A Taste for Rabbit

by Linda Zuckerman

  He reached the spot where he’d last seen Isaac and Gerard. In front of him now was the burlap bag, still lying on the ground, like a small, light brown rabbit asleep — or dead — on the path, spilling its entrails of gold. He reached down and put two gold coins in his pocket. Souvenirs.

  “That’s him!” a voice cried faintly. “It ain’t nobody else! It’s him, all right! It’s Mr. Isaac!”

  Harry looked up. In the distance coming toward him, he could see someone running — Martin, by the sound of it — followed by what looked like an enormous number of large rabbits with drawn bows and arrows.

  But I’m not! he thought … and then he understood. I’m a decoy! This is why Isaac sent me to the fortress, and why he lent me his walking stick! He didn’t want information — he wanted me dead so that he could escape more easily. And the fight — my injuries, the vicious beating to my legs, my limp — now makes it impossible for me to prove who I am. No wonder Isaac thought the gods were helping him!

  What to do. I could wait till the rebels get here and explain — but would they listen? Would they believe me? Why should they? I could find a place to hide — but where? The cave is nearby, but that will make me look even worse…. I need someone who can confirm who I am. Allison and Becky could identify me, but can they prove I’m not Isaac?

  The voices and shouts were coming closer.

  He stood, his heart pounding, frozen on the path as the cries of the rebels came closer.

  For the first time in his life, Harry was trapped.

  On impulse, he turned toward the cave. Maybe he could hide in the tunnel. He began to run, limping and hopping as fast as he could on the uneven, slippery trail. When he looked back, he saw one large rabbit with dark brown fur, wearing a black tunic and boots running ahead of the others. “Stop!” the rabbit cried. “Isaac! Stop and surrender!”

  Harry could not run faster.

  The rabbits were close behind now, thundering on the path. Panting, Harry slowed to a limping trot, then a walk. The pain in his leg had become too great; his sore ribs hurt with every breath. He could go no further.

  He fell to the ground.

  In a moment, he was surrounded. The large rabbit grabbed Harry by the jacket collar, lifted him off his feet, and snarled, “Prepare to die, Isaac Fox!” Three even larger rabbits crowded in alongside Harry, and Martin hovered around the edges. Two rabbits with clubs raised them menacingly.

  “I’m not Isaac,” Harry said, trying to sound confident and calm, but he was breathing hard and his voice trembled a little. “You’ve made a mistake. Isaac is my brother. My name is Harry.” He struggled free from the rabbit’s grasp and leaned on the cane. He looked at Martin. “You remember me, don’t you? We met the other night when you were pushing that wheelbarrow toward town. You mistook me for Isaac then too.”

  Martin shook his head. “I don’t never remember no stinking meeting,” he said. “And besides, I ain’t never believed you neither.” He turned away. “We ain’t never met, Mr. Tabor.”

  “Then how can you be sure I’m Isaac?”

  “Easy!” Martin said, turning back to him triumphantly. “That’s easy! Ain’t I knowed it then? You got a walkin’ stick!” He grabbed it from Harry’s paw. “Look!” he said, showing it to the others. “No normal fox wouldn’t never need this! Ain’t Mr. Isaac known for bein’ a poor, helpless cripple? He can’t never walk none without no stinkin’ cane. I seen you limpin’! And ain’t this stick got the initials Eye Eff? That don’t stand for no Harry. For Harry it would need a … a …” He stopped in confusion, then looked suspiciously at Harry’s pocket. “What’s in there?”

  Tabor reached in and pulled out the gold coins. “What’s this?”

  “I saw it on the path,” Harry said. “It’s not mine. I just picked it up.” He could never explain the souvenir part.

  “It’s gold,” Martin said excitedly. “It ain’t no different from what I been paid with. This is the same.”

  “You’re a fox who walks with a limp and is using a cane with Isaac’s initials, and you have gold coins in your pocket. That’s good enough for me,” Tabor said and gripped Harry’s arm.

  Harry saw this was his last chance. Balancing his weight on his one good leg, he cried, “I’m not Isaac!” He punched Tabor in the stomach as hard as he could, knocking him down. Tabor doubled over, and several rabbits crouched down to help him.

  As Martin stood, staring, Harry picked up the walking stick and hit him across the face with it. He jabbed his elbow into the gut of the nearest club-holding rabbit behind him, who fell to the ground. Then Harry ran down the path toward the cave, limping and hopping. Martin’s howls of pain followed him. In a few moments, he could hear the rabbits again, shouting, their footsteps getting closer and closer. One or two arrows thunked into the path behind him.

  Breathing hard, and with the pain in his leg again becoming unbearable, Harry saw the entrance ahead. The late afternoon sun slanted onto the front floor of the cave, leaving the rest in deep shadow.

  Falling inside, he gasped for breath and was blinded by the sudden darkness before him. He crawled further into the cave and looked around. The sunlight fell on the circular stone, which had sunk partially into the ground to reveal a gaping dark hole filled with rocks and debris. The floor of the cave in front of him was smeared with dried blood. Harry could barely see that the tunnel had collapsed. His last chance for escape was gone.

  Feeling utter despair, he sank to his knees, breathing hard, his head in his paws. Behind him, the rabbits’ footsteps pounded on the path, getting closer. “Kill him! Kill Isaac Fox!” Tabor’s voice cried, and the rabbits’ shouts echoed into the sun-filled forest.

  He waited for the blows that would end his life.

  The first thing Quentin saw was Zack’s anxious face and sad eyes, hovering above him. Then he became aware of the pain in his arm, which throbbed with every beat of his heart, and the burning in his ear. He hurt all over and his vision, through his one opened eye, was blurred.

  “Q — can you hear me?”

  Quentin tried to speak, but no sound came. All he could do was blink an assent. Then he managed, “Where am I? What happened?” in a hoarse whisper.

  “The tunnel collapsed last night. We got you out just in time. Wally’s under it, somewhere. You’ve been unconscious for hours.” Zack took a breath. “How are you feeling? You look horrible.”

  “Thanks,” Quentin said. Zack had to lean close to hear him. “I feel horrible.”

  “Q, I’m afraid to ask this — did you kill him? Wally?”

  Quentin tried to remember those last moments in the dark — the struggle, the rock. “I hit him as hard as I could,” he murmured. “I don’t know. I wanted to. Yes, I think so.” He tried to sit up but fell back. The ground under him was cold but dry and he seemed to be covered by a light blanket. Beyond Zack’s face he could see the rough canvas of Elton’s tent, the one he had pitched a thousand years ago.

  “Listen, Q. I’m worried about your ear,” Zack said. “It needs to be more securely bandaged and there could be infection. Your eye looks terrible and your arm is bleeding again. Frank went to the Inn to get help.”

  Quentin closed his eyes.

  * * *

  “Well. What have we here?” a deep voice said, and Quentin opened his eyes again to see a very large raccoon standing at the entrance to the tent. She carried an enormous black carpetbag and was bundled up against the cold. Frank stood beside her. Behind him, peering into the tent, was a smaller raccoon carrying an armful of blankets and a large woven basket.

  “These are my friends, Quentin and Zack,” Frank was saying. He turned to Zack. “Allison and Becky own the Inn.”

  Zack nodded and held out his paw, but Allison was already kneeling down alongside Quentin and shaking her head. Becky unfolded the blankets and gently patted them around Quentin. Then she bent over the basket and began to remove fragrant packages and containers. The aroma of food filled the little tent.

&n
bsp; “Frank told us a little about what happened,” Allison said, sounding impressed. “You look awful.”

  “It was awful,” Zack said.

  “I can imagine the details. Male creatures fighting for power, that’s what it’s always about. I’ll never understand it.”

  Becky looked up. “Let’s not talk politics now,” she said. “This poor rabbit needs us.” She pointed to the basket. “Please help yourselves.”

  Frank pulled out a few wrapped sandwiches and packages of dried fruit and handed some to Zack. The two sat down and began to eat.

  “That smells good,” Quentin said weakly.

  “Not for you,” Allison said. Becky reached into the bag and drew out a bottle as Allison lifted Quentin’s head. “Drink this,” she said sternly. “And no complaints.” Quentin swallowed a thick, bitter liquid. He coughed and lay back, staring at the top of the tent, his eyes unfocused. In a few moments, the pain began to leave him.

  “This is the second serious injury we’ve seen today,” Allison said, as she unwrapped the makeshift bandage Zack had applied to Quentin’s ear. Becky winced at the sight and dabbed at it with a solution she removed from a small vial. It stung like mad, but Quentin just groaned. “It’s beginning to sound like war.”

  “You could call it that,” Frank replied between bites of his sandwich, “but we’re hoping it’s over now.”

  Allison looked at him and snorted. “War? Over? Ha! I’ll believe that when stones float.”

  Quentin felt her wrapping his ear with clean bandages.

  “We haven’t met any rabbits,” Becky said as she offered more food, “but we never believed the stories about timidity and cowardice.” She turned to Frank. “Are all of you fighters?”

  “Quentin is one of our bravest,” Zack replied, and through his increasingly foggy mind Quentin could hear the sincerity in his friend’s voice. “We all look up to him.”

  “I never thought of myself that way,” Quentin managed. “Just the opposite.”

  Allison had leaned close to hear him. Then she said, “Nonsense. These are the injuries of a warrior.” She finished bandaging his arm, pulled another blanket out of her carpetbag and tucked it around him. She lifted his head. “Drink more of this.”

  * * *

  Quentin entered a world that was profoundly calm and silent. He was alone on an island surrounded by a blue sea. A warm sun covered him, and there was nothing to be seen on a horizon that stretched beyond the forest, beyond the Black Mountains, beyond the edge of the earth, and into a distant nothingness that was peaceful and healing.

  When he finally opened his eyes, he felt he had traveled a great distance. He lifted himself on his good elbow and looked around, slowly getting his bearings. He touched his bandaged ear gingerly. The sound was muffled — a hearing loss? Could be. But his bruised eye was opening, and although he still hurt, the pain was muffled too — and bearable.

  There were hushed voices outside the tent. Then the flap opened and Zack peered in. “Q! You’re awake! Frank — he’s awake!”

  The two rabbits were at his side in seconds. “How do you feel?” Frank asked.

  “Much better,” Quentin said. His stomach growled. “And very hungry.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time,” Frank said, leaving the tent and reappearing with some wrapped sandwiches. “Allison said you could eat these.”

  After Quentin ate and drank some fresh water from a large canteen, he pulled himself up with help from Zack, and leaned against the bundles that rested against the tent wall. He felt his strength returning. “How long have I been … out?”

  “Hours.”

  Quentin shook his head. “Amazing. And I had the most wonderful dream. I feel much better,” he said. “My eye is opening — see?” He demonstrated. “But I have a feeling my ear is going to be permanently crumpled and I’m not hearing too well, although that could just be temporary. My perfect ears!” he said with a wry smile. “Well, that will teach me to be vain.”

  “You were never vain,” Zack said. “A little pleased with yourself, perhaps …”

  “Ouch. Thanks. And now that I’m a ‘warrior rabbit’ I’m going to demand a little more respect.”

  “So you heard that! I wondered.”

  “I would never have thought raccoons could be so skilled in the healing arts,” Frank said, getting up and walking to the opening of the tent. “Allison, for one, gives a very different impression.”

  “Yes.”

  “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this, it’s that you can’t go by appearances,” Quentin said. “Now — please tell me what happened, Frank. I remember only bits and pieces.”

  Frank turned back to him. “First, Zack came out of the tunnel with … the sack…. That was very hard.” He looked at Zack.

  “Yes. The heaviest burden I have ever carried,” Zack said. He ran a paw over his eyes. He had carefully placed the sack in the far corner of the cave, he told Quentin. “Then I went back to help you.”

  “In the meantime, I was standing over Dan with that large club in my paws,” Frank said.

  Zack continued, “When I went back into the tunnel, I could hear it dripping and crumbling. With the lantern I could see how truly dangerous it was to be there. I have no fear of dark, enclosed spaces,” he said to Quentin, who nodded slowly in agreement, “but I have never imagined that being buried alive would be a good death. I admit I was very, very frightened.”

  “With good reason,” Quentin said. “You were very brave to come after me, Zack. I’m in your debt forever, my friend.” He reached out a paw, then winced. “Ow. It looks like warm gestures of thanks will have to wait.”

  “That’s all right, Q. You would have done the same for me — or Frank.”

  “True,” Quentin replied, falling back against the bundles. “But I’m still enormously grateful.”

  Zack had made his way into the tunnel and had found Quentin lying unconscious against the wall, with Wally nearby. The lantern light revealed dark stains of blood over the walls and floor. “I grabbed you under the arms — I had to leave the lantern behind — and I dragged you through the tunnel. I was feeling my way, backward. All around I could hear rumbling, like thunder, in the dark, and dust and pebbles falling around me. I expected the tunnel to come down on me at any moment,” Zack said. “You were a dead weight. It seemed endless.”

  Frank had helped Zack pull Quentin up the stairs as the sounds of falling rock and sand came closer.

  “The two of you had been out of the tunnel for only a few minutes when there was a huge thundering crash from beneath us,” Frank said. “Some dust and rock and fine sand blew out of the tunnel into the cave. The stairs collapsed. The ground shook. It was terrifying.”

  When Dan came to, Zack continued, he claimed the whole thing was Wally’s idea and that he’d been forced to go along. “It seemed pretty clear from what he said that they had acted alone — without the Leader’s knowledge, that is — except for the few hired mercenaries and goons who shot at us on the perimwall and did the other … dirty work.”

  “When he saw that we were unconvinced,” Frank said, “he seemed to grow more and more desperate. He cried and then he begged me to let him go. I told him that Wally was dead and that the tunnel had collapsed.”

  “What did he say then?”

  “He offered to cut us in.”

  “Cut you in? What do you mean?”

  Frank turned to Quentin. “He said something like, ‘There is another tunnel, I’m certain of it. I’ll give both of you one-third of the income I get from trading the product in exchange for letting me go.’”

  “That’s unbelievable,” Quentin said. “He really thought you would consider an offer like that?”

  Frank nodded. “When I didn’t answer right away, he said, ‘All right. Two-thirds.’ That’s when I completely lost control, Quentin. I just lost control.”

  “What did you do?”

  Frank looked away. “I
took the club and beat him to death. And I don’t regret it one bit.”

  There was silence in the tent for a long time. “Frank,” Quentin said. “You lost your family to this creature. What you did is completely understandable.” He closed his eyes for a moment and could see the darkness of the tunnel and the struggle with Wally. “I think I know how you feel.”

  “Really?”

  Quentin nodded. “Wally and Dan broke the law that keeps us civilized. We did the right thing.”

  “And I broke the law that kept me civilized,” Frank said, sitting down slowly. “My own law. What about that?”

  “I would have done the same thing,” Zack said, but he sounded uncomfortable.

  Frank noticed his tone of voice and looked up. “You don’t really mean that.”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure what I mean,” Zack said slowly. “It’s just that I’ve seen too much blood and death in the last few days. Ever since we jumped off the wall … first the rebels, then the cave, the sack, Wally and Dan … It’s been too much for me, too much.” He fell silent.

  “What happened with Wally in the tunnel?” Frank asked.

  Quentin told them. “I thought about Charlie just before I hit Wally with a rock,” he said, and he could feel his heart beating fast as he spoke. “I bashed him on the head as hard as I could. I have to admit, it felt good at the time.”

  “How does it feel now?”

  Quentin hesitated, then he said, “They had to be stopped. We stopped them.” After a moment, he asked, “What did you do with Dan’s body?”

  “It was hard to know what to do about it,” Zack said slowly. First, they had emptied the contents of the sack and had buried the two female rabbits they’d found inside in deep snow and covered with a thick layer of branches. “The ground was frozen solid. It was the best we could do. We’ll come back in spring and give them a proper funeral.”

  “It was almost morning by then. We brought you back here,” Frank continued, “and Zack stayed with you while I … I stripped off Dan’s clothes and dumped his body in the woods. Eventually the feral wolves will find him, and the maggots.”