The Land of Painted Caves

by Jean M. Auel

  This was the room where all the drawings, or engravings, were white because the white surfaces were covered with vermiculite. Of all the white engravings, she particularly noticed the rhinoceros emerging from a crack in the wall and stayed to look at it. Why did the Ancients paint these animals on the walls inside caves? she wondered. Why did Jonokol want to carve a drawing of two horses in that room near the entrance to this cave? His mind wasn’t in any other place when he did it, like all the zelandonia who drank the tea in that Sacred Site of the Seventh Cave of the South Land Zelandonii. The artists probably wouldn’t be capable of creating such remarkable images if they were. They had to think about what they were doing.

  Did they make them for themselves or to show others? And what others? The other people of their cave or for the other zelandonia? Some of the larger rooms in certain caves could accommodate many people, and sometimes ceremonies were held in them, but many of the images were made in small caves or very cramped spaces in larger caves. They must have been made for themselves, for their own reasons. Were they looking for something in the spirit world? Perhaps a spirit animal of their own, like her lion totem, or a spirit animal that would bring them closer to the Mother? Whenever she tried to ask Zelandoni, she never got a satisfactory answer. Was that something she was supposed to find out for herself?

  Wolf had been staying close, hugging the wall that Ayla was following. She carried the only light in the entire pitch-black cave; although his other senses gave him more information about his surroundings than her single torch, he liked being able to see as well.

  The way that she knew she had reached the next section of the cave was the noticeable reduction in the height of the ceiling. There were more mammoths and bison and deer on the walls and pendants, some in white engraving, some in one area drawn in black. This was the room with the cave bear skull on the flat-topped rock, and Ayla walked over to see it again. She stayed awhile, thinking again of Creb and the Clan, before she continued. Banks of gray clay seemed to surround this chamber, which she climbed up to reach the last room, the one the First did not visit. She noticed traces of bear prints on the clay, which she hadn’t seen the first time she was there. Two high steps brought her into the next space.

  She found herself in the middle of the room; the ceiling was too low to walk along the sides. She decided it was time to light another torch, then wiped the remains of the first torch on the low ceiling to knock the fire off its small stub. Once she was certain the fire was out, she tucked what was left of the first torch into her backframe. She had to stoop in order to continue along the natural path, and at the base of a pendant she noticed a horizontal row of seven little red dots next to a series of black dots. Finally after another forty feet it was possible to stand erect again.

  There were several more black torch marks; other people had evidently used this area to clean their torches. At the back the ceiling slanted down toward the floor. It was covered with a fine yellow coating of softened stone that had broken into vermiculations—little wormlike wavy lines. On this slanted surface the simple outline of a horse had been drawn primarily using two fingers. Because of the way the wall slanted, it was very difficult for the artist to draw, requiring that his or her head be bent backward the whole time, and never being able to get an overall view while the drawing was being worked on. It was slightly out of proportion, but it was the very last drawing in the cave. She noticed a couple of mammoths had also been outlined on the slanting ceiling.

  Ayla detected an odor and looked around, then understood that Wolf had passed some solid waste. She smiled. It couldn’t be helped. As she turned around to go back, she wondered if there was a way out of the cave from here, but it was just a random thought. She wasn’t going to look for it. As she walked out closer to the wall, she felt her feet sink into the cold, soft clay floor; Wolf followed after her, walking in the same soft clay. After she climbed down out of this last room, the wall that had been on her right was now on her left. She passed the panel of scraped mammoths, then came to one of the sections she was looking forward to seeing again—the horses painted in black.

  She studied the wall more carefully this time. She saw that the soft brown layer had been scraped off a large section of the wall to bring out the white limestone underneath, which included most of the previous engraving of a rhinoceros and a mammoth. The black coloring was charcoal, but because of the way the artist used it, some places were darker and and some lighter to make the horses and other animals look more lifelike. Although the horses were what drew her, they were not the first animals on the panel—aurochs were. And the lions inside the niche made her smile again. That female just wasn’t interested in that young male. She was sitting down and not budging.

  Ayla slowly walked the length of the painted wall until she came to the entrance of the long gallery that led to the last room of paintings, and saw the giant deer painted high up on the right. This was also where the hearths to make charcoal were lined up along the wall. The walkway started dropping down. When she made the last big drop and came to the last room, she walked even more slowly. She loved the lions, perhaps because they were her totem, but they were so real. She reached the end and examined the final pendant, the one that looked like a male organ. It had a female vulva painted on it, with human legs, and was part bison and part lion. She felt sure someone had been telling a story there, too. Finally, she turned around and started back and when she reached the beginning of the chamber, she stopped and looked around.

  She wanted to leave with a memory, the way the First sang to the cave. She couldn’t sing, but she smiled when she thought of something she could do. She could roar like she did the first time she was here. Like lions often did, she began the hunka-hunka buildup to her roar. When she finally let it out, it was the best roar she could make; it even made Wolf cringe a little.

  They had planned to get off to an early start, but Amelana started into labor early in the morning, so of course, the visiting Zelandonia couldn’t leave. Amelana had a healthy baby boy by evening, and her mother provided a celebratory meal afterward. They didn’t start off on their return trip until the following morning, and by then the leave-taking was rather anticlimactic.

  The composition of the travelers had changed again. With Kimeran, Beladora, and the two children gone, and Amelana no longer traveling with them, there were only eleven left and they had to organize themselves differently. With only Jonlevan to play with, who was a year younger, Jonayla missed her friends. Jondecam felt the loss of Kimeran, his uncle who was more brother, and didn’t realize how much they had understood each other when they worked together. It saddened him to think he might never see him again. The only women were Ayla, Levela, and the First and they felt the loss of Beladora, and the young antics of Amelana. It took a while to settle into a traveling routine again.

  They followed the river downstream, and when it joined the larger river, continued to follow it as it made its way south. They could see the large expanse of the Southern Sea a full day before they reached it, but the panorama offered a glimpse of more than a vast stretch of water. They saw herds of reindeer and megaceroses, a matriarchal crowd of woolly mammoths along with their young of every age, and a collection of woolly rhinoceroses. There were also the beginnings of a coming together of various ungulates like aurochs and bisons in preparation for the fall, when throngs in the thousands would gather for the fighting and mating. Horses were moving toward their winter grazing grounds. There was a cool breeze blowing in from the sea; the Southern Sea was a cold sea, and looking out over the expanse of cold water made Ayla realize the season would be turning soon.

  They found the traders Conardi had spoken of, and Conardi himself. He made the introductions, and it turned out that Ayla’s baskets were a desirable item. For people who traveled with things, which traders did, well-made containers were a necessity. Ayla spent the first evening they were camped there making more baskets. Jondalar’s flint points and tools were also well liked. Will
amar’s skill and experience as a trader came to the fore. He organized all of them into a trading bloc and included Conardi in it.

  He would offer combinations of things, often to more than one person, like a supply of dry meat and a basket to carry it in. He acquired many shells for beads, and was grateful to have some of Ayla’s baskets in which to hold them. He also got salt for Ayla and a necklace for Marthona made by one of the shell collectors, and some other things that he wasn’t telling everyone about.

  Once they were done with their trading, they began the return trip. They traveled faster than their initial journey. For one thing, they knew the way, and they weren’t stopping to visit or to see painted caves. And the changing weather was pushing them. They were well stocked with provisions, so they didn’t have to hunt as often. They did go to visit Camora again. She was very disappointed to learn that Kimeran had changed his plans and was staying with his mate’s people. She and Jondecam were talking about him as though he were gone for good until the First reminded them that he did plan to return.

  They had to wait again when they reached Big River because a storm had made the crossing too difficult until it settled down again. It was an anxious time because they didn’t want to be stranded on the wrong side of the river for the season. Finally it cleared up and they made the crossing, although it was still rough. Once they reached The River they could hardly wait. They had to walk upstream because there were no rafts, and it would have been too strenuous to try to paddle upstream in any case.

  When they finally spied the huge stone shelter that was the Ninth Cave, they were ready to break into a run, but they didn’t have to. Lookouts had been posted to watch for them, and a signal fire was lit when they were spotted. Nearly the entire community of Caves turned out to meet them and welcome them back home.

  Part Three

  29

  Ayla climbed the steep path to the top of the cliff. She carried a load of wood in a carrier that hung from a tumpline across her forehead and set it down near the battered column of basalt that seemed to grow at a precarious angle out of the edge of the limestone cliff. She stopped to gaze at the whole panorama. As often as she had seen it this past year that she had been marking the risings and settings of the moon and sun, the expansive view never failed to move her. She watched The River below flow in sinuous curves from north to south. Darkening clouds hugged the crests of the hills across The River to the east, obscuring their sharp outline. They would likely become more clear near dawn tomorrow, when she needed to see where the sun rose to compare it with the day before.

  She turned the other way. The sun, blindingly brilliant, was on its downward path; it would soon be sunset and the bottoms of the few white fluffy clouds were tinged with pink, promising a grand show. Her eyes continued their movement to the horizon. She was almost sorry to see that the view toward the west was clear. She would have no excuse to avoid coming up tonight, she thought, as she headed back down to the Ninth Cave.

  When she reached her dwelling under the sheltering limestone overhang, it was cold and empty. Jondalar and Jonayla must have gone to Proleva’s for their meal tonight, Ayla thought, or maybe Marthona’s. She was tempted to go look for them, but what was the use if she had to go out anyway?

  She found tinder, flint, and a firestone near the cold hearth and started a fire. When it was well established, she added some cooking stones to it, then checked the waterbag and was glad to find it full. She poured some water into a wooden cooking bowl for tea. She searched around the hearth area and found some cold soup in a tightly woven basket that had been coated with river clay to make the cooking and storage pot even more watertight, something most of the women had started doing only within the last few years. With a ladle carved out of an ibex horn, she scooped up some of the contents from the bottom, and with her fingers picked out a few bites of cold meat and a rather soggy root of some kind, then moved the pot closer to the fire, and with bentwood tongs pushed some hot coals around it.

  She added a few more sticks of wood to the fire, then sat down cross-legged on a low cushion while she waited for the stones to heat so she could bring the tea water to a boil, and closed her eyes. She was tired. The past year had been particularly difficult for her because she had to be awake during the night so much. She almost drifted off to sleep sitting up, but jerked awake when her head bobbed down.

  With her fingers, she flicked a few drops of water on the cooking stones, watched them disappear with a hiss and a wisp of vapor, then using the bentwood tongs with the charred ends she picked up a cooking stone from the fire and dropped it into the bowl of water. The water roiled and sent up a cloud of steam. She added a second stone and when the water calmed down, she dipped her little finger in to test the heat. It was hot, but not as hot as she wanted. She added a third stone from the fire and waited for it to settle, then scooped out a large cupful of steaming water and dropped in a few pinches of dried leaves from a row of covered baskets on a shelf near the hearth and set down the tightly woven cup to wait for the tea to steep.

  She checked a pouch that was dangling from a peg pounded into a support post. It held two small, flat sections of a megaceros antler and a flint burin that she had been using to gouge marks on the flat pieces cut out of the giant deer horn. She checked the tool to see if its chisel-like end was still sharp; with use, pieces spalled off. For a handle, the opposite end had been inserted into a section of antler from a roe deer that had been softened in boiling water. It hardened again when it dried. On one piece of flat antler she had been keeping a record of the sun’s and moon’s settings. On the second, she made tally marks to show the number of days from one full moon to the next—with the full moon, the absence of the moon, and the opposite-facing half disks indicated among the tally marks. She tied the pouch to her waist thong; then she ladled some warm soup into a wooden bowl and drank it down, stopping only to chew the pieces of meat.

  From her sleeping room, she got her fur-lined cloak with the hood and wrapped it around her shoulders—it was cold at night even in summer—picked up the cup of hot tea, and left her dwelling. She again went toward the rising path at the back of the abri, just beyond the edge of the overhang, and started up, wondering where Wolf was. He was often her only companion on her long nightly vigils, lying on the ground at her feet as she sat on the top of the cliff bundled up in warm clothes.

  When she came to the fork in the trail, she took a quick sip of tea, then put the cup down and hurried around to the trenches. Though they were moved to a slightly different place every year or so, they were always in the same general area. She quickly relieved herself, then hurried back to the path, picked up her cup, and followed the other fork, the steep narrow path that led up to the top of the cliff.

  Not far from the strange leaning stone embedded deep into the top of the cliff face was the black circular lens of a charcoal-filled fireplace within a ring of stones, and a few smooth river rocks that made good cooking stones. Next to a natural outcrop of rock, a depression had been carved out of the frangible limestone beside the column. A large panel of dried grass woven so that rain ran off the overlapping rows was leaning against the stone. Under it were a couple of bowls, including a cooking bowl, and a leather pouch that held some odds and ends such as a flint knife, a couple of packets of tea, and some dried meat. Beside it was a rolled-up fur and inside that a rawhide packet containing fire-making materials, a crude stone lamp and a few wicks, and some torches.

  Ayla put the packet aside; she would not light a fire until after the moon rose. She spread out the fur and settled herself down in her accustomed place, using the outcrop as a backrest, with her back to The River to watch the horizon to the west. She took the antler plaques and flint burin from the pouch, and looked closely at the record of the setting sun she had made so far, then back at the top edge of the western landscape.

  Last night it set just to the left of that small rise, she said to herself, squinting her eyes to keep out the long, bright rays of the sun
. The glowing hot light slipped behind a dusty haze near the ground, masking the searing incandescence to a glowing red disk. It was as perfectly round as its nighttime companion when it was full. Both celestial orbs were precisely circular, the only perfect circles in her environment. With the haze, the sun was easier to see, and it was easier to place its precise setting in relation to the silhouetted hilly line of the horizon in the distance. In the dimming light, Ayla gouged out a mark on her antler plaque.

  Then she turned to face east, across The River. The first stars had made their appearance in the darkening sky. The moon would soon show his face, she knew, though sometimes it rose before the sun set, and sometimes it showed a paler face against a clear blue sky during the day. She had been watching the sun and moon rise and set for nearly a year, and while she hated the separation from Jondalar and Jonayla that her watch of the heavenly bodies had necessitated, she had been fascinated by the knowledge she had gained. Tonight, though, she felt unsettled. She wanted to go to her dwelling, crawl into her furs with Jondalar, and have him hold her, touch her, and make her feel as only he could. She stood up and sat back down, trying to find a more comfortable position, trying to prepare herself for her long, lonely night.

  To pass the time and help keep herself awake, she concentrated on repeating in a low tone some of the many songs, and long histories and legends, often in rhyme, that she was committing to memory. Though she had an excellent memory, there was a lot of information she had to learn. She had no voice for melody and didn’t try to sing them as many of the zelandonia did, but Zelandoni had told her singing wasn’t necessary, so long as she knew the words and the meaning of them. The wolf seemed to enjoy the sound of her soft voice droning in metric monotony as he dozed beside her, but not even Wolf was with her tonight.