The Caves of Perigord_ A Novel - Martin Walker [54]
But he liked this time, the feeling that they were doing as their fathers and ancestors had always done, taking all the men of the tribe on the great hunt that would leave them all gorged with meat. He liked watching the boys taking their first turn in the long line of beaters, and the way they would all work together, the flint men and the fishers and the woodmen, shaping the stakes and bringing the stones that would force the reindeer to the cliff where they would tumble and fall onto the rocks below. Above all, he liked to watch the boys who were to become men dart down into those rocks and learn to kill, to mark the beast marks on their chest with the blood they spilled. He liked to watch the prouder, taller way they walked, even under the burdens of the long boughs with the reindeer slung upon them, as they marched back into the village as men. He felt like part of a river that always flowed. His father had done the same, and then taken him to the hunt to teach him the ways of it, and now his own father had flowed on down to the great sea. He would flow down too, one day. But now he was still part of the river of his people, flowing endlessly, the old going before, the young coming on behind.
They always began with the sacrifice at dawn before the cave. And because the Keeper of the Bulls made his sacrifice each day, it had become the custom that he led the sacrifice for this day of the hunt. It had not been that way when he was younger, thought the Keeper of the Horses. They had all done it together then. And now he felt a snatch of disappointment, as he stood in line before the cave with the other Keepers, while the Keeper of the Bulls took the sacrifice alone, and the chief hunter kneeled before him, and the leaders of the flint and fisher and wood men kneeled to the side.
Did it matter, the way the Keeper of the Bulls always pushed himself forward, always took the lead? Did it matter that he somehow took the credit for the good hunting and the plentiful reindeer? Even for the fish. It did not matter much to him. He liked to stand to one side, looking at all the men of the village gathered together just for this rare occasion, all feeling part of a great family. But he found himself noticing for the first time the deference with which the chief hunter bowed to the Keeper of the Bulls, the look of awe and respect on the faces of the young men, the way the boys trembled as if something was being done that was far beyond their imagining.
The Keeper of the Bulls gave them something to be awed by, sure enough. He carried off the ceremony with a great and ponderous dignity. He took the wood chips from the woodman, the ax from the flint man, the long bone of the longest fish that the fishermen had caught and piled them before the great bull’s skull that loomed over the sacrifice fire. The chief hunter, still kneeling, his head still bowed, proffered a reindeer hoof in his two outstretched hands.
“That the game may not run from our spears, we burn this hoof to you, Great Bull,” chanted the Keeper of the Bulls, in a voice that carried far beyond the gathered men and the women at a respectful distance below. He took the hoof, and placed it on the fire. The chief hunter leaned forward and bowed his forehead to the ground before the bull’s skull. That had never happened before. As the stink of burning fur drifted among them, the Keeper of the Bulls placed his hand on the skull, between the two outstretched horns, and chanted, “The sacrifice is accepted.”
A great murmur of approval came from the gathered men. The Keeper of the Horses glanced sideways to see if any of the other Keepers were as startled as he. No. Their eyes were fixed on the ceremony, and they too were nodding in agreement and respect.
The chief hunter took a scrap of reindeer hide, bowed again, and