbit directly toward him. He aimed carefully and, as the frightened animal passed, he struck it cleanly on the first throw.

As he picked up the rabbit, Tao smiled. “You will be a good hunter,” he told the wolf dog. “First you find the eggs of the owl, now you find a rabbit.”

Even as Tao spoke, the little wolf was running on ahead, going from bush to bush. With its head down it sniffed the ground to pick up a scent. It worked in and around the thickets and between the tussocks of grass.

Before long another rabbit leaped from under a bush. It ran around in circles, a brown whirl of fur, with the little wolf dog close on its heels. In its panic it turned and headed straight for Tao. At the last moment, it saw the boy and doubled back. Tao groaned. The animal had escaped again. Then he felt a quick wave of relief as he saw it run directly into the waiting jaws of the wolf dog.

Tao's heart was full of joy. The sun was still high in the heavens and they already had two rabbits. He sat on his heel in the middle of the glade and with his flint knife he skinned one of the hares and fed it to the little wolf. The other rabbit he tucked under his belt to take back to camp.

As soon as the wolf dog had finished his meal, Tao put out his hand. This time the little animal allowed itself to be touched. “You are a good friend,” said Tao, patting the wolf dog's head and scratching him behind the ears. “I will call you Ram, after the spirit of the hunt.”

They stayed together for most of the day, roaming back and forth through the Slough, and by late afternoon Tao had three more rabbits and a leather pouch full of lemmings.

When he was ready to leave, he looked down at Ram. He wished he could take the wolf dog back to camp with him, but he knew that Volt and the other hunters would kill it. “Stay,” he told Ram. “This is a good place, and here you will be safe. There is much food and you will not go hungry.”

As Tao walked away, the wolf dog started to follow. The boy turned. “No, Ram,” he said. “You cannot come with me. Stay here in the Slough and wait. I will come back again and we will hunt together.”

The little wolf dog tilted his head to one side and Tao knew he still did not understand. “Go back,” he ordered.

When Ram did not move, Tao picked up stones and handfuls of sod and threw them at the animal. “Go back,” he repeated. “You cannot come with me!”

For another moment Ram stood motionless, his yellow eyes staring at Tao. But when he saw the boy reach down to pick up more stones, he turned and ran off into the Slough.

As soon as the wolf dog had disappeared, Tao hurried on his way. It was growing dark. He heard a nightjar trill. A squirrel scurried across his path and out on the plains. The prowling hyenas started their high-pitched giggles.

Even in the darkness Tao knew his way by the gray shadows of the trees, the boulders and the shape of the cliffs.

When he limped into camp, the clan women were cooking over the fires. They smiled when they saw the rabbits and the lemmings hanging from his belt. He went first to the hut of Kala and gave her a handful of mussels and three lemmings. Then he went to the center of the camp, where Volt and Garth were standing by the big fire.

The gruff leader snatched the rabbits from the boy's hand. He held them up to the light of the fire, his dark eyes wide with surprise. “These are freshly killed,” he said.

Tao winced and stared at the ground. “I could not find the other,” he said.

“It is good for you that you caught these,” said Volt, glaring down at him. “From now on when you go out with the hunters, you will watch and learn and keep your mind on the hunting.”

Tao leaned on his spear, shifting from one foot to the other. He did not want to disobey. Yet the anger within him would not let him be silent. I have Ram now, he thought. With the wolf dog I can bring back more food than the hunters. Instead he said, “I will hunt alone. What I catch I will bring back to the camp.”

Volt shook his head violently, the ring of bear claws around his neck rattling. “You are like a stone!” he roared. “You learn nothing. I try to tell you, but you do not listen.” The big man threw up his hands and looked hopelessly over his shoulder at Garth, who had come up behind him. “Go then,” he said to Tao. “Go your own way. But hear my words, you will eat only when you bring in food.”

Once again Tao felt the heat of anger rising in his cheeks. “Maybe if we had a wolf dog,” he said, “it would help with the hunting.”

Volt's face grew red with rage, the livid scars standing out on his cheek. “We will have no evil wolf dogs at this camp!” he shouted. “They are a curse of demons. We will hunt like men, not like evil spirits.”

“If wolf dogs are evil, then why do the Mountain People hunt with them?” asked Tao, surprised that he was speaking to Volt this way.

Startled by the boy's impudence, Volt spat on the ground and grunted. “Enough!” he shouted. “If you would hunt with an evil wolf dog, then go, go live with the Mountain People.”

Garth threw back his head and laughed grimly. “Cross the river into their land and they will track you down like a jackal.”

Tao shrugged. He felt there was little use in talking to these men, who would listen only to demons and evil spirits.

Later that night Tao sat by the fire in front of Kala's hut. He looked up at the overhanging cliffs and saw the Endless Flame burning bright in front of the entrance to Big Cave. He had spent many winters in the protection of its shelter. But deep inside, through twisting tunnels and narrow passageways, lay the Secret Cavern. Only the Chosen Ones had ever seen it, but Tao had heard about it many times. It was a huge chamber, its walls covered with life-size paintings of horses, bison and lions. Even the ceilings were painted with pictures of deer, bear and boars. Here the rituals of manhood were held, here the Chosen Ones were selected.

Tao knew that each clan had its own secret place, a special chamber hidden far back in the cliffs. Each clan had its image makers also, two or three Chosen Ones picked by the elders to paint in the caves.

But Graybeard was the old master, the shaman, wandering from clan to clan teaching and painting images of the great game animals to bring good luck in the hunting.

Tao thought of this often. If only he were born of a leader, or even a hunter, then he might someday become a Chosen One. Many times he had asked Kala about his parents. But each time she shook her head. “You are too young,” she always said. “Besides, it does not matter.”

But now he was older and it did matter.

K
ala was alone with the new child as Tao stooped into the hut. Inside was a bed of straw and a smaller one for the child. A small cookfire burned near the back of the hut, sending a thin trail of blue smoke up through the vent hole. Kala's gray hair hung down over her shoulders, and her face was lined from many hard winters. She often told Tao she had a wrinkle for every fall of snow. In spite of years of carrying firewood, skinning deer, making robes and sewing clothing, Kala could still smile. She smiled with good strong teeth, strong from chewing on pelts and skins to make them soft. Always Kala spoke the truth, which often angered the elders, but they let her alone because she was wise and knew much history of the clan.

Before Tao spoke she laid the new baby on an antelope robe, then stepped out of the hut, pretending to look around. When she came back she squatted down crosslegged in front of the boy. She picked up one of the black mussels Tao had given her. “You have been down in the Slough,” she said.

Tao was startled. He was surprised that she had guessed.

“It is the only place near where these can be found,” she said, clicking her tongue.

Tao saw the smile behind her frown. “You know the Slough?” he whispered, as if sharing a secret between them.

“I used to go there when I was a girl. It was a good place, filled with many berries, many mushrooms and fish.” She smiled as she remembered. “But that was before the bad thing happened, before it became a place of evil.”

“What bad thing, Kala?”

The old woman shook her head. “It was a long time ago.”

“It is wrong,” said Tao, “that the clan people should go hungry when there is food nearby.”

Kala threw up her hands. “You wish to question the elders?”

“No,” said Tao. “It would do no good.”

Tao looked at this old woman whose eyes were still young and green like the willow leaves. She was wise and good and he could not have asked for a better mother. Yet he knew she was not of his blood. After a long silence he said, “Kala, I am fourteen summers now and I wish to know about my mother and father.”

“You will not give up,” she said. “Perhaps it is better that you do not know.”

“But I must find out,” said Tao, “if I am ever to enter the ritual of manhood. In the eyes of the elders it is very important. If I am the son of a leader or a hunter, like Garth, I might someday become a Chosen One. Then I can draw and paint.”

Kala shook her head sadly. “You dream, boy. But your dreams are not true. As long as there are taboos, it can never be.”

“But how can it hurt to know about my father?”

Kala placed the mussel shell into a bowl made from an empty ox bone. “Of that I will not tell you. I am one of the few who know and it is a thing we do not speak of.”

“Is it such a terrible thing?”

“Yes,” said the old woman. “It is a terrible thing.”

Tao was silent for a moment. She will not say it, he thought, but it is because I have a bad foot. I do not walk as the others. That too is why I can never be a Chosen One. Tao sighed. He knew it would do no good to press her for an answer. “My mother, then,” he said. “Tell me about my mother.”

The old woman nodded. She settled back on her bearskin rug, the strings of gray hair hanging down over her face. There was a peaceful look in her eyes as she spoke. “Your mother was Vedra of the Mountain People. She was sixteen summers, and she was captured in one of the raids during a summer famine. You were early-born in the middle of a cold winter like the one that has just passed.”

Tao's heart was pounding. He had never heard his mother's name before. “Vedra.” He repeated the name quietly—“Vedra”—his dark eyes shining in the dim light, the soft sound rolling off the end of his tongue. “Vedra of the Mountain People.”

“It is the law of the clan,” the old woman continued, “that weak and crippled children be taken up among the boulders and left for the hyenas. But your mother would not let you go. She sat in a corner of Big Cave, holding you to her breast, keeping you warm, rocking back and forth, singing. Again and again they tried to take you away, but she fought like a cave lion, screaming, biting, refusing to give you up.

“All through the long snows she kept you alive. I brought her food. She would not leave the cave, and it was a winter where the winds found their way into the mountain. Before the moons of summer she grew weak. When she died your father ordered that you be left to die among the boulders. I brought you back and raised you for my own. The elders shook their heads, but I did not care. The man who is your father called it an evil curse.”

“That is why you will not tell me his name?”

“That is why I will never tell you his name.”

“Then tell me more about my mother,” said Tao. “What was she like?”

“She was only a girl,” said Kala, “but she had the sense and wisdom of a woman. Always she worked with her hands. She made many things from the earth and waters. From pebbles and the bones of fish she made necklaces; from ivory and antlers she made beads and bracelets and needles; even from the grass of the fields she made headbands and rings for the hair. Everyone loved the things she made, and she gave them away freely.”

Tao looked up, his dark eyes wide as he smiled. “Then she too was a maker? She too saw pictures in the sky and the meadows?”

“Yes,” said the old woman. “I am sure she gave you the eyes to see beauty in the things around you, the animals, the trees, the mountains. I saw this even when you were a small child. You reached out for the flowers in the fields and you loved to watch birds and squirrels flying through the oak trees. It is the thing that makes you different from others. It is the thing they do not always understand.”

Tao's thoughts were racing ahead, his mind filled with new ideas. “I am happy now,” he said. A shadow flickered across his face. “Now I know what I must do. If I cannot be a Chosen One, I will live away from the clan. I will find a cave high up in the cliffs, above the boulders. I will live out on the grasslands and in the oak forest.” He hesitated, his voice falling. “And I will hunt in the Slough where the fruit and game are plentiful. I will be a man in my own way.”

“You are a dreamer,” Kala smiled.

Tao shook his head. “No, Kala, look at me. My arms are strong. For three summers I have hunted and brought back food for Kala.”

She looked at him darkly. “Hunt then,” she said, “but do not make an enemy of the clan. If you make images or go into forbidden places, be sure you are not seen. Go your own way if you wish, but be careful.”

Tao reached out and touched her gently on the arm. “Thank you, Kala,” he said. “Thank you for many things, but especially for what you have told me. I will come back often and bring you food.”

Tao went out and crouched by the big fire in the center of the camp. He was thinking about what Kala had said when he heard a soft whimpering sound coming from beyond the light of the fire. He jumped up and saw a pair of yellow eyes staring at him from out of the darkness. Tao gasped in surprise. It was Ram. The foolish wolf dog had followed him.