Surfacing - Margaret Atwood [80]
The other three are still on the dock. Then they shout: they must have found my clothes, one is kneeling down. Is it Joe, I try to picture what Joe looks like. But it makes no difference, he wouldn’t help me, he would be on their side; he may have given them the keys.
The two come out of the cabin and thud down to the dock again, their false skins flapping. They cluster, they chitter and sizzle like a speeded-up tape, the forks and spoons on the ends of their arms waving excitedly. Perhaps they think I drowned myself, that would be the kind of blunder they would make.
Keep quiet I say, I bite into my arm but I can’t hold it back, the laughter extrudes. It startles me, I stop at once but it’s too late, they’ve heard me. Rubber feet stomping off the dock and bulletproof heads moving towards me, who could they be, David and Joe, Claude from the village, Evans, Malmstrom the spy, the Americans, the humans, they’re here because I wouldn’t sell. I don’t own it, nobody owns it I tell them, you don’t have to kill me. Rabbit’s choices: freeze, take the chance they won’t see you; then bolt.
I have a good start on them and no shoes. I run silently, dodging branches, heading for the path to the swamp, the canoe is there, I can easily reach it first. On the open lake they could cut me off with the motorboat but if I go into the swamp, among the dead tree roots, I’ll be safe, they’d have to wade for me, the mud is soft, they’ll sink like bulldozers. Behind me they crash, their boots crash, language ululating, electronic signals thrown back and forth between them, hooo, hooo, they talk in numbers, the voice of reason. They clank, heavy with weapons and iron plating.
But they’ve half-circled and are closing, five metal fingers converging to a fist. I double back. Other tricks: up a tree, but no time and no tree is big enough. Crouch behind boulders, at night yes but not now and there are no boulders, they’ve pulled themselves back into the earth just when I need them. Flight, there’s no alternative, though I’m praying the power has deserted me, nothing is on my side, not even the sun.
I swerve toward the lake, there’s a high bank here, steep slope, sand mostly. I go over the edge and slide down it, on a knee and elbow it seems, gouging furrows, I hope they won’t see the tracks. I keep the blanket over me so the white won’t show and crouch with my face against the treeroots that dangle over the eroded side. Twisted: cedars. One of my feet is gashed and the arm, I can feel the blood swelling out like sap.
The clangs and shouts thrash past me and continue, further away, then nearer. I stay unmoving, don’t give yourself away. Back in the woods they group: talking, laughter. Maybe they’ve brought food, in hampers and thermos bottles, maybe they thought of it as a picnic. My heart clenches, unclenches, I listen to it.
The sound of the starting motor prods me. I pull myself up onto the bank and squat behind the hedge of trunks, if I stay by the shore they might see me. The noise surges out from behind the point and they rocket past, so near I could hit them with a stone. I count them, making sure, five.
That is the way they are, they will not let you have peace, they don’t want you to have anything they don’t have themselves. I stay on the bank, resting, licking the scratches; no fur yet on my skin, it’s too early.
I make my way back towards the cabin, resenting the gods although perhaps they saved me, limping, blood is still coming out of my foot but not as much. I wonder if they have set traps; I will have to avoid my shelter. Caught animals gnaw off their arms and legs to get free, could I do that.
I haven’t had time to be hungry and even now the hunger is detached from me, it does not insist; I must be getting used to it, soon I will be able to go without food altogether. Later I will search along the other trail;