The Marsh King's Daughter(73)

We started down the steps. I was afraid my mother would fall and I’d never be able to get her back up, so Cousteau and Calypso stood on either side to catch her if she did. It took a long time to get her to the snowmobile. As soon as she was seated on it I hurried around to the other side and swung her leg around.

“Do you think I should I tie her on?” My mother was so wobbly, she could barely sit.

“It can’t hurt,” Calypso said.

“But hurry,” Cousteau said.

As if I wasn’t already working as fast as I could.

I ran to the utility shed for another piece of rope, ran back, looped it around my mother’s waist, and tied the ends around the handles. I put on The Hunter’s helmet. It was very heavy. The glass was so dark I could hardly see. I took it off and put it on my mother instead, then went around to the back of the snowmobile and opened the compartment and found the extra key. The Hunter said the snowmobile had something called an electric start, and all I had to do was turn the key. He said if the engine didn’t start right away, which it might not because the snowmobile had been sitting for several days and the days and nights had been very cold, I should let go of the key quickly so I didn’t burn out the starter, then keep doing this until the engine turned over. I hoped it wouldn’t be as complicated as it sounded.

I squeezed between my mother and the gas can and reached around her to grab the handles. After two tries the engine roared to life. I leaned to the side so I could see past my mother and eased off the brake and opened the throttle. The machine leaped forward. I cut back on the throttle, and the machine slowed, just as The Hunter had said it would. I opened the throttle again, and the snowmobile jumped forward again. I drove slowly once around the yard to get a feel for the machine, then cut back the throttle and followed the trail The Hunter had left down the side of our ridge.

“Are you okay?” I shouted when I drove onto the marsh. My mother didn’t answer. I didn’t know if she couldn’t hear me because of the helmet or because the engine was so loud. There was another possibility as to why my mother didn’t answer, but I didn’t want to think about that.

I opened the throttle as far as it would go. The wind stung my cheeks, whipped my hair. The extraordinary speed made me want to shout. I glanced over my shoulder. Rambo ran easily behind. The gauge The Hunter had said would tell me how fast I was going pointed to the number twelve. I had no idea Rambo could run so fast.

I thought about my grandparents as I drove. I wondered what they would be like. The Hunter said they had never stopped looking for my mother and they would be excited to see her again. I wondered if I would like them. I wondered what they would think of me. If they had a car, what it would be like to go for a ride in it. If I would one day take a trip with them on a train, or on a bus, or in an airplane. I had always wanted to visit the Yanomami in Brazil.

Then something whizzed past my head. At the same time, a sharp crack echoed across the marsh.

“Helena!” my father shouted. His voice was so angry and sharp, I could hear him clearly over the noise of the machine. “Get back here right now!”

I slowed. In hindsight, I should have gunned the engine and never looked back, but I was not in the habit of disobeying my father.

“Keep going,” my mother said, suddenly alert. “Hurry! Don’t stop!”

I stopped, looked back. My father was silhouetted on the top of our ridge with his feet spread like a colossus: rifle at the ready, long black hair whipping around his head like the snakes of Medusa. The rifle was pointed at me.

He shot a second time. Another warning shot, because if my father had wanted to shoot me, he would have. I realized then that stopping was a mistake. But I couldn’t go back. If I did, my father would most certainly kill my mother and possibly me. But if I disobeyed and drove away, a bullet through my back would kill us both.

My father shot a third time. Rambo yelped. I jumped off the snowmobile and ran back to where Rambo flopped and ki-yied in the snow. I passed my hands over his head, his flanks, his chest. Saw that my father had shot my beautiful dog in the foot.

Another shot rang out. My mother screamed and fell across the handlebars, a bullet hole in her shoulder.

The Remington held four cartridges plus one in the chamber. My father had one shot left before he would have to reload.

I stood up. Tears streamed down my face. My father hated to see me cry, but I didn’t care.

But instead of mocking me for my tears as I expected, my father smiled. To this day I can see his expression. Smug. Cold. Unfeeling. So sure that he had won. He pointed the rifle at me, then at Rambo, then at me, and back at Rambo again, toying with me the way he had with my mother and The Hunter, and I realized it didn’t matter which of us he shot first. One way or another, my father was going to kill us all.

I dropped to my knees. Gathered Rambo into my arms and buried my face in his fur and waited for the bullet that would end my life.

Rambo trembled, growled, pulled away. He struggled to his three remaining feet and started limping toward my father. I whistled him back. Rambo kept going. My father laughed.

I jumped to my feet and spread my arms wide. “You bastard!” I shouted. I didn’t know what the word meant, but my father cut the word into The Hunter’s chest, so I knew it was bad. “You asshole! You son of a bitch!” Spewing all the words I could remember. “What are you waiting for? Shoot me!”