“Why do you object?” he repeated, angrier still by the way the Keeper of the Bulls had perched himself on this rock above the other Keepers, looking down upon them rather than sitting with them in the circle, as was the custom. The Keepers were all equal. The man was becoming insufferable, as if he were trying to become leader. They were a brotherhood, bonded by the great work of the cave. There were no leaders or followers among them, only Keepers and apprentices. And the cave itself was ritual enough, without this new business of skulls and eagles and great ceremonies that rested on clever tricks. He had taken the other Keepers up the hill to show them the pit and the brushwood where the eagle had been caught and then released.
“The boy is still young,” objected the Keeper of the Bulls.
“He is a man. He killed his beasts,” said the Keeper of the Ibex, who had been more offended than any of them when he saw the eagle’s pit, aware that he had been fooled. “We all saw him kill them well, leaping from back to back like a mountain goat. Deer is no boy any longer.”
“We nearly banished him from the cave,” came the next objection. “We only just decided to let him back in. Perhaps that was a mistake.”
“You know as well as I do that the old man stumbled on his own. He felt very bad about blaming Deer. That was why he took the boy under his wing, made him his special apprentice, taught him all that he could, left Deer his lamp,” said the Keeper of the Horses, striving to keep his voice reasonable.
“The old man made his choice,” said the Keeper of the Ibex. “He made Deer his heir. He passed on his lamp. You know what that means. We cannot go against a Keeper’s final wish.”
“The old man was wandering in his own head. He was not what he had been,” said the Keeper of the Bulls, his voice sullen at not getting his own way. “He even left his work unfinished.”
“Deer is finishing the coloring of the two bison. He has a master’s touch that boy, and the old man knew it and welcomed Deer’s completion of the work.”
“So let him finish that work. The boy has shown a certain talent with his deer, but as apprentice he must complete his dead master’s work. The two beasts on which the old man worked are but half-done.”
“They are done, save for the last of the coloring. And Deer has improved on what he was left,” said the Keeper of the Horses. “The old man told me of his pleasure at Deer’s idea to depict one of them shedding its winter coat. It is no apprentice’s common task that Deer has done. It is a master’s work. The old man knew that, and treasured the boy for his talent.”
“I need to think more of this,” said the sullen voice. “There is no rush to decide, and the work awaits us.” He rose to go.
“The work requires a full brotherhood of Keepers,” said the Keeper of the Bears. A squat, dark man who lived apart, he seldom spoke, and remained stubbornly seated on the ground. Nobody else rose. The council was still in session, whatever their high and mighty colleague might want. Odd, thought the Keeper of the Horses, how much resentment had built up toward the Keeper of the Bulls. As if that ritual he had staged before the hunt had offended the other Keepers, just as much as the trick he had played. It had certainly offended him, something new in the world that threatened changes he could not foresee.
The Keeper of the Bulls studied his colleagues thoughtfully, and instead of walking back to the cave, slid down the face of the rock to join them in the circle. He was shaking his head almost sorrowfully.
“Perhaps I am being harsh on the boy,” he said, his voice different, almost ingratiating. “Forgive me, my friends, if I am still dark and low in my spirits after the death of my woman. I still think of her, and my bed is cold and lonely.”
Silence as the rest of them considered that. Certainly he had been acting strangely since her death.
“This is not about your bed. It is about filling the brotherhood of Keepers,” said the Keeper of the Bears, in the stubborn way of a man who has seized on a single point and will not let it go.
“You are right,” said the ingratiating voice. “But we are all men here. We know that a man needs his bed filled and his heart lightened by a woman.”
“Nothing to stop you taking one,” said the Keeper of the Ibex. “The mating time is soon.”
“My colleague of the horses, you have an unwed daughter,” came the voice, confident now rather than ingratiating. “Come, let us settle everything at once. Give me your blessing and the hand of your daughter and we shall bring Deer into our number.”
By the manes of my horses, the man is as crafty as he is brazen, thought Little Moon’s father. He is making a bargain over this. He has no right to block Deer’s advancement, but seeks to win something for himself in return. In his irritation, the Keeper of the Horses was about to dismiss the idea out of hand, but forced himself to control his tongue. He could have no credible objection to the match. Most of his colleagues would think it a wise move. It would bring honor to Little Moon, to be the woman of such an influential man, and useful to him, to be linked by kinship as well as the craft of the cave. But not like this. And not at all, he suddenly thought, as he studied the big man leaning back easily against his rock, in the circle but still somehow separate from it. This was a man who would do anything to get his own way, use the trickery of the eagle, and seduce the hunters and the fishers to him. Looking at the man’s eyes, shadowed but cruel and somehow contemptuous of fellows in the brotherhood, he knew that the Keeper of the Bulls was a dangerous man, a man too touched by his sense of the power of the bulls that obsessed him. Some of their angry, stubborn spirit had invaded his, just as the Keeper of the Horses felt touched by the grace and lightness of movement in the beasts that he drew.
“This is not a matter for our council,” objected the Keeper of the Ibex. “This thing of the daughter is between the two of you. Deer has nothing to do with it. The matter of Deer is for us to decide, and speaking for myself, we have decided. The youth is the new Keeper.”
“I must speak to my woman. She will want a say in the future of our daughter,” said the Keeper of the Horses, suddenly seeing how best to seize this moment and get the decision on Deer settled. He wanted to think more about this sense of danger he felt from the Keeper of the Bulls. The man would not be crossed, but he could be guided, and perhaps outmaneuvered. Even as he began to speak, the Keeper of the Horses felt he might pay a heavy price for this day’s work. “But I am glad that you have changed your view and seen the wisdom of your colleagues. We can now tell Deer that we are as one, all agreed, and with the shade of our departed colleague guiding us to the right decision. The Keeper of the Bison will rest happily, now that Deer has taken his place. Let us go and greet our new brother, our new Keeper.” He rose, saw the other Keepers rise with him, and leaving the Keeper of the Bulls alone, walked back into the cave.
Deer filled his mouth with the bitter ocher, and putting his cupped hand to his lips began to blow the reddish-brown color onto the calcite. He had mixed it with care, not too brown, for that would look like the background wall of this narrow part of the cave, far around the corner from the great hall of the bulls. The air was bad here, and the lamp flickered feebly, smoking and making his eyes weep. It was a bad place to work, but the old Keeper had chosen this spot for his great work, and Deer must complete the bison. It was the least he could do for the old man, who had shown him such kindness after his early coldness, as if making up for having Deer banished from the cave. But it was also such a pleasure, taking the outline sketch of the two great beasts, back to back, which the old man had left for him to complete.