Grotto of the Dancing Deer
Clifford D. Simak
Open Road
ebook $4.99

Yesterday was Cliff Simak’s birthday.  I read the first two stories in this collection to honor his memory and his work.  Grotto of the Dancing Deer is volume four of The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.  There is no print edition.  I’d read both of these stories years ago in the collection from Tachyon entitled Over the River and Through the Woods.

The first story in this collection is a time travel tale, “Over the River and Through the Woods”.  It was originally published in the May 1965 issues of Amazing Stories.  The introduction to the story says the protagonist, Ellen, was inspired by Simak maternal grandmother, also named Ellen.

The story is set on a farm at the end of a lane in rural Wisconsin in early September, 1896.  Ellen Forbes is canning apples in kitchen when two children come walking up the lane, carrying bags like to her as though they are school bags.  They knock on the door and introduce themselves as Paul and Ellen Forbes.  The children tell Ellen they’ve been instructed to call her Grandma.

Ellen knows something isn’t right.  For one thing the only other Forbes in the area are her children and grandchildren, who live nearby.  Ellen and her husband Jackson take the children in, and Jackson intends to check with the neighbors in the morning and see if any of them know anything about the kids.

When Ellen goes upstairs to check on them and blow out the lanterns, she makes a pair of discoveries, neither of which she fully understands.  The reader will though.  Paul and Ellen have things in their bags, but what they have brought with them aren’t school books.  The children believe they are going to be picked up by their parents within a few days.  Based on some things Ellen discovers, I’m not so sure.

“Over the River and Through the Woods” is a moving and powerful story (it’s not a horror story although there are horrific elements in it), in large part to the things that are implied rather directly told.  The understatement of the final line is what gives it and the story its power.

The next story I read was the title story.  “Grotto of the Dancing Deer” was first published in the April 1980 issue of Analog.  It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.  It was easy to see why.  This one is also quiet and understated.

An anthropologist named Boyd is finishing up work in a cave in the Basque region where he has discovered a number of neolithic paintings.  He strikes up a conversation with one of the volunteers, a man named Luis.  Luis and Boyd first met when Luis showed at a dig and volunteered to work.  They’ve become friends.

Luis invites Boyd to come back later and join him at his campfire for dinner.  Luis goes to a nearby village to get the food, while Boyd brings a bottle of wine.

Boyd returns before Luis and decides to take a final look in the cave.  He discovers a crack in the wall where rocks have been carefully placed as if to hide something.  Boyd removes the rocks, crawls through the narrow tunnel, and discovers grotto with more paintings.  Unlike the ones in the main cave, which are all serious, the images in the grotto are whimsical if not downright silly.  Mammoths turning somersaults.  Bisons playing leapfrog.

Dancing deer.

Boyd also finds a bone palette the artist had used and a bone flute.  A bone flute identical to the one Luis plays.

By now I’m sure you can guess what’s going on.  This is one of several stories involving immortals who have survived since the Ice Age.  Others are “Old Man Mulligan” by P. Schuyler Miller, “The Gnarly Man” by L. Sprague de Camp, and “The Alley Man” Phillip Jose Farmer.  I might take a look at the first two.  I didn’t like the Farmer story when I read it as a teenager, so I might give it a pass.

These two tales are among Simak’s best short work.  I highly recommend both of them.

Grotto of the Dancing Deer is available in a bundle with the novels A Heritage of Stars and the classic City.