The Caves of Perigord_ A Novel - Martin Walker [126]
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