I chewed on a small twig, fashioning it into a fine paintbrush, and softened the shading on the bison’s flanks. Perfect. I dipped my hand into a dish of ground charcoal and pressed it against the cave wall, signing my masterpiece. With proper care, I believed my mural could look good for five, maybe six years.
My name’s Murf, and I’m an artist. I make a living carving decorative tools for cooking and hunting, and sculpting voluptuous “fertility goddesses” for lonely bachelors. This cave mural was my first big commission; upon completion, the shaman of our tribe would pay me enough meat to get me through the winter, plus a big fat bag of cowrie shells. These shells have no intrinsic value, but we’ve begun to trade them for goods and services. It’s a pretty good idea — I just hope it doesn’t get out of control.
The shaman entered to pass judgment on my work. He studied it carefully, pursed his lips, and proclaimed, “It needs... me.”
“What?”
“These animals are all very cute and lively, but I think I belong in the picture. I am the leader and spirit of our tribe — shouldn’t I be here as well?”
Frankly, no. In all modesty, it was a beautiful painting, and there was no place for a human figure in it. Especially not the shaman’s figure — he was shaped like the bladder of a bear and had the equivalent looks, intellect, and aroma.
“Murf — I demand that you put me in this painting.” I sighed and drew a tiny stick figure at the rear of the bison. It could be the shaman although it might easily be mistaken for a bison chip.
The shaman purpled. “If you won’t put me in this painting with the honor I’m due, I will find an artist who will! And you will receive nothing for all your hard work!”
No meat. No bag of shells. And my masterpiece would still be ruined. I thought long and hard before I replied. “Sit on your hat.” This is about the worst thing you can say to a shaman, since his hat consists of a pair of large and very pointy ibex horns.
I called for my assistant Poot to gather all my paints, brushes, and tools. Dear Poot — strong as a horse, loyal as a dog, dumb as an ox — glared at the shaman from his deep-set eyes. “You stinky bad,” he said.
“Well put, Poot,” I said.
Oswald Plummer held up Poot’s fossilized skull, with its bony eyebrow ridge and apelike jaw. “This is the skull of Neanderthal man, an evolutionary dead end. Can you imagine a race straining so hard to be human, and yet falling ever so short?”
The Jeter family stared at him glossily. “Yes, perhaps you could. We found this one skull mixed among the remains of all the Cro-Magnon. How profoundly lonely to be living among strangers, the very last of your race—”
“Is there a gift shop down here?” Mr. Jeter interrupted.
“No, Mr. Jeter, this is a cave.”
It had been a tough day, so Poot and I treated ourselves to a trip to Mog’s Tavern. Mog dispensed the juice of fermented grains from giant vats under the sign IF YOU GO BLIND, YOU DON’T PAY. Mog’s had always attracted the more artistic members of our tribe — already at the bar sat Qaqaq, an aspiring painter whose parents had forced him into the more stable field of toothpulling and exorcism.
“Murf!” came a voice from behind me — Meg’s is a place where everybody knows your name. I turned to see Hax, the least original and hence most successful artist in our village. His bulbous body was stuffed into a doeskin outfit dotted with clumps of bunny fur scented and dyed with mashed lilacs; this gave Hax the look of a flowering shrub that was somehow sweating profusely. “Murf, I just had to tell you. I’ve been asked to do some work on that lovely cave painting you couldn’t finish,” he said.
“It is finished,” I growled.
“Well, I’m just adding a few little touches. I thought I’d paint the shaman in so he’s riding that cute bison you did. And I’m adding another giant portrait of the shaman on the left side, and guess what he’s holding in his outstretched hand!”
“Your peepee?” Poot guessed in all sincerity.
Hax ignored him. “It’s that herd of deer you painted. Oh, and I’m covering some of those spirals and dots you did with trees. People love trees.”
I was speechless. Qaqaq, the young artist, came to my defense. “Hax, how can you do this?”
“They’re offering me a huge bag of shells. I’m sure you’d do the same, Quackquack,” Hax sneered.
Poot giggled. “Quackquack.”
Mog stepped in. “You know, Haxy, since you’re coming into a little cash, maybe you could finally pay off your bar tab.”
Hax took out a swatch of chamois hide and on it drew a quick charcoal sketch of a tree. “Consider this payment in full,” he said and drifted out of the bar like a ball of swamp gas.
Mog looked at the sketch, assessed it, then used it to mop up the bar top. “It does the job,” he said.
Hours later Poot and I staggered out of Mog’s, wittier and more charming than when we had entered. Poot hauled my heavy case of art supplies all the way to my home and heaved it inside. I had lost the biggest commission of my career, and I would have to let Poot go, too. I patted his lumpy head and gave him three shells’ severance pay. He deserved more, but Poot’s brain couldn’t seem to handle any numbers beyond three. For him it goes one, two, three, more than you can ever imagine. Of course, the wise men of our tribe have found that numbers actually go all the way up to sixty before spinning off into uncountability.
I entered my cave to face the toughest challenge of this just awful day: Mother. In her time my mother has been attacked by packs of wolves and had her head gnawed by a bear; she has pried snake fangs out of her breast and a boar’s tusk from her thigh. As a sign of respect each defeated animal seems to have infused her with its own brand of meanness and cunning. Now, at age forty-eight, Mother has earned another title: The Oldest Woman on Earth.
“Mother, I lost my job today,” I told her. I explained how I stood my ground against the shaman, how I put my integrity above mere material objects. It was a terrific speech, and I seemed quite the hero until I stepped forward and tripped over my case of art supplies.
The Oldest Woman on Earth regarded me with her one good eye and asked, “How will we eat?”
She had me there — I had no money, no food, no real prospects. “Mother, tomorrow I will go out and kill us something big.” She snorted in a way that could never be interpreted as “I believe in you, my brave boy” and went to sleep. I spread out some straw for my bed and was out like a torch.
That night I dreamt I was naked and drowning and being eaten by snapping turtles. Even though I was underwater, my hair was on fire, and the first girl I’d ever kissed was laughing at me. What I awoke to see was even more disturbing. The Oldest Woman on Earth was standing astride me, a spear pointed between my eyes. “Yaah!” I remarked.
She tossed me the spear. “Go kill us some lunch.”
“Fine. Just let me get a few more hours—” Before I could finish, T.O.W.O.E. had already swept my straw bed into the flaming cooking pit in the center of the cave. Cruel but tidy — that’s my mom.