Dingo: The Dog Who Conquered a Continent Read online

  DEDICATION

  To Hank Huffington,

  with love and gratitude

  for your inspiration

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: The Dog

  Chapter 2: Loa

  Chapter 3: The Dog

  Chapter 4: Loa

  Chapter 5: The Dog

  Chapter 6: Loa

  Chapter 7: The Dog

  Chapter 8: Loa

  Chapter 9: The Dog

  Chapter 10: Loa

  Chapter 11: The Dog

  Chapter 12: Loa

  Chapter 13: The Dog

  Chapter 14: Loa

  Chapter 15: The Dog

  Chapter 16: Loa

  Chapter 17: The Dog

  Chapter 18: Loa

  Chapter 19: The Dog

  Chapter 20: Loa

  Chapter 21: The Dog

  Chapter 22: Loa

  Chapter 23: The Dog

  Chapter 24: Loa

  Chapter 25: Loa

  Chapter 26: The Dog

  Chapter 27: Loa

  Chapter 28: Loa

  Chapter 29: The Dog

  Chapter 30: Loa

  Chapter 31: The Dog

  Chapter 32: Loa

  Chapter 33: Loa

  Chapter 34: Loa

  Chapter 35: The Dog

  Chapter 36: Loa

  Chapter 37: Loa

  Chapter 38: Loa

  Chapter 39: Loa

  Chapter 40: The Dog

  Chapter 41: Loa

  Chapter 42: The Dog

  Chapter 43: Loa

  Chapter 44: Loa

  Chapter 45: The Dog

  Chapter 46: Loa

  Chapter 47: The Dog

  Chapter 48: Loa

  Chapter 49: The Dog

  Chapter 50: Loa

  Chapter 51: Loa

  Chapter 52: Loa

  Chapter 53: Loa

  Chapter 54: Loa

  Epilogue: The Dog

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other titles by Jackie French

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  The Dog

  An island in the great ocean, the Dry Season

  It was a bad day to be a rubbish dog.

  The dog cowered as the bony boy threw another rock at her. Humans threw stones, but there were scraps around their camps.

  She peered out from behind a tree, waiting till the bony boy was busy checking his spears in the grey dawn light with the other hunters.

  The dog slunk back to the pile of shark heads. Her brothers and sisters and a couple of uncle dogs pulled at the sharkskin. There wasn’t much left. The dog hoped the hunters would bring back more meat or fish soon.

  The rubbish dog began to eat too, but cautiously.

  The soft light before the dawn was usually a good time to raid the camp’s rubbish heaps. But this dawn the whole camp was busy, women yawning as they slung their babies on their backs and checked their carry bags, the men oiling their spears.

  Over near by the lagoon men dug a pit and boys dragged driftwood into a pile.

  The dog sniffed the air. Change meant danger, she thought, as the hunters jogged past into the trees. The bony boy bent down and picked up another rock.

  The dog slunk down on her tummy behind the pile of shark heads.

  This was not a good day to be a dog.

  CHAPTER 2

  Loa

  Loa smiled grimly as his rock hit the rubbish dog. He hated dogs. He hated everything today.

  Loa ran to catch up with the other hunters. Above the jungle the dawn grey swallowed the stars.

  This was the worst day of all his thirteen years.

  It should have been the best. Only a few months ago he’d been a boy, watching enviously as the hunters left the camp while he gathered tubers and shellfish with the women.

  But today he was a man. Today he hunted pig, the most dangerous hunt of all. A boar’s tusks could kill a man. You needed many hunters to catch a pig, needed spears and nets.

  His spear was good. His father had helped straighten the wood in hot wet sand, so it would fly straight and hit hard. His grandfather had struck the rock to make the spearhead, showing him how to break off the stone flake by flake until you were left with a sharp, sturdy point.

  Like the older hunters, Loa wore leaves tucked into the string about his waist. Pigs were clever. They were wary of a man-shaped shadow. A good hunter disguised his shape, stood with his legs together so his shadow looked like a tree’s. A good hunter knew how to place his feet softly on the earth.

  Loa glanced at his father and grandfather, jogging at the front of the pack of hunters, looking for pig tracks. His grandfather was the best pig hunter in the world! He’d taught Loa well.

  They’d find a pig today.

  For Leki’s wedding feast.

  Leki! Loa’s heart clenched. He and Leki had played together as babies in the sand by the lagoon, had dug arrowroot with the women as soon as they could toddle. He thought Leki would be in his life forever. And then the stranger came, Bu, with his fine canoe and his promises of marriage gifts for Leki’s family.

  Girls usually married into other camps, but they didn’t have to. Surely Leki didn’t want to leave the camp and everyone she knew? He should have told her how he felt, even if he hadn’t proved he could be a hunter yet.

  Loa’s hand tightened around his spear. He’d prove himself today! He felt like yelling at the sky. But you couldn’t even speak on a pig hunt, in case the pigs heard you.

  Slowly the rhythm of the hunt soothed him. This was his world. Every scent and shadow were as comfortable as his skin. The noises of the forest chittered around them — birds waking, cuscuses leaping from tree to tree. Only the hunters were silent, their skins dark as the dawn, their bare feet quiet on the leafy forest floor.

  The world smelled of night-time and animals. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of fruit bat — there must be a camp nearby — and the musky scent of giant rats. But there was another odour too …

  Loa stopped and held his hand up. The older hunters glanced at the ground, then back at Loa. Loa’s grandfather made the hunting gesture that said: pig tracks?

  Loa gestured to his nose. He’d smelled pig, not seen it. He stared at the leafy ground. Pig tracks must be here somewhere.

  Over there! He bent down, examining them. One big pig, its prints pressed hard into the soil, and many little ones. A sow and its babies.

  He exchanged glances with the others. A big sow protecting her piglets was more dangerous than a boar. Sows didn’t have tusks, but their teeth were sharp. A big sow was stronger than a man. An angry sow might attack, not run. An angry sow could kill. The only safe way to catch a pig was to throw a net over it, then spear it as it fell tangled up in the net.

  The sow’s prints were fresh, and far apart. The sow was near and moving quickly, heading to the stream for a drink, perhaps …

  Loa lifted his head to sniff again, just as a giant sow charged out of a bush. A bunch of piglets squealed and ran towards their mother.

  There was no time to net the sow now. She’d be on them in a heartbeat. Her teeth were curved and dark.

  Deadly.

  Loa stared as the tiny piggy eyes stared straight at him. She had chosen to attack him, the smallest of the hunters. He held his spear loosely. Even the strongest man couldn’t throw a stone-tipped spear to pierce a pig’s hide. You had to thrust with all your strength and weight behind the movement.

  The sow came closer, closer …

  His grandfather yelled, trying to lure the pig away. Loa�
�s father yelled too.

  But this pig was Loa’s.

  Closer, closer. He could almost smell her breath, see each bristle on her hide. Vaguely he was aware of the other hunters yelling, nets held ready, of piglets squealing.

  The sow lowered her head, her mouth open, ready to strike.

  He lifted up his spear.

  The sow struck it in full flight. Her rage drove the spear deeper and deeper into her neck. She screamed in fury and defiance.

  Loa fought to steady his spear, using the sow’s weight and speed against her. His muscles screamed as the sow lurched back and forth, trying to bite him.

  She was too strong, even with his spear in her bleeding neck. Any moment now his spear would break …

  Suddenly the net landed on top of the furious sow. She stumbled. The hunters stabbed her with their spears, over and over. The sow struggled. She screamed a despairing warning to her piglets, defiant to the end.

  At last the sow lay still.

  Loa glanced around, panting. The piglets squealed helplessly in another net. His grandfather plunged his spear into their throats. The piglets gurgled, one by one, then lay still. His grandfather grinned. His hands and arms were streaked with blood, like Loa’s.

  Loa suddenly realised he was still alive. He had speared a pig! A charging sow! There was no place in the world he’d rather be than here.

  He felt his grandfather’s eyes on him, bright and proud. The old man reached down and untied the knife that hung among the leaves on the string around his waist.

  ‘Here.’ His grandfather pressed the knife into Loa’s hand. He didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have to.

  Loa gazed at the knife. It was the best knife in the camp. Grandfather had been given it as a bride price for his daughter, Loa’s aunt, when she left their clan to marry a hunter from a clan up in the hills. The blade was obsidian, the sharpest stone in the world. An obsidian blade lasted forever.

  For a moment he felt like dancing with the trees. But you didn’t do that at a pig hunt either.

  The sow was so massive it took four of them to lift her on a pole onto their shoulders. Loa went first, even though he was the youngest.

  This prize was his.

  Behind them the other hunters carried the piglets.

  The sow was heavy, the sticky blood drawing flies. I’ll have the teeth made into a necklace, he thought. When everyone ate pig meat this afternoon they’d know Loa the hunter had fed them.

  The sun bobbed gold and heavy above the trees as they entered the camp, sending a spear of sunlight across the sea to their lagoon. Loa waited for the yells of admiration, the look on Leki’s face.

  But the camp was almost deserted. A couple of men too old to hunt tended the fire pit, its smoke drifting up into the sky. Small boys hauled up more driftwood. And the dogs, the slinking rubbish dogs, lifted their noses at the smell of pig.

  The women and girls must be gathering tubers and fruit for the wedding feast. Leki wouldn’t even see his sow till it was cooked inside the pit and handed round in sweet hot chunks. Maybe no one would even tell her who had speared it.

  The joy of the hunt faded.

  Loa helped his father and grandfather cut around the sow’s anus, using his fine obsidian knife for the first time, then ripped open her belly. The three of them held the pig up by her front legs so the guts spilled out and didn’t taint the meat. Over at the edge of the camp the rubbish dogs sniffed eagerly.

  Let the dogs find their own feast, thought Loa. He looked around for something to throw at them. But the rocks were all in the cooking pit to heat up under the fire.

  His muscles ached. His heart ached too. He followed the other hunters to the lagoon to wash off the pig’s blood, then sat down in the shade against a tree, watching the men throw more wood into the fire pit.

  At last Grandfather gave the sign to throw the sow onto the hot rocks. The fire would burn off her bristles and crisp her skin. Loa saw them drag the sow over the dirt, heard the thud as she landed on the rocks. The men covered her in dirt with shell scoops to keep in the heat.

  The piglets would go into the pit later; they didn’t need as much cooking. Finally tubers would be added when the women came back, wrapped in arrowroot leaves to keep them moist and clean and to give them flavour. The last of the dirt would be piled on top of the pit oven and the whole thing left to cook till this afternoon. Bu and his friends’ canoes would appear around the headland and the feast would begin …

  ‘Loa?’

  Loa blinked. The little boy was his nephew, his older sister’s oldest son.

  ‘What do you want?’ Couldn’t the boy see he didn’t want to talk?

  ‘When can I hunt pigs?’

  ‘When all your baby teeth are gone.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  Loa said nothing.

  ‘Can I try your spear?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But I want to hunt!’

  ‘Little boys don’t hunt.’

  ‘We can hunt the rubbish dogs!’ said the boy eagerly.

  Loa almost laughed. You didn’t ‘hunt’ rubbish dogs. You just killed them if you needed their meat to lure the sharks, or tied them up to take on long journeys in case you didn’t find fish to eat instead.

  Wild dogs could be dangerous. The clan always drew closer to the fire when the pack howled at night. But a well-aimed stone was enough to keep a rubbish dog from coming too close.

  The rubbish dogs nosed through the pig guts now.

  It would serve the scavengers right if the boys caught them. Let Bu eat dog meat, instead of pig!

  He tried to speak patiently to his nephew. ‘You don’t spear rubbish dogs. Just throw a net over them. Hunters need to learn how to net too,’ he added.

  The little boy almost bounced with happiness. ‘We’re going to catch the rubbish dogs!’ he yelled to his friends.

  Loa watched as the boy ran off to pull down a net from a sleeping platform.

  He leaned back against the tree, shut his eyes and thought of Leki as the younger boys tiptoed towards the rubbish dogs, the net in their hands.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Dog

  The pig guts smelled warm, bloody and wonderful. The dog got her teeth into the meaty pig’s heart before her brothers could. She pulled at it, determined to carry it off, to eat by herself under the trees.

  Suddenly one of the older dogs growled a warning. She looked up as something fell from the sky.

  The net covered her, almost blinding her. She tried to run but her paws caught in the holes. Her brothers struggled and clawed, trying to bite their way free.

  ‘We caught the dogs!’ yelled a boy. The other boys’ feet thudded on the dirt as they danced around the net.

  The dog tensed, waiting to bite if one came close enough.

  CHAPTER 4

  Loa

  ‘Loa?’ It was his nephew again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We netted the dogs! How do you tie them up?’

  ‘Carefully,’ said Loa. ‘They’ll bite your fingers off.’

  ‘Loa! Show us how!’

  Loa heaved himself to his feet. He was a man, a hunter. It was his duty to show the boys what to do. He trudged over to the heaving mass of dogs and net. ‘You put your foot on their snout, see?’ He stamped down on the biggest dog, a male. ‘That way they can’t bite. Now reach through the net and tie up the front paws. That’s it. Now the hind paws. See how I tie up his jaws? There. You tie up the others.’

  He stepped back, ready to help if it looked like the boys would be badly bitten. But despite yells and lunges they managed it. They stood back, staring as proudly at their three bound dogs as Loa had at his sow.

  ‘Will Grandfather cook the dogs now?’

  Not till it’s time to put in the piglets, thought Loa. ‘Go and ask him.’

  He watched the boys run off again. Soon the women would be back. Bu and his friends would arrive with the gifts for Leki’s family. Bu was a canoe maker, s
o a beautiful new canoe would be the main bride gift. But there’d be others: strings of beads and fish to add to the feast.

  Everyone would sit and eat and eat, calling jokes, while Leki and Bu …

  Suddenly he couldn’t stay here, with the smells of smoke and feasts.

  He ran down to the beach. He jogged along the hard wet sand, away from the camp and the cooking pit, the boys and their laughter. Away from everything!

  Small waves splashed at his ankles as the sea sucked in and out. He rounded the headland. The waves crashed high and long here, away from the protection of the reef and the lagoon.

  At last he sank to his knees. The sand felt as hot as the sun above him. He didn’t care. He put his face in his hands and thought of Leki.

  He didn’t know how long he’d sat on the beach when he heard Leki’s voice.

  ‘Loa?’

  Loa scrambled to his feet. It was as though his dream had conjured her up.

  But he had never seen Leki look like this. Her dark hair was hidden by a wig of dried grass, standing like rays of the sun. Her skirt was new bark cloth, faintly patterned with leaves. Ropes of shell beads hung from her neck and waist. She held a paperbark bag in one hand, bulging with shellfish gathered along the shore. She is already gathering food for Bu, he thought.