Jim Crace - The Pesthouse

It was tempting, actually, to pick up several rocks and see if she could put some holes in their thin roof, or even damage their milk cows. She thought that probably her danger would prove to be brief and somewhat comical. Perhaps her only problem now would be getting back to the Boses by a circuitous route, though the thought of trying to amuse them with an account of her adventures was not promising.

It was only then that Margaret saw that the two men had mounted up and armed themselves. They had not spotted her yet, but a golden rule of hunting said that nothing from a bee to a buffalo could evade two mounted men for long, except three mounted men. Her first thought was to try to reach one of the other habitations in the neighborhood and beg for help. A young woman with a child, escaping from two likely rapists, could surely expect the offer of help and safety from any normal home, if there were other women, anyway. She could see the roofs of two small steads within easy reach, though no sign of people. If she could see another woman or a child, then she would head that way. But there was no one. There wasn’t even any smoke. For all she knew, these places might be abandoned. Most places were abandoned nowadays. Perhaps these two men were simply passing through. Their high-tacked horses seemed to suggest so. Maybe they had rustled their three cows and moved into the empty cottage for a day or so of butchery. Salt beef would see them and their dog safely and fatly through the winter. Perhaps the other buildings were harboring similar men, from the same band of riders possibly. Margaret did not need reminding how cruel and murderous such groups could be. She’d seen them take her Pigeon away. She’d seen the woman on the highway, raped and stoned to death. No, Margaret dared not take her chances at another house. The best thing she could do was get away from humankind and horses altogether. She had her breath back now. She made a sling out of her blue scarf, wrapped it around Bella, and tied the child to her back. She’d carry the baby the way Franklin had carried her down Butter Hill.

This would be a game of hide and seek. Margaret’s best plan was to avoid open ground entirely. A stand of trees reached into the flat land around the farmsteads and spread along the low escarpment in patchy clumps, not thick enough to frustrate horses but offering shade and camouflage. But then again, she thought, that is exactly what the men would expect her to do — run for cover. She’d do the opposite.

The countryside was undulating rather than hilly, and the undergrowth was thick though low, so it was good for riding and not so good for walking. There was an open meadow just before the trees, cleared by farmers years before but long disused. Margaret looked behind her to see if she was in sight of the horsemen, but they had not cleared the escarpment yet. She ran into the middle of the meadow and, after some long moments of panic, found a hollow big enough to lie down in. She pulled as much dry vegetation and dry foliage as she could find within reach over the two of them and lay on her side, cradling Bella. With one eye, she watched the sky for shadows. She was good at lying still and breathing silently. All she could hope for now was that Bella wouldn’t cry and wouldn’t want to play.

As she had hoped, Charlie and the simpleton kept to the edge of the trees, peering in among the trunks and pursing their lips to make those “Come to me, cat” noises that men seem to think are flirty and seductive but that are menacing for women. The nearest they came to Margaret and Bella was forty or so horse lengths away, but the baby, placated first by a finger and then by a little sweet ear wax, kept quiet, happy, it seemed, to stay in the undergrowth and watch the clouds with Margaret.

Margaret had no comfort for herself, nothing sweet to take her mind off the fear that raced her heart and cramped her stomach and seemed to want her both to weep and to belch. She could not say exactly what she feared. Rape and death were only words to her. Pain she understood a little more. But there was something in the faces of those men that she’d been born frightened of. She was shaking but could not steady herself. She held the baby far too firmly, until Bella opened her mouth to cry in protest. But by that time Margaret could hear the horses heading away, growing fainter. Their hoof treads on the snapping twigs and dry fall leaves would mask Bella’s noise, so Margaret let the baby cry a little and allowed herself to shake and weep and belch.

It was tempting to take this opportunity to break cover and run back toward the Boses. Her hide was damp, cold, and uncomfortable. But Margaret’s legs were jelly. And she could hardly breathe. Besides, she knew enough about horses to realize that a woman with a child to carry would be seen and caught up with before she had a chance to reach the hem of the meadow. Even if she did reach the Boses, that would be no guarantee of safety. Those men could knock them all aside like cornstalks if they wanted to. Andrew and Melody had only sharp tongues with which to defend themselves.

Margaret had no choice but to wait until sundown, when the light would be more on her side, and then, skirting the cottage and the cows, stumble back down to the track and the company, if not the safekeeping, of Bella’s grandparents. They’d have to move on straightaway. In these circumstances, none of them would want to spend the night in such a risky spot. They’d be dreaming horses. She could almost hear Franklin’s voice, saying to her, You’d have been better off sticking to the open highway .

Late in the afternoon, just about the time that Andrew was checking on the farm cottage, when the shadows of the trees lengthened to reach the place where Margaret had gone to ground, she decided it was time to move. She listened carefully, distinguishing the natural creaking of the trees from any human voices or horse sounds before judging it safe to make a dash with Bella for the forest edge. She peered through the gloaming down the slight incline and beyond the roof of the cottage, hoping to recognize the route she had followed earlier that day when she had left the Boses under a rendezvous tree on her usual quest for milk. The quickest way to safety, she saw, was to drop into the small pasture where the three cows were kept, pass close to the house, and then follow the shared path between the group of mostly uninhabited buildings. She held her breath and tried to steady her eyes. She was hoping to see no horses. No horses probably meant that the men had not returned, that they’d probably lost interest in their hunt for her and gone after fur of some other kind. They’d certainly be back by nightfall, so now was definitely the time for Margaret to run for it.

She and Bella had reached the choke of rocks above the house before Margaret heard a sound below and immediately took cover again. A small man, not young, was peering through the shutter boards of one of the rear windows. The light would have been too poor in the shadow of the house to see him clearly even if her eyesight had been good, but he was not large enough to be one of the horsemen, she thought. That did not mean that he wasn’t just as dangerous, however. Margaret would have to retreat. She waited until the man walked around the house and through the side gate to the front. When he went inside, she came out of her hiding place among the rocks, noisily dislodging a scree of small stones. The dog, still tied at the side of the house, began to bark. She had not been careful enough. The dog could have seen her, smelled her, heard her.

Now Bella started to protest, a cry of complaint. She had had nothing to eat or drink since the morning, her eyes and mouth were full of leaves, she hadn’t played all day, she hadn’t been allowed to crawl. There was milk to be had just a short distance away, but this was no time to be a milkmaid. Margaret hurried back the way she’d come. This time, protected by the deepening twilight, she kept to the edge of the trees, her finger in Bella’s mouth. If she was spotted by the horsemen now, she could at least disappear into the trees and hope to find a narrow trail that horses could not follow.