The Dream Cave
Page 13
Snow was falling on his back and he looked round for somewhere to shelter.
There was something familiar about the clump of trees ahead! That’s where he would lie down and go to sleep. The snow blinded him. He was numb and felt light as air. Then as he plunged through the trees he became aware of grunts and bellows behind him. He turned. On one side a woolly rhinoceros was pushing back into the trees. On the other a bison stared at him, his horns lowered. The animal was wounded, his entrails dragging down below his belly. Instinctively Oak held up the stick, poised it over his shoulder and aimed at the bison. It struck the animal between the legs and he followed the blow with another from his spearhead.
The animal grunted and sank to its knees. Oak turned and fled through the clump of trees. He was drawn towards the mound of snow as if, as if . . . Surely the snow hut lay beneath? If only he could find the tunnel and crawl inside! He remembered that one of Juniper’s deer hides was in there and pieces of meat were lodged in the walls. He dug low down into the mound with his bone until, to his great relief, he found the entrance to the tunnel and a little way inside, a pile of wood! An animal prowled behind and he pushed his way, quickly, feet first, into the snow hut.
At first he rested his eyes in the cup of his cold hands. When he looked up his vision was clearer. Everything was as they had left it, the meat lodged in the walls, the deerhide, the fire flints, a pile of twigs, a few bones from the fox, the mud cups and the flints Juniper had worked on to pass the time.
He pulled the deer hide round him and felt Juniper’s warmth seep into his body. With stiff painful hands he rubbed the flints and lit a little of the moss he found in the bag. He added a few twigs and laughed as they caught fire. His hands were bloodstained but for the moment the wounds were numb.
He built up the fire, melted a little snow in a mud cup and floated a bone in the water. He drank and gnawed at the bone until he felt sleepy and lay down by the fire. He dreamed that a shining golden mammoth circled the snow but then disappeared into the trees.
After a while he woke and knew something else was in the hut. The smell was familiar and he wasn’t afraid. When he saw it was Reddi he cried and put out his hands to stroke the old wolf.
Outside Icegoddess was passing. Snow banked against the snow hut and drew silently into the tunnel. He remembered Juniper’s Trevi spear that was buried a little way off, under the tree, and he smiled to himself. He curled up next to Reddi and went to sleep again.
In his dream Birdgod brushed him with a feather and showed him Greenwater shining in the sun and the dark underground path Juniper was to follow.
The hunters lowered Juniper on a rope.
There was no sound in the Dream pit except the drip of water from the blackness beyond the lamps. On a flat stone there were brushes and hollow reeds and piles of yellow, red and black earth. There was a bag of animal fat and a hollow stone of water to mix his colours. There were deer hides spread over the floor where he would dream, and food and drink to make him sleep. Nothing had been forgotten.
Juniper drank and prayed to Animalgod. Then he lay down on the hides and shut his eyes.
After a while he saw yellow and red and brown shapes that became deer. They were crossing a river, heads outstretched, antlers held high as they struggled to keep afloat. He saw a horse with a black mane and other horses galloping in a file. There were wild goats, oxen, and another horse rearing and falling headlong into space. There were stags and brown bulls and a black cow jumping and another with an invisible calf in her belly. He saw other signs he didn’t understand.
He opened his eyes.
Birdman said he must paint his dreams. But these must wait. It was Oak he wanted to put in the cave, to lie there forever and ever in the sacred shadow of Pollon. He fell asleep again.
When he woke he remembered the dream as clearly as if it was already on the wall of the pit.
Oak was floating in the air, naked with the head of a bird. His arms and hands and fingers were stretched out and in his dream Juniper counted the fingers, four on each hand. His friend was looking up as if he could see Greenwater in the sky and beside him was a bison, its entrails dropping to the ground. Juniper knew Oak had thrown his long sharp stick at the wounded animal. A woolly rhinoceros was moving off in the other direction and under his erect tail were six dots. They were Juniper’s message to Oak. Faith, vigilance, energy, they said; Birdgod be with you.
In his dream it was, he, Juniper, who held the birdstick high in the air, summoning Birdgod to come and brush Oak with his feathers. When Birdgod came and touched his friend he touched Juniper at the same time and told him to celebrate Oak forever in his painting.
Juniper laughed and ate a piece of meat. Afterwards he began to grind the colours as the painters had told him. All his energies were concentrated on the picture he would paint. He was alone in the dream pit but Birdgod had touched him. He would paint the picture of Oak and he knew it would stay there, protected by the gentle shadow of Pollon until the end of time.
AFTERWARDS
It’s more than a story, thought Owen. It’s a message. It’s as if Grandad is giving me his blessing.
He went over to the window. The stars were the same stars that shone on Jupiter and Oak when they were in their hammocks. The moon was the same moon. Yet there were no more gods and goddesses. The country of the night sky had been changed by knowledge, at least for most people. Wasn’t it still a place of mystery, though? Quantum physics wasn’t an answer really, just an explanation that worked. We’re like that, thought Owen, we always have to make things work; we always have to have power. But Juniper and Oak knew that their wits alone were not enough to live by. That is whey they filled their world with prayer and special ceremonies, and it must have been why they painted.
Why do I paint? he thought. Because I’m good at it? Isn’t that enough? It was strange to think that Juniper who lived all those years ago had had the same problems as he did. Dad wasn’t afraid of art, like Birch was, but he thought it was useless, no way to earn your keep. So there were Juniper’s father and his own, standing side by side, both pretty afraid of what was going to happen to their sons. Yet more than three thousand years stood between them.
The little streets were asleep now and the moon rode high as if she were leaving the earth behind. Owen had a sudden affection for the scene he was looking at. Here were his roots after all, his long, long ago roots, Grandad would say. Dad would never understand that either. ‘If you have to do Art, what’s wrong with Croydon?’ he had said. Yet Owen felt at home in this shabby little house, with his grandfather snoring below, like a magician in disguise, waiting to fly up to the moon.
There were tears in Owen’s eyes. How could his father have left Wales forever? For that’s what he had said. ‘Wales? I was a child when I lived in Wales and I had no choice.’ But I’ll come back, thought Owen. It was as if he had known it all along. Why else had he chosen Swansea?
He tied the three exercise books up with the faded pink ribbon and put them in a plastic bag inside an empty pocket of his rucksack. When he got back to Croydon he would put the story on the computer. Prehistoric Wales inside a computer. What would Juniper have made of that?
And one day, maybe this holiday, he would find the cave for Grandad, and if he didn’t he would paint a cave of his own. It was a second best thing, of course, but if he worked hard, it would be like an offering. He knew he would not tell David any of this when they got to the Gower, nor would he tell anyone else just yet. For now, the cave was a vision, his and Grandad’s. A secret dream-cave.
He imagined Juniper and Oak, listening in on his plans as he had on theirs. He thought of their Ice goddess asleep on Snowdon, and their wise Rivergod lying below the green hills. This land is full of stories, he thought, and they go back and back. And forward, he told himself. I promise you, Grandad: when the time comes, I’ll take them forward.
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The Dream Cave