B I S O N
By
KEVIN CONNOLLY
Never had the cavemen felt hunger like this. He thought of beating a rock on a hollow log to express this hunger, but that would take too much energy and he had none.
“Me eat soon. Me death near.â€
So many moons ago, so many suns ago, his tribe had moved from the rocky hillside to the fertile valley below, for farming reasons, but the caveman was too stubborn to follow.
“They dig ground. They plant seed. Me no go. Me love meat more.â€
Farming had not appealed to him. The leaders of his tribe were trying to usher in the forefront of a new revolution in mankind’s history. It was understood that the tribe was tired of travel. After finding the riverbed valley, they decided not to relocate. Besides, the animal population had either dwindled or migrated too fast to keep up a chase. This one cavemen didn’t agree with the direction the tribe had taken, so he hid himself up in a cave, to preserve his own tradition.
He crawled out the cave mouth, into the sun. He could see his former tribe farming in the distant fields. A sudden superior feeling overcame him and he put his nose to his armpit, inhaling his manly scent.
“Me no like fruit. Me no like vegetables. Plant food, me no like. Farg. Farg to them.â€
His name was two grunts and a whistle; but he was also known as Dunga, which stood for “lazy lover of tree shade.†He had a long sloping forehead and a crooked nose, but the feature that most stood out was his remarkable set of bronze ass cheeks, recognizable still to many tribes of that region.
Dunga was real hungry now. Thunder in the belly, lightning alert in his eyes, nature called out that need for food.
He was now an exile from the tribe. He didn’t want to help them make the required tools for farming, so they fed themselves without him. They didn’t care if he died from starvation. They just banished him into the mountains. And even though their shunning was punishment, he still felt like his way of surviving was better.
The previous night he had tried to catch a woolly mammoth. He used the fire of his torch light to scare the big beast over the edge of cliff, so it would drop dead on the jagged rocks below. It worked. However, high tide washed up over the mammoth, and Dunga had no way of retrieving his meal.
This cave of his, it was special, and he rarely left it unattended. He had been the painter of the tribe. His role was to paint the animals on the walls, just before they went out together on a hunt. Down the dark tunnel, by way of torch light, the tribe would illuminate the walls where the art would inspire the luck they needed for a successful hunt. The animals would glow among their flickering shadows. This was more of a mystic ceremony, one in which they would glory chant and fall into a deep trance. This was the first ancient form of entertainment. This was the first distraction that could make members of the tribe actually forget they had a bad day being chased by tigers.
Dunga’s greatest work was the beefy bison. For this particular painting, Dunga had crushed a variety of berries, only to then extract a thick maroon paste. He considered it his finest achievement. The tribe was equally impressed. In fact, the first time he put the cave painting on display, the entire tribe, including the elder chief, stood before it, awestruck, paralyzed by its beauty. They were mesmerized by it. They were engrossed by it. They were transfixed by it. They didn’t move until the last light of the torch ambered out to ash. And even then, they were spellbound as if they had been hypnotized.
The caveman crawled back down the dark tunnel. He used a flint stone to get his torch going. There, alone in his cave, he admired the bison. It truly was one of a kind. It made him feel not so much like creator of art, but like a supernatural man of magic. He knew there to be a power behind the painting. He had hinted to the others that he had used a secret ingredient to paint the black bison horns, but when pressed by others for the details, the cavemen would not reveal the source.
The hunger was gnawing at him and his stomach was feeding on itself.
“Me hunt alone. Hunt too hard. Me get no meat.â€
Dunga then devised a plan to steal the food that had been recently cultivated by his tribe. He was too proud to plainly ask for food, no, he had to steal it. The plan was this: he would invite the farmers to look at the beefy bison, and while they were distracted, he would storm the huts and collect as much corn as he could. The only thing was, he would have to make a few additional stroke marks to the bison, so as to warrant their visit. Lately, he had noticed that those who had already seen the bison, were growing weary of it, and the duration of their trance-like state had shortened quite considerably. The fact made him feel less and less immortal, but no matter, a plan was a plan. Just because they couldn’t appreciate the hunt that bonded them, that wasn’t his fault. Dunga blamed the stars.
That night the farmers arrived, one by one, packing themselves inside the cave. Dunga lit several torches, keeping one for himself, and passing the rest to the others. He watched their expressions as the bison came into view. It was just as he had expected. They were totally enthralled by the additional strokes. So while the farmers began the ritual chanting, Dunga made his quick exit of the cave. He ran down the rocky hillside and he gathered as many kernels of corn as the clay pottery would carry. He ran back up the mountain, eating as he ran, biting into the corn cobs, then he entered the cave in through a different passageway. He had pulled it off, he thought, still catching his breath.
Suddenly a flint stone sparked up another torch, which then lit up the back chamber from where the cavemen had come in. It was the child of the chief leader. Obviously the kid had not been as overwhelmed by the bison as the adults and he had wondered off. Maybe the significance of the painting was lost on a younger generation. It was the biggest insult Dunga had ever incurred and he dropped his torch on the ground from both embarrassment and the shock of being caught. But more importantly the kid now knew who had been stealing the community corn. When Dunga made a quiet, but severe hand gesture that warned the kid to keep the theft a secret, he could see in the eyes of the child that he would soon expose the truth. It was just too big a betrayal. It was a crime against the community and Dunga would pay with his life. To be sure, they would burn him at the stake.
Dunga sprang on top of the chief leader’s son, strangled him, then snapped his neck. He dropped the kid slowly to the ground, and exhaled with relief, for he could still hear the unbroken series of chants in the next chamber. He figured he had just nearly escaped a certain death.
But just when he thought it safe to return to the tribal gathering, he heard some popping sounds. These popping sounds echoed throughout the cave, a noise that was sure to attract those curious farmers. Dunga spun his head toward the popping sounds and he saw that the torch he had dropped on the ground was now beginning to cook the kernels of corn, turning them into white fluffy things. The whole cave started to pop and echo and reverberate with this strange sound. And so the cavemen did what anyone would do when confronted with an angry mob, he let out a scream. He tried to run, but without a torch in his hand, the cave became a dark maze. He put his hands on the cave walls, searching for a way out. It was the last time he’d live to touch those walls ever again.