Chapter Four
Not only thirst, but hunger as well drove them on, so it was without resistance that Gowdy was able to gather the children in from the waves and follow along. It was already early afternoon and though the only shade was by the edge of the forest, none of them were eager to go near that borderline again, in case it somehow magically dragged them back inside. Gowdy was realizing, before it even occurred to Soma, let alone Squee, that many things were going to be different from now on, including the acquisition of food. Eating was strictly required for the immortals. Many had tried to do without it in the early days, first as a form of hunger strike, in case anyone was watching from the outside, and later as a method of attempted suicide, but not eating simply left their bodies weak and their minds tired, much like a regular person might feel after running a marathon. They could not end their lives that way, only make themselves miserable. In the forest there was always plenty of readily available food but looking around Gowdy saw nothing that would serve the purpose.
He presumed there were fish in the sea, if eventually it came to that, but between the ocean and the forest there was only the wide strip of warm yellow sand. Soma and Squee went racing on ahead, running as fast as they could along the water until they were nearly out of sight. Then they would stop and splash in the waves until the old man caught up with them again. Gowdy was used to the noisy pleasures of the youth and didn't begrudge them their fun. For their part, it never occurred to them to try and cheer him up or get him to join in their games. They operated perfectly congruently in their separate ways.
Soma was the first to notice a sign of human habitation. Then again, she was typically the first in everything. Sharp-eyed, sharp-eared, always thinking, always curious, nothing escaped her attention for long, and though it was only a wisp of smoke at the edge of the horizon, practically indistinguishable from a patch of cloud, she hastened over to Gowdy's side to point it out to him. He had been walking slowly but steadily along but now he picked up his pace and marched directly towards the site. There would be fire, and maybe there would be people. Gowdy managed to keep his mind busy with worries and concerns no matter what the situation. He'd been doing that for so long it would have been impossible for him to stop for a moment, even to admire the scenery. What if it were merely a wildfire, and not people? But then, what if there were people, and the people were hostile? What if they were armed, and attacked? He could only hope! He was himself ready for conflict. Somebody had to pay, and with any luck it would be a lot of somebodies.
As they drew closer, they could see the smoke was indeed coming from a sort of structure. It looked like a narrow vertical box, like an old windowless phone booth made of thin boards tied together with vines, walled on three sides and open to the sea on the fourth. The smoke was streaming through a square hole in the thatched roof, and the fire itself was a small dwindling bundle of sticks on the middle of the floor, and was rapidly nearing its conclusion. Squee and Soma cautiously circled the small building several times as if expecting something or someone to pop out of it at any moment, while Gowdy scanned the area around it, which was the same strip of sand, no different than where they had come from except, and this exception made Gowdy's heart leap for an instant, the forest behind it was gone.
They must have passed its border some time before, because now they couldn't see it at all. The landscape behind the beach was utterly changed. Dunes swelled up behind the fire hut, dotted with clumps of thick grasses. Gowdy scrambled up the hillocks with the children rushing past him to reach the top first, and once above they saw a mostly flat land filled with low brush, bushes and shrubs and an occasional clump of short stubby trees, most of which surrounded small ponds. They could make out a few thin paths cutting through the marshland here and there, also leading to and between the tiny lakes, and Soma quickly ascertained that those paths were actually creeks and rivulets. She and Squee were already splashing their way through them, stopping once or twice to scoop up water in their hands and suck it down. Gowdy followed a short way and also drank, but stopped before getting too far away from the fire. He planned to keep watch over that place until someone arrived. He was sure they would. He signaled his intention to Soma with a gesture she immediately understood and let him know they'd be returning shortly.
Gowdy walked back up the other side of the dune and found a place in a thicket of grass where he could watch the smoking structure and keep himself hidden from ocean view. He settled in and began what turned out to be a longer wait than he guessed. The fire went out completely within an hour or so, and by that time the children had returned with another surprise, a wild rabbit Squee had captured and was holding on under its forelegs while it kicked and struggled with its powerful back legs attempting to escape.
"Can we keep it?" the boy wanted to know, and Gowdy shrugged.
"Keep it where?" he asked. "Keep it how?"
"Maybe we should eat it," Squee said with a serious look on his face. They had all been vegetarians for so long it was a novel concept, and he didn't really mean any harm to the creature. Somehow he had the idea that they could keep it as a pet and eat it too.
"Ew," Soma made a face. "I think we should let her go."
"How do you know it's a she?" Squee demanded. Soma was always so sure of herself, and Squee never so, that he was always wanting her to prove what she claimed. Even though she always did, he was never satisfied to take her word for anything.
"It's got no, you know," she said, pointing at the rear of the creature's belly. Disgusted, or at least feigning disgust, Squee set the rabbit on the ground and let it go. It quickly scampered back down the dune and into the brush.
"We will have to eat something," Gowdy said, watching the creature flee. "Did you find any berries or fruits back there?"
"We found these," Soma produced a handful of small, shiny and squishy red balls.
"We tried one," she added. "They taste terrible, like yellow dirt."
"Probably poisonous," Gowdy remarked, taking one and studying it closely.
"Not for humans," he said, and popped it into his mouth. He rolled the thing around on his tongue before biting down on it, and making a disapproving face.
"Quite right," he said. "Juicy but bitter. Some nutritional value. They'll do fine."
Soma divided up the rest and handed them out and the three munched quietly while the afternoon continued to proceed towards dusk and still nobody arrived to check on the fire in the booth-like place. Squee settled down for a nap while Soma and Gowdy talked quietly about the possibility of heading toward what looked like mountains far off in the distance behind the wetlands. A strip of clouds had gathered there low along the horizon, which is what gave Gowdy the idea, although the mountains, if there were any, could not themselves be seen. Gowdy wanted to stay along the coast, thinking there was a better chance of finding people. Soma was not interested in finding people. She wanted to explore, and anything new and different was always good, in her mind. She wouldn't dream of heading off on her own, though. She was, like all of her kind, essentially a pack animal.
The sun was going down behind the water, glowing huge and red beneath the pinkening sky, when they heard the sounds of voices coming closer. The watchers scrambled to their knees and poked their heads out through the grass to see who was approaching.