Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [137]
That night, as he lay hidden beneath a bush, he found himself thinking of the Mandinkas’ greatest hero, the warrior Sundiata, who had been a crippled slave so meanly treated by his African master that he had escaped and gone hiding in the swamps, where he found and organized other escaped ones into a conquering army that carved out the vast Mandinka Empire. Maybe, Kunta thought as he set out again on this fourth day, he could find other escaped Africans somehow here in the land of toubob, and maybe they would be as desperate as he was to feel their toes once again in the dust of their native land. Maybe enough of them together could build or steal a big canoe. And then . . .
Kunta’s reverie was interrupted by a terrible sound. He stopped in his tracks. No, it was impossible! But there was no mistake; it was the baying of hounds. Wildly he went hacking at the brush, stumbling and falling and scrambling up again. Soon he was so tired that when he fell again, he just sat there, very still, clutching the handle of his knife and listening. But he heard nothing now—nothing but the sounds of the birds and the insects.
Had he really heard the dogs? The thought tormented him. He didn’t know which was his worst enemy, the toubob or his own imagination. He couldn’t afford to assume that he hadn’t really heard them, so he started running again; the only safety was to keep moving. But soon—exhausted not only by having to race so far and so fast, but also by fear itself—he had to rest again. He would close his eyes for just a moment, and then get going again.
He awoke in a sweat, sitting bolt upright. It was pitch dark! He had slept the day away! Shaking his head, he was trying to figure out what had wakened him when suddenly he heard it again: the baying of dogs, this time much closer than before. He sprang up and away so frantically that it was several moments before it flashed upon his mind that he had forgotten his long knife. He dashed back where he had lain, but the springy vines were a maze, and though he knew—maddeningly—that he had to be within arm’s length of it, no amount of groping and scrabbling enabled him to lay his hand on it.
As the baying grew steadily louder, his stomach began to churn. If he didn’t find it, he knew he would get captured again—or worse. With his hands jerking around everywhere underfoot, he finally grabbed hold of a rock about the size of his fist. With a desperate cry, he snatched it up and bolted into the deep brush.
All that night, like one possessed, he ran deeper and deeper into the forest—tripping, falling, tangling his feet in vines, stopping only for moments to catch his breath. But the hounds kept gaining on him, closer and closer, and finally, soon after dawn, he could see them over his shoulder. It was like a nightmare repeating itself. He couldn’t run any farther. Turning and crouching in a little clearing with his back against a tree, he was ready for them—right hand clutching a stout limb he had snapped off another tree while he was running at top speed, left hand holding the rock in a grip of death.
The dogs began to lunge toward Kunta, but with a hideous cry he lashed the club at them so ferociously that they retreated and cowered just beyond its range, barking and slavering, until the two toubob appeared on their horses.
Kunta had never seen these men before. The younger one drew a gun, but the older one waved him back as he got down off his horse and walked toward Kunta. He was calmly uncoiling a long black whip.
Kunta stood there wild-eyed, his body shaking, his brain flashing a memory of toubob faces in the wood grove, on the big canoe, in the prison, in the place where he had been sold, on the heathen farm, in the woods where he had been caught, beaten, lashed, and